Label: Douglas – NBLP 7045
Series: Wildflowers: The New York Loft Jazz Sessions – 1
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: US / Released: 1977
Style: Free Jazz, Free Improvisation
Recorded May 14 thru May 23, 1976 at Studio Rivbea, 24 Bond Street, New York.
Engineer [Assistant] – Les Kahn
Engineer [Chief] – Ron Saint Germain
Engineer [Remote Assistant] – Matt Murray
Executive-producer – Harley I. Lewin
Liner Notes – Ross Firestone
Mastered By – Ray Janos
Photography By – Peter Harron
Producer – Alan Douglas, Michael Cuscuna, Sam Rivers
A1 - Kalaparusha– Jays ...................................................................................... 6:00
Bass, Electric Bass – Chris White
Drums – Jumma Santos
Tenor Saxophone – Kalaparusha (Maurice McIntyre)
A2 - Ken McIntyre– New Times .......................................................................... 7:25
Alto Saxophone – Ken McIntyre (Makanda)
Congas – Andy Vega
Percussion [Multiple] – Andrei Strobert
Piano – Richard Harper
A3 - Sunny Murray & The Untouchable Factor– Over The Rainbow ................. 5:30
Alto Saxophone – Byard Lancaster
Bass – Fred Hopkins
Drums – Sunny Murray
Tenor Saxophone – David Murray
Vibraphone – Khan Jamal
B1 - Sam Rivers– Rainbows ............................................................................. 10:00
Bass – Jerome Hunter
Drums – Jerry Griffin
Soprano Saxophone – Sam Rivers
B2 - Air– Usu Dance ............................................................................................ 7:45
Alto Saxophone – Henry Threadgill
Bass – Fred Hopkins
Drums, Percussion – Steve McCall
In the mid-1970s, a jazz renaissance blossomed in large New York loft spaces that the musicians had reclaimed from the depressed blocks of the trendy Soho and Noho areas. The Wildflowers sessions, originally released on Douglas on five LPs, captured performances by almost 100 musicians in numerous configurations. The recordings were made over two weekends at the most famed of the lofts, Studio Rivbea, the home and workspace of saxophonist-flutist-composer Sam Rivers and his wife, Beatrice. Rivers orchestrated the lineup, played host to patrons, and performed as well. The sessions featured many figures well-established in New York, including Rivers, drummer Andrew Cyrille, and pianist Randy Weston, but they also attracted players from the seedbed of so much African American aesthetic jazz exploration in the 1960s and '70s, Chicago.
Drums, Percussion – Steve McCall
In the mid-1970s, a jazz renaissance blossomed in large New York loft spaces that the musicians had reclaimed from the depressed blocks of the trendy Soho and Noho areas. The Wildflowers sessions, originally released on Douglas on five LPs, captured performances by almost 100 musicians in numerous configurations. The recordings were made over two weekends at the most famed of the lofts, Studio Rivbea, the home and workspace of saxophonist-flutist-composer Sam Rivers and his wife, Beatrice. Rivers orchestrated the lineup, played host to patrons, and performed as well. The sessions featured many figures well-established in New York, including Rivers, drummer Andrew Cyrille, and pianist Randy Weston, but they also attracted players from the seedbed of so much African American aesthetic jazz exploration in the 1960s and '70s, Chicago.
In addition, Rivers invited to town some key players from Philadelphia and New Haven; there were several newcomers to New York, too, including, from out West, a very young David Murray. The music all had immediacy and urgency fitting to the aesthetic task at hand--to consolidate the gains of the free-jazz and New Thing movements of the 1960s. Indeed, many of the players remain key figures today in that project: Anthony Braxton, Roscoe Mitchell, and Leo Smith among them. In addition to their performances, highlights of the package include Rivers's radiant meandering over his composition "Rainbow"; pianist Weston's impassioned homage to his father; and performances by important, but often under-recognized innovators, including saxophonist Ken McIntyre and pianist Dave Burrell. Here is a seminal document in American music...
If you find it, buy this album!