News & Updates — out-jazz

Sending out a birthday to salute to Clifford Thornton, a cult free-jazz composer (and former Black Panther Party Minister of Art) who released a spate of classics from '67-'75 on various independent labels. In some ways he could be likened to the Eric Dolphy of his generation, a multi-instrumentalist artist who greatly impacted contemporary musicians around him while remaining out of the general public's eye. From Philly, he was a cousin to jazz drummer J.C. Moses. At seven he started learning piano and as a teenager studied with Donald Byrd and played with jazz tuba player Ray Draper. After moving...

A self-taught tenor saxophonist (and activist) from Chicago, Clifford Jordan was underrated and not a flashy type but he enjoyed a long career in jazz, traveling all over the world and lending his hand to various non-profits. While still in Chicago he played R&B, as well as bop with Max Roach and Sonny Stitt. In '57 he moved to NYC, and cut his first of three albums for Blue Note, the classic Blowing In From Chicago, co-led with Sun Ra's tenor man John Gilmore and featuring members of the Jazz Messengers. In the late '50s he worked in groups led...

The original Flying Luttenbacher, Hal Russell was a Chicago icon. A multi-instrumentalist, he played tenor sax, c-melody, soprano, drums, trumpet, vibes, marimba, musette, congas and keyboards. One of the most surreal jazz characters of the second half of the twentieth-century jazz scene, this guy brought humor, theater and playfulness into his artform. Harold Luttenbacher was born in Detroit, played drums in Dixieland and swing bands (Woody Herman, etc) before discovering bebop. Moving with his family to Chi-town as a teenager, he started playing trumpet as a second instrument in college. In 1950 he played drums with Miles Davis and did...

One of my very favorites is the pianist/harpist/composer and cosmic music traveler Alice McLeod, known later as Alice Coltrane. Another great jazz artist from Detroit, she is possibly best known for being the wife and collaborator of John Coltrane, but Alice is an amazing artist in her own right. She brought celestial concepts into the music and fused free jazz, Indian, European classical, new age, bebop and avant-garde into a gorgeously spiritual, intense experience. Her music has gained much more currency in the last twenty years but I have always been a fan. I remember thinking "why are her records...

Sonny Sharrock came around 'bout the same time as Jimi Hendrix and brought a fast & heavy string-shaking style into free jazz, with massive chords and rock energy. His sound & style contained elements of hard rock, doo-wop, funk, bop and soul, and he claims to model his playing after jazz saxophonists and John Coltrane in particular. (He claimed that asthma prevented him from playing a horn and that he thought himself "a horn player with a really fucked up axe".) Warren Sharrock hailed from Westchester County NY and sang doo-wop as a teenager. He got into jazz and made...