Tag Archives: The Jazz Chain

The Jazz Chain – Link 8: Joe Henderson

Posted on by

Time for another link in The Jazz Chain! This is my exploration of jazz where for each entry I look at an album led by a musician who appeared as a player on the previous entry. Last time on The Jazz Chain I looked at Freddie Hubbard’s album 1970 album Red Clay. This week we move 3 years ahead in time to look at an album of saxophonist (and flutist) Joe Henderson’s. Henderson was a magnificent tenor sax player and he worked with many of the best musicians jazz had to offer throughout his career that last over 40 years. For The Jazz Chain I want to look at an album of his that is fairly different from a lot of the playing he is known for: his 1973 album, The Elements.

The Elements – Joe Henderson – 1973

Continue reading →

The Jazz Chain – Link 7: Freddie Hubbard

Posted on by

Time to pick up The Jazz Chain again! This is my exploration of jazz where for each entry I look at an album led by a musician who appeared as a player on the previous entry. Last time on the jazz chain I went over Max Roach’s Drums Unlimited. Freddie Hubbard played trumpet on that album and this week we’ll check out his 1970 album Red Clay.

Red Clay – Freddie Hubbard – 1970

Continue reading →

The Jazz Chain – Link 6: Max Roach

Posted on by

So this is about a year late, but to all cliche about it: better late than never, right? So here it is the long awaited sixth link the The Jazz Chain. For people new to The Jazz Chain it’s pretty simple: I am taking a tour through Jazz through a six degrees of Kevin Bacon kind of model. I started with one of my favorite albums of all time in any genre: Art Blakey’s Orgy in Rhythm. Then I took one of the “sidemen” from that album, Sabu Martinez, and went and listened to one of his albums, one where he was the band leader: Sorcery! And that’s the pattern. For each album I listen to I pick one of the contributing players and listen to an album of their own and so on and so on. The last album in the chain was Johnny Girffin’s 1957 debut, Introducing Johnny Griffin. The drum player on that album was the legendary Max Roach and that is who we’re here to listen to today. With his album Drums Unlimited.

Continue reading →

The Jazz Chain – Link 5: Johnny Griffin

Posted on by

It’s time to forge the fifth link in our Jazz Chain. This time our musician and band leader is Johnny Griffin, the tenor sax player from the last featured album, Wilbur Ware’s The Chicago Sound, and our focus is his debut album, Introducing Johnny Griffin.1Which is actually the 2nd recording session he led, but it was published before his true first stint as leader, Johnny Griffin. That album included both Wilbur Ware and Junior Mance, who played with Griffin on The Chicago Sound. Of course, this means we have now come to our first album to use the very common titling trope of using the Band Leader’s name.2The album which originally caught my eye as a possibility for this entry was 1978’s Return of the Griffin which combines both the SFF and band leader titling tropes, but it’s not the easiest to find, unfortunately. It won’t be the last.

Introducing Johnny Griffin – Johnny Griffin – 1957

Continue reading →

The Jazz Chain – Link 3: Cecil Payne

Posted on by

It’s time to forge the third link of our Jazz Chain. What’s a Jazz Chain you ask? Well, it’s still pretty new so I’ll briefly explain: I’m taking a tour through jazz history, one album at a time, and each week’s album is linked to the last by a musician. One week’s sideman is the next’s leader. We started with Art Blakey’s album Orgy in Rythym and moved on to Sabu Martinez’ Sorcery!. Now we’re taking Cecil Payne, who plays on Sorcery!, jumping ten years forward in time1Because the chain is not bound by temporal logic, only relationships. , and giving a listen to his album Zodiac.

Zodiac – Cecile Payne – 1968/1973

Continue reading →

The Jazz Chain – Link 2: Sabu Martinez

Posted on by

It’s time to forge the second link in our jazz chain. What’s this ‘jazz chain’ you ask? Well, I’m taking a tour through the history of jazz, one album at a time, and each week’s album will be linked to the previous week’s selection by a common artist.

For example: last week the chain started with Art Blakey’s Orgy in Rhythm. One of the musicians from that album was Sabu Martinez who played percussion and provided the vocals for three of it’s tracks. This week we’re looking at Sabu Martinez’s album Sorcery!. Next week’s album will be lead by one of the the other musicians playing on Sorcery!.1I’ve already chosen the artist and album for next week, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Sorcery! – Sabu Martinez – 1958

Continue reading →