Los Angeles, CA (Top40 Charts/ Universal Music Enterprises) More than a dozen of the greatest modern jazz artists in history are heard on packages bringing together two classic Impulse! albums, largely from the 1960s, from each of them. Released July 26, 2011, these Impulse/Verve two-for-one reissues reveal both the genius and the joy of these extraordinary purveyors of the art of jazz.
Duke Ellington was Old School but he teamed with the New School for a pair of 1963 albums with bebop sax leviathans. His And John Coltrane found the Duke in a quartet with that sax legend while Meets Coleman Hawkins was tagged by The New York Times as "one of the great Ellington albums, one of the great Hawkins albums and one of the great albums of the 1960's."
The pioneering Hawkins is represented by the 1962 albums Today And Now and Desafinado, while another sax god, Sonny Rollins is heard with On Impulse!/There Will Never Be Another You. Though both were recorded in 1965, only On Impulse! was released that year. The live There Will Never Be Another You, recorded at New York's Museum Of Modern Art, would finally be issued in 1978. Another resident in the sax pantheon, Pharaoh Sanders, contributes 1971's Village Of The Pharoahs teamed with 1972's Wisdom Through Music. Free jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler once said "Trane was the Father, Pharoah was the Son, I am the Holy Ghost." Ayler's set combines 1967's Love Cry with his 1969 finale The Last Album. Also released in a single package is a pair of Afrocentric albums from saxman Archie Shepp, 1968's For Losers and the following year's Kwanza. Blowing a different horn is Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers' trombonist Curtis Fuller with Soul Trombone (1961)/Cabin In The Sky (1962).
Leading the albums featuring keyboard kings is the McCoy Tyner Trio with his 1962 debut Inception plus 1964's Reaching Forth. Innovative pianist Ahmad Jamal soars on Freeflight, recorded at the 1971 Montreux Jazz Festival, which joins 1972's Poinciana Revisited. Another sort of keyboard, the vibraphone, was the realm of Milt Jackson, with 1962's Statements/1964's Jazz 'n' Samba. On the distaff side are Alice Coltrane, who melded organ and harp, Eastern religion and Western music, for Universal Consciousness (1972)/Lord Of Lords (1973), and the Shirley Scott Trio, from the Queen of the Organ, with For Members Only (1963)/Great Scott!! (1964).
The jazz guitar takes the spotlight via Gabor Szabo, with the Hungarian's live 1967 albums The Sorcerer and More Sorcery, recorded in Boston and at the Monterey Jazz Festival. Two acclaimed drummers also boast reissues: Elvin Jones, best known for his work with Coltrane, with Illumination! (1963)/Dear John C. (1965), and the enormously influential Art Blakey with Jazz Messengers!!!! (1961)/A Jazz Message (1963).
Jazz, whether bebop, hard bop or post-bop-or simply modern-reached new heights in the '60s and early '70s through artists on Impulse! Now many of their albums return to once again celebrate a musical genre without boundaries.
