SOUND PROJECTIONS
AN ONLINE QUARTERLY MUSIC MAGAZINE
EDITOR: KOFI NATAMBU
FALL, 2016
VOLUME THREE NUMBER TWO
ERIC DOLPHYAN ONLINE QUARTERLY MUSIC MAGAZINE
EDITOR: KOFI NATAMBU
FALL, 2016
VOLUME THREE NUMBER TWO
Featuring the Musics and Aesthetic Visions of:
BOBBY HUTCHERSON
September 10-16
GEORGE E. LEWIS
September 17-23
JAMES BLOOD ULMER
September 24-30
RACHELLE FERRELL
October 1-7
ANDREW HILL
October 8-14
CARMEN McRAE
(October 15-21)
PRINCE
(October 22-28)
LIANNE LA HAVAS
(October 29-November 4)
ANDRA DAY
(November 5-November 11)
ARCHIE SHEPP
(November 12-18)
WORLD SAXOPHONE QUARTET
(November 19-25)
ART BLAKEY
(November 26-December 2)
World Saxophone Quartet
(1977-Present)
Artist Biography by Chris Kelsey
Probably the first of several saxophone-only ensembles who proliferated in jazz after 1975, the WSQ
is unquestionably the most commercially (and, arguably, the most
creatively) successful. Of course, commercial success is a relative
thing in jazz, especially when one is speaking of an avant-garde group.
But unlike most free jazz artists, the WSQ
managed to attract an audience of significant size; large enough to
have garnered a major-label record deal in the '80s, an almost
unheard-of occurrence in that retro-jazz decade. The band did it on
merit, too, with only a hint of compromise (manifested mainly by albums
of R&B and Duke Ellington
covers). By the time their first record on Elektra/Musician came out in
1986, the band had evolved from their fire-breathing, free-improvising,
ad-hoc beginnings into a smooth-playing, compositionally minded,
well-rehearsed band. At their creative peak, the group melded
jazz-based, harmonically adventurous improvisation with sophisticated
composition. All of the group's original members (Julius Hemphill, alto; Oliver Lake, alto; David Murray, tenor; and Hamiet Bluiett,
baritone) were estimable composers as well as improvisers. Each
complimented the whole, making them even greater than the considerable
sum of their parts. As a composer, Hemphill drew on European techniques (though his tunes were not without an unalloyed jazz component), while Bluiett was steeped in blues and funk. Lake and Murray fell somewhere in between. As soloists and writers, the early WSQ covered all the bases.
The WSQ were founded in 1976 after the four original members (all of them well-established solo artists) accepted an offer by Ed Jordan, the chairman of the music department at Southern University in New Orleans, to conduct a series of clinics and performances with and without a local rhythm section. The enthusiastic audience response to the unaccompanied saxophones convinced the musicians to develop the concept. They played a gig at the (now defunct) Tin Palace in New York, calling the group the Real New York Saxophone Quartet. They were later forced to change the name after reportedly being threatened with a lawsuit by the preexisting New York Saxophone Quartet; hence, the World Saxophone Quartet. In 1977, the band recorded their first album, an almost completely improvised effort called Point of No Return, for the Moers Music label. Later releases on Black Saint document the band's increasing interest in composition. The membership stayed constant until Hemphill's departure in 1989. Arthur Blythe was the first of Hemphill's several replacements. Blythe was with the band from 1990-1992, and from 1994-1995. James Spaulding joined briefly in 1993, and was quickly replaced by Eric Person. In 1996, after Blythe's second tenure, John Purcell took and held the chair. Although they're a sax-oriented group, the WSQ's members have been multi-instrumentalists. The band always incorporated a wide variety of woodwinds into their sound. After Rhythm & Blues (1986, Elektra/Musician), the WSQ began using other musicians in their recordings and performances. Metamorphosis (1990, Elektra/Musician) added African drummers and electric bassist Melvin Gibbs. Later records utilized pianists, vocalists, bassists, and drummers. In adding other musicians, the band sacrificed part of their distinctiveness. The novelty of the band's original approach, and their ability to swing so hard sans rhythm, set them apart. By the end of the '90s, the WSQ had lost their major-label deal and much of their identity.
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/04/12/magazine/four-saxmen-one-great-voice.html
April 12, 1987
FOUR SAXMEN, ONE GREAT VOICE
by Richard B. Woodward
New York Times
AT THE DUKE Ellington School of the Arts, in Washington, people are shouting, whistling, catcalling, in the hope that the World Saxophone Quartet will return for an encore. More than 800 high school and college students, along with a smattering of adults, are carrying on as though this were a rock-and-roll show. But the body-stirring music they've just heard is jazz, performed by the most original and important group to emerge since Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane redefined group improvisation at the end of the 1950's.
No one has ever played four saxophones with the ferocity and feeling of the World Saxophone Quartet (a.k.a. World Sax, W.S.Q.). Unamplified, they can command a concert stage or blow the doors off a jazz club. In their own compositions or interpreting Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, as on their breakthrough album of last year, their music startles in its novelty and power.
Simply by their formation on stage, the W.S.Q. offers a revision of jazz history. Standing side-by-side they present themselves - Hamiet Bluiett, baritone; Julius Hemphill, alto; Oliver Lake, alto; David Murray, tenor - as equal and independent players without a rhythm section of piano, bass or drums. It's a format more reminiscent of a street-corner singing group than a jazz ensemble. There are no stars ''out front,'' no accompanists ''backing up.'' Everyone is soloist and sideman, four voices assuming mutable roles in the harmony, melody and rhythm of a tune, each with his own virtuosic accent and set of free associations.
They have welded avant-garde technique to the simple, bucking riffs of rhythm-and-blues. It's a sound that can climb to ethereal heights, ungrounded by the need for a steady beat; or with a blast from the baritone and tenor, drop down and rock people out of their seats. Robert Palmer of The New York Times has lauded them as ''probably the most protean and exciting new jazz band of the 1980's.'' And Martin Williams, who chose their tune ''Steppin' '' as the finale to his seven-record Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz, has called them ''the most significant thing to happen to jazz in over a decade.''
Popular success has followed more slowly. In Europe, the ensemble has enjoyed a large following for many years. But the release last fall of ''World Saxophone Quartet Plays Duke Ellington,'' on Nonesuch, a division of Elektra Records, the group's first album for an American label, has given them new recognition in this country. It has sold more than 20,000 copies - more in its first 10 days in the United States alone than any of their previous six records to date worldwide. This week, as they return to the studio to record a new album of original compositions, they are poised for their next level of acclaim. Says David Murray, brashly, ''I think we should be as popular as the Rolling Stones or the Muppets.''
FORMED BY CIRCUMSTANCE IN 1976, when a teacher in New Orleans invited the four saxophonists down from New York for a series of workshops and concerts, the W.S.Q. has remained true to its ad hoc origins. Although they defer to Julius Hemphill as senior member and chief composer, no one person is in charge. Everyone writes for the band.
It's a volatile arrangement, musically and personally. Without a rhythm section to selflessly keep time, outline chords, make sure everything swings, the group retains the potential of exploding in four egotistical directions. Despite occasional arguments and increasingly independent schedules, the W.S.Q. has stayed together with the same personnel for 11 years - longer than all but a few groups in jazz history.
Originally they expressed an unrestrained, ''free jazz'' sound, extending the ecstatic and unbounded tradition developed by Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane and Albert Ayler. Marathon solos and high-decibel overblowing dominate their first record, released on the Moers label in 1977. As David Murray remembers the group's first two years: ''It was star wars, cacophony - 'pandemonium,' as Howard Cosell would say. We were trying to blow each other away.'' The Ellington album, in its homophonic treatment of the melodies, is also unusual. It's their most conventional record.
The albums in between, on the Black Saint label - ''Steppin' '' (1979), ''W.S.Q.'' (1981), ''Revue'' (1982), ''Live in Zurich'' (1984) and ''Live at Brooklyn Academy of Music'' (1986) - capture the group at its most typical. Periods of frantic blowing followed by sweet-voiced harmonizing, deliberate blurs between the improvised and fully scripted - the W.S.Q. puts these tensions to work.
The barely controlled chaos is visible off the bandstand, too. A recent engagement at Carlos 1, a Greenwich Village club, displayed their independence: Marty Khan, their longtime manager, schedules a business meeting between sets on Thursday at which only three members show up; Murray has driven his wife and child home to New Jersey. Then Bluiett disappears to check on his wife, who suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly called Lou Gehrig's disease. At the start of the second set, Hemphill and Lake are playing World Saxophone duets. On Friday and Saturday, Hemphill is missing. He has scheduled himself to play somewhere else.
''From what I can observe, it's not a democracy,'' says Marty Khan. ''If someone objects to something, it won't get done.''
IT'S NOT EGALITARIAN, IT'S NOT politics,'' says Hamiet Bluiett. A slight man in his mid-40's, he talks in bursts and listens impatiently, stroking a beard streaked with gray. ''It's like a family. Everyone's always ready to fight, to kill - to kill for you. A family will loan you money, put you in debt, make you crazy. We've been through knockdowns and dragouts to hugging and kissing. How does a family stay together? Because that's your brother, even if he lives in Milwaukee and you live in Brisbane. If you're not in the family, no way you can get in; but once you're in. . . .''
Anchoring one end of the W.S.Q. formation with Murray on the other, Bluiett is probably the leading baritone player in jazz today, unmatched for range and power. Stooped over his instrument, throwing off jagged rhythmic figures around which other members can unite, he is capable of swinging the group by himself - his tone is that strong. ''He's shy and high-strung,'' says Murray. ''But when Bluiett gets going he's like the valedictorian of the class.''
Born in Lovejoy, Ill., a small black town that was once a stop on the underground railroad, Bluiett grew up playing clarinet for dances in barrelhouse settings. After attending the University of Southern Illinois, he joined the Navy in 1961, where he played parts written for alto saxophone on the baritone. (''That's how I developed my high register.'') While stationed in Boston, he heard a live performance by the Duke Ellington band and a solo by its great baritone player Harry Carney that changed his life.
''I had listened to Carney on records and was always disappointed,'' says Bluiett. ''I'm talking just volume. I could hear the alto burning, the tenor burning and then the baritone - boop boop. I knew the horn was too big to sound that small. But then I heard Carney live.'' He pauses. ''I was stunned. All the players were taking their solos, running up and down their horns. That was cool. But then Carney took his solo and played one note, and the whole joint stopped.
''One reason people respond to World Sax is they get a chance to feel an instrument. I lived near an Air Force base as a kid, and when the jets came over the house the sound would shake you. BOOM! Music affects you that way. So I got a chance to feel Harry Carney. I never tried to clone his records. I don't want his notes. But he put me in touch with something that's bigger than life.''
Bluiett has known Lake and Hemphill since the mid-60's, when all were members of the Black Artists Group, an arts collective in St. Louis. There he also played in the Gateway Symphony (''I liked the sound when everyone was getting in tune, not when we started playing'') and in pit bands for Little Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye.
Like all the members of the W.S.Q., Bluiett is suspicious of the term ''avant-garde'' to describe their music. ''Marvin Gaye had a guy who played fretless Fender bass, and he was bad,'' he says. ''Hip changes. People should go experience these groups in the wild, past the alligators and the Appalachians, in the heartland of America. You'd be shocked what goes on.''
Julius Hemphill, who contributes most of the arrangements to the World Saxophone Quartet, is the group's intellectual - quiet, serious, witty, blunt. He lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, with the pianist Ursula Oppens. In 1982, Hemphill brought about a crisis in the band: diabetes forced amputation of his leg. He now walks with an artificial limb. Bluiett, who seems to have reacted especially hard to the event, says: ''I didn't realize what happened had to happen. But he came back with a flood of music.''
Born in Fort Worth, in 1938, Hemphill grew up near his second cousin Ornette Coleman, ''the first person I ever saw holding a saxophone.'' It was not a community in which musical categories meant much. ''I didn't discover music one day,'' he says. ''I grew up with it all around me. I lived in the block where the night life would carry on. There were three jukeboxes, and you could hear them about 24 hours a day.''
After studying theory and harmony at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Mo., (''Curious. An all-black school where you couldn't study black music.'') he joined Lake in the Black Artists Group, and later played alto in a back-up band for Ike and Tina Turner.
A prolific and inventive composer, Hemphill has retained a deep blues feeling in almost everything he writes. In his melancholy ballads (''My First Winter,'') gutbucket soul tunes (''Revue,''), or sui generis compositions (''Steppin' ''), the plaintive or rollicking blues traditions find a new expression. ''When I write, it isn't so much about keys or meters as it is implying things,'' he says. ''You put in what you hope will imply what you leave out.''
Of all the members, Oliver Lake is the most collective minded. He is, according to Marty Khan, ''the one I talk to when I don't want to repeat myself.'' Lake fronts his own quartet and pop band (Jump Up). In his neighborhood in Brooklyn live a number of serious musicians with whom he maintains close ties. On the Ellington album, he arranged ''I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart,'' breaking off a six-note section of the melody and making it the rhythmic unit for the whole piece. It is the wildest and, in some ways, the most satisfying tune on the album - the one that best shows off the group's polyphonic freedom and punch.
Forty-four years old - a bald spot is replacing his dreadlocks - and the father of seven, he no longer savors the late hours of a nightclubbing jazz musician. ''Three sets a night of that music is tough physically,'' he says. ''Going out five, six nights a week, that's hard. Our schedule keeps the band happening. We'll be together for one month on a tour, then get together six months later. If we had to be out 50 weeks a year, I don't think we'd make it.''
Middle age has not slowed Lake's soloing. ''When you do four unaccompanied solos, each person has to top the guy who played before him; and you know whoever's behind you is going to be playing. It's serious,'' he says, laughing, ''very serious.''
The interchange of roles in the W.S.Q.'s music prevents anyone from dominating the group. ''When the others are soloing, I'm in total support,'' says David Murray. ''You don't mind hitting some whole notes, putting on extra vibrato. I think: 'Let's make the background big and lush, let's give it to him because I want him to give it to me.' ''
At 32, the youngest member of the W.S.Q., David Murray is frequently called the best tenor player of his generation, the rightful heir to John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins. In the last two years, his individual career has blossomed, and presently he has four other working groups: his own trio, quartet, octet and big band. But Murray is referred to as the peacekeeper in World Sax. ''If there's any kind of friction,'' says Lake, ''David's the one who can cool everybody out.''
Born in Oakland, Calif., in 1955, Murray grew up in Berkeley and had his own rhythm-and-blues band at the age of 12. At Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., he studied with Stanley Crouch, now the influential jazz critic for The Village Voice, and played in pick-up groups with contemporaries such as the saxophonist Arthur Blythe and the flutist James Newton.
In 1975, Murray left school and came to New York, where he was married briefly to the playwright and poet Ntozake Shange. It was a time when the jazz and art scenes interacted in lofts throughout lower Manhattan, and though an eager participant then, Murray is not as nostalgic about it as some fans. ''I felt the music had to change,'' he says. ''There were only a handful of people in the audience. We were alienating people by playing solos for 25 minutes. Now we play for five minutes. We're putting back the red light-green light, the way they did in Bird's [ Charley Parker's ] day, when you took a 45-second solo.''
Murray's solos never lack for audacious energy. As he plays he often accelerates slowly, working his shoulders back and forth, increasing his vibrato so that the melody emerges flattened and distended, sections of it skidded through. His variety of breathing and embouchure techniques is extraordinary. He always had plenty of lung power; lately, you can hear him editing himself at top speed.
''I would love for World Sax to really take off,'' he says. ''I'd love to do film scores, Broadway. You don't think Bluiett would be impressive in a video? But I have to make a living, which I can't from a few weeks of concerts a year.''
AT THE ELLINGTON School concert in Washington, long after the group has returned for its encore and ripped through the Ellington theme, ''Take the A Train,'' the audience is still responding viscerally and loudly. They are feeling the instruments. The new album, scheduled for release on Nonesuch next fall, may determine whether World Sax can hold their new fans without the help of Ellington's name and melodies. Whatever happens, they have already established themselves as a unique and durable experiment in American music. While others may be more visible symbols of a resurgence of jazz in this decade, the W.S.Q. has done more than rekindle tradition; they've made up their own.
Richard B. Woodward is an editor and writer living in New York.
http://www.nonesuch.com/artists/world-saxophone-quartet
World Saxophone Quartet
latest release
Breath of Life
June 01, 1994
The WSQ were founded in 1976 after the four original members (all of them well-established solo artists) accepted an offer by Ed Jordan, the chairman of the music department at Southern University in New Orleans, to conduct a series of clinics and performances with and without a local rhythm section. The enthusiastic audience response to the unaccompanied saxophones convinced the musicians to develop the concept. They played a gig at the (now defunct) Tin Palace in New York, calling the group the Real New York Saxophone Quartet. They were later forced to change the name after reportedly being threatened with a lawsuit by the preexisting New York Saxophone Quartet; hence, the World Saxophone Quartet. In 1977, the band recorded their first album, an almost completely improvised effort called Point of No Return, for the Moers Music label. Later releases on Black Saint document the band's increasing interest in composition. The membership stayed constant until Hemphill's departure in 1989. Arthur Blythe was the first of Hemphill's several replacements. Blythe was with the band from 1990-1992, and from 1994-1995. James Spaulding joined briefly in 1993, and was quickly replaced by Eric Person. In 1996, after Blythe's second tenure, John Purcell took and held the chair. Although they're a sax-oriented group, the WSQ's members have been multi-instrumentalists. The band always incorporated a wide variety of woodwinds into their sound. After Rhythm & Blues (1986, Elektra/Musician), the WSQ began using other musicians in their recordings and performances. Metamorphosis (1990, Elektra/Musician) added African drummers and electric bassist Melvin Gibbs. Later records utilized pianists, vocalists, bassists, and drummers. In adding other musicians, the band sacrificed part of their distinctiveness. The novelty of the band's original approach, and their ability to swing so hard sans rhythm, set them apart. By the end of the '90s, the WSQ had lost their major-label deal and much of their identity.
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/04/12/magazine/four-saxmen-one-great-voice.html
April 12, 1987
FOUR SAXMEN, ONE GREAT VOICE
by Richard B. Woodward
New York Times
AT THE DUKE Ellington School of the Arts, in Washington, people are shouting, whistling, catcalling, in the hope that the World Saxophone Quartet will return for an encore. More than 800 high school and college students, along with a smattering of adults, are carrying on as though this were a rock-and-roll show. But the body-stirring music they've just heard is jazz, performed by the most original and important group to emerge since Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane redefined group improvisation at the end of the 1950's.
No one has ever played four saxophones with the ferocity and feeling of the World Saxophone Quartet (a.k.a. World Sax, W.S.Q.). Unamplified, they can command a concert stage or blow the doors off a jazz club. In their own compositions or interpreting Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, as on their breakthrough album of last year, their music startles in its novelty and power.
Simply by their formation on stage, the W.S.Q. offers a revision of jazz history. Standing side-by-side they present themselves - Hamiet Bluiett, baritone; Julius Hemphill, alto; Oliver Lake, alto; David Murray, tenor - as equal and independent players without a rhythm section of piano, bass or drums. It's a format more reminiscent of a street-corner singing group than a jazz ensemble. There are no stars ''out front,'' no accompanists ''backing up.'' Everyone is soloist and sideman, four voices assuming mutable roles in the harmony, melody and rhythm of a tune, each with his own virtuosic accent and set of free associations.
They have welded avant-garde technique to the simple, bucking riffs of rhythm-and-blues. It's a sound that can climb to ethereal heights, ungrounded by the need for a steady beat; or with a blast from the baritone and tenor, drop down and rock people out of their seats. Robert Palmer of The New York Times has lauded them as ''probably the most protean and exciting new jazz band of the 1980's.'' And Martin Williams, who chose their tune ''Steppin' '' as the finale to his seven-record Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz, has called them ''the most significant thing to happen to jazz in over a decade.''
Popular success has followed more slowly. In Europe, the ensemble has enjoyed a large following for many years. But the release last fall of ''World Saxophone Quartet Plays Duke Ellington,'' on Nonesuch, a division of Elektra Records, the group's first album for an American label, has given them new recognition in this country. It has sold more than 20,000 copies - more in its first 10 days in the United States alone than any of their previous six records to date worldwide. This week, as they return to the studio to record a new album of original compositions, they are poised for their next level of acclaim. Says David Murray, brashly, ''I think we should be as popular as the Rolling Stones or the Muppets.''
FORMED BY CIRCUMSTANCE IN 1976, when a teacher in New Orleans invited the four saxophonists down from New York for a series of workshops and concerts, the W.S.Q. has remained true to its ad hoc origins. Although they defer to Julius Hemphill as senior member and chief composer, no one person is in charge. Everyone writes for the band.
It's a volatile arrangement, musically and personally. Without a rhythm section to selflessly keep time, outline chords, make sure everything swings, the group retains the potential of exploding in four egotistical directions. Despite occasional arguments and increasingly independent schedules, the W.S.Q. has stayed together with the same personnel for 11 years - longer than all but a few groups in jazz history.
Originally they expressed an unrestrained, ''free jazz'' sound, extending the ecstatic and unbounded tradition developed by Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane and Albert Ayler. Marathon solos and high-decibel overblowing dominate their first record, released on the Moers label in 1977. As David Murray remembers the group's first two years: ''It was star wars, cacophony - 'pandemonium,' as Howard Cosell would say. We were trying to blow each other away.'' The Ellington album, in its homophonic treatment of the melodies, is also unusual. It's their most conventional record.
The albums in between, on the Black Saint label - ''Steppin' '' (1979), ''W.S.Q.'' (1981), ''Revue'' (1982), ''Live in Zurich'' (1984) and ''Live at Brooklyn Academy of Music'' (1986) - capture the group at its most typical. Periods of frantic blowing followed by sweet-voiced harmonizing, deliberate blurs between the improvised and fully scripted - the W.S.Q. puts these tensions to work.
The barely controlled chaos is visible off the bandstand, too. A recent engagement at Carlos 1, a Greenwich Village club, displayed their independence: Marty Khan, their longtime manager, schedules a business meeting between sets on Thursday at which only three members show up; Murray has driven his wife and child home to New Jersey. Then Bluiett disappears to check on his wife, who suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly called Lou Gehrig's disease. At the start of the second set, Hemphill and Lake are playing World Saxophone duets. On Friday and Saturday, Hemphill is missing. He has scheduled himself to play somewhere else.
''From what I can observe, it's not a democracy,'' says Marty Khan. ''If someone objects to something, it won't get done.''
IT'S NOT EGALITARIAN, IT'S NOT politics,'' says Hamiet Bluiett. A slight man in his mid-40's, he talks in bursts and listens impatiently, stroking a beard streaked with gray. ''It's like a family. Everyone's always ready to fight, to kill - to kill for you. A family will loan you money, put you in debt, make you crazy. We've been through knockdowns and dragouts to hugging and kissing. How does a family stay together? Because that's your brother, even if he lives in Milwaukee and you live in Brisbane. If you're not in the family, no way you can get in; but once you're in. . . .''
Anchoring one end of the W.S.Q. formation with Murray on the other, Bluiett is probably the leading baritone player in jazz today, unmatched for range and power. Stooped over his instrument, throwing off jagged rhythmic figures around which other members can unite, he is capable of swinging the group by himself - his tone is that strong. ''He's shy and high-strung,'' says Murray. ''But when Bluiett gets going he's like the valedictorian of the class.''
Born in Lovejoy, Ill., a small black town that was once a stop on the underground railroad, Bluiett grew up playing clarinet for dances in barrelhouse settings. After attending the University of Southern Illinois, he joined the Navy in 1961, where he played parts written for alto saxophone on the baritone. (''That's how I developed my high register.'') While stationed in Boston, he heard a live performance by the Duke Ellington band and a solo by its great baritone player Harry Carney that changed his life.
''I had listened to Carney on records and was always disappointed,'' says Bluiett. ''I'm talking just volume. I could hear the alto burning, the tenor burning and then the baritone - boop boop. I knew the horn was too big to sound that small. But then I heard Carney live.'' He pauses. ''I was stunned. All the players were taking their solos, running up and down their horns. That was cool. But then Carney took his solo and played one note, and the whole joint stopped.
''One reason people respond to World Sax is they get a chance to feel an instrument. I lived near an Air Force base as a kid, and when the jets came over the house the sound would shake you. BOOM! Music affects you that way. So I got a chance to feel Harry Carney. I never tried to clone his records. I don't want his notes. But he put me in touch with something that's bigger than life.''
Bluiett has known Lake and Hemphill since the mid-60's, when all were members of the Black Artists Group, an arts collective in St. Louis. There he also played in the Gateway Symphony (''I liked the sound when everyone was getting in tune, not when we started playing'') and in pit bands for Little Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye.
Like all the members of the W.S.Q., Bluiett is suspicious of the term ''avant-garde'' to describe their music. ''Marvin Gaye had a guy who played fretless Fender bass, and he was bad,'' he says. ''Hip changes. People should go experience these groups in the wild, past the alligators and the Appalachians, in the heartland of America. You'd be shocked what goes on.''
Julius Hemphill, who contributes most of the arrangements to the World Saxophone Quartet, is the group's intellectual - quiet, serious, witty, blunt. He lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, with the pianist Ursula Oppens. In 1982, Hemphill brought about a crisis in the band: diabetes forced amputation of his leg. He now walks with an artificial limb. Bluiett, who seems to have reacted especially hard to the event, says: ''I didn't realize what happened had to happen. But he came back with a flood of music.''
Born in Fort Worth, in 1938, Hemphill grew up near his second cousin Ornette Coleman, ''the first person I ever saw holding a saxophone.'' It was not a community in which musical categories meant much. ''I didn't discover music one day,'' he says. ''I grew up with it all around me. I lived in the block where the night life would carry on. There were three jukeboxes, and you could hear them about 24 hours a day.''
After studying theory and harmony at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Mo., (''Curious. An all-black school where you couldn't study black music.'') he joined Lake in the Black Artists Group, and later played alto in a back-up band for Ike and Tina Turner.
A prolific and inventive composer, Hemphill has retained a deep blues feeling in almost everything he writes. In his melancholy ballads (''My First Winter,'') gutbucket soul tunes (''Revue,''), or sui generis compositions (''Steppin' ''), the plaintive or rollicking blues traditions find a new expression. ''When I write, it isn't so much about keys or meters as it is implying things,'' he says. ''You put in what you hope will imply what you leave out.''
Of all the members, Oliver Lake is the most collective minded. He is, according to Marty Khan, ''the one I talk to when I don't want to repeat myself.'' Lake fronts his own quartet and pop band (Jump Up). In his neighborhood in Brooklyn live a number of serious musicians with whom he maintains close ties. On the Ellington album, he arranged ''I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart,'' breaking off a six-note section of the melody and making it the rhythmic unit for the whole piece. It is the wildest and, in some ways, the most satisfying tune on the album - the one that best shows off the group's polyphonic freedom and punch.
Forty-four years old - a bald spot is replacing his dreadlocks - and the father of seven, he no longer savors the late hours of a nightclubbing jazz musician. ''Three sets a night of that music is tough physically,'' he says. ''Going out five, six nights a week, that's hard. Our schedule keeps the band happening. We'll be together for one month on a tour, then get together six months later. If we had to be out 50 weeks a year, I don't think we'd make it.''
Middle age has not slowed Lake's soloing. ''When you do four unaccompanied solos, each person has to top the guy who played before him; and you know whoever's behind you is going to be playing. It's serious,'' he says, laughing, ''very serious.''
The interchange of roles in the W.S.Q.'s music prevents anyone from dominating the group. ''When the others are soloing, I'm in total support,'' says David Murray. ''You don't mind hitting some whole notes, putting on extra vibrato. I think: 'Let's make the background big and lush, let's give it to him because I want him to give it to me.' ''
At 32, the youngest member of the W.S.Q., David Murray is frequently called the best tenor player of his generation, the rightful heir to John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins. In the last two years, his individual career has blossomed, and presently he has four other working groups: his own trio, quartet, octet and big band. But Murray is referred to as the peacekeeper in World Sax. ''If there's any kind of friction,'' says Lake, ''David's the one who can cool everybody out.''
Born in Oakland, Calif., in 1955, Murray grew up in Berkeley and had his own rhythm-and-blues band at the age of 12. At Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., he studied with Stanley Crouch, now the influential jazz critic for The Village Voice, and played in pick-up groups with contemporaries such as the saxophonist Arthur Blythe and the flutist James Newton.
In 1975, Murray left school and came to New York, where he was married briefly to the playwright and poet Ntozake Shange. It was a time when the jazz and art scenes interacted in lofts throughout lower Manhattan, and though an eager participant then, Murray is not as nostalgic about it as some fans. ''I felt the music had to change,'' he says. ''There were only a handful of people in the audience. We were alienating people by playing solos for 25 minutes. Now we play for five minutes. We're putting back the red light-green light, the way they did in Bird's [ Charley Parker's ] day, when you took a 45-second solo.''
Murray's solos never lack for audacious energy. As he plays he often accelerates slowly, working his shoulders back and forth, increasing his vibrato so that the melody emerges flattened and distended, sections of it skidded through. His variety of breathing and embouchure techniques is extraordinary. He always had plenty of lung power; lately, you can hear him editing himself at top speed.
''I would love for World Sax to really take off,'' he says. ''I'd love to do film scores, Broadway. You don't think Bluiett would be impressive in a video? But I have to make a living, which I can't from a few weeks of concerts a year.''
AT THE ELLINGTON School concert in Washington, long after the group has returned for its encore and ripped through the Ellington theme, ''Take the A Train,'' the audience is still responding viscerally and loudly. They are feeling the instruments. The new album, scheduled for release on Nonesuch next fall, may determine whether World Sax can hold their new fans without the help of Ellington's name and melodies. Whatever happens, they have already established themselves as a unique and durable experiment in American music. While others may be more visible symbols of a resurgence of jazz in this decade, the W.S.Q. has done more than rekindle tradition; they've made up their own.
Richard B. Woodward is an editor and writer living in New York.
http://www.nonesuch.com/artists/world-saxophone-quartet
World Saxophone Quartet
latest release
Breath of Life
June 01, 1994
Described by the New York Times as “one of the finest ensembles in American music, with a velvety sonic blend and a wild-eyed imagination,” the World Saxophone Quartet incorporates wildly divergent styles and approaches to the saxophone quartet. Here, the group teams up with vocalist Fontella Bass for a set of originals and covers, material ranging from avant-garde to R&B to jazz-rock.
Recent Releases:
Breath of Life
June 01, 1994
Metamorphosis
March 01, 1991
Rhythm and Blues
May 01, 1989
Dances and Ballads
October 01, 1987
Plays Duke Ellington
November 15, 1986
The World Saxophone Quartet began performing as a unit in 1976, and was the brainchild of Ed Jordan, head of the music department at New Orleans Southern University. He had heard the saxophonists in their individual groups, and hired them to do a show together. “We liked it, and started doing gigs at other colleges,” remembers David Murray. Although three of the original members -- Julius Hemphill, Oliver Lake and Hamiet Bluiett -- knew each other from St. Louis, it was not until this event that they decided to create a group consisting only of four saxophones. Since then, the group has recorded eight albums together, including the critically-heralded “World Saxophone Quartet Plays Duke Ellington” -- voted a Top Pop Album of 1986 by The New York Times. Describing the group as “probably the most protean and exciting new jazz bands of the ‘80’s” the Times has called the WSQ “The most original and important group to emerge since Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane redefined group improvisation in the late ‘50’s.”
The WSQ places consistently in the top five groups in Downbeat magazine’s annual Critic’s Poll, and in 1987 was voted “Best Jazz Group” in the Playboy Readers Poll. The WSQ has an extremely diverse following, and has toured prolifically throughout the U.S., Europe and Japan, where they scored a major success as part of the “Live Under the Sky” Festival. Their reputation hinges, most importantly, upon repertoire that belongs exclusively to them. It is the group's own music that is featured on their Nonesuch album “Dances and Ballads.” The ten compositions include their signature tune “Hattie Wall,” the video for which was directed by Robert Longo with a performance by dancer/choreographer Bill T. Jones. Cited as one of that year’s top ten jazz albums by Francis Davis of the Philadelphia Inquirer, “Dances and Ballads” “equals their previous best efforts,” according to Downbeat, and “contains several new pieces that may someday be considered among the Quartet’s classics.”
OLIVER LAKE (alto sax, tenor sax, soprano sax, flute) grew up in St. Louis, and received professional encouragement from trumpeter Lester Bowie. After teaching at the American Center for Artists and Students in Paris and studying at the Electronic Workshop, he moved to New York in 1976 and is currently leading his own highly stylized funk-reggae group Jump Up, as well as a jazz quartet. He is also a published poet.
DAVID MURRAY (tenor sax, bass clarinet) began leading his own rhythm and blues group at the age of 12, and there is no question that his style is rooted in, but not confined to, a soulful blend of John Coltrane, Ben Webster, R&D and Sonny Rollins. He has recorded as a leader with a trio, a quartet, an octet and a big band.
HAMIET BLUIETT (baritone sax, alto clarinet) openly acknowledges the dramatic impact of hearing Ellington baritone saxophonist Harry Carney live in Boston early on. In addition to the aforementioned Black Artists Group, his credits include associations with the Gateway Symphony, Charles Mingus, Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye. He has also been chosen in the past to play with the American Jazz Orchestra, led by John Lewis.
ARTHUR BLYTHE (alto sax) joined the World Saxophone Quartet in November 1989. Born in California, Blythe began playing the alto sax at age nine and was performing in a blues band by the time he was thirteen. He openly acknowledges the impact John Coltrane has had on his playing. He joined Horace Tapscott’s band in 196k, an association that ended ten years later when he moved to New York. In 1975 he joined Chico Hamilton’s band, where he remained for two years. Since 1977 Blythe has led his own ensembles and recorded many solo albums.
http://davidmurraymusic.com/worldsaxophonequartet
THE WORLD SAXOPHONE QUARTET
The legendary World
Saxophone Quartet was created just 30 years ago. A trio in fact: Hamiet
Bluiett (baritone), David Murray (tenor and clarinet), Oliver Lake (alto
& soprano) and the late Julius Hemphill (alto @ soprano), replaced
by James Carter or Tony Kofi. These jazz pioneers open up new
perspectives in a personalized way, stunning compositions arranged for
saxophone quartet in which seriousness and casualness alternate or come
together, structures and improvisations succeed one another or are
superimposed, with joy and mastery.
Jimi Hendrix’ tragic death in 1970 at the age of 27 has forever connected the question “What if…?” to his mystique. A profound clue to that elusive answer is put forward by the dazzling new Justin Time release Experience, from the World Saxophone Quartet. Taking on eight of the peerless guitarist/composer’s compositions, the dynamic ensemble adds another chapter to both Hendrix’ and their own growing legends.
Probably
the most respected artist, in the eyes of jazz musicians, to emerge
from the rock tradition, Hendrix’ compositions provide incredibly
fertile substance for the explorations of the ensemble considered by
fans, critics and musicians as one of the most important and innovative
groups of the past 25 years.
For
this, their eighth recording for Justin Time, founding members Oliver
Lake, Bluiett (he’s recently stopped professionally using his first
name, Hamiet) and David Murray, along with most recent member Bruce
Williams, are joined by special guests, trombonist/didgeridoo player
Craig Harris, violinist Billy Bang, drummer Gene Lake and Matthew
Garrison on electric bass. Harris, a renowned composer in his own right,
also provides three stunning arrangements. Garrison, the son of the
late Jimmy Garrison, legendary bassist for the unparalleled Classic John
Coltrane Quartet, and Gene Lake, Oliver’s son, add a “second
generation” element to the mix. That element is further enhanced by Jahi
Sundance, Lake’s youngest son – and a deejay of rapidly growing
reputation – as producer on Oliver’s two arrangements, “If 6 Was 9” and
“Little Wing,” both from Hendrix’ classic Axis: Bold as Love album.
Lake, whose arrangements have provided fuel for artists as diverse as
Lou Reed, Bjork, A Tribe Called Quest and Me’shell N’degeocello, shows
why he’s gaining a reputation as one of contemporary music’s finest
arrangers. “If 6 Was 9,” powerfully punctuated and heavily syncopated,
features playful call and response sections and rip-roaring collective
improvisation over a furiously walking bass line. “Little Wing” receives
a sharply delineated and highly soulful treatment, with wailing Lake,
gutbucket Bluiett, funky Williams and bluesy Murray, all culminating in a
collective improv that harkens to the blues-drenched, prayer meetin’
intensity of classic Mingus.
Tenorman
Murray also provides two arrangements. Hendrix’ flagship hit “Hey Joe”
is transformed into a gorgeous ballad with gospel overtones. The richly
textured reeds provide a full-bodied bottom for Murray’s deeply moving
tenor before taking an almost-Baroque turn, launching Lake’s scalding
alto, Bluiett’s gurgling baritone and Williams’ bluesy soprano solos.
“Machine Gun,” a classic from Hendrix’ Band of Gypsys period, is given
an appropriately percussive and syncopated treatment of the staccato
theme. Billy Bang’s dynamic violin is highlighted here, both in a
soaring solo and providing delightful punctuation to Murray’s tenor
excursion. It all climaxes into a scorching collective improvisation of
the type of screaming intensity that only the WSQ can muster. Bruce
Williams contributes a densely punchy take on “Foxey Lady,” whose big,
swinging butt launches a four-horn free-for-all that seems headed beyond
the stratosphere. It’s brought back to earth by that funky bottom and a
collective holler of the title, before taking off again and coming full
circle to the head.
The three
Craig Harris arrangements are mind-blowing. Gaining great recognition as
a composer/arranger and conceptualist of multi-disciplined works,
Harris’ arrangements are brilliantly conceived and executed here. His
funky take on “Freedom” opens the CD in full swagger, with rocking bass
and drums propelling a wickedly smoking alto solo by Lake and a
twisting, furious turn by Murray. “Hear My Train A Comin’,” an amazing
solo tour de force by Hendrix, receives an incredible transformation
here, with Bluiett’s bari and Craig’s didgeridoo (a haunting Aboriginal
wind instrument) providing the rumbling rhythmic thrust of the wheels
while the other horns blow the whistle. The tenor and bari exchange
phrases over the didgeridoo bass line with the higher horns screaming
the melody as it all picks up speed with freight-train-in-the-night
intensity. Tearing around curves, steaming and smoking wildly, it
finally rolls to a stop, huffing and puffing. It’s a powerfully
conceived, breathtaking masterpiece.
Closing
the album is the totally different, but no less evocative “The Wind
Cries Mary,” with Harris reciting the poetic lyrics and Bluiett’s
didgeridoo-like baritone curling the rhythmic underpinnings and the
other horns swirling colors all around it. It all emerges into
beautifully textured reed voicings that cushion Harris’ smoothly vivid
trombone on the lovely theme in a heart-wrenching rendition that could
bring tears to the eyes of a raging gorilla.
This
is the WSQ’s first album of works by a single composer since their
classic Ellington tribute of the mid-1980s that helped bring them from
cult heroes into the musical mainstream. Like that album and all true
dedications, the World Saxophone Quartet’s Experience pays the highest
tribute possible by presenting some of Jimi Hendrix’s best-loved work
into a new and innovative light, expanding upon the original material
rather than replicating it. The members of the WSQ have stated that this
is one of their finest creations, and undoubtedly that feeling will be
shared by many, many others.
http://jazztimes.com/articles/27370-yes-we-can-world-saxophone-quartet
JazzTimes
April 2011
World Saxophone Quartet
Yes We Can
Jazzwerkstatt
April 2011
World Saxophone Quartet
Yes We Can
Jazzwerkstatt
by Bill Milkowski
This latest World Saxophone Quartet lineup features charter members David Murray on tenor sax and bass clarinet and Hamiet Bluiett on baritone sax and clarinet. New Orleans legend Kidd Jordan fills in for alto saxophonist Oliver Lake, while the newest WSQ member, James Carter, takes over duties for John Purcell, who in turn had replaced charter WSQ member Julius Hemphill, who died in 1995.
They open this live set at Kino Babylon, a movie theater in Berlin, with Bluiett’s energetic “Hattie Wall,” a tune that has, since 1981, acted as a kind of WSQ theme song. With Bluiett setting the groove with a bouncing bari ostinato, the others are freed up to weave a dizzying latticework pattern of darting, jagged lines on top. In this two-tenor onslaught, Murray and Carter can hardly be distinguished, especially when they launch into simultaneous altissimo flights. Jordan’s “The River Niger” opens with some conversational blowing that sounds like bees buzzing around the hive, until the four fall into a powerful theme anchored by Bluiett’s bari; Carter’s solo soprano cadenza is particularly stirring here. Murray’s title track, recorded just two months after President Obama’s inauguration, is a soulful fanfare brimming with optimism that highlights Carter’s uncanny virtuosity on soprano: just one of many horns that the Detroit native has mastered. Again, his dazzling cadenza at the end of the piece (containing a riff from “Hail to the Chief”) is an audacious crowd-pleaser.
Murray’s moving close-harmony ballad, “God of Pain,” carries of requiem feel and showcases his signature feat of intense circular breathing and overblowing during an extended unaccompanied tenor solo. Bluiett breaks out some impressive clarinet chops on his gospel-tinged meditation “The Guessing Game,” which has Murray providing accompaniment on bass clarinet. Carter employs his tenor to deliver a shrieking salvo of multiphonics on Murray’s “Long March to Freedom,” a potent piece that resolves to a hymnlike hush. The quartet closes out in furious fashion with a reprise of “Hattie Wall,” the perfect way to bookend this startling concert.
The World Saxophone Quartet:
JULIUS HEMPHILL: Alto saxophone
OLIVER LAKE--Soprano saxophone
DAVID MURRAY: Tenor saxophone
HAMIETT BLUIETT: Baritone saxophone
Live television performance from 1989 on NBC-TV on the
'Night Music' program hosted by David Sanborn
Four original compositions by members of the quartet:
The tunes are: West African Snap / I Heard That / Fast Life / Hattie Wall
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Sa...
Julius Hemphill - Alto saxophone
Oliver Lake - Soprano saxophone
Hamiet Bluiett - Baritone saxophone
David Murray - Tenor saxophone
WORLD SAXOPHONE QUARTET
Berlin 1987
WSQ plays “Come Sunday” by Duke Ellington in live performance in Berlin, Germany:
World Saxophone Quartet
From the 2011 recording 'Yes We Can'
Jazzwerkstatt
http://davidmurraymusic.com/webvideosarchives
http://jonmccaslinjazzdrummer.blogspot.com/2011/04/mboom-meets-world-saxophone-quartet.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Saxophone_Quartet
World Saxophone Quartet
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The World Saxophone Quartet is a jazz ensemble founded in 1977, incorporating elements of free funk and African jazz into their music.[1]
The original members were Julius Hemphill (alto and soprano saxophone, flute), Oliver Lake (alto and soprano saxophone), Hamiet Bluiett (baritone saxophone, alto clarinet), and David Murray (tenor saxophone, bass clarinet). The first three had worked together as members of the Black Artists' Group in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1989, Hemphill left the group due to illness, and several saxophonists have filled his chair in the years since. In the late 1980s the quartet used Bluiett's composition "Hattie Wall" (recorded on W.S.Q., Live in Zurich, Dances and Ballads and Steppenwolf) as a signature theme for the group. The group principally recorded and performed as a saxophone quartet, usually with a lineup of two altos, tenor, and baritone (reflecting the composition of a classical string quartet), but were also joined occasionally by drummers, bassists, and other musicians.
This latest World Saxophone Quartet lineup features charter members David Murray on tenor sax and bass clarinet and Hamiet Bluiett on baritone sax and clarinet. New Orleans legend Kidd Jordan fills in for alto saxophonist Oliver Lake, while the newest WSQ member, James Carter, takes over duties for John Purcell, who in turn had replaced charter WSQ member Julius Hemphill, who died in 1995.
They open this live set at Kino Babylon, a movie theater in Berlin, with Bluiett’s energetic “Hattie Wall,” a tune that has, since 1981, acted as a kind of WSQ theme song. With Bluiett setting the groove with a bouncing bari ostinato, the others are freed up to weave a dizzying latticework pattern of darting, jagged lines on top. In this two-tenor onslaught, Murray and Carter can hardly be distinguished, especially when they launch into simultaneous altissimo flights. Jordan’s “The River Niger” opens with some conversational blowing that sounds like bees buzzing around the hive, until the four fall into a powerful theme anchored by Bluiett’s bari; Carter’s solo soprano cadenza is particularly stirring here. Murray’s title track, recorded just two months after President Obama’s inauguration, is a soulful fanfare brimming with optimism that highlights Carter’s uncanny virtuosity on soprano: just one of many horns that the Detroit native has mastered. Again, his dazzling cadenza at the end of the piece (containing a riff from “Hail to the Chief”) is an audacious crowd-pleaser.
Murray’s moving close-harmony ballad, “God of Pain,” carries of requiem feel and showcases his signature feat of intense circular breathing and overblowing during an extended unaccompanied tenor solo. Bluiett breaks out some impressive clarinet chops on his gospel-tinged meditation “The Guessing Game,” which has Murray providing accompaniment on bass clarinet. Carter employs his tenor to deliver a shrieking salvo of multiphonics on Murray’s “Long March to Freedom,” a potent piece that resolves to a hymnlike hush. The quartet closes out in furious fashion with a reprise of “Hattie Wall,” the perfect way to bookend this startling concert.
A Fireside Chat with The World Saxophone Quartet
by
The muscularity and imposing sound of the World Saxophone Quartet can be
overwhelming to neophytes. Practiced listeners welcome WSQ's stately
resonance and unpretentious tenor. And although the second alto chair
vacated by the departure and passing of the late Julius Hemphill has
evolved, a permanent substitute seems remote. The seasoned Oliver Lake,
established Hamiett Bluiett, and dynamic David Murray (unedited and in
their own words) continue to expand the lore of (after more than a
quartet of a century) what has become a jazz institution.
All About Jazz: Why a Jimi Hendrix tribute?
Oliver Lake: Well, actually, it wasn't totally our idea. When it was present to us though, everybody had an affinity and had a history with it. Somehow that music has affected all of us. When the idea came up, everybody was really into doing it. I've listened to that music through the years and some of those lyrics just really hit me on a personal level and it's become part of my musical history.
David Murray: Everybody likes Jimi Hendrix. Everybody in the band likes Jimi Hendrix. I think the world likes Jimi Hendrix. He is particularly from my era, more so than some of the other guys in the group. I grew up in Berkeley in the '60s and '70s. This was really the time of Jimi Hendrix. I actually was on a committee that had him come to play the Berkeley Community Theater. I was on a committee at Berkeley High School at that time to have him there. It was part of our dream to have Jimi there and it ended up being his last great concert.
AAJ: Did you get to meet Hendrix?
OL: No, never.
DM: Well, actually, it wasn't really a meeting, but I kind of touched his cloak. I was backstage and there were a lot of people back there. There was a line of people just trying to go and see him and I am sure they all had some acid. Jimi was pretty stoned before the concert. I don't see how he got on stage, but when he got on stage, he just light up. There were a lot of weird people back there wanting to sell what they had with Jimi.
AAJ: Hendrix was an improviser.
OL: That's right. Just his interpretations alone, if you think of the "Star Spangled Banner" thing that he did. It was just one of the things that stood out for me when I heard that. It was in the tradition of great improvisers, to take a familiar tune and really make it yours. His creativity just stretches in a lot of ways.
DM: Oh, truly, and of the highest order. If there weren't so many people pulling on him, I'm sure he would have certainly been some kind of jazz musician. His thing just attracted so many different styles of people that it was obvious that he had to be a rock musician during that time because he had all the ingredients. Jimi could have dropped in any era. If he came ten years from now and landed on our planet, this guy would be on the biggest stage, with the brightest light because he was the best guitarist. I think Jimi Hendrix could have played with anybody. I heard he was doing some stuff with Miles Davis up at Woodstock. He could have played with the Sun Ra Arkestra if he wanted to.
AAJ: What do you attribute to the World Saxophone Quartet's longevity?
OL: I think it is just knowing each other so well that we know when to get together and when not to get together. We've learned our personalities and know that the music is the leader of the band. When we get on stage, there is a magic that happens and we all want to preserve that. Over the years, whatever differences we've had in terms of personalities, that has all been smoothed out with the music.
DM: I think probably because we don't see each other all that much. We play a couple times a year and that's it. When we get together, we try to make it serious. That's all. We don't see each other that often.
AAJ: So it is like riding a bicycle.
DM: Pretty much, riding a bicycle, swimming type of thing. We all try to write compositions so that when we see each other, we have something fresh to play. I will tell you, personally, I've been going through some of my music lately and I think I misplaced a lot of the old music, so it is not necessary that I even have it anymore. That music doesn't even need to be played anymore. That's finished. So every time we see each other, we're just dealing with whatever project is on. That's the beauty of it and I think that is the way that we should keep it.
OL: (Laughing) David is in late forties and Bluiett and I are in our early sixties, of course, we have been playing music for over forty years. If you add it all up together, it's more than a hundred years.
AAJ: As a composer, what liberties does writing for four saxophones afford you?
OL: It is wide open when you're not restricted by anything. You have these great improvisers that are expanding whatever compositional ideas that you have. It's great.
DM: For me, it has become such an easy thing to do. I took my cues from when Julius was in the band. We would get on an airplane to get out to California and he would start a composition on the plane and write the parts on the way out the plane. It is like that for me now. I watched Julius adamantly during those times and I learned largely how to write from watching him. He was a great composer and he was very fast in his composition.
AAJ: Since the departure of Julius Hemphill, the second alto chair has been inconsistent.
DM: You're right, the lead alto in the World Saxophone Quartet is something that vacillates. As far as I'm concerned, I think it needs to continue to vacillate because it is chair that probably will never live up to the guy who invented the chair, Julius Hemphill.
OL: I think every time we got somebody, I thought that was the person. When Arthur Blythe was in the band, I thought that was it. When James Spaulding was in the band, I said that it was great. So I was with every person that got in and was filling that spot.
AAJ: And the chair is currently occupied by?
DM: Bruce Williams. Bruce Williams is on the album.
OL: Actually, I brought him into the World Saxophone Quartet.
AAJ: Have the criticisms of your record production subsided?
DM: During the last ten years of my life, I have personally been on a quest to make sure that every time out, I do something that is completely different than the last and the level of the recording and writing tops the last thing that I did. That is really my concept now and for the rest of my recording career, to really just strive to make that perfect one. I know I have been criticized in the past for doing an abundance of things, but I don't even think that way. Maybe the ego gets in the way, but people always tell me how many things I've done and I'm still pissed off about the things I didn't get an opportunity to do.
AAJ: And the future?
OL: I am about to release a steel quartet recording that will be coming out next month, a new CD from Passin' Thru. In November, we will be doing the Jimi Hendrix project at the Iridium for one week.
DM: The Latin big band, actually, it's a Cuban big band, but these days everybody is so down on Cuba, it is hard to get the distribution on when you say that word. It is really unfair. Wait until the Democrats get back in. I just got back yesterday from Budapest. I did a recording of gypsy music. I wrote a couple of tunes. I had to cram and find out what these gypsies were up to. They've got some beautiful, hip music, I was really astounded by the level of their musicianship. I will begin to tour again with my Gwo-Ka Masters band. I'm keen on doing this Taj Mahal collaboration. Taj is into it. He's a good friend and I've been writing some songs to put in his mouth. I wrote a really great song for him called "Bad Mouth" that really signifies our times. I want to get it recorded. I've got to get The Grateful Dead to do it too. Politically, it is a great song. After the thing with Taj Mahal, I imagine I will do another Cuban big band album and get a little deeper with that.
Photo Credit: David Murray by Skip Bolen
Oliver Lake by Ralph Gluch
https://musicians.allaboutjazz.com/worldsaxophonequartet
World Saxophone Quartet - band/ensemble:
Originally consisting of saxophonists David Murray, Julius Hemphill, Oliver Lake and Hamiet Bluiett, the World Saxophone Quartet is one of the finest and most unusual small combos in jazz today. The Quartet began performing as a unit in 1976, inspired by Ed Jordan, head of Music at New Orleans Southern University. Jordan had heard the saxophonists in their individual groups, and hired them to do a show together. “We liked it, and started doing gigs at other colleges,” remembers David Murray. Although three of the original members, Hemphill, Lake and Bluiett, knew each other from St.Louis, it was not until this event that they decided to create a group consisting only of four saxophones. Since then, the group has recorded many albums together, including the critically-acclaimed “Plays Duke Ellington” (Nonesuch), which was voted one of the best albums of 1986 in New York Times. Describing the group as “probably the most protean and exciting new jazz band of the 1980s”, Jon Pareles of the Times called the WSQ “the most original and important group to emerge since Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane redefined group improvisation in the late 1950s.”
The WSQ places consistently in the top five groups listed in Down Beat's Annual Critic's Poll. In 1987 they were voted “Best Jazz Group” in the Playboy Reader's Poll. Television appearances include two segments on VH-1's “New Visions” program and an appearance on “NBC's Night Music.” The WSQ has an extremely diverse following, and has toured extensively throughout the U.S., Europe and Japan, where they enjoyed a major success as part of the “Live Under The Sky” Festival. Their reputation hinges most importantly on a repertoire that is theirs exclusively. Their albums “Dances and Ballads” and “Rhythm and Blues” significantly increased the popularity of this unique ensemble. Their signature tune, “Hattie Wall,” is also a video, directed by Robert Longo. In 1990 Hemphill left the group and was replaced first by Arthur Blythe, then James Spaulding and later Eric Person.
Hamiet Bluiett (baritone sax, alto clarinet) is the most excellent baritone saxophonist to emerge in the '70s and beyond, and has superb command of his instrument in every register. He openly acknowledges the dramatic impact of hearing Ellington baritone saxophonist Harry Carney at a gig in Boston years ago. In addition to his association with the St. Louis Black Artists Group, his credits include work with the Gateway Symphony, Charles Mingus, Sam Rivers, Babatunde Olatunji, Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye.
Oliver Lake (alto and soprano saxes, flute, synthesizer) grew up in St. Louis and received professional encouragement from trumpeter Lester Bowie. A founding member of the St. Louis Black Artists Group, he moved to New York in 1976 after teaching at the American Centre for Artists and Students in Paris and studying at the Electronic Workshop. He leads his own funk-reggae group Jump Up, as well as a jazz quartet. Lake has been a consistently outstanding soloist, composer and bandleader since the early '70s, and is also a published poet.
David Murray (tenor sax, bass clarinet) began leading his own rhythm and blues groups at the age of 12, and there is no question that his style is rooted in, but not confined to, a soulful blend of R&B, John Coltrane, Ben Webster and Sonny Rollins. He may be the most recorded jazz musician in modern music history, and his output includes solo recordings and sessions with trios, quartets, quintets, an octet and a big band. He is widely acknowledged to be among the greatest of living jazz musicians.
John Purcell is a multi-instrumentalist, playing all saxophones including saxello, all flutes, all clarinets, oboe and English horn. He has played in a remarkably wide variety of musical contexts, and has worked with Stevie Wonder, Tito Puente, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Carter, David Sanborn, McCoy Tyner, Jack DeJohnette and Muhal Richard Abrams. He also works as a sound consultant and acoustician, most recently for David Sanborn, Tommy LiPuma and Johnny Mandel, for Sanborn's album “Pearls.”
http://jazztimes.com/articles/14761-experience-world-saxophone-quartet
Oliver Lake: Well, actually, it wasn't totally our idea. When it was present to us though, everybody had an affinity and had a history with it. Somehow that music has affected all of us. When the idea came up, everybody was really into doing it. I've listened to that music through the years and some of those lyrics just really hit me on a personal level and it's become part of my musical history.
David Murray: Everybody likes Jimi Hendrix. Everybody in the band likes Jimi Hendrix. I think the world likes Jimi Hendrix. He is particularly from my era, more so than some of the other guys in the group. I grew up in Berkeley in the '60s and '70s. This was really the time of Jimi Hendrix. I actually was on a committee that had him come to play the Berkeley Community Theater. I was on a committee at Berkeley High School at that time to have him there. It was part of our dream to have Jimi there and it ended up being his last great concert.
AAJ: Did you get to meet Hendrix?
OL: No, never.
DM: Well, actually, it wasn't really a meeting, but I kind of touched his cloak. I was backstage and there were a lot of people back there. There was a line of people just trying to go and see him and I am sure they all had some acid. Jimi was pretty stoned before the concert. I don't see how he got on stage, but when he got on stage, he just light up. There were a lot of weird people back there wanting to sell what they had with Jimi.
AAJ: Hendrix was an improviser.
OL: That's right. Just his interpretations alone, if you think of the "Star Spangled Banner" thing that he did. It was just one of the things that stood out for me when I heard that. It was in the tradition of great improvisers, to take a familiar tune and really make it yours. His creativity just stretches in a lot of ways.
DM: Oh, truly, and of the highest order. If there weren't so many people pulling on him, I'm sure he would have certainly been some kind of jazz musician. His thing just attracted so many different styles of people that it was obvious that he had to be a rock musician during that time because he had all the ingredients. Jimi could have dropped in any era. If he came ten years from now and landed on our planet, this guy would be on the biggest stage, with the brightest light because he was the best guitarist. I think Jimi Hendrix could have played with anybody. I heard he was doing some stuff with Miles Davis up at Woodstock. He could have played with the Sun Ra Arkestra if he wanted to.
AAJ: What do you attribute to the World Saxophone Quartet's longevity?
OL: I think it is just knowing each other so well that we know when to get together and when not to get together. We've learned our personalities and know that the music is the leader of the band. When we get on stage, there is a magic that happens and we all want to preserve that. Over the years, whatever differences we've had in terms of personalities, that has all been smoothed out with the music.
DM: I think probably because we don't see each other all that much. We play a couple times a year and that's it. When we get together, we try to make it serious. That's all. We don't see each other that often.
AAJ: So it is like riding a bicycle.
DM: Pretty much, riding a bicycle, swimming type of thing. We all try to write compositions so that when we see each other, we have something fresh to play. I will tell you, personally, I've been going through some of my music lately and I think I misplaced a lot of the old music, so it is not necessary that I even have it anymore. That music doesn't even need to be played anymore. That's finished. So every time we see each other, we're just dealing with whatever project is on. That's the beauty of it and I think that is the way that we should keep it.
OL: (Laughing) David is in late forties and Bluiett and I are in our early sixties, of course, we have been playing music for over forty years. If you add it all up together, it's more than a hundred years.
AAJ: As a composer, what liberties does writing for four saxophones afford you?
OL: It is wide open when you're not restricted by anything. You have these great improvisers that are expanding whatever compositional ideas that you have. It's great.
DM: For me, it has become such an easy thing to do. I took my cues from when Julius was in the band. We would get on an airplane to get out to California and he would start a composition on the plane and write the parts on the way out the plane. It is like that for me now. I watched Julius adamantly during those times and I learned largely how to write from watching him. He was a great composer and he was very fast in his composition.
AAJ: Since the departure of Julius Hemphill, the second alto chair has been inconsistent.
DM: You're right, the lead alto in the World Saxophone Quartet is something that vacillates. As far as I'm concerned, I think it needs to continue to vacillate because it is chair that probably will never live up to the guy who invented the chair, Julius Hemphill.
OL: I think every time we got somebody, I thought that was the person. When Arthur Blythe was in the band, I thought that was it. When James Spaulding was in the band, I said that it was great. So I was with every person that got in and was filling that spot.
AAJ: And the chair is currently occupied by?
DM: Bruce Williams. Bruce Williams is on the album.
OL: Actually, I brought him into the World Saxophone Quartet.
AAJ: Have the criticisms of your record production subsided?
DM: During the last ten years of my life, I have personally been on a quest to make sure that every time out, I do something that is completely different than the last and the level of the recording and writing tops the last thing that I did. That is really my concept now and for the rest of my recording career, to really just strive to make that perfect one. I know I have been criticized in the past for doing an abundance of things, but I don't even think that way. Maybe the ego gets in the way, but people always tell me how many things I've done and I'm still pissed off about the things I didn't get an opportunity to do.
AAJ: And the future?
OL: I am about to release a steel quartet recording that will be coming out next month, a new CD from Passin' Thru. In November, we will be doing the Jimi Hendrix project at the Iridium for one week.
DM: The Latin big band, actually, it's a Cuban big band, but these days everybody is so down on Cuba, it is hard to get the distribution on when you say that word. It is really unfair. Wait until the Democrats get back in. I just got back yesterday from Budapest. I did a recording of gypsy music. I wrote a couple of tunes. I had to cram and find out what these gypsies were up to. They've got some beautiful, hip music, I was really astounded by the level of their musicianship. I will begin to tour again with my Gwo-Ka Masters band. I'm keen on doing this Taj Mahal collaboration. Taj is into it. He's a good friend and I've been writing some songs to put in his mouth. I wrote a really great song for him called "Bad Mouth" that really signifies our times. I want to get it recorded. I've got to get The Grateful Dead to do it too. Politically, it is a great song. After the thing with Taj Mahal, I imagine I will do another Cuban big band album and get a little deeper with that.
Photo Credit: David Murray by Skip Bolen
Oliver Lake by Ralph Gluch
https://musicians.allaboutjazz.com/worldsaxophonequartet
World Saxophone Quartet
World Saxophone Quartet - band/ensemble:
Originally consisting of saxophonists David Murray, Julius Hemphill, Oliver Lake and Hamiet Bluiett, the World Saxophone Quartet is one of the finest and most unusual small combos in jazz today. The Quartet began performing as a unit in 1976, inspired by Ed Jordan, head of Music at New Orleans Southern University. Jordan had heard the saxophonists in their individual groups, and hired them to do a show together. “We liked it, and started doing gigs at other colleges,” remembers David Murray. Although three of the original members, Hemphill, Lake and Bluiett, knew each other from St.Louis, it was not until this event that they decided to create a group consisting only of four saxophones. Since then, the group has recorded many albums together, including the critically-acclaimed “Plays Duke Ellington” (Nonesuch), which was voted one of the best albums of 1986 in New York Times. Describing the group as “probably the most protean and exciting new jazz band of the 1980s”, Jon Pareles of the Times called the WSQ “the most original and important group to emerge since Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane redefined group improvisation in the late 1950s.”
The WSQ places consistently in the top five groups listed in Down Beat's Annual Critic's Poll. In 1987 they were voted “Best Jazz Group” in the Playboy Reader's Poll. Television appearances include two segments on VH-1's “New Visions” program and an appearance on “NBC's Night Music.” The WSQ has an extremely diverse following, and has toured extensively throughout the U.S., Europe and Japan, where they enjoyed a major success as part of the “Live Under The Sky” Festival. Their reputation hinges most importantly on a repertoire that is theirs exclusively. Their albums “Dances and Ballads” and “Rhythm and Blues” significantly increased the popularity of this unique ensemble. Their signature tune, “Hattie Wall,” is also a video, directed by Robert Longo. In 1990 Hemphill left the group and was replaced first by Arthur Blythe, then James Spaulding and later Eric Person.
Hamiet Bluiett (baritone sax, alto clarinet) is the most excellent baritone saxophonist to emerge in the '70s and beyond, and has superb command of his instrument in every register. He openly acknowledges the dramatic impact of hearing Ellington baritone saxophonist Harry Carney at a gig in Boston years ago. In addition to his association with the St. Louis Black Artists Group, his credits include work with the Gateway Symphony, Charles Mingus, Sam Rivers, Babatunde Olatunji, Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye.
Oliver Lake (alto and soprano saxes, flute, synthesizer) grew up in St. Louis and received professional encouragement from trumpeter Lester Bowie. A founding member of the St. Louis Black Artists Group, he moved to New York in 1976 after teaching at the American Centre for Artists and Students in Paris and studying at the Electronic Workshop. He leads his own funk-reggae group Jump Up, as well as a jazz quartet. Lake has been a consistently outstanding soloist, composer and bandleader since the early '70s, and is also a published poet.
David Murray (tenor sax, bass clarinet) began leading his own rhythm and blues groups at the age of 12, and there is no question that his style is rooted in, but not confined to, a soulful blend of R&B, John Coltrane, Ben Webster and Sonny Rollins. He may be the most recorded jazz musician in modern music history, and his output includes solo recordings and sessions with trios, quartets, quintets, an octet and a big band. He is widely acknowledged to be among the greatest of living jazz musicians.
John Purcell is a multi-instrumentalist, playing all saxophones including saxello, all flutes, all clarinets, oboe and English horn. He has played in a remarkably wide variety of musical contexts, and has worked with Stevie Wonder, Tito Puente, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Carter, David Sanborn, McCoy Tyner, Jack DeJohnette and Muhal Richard Abrams. He also works as a sound consultant and acoustician, most recently for David Sanborn, Tommy LiPuma and Johnny Mandel, for Sanborn's album “Pearls.”
http://jazztimes.com/articles/14761-experience-world-saxophone-quartet
June 2004
Experience
Justin Time Records
The World Saxophone Quartet has devoted whole albums to Duke
Ellington, Miles Davis and their late founding member, Julius Hemphill.
For their newest release, the group-which now includes Bruce Williams on
alto and curved soprano in the slot once occupied by Hemphill, Arthur
Blythe and John Purcell-has explored the songbook of a seemingly unusual
source: Jimi Hendrix. Considering the guitarist's connection to classic
rock, a Hendrix tribute could be construed as an attempt at instant
credibility. But naturally the WSQ approaches the material with their
usual reverence and sense of adventure.
Half of the album includes the rhythm section of drummer Gene Lake
(son of WSQ alto and soprano saxman Oliver Lake) and bassist Matthew
Garrison (son of the late Jimmy Garrison). Their presence adds extra
kick to "If 6 Was 9," which begins in a funky mood before veering off
into a wild group improvisation over a boppish bass line. Violinist
Billy Bang joins the full band on "Machine Gun," practically coming out
of nowhere and adding an appropriately feverish solo.
"Hey Joe," and "The Wind Cries Mary" barely resemble the original themes, but both contain rich interplay that touches on spiritual and baroque motifs. Trombonist Craig Harris, who arranged three songs, appears on the latter, reciting the lyrics over a bubbling free section before picking up his horn. He also plays didgeridoo on the somewhat rambling "Hear My Train A-Comin'."
They avoid the most obvious Hendrix cover, "Purple Haze," but the WSQ cuts loose on a saxes-only version of "Foxey Lady," shouting out the title in the appropriate place and engaging in some hair-raising group blowing.
Throughout the album all four members get plenty of spotlight time. Baritone saxophonist Hamiet Bluiett and tenor saxophonist David Murray continue to stun anytime they take center stage, but Oliver Lake's searing alto solos really highlight cuts like "Little Wing," wherein Williams also proves to be a strong addition to the group.
Once again, the World Saxophone Quartet has taken a bold concept and exceeded expectations.
"Hey Joe," and "The Wind Cries Mary" barely resemble the original themes, but both contain rich interplay that touches on spiritual and baroque motifs. Trombonist Craig Harris, who arranged three songs, appears on the latter, reciting the lyrics over a bubbling free section before picking up his horn. He also plays didgeridoo on the somewhat rambling "Hear My Train A-Comin'."
They avoid the most obvious Hendrix cover, "Purple Haze," but the WSQ cuts loose on a saxes-only version of "Foxey Lady," shouting out the title in the appropriate place and engaging in some hair-raising group blowing.
Throughout the album all four members get plenty of spotlight time. Baritone saxophonist Hamiet Bluiett and tenor saxophonist David Murray continue to stun anytime they take center stage, but Oliver Lake's searing alto solos really highlight cuts like "Little Wing," wherein Williams also proves to be a strong addition to the group.
Once again, the World Saxophone Quartet has taken a bold concept and exceeded expectations.
THE MUSIC OF THE WORLD SAXOPHONE QUARTET: AN EXTENSIVE VIDEO OVERVIEW, A CROSS SECTION OF RECORDINGS, MUSICAL ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY, PLUS VARIOUS INTERVIEWS WITH WSQ:
JULIUS HEMPHILL: Alto saxophone
OLIVER LAKE--Soprano saxophone
DAVID MURRAY: Tenor saxophone
HAMIETT BLUIETT: Baritone saxophone
Live television performance from 1989 on NBC-TV on the
'Night Music' program hosted by David Sanborn
Four original compositions by members of the quartet:
The tunes are: West African Snap / I Heard That / Fast Life / Hattie Wall
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Sa...
Julius Hemphill - Alto saxophone
Oliver Lake - Soprano saxophone
Hamiet Bluiett - Baritone saxophone
David Murray - Tenor saxophone
WORLD SAXOPHONE QUARTET
Berlin 1987
WSQ plays “Come Sunday” by Duke Ellington in live performance in Berlin, Germany:
World Saxophone Quartet - "Foxy Lady"
(Composition by Jimi Hendrix); Arrangements by WSQ
World Saxophone Quartet Performs the Music of Jimi Hendrix live in Jimi's hometown of Seattle, Washington:
World Saxophone Quartet - "If 6 was 9"
(Composition by Jimi Hendrix):
The World Saxophone Quartet Jimi Hendrix Tribute Live in Seattle - "Little Wing" (Composition by Jimi Hendrix) Part 1; arrangement by WSQ:
World Saxophone Quartet "My First Winter":
From the 1984 Black Saint album Live in Zurich:
WORLD SAXOPHONE QUARTET--"Hattie Wall"
(Composition by Hamiett Bluiett; arrangement by WSQ):
World Saxophone Quartet From the 2011 recording 'Yes We Can'
Jazzwerkstatt
WORLD SAXOPHONE QUARTET
(David Murray, Kid Jordan, Hamiett Bluiett & James Carter)
30.03.2009 à MONTREUIL-SOUS-BOIS:
World Saxophone Quartet
en jazzterrassatv.com Festival Jazz Terrassa
Concierto de Wold Saxophone Quartet en la Nova Jazz Cava jueves 26 de marzo 2009:
World Saxophone Quartet (pt1) & M'Boom - February 2010:
Excerpt from concert in Hamburg. World Saxophone Quartet:
David Murray (ts,bcl) - James Carter (ts,ss,cl)
Oliver Lake (as) - Hamiet Bluiett (bs,cl)
performing Hamiet Bluiett's "I Heard That"
Julius Hemphill - alto sax
Oliver Lake - alto sax
David Murray - tenor sax
Hamiet Bluiett - baritone sax
rec. Nov. 1988, NYC
World Saxophone Quartet: "I Heard That":
World Saxophone Quartet
performing Hamiet Bluiett's "I Heard That"
Julius Hemphill - alto sax
Oliver Lake - alto sax
David Murray - tenor sax
Hamiet Bluiett - baritone sax
rec. Nov. 1988, NYC
http://davidmurraymusic.com/webvideosarchives
http://jonmccaslinjazzdrummer.blogspot.com/2011/04/mboom-meets-world-saxophone-quartet.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Saxophone_Quartet
World Saxophone Quartet
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| World Saxophone Quartet | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Background information | |
| Past members | Julius Hemphill
Oliver Lake
Hamiet Bluiett
David Murray
Arthur Blythe
Sam Rivers
Eric Person
James Spaulding
John Purcell Bruce Williams Jaleel Shaw Jorge Sylvester Steve Potts Tony Kofi James Carter Kidd Jordan Branford Marsalis |
The World Saxophone Quartet is a jazz ensemble founded in 1977, incorporating elements of free funk and African jazz into their music.[1]
The original members were Julius Hemphill (alto and soprano saxophone, flute), Oliver Lake (alto and soprano saxophone), Hamiet Bluiett (baritone saxophone, alto clarinet), and David Murray (tenor saxophone, bass clarinet). The first three had worked together as members of the Black Artists' Group in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1989, Hemphill left the group due to illness, and several saxophonists have filled his chair in the years since. In the late 1980s the quartet used Bluiett's composition "Hattie Wall" (recorded on W.S.Q., Live in Zurich, Dances and Ballads and Steppenwolf) as a signature theme for the group. The group principally recorded and performed as a saxophone quartet, usually with a lineup of two altos, tenor, and baritone (reflecting the composition of a classical string quartet), but were also joined occasionally by drummers, bassists, and other musicians.
Contents
Discography
Albums
| Title | Year | Label | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Point of No Return | 1977 | Moers Music | ||
| Steppin' with the World Saxophone Quartet | 1979 | Black Saint | ||
| W.S.Q. | 1981 | Black Saint | ||
| Revue | 1982 | Black Saint | ||
| Live in Zurich | 1984 | Black Saint | ||
| Live at Brooklyn Academy of Music | 1986 | Black Saint | ||
| Plays Duke Ellington | 1986 | Elektra / Nonesuch | ||
| Dances and Ballads | 1987 | Elektra / Nonesuch | ||
| Rhythm and Blues | 1989 | Elektra / Nonesuch | ||
| Metamorphosis | 1991 | Elektra / Nonesuch | ||
| Moving Right Along | 1993 | Black Saint | ||
| Breath of Life | 1994 | Elektra / Nonesuch | ||
| Four Now | 1996 | Justin Time | ||
| Takin' It 2 the Next Level | 1996 | Justin Time | ||
| Selim Sivad: a Tribute to Miles Davis | 1998 | Justin Time | ||
| Requiem for Julius | 2000 | Justin Time | ||
| 25th Anniversary: The New Chapter | 2001 | Justin Time | ||
| Steppenwolf | 2002 | Justin Time | ||
| Experience | 2004 | Justin Time | ||
| Political Blues | 2006 | Justin Time | ||
| Yes We Can[2] | 2010 | Jazzwerkstatt |
