Search - Bill Dixon, Archie Shepp :: Bill Dixon 7-Tette / Archie Shepp and the New York Contemporary 5

An Overlooked Master of Jazz Trumpet.

C. Rich | 08/06/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I have no idea if Bill is still among the living. I owe him. He ended up at Bennington College teaching wealthy kids who generally were only familiar with guitars, a source of eternal frustration for a guy trying to make coherent student jazz ensembles.



He was born on Nantucket Island and fought in World War Two in the reclamation of the Phillipines.



This recording was actually done in March of 1964 and not in the 50's as some tailwagger claimed. It was a masterful work bursting with rigor and imagination with an exceptional ensemble.



Howard Johnson and Ken McIntyre sparkle throughout and it is one of the few recordings of David Izenzon, a bass master who also worked with Ornette only to die of a heart attack in some stupid altercation.



Bill is the classic thinking man's trumpeter pushing the boundaries ever forward and the advanced embodiement of that oft oer looked thing, the Black Intellect, in a nation prone to the assumption that such is a chimera.



This release finds him in the full flush of his vigorous rigourous youth and the Shepp stuff is comparably impressive, in its way. Archie was young then, too.



Bill's work is gifted with a spare sly brilliance and rarely met mastery of the properties of this demanding bit of brass tubing.



I dearly love this early work and will eventually get the rest of his impressive oeuvre. I hope he is well. Viscera and cerebra meet well in the well thought works of this master."

Excellent and a half

William R. Nicholas | Mahwah, NJ USA | 06/21/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"R.I.P. Bill Dixon



Bill Dixon was one of the lesser known but best jazz trumpeters in free jazz during the 1960s. He died this month.



Actually, Dixon's take on free jazz was not all that free. His trumpet playing had a warm, minimal tone: a few well selected intervals-fat round notes-- planted just in the right place. For one of his best solos, check his work on Cecil Taylor's Conquistador, title track.



His own compositions, on the first half of this album, remind me of the sophisticated writing of Eric Dolphy: more of a hipster fedora street jazz with swirling, obtuse chord progressions--a cousin of the blues--than anything Ornette Coleman or John Coltrane were doing. Dixon is certainly not working with open modes here.



Listen to the dark, haunted swing of "Winter Suite: here to get a taste of some of Dixon's best composing: the way he sets up relatively simple structures and then lights them with the slow but intense heat of his spare playing. You could compare him to Miles' Davis for his economy, except Dixon has a thicker tone, and is more interested in tonality than melody.



The New York Contemporary Five is also here: Archie Shepp's band featuring John Tchachi, Don Cherry, Ken Mcentyre and David Izonson. This band was more interested in the open jamming associated with free jazz, and their outstanding work is well sampled on the second half of this CD."