Music Monday: Warm Music for a Cold Weekend

It was a frigid weekend and I had a back log of manuscripts to pour through so I had a chance to listen to a good bit of music, including some stuff that I had never heard.

For example, I had no idea that Sonny Rollins and Don Cherry played together. It looks like most of this discography isn’t available via my preferred streaming service (Tidal), but one 1962 album, Our Man in Jazz is. At the risk of sounding cliche, it sound exactly how one might imagine a quartet fronted by Rollins and Cherry might sound (with Henry Grimes holding down the bass line). In other words, delightful, occasionally angular, and loose: 

For some reason, I hadn’t listen to Marion Brown’s work with Gunter Hampel. As readers of this space know, Brown is one of my favorite Coltrane adjacent saxophone players and I’m constantly looking out for any contribution to his modest discography. It appears that he recorded at least twice with the German percussionist Hampel. I enjoyed the earlier recording, titled Gesprächsfetzen from 1968, more interesting than the 1979 pairing. It is sparse and befitting its title, occasionally abrupt, but intriguing. Brown’s distinct tone is on display and his ability to create phrases and ideas out of just a few notes rewards a careful listen. Hampel’s vibes offered a similarly stochastic companion to Brown’s fragments. Check it out:

What prompted me to discover both the Hampel and Brown recordings and the Rollins and Cherry recordings was a post by James Brandon Lewis on his Facebook feed. He linked to a long jam called the Baden-Baden Free Jazz Meeting from 1970 which included Hampel, Cherry, Steve Lacey, John Tchicai, Dave Holland, and a bunch of other luminaries: 

Finally, I have just a bit more Max Roach (featuring more Odean Pope and Cecil Bridgewater), Scott Free (1984). It consists of two long jams. Titled “Pt. 1””:

And “Pt. 2”: