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LP
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FOX 012LP
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New York Contemporary Five: Live at Koncertsal, Copenhagen, 17.10.1963. The short-lived quintet known as the New York Contemporary Five had a lasting impact on the free jazz movement. It was formed in 1962 with trumpeter Don Cherry, who had been working with free jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman; tenor saxophonist Archie Shepp, who'd been working with Cecil Taylor, Gil Evans, and more recently, Bill Dixon; Danish alto saxophonist John Tchicai (whose father was Congolese), a former member of the quintet assembled by the poet and filmmaker Jorgen Leth, who moved to New York shortly before the Contemporary Five's formation; acoustic bassist Don Moore, who had played with Shepp and Dixon; and drummer JC Moses, who had played with Clifford Jordan and trumpeter Kenny Dorham. This rare performance, given at Copenhagen's Koncertsal on October 17, 1963, has epically-extended cuts of Don Cherry's "Consequences" and Ornette Coleman's "Emotions", plus a peppy take of Thelonious Monk's "Monk's Mood".
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LP
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OI 025LP
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Modern Silence present a reissue of The New York Contemporary Five's Consequences, originally released in 1966. The New York Contemporary Five barely lasted a year, all told, but they recorded five albums that shaped the jazz to come. They were a super-group after the fact -- the stellar frontline of Don Cherry, Archie Shepp, and John Tchicai all being relative newcomers at the time. Cherry had recently left Ornette Coleman and was only starting to stretch into world music. Shepp was fresh off a stint with Cecil Taylor and had just found his voice as a composer and performer. And Tchicai was virtually unknown. Their scorching music -- aided by the supple and hard-hitting rhythm section of Don Moore and J. C. Moses -- is a thrilling mix of adventurous soloing and post-bop structures, memorable heads and go-for-broke improv. Shepp and Tchicai offered two different ways forward for sax players: Shepp privileged texture, density, and fragmentation -- a pointillist take on Ben Webster or Coleman Hawkins, perhaps. Tchicai was a master of melodic invention, teasing out hard and bright phrases that seem unpredictably off-kilter. What's still remarkable about these tunes is their sense of internal tension. They're wound tighter than a magnet coil, without sacrificing any spontaneity. There's little that's strictly free about this jazz, but it's full of reckless and unexpected drama all the same. "Consequences" is the record's barnburner, built on fiery performances and climaxing with a Don Cherry solo that sounds like the aural equivalent of a fifty foot skid mark. Their version of Bill Dixon's "Trio" is contemplative by comparison, offering a loping groove, overlapping textures, and a series of wonderfully sustained solos that show off the stylistic strengths of each player.
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