Free Jazz in the mid-70s in New York City was guided by The Loft movement of artist-run venues throughout the city, the perfect environment for trumpeter Ted Daniel to develop his approach to the extended improvisations heard here, recorded in the studio with his trio of Tatsuya Nakamura on drums & percussion and Richard Pierce on bass, Daniel playing flugelhorn & French horn.
Format: CD Condition: New Released: 2009 Country: USA Packaging: Digipack Recorded live at Sunrise Studio in New York, New York, on September 28th, 1975, by Eric Enjem.
"Though sometimes proposed as a period when little new was happening in jazz, the '70s saw the blossoming of one of the most fertile grassroots periods in the music's history with the Loft Jazz movement. By 1975 there was a proliferation of artist-run venues across Manhattan, providing an outlet for independent-minded experimentation without the need to please an audience. For trumpeter Ted Daniel this period represented a very creative and productive time, confirmed by the two live sets at hand.
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Daniel fronted a trio at Sunrise Studio for four more extended workouts, released as The Loft Years, Volume One on his own reactivated label. Starting with Ornette's "Congeniality," Daniel builds from the theme before exposing his post-bop lineage, through involved runs leaving tonal centers well behind, over Tatsuya Nakamura's incessant freeform drums haloed by hissing cymbals. Richard Pierce's bass is not well-served by another murky recording, but when proceedings quiet he steps out for some buzzy strumming, before a rolling drum solo and a theme reprise. Sunny Murray's "Jiblet" has its moments, but it is not until the free ballad "The Moor," with its flamenco bass and brooding muted trumpet-and-drums interplay, that it all gels. Daniel's closing "O.C." pays double homage, with a swirling jaunty rhythm ultimately merging with a spirited rendition of Albert Ayler's "Ghosts"."-John Sharpe, All ABout Jazz