Artist: Malachi Thompson & Africa Brass
Album: Buddy Bolden's Rag
Genre: Hard Bop, Post-Bop
Label: Delmark Records
Released: 1995
Quality: FLAC (tracks+.cue)
Tracklist:
- Buddy Bolden's Rag (Thompson) - 5:59
- World View (Thompson) - 8:33
- The Chaser in Brazil (Thompson) - 5:44
- We Bop (Bowie) - 5:40
- Nubian Call (Thompson) - 12:43
- The Chaser in America (Thompson) - 8:49
- Kojo Time (Alexander) - 7:17
- Harold the Great (McFarland) - 9:50
- A Mouse in the House (Thompson) - 6:44
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- Personnel:
- Malachi Thompson, David Spencer, Kenny Anderson, Phillip Perkins - trumpet
- Edwin Williams, Bill McFarland, Ray Ripperton, Steve Berry - trombone
- Harrison Bankhead - bass
- Dr. Cuz, Richard Lawrence - percussion
- Darryl Ervin - drums
with guests: - Lester Bowie - trumpet (#3,5,6)
- Zane Massey (#7), Ari Brown (#8) – tenor saxophone
Malachi Thompson is impressive not only because of his talents as a composer and a soloist, but also because of his versatility. The Chicago trumpeter has no problem playing Blue Note-flavored hard bop/post-bop, but he's equally comfortable in avant-garde situations. Though Clifford Brown, Lee Morgan, and Freddie Hubbard are strong influences on Thompson, he has also learned a lot from Lester Bowie. In fact, Bowie is a featured guest on Buddy Bolden's Rag. This superb CD finds Thompson celebrating the contributions of New Orleans cornetist Buddy Bolden, one of jazz's pioneers and a major influence on such greats as King Oliver and Louis Armstrong. It has been argued that Bolden single-handedly "invented" jazz in the 1890s, and while it's a stretch to say that he invented jazz all by himself, he most certainly played a crucial role in its development. (Jelly Roll Morton, by the way, claimed to have "invented" jazz -- again, no one should take credit for single-handedly inventing it). On Buddy Bolden's Rag, Thompson and his band Africa Brass salute Bolden in an unconventional way; instead of playing traditional New Orleans jazz, they provide inside/outside post-bop that acknowledges Crescent City brass bands as well as avant-garde and AACM jazz. Thompson looks back on jazz's early history but does so without being the least bit dogmatic about it, and the result is a very enriching and unpredictable CD.
Review by Alex Henderson