Joe McPhee: Nation Time [SUPERIOR VIADUCT]

Why you'll love it

Superior Viaduct's reissue adds a double-sided insert with photos and fresh liner notes. AllMusic called the result inventive and captivating, and PopMatters named it as good a place as any to start with McPhee.

This edition

• Double-sided insert with photos and new liner notes

About the album

Joe McPhee was a jazz saxophonist and trumpeter from Poughkeepsie, New York, and his first great record came from just down the road. On December 12 and 13, 1970, he took a band into the Urban Center for Black Studies at Vassar College, and the tapes came out on the small CjR label the following year.

The title track runs more than 18 minutes, as tenor sax, trumpet, Mike Kull's electric piano and Tyrone Crabb's electric bass pile into a churning, funky free-for-all. "Shakey Jake" adds Otis Greene on alto, Herbie Lehman on organ and Dave Jones on guitar for 13 minutes of greasy soul-jazz groove gone wild, and the full band co-wrote the closing "Scorpio's Dance" with percussionists Bruce Thompson and Ernest Bostic.

Atavistic brought it back on CD in 2000, and All About Jazz praised its sense of space, the way the players keep refreshing grooves that never stop moving. More than fifty years on it is still a college concert running a few years ahead of the syllabus.

Also at Kops: more Joe McPhee on vinyl · browse Modern Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On Superior Viaduct (cat# SV164), a reissue of the 1971 live album.