Africa / Brass

Africa / Brass
Studio album by John Coltrane
Publication (s)	1961
Label (s)	Impulses! Records
Format (s)	CD, LP
Genre (s)	jazz
Title (number)	3
running time	33:49
occupation	Tenor saxophone , soprano saxophone : John Coltrane Trumpet : Booker Little , Freddie Hubbard Trumpet : Britt Woodman Euphonium : Carl Bowman , Julian Priester , Charles Greenlee French horn : Julius Watkins , Donald Corrado , Bob Northern , Robert Swisshelm Jimmy Buffington Tuba : Bill Barber Alto saxophone , clarinet , flute , arranger : Eric Dolphy Baritone saxophone : Laurdine "Pat" Patrick , Garvin Bushell Piano , arranger: McCoy Tyner Bass : Reggie Workman , Art Davis Drums : Elvin Jones
production	Bob Thiele , Creed Taylor
Studio (s)	Van Gelder Recording Studio, Englewood Cliffs , New Jersey
chronology My Favorite Things (1961) Africa / Brass Bags & Trane (1961)

Africa / Brass is a jazz album by John Coltrane from 1961.

The album

The album, recorded on May 26th and June 7th, 1961, was Coltrane's first for the newly founded jazz label Impulse! . It was initially planned as a one off album (as a single album outside of his regular contract with Atlantic Records ). The Shaw Agency , which Coltrane's management had, tried to get a record deal with the newly founded label. This is how John Coltrane became the first artist to work for Impulse! Records signed an exclusive contract. His first Impulse! Album was also the last production by Creed Taylor , which was poached from the Verve label.

It falls out of the scope of his previous publications because the saxophonist supplemented his quintet (at that time consisting of the two bassists Reggie Workman and Art Davis as well as the pianist McCoy Tyner and the drummer Elvin Jones ) with a fifteen-piece big band in the u. a. the trumpeter Freddie Hubbard and Booker Little and the bass clarinetist Eric Dolphy played along. The brass arrangements were also made by Dolphy, but McCoy Tyner also played a major role.

A number of French horns , a baritone saxophone , two euphonies and a tuba were also used - based on the orchestrations created by Gil Evans at the time . A sound carpet with African-style rhythms was created by the two bass players, over which John Coltrane's improvisations on the tenor saxophone floated. In addition to Coltrane, McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones provided solo interludes. With "Greensleeves" Coltrane switched to the soprano saxophone and played a sensitive solo at the end of the folkloric theme.

The background for the strong reference to Africa and African music was that around 1960 many African countries gained their independence, which gave the African Americans a new self-confidence and a freer attitude towards life. However, nothing about their everyday discrimination had changed; In jazz, the protests against discrimination increasingly found an outlet for expression. The album We Insist! Freedom Now Suite by Max Roach is one example.

Rolling Stone magazine voted the album at number 62 on its list of The 100 Best Jazz Albums in 2013 .

Edition history

The 1961 published original album Africa / Brass (with the liner notes by Dom Cerulli ) contained only three tracks, "Africa", "Greensleeves" and "Blues Minor". In 1974 a second record from the same sessions was released, entitled Africa / Brass Sessions, Volume 2 . It also contained the title " Follow the Drinkin 'Gourd " (later renamed "Song of the Underground Railroad"), as well as alternate takes of "Greensleeves" and "Africa". Further outtakes of the “Africa / Brass” sessions like “The Damned Don't Cry”, composed by Cal Massey , and other alternate takes of “Africa” and “Greensleeves” were released later.

Both albums were finally released as a CD combined into a compact disc. The entire material (including both albums and the three outtakes ) is now available in the order in which they were recorded on a double CD entitled The Complete Africa / Brass Sessions in 20 BIT Super (Impulse! 21682).

The title of the original album

1. "Africa" ​​(Coltrane) 16:31
2. "Greensleeves" (trad.) 9:59
3. "Blues Minor" (Coltrane) 7:19

The tracks on the double CD The Complete Africa / Brass Sessions

Disc 1

1. Greensleeves
2. Song of the Underground Railroad
3. Greensleeves
4. The Damned Don't Cry
5. Africa

Disc 2

1. Blues minor
2. Africa
3. Africa

literature

• Joachim-Ernst Berendt , Günther Huesmann: Das Jazzbuch Frankfurt / Main, Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1992
• Richard Cook , Brian Morton : The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD . 6th edition. Penguin, London 2002, ISBN 0-14-051521-6 .
• Gerd Filtgen, Michael Auserbauer: John Coltrane - His life, his music, his records . Oreos, Schaftlach (Collection Jazz) 1989
• Ashley Kahn: The House That Trane Build - The Story of Impulse Records . Norton, New York City, London, 2006.

Remarks

1. ↑ Coltrane did a similar thing in 1957 for his Blue Train album for the Blue Note label, when he was still under contract with Prestige Records .
2. ↑ Ashley Kahn reports in his story of the Impulse label ! that the editing of the album Africa / Brass has been completed in the Verve Records premises opposite the Impulse premises.
3. ↑ Tyner was incorrectly referred to as "Turner" on the original cover. McCoy Tyner wrote the arrangement for the English folk song " Greensleeves "; for the two Coltrane compositions "Africa" ​​and "Blues Minor", Dolphy and Coltrane adapted Tyner's piano solo for the orchestra.
4. ↑ cit. according to Filtgen / Auserbauer, p. 158
5. ↑ Rolling Stone: The 100 Best Jazz Albums . Retrieved November 16, 2016.