Saxophonist Jackie McLean’s evocative 1965 album Jacknife is the newest entry in Blue Word Information’ Tone Poet sequence.
Jackknife finds the saxophonist in a post-bop mode with trumpeters Lee Morgan and Charles Tolliver, pianist Larry Willis, bassist Larry Ridley, and drummer Jack DeJohnette.
This stereo Tone Poet Vinyl Version was produced by Joe Harley, mastered by Kevin Grey from the unique analog grasp tapes, pressed on 180g vinyl at RTI, and packaged in a deluxe gatefold tip-on jacket.
Jacknife was amongst McLean’s 21 albums recorded at Blue Word between 1959 and 1967. Different highlights embody 1962’s Let Freedom Ring, impressed by the improvements of Ornette Coleman; 1965’s It’s Time!, which featured two rising jazz stars, Herbie Hancock and Charles Tolliver; And 1967’s Motion which is steeped in each arduous bop and modal jazz.
McLean most well-liked to not talk about his music by way of classes. “I’ve grown out of being just a bebop saxophone player, or being a free saxophone player,” he informed The New York Occasions in 1983. “I don’t know where I am now. I guess I’m somewhere mixed up between all the saxophonists who ever played.”
Born John Lenwood McLean in Harlem, he began taking part in the alto saxophone as an adolescent. His father was guitarist John McLean (who performed with Tiny Bradshaw) and a younger McLean befriended neighbors like Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, and Sonny Rollins. McLean recorded a number of arduous bop LPs for Status within the wake of his recording debut as a 20-year-old on Miles Davis’ 1951 album Dig. McLean additionally labored with George Wallington, Charles Mingus, and Artwork Blakey’s The Jazz Messengers.
Within the Nineteen Seventies, McLean turned a outstanding jazz educator, instructing at College of Hartford, the place he was later named director of the college’s newly shaped African-American music program, one of many first diploma applications within the discipline. In 2000, the college renamed this system the Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz.
Order Jackie McLean’s Jacknife on vinyl now.
