{"id":1952,"date":"2009-01-21T09:09:13","date_gmt":"2009-01-21T14:09:13","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-01-23T11:01:02","modified_gmt":"2009-01-23T11:01:02","slug":"the-creator-has-a-master-jam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/the-creator-has-a-master-jam\/","title":{"rendered":"JAMuary, Day 12: The Creator Has a Master Jam"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"image_block\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/media\/blogs\/rth\/jamuary.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" width=\"293\" height=\"353\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Back in my younger days, it took me a long time to warm up to more traditional acoustic jazz, even after being hooked on <em>Bitches Brew<\/em>-era fusion. My problems centered around the ride cymbal-centered drumming common in pre-1969 jazz and the stiff formality of sequential soloing broken by arranged ensemble pieces. Of course these were pinhead impressions based on my very limited exposure to the wide variety of jazz available, but that\u2019s how I saw things.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/RockTownHall\/PharoahSanders_Creator.mp3\">Pharoah Sanders, \u201cThe Creator Has a Master Plan\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Pharoah Sanders<\/strong>\u2019 <em>Karma<\/em> changed all that. This large ensemble jam based on thematic material from Coltrane\u2019s <em>A Love Supreme<\/em>, provided the gateway to stronger, more dangerous forms of jazz. It acclimated me to traditional jazz approaches to drumming and its acoustic instrumentation cured me of my adolescent aversion to non-electric jazz. Although featuring some loose arrangement details, such as the flute carrying the basic theme through long sections of Pharoah\u2019s soloing, the epic magnitude of the piece, and the floating nature of the soloist versus the accompaniment, makes it a fine JAMuary candidate. Don\u2019t miss the double double-basses; <strong>Lonnie Liston-Smith<\/strong>\u2019s piano; and the thick broth of french horn, flute, and various drummers\/percussionists. Finally, <strong>Leon Thomas<\/strong>\u2019 vocal is the jazz vocal for folks that don\u2019t like jazz vocals: a jammin\u2019 bit of late-&#8217;60s ingenuousness sitting comfortably in the ensemble, extending and, in some sense, rectifying Coltrane\u2019s singing on <em>A Love Supreme<\/em>. <\/p>\n<p>The album consisted of two pieces, \u201cThe Creator Has a Master Plan\u201d and &#8220;Colors.&#8221; The former, included here, originally spanned a side and a half with a transitional fade to get from side A to side B. When first purchased on CD, I was very disappointed to find that MCA had skipped the expense of revisiting the master tape to restore the continuous take. Fortunately, they corrected this transgression on this subsequent improved quality release.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Back in my younger days, it took me a long time to warm up to more traditional acoustic jazz, even after being hooked on Bitches Brew-era fusion. My problems centered around the ride cymbal-centered drumming common in pre-1969 jazz and the stiff formality of sequential soloing broken by arranged ensemble pieces. Of course these were <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/the-creator-has-a-master-jam\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[128],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1952"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1952\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}