I didn’t want this week to pass without a jazz jam, so I’m going to temporarily fill in for Knoxville Progressive this week. I finally got McCoy Tyner’s excellent Extensions album, which is noteworthy for also including Alice Coltrane – Tyner’s replacement when he left John Coltrane’s group in 1965.
More below:
“Message from the Nile” is reminiscent of the sorts of tunes found on Asante and Sahara – slow-moving, majestic in sound; imagine floating down a major river, just taking in the sights, smells, sounds, and so on. “The Wanderer” is an up-tempo hardbop rave-up that fits in with his earlier work. He taps into the blues for “Survival Blues” opening up plenty of space for his and Alice’s improvisations. “His Blessings” opens with a harp solo by Alice Coltrane, that in combo with the other instrumentation make the piece fit in very nicely with the sorts of albums Ms. Coltrane was doing at the time. Gorgeous album. Whatcha listening to?
