This week the terrific label operated by Chicago art gallery Corbett vs. Dempsey released four titles, including an album from singular Poughkeepsie multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee. Ever since CvsD started operating like a proper label (instead of merely putting out an occasional title related to an exhibition), it’s lavished attention on McPhee—nearly a third of its catalog is devoted to his music, including previously unreleased material and reissues of long-out-of-print records. This week’s is Nuclear Family, a fantastic 1979 duo with French reedist André Jaume, a longtime McPhee collaborator. They recorded the album for Swiss label Hat Hut, but it hasn’t been released till now.
I get plenty of Derek Bailey from Stine’s tangled-up improvisations, but Byron Coley’s review of the tape in the Wire makes an even more salient comparison: he says the music suggests what “Joe Morris’s early trio sessions might have been like if he were playing unplugged.” Below you can check out the opening track, “dB.” On Saturday night Stine plays with another strong lineup—Vida and bassist Matt Ulery. Next week all-star hard-bop septet the Cookers hits Constellation, playing two shows on Thursday, October 20. All the group’s members are bandleaders in their own right and important figures in the modern history of jazz. These days such groups exist primarily to play the well-paying festival circuit, but the Cookers, assembled by trumpeter David Weiss nine years ago, operate as a proper working band. They recently released their lushly arranged, hard-charging fifth album, The Call of the Wild and Peaceful Heart (Smoke Sessions), which should appeal to listeners who miss Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and love the searching quality in John Coltrane’s solos.
