Jackie McLean - Let Freedom Ring - Colored Vinyl - VINYL LP

Vinyl LP pressing. Jackie McLean's 1962 album Let Freedom Ring reflected the change in the air of the early '60s both the musical freedoms being explored by the emergent avant-garde movement and the social freedoms sought by the ascendent civil rights movement. This four-song set featuring the alto saxophonist with Walter Davis Jr. On piano, Herbie Lewis on bass, and Billy Higgins on drums melds the bluesy language of hard bop with the bristling energy of The New Thing. McLean's emotive horn wails, shrieks, and soothes as the quartet moves through three striking McLean originals InchMelody For MelonaeInch (dedicated to his daughter), InchReneInch (dedicated to his son), and InchOmegaInch (dedicated to his mother). A plaintive rendition of the Bud Powell ballad InchI'll Keep Loving YouInch rounds out the date.

Whilst a pendulum swings between two extremes, New York's Aisha Badru cuts a steady, deliberate path on her so-named full-length debut. The extremes denoted by the record's title are emotional, rather than sonic, as Badru explores both arcing highs and devastating lows with equally measured tenderness and elegance each time. InchA major theme of every human's experience is that we're constantly swinging between good and bad,Inch she explains. InchWe can't avoid it. By realising that the swings aren't permanent, you begin to develop the ability to control how you feel about the unfortunate events that may arise in your life.Inch

Known for it's championship of neglected repertoire; the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective presents a programme of works by members of the Second Viennese School; based around Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht. Probably Schoenberg's best-known piece - in either of it's two orchestral versions or the original string sextet version heard here; Verklärte Nacht is certainly not neglected! The Collective has chosen to surround it; however; with works that are much less well known; producing a fascinating and rewarding programme. Schoenberg composed the work in 1899; whilst on holiday with his friend and fellow composer Alexander Zemlinsky and Zemlinsky's sister; Mathilde; whom Schoenberg would marry two years later. Zemlinsky's Maiblumen blühten überall; for soprano and string sextet; was never completed; intended originally to be a much larger work. Webern studied composition with both Zemlinsky and Schoenberg. His Piano Quintet may; like Zemlinsky's composition; have been conceived a part of a larger work; but only this one movement was ever composed. Alma Schindler was another pupil of Zemlinsky; one with whom he developed a deep romantic infatuation. Their relationship ended when she herself fell in love with Gustav Mahler who; when they married; famously forbade her from pursuing her career as a composer. The four songs included here (arranged for soprano and string sextet by Tom Poster) are embedded in the soundworld of Zemlinsky and Schoenberg; and offer an intriguing glimpse of what she might have composed in other circumstances