Perfectly timed for the start of the holiday shopping season, which officially begins on "Black" Friday (November 27), the UK-based Soul Jazz Records has put out Freedom Rhythm & Sound (SJR Publishing) a spectacular compendium of vintage sleeve images from some of the most prized spiritual and free jazz recordings ever released that's sure to delight the hardcore jazz fanatic on your gift-giving list.
The large format (30.8 cm x 30.8 cm) hardbound coffee-table book was authoritatively compiled by Soul Jazz boss Stuart Baker in conjunction with celebrity DJ Gilles Peterson presents a well-balanced selection of the most aesthetically pleasing, bizarre, obscure, creative and iconic sleeve art from LPs issued between the years 1965 and 1983, primarily on independently-owned operations and often in editions of 1,000 copies or less.
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That includes the album sleeve designs associated with such revered figures as John Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Ornette Coleman, Art Ensemble Of Chicago and Sun Ra alongside lesser-known artists like The Frank Derrick Total Experience, Dadisi Komolafe and Lloyd McNeill. While the labels Strata-East, ESP-Disk', Tribe, Delmark, Nessa, Black Fire, BAG, El Saturn, Nimbus, Actuel/BYG, Perception, Im-Hotep, Baystate, Asha, Mustevic Sound are each well-represented, the one notable exception is Black Jazz. Whether or not this has anything to do with the dispute Black Jazz had with Soul Jazz over the Universal Sound sub-label release The Best Of Black Jazz Records (see link below), is difficult to say but their achetypal cover images are conspicuously absent.
Even though it would certainly have been a much more comprehensive overview had a sampling of the consistently dope designs of Black Jazz been included, the 179-page volume is still a worthwhile and wholly enjoyable document that doubles quite nicely as a collector's checklist.
As a musical companion, Baker has compiled a suitable survey of tunes from the albums depicted as the Freedom Rhythm & Sound 2CD set which ideally would've come attached to the inside of the book's back cover. But of course, this is a Soul Jazz release, not a lavish Numero Group production, so the double-CD package, with choice tracks from Steve Colson, Horace Tapscott, The Pharaohs, Philip Cohran, Roy Brooks & The Artistic Truth, Sun Ra, Oliver Lake, Ralph Thomas, Stanton Davis, Gary Bartz NTU Troop, Errol Parker, Joe McPhee and others, is being sold separately. No word as yet whether a vinyl version is planned.
Links
Soul Jazz Records http://www.souljazzrecords.co.uk/
Black Jazz http://www.blackjazz.com/bootleg.html
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