Phil Ranelin, left, and Marcus Belgrave of Tribe at the JVC Jazz Festival on Friday night.


JVC Jazz Festival in Review
by Ben Ratliff, New York Times
photo credit, Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times
The New York Times, June 23, 2008

Le Poisson Rouge

Tribe was a musicians’ collective and a record label and a magazine started in Detroit in the early ’70s. It operated in a selfempowerment, community-building spirit that was similar to other musician-run cooperatives in Chicago and Los Angeles and St. Louis, all outgrowths of the Black Arts Movement. Tribe’s sound was street and chic and spacey, but always concerned with straight-ahead entertainment; these musicians had gotten their chops through Detroit hard bop and Motown and the Ray Charles band. They were the local elite.

The trombonist Phil Ranelin, the tenor saxophonist Wendell Harrison and the trumpeter Marcus Belgrave, among others, recently recorded a new Tribe album in the old sound, this time produced by the Detroit techno D.J. Carl Craig, a club-music superstar one full generation younger. The record comes out in the fall, and the band has already started promoting it. Mr. Craig himself was supposed to appear with the band at Le Poisson Rouge on Friday night, adding electronics to the band’s set and then performing his own late-night D.J. set afterward.

But Mr. Craig did not make it to New York. Strangely, it didn’t seem to matter. His attachment to the JVC Jazz Festival show — heavily promoted by the festival — didn’t seem to do its job in drawing a crowd. The three older musicians, with a younger rhythm section, played a set of new and old instrumental music with socially conscious spoken-word inserts, and giving a few New Yorkers one of those necessary periodic lessons about jazz history from other parts of the country.

It was especially fascinating to hear Mr. Ranelin, a player whose name is associated with ’70s soul-jazz and free jazz, because he’s such a disciplined player in the hard-bop mold. His solos used long, warbling tones, then changed into stiff percussive blasts and smart melodic lines.

Mr. Belgrave, well known as a teacher but still underrated as a performer, played subtle, wide and logical solos on trumpet and fluegelhorn that were like compressed pieces of wisdom. Mr. Harrison played the most mannered and authentic ’70s solos, fitting the tone of the music (and Mr. Ranelin’s poetry) with honks and flurries and shouts.

The music used ebb-and-flow vamps, a little boilerplate rhythmically but with shrewd harmony; the mentholated music sounded like electric Miles Davis meeting James Brown’s backup group in the early ’70s, and a bit like the European downtempo electronic music it inspired in the early ’80s. In the back line were musicians with mostly Detroit roots: Kelvin Sholar on electric piano, Damon Warmack on electric bass, John Arnold on guitar, and Jaimeo Brown on drums. But this was a wandering, solo-oriented music, and most action came from the old heads up front. BEN RATLIFF







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NEW!
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Pamela's Club by Pamela Wie
Featuring: Pathe Jassi, Naima Shambourguer and Wendell Harrison

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Wendell Harrison from ENJA Records
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Rush & Hustle
"This album is a true sleeper. Full of revelations and delights. RUSH & HUSTLE is something new under the sun" Thomas Conrad-Downbeat

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Battle of the Tenors
Eddie Harris and Wendell Harrison at the Montreux Detroit Jazz Festival

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The Eighth House
"The EIGHTH HOUSE is mystic music of the moment; one man's harmonic quest to unlock Rudnyar's "wondrous equation of destiny with a skeleton key--his horn". Christopher Bahnsen - Electric Current




WENHA RECORDS - Wendell Harrison and Pamela Wise
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Urban Expressions by Wendell Harrison
Featuring: Jean Carne and Robin Bradley

"Harrison's music is well polished and executed"
JazzTimes Magazine

"The results of Harrison's URBAN EXPRESSIONS are well crafted, unpretentious and fun."
Mark Stryker, Detroit Free Press

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Pamela Wise Songo Festividad WCD210
"Wise, an assured bop pianist with a Tyneresque touch, composes strong melodies and braces them with the simmering rhythms of the Afro-Cuban tradition"
Dan Ouellette-Down Beat

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Wendell Harrison Live in Concert WCD190
Wendell Harrison and his Detroit colleagues enjoy their live concert performance so much that the listener gets caught up in the fun of serious music"
Doug Ramsey - JazzTimes

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Harold McKinney & Wendell Harrison Something for Pops WCD200
"Two Detroit based veterans play graceful tribute to the New Orleans sound."
John Andrews - Down Beat

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Wendell Harrison Forever Duke WCD180
Featuring the Clarinet Ensemble "On PRELUDE TO A KISS, Harrison on clarinet doesn't waste a note as he rings the full spectrum of colors and inflections from the melody much as a masterful singer would."
Steve Goldstein - Arts Midwest

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Pamela Wise Negre Con Leche (Black With Cream) WCD270
"Wise's NEGRE CON LECHE (Black With Cream) offer alluring summation of her gift for blending Afro-Cuban rhythms with a personal and straightforward melodicism."
Mark Stryker - Detroit Free Press

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Wendell Harrison Fly By Night WCD170
Featuring: Kirk Lightsey, Doug Hammond & Cecil McBee Clarinetist and saxophonist Wendell Harrison features veteran jazz greats pianist Kirk Lightsey, bassist Cecil McBee & drummer/percussionist Doug Hammond

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The CDs below can be purchased exclusively from www.dustygroove.com

Message from the Tribe

Philip Ranelin & Wendell Harrison
P Vine Records/Blues Interaction - Japan

Message from the Tribe

Featuring Wendell Harrison, Philip Ranelin and Jeamel Lee- Scorpio Music, Inc. USA

Message from the Tribe

An Anthology of Tribe Records; 1972-1977
Universal Sounds/Soul Jazz Records London



Reawakening

Wendell Harrison Anthology - Tribe & P VINE Records/Blues Interactions - Japan
Vibes from The Tribe Volume 1
Tribe & P VINE Records/Blues Interactions
Vibes from The Tribe Volume 2
Tribe & P VINE Records/Blues Interactions





Evening with the Devil REISSUED!
Wendell Harrison - Tribe Records - LP's only - Available at
Searching for Soul
Rare and classic soul, funk and jazz from Michigan. The finest track of Searching For Soul is "Wendell Harrison's Farewell to the Welfare blends jazz, funk and African rhythms into a lengthy, cohesive suite." Martin Johnson - The Wall Street Journal





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