Geof Bradfield

Our Roots

82701

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MUSIC REVIEW BY Thomas Cunniffe, Jazz History Online

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Back in 1965, Clifford Jordan recorded an album of songs written by Leadbelly called "These Are My Roots". The album recast several folk tunes and blues in a modern jazz style without losing the flavor of the original songs. When Chicago tenor saxophonist Geof Bradfield was asked to recreate a classic jazz album of his choosing for a local concert series, he chose the Jordan album, and on his new CD, "Our Roots", he reprises four of those tracks and adds songs by another great Southern blues singer, Blind Willie Johnson. Like Jordan and his ensemble, Bradfield's quintet (with trumpeter Marquis Hill, trombonist Joel Adams, bassist Clark Sommers and drummer Dana Hall) use the wide-open and slow-moving harmonies to create searching improvisations that reach into the vocabulary of free jazz and post-bop but still keep the music accessible. Bradfield and Hill are particularly well-matched in both sound and spirit, and they play a series of exchanges on the Calypso-flavored "Yellow Gal" where each player seems to pick up the other's musical thought. Adams plays a stomping solo on "Before This Time Another Year" and the team of Sommers and Hall provide a volcanic backdrop to Bradfield on the stunning "Black Girl". Johnson's moaning wordless blues "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground" gets a tumultuous reading that draws its energy from Hall's brilliant use of brushes. While the quintet arrangements are not credited on the album or in the publicity materials, I assume that they are Bradfield's; whomever wrote them has a highly-developed craft of small group orchestration, and obtains a superbly balanced sound and clearly delineated lines from the three horns. This remarkable album enhances the original visions of Leadbelly, Johnson, and Jordan, while leaving its own unique mark upon the music.








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