COMPOSERS: Fat man and the Hard Blues
LABELS: Clean Feed
ALBUM TITLE: Julius Hemphill Sextet
WORKS: Julius Hemphill Sextet
PERFORMER: Marty Ehrlich, Sam Furnace, Andy Laster, Aaron Stewart, Andrew White, Alex Harding
CATALOGUE NO: CF 027
Julius Hemphill was one of the great
masters of the saxophone in the post-
Coltrane era. This sextet named after
him features at least two of his most
dedicated students in Marty Ehrlich
and Andy Laster, and on this live
set from the 2003 Lisbon Jazz em
Agosto festival they perform nothing
but Hemphill compositions. There
are old favourites such as ‘Revue’
and ‘Georgia Blue’, and less familiar
discoveries from the capacious
Hemphill legacy, such as the strangely
sweet-and-sour entwinings of ‘Rites’.
This is, though, very much
ensemble music: Ehrlich, the group’s
MD, is more interested in tapping
into the gorgeous sonorities in these
beautiful compositions than merely
having them stand as a prop for
individual solos. Richard Cook