Freebop Now!
Studio album by
Malachi Thompson
Released1998
RecordedApril 21, 1993, February 22, 1998 and May 3, 1998
StudioRiverside Studio, Chicago
GenreJazz
Length74:35
LabelDelmark
DE-506
ProducerRobert G. Koester, Steve Wagner, Malachi Thompson
Malachi Thompson chronology
47th Street
(1998) 		Freebop Now!
(1998) 		Rising Daystar
(1999)

Freebop Now! (subtitled {20th Anniversary of the Freebop Band}) is an album by the American jazz trumpeter Malachi Thompson recorded and released by the Delmark label in 1998.[1][2][3][4]

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[5]
The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings[6]

Allmusic reviewer Don Snowden stated "Freebop Now! is designed both as a manifesto for Malachi Thompson's aesthetic principles and a 20th anniversary celebration of his Freebop Band concept. But it's a rather disjointed disc jamming together two sextet sessions with different goals ... while that doesn't derail Freebop Now!, it's not the strongest disc in Thompson's consistently interesting catalog".[5]

On All About Jazz Jack Bowers said "Thompson states in his liner notes that Free-bop "takes the most exciting elements of bop and combines [them] with the exploratory aspects of avant-garde jazz," which seems a more accurate description of his band's purpose. Thus Free-bop strives to broaden the parameters of Jazz without abandoning the music's customary precepts of order and discipline. It is "free" only in the sense that Thompson and his colleagues seek to rearrange the basic building blocks of bop and upraise them to a new and more exciting plane. In fact, the Free-bop Band sounds for the most part much like many other bop-based groups who try as best they can to communicate within the vernacular ... Except for a few minor bumps in the road, this is high-caliber bop, Free or otherwise".[7]

Track listing

All compositions by Malachi Thompson except where noted

  1. "Black Nile" (Wayne Shorter) – 6:13
  2. "Goree Island" – 5:21
  3. "Flight to Senegal" – 5:55
  4. "Freebop Now!" – 5:31
  5. "Just a Look" – 3:54
  6. "'Round Midnight" (Thelonious Monk) – 4:39
  7. "Cancerian Moon" – 6:36
  8. "Jammin' at the Point" – 8:02
  9. "Worm Hole" – 8:19
  10. "Ancient African Horns" – 1:02
  11. "Black Hole" – 2:57
  12. "Heathens and Space/Time Projection" – 3:41
  13. "Jammin' at the Point (Reprise)" – 2:25

Personnel

References

  1. ^ Jazzlists: Delmark Records discography: 500 series accessed October 28, 2019
  2. ^ Delmark Records: album details accessed October 28, 2019
  3. ^ Jazzlists: Carter Jefferson discography accessed October 28, 2019
  4. ^ Jazzlists: Billy Harper discography accessed October 28, 2019
  5. ^ a b Snowden, Don. Malachi Thompson: Freebop Now! – Review at AllMusic. Retrieved October 28, 2019.
  6. ^ Cook, Richard; Morton, Brian (2008). The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (9th ed.). Penguin. p. 1399. ISBN 978-0-141-03401-0.
  7. ^ Bowers, J. All About Jazz Review accessed October 28, 2019
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