Charles McPherson – New Horizons

I have an absolutely mint vinyl copy of this and this rip is about as good as I can make. This is a fine, fine record in which Charles make a point of venturing beyond the bounds of bebop and the results are electrifying.

“If you’re a hardcore be-bopper, this probably won’t suit your fancy quite as well as Live In Tokyo, but if you’re a child of that 70s period of Jazz, this is about as good as it gets. Tucker is in top form as a sideman (his strongest role, IMHO) and McBee is unconscious, as usual. This is a great period for McBee, and while maybe a step past prime for Freddie Waits, he’s still burning and this is a very solid, straight ahead Jazz date during a period when the rhodes and crossover were favored. McPherson is sort of the forgotten soldier — no one seems to discuss him much and he’s always been under recorded. There are no anthems here, and I won’t use the word ‘clinic’ to describe this music because there is nothing clinical about it (a fault much of the 70s/80s Jazz seems to suffer from). This is honest, productive, interesting and enjoyable Jazz, the way it was intended to be.”

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