Customer Reviews

Manhattan Egos

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"Manhattan Egos" is a release that is not for the faint of heart, nor is it intended for those listeners looking for something to put on as dinner-and-drinks background sound for the weekend guests. This is jazz from the late '60s, when it was not unseemly for musicians to challenge their listeners with unfettered sounds that scoured the depths of emotion.

Sonny Simmons (alto sax and English horn) and then wife Barbara Donald (on trumpet) launch an all-out blitz on the senses in "Manhattan Egos." The spirit of the album is established with "Coltrane in Paradise," which holds faith with Coltrane's approach to what was in the '60s termed "The New Thing." The idea is to bring industrial-strength chops to the bandstand and blow so hard that the listener's preconceptions about what jazz is are blown back to wherever they came from. Donald's long, muscular trumpet lines and Simmons' sinuous, exploratory sax approach send the message that this is a serious session.

"Coltrane in Paradise," however, doesn't really prepare us for the aptly named "The Prober," which shows how deeply Simmons absorbed the lessons of Coltane and Ornette Coleman. This is music which requires that we either submit or walk to the machine and hit the off button. My advice to the serious listener is, submit. Simmons creates a seemingly indomitable wall of sound in his solo, but Donald answers with a crisp rejoinder. All of this is carried out with a dense percussion accompaniment that is free of conventional notions of time and space.

Simmons continues to carry on the free jazz tradition to this day, as in the fine '90s releases "Ancient Rituals" and "American Jungle." Those uninterested in being challenged by new sounds, new conceptions, new ideas as to what is the "correct" way to play a tune need not apply when the time comes to play his stuff. This is music for those who welcome a challenge and who buy into the notion that jazz requires redefintions of what is "new". Sonny Simmons, then and now, carries the banner of "new jazz" forward. In fact, call "Manhattan Egos" a "back to the future" release. For an album that is 32 years old, it kicks up its heels like a newborn colt.

This record is a classic example of Sonny's work with his then wife Barbara Donald on trumpet. They play outrageously beautiful lines in harmony on alto and trumpet. This work has been out of print for many years and we should all be thankful that Arhoolie had the presence of mind to rerelease this genius work

The track "Coltrane In Paradise" is a soaring shout-out to the heavens to prepare for the arrival of the one and only Trane.

The rest of the CD finds the band burning up some melodic, hard cookin' free-jazz with the addition of instruments such as English Horn and conga drums. It's grrrrreat! This music came from the jungle via Manhattan and Oakland , California.

Buy this CD. Buy it. Buy it now.