Tao of Mad Phat Fringe Zones [Import]

Steve Coleman | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 18, 1999)
• Original Release Date: September 27, 1993
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Bmg Int'l
• ASIN: B0000089Y8
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #74,280 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Tao of Mad Phat

2. Alt-Shift-Return

3. Collective Meditations I (Suite): Changing of the Guard

4. Collective Meditations I (Suite): Guards on the Train

5. Collective Meditations I (Suite): Relax Your Guard

6. Collective Meditations I (Suite): All the Guards There Are

7. Collective Meditations I (Suite): Enter the Rhythm (People)

8. Incantation

9. Laid Back Schematics

10. Polymaid Nomads

11. Little Girl on Fire

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More Life Energy From Steve Coleman, December 15, 2006

By 

nadav haber (jerusalem Israel) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tao of Mad Phat Fringe Zones (Audio CD)

The music of Steve Coleman is always inspiring. I recently played it to a pianist friend of mine who immediately said "this is how music should be made today". I had the same thought when I first heard Coleman's music.
This CD features Coleman and the Five Elements in their sizzling best - with Andy Milne (piano/keyboards), David Gilmore (guitar), Reggie Washington (electric bass), and Oliver Gene Lake Jr. (drums and percussion). The rhythms are as tight as they come, with each instrument free to take the music to different places, without any chaos taking place. Coleman's playing is so many things - smooth, rough, free, structured... certainly the most intersting performer today in my mind.

This CD was recorded live in front of a studio audience. The tunes sometimes sound like funk, sometimes like mainstream jazz, but it is misleading - the rhythms are never simple, the meters never symmetric. One would think this is how Charlie Parker would sound had he been born 30 years later. Try to follow the amazing "Alt Shift Return", and see how intersting the seemingly simple rhythm becomes !

Hopefully, this is where music is going, and every music lover should tune in.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars So Funky it hurts!, December 27, 2010

By 

Cole Train "bluesman" (Cincinnati, Oh USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tao of Mad Phat Fringe Zones (Audio CD)

There really isn't much of anything out there in the jazz, rock and funk world that sounds quite like this. Although this material is rather free form and highly creative, it feels at the same time as if it's tightly held together by the knockout rhythm section. All players are very fine, and Steve himself has a beautiful and easily recognizable tone. Part Coltrane and part Maceo Parker, with a little Bird in there too. It's all very hip, and it is one of those recordings that will stand up very well in the future I think. I've been listening to this for 6 or 7 years now since I first heard it on Oscar Treadwell's program in about '03. I don't really understand Steve's "M-Base" concept-i suspect that no one really does except him- but whatever it is, it is great creative American music.