Bennie Maupin - The Jewel in the Lotus
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CD Details
Artist: Bennie MaupinEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
CD Release Date: 2007-11-06
Music Label: Ecm Records
Soundtracks:
- Ensenada
- Mappo
- Excursion
- Past & Present = Future
- The Jewel In the Lotus
- Winds Of Change
- Song For Tracie Dixon Summers
- Past Is Past
Music reviews of The Jewel in the Lotus
Music Review: The Rapture is here!
Rating: 5 Stars
The Rapture is here and those who look back will turn to stone (metaphorically speaking, of course)! This music is ravishing and revelatory. However, contrary to the suggestive title and another reviewer's comments below, I do not think it meditative in the Zen-like sense of the word. This is NOT quiet, relaxing, contemplative music. If you're looking for meditative music, look no further than Tony Scott's "Music for Zen Meditation" (Verve, 1964). Act 2, "Mappo", reminds this reviewer of jazz flautist Herbert Laws' powerful interpretation of Igor Stravinky's masterpiece "Rite of Spring" (CTI, 1971) in its intensity and fervor.
Traveling from one glorious passage to another, the listener can construct his or her own meaning and story line from hauntingly beautiful notes. My story came from the book of Genesis~ the creation, the Garden of Eden, Satan's temptation, Adam & Eve's fall from grace, Noah's call of purpose from God, the construction of Noah's ark, the "march" of the animals, the chaos of the deluge, the morning after the flood, and the dove's flight over receding water to dry land and back. Dante Alighieri's literary masterpiece also comes to mind. However you "mine" this music and whatever your story, it is bound to be rich.
"The Jewel in the Lotus" (ECM 1974) is a gem (No pun intended!) among a multitude of experimental efforts in 70s jazz. Recorded a year after Herbie Handcock's "Head Hunters" (Columbia/Legacy 1973) and retaining many of the same musicians, it sounds nothing like its predecessor save for the fact that both break the boundaries of the background lounge music that popular "jazz" had become by the late 60s. The edge and energy is paralleled in few other contemporaneous recordings. All members graciously contribute their best but it is Buster Williams' bass that drives Bennie Maupins' brilliant compositions. Act 3, "Excursion", echoes bassist Charles Mingus' "Let My Children Hear Music" (Columbia/Legacy 1971). In fact, after listening to both "The Jewel..." and "Let My Children...", listeners can find many comparisons. Though there is no historical commentary of which I'm aware that links Bennie Maupin's band with that of Charles Mingus' orchestra, these musicians could not have been ignorant of this sage's later day masterpiece (See my review).
This CD was reissued by ECM in 2007 but sounds as vital and contemporary today as it did when first recorded and should be considered a "classic" from the 70s decade. This is ART for the ears!
More The Jewel in the Lotus free music reviews:
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Description of The Jewel in the Lotus
Bennie Maupin was one of the first musicians to record for ECM, playing on a Marion Brown record in August 1970, when the label was just a few months old. Born in Detroit in 1940, Maupin was encouraged in his early musical development by Yusef Lateef, John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy. Jack DeJohnette introduced him to Miles Davis, and Bennie's bass clarinet was to become one of the signature sounds of the epochal Bitches Brew. The early 70s, however, were spent mostly working with Herbie Hancock's ensembles and The Jewel In The Lotus is essentially a pooling of players from the Hancock circle, including Herbie himself in his only ECM appearance. The Jewel In The Lotus was Bennie Maupin's first leader record. The album was recorded in March 1974, and could be described as a sequence of pulsing tone-poems, full of glowing, compound sound-colors and subtle interactions - a jazz-and-Buddhism-inspired floating chamber music that was way ahead of its time. The recording shows Maupin very much concerned with the totality of the musical conception, with the form as a whole. He is an exceptional improviser, thinking compositionally and directing group music in the moment.Jazz CDs
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