DAVE BURRELL — Echo (review)

DAVE BURRELL — Echo album cover Album · 1969 · Avant-Garde Jazz Buy this album from MMA partners
1.5/5 ·
Ricochet
Surely even free-form music has its limits. This album by Dave Burrell could be one of the most horrid free-jazz albums I ever heard. There's an anarchistic, antimusical dope in the endeavour, in a time of strong interest for limitless gusto; thus Echo could fit in the late '60s "olatunjinian" wave of expressionism. Even so, I like the think of Burrell as simply a provocateur, crafting something wild of his own after being impressed by others, only wretchedly.

You can't say the collective is made up of hobos either, especially when you have Archie Shepp (which, I suspect, had already released his own extreme music by then) or Clifford Thorton at the cornet (a musician who launched, among others, a favourite of mine these days, Joe McPhee). Burrell told in an interview that they all just blasted in the darkness of the recording room until half an hour would have passed, plus that the Frenchmen from BYG didn't really knew how to record and mix the whole chunk. The title-track is truly brutal, while its LP counterside is rather loose. Initially (yes, I did listen to this more than once!) only Burrell caught my attention, as he mercilessly pounds his instrument in the first part, then, almost in an attempt to screw with us listeners, practices his do-re-mi or plays motifs from romantic serenades in the second part. But the others change their moods as well, and I can almost say I prefer them constricted to the bluster (in "Echo") than each playing whatever they feel like (in "Peace"). So everything on this album is either tasteless, either aimless.

Burrell was excentric enough to follow up this nervous breakdown, the same year and again for the radicals over at BYG (Don Cheery's Mu, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Gong's Camembert), with a weird version of Puccini's La Boheme, getting stuck somewhere between classical and jazz. After a nine-year hiatus, he reverts to drawing inspiration from Ellington or Monk.
Share this review
more

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
No shouts posted yet. Be the first member to do so above!

Review Index

Member Zone

Username:
Password:
Stay signed in

Jazz Subgenres

Artists Alpha-index

JMA TOP 5 Jazz ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
A Love Supreme Post Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners
Kind of Blue Cool Jazz
MILES DAVIS
Buy this album from our partners
The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady Progressive Big Band
CHARLES MINGUS
Buy this album from our partners
Blue Train Hard Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners
My Favorite Things Hard Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners

New Jazz Artists

New Jazz Releases

Lee Ritenour & Dave Grusin : Brasil Latin Jazz
LEE RITENOUR
Buy this album from MMA partners
From The North - Gogo Penguin Live In Manchester Nu Jazz
GOGO PENGUIN
Buy this album from MMA partners
Anthony Braxton Saxophone Quartet : Sax QT (Lorraine) 2022 Avant-Garde Jazz
ANTHONY BRAXTON
Buy this album from MMA partners
Sean Khan Presents The Modern Folk & Jazz Ensemble Nu Jazz
SEAN KHAN
Buy this album from MMA partners
Yass Big Band : imMATHEMATICS Eclectic Fusion
TYMAŃSKI YASS ENSEMBLE / YASS BIG BAND
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Jazz Online Videos

Fall
SUNNY KIM
js· 8 hours ago
Twilight
RANDY SCOTT
js· 1 day ago
Trifecta - Beck and Call - official video (taken from The New Normal)
TRIFECTA
js· 2 days ago
Phoenix
GRÉGORY PRIVAT
js· 2 days ago
Karrin Allyson EPK for NEW Album "A Kiss For Brazil" Available May 17, 2024 ©Origin Records
KARRIN ALLYSON
js· 2 days ago
More videos

New JMA Jazz Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Jazz News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us
Follow us on Twitter Become a Facebook fan RSS Feed