Charles Tolliver was born in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1942 and moved with his family to New York City when he was 10. During his childhood, his grandmother gave him his first horn, a cornet he had coveted. Tolliver was attending Howard University in the early 1960s as a pharmacy major, when he decided to pursue music as a career and return home to New York City. He came to prominence in 1964, playing and recording on Jackie McLean's Blue Note albums. In 1971, Tolliver and Stanley Cowell founded Strata-East Records, and Tolliver released many albums and collaborations on Strata-East.

Live at Captain's Cabin is a newly discovered gem from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada that finds Music Inc in absolutely fine form at a club called the Captain's Cabin. Playing mostly original music from Tolliver the band let's loose in the live setting. In his words The players I had, John Hicks, Clint Houston, and Cliff Barbaro. I just let them go do their thing and I didn't rein them in so we could have some pretty wild renditions of things, which if I were to do it now with a different rhythm section, it would sound different. It would be different. But I think that 50 something years ago that we were just expressing the exuberance of playing together and being on the road and the songs that I composed at that time, a few of them I still play, are completely different. This recording is an incredible document from an amazing band that was continually pushing boundaries.

Double CD. Previously unissued live recording from 1973 Remastered audio transferred from the original tape reels Includes extensive booklet with rare photo, and essay by renowned writer Angelika Beener, an interview with Tolliver by Jeremy Pelt and more!

Saxophonist Charles Lloyd is renowned for fearlessly reinventing himself to explore some recently discovered facet of his personality and art. A few years after his final recording in the band of drummer Chico Hamilton and the same year as the saxophonist’s Forest Flower was released, Lloyd took a star-studded ensemble to the Montreux Jazz Festival. Vividly depicting a band that was functioning at its peak, Montreux Jazz Festival 1967 (Swiss Radio Days Jazz Series 46) serves to fill out listeners’ understanding of Lloyd’s work with pianist Keith Jarrett and drummer Jack DeJohnette. (Ron McClure’s on bass, though Cecil McBee frequently accompanied the saxophonist at the time.) - DownBeat Magazine

REVIEW:

Vividly depicting a band that was functioning at its peak, Montreux Jazz Festival 1967serves to fill out listeners’ understanding of Lloyd’s work with pianist Keith Jarrett and drummer Jack DeJohnette. (Ron McClure’s on bass, though Cecil McBee frequently accompanied the saxophonist at the time.)

The bandleader’s decision to include “Lady Gabor,” which originally appeared on a Hamilton disc Lloyd helped record, is just curious given that he had decades of the genre to pick through for inspiration. Lloyd and guitarist Gabor Szabo, who wrote the tune, got their start performing in the relatively unheralded Hamilton groups of the 1960s. And while Szabo dispatched a handful of pretty memorable Technicolor leader dates, there haven’t been too many folks who’ve interpreted his songbook.

This live 1967 recording—which sports a 27-minute rendition of “Forest Flower,” replete with an intense DeJohnette drum solo—lends an air of relevance to Hungarian guitarist Gabor Szabo’s work almost 40 years after his death. The rendition here is all entrancing flute moves from the bandleader and block-y chords from Jarrett, adding a contemplative vibe to a set of tunes that also takes a run at the pianist’s “Days And Nights Waiting,” and Lloyd’s “Love Ship” and “Sweet Georgia Bright.”

-- Downbeat (Dave Cantor)