Bobby Hutcherson with Harold Land - Now!
Bobby Hutcherson/Harold Land Quintet - Juan-les-Pins Festival, France 7/26/69
I sure hope the quintet didn’t have to open for or follow Miles Davis during that date, given that lost quintet’s incendiary power. And given the existence of the 1969Miles CD, it’s no surprise this Hutcherson/Lane quintet peformance would eventually show up, although it actually sounds better qualitywise. You sense the band following up on the thorny hardbop of mid 60s Blue Note Hutcherson into new paradigms of music by the time Now! showed up (it was recorded several months after the show in question) and likewise my interest wanes a little bit from all those amazing albums. Now! works with large band formats (two if you have the Blue Note RVG edition with the second line up bonus tracks) including vocals and would give Crouch and Marsalis conniption fits as in many ways it’s as much a classical or new music work as it is jazz. Maybe only Mingus was creating music like this at the time. I preferred the slightly earlier, less conceptual work a little more, but both show and album are well worth checking out for the out jazzer.
Johnny Cash - American V: A Hundred Highways
This oddly titled album appears to be Cash’s final recordings and I have to say that he probably went out on a high note with this one, remarkable even for a remarkable career. It’s definitely mature Cash with a deeper, more melancholy voice, a man at the end of a long road and the songs are almost wistful at times. I guess it can’t be considered a Cash record entirely due to some production work after this death, but it seems to successfully catch the spirit. I like Cash as it is but still found myself surprised at how much I enjoyed this later work.