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Soloist trumpets his musical wares
Joe McPhee
As Serious as Your Life
(Hatology 514)
Review by Chris Searle
ANGUS REID explains the significance of Cuba’s egalitarian in letter and spirit Family Code and the pertinent lessons it holds for democracies anywhere in the world
Special report by PEOPLE’S WORLD
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AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right
THERE is no hideaway here in this record, no sanctuary except the soloist’s pure musicianship. For there is no respite in a solo instrumental performance — even more so if that performance is multi-instrumental.
Born in Miami in 1939, Joe McPhee (pictured) began to play trumpet at eight years old, but hearing Eric Dolphy, John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman in the ’60s turned his musical life around and he began to learn saxophone when he was 32.
In 1974, while McPhee was playing and recording in New York, the visiting Swiss record producer Werner Uehlinger was hugely impressed by the power and scope of McPhee’s sound and the tapes of a performance at the Free Music Store.
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