John Carter and Bobby Bradford - Rosevita's Dance

John Carter and Bobby Bradford - Rosevita's Dance

Originally issued on SECRETS by John Carter and Bobby Bradford

Recorded on April 4, 1972 @ Occidental College, L.A.

John Carter (Clarinet, Alto Sax)
Bobby Bradford (Trumpet)
Nate Morgan (Piano)
Louis Spears (Bass)
Leon Ndugu Chancler (Drums)

THE MUSIC OF CARTER AND BRADFORD is very much in the same orbit as Ornette's with darting linear compositions and freedom from chordal structures blended into a marvelous fresh sense of swing and blues roots. Distinctive for their deep, rich tones and articulation, Carter and Bradford bring a variety of colors, moods and rhythms to their vibrant brand of modern jazz. They manage to achieve an air of precision with music that thrives on interplay and looseness. Every performance resonates with beauty and adventure. (From Mosaic Box)

New York's experimental jazz groups of the 1960s were framed as the "new thing," but their counterparts in Los Angeles weren't being framed at all; they were mostly ignored. The cream doesn't always rise to the top, and here are two examples. John Carter and Bobby Bradford both played in the 1950s around Dallas and Fort Worth, where they had encountered the young Ornette Coleman; they were all beboppers looking for something new. By the end of the decade all three wound up in Los Angeles. Mr. Coleman left for New York, joined there after his initial success by Mr. Bradford. But by the mid-1960s Mr. Bradford was back on the West Coast, and the New Art Jazz Ensemble, with Mr. Carter on saxophones and clarinet and Mr. Bradford on trumpet, had become a real band, a good one. It started from the premise of Mr. Coleman's music: clarion bebop themes giving way to long and grooving collective improvisations with no predetermined chord changes. And it pushed on from there, with a whole different kind of authority and intelligence — sometimes a more formally disciplined one — than there had been in Mr. Coleman's bands. But it didn't have enough opportunities to work, and outside of Los Angeles the group only became known to those most stricken with the jazz record-collecting virus, the kind who track down D.I.Y. albums with shaky Letraset graphics, released in tiny editions. An excellent new boxed set — "Mosaic Select: John Carter & Bobby Bradford" — should help right the situation. It contains reissues of two Carter-Bradford ensemble albums from 1969 and '71, "Seeking" and "Secrets," as well as some unissued live performances and a clarinet-trumpet duet from 1979. As improvisers the two musicians had an uncommonly special connection; Carter, who died in 1991, was a good saxophonist but a great clarinetist, clear and strong and resourceful, with few peers in his time.
(August 8th, 2010, New York Times)

Category:

Music

Tags:

• John Carter
• Bobby Bradford
• Free Jazz
• Los Angeles
• Texas Musicians

[ninnocent]

We owe you an enormous debt for posting Flight for Four and Self-Determination Music. Any chance of getting up the whole of Secrets? From what I've heard Carter and Bradfords' "lost" quintets are every bit as vital as Miles Davis'. Very many thanks.

[13Samarkand]

@ninnocent SECRETS is available on the Mosaic box set. There is a rumor that the two Flying Dutchman Carter/Bradford records will be finally reissued this year. I hope I'm not jinxing it.

[booksteve]

thanks for posting this. Carter and Bradford are wonderful.

[TheJazzySu]

beautiful !!!!!!!!!!

[gratzr]

Great group of musicians.

[Soulnik]

Superb.