Celebrating 60 years of Impulse Records. A Deluxe 2-CD Set with tracks by John Coltrane, Quincy Jones, Charles Mingus, Oliver Nelson, Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp and other legendary Impulse Artists. This release includes liner notes by Greg Tate and A.B. Spellman.
Orange and black. Fire and ebony. Fury and pride. Wearing its signature colors proudly and raising its exclamation point high, Impulse! Records was the go-to label for music that harnessed the searching and political stand-taking of the Sixties. Launched in 1961, Impulse grew to become an inherent part of the era’s velocity as well as its volume, pulling jazz into the age of Black Power, Afrocentricity, and Spiritual Expansion. In its balance of tradition and transition, it bridged the golden age of jazz, that brief window from the late Fifties to the Seventies when players representing every jazz era were alive and active—from Louis Armstrong to Albert Ayler, from the legends of lore to a new generation of energy players. Impulse treated all its musicians as innovators, revolutionaries even—from swing and bebop, to free and Afrofuturist.
The performances onImpulse Records: Music, Message and the Momentdraw their staying power from a wide embrace of styles and sounds, as well as a tight focus on a historic moment when the promise of change was in the air and the message of racial harmony was in the music. Today that music has lost none of its relevance: the promise still deferred, the message still on time.
“...A collection celebrating Impulse’s deep-digging support of artists who scored We The People’s SingFight-ing for social political and artists’ self-determination in a critical time of beatdowns, breakthroughs and cosmically-centered aspirations.”
- Musician/Essayist Greg Tate
“In many ways, this collection is a mural in sound of the activist’s stimulation of the Sixties and Seventies…we need this scope of sound again: We need the horns to scream of stout resistance, and we need the bands to sing to us of the righteous beauty of our souls.”
- Journalist/Author A.B. Spellman
Tracklist:
CD 1
The John Coltrane Quartet — Africa
Max Roach — Garvey's Ghost
Quincy Jones and his Orchestra — Hard Sock Dance
John Coltrane — Up 'Gainst the Wall
Elvin Jones/Jimmy Garrison Sextet — Just Us Blues
John Coltrane — Alabama
Charles Mingus — Better Get Hit in Yo' Soul
Shirley Scott Trio — Freedom Dance
Yusef Lateef — Sister Mamie
Archie Shepp — Malcolm, Malcolm—Semper Malcolm
Stanley Turrentine — Good Lookin' Out
Earl Hines — Black and Tan Fantasy
Oliver Nelson — The Rights of All
CD 2
Pharoah Sanders — The Creator Has a Master Plan (edit)
John Coltrane & Alice Coltrane — Reverend King
The Ahmad Jamal Trio — The Awakening
Albert Ayler — Music Is the Healing Force of the Universe
