Chico Freeman - Tradition in Transition (1982 Japanese Elektra Musician Vinyl LP)

Chico Freeman - Tradition in Transition | Vinyl LP - 1982 Japanese Elektra Musician (P-11249, Warner-Pioneer Corporation)

By 1982 Chico Freeman had been recording prolifically since his 1976 debut, moving across India Navigation, Black Saint and Contemporary in a run of albums that traced the post-Coltrane avant-garde from Chicago to New York. "Tradition in Transition" was his Elektra Musician debut and his most accessible major-label statement, not because it softened anything but because Freeman was willing to let the tradition into the room alongside the experiment. "Jackie-Ing" opens on Monk's angular melodic logic; "Mys-Story" and "The Trespasser" push further out; the closing "A Prayer" and the brief interlude "At A Glance" demonstrate a compositional range that short-form jazz often doesn't allow. DeJohnette's doubling on piano and drums across different tracks gives the session an unusual textural flexibility, and McBee's bass is the constant, grounding a band that could otherwise tip toward abstraction. The record appeared the same year Freeman participated in the Young Lions concert at Lincoln Center alongside Wynton Marsalis and Paquito D'Rivera.

Produced by Freeman and John Koenig, recorded at Eurosound in New York, mastered by Bernie Grundman, this is the 1982 Japanese Elektra Musician pressing manufactured by Warner-Pioneer Corporation. The catalogue number P-11249 appears on the label.