Various Artists - Wildflowers 1: The New York Loft Jazz Sessions (1977 US Douglas / Casablanca Vinyl LP)

Vinyl: VG+
Sleeve: VG (corner cut-out)

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Photo is of the actual item.

By the mid-1970s the established New York jazz club circuit had collapsed and the music had moved into the lofts. Musicians ran the rooms, set the door prices, played long, and answered to no one. Sam Rivers' Studio Rivbea was the centre of that world. Over ten days in May 1976 he and Alan Douglas set up a remote recording rig and captured almost a hundred players moving through the space. Volume one opens with Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre, the AACM founding member, on "Jays". Ken McIntyre follows with "New Times". Sunny Murray brings the Untouchable Factor to a startling reading of "Over the Rainbow". The B-side gives Sam Rivers a ten-minute "Rainbows" of his own and closes with Air's "Uso Dance", which is as good an introduction to Henry Threadgill, Fred Hopkins and Steve McCall as the recorded catalogue offers.

The Wildflowers series was distributed by Casablanca, the disco and rock label run by Neil Bogart that was simultaneously putting out Donna Summer and Kiss records, which gives some sense of how out of step this music was with the mid-1970s industry. Five LPs covering close to ninety musicians, mostly without commercial expectation, kept in print on Douglas only briefly before going out of circulation for decades.