Of Love and Peace cover

Of Love and Peace

Released

Can you play free jazz on an organ? Absolutely, and Larry Young does it on this 1966 release, the follow-up to the brilliant Unity and his third Blue Note album overall. The band features Eddie Gale on trumpet, James Spaulding on alto sax and flute, Herbert Morgan on tenor sax, and two drummers, Wilson Moorman III and Jerry Thomas. They play composer Morton Gould’s “Pavanne,” the second movement of a classical work called the American Symphonette No. 2, turning it into a 14-minute blowout; they also take the hammer and tongs to Miles Davis’s “Seven Steps To Heaven.” The title track and “Falaq” are Young originals, but they’re mostly platforms for free improvisation, the horns wailing like a half-drunk choir or taking screaming, high-flying solos as Young leans on the keys and the drummers do battle. If you’ve come in search of groove, seek elsewhere, but as an abstract exploration of musical possibility, Of Love & Peace is very much worth your time.

Phil Freeman

Recommended by

Suggestions
Artifacts cover

Artifacts

Mike Reed, Nicole Mitchell, Tomeka Reid
Learning to Cope with Cowardice cover

Learning to Cope with Cowardice

Mark Stewart & The Maffia
Pre-Emptive Denial cover

Pre-Emptive Denial

Paraphrase, Tim Berne
Holding Together cover

Holding Together

Peter Erskine, Bob Berg, Marc Johnson, Mike Mainieri, Eliane Elias
Passing Images cover

Passing Images

Frode Haltli
Simple Pleasure cover

Simple Pleasure

Vincent Herring
The Owner of the River Bank cover

The Owner of the River Bank

Cecil Taylor, Italian Instabile Orchestra
Athens Concert cover

Athens Concert

Maria Farantouri, Charles Lloyd