Attainment / Bannar, 1987

The story goes like this:

Charles Brackeen began to record jazz in 1968, went on to play with a who's who of jazz: Don Cherry, Frank Lowe, Carlos Ward, Dewey Redman, Leroy Jenkins, Paul Motian and Leo Smith throughout the 1970's and the early 1980's. Then he fell off the music map.

Then in the second half of the 1980's, trumpeter Dennis Gonzalez coaxed Brackeen to play on his album, Namesake. Brackeen began a recording contract with the Silkheart Records label and that's where we draw today's offering from.

These are manditory recordings! You must hear both of them!

Enjoy!

The Man in the Shadows...

Fred Hopkins, Charles Brackeen, Dennis Gonzalez

I first heard Charles Brackeen on Paul Motian's ECM recording, Dance. His horn was free, joyful, inquisitive and wholly distinctive. It stuck with me despite knowing nothing about him. I know little about him even now. This is what I've got.

He's been associated with the free jazz movement in the late sixties. He was married (now divorced) to pianist Joanne Brackeen. He has recorded sporadically (and rarely) since the late sixties. He quit the music business in the early eighties but was coaxed back into recording by Dennis Gonzalez (one of my personal musical heroes) for his Silkheart recordings in the second half of the eighties. This led to three recordings of his own for the Silkheart label - Attainment; Worshippers Come Nigh; and Bannar (all recorded in 1987).

The offering we have before us is his 1968 Strata-East recording Rhythm X. Brackeen is joined by Don Cherry, Charlie Haden and Ed Blackwell. It's a stunner! The program plays out like this:

1. Rhythm X (8:00)

2. Hour Glass (11:35)

3. Charles' Concept (6:44)

4. C.B. Blues (7:42)

Enjoy!