'Kidd' Jordan Quartet - New Orleans Festival Suite (SILKHEART RECORDS 2018)

This live recording was made in May 1999 at the Dream Palace in New Orleans during the annual jazz festival. The session was improvisationally interactive to an explosive degree, even for these four musicians, and the recording had become legendary a while before it was released. 'Kidd' Jordan is from New Orleans and that is where he’s mostly played, but lately he’s been in demand in New York and Chicago, and Europe too.

Pianist Joel Futterman is a Chicagoan now based in Virginia and before he became a cohort of 'Kidd' Jordan he was a cohort of the late Jimmy Lyons. Alvin Fielder held the drum chair for the Roscoe Mitchell Sextet album, 'Sound' (Delmark DECD-408) when, in 1966, it signalled the appearance of new jazz activity in Chicago. He’s been on innumerable sessions since, including a number for Silkheart Records.

Bassist William Parker is just about the most central, and creative, figure on the New York new jazz scene and has been for twenty years or thereabouts. The quartet’s 'New Orleans Festival Suite' confirms what may or may not be common knowledge, namely that the 'Kidd' Jordan Quartet is not only the senior improvising jazz group on the scene but also the hottest and the most excitingly...  more

1. Decateur Street 28:10

2. Dream Palace 32:49

3. Ole Miss Lovesong 11:56

Edward 'Kidd' Jordan tenor saxophone

Joel Futterman piano, soprano saxophone, indian flute

William Parker bass

Alvin Fielder drums

Joel Futterman - 'Kidd' Jordan Quintet: Nickelsdorf Konfrontation (SILKHEART RECORDS 2018)

"For lovers of this music, here is a disc with a definitive place reserved for it, a very lofty place." 

Gustave Cerutti, Improjazz, October 1996 

"(Futterman) can zip out those tone clusters, which have given him a reputation as a Taylorite, but there is much variation in density – sometimes on this CD the clusters metamorphose into quiet little sprinkles in the top octave of the piano. His ability to move from keys to strings and back again continues to impress. Co-leader Edward 'Kidd' Jordan's duet with Futterman on Soul Mates is an excellent sample of his art; he always counterbalances his harshest outpourings with heartfelt lyricism. Elsewhere the music fares best when Jordan is setting the tone, as in the balladic first half of Nickelsdorf Summit, Part Two. Even when the proceedings begin to babble in tongues à la late-period Coltrane, his line is readily discernable and always coherent. Alvin Fielder contributes mobile drumming in the tradition of Ed Blackwell; just check out what he does on the tom-toms, and savor the solo that opens his piece in honor of Vernell Fournier (another key member of the New Orleans drumming fraternity). 

Robert L. Campbell, Cadence, April 1997 

Nat Hentoff wrote the following in his liner notes for...  more

1. Hear with You 01:23

2. Soul Mates 09:03

3. Meeting Place 06:43

4. Nickelsdorf Summit: I. 07:55

5. Nickelsdorf Summit: II. 07:58

6. Nickelsdorf Summit: III. 03:17

7. Nickelsdorf Summit: IV. 06:48

8. Nickelsdorf Summit: V. 05:24

9. Nickelsdorf Summit: VI. 05:55

10. Nickelsdorf Summit: VII. 06:51

11. Fournier 05:18

12. Going with You 01:53

Joel Futterman piano, curved soprano saxophone, Indian flute

Edward 'Kidd' Jordan tenor saxophone

Mats Gustafsson tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone

Barry Guy acoustic bass

Alvin Fielder drums