Various Artists

Spiritual Jazz 3: Europe

Various Artists - Spiritual Jazz 3: Europe

At the end of the ‘50s, Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue heralded the revelatory arrival of modal jazz. As the vibrations of these giant steps resonated across the world, European jazz musicians reassessed their bearings and began to steer a new course. Across the continent they sent roots down into the rich soil of the European folk and Christian liturgical traditions, extended their music along ancient routes of communication and trade to the Middle East, and reached across the crumbling ramparts of the European empires to the music of Asia Africa and Latin America.

The music collected here follows the richly tangled threads of meditative, modal and religious European jazz. Picking up where Spiritual Jazz 2: Europe left off, with volume 3 continuing our excavation of private releases, underrepresented artists and visionary one-offs that stud the European jazz landscape like standing stones. Just as it had waxed, so the cult of American jazz waned, and these recordings are the compelling documents of a musical world in imaginative transition and virtuoso transformation – a second trail of determined footprints on the pathways of European jazz.

Soul
2LP Jazzman: Jmanlp050