Marion Brown - Capricorn Moon to Juba Lee Revisited

2019 reissue

Two separately released LPs on one disc.

Tracks one and two were first issued as Marion Brown Quartet (ESP, 1966). Tracks three and four were first released as Juba-Lee (Fontana, 1967). Both LPs were recorded in New York, the first in 1965, the second in 1966. On all tracks, Brown shares the frontline and the composing with Alan Shorter, the elder brother of Wayne Shorter.

Brown was an important figure in twentieth-century jazz. In 1965 he was featured on Archie Shepp's Fire Music and John Coltrane's game changing Ascension (both Impulse). Shorter is less widely remembered than he deserves to be. He is probably best known for appearing on Shepp's Impulse debut, Four For Trane, in 1964. Between them, during the heady mid 1960s, Brown and Shorter, both of them ferocious players and striking composers, made a mark on some important milestones in 20th century jazz. And though history has accorded the Coltrane and Shepp albums the bigger profiles, Marion Brown Quartet and Juba- Lee are top-drawer artefacts whose beauty is undimmed by the passage of time.