Charles Tolliver & Stanley Cowell – Music Inc.

An album like Music Inc., widely regarded as a jazz classic, needs to arrive with a few genuine firsts to its name. It is the debut release by the loosely affiliated musicians’ collective of the same name, centred around trumpeter Charles Tolliver and pianist Stanley Cowell. It is also the very first release on Strata-East Records – the now-legendary label founded by the two musicians, which granted the artists on its roster an exceptional degree of creative freedom.

When Music Inc. appeared in 1971, the free jazz revolution was slowly approaching its final phase. For over a decade, musical boundaries had been tested and overstepped, until even transgression itself began to lose its friction. Tolliver and Cowell chose a different route, joined by bassist Cecil McBee and drummer Jimmy Hopps. Together, they explored how post-bop and spiritual jazz could be combined with a 13-piece big band, featuring prominent players such as Jimmy Heath, Clifford Jordan and Curtis Fuller.

The two musical units engage one another in a form of amicable rivalry rather than competition, never crowding each other out. In a kind of call-and-response, the musicians remain in constant – at times heated – exchange. This opens up space for freer passages that nonetheless always remain anchored within a clear tonal framework.