Search - Bennie Maupin :: The Jewel in the Lotus

The Jewel in the Lotus
Bennie Maupin
The Jewel in the Lotus
Genres: Jazz, Pop
 
  •  Track Listings (8) - Disc #1

Bennie Maupin was one of the first musicians to record for ECM, playing on a Marion Brown record in August 1970, when the label was just a few months old. Born in Detroit in 1940, Maupin was encouraged in his early musical...  more »

     
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CD Details

All Artists: Bennie Maupin
Title: The Jewel in the Lotus
Members Wishing: 5
Total Copies: 0
Label: ECM Records
Original Release Date: 1/1/1975
Re-Release Date: 11/6/2007
Genres: Jazz, Pop
Styles: Avant Garde & Free Jazz, Jazz Fusion, Modern Postbebop, Bebop
Number of Discs: 1
SwapaCD Credits: 1
UPCs: 602517235205, 0602517232501, 0602517235205, 602517232501, 060251723520

Synopsis

Album Description
Bennie Maupin was one of the first musicians to record for ECM, playing on a Marion Brown record in August 1970, when the label was just a few months old. Born in Detroit in 1940, Maupin was encouraged in his early musical development by Yusef Lateef, John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy. Jack DeJohnette introduced him to Miles Davis, and Bennie's bass clarinet was to become one of the signature sounds of the epochal Bitches Brew. The early 70s, however, were spent mostly working with Herbie Hancock's ensembles and The Jewel In The Lotus is essentially a pooling of players from the Hancock circle, including Herbie himself in his only ECM appearance. The Jewel In The Lotus was Bennie Maupin's first leader record. The album was recorded in March 1974, and could be described as a sequence of pulsing tone-poems, full of glowing, compound sound-colors and subtle interactions - a jazz-and-Buddhism-inspired floating chamber music that was way ahead of its time. The recording shows Maupin very much concerned with the totality of the musical conception, with the form as a whole. He is an exceptional improviser, thinking compositionally and directing group music in the moment.
 

CD Reviews

Avant-garde in 1974 and still avant-garde!
Dr. Debra Jan Bibel | Oakland, CA USA | 11/12/2007
(4 out of 5 stars)

"The early 1970s was an era of commercial and artistic exploration of spirit and consciousness, opened up by the mid 60s drug-influenced cultural revolution. Time and space became more fluid and indefinite; the meditative aspects of Asian, i.e., traditional Japanese and Hindustani, musics entered jazz, too. Miles Davis' In a Silent Way (1969) had helped lead the way, and Pharoah Sanders in 1980 would actually include koto and sitar in his Journey to the One. And, of course, there was the recent font of free jazz. The group Oregon, beginning in 1970, would mesh jazz and world music into high art. Nothing, however, could prepare the listener in 1974 for this recording from artists as Herbie Hancock, Buster Williams, and Billy Hart. Structures and silences, form and emptiness, pulses and flows: it is like sensing something in peripheral vision but when turning to focus, the impression disappears. Always interesting, often surprising, sometimes frustrating, the CD is out-there and yet in-here. In fact, it reminds me of Japanese court music, gagaku. Such experimentation would pass and the coherent features would enter the realm of classical and world music and persist in the sound of ECM jazz. In short, this recording is more for historical, intellectual, and spiritual study than for simple pleasure, which is why, I suppose, it remains timeless, pointing toward a deeper significance, as the Buddhist jewel in the lotus."
Jazzman
James K. Stewart | Louisville, Ky USA | 10/04/2007
(5 out of 5 stars)

"I have waited longer than I can remember for this ECM masterpiece from

the early 70's to be issued on cd, and now I can thank Manfred Eicher at

ECM for finally making it available. Like Julian Priester's "Love, Love",

also recently released on cd from ECM, it's a brilliant work of art for

open minds. Gorgeous, deep meditations from the reedman from Herbie

Hancock's Mwandishi and Headhunter bands along with Miles Davis' "Bitches

Brew". "Jewel in the Lotus" has been on so many request lists for cd

issue for so many years, it will make many happy this has at long last

finally happened. The sound and clarity on the new cd is breathtakingly

beautiful. Herbie Hancock, Buster Williams, and Billy Hart from the

brilliant Mwandishi band are all here, along with Charles Sullivan on

trumpet, Bill Summers on percussion, and Frederick Watts on drums and

marimba. It's an unforgettable, mind-bending collage of gorgeous sounds

and images. An ECM classic from 1974 that sounds better than ever. I will

be framing on the wall my vinyl cover of this that I still have and love

to look at. Thank you Manfred for hearing our pleas to finally get this

out on cd. Several months ago, I contacted Bennie about my admiration

for "Jewel" and why this masterpiece hasn't yet appeared on cd. He warmly

responded that he was in talks with ECM about getting it out and optimis-

tic it could happen soon with support from many fans of this recording

who have written ECM about it. And now it has happened! My cd player

has never sounded so good. A billion stars for "Jewel in the Lotus".

"
A Peaceful Song
Eric Kennedy | East coast | 02/28/2008
(5 out of 5 stars)

"Beautiful meditative music. This expressive tone poem is a delight to hear. If you're looking for bebop or the fusion/jazz/rock, this is not your record. If you like the music that brings a sense of relaxation to your home and heart, this is it."