Search - Various Artists :: Head Jazz

It shouldn't come as any surprise that a collection of tunes from the likes of Ornette Coleman, Yusef Lateef, Eddie Harris, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and others adds up to one hell of a little compilation album. But Head Jazz, the first compilation from former Atlantic Records producer Joel Dorn's new Label M, ends up as even more than the considerable sum of its many parts. Coproduced by Dorn and his son, Adam (a.k.a. Mocean Worker), Head Jazz delivers on its basic promise--that it's music for dark rooms and headphones--by virtue of the eclectic but always solid taste exhibited by Dorn the elder and the seamless mixing from Dorn the younger, a combination that makes the whole disc flow perfectly from one track to the next. Mostly featuring tracks from Atlantic Records sessions originally produced by Dorn back in the '60s and early '70s (many of which have been out of print for some time), Head Jazz segues from the trippy opening invocation of Harris's "Silver Cycles" through Les McCann's psychedelic-sounding "Let's Gather" to Kirk's Middle Eastern-tinged "Island Cry" to Coleman's classic "Ramblin'." Add in "Lorelei's Lament," a fine showcase for alto saxophonist Hank Crawford, and David "Fathead" Newman's take on the Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want," and you've got an album that may make you stand up and applaud once you take the headphones off. --Ezra Gale