Gary Bartz has played with everyone: from Charles Mingus and Art Blakey to Miles Davis. But it’s as himself that he’s made the deepest mark. Over six decades, he’s moved freely through hard bop, free jazz, jazz-funk and spiritual improvisation, never confined by style or category. He feels just as at home on Live-Evil as he does on Jazz Is Dead.
His 1970s project Ntu Troop broke new ground, fusing Afrocentrism, jazz and radical politics. The albums he made with the Mizell Brothers became crate-digging gold, sampled by everyone from A Tribe Called Quest and Jurassic 5 to Photek. There’s something in Bartz’s sound that refuses to age. A musical backbone. A kind of shining honesty.
Now, he returns with his first solo record in over a decade, produced by Grammy winner Om’Mas Keith (Frank Ocean, John Legend). And live, he’s as present and urgent as ever. He talks, plays, even preaches, but never stops listening. Bartz isn’t a legend because he was there. He’s a legend because he still is here.
LINEUP
Gary Bartz – alto & soprano saxophone, voice
Marc Cary – piano
Paul Bollenback – guitar
Gerald Cannon – bass
Kassa Overall – drums
