Kidd Jordan Quartet plus at Vision 2008

There seems to be an interest in Kidd Jordan, so to accommodate that interest, we bring a set from this year's Vision Festival in New York. Jordan was honoured with an whole evening and played four out of five seats, in sweltering heat to judge from reports from the scene.

Jordan, a long-time New Orleans resident, was one of the many having to relocate due to the massive floods in the wake of Katrina and his property in the Upper Ninth Ward was completely devastated. He is now a Baton Rouge resident. Instead of moving to the jazz capitals of the US, he remained in New Orleans and worked for many years as a jazz instructor at the Southern University in New Orleans, from which he retired in 2006. He was awarded the French Chevalier order by the Ministry of Culture in 1985 for his teaching and his performances.

The set we have here was the penultimate one of the evening and has Jordan on tenor, Fred Anderson on tenor and the ubiquitous William Parker on bass and Hamid Drake on drums. Anderson is in the left channel and Jordan in the right. At about the 15-minute mark they are joined by Billy Bang on violin and Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre on tenor. The three tenors at Vision!

There is only one piece, clocking in over 40 minutes. It starts off with Anderson and Jordan trading licks among each other, Anderson with longer, fluid lines in mid- and lower registers and Jordan with shorter, sharper, more staccato phrases in the upper registers, often reaching into atonal shrieks. McIntyre appears roughly in the middle of the mix and the second half has them all shooting off at each other, switching from free improvisation to nods in the direction of blues and traditional jazz idioms. Underneath is Parker and Drake, laying down a solid groove which sets them feet a-tapping, no matter what.

This was recorded on 14 June 2008 and later transmitted by BBC's Jazz on Three programme. This is only an except of the whole programme and I've left out an interview, which I can always add, if desirable. Thanks to Tom Phillips for recording the programme and to the BBC crew for recording and airing the performance. We'll have some more Kidd Jordan here in a little while.