"In the ever-growing discography of master musician Joe McPhee, his solo albums have stood out as supreme ur-texts of his consummate improvising and compositional skills. Joining the ranks of such landmark records as Tenor, Graphics, and As Serious As Your Life, Everything Happens For A Reason is an unadorned showcase of this influential pioneer in the world of creative improvised music. Recorded live in Austria in November of 2003, Everything Happens For A Reason features McPhee on pocket trumpet, soprano and alto saxophones."
“…this is a magnificent recording and bountiful evidence of McPhee’s spirit-flame.” – Byron Coley & Thurston Moore, Arthur
“This Roaratorio disc is a thing of beauty…Multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee ensures that the sounds that emanate from the speakers are equal to the high quality packaging.” – David Dupont, Cadence
“A beautiful addition to the shelf” – David Keenan, The Wire
(****) 4 stars - Penguin Guide To Jazz Recordings, 8th edition
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Joe McPhee / saxophone, trumpet
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Tracklisting:
1. Mythos - 7:33
2. Vieux Carre - 9:11
3. Come Sunday - 7:28
4. Everything Happens For A Reason - 9:35
5. J2 - 5:43
6. Voices - 5:26
Available as a 320k MP3 or 16bit FLAC download
Since his emergence on the creative jazz and new music scene in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, Joe McPhee has been a deeply emotional composer, improviser, and multi-instrumentalist, as well as a thoughtful conceptualist and theoretician.
McPhee’s first recordings as leader appeared on the CjR label, founded in 1969 by painter Craig Johnson . These include Underground Railroad by the Joe McPhee Quartet in 1969, Nation Time by Joe McPhee in 1970, and Trinity by Joe McPhee, Harold E. Smith and Mike Kull in 1971.
By 1974, Swiss entrepreneur Werner X. Uehlinger had become aware of McPhee’s recordings and unreleased tapes. Uehlinger was so impressed that he decided to form the Hat Hut label as a vehicle to release McPhee’s work. The label’s first LP was Black Magic Man, which had been recorded by McPhee in 1970. Black Magic Man was followed by The Willisau Concert and the landmark solo recording Tenor, released by Hat Hut in 1976. The earliest recordings by McPhee are often informed by the revolutionary movements of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s; for example, Nation Time is a tribute to poet Amiri Baraka and Joe McPhee & Survival Unit II at WBAI’s Free Music Store, 1971 (finally released as a Hat Art CD in 1996) is a sometimes anguished post-Coltrane cry for freedom.
During the 1990’s, McPhee finally began to attract wider attention from the North American creative jazz community. He has since been performing and recording prodigiously as both leader and collaborator, appearing on such labels as CIMP, Okkadisk, Music & Arts, and Victo. In 1996, 20 years after Tenor, Hatology released As Serious As Your Life, another solo recording (this time featuring McPhee performing on various instruments). McPhee also began a fruitful relationship with Chicago reedman Ken Vandermark , engaging in a set of improvisational dialogues with Vandermark and bassist Kent Kessler on the 1998 Okkadisk CD A Meeting in Chicago. The Vandermark connection also led to McPhee’s appearance on the Peter BrotzmanChicagoOctet/Tentet three-CD box set released by Okkadisk that same year. As the 1990s drew to a close, McPhee discovered two like-minded improvisers in bassist Dominic Duval and drummer Jay Rosen- TRIO X.
"He is a stellar improviser, relishing his sound materials so caringly and for so long, the kind of player that invites you to really step outside of whatever mix you're and think and feel for a while." Hank Shteamer, Dark Forces Swing Blind Punches
