Phil Ranelin

[Late]

Ever wonder what Bitches Brew might have sounded like with Curtis Fuller (or Grachan Moncur) aboard? What In A Silent Way might have sounded like with Eric Dolphy aboard? Or both sessions with a heavier sense of swing (and one track featuring a "gut-bucket" blues)? This is an approximation of what Phil Ranelin's The Time is Now! is like. Ranelin is surely his own man on trombone — not really like Fuller or Moncur, but somewhere between these two planes. As far as the Dolphy reference, the alto player Haroum El Nil (only on one track) makes for an interesting collision of styles. The personel, usually a septet, looks like this:

Phil Ranelin: trombone

Wendell Harrison: tenor saxophone (a fine Coltrane/Ayler influenced player)

Marcus Belgrave: flugelhorn

Keith Vreeland: electric piano

John Dana: bass

Bili Turner: drums

George Davidson: drums

with guests:

Haroum El Nil: alto saxophone

Charles Moore: trumpet

Reginald Fields: electric bass

This album, reissued by Hefty Records, was originally on Tribe, and is a legitimate release (unlike other Tribe reissues), with new notes by Ranelin himself. Additionally, the remastering uses HDCD encoding, and sounds great. One to check out!

I'm sure others here have heard this album. Impressions?

[jazzbo]

This is an interesting album. . . I haven't heard it enough to really give to great an impression. I was most reminded of Sun Ra actually, and I like it, and this is a good reminder to pull it out and spin it again soon!

I'm always reminded of how good a player Belgrave is whenever i hear him. . . .

[sheldonm]

Late,

This is a great recording. Phil's a very cool guy, I've met him a few times and have photographed him on several occasions. I would certainly recommend all of his recordings, very underrated in my opinion.

Mark

[Late]

Just listened to this again today, as well as to Vibes from the Tribe, which, for some reason, doesn't strike me as half as good as The Time is Now!.

Marcus Belgrave can really rip it up when he wants too. Has his album on Tribe ever been reissued on compact disc?

[ghost of miles]

A new anthology, highly recommended for any Ranelin fans out there:

Phil Ranelin: Collected Works 2003-2019

[felser]

Looking forward to picking up that one in my next importcds batch!

[mjazzg]

Listening to 'Collected Works'. Excellent and a good introduction to someone I seem to have ignored, my loss there until now.

[Rooster_Ties]

9 hours ago, mjazzg said:

Listening to 'Collected Works'. Excellent and a good introduction to someone I seem to have ignored, my loss there until now.

I have all but one of Ranelin's post-1995 leader-dates on CD (~5 discs, iirc), and they're all uniformly outstanding.