The Jewel In The Lotus (Remastered) Bennie Maupin

• 1 Ensenada 08:15
• 2 Mappo 08:30
• 3 Excursion 04:52
• 4 Past + Present = Future 01:52
• 5 The Jewel In The Lotus 10:02
• 6 Winds Of Change 01:30
• 7 Song For Tracie Dixon Summers 05:19
• 8 Past Is Past 03:57
• Total Runtime 44:17

Info for The Jewel In The Lotus (Remastered)

The Jewel in the Lotus is the debut album by jazz woodwind player Bennie Maupin, recorded in March 1974 and released on ECM later that year. The sextet's rhythm section consists of pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Buster Williams and percussionists Billy Hart, Freddie Waits and Bill Summers, with guest appearances from trumpeter Charles Sullivan.

"Bennie Maupin helped to mix the album with Manfred Eicher and Jan Erik Kongshaug at the Bendiksen studio in Oslo, so the input of his creative vision was there from first to last. What an achievement it continues to be. And what a golden age of adventurous jazz it was. Let’s hope Luminessence gets around to Julian Priester’s ‘Pepo Mtoto’ from 1973, too. That’s another contemporary-sounding blast from the past, and as Afro-Futurist as Maupin was ambient." (ukjazznews.com)

"The true worth of Jewel in the Lotus is that perhaps no other bandleader at the time could bring together players from such different backgrounds and relationships to his own musical development and make them interact with one another with material that is scored so closely and whose dynamics and tensions are so pronounced and steady. Maupin was so utterly accomplished as a composer as well as a soloist by this time it comes as a shock that he hadn't been making records regularly -- and even more so that he has only recorded very sporadically as a leader since (only a handful of recordings bear his name on top but they are all as fine as they are different from one another). Jewel in the Lotus is a true jazz classic because only jazz was big enough in the early '70s to hold music like this, with all its seeming paradoxes, and recognize it as its own. This album sounds as timeless and adventurous in the present as the day it was released. Amen." (Thom Jurek, AMG)

"The rich soundscapes of Bitches Brew and early Weather Report are strong references, with Maupin far more of an enabler and a colourist than a flat-out soloist. But his rich tapestries are more acoustic than most early 1970s fusion... and this is an absorbing collage of long flute sounds over marimba vamps and loosely impressionistic percussion, water-churning noises and electric keys washing around brooding bass clarinet lines, airy soprano melodies over Buster Williams' bowed bass." (John Fordham, The Guardian, UK)

Bennie Maupin, saxophones, flute, bass clarinet, voice, glockenspiel
Herbie Hancock, acoustic and electric pianos
Buster Williams, bass
Billy Hart, drums (right channel)
Freddie Waits, drums, marimba (left channel)
Bill Summers, percussion
Charles Sullivan, trumpet on "Mappo" and "Excursion"

Digitally remastered

Bennie Maupin
was born in 1940 in Detroit, Michigan. He has since become an internationally recognized master of many different wind instruments. He got his musical start by playing clarinet, flute, and tenor sax. He eventually gravitated towards the flute and bass clarinet. He has led a long and glittering career, both in NYC and on the West Coast. His personal style has ranged far, from the avant-garde, to funk, to straight ahead and third stream. He gained early notoriety as a member of Herbie Hancock’s Mwandishi Sextet, and would go on to collaborate with Herbie on a number of projects over his career. He has released numerous albums as a leader, including ‘Jewel in the Lotus’, and ‘Slow Traffic To the Left’. He has collaborated with the likes of Miles Davis, Jack Dejohnette, Mike Clark, Lee Morgan, Andrew Hill, McCoy Tyner and Lenny White.

This album contains no booklet.