Explore Records
2007
The Shadow
About This Album
Joe Lee Wilson's The Shadow was recorded in New York for Japan's Cheetah Records label in 1988. It was the second offering form Wilson for the label, the first being Come and See in duet with guitarist Jimmy Ponder in 1981. According to the liner notes, the 1981 album went unreleased, and this one was only available in Japan for a short time. Thankfully, both albums have found their way onto the shelves in America thanks Explore Records excellent series of reissued jazz recordings on CD. As with Come and See, this set makes plain the startling fact that despite his great abilities as a stylist, and his deep knowledge of American popular musical forms from jazz and blues to soul to R&B, Wilson has been a secret even to hardcore jazz fans despite having recorded with Pharaoh Sanders, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Archie Shepp (on three records no less!), and Clifford Jordan, to name a few. The band assembled here is made up of (mostly) well kept secrets as well: there's guitarist Ponder, pianist Harry Whittaker, drummer Bruno Carr, percussionist Chuggy Carter and the well known bassist Leroy Vinnegar. The material contains two originals; one is the title track which opens the set; a swinging wellspring of jazz and blues phrasing, in an elegy to Martin Luther King.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5 and 6)

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