By Carlo Wolff | Published June 2025
The first vinyl releases from the recently rejuvenated Strata-East Records remind us how persuasive and powerful jazz from the 1970s could be. The greatest challenge in revisiting these memorable discs is ranking them, but it’s a welcome task.
Founded in 1970 by trumpeter Charles Tolliver and pianist Stanley Cowell, New York-based Strata-East was dedicated to inspiring both the artists it released and an audience eager for jazz of a spiritual bent. This winter, Mack Avenue Music Group entered into an alliance with Strata-East. The first fruit of that pact is the release of four albums. The presentation and packaging are as heavy duty as the audiophile LPs themselves: This music is built to last. (Strata-East: The Legacy Begins, a sampler of the label, is digital only.)
How sturdy and daring Strata-East music is becomes clear from the start of Stanley Cowell’s remarkable 1974 solo album Musa: Ancestral Streams. A recording to get lost in, Musa spans the rubato boogie-woogie of “Abscretions” (not a musical oxymoron for Cowell), the restful and majestic “Maimoun” and “Departure No. 1,” an insanely fast work. Cowell enjoys puzzling out stunning lines so fast and furious there’s no time to dwell on them. A virtuoso at the level of Phineas Newborn or Oscar Peterson, Cowell channels the history of jazz when he plays.
