''Coon Bid'ness'' is an album released by

Julius Hemphill Julius Arthur Hemphill (January 24, 1938 – April 2, 1995) was a jazz composer and saxophone player. He performed mainly on alto saxophone, less often on soprano and tenor saxophones and flute. Biography Hemphill was born in Fort Worth, Texas, ...

in 1975 on Arista featuring performances by Hemphill,

Baikida Carroll Baikida Carroll (born January 15, 1947) is an American jazz trumpeter. Carroll studied at Southern Illinois University and at the Armed Forces School of Music. Following this he became a member of the Black Artists Group in St. Louis, where he dir ...

, Abdul Wadud,

Phillip Wilson Phillip Sanford Wilson (September 8, 1941 – March 25, 1992) was an American blues and jazz drummer, a founding member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, and a member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Biography Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Un ...

Arthur Blythe Arthur Murray Blythe (July 5, 1940 – March 27, 2017) was an American jazz alto saxophonist and composer. He was described by critic Chris Kelsey as displaying "one of the most easily recognizable alto sax sounds in jazz, big and round, with a ...

Barry Altschul Barry Altschul (born January 6, 1943, in New York City) is a free jazz and hard bop drummer who first came to notice in the late 1960s for performing with pianists Paul Bley and Chick Corea. Biography Altschul is of Russian Jewish heritage, ...

and Daniel Zebulon. The final track, "The Hard Blues," was recorded at the same recording session as Hemphill's debut album '' Dogon A.D.''. After Hemphill's death in 1995, Freedom Records re-released the album as a CD under the name ''Reflections.'' Regarding the album title, Hemphill recalled: "This was '75, and the title is a reference to minstrel shows. That's a reference to music and an era in which blacks had flowered a little bit. They used to call them coon shows, and stuff. And so I was just getting in some bicentennial licks." In 2011, writer

Greg Tate Gregory Stephen Tate (October 14, 1957December 7, 2021) was an American writer, musician, and producer. A long-time critic for ''The Village Voice'', Tate focused particularly on African-American music and culture, helping to establish hip-h ...

and musician LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs launched a print on demand magazine titled ''Coon Bidness'', named after the Hemphill album.

Reception

The editors of

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

awarded the album 4½ stars, and reviewer

Scott Yanow Scott Yanow (born 1954) is an American jazz reviewer, historian, and author. Life and career Yanow was born in New York City and grew up near Los Angeles. Beginning in 1974, Yanow was a regular reviewer of many jazz styles and was the jazz e ...

wrote: "The music throughout is quite avant-garde but differs from the high-energy jams of the 1960s due to its emphasis on building improvisations as a logical outgrowth from advanced compositions. It's well worth several listens.".Yanow, S.
Allmusic Review
accessed July 12, 2011 Writer Richard Williams stated that, on "The Hard Blues," "Hemphill seemed to have fused the harsh, elemental sound of John Lee Hooker, the warmth and colour of an Ellington small group and the collective exuberance of a Mingus ensemble into something that pointed a way to the future." Critic

Gary Giddins Gary Giddins (born 1948) is an American jazz critic and author. He wrote for ''The Village Voice'' from 1973; his "Weather Bird" column ended in 2003. In 1986, Gary Giddins and John Lewis created the American Jazz Orchestra which presented conc ...

also praised "The Hard Blues," commenting: "How startlingly fresh that music remains: the sinuous, sensuous, riveting directness of his blues is at once fiercely elemental and engagingly modern." Musician

Henry Kuntz Henry Kuntz is a free jazz saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. In 1979 he founded Hummingbird Records and Tapes, which released, among other things, live recordings of his free jazz trio, Trio Opeye. Cadence Magazine described his multitrack ...

noted that the first four tracks (Side A of the LP) function "as a single composition," and suggested that "Hemphill... likes to work with several layers of sound, to slowly take them apart – to the point of near dissolution – then to put them back together again (though not necessarily the same as they were before)." He remarked: "In the U.S., it seems, the Seventies have been more a period of consolidation rather than of innovation (as if the advances of the last decade had to be justified before being built upon)... Hemphill's album offers music of this sort, and it's recommended."

Track listing

All tracks by Julius Hemphill # "Reflections" – 2:30 # "Lyric" – 7:24 # "Skin, No. 1" – 10:07 # "Skin, No. 2" – 2:28 # "The Hard Blues" – 20:07

Personnel

Tracks 1-4: * Julius Hemphill – alto saxophone, flute *

– alto saxophone *

Hamiet Bluiett Hamiet Bluiett (; September 16, 1940 – October 4, 2018) was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer. His primary instrument was the baritone saxophone, and he was considered one of the finest players of this instrument. A membe ...

- baritone saxophone * Abdul Wadud – cello *

– drums * Daniel Zebulon – congas Track 5: * Julius Hemphill – alto saxophone, flute *

– trumpet * Hamiet Bluiett - baritone saxophone * Abdul Wadud – cello *

- drums

References

{{Authority control 1975 albums Julius Hemphill albums Albums produced by Michael Cuscuna Freedom Records albums Arista Records albums