1969 · Album
Another Earth
Recorded 1968 · Milestone · Album Position: Second album by Gary Bartz
Five Players, One Vision in 1968
Adventurous music that is quite colorful and always holds one's interest.
In 1968, Gary Bartz assembled a formidable group in the studio: Pharoah Sanders on tenor saxophone, Charles Tolliver on trumpet, Stanley Cowell at the piano, Reggie Workman on bass, and Freddie Waits behind the drums. The session captured a band working at full tilt—not the avant-garde free fall that some might expect from the era, but rather a tightly composed music that leaves room for genuine conversation between the horns. Bartz's alto cuts through the center with clarity; Sanders brings his characteristic intensity to the tenor parts; Tolliver's trumpet adds snap and definition. This was Bartz's second album for Milestone, and it arrives as a natural step forward from his earlier work—still exploratory, still rooted in bebop and hard bop fundamentals, but more confident in its arrangements and the interplay between voices.
AllMusic reviewer Scott Yanow caught something essential about the record: this adventurous music is quite colorful and always holds one's interest. There's nothing self-conscious or strained here. The musicians play with the ease of people who have spent time in serious working bands, and Cowell's piano work—sharp, modern, never ornamental—keeps everything grounded. Workman and Waits provide a rhythm section that swings hard without calling attention to itself, which is exactly what allows the horns to do their work.
Another Earth sits at a particular moment in Bartz's career: he'd already proven himself capable, and this record deepens that case without breaking new ground. For listeners who come to him later through his more celebrated work, this is a valuable entry point—far more accessible than the freer experiments that would follow, but with enough edge to show why he mattered.
Who's playing
Reggie Workmanbass
Stanley Cowellpiano
Gary Bartzalto saxophone
Pharoah Sanderstenor saxophone
Charles Tollivertrumpet
Freddie Waitsdrums
Where next?
More by Gary Bartz
All 29 albums →
The musicians on this record
Their own records, close in time
