Heads of State: Search for Peace | Album Review

The personnel on Search for Peace will be sufficient inducement for most interested parties: saxophonist Gary Bartz, pianist Larry Willis, bassist Buster Williams and drummer Al Foster are American jazz royalty, some of the last men standing of a powerful and influential generation.

This was the generation most touched by John Coltrane and his music, and this all-star group was originally organised by Willis as a one-off live project to pay tribute to Coltrane’s pianist McCoy Tyner.

Their debut release opens with what, from any other group, would be an unforgivably obvious choice – Coltrane's iconic Impressions – but there is such sincere homage and sense of history in the Heads' version that one is inclined to forgive the indiscretion.

Four masters discussing a life in music.

[ smokesessionsrecords.com ]