NRG Ensemble

Multi-instrumentalist and bandleader Hal Russell was a key figure in the free jazz movement from its beginnings in the late '50s through the '80s. Russell is most closely associated with the Chicago free jazz scene and, from the late '70s on, he headed a quintet and a trio in what he called NRG Ensembles. The incompetence of the group's original saxophonist led Russell to take up saxophone himself (at the age of 50), and he became an enthusiastic performer on tenor and soprano. (Russell also played drums , trumpet, piano, and vibraphone.) In 1991, ECM Records recognized what h...