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On May 1, 1970, trumpeter Charles Tolliver led his Music Inc. quintet into Slugs’ Saloon on the Lower East Side for what would become one of the most important live recordings in avant-garde jazz. Slugs’ was the kind of after-hours club where the real music happened — a cramped basement on East Third Street where musicians went to stretch out after their uptown gigs ended. Tolliver had been making waves in the late sixties alongside Freddie Hubbard and Jackie McLean, but by 1970 he was ready to lead his own revolutionary unit.
Music Inc. featured Stanley Cowell on piano, Cecil McBee on bass, and Jimmy Hopps on drums — four musicians committed to pushing jazz into uncharted territory. The Strata-East label, co-founded by Tolliver and Cowell, released this double album in 1972 as their flagship statement. This wasn’t just another live recording — it was documentation of a new movement, captured in the sweaty intimacy of New York’s most uncompromising jazz room.
THE RECORD
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Charles Tolliver & Music Inc.
Charles Tolliver (b. 1942) is a trumpeter, composer, and bandleader who came up through the hard bop ranks in the mid-1960s, recording sideman dates with Jackie McLean, Andrew Hill, and Gary Bartz before forming Music Inc. in 1969. His playing splits the difference between the melodic tradition of Clifford Brown and the structural ambition of the post-Coltrane avant-garde — bright, muscular, and always compositionally aware.
In 1971, Tolliver and pianist Stanley Cowell co-founded Strata-East Records, one of the most significant musician-owned labels in jazz history. The label’s catalog grew to include recordings by Gil Scott-Heron, Pharoah Sanders, and dozens of other artists who needed a platform outside the major-label system. Live At Slugs’ was the label’s first release and its mission statement — proof that musicians could document, distribute, and control their own work.
Tolliver has continued performing and recording into the 2020s, including large-ensemble projects and tributes to his Strata-East legacy. His trumpet sound remains unmistakable — warm at the center, sharp at the edges, always pushing forward. Explore more episodes.
SESSION DETAILS
Recorded
May 1, 1970
Venue
Slugs’ Saloon
East Third Street, New York City
Label
Strata-East Records
Released
1972
Personnel
Stanley Cowell — piano
Cecil McBee — bass
Jimmy Hopps — drums
Track Listing
A1. Drought
A2. Félicité
B1. Orientale
C1. Abscretions
D1. Our Second Father
D2. Household of Saud
WHY THIS ALBUM MATTERS
Live at Slugs' matters because it's a working document of the Black-owned independent jazz movement of the early 1970s. Strata-East Records, founded by Charles Tolliver and Stanley Cowell in 1971, was the artist-controlled response to the major-label fusion era; Music Inc was the band that proved the economics could work. Slugs' Saloon on Manhattan's East 3rd Street was the loft-scene equivalent of the Five Spot, and this two-night recording captures the ensemble at full intensity — Tolliver's trumpet pushing into the upper register, Cowell driving from the piano. The album is a key text for anyone studying jazz's economic history alongside its musical history, and the music itself stands on its own as some of the most propulsive small-group playing of the era.
Side 1
Side 2
Strata-East SES-1972 / SES-19720 · Original pressing
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