| Emergency! | ||||
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| Studio album by The Tony Williams Lifetime | ||||
| Released | 1969 October 28, 1997 (reissue) |
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| Genre | Jazz Psychedelic rock Fusion |
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| Length | 70:24 | |||
| Label | Polydor/PolyGram Records 849 068 Verve/PolyGram Records 539 117 (1997 reissue) |
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| The Tony Williams Lifetime chronology | ||||
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| Allmusic | [1] |
Emergency! is a double album by The Tony Williams Lifetime. Released in 1969, it was the group's first album and one of the first significant jazz fusion recordings.[2] It has commonly been regarded as a pioneering, influential, and original album in the jazz, rock, and fusion genres.[3] It was issued on CD first by Polydor featuring a drastically altered digital remix and then later in remastered form featuring the original vinyl mix by Verve. A later CD edition (also using the original vinyl mix) was issued in the UK by Esoteric Records.
In the album, the band experiments with a wide range of genres, including funk, psychedelic rock, hard bop, blues and free jazz. Williams can also be heard singing on the record, on the songs "Beyond Games," "Where," "Via the Spectrum Road," and "Sangria for Three." It was during John McLaughlin's tenure with the band that Williams introduced the young guitarist to Miles Davis, who was conducting his own fusion explorations at the time. This introduction led to McLaughlin playing on some of Davis's most acclaimed and influential albums, including In a Silent Way, Bitches Brew, A Tribute to Jack Johnson, and On the Corner. Davis had a particular influence on the band, as Williams had played in his "Second Great Quintet" with Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, and Herbie Hancock, and Larry Young would go on to record on Bitches Brew.
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