Free Jazz Music

Much like his album "3-D Lifestyles", which sought to breach the gap between hi-hop and jazz, this record seeks to do so with spoken word and jazz. An assortment of poets recite alongside Osby's stylings with varying degrees of interest and effect. it's a project that would likely be wholly embraced now, what, with the surge in popularity in poetry nowadays, but at the time went under the radar because it had no general audience. It's a wild record, careening over various styles and rhythms in true Osby fashion, but maintaining a sensible edge.

If you like poetry recordings, you'll dig it, though you may not play it much; thanks to Osby, it's a thinking person's poetry record, even if the poetry doesn't always reach the levels that the music does. Get it used.

This is another marvelous reissue from the America label which specialized in the late '60s in recording American expats living in Paris.
They recorded Braxton, the Art Ensemble, Paul Bley and others. This particular Archie Shepp date has a great odd lineup of musicians.
Shepp himself sticks to soprano sax thourghout, Noah Howard plays alto sax, Clifford Thornton plays trumpet, Leroy Jenkins plays viola, Julio Finn plays harmonica, Dave Burrell plays the piano, Earl Freeman is on bass, Chicago Beauchamp sings and chants, and the great Sunny Murray is on drums.
I am not going to say too much about the music since you can listen to samples. I will offer only the following observations. This is not one of those Shepp CDs that offer a lot of Burrell. He is essential to the session but as a very rhythmic compist. Murray, Burrell and Freeman provide an enormously strong pulse throughout. This is music to dance and march to. It is strongly melodic with the wilder and freer moments coming from Shepp, Howard and Thornton. Finn's harmonica and Beauchamp's chants and shouted encouragements add a real Chicago blues feel to the music. As for Jenkins, listen to the way he starts off Black Gipsy. It is hard to imagine the way strings have been used in jazz for the last almost fourty years without the contributions that Jenkins made at this period of the music's history.
It is odd not to hear any of Shepp's tenor but he sounds great on the straight horn. Mostly, he is to be praised for conceiving the possibility of music like this and for making it a collective vehicle instead of a solo expression of his greatness. I like Shepp quite a bit and regard this CD as one of his great works from the '60s. Give it a listen and let me know what you think.

With nearly 165 minutes of music, the 2-CD set captures the incredible performance art of Sun Ra and the improvisational splendor of the Arkestra to make every concert a sonic experience, with a personal message.

Released in December 1998, the first CD - Black Myth - is paced by Black Forest Myth and We'll Wait For You. Out In Space finds Sun Ra stretching themes within an avant-garde soundscape, as Myth Versus Reality and Theme of the Stargazers are pathways to Space Chants Medley and We Travel the Spaceways.

The quenching of thirst through knowledge gained for the mind, body and soul are brought forth by the musical majesty of Sun Ra.

Sun Ra and his various Arkestras have a well-earned reputation for being ahead of thier time. Never more so than on this set which captures them live in two complete concerts in the early 1970s. The first piece on the second CD, "Out In Space," sums up the various moods of Ra's music of the period. It begins with a spacey drone; June Tyson then enters chanting Ra's poem followed an earth-shattering blare from the entire Arkestra that will either set your hair on end or send chills up your spine, depending on how you feel about this sort of "free" playing. Solos by all of the Ra stalwarts are played that explore most the tonal possilitites of their various instruments. The CD's notes are particularly helpful here, listing each soloist in his/her order of appearance. This music is not for everyone. But die-hard Ra fans, or music fans who like envelope bending should not pass this one up!

Mephista is a percussion trio of unusual composition: Susie Ibarra's incredibly nuanced drumming, Ikue Mori's alien drum machines, and Sylvie Courvoisier's modernist-tinged piano playing (about evenly split inside and outside the instrument). All three of them are brilliant composers and improvisers, and the music they create on _Black Narcissus_ is masterful, original, and eerily powerful free-improvisation.

The heart of the group is its glorious improvisational tension, almost always perched tenuously at the edge. It's like a brewing storm, but not always threatening or scary -- it's just as often meditative, pretty, or sorta wacky. Tonality is virtually disregarded, but the trio still sometimes gravitates towards some harmonic centers, where it rumbles for a while, then moves along. There are some moments where it does erupt with freaky, dense atonal clatter, and these moments are spontaneously beautiful and amazing, feats of aural and technical qualities that will leave you lightheaded from the wonder of it all.

Musicianship and performance of the highest order -- highly recommended.