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Congo Call, such a killer. With Sonny Simmons.
‘I was a music teacher. I wasn’t trying to make a record to compete, I was trying to make a record so the students would have something to remember the experience that we had… I was doing it for the kids.’
The reissue of a private pressing in 1973 by Prof James Benson and his students at Cal Poly, California, inspired by their recent trip to Africa, blending in the radical jazz idioms of early-seventies black America.
Insurgent music; full of life. Jazzman strikes again.
As originally, in a heavyweight tip-on sleeve.
The saxophonist of the Blue Notes and the Brotherhood Of Breath, with pianist Misha Mengelberg, and Han Bennink on drums, trombone, clarinet and viola.
Originally released on ICP in 1979; an absolute classic of improvised music.
Cut in Ohio in 1973 after Idris and Margot Ackamoor, Kimathi Asante, and Donald Robinson returned from a trip to Africa — ‘an urgent, beautiful and massive two track suite of propulsive afrodelic cosmic earth groove’.
Fully remastered editions of their three LPs Lalibela, King of Kings, and Birth/Speed/Merging, in their original artwork; plus the first ever vinyl issue of their live session for KQED TV in 1975. The accompanying 12-page full-size booklet features extended interviews with The Pyramids alongside previously unseen photos from the archive of Idris Ackamoor.
‘Jazz musicians in the US had long been consciously engaging with African sources, concepts, and instruments, and by the early 1970s, Africa was a central reference point for the music, both sonically and philosophically but, by 1973, relatively few prominent jazz musicians had spent any significant time in Africa. The Pyramids were almost alone among their musical generation in journeying to Africa to expressly absorb the sounds, cultures, places and spaces of the continent. During 1972-3, they embarked on an African trip of several months — made possible through the work-study program at Antioch College, where they had been taught by Cecil Taylor — to Morocco, Senegal, Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia and Egypt. The experience was both musically and personally transformative and remained a crucial touchstone for their own work.
‘Their music is unique among the varied canon of avant-garde and experimental music of 1970s America: high intensity African-styled percussion topped with songs, chants, and horns, laced with African instruments and arranged into long, flowing suites that surge and roll.’
Their last record, from 1975 — ‘a psychedelic afrojazz stunner… celebratory, carnivalesque and wholly in the groove. Features the burning classic Black Man And Woman Of The Nile.’
‘Naqvi’s electronics, Smith’s trumpet and Cyrille’s percussion acquiesce with finesse in a perfect simpatico balance of accommodating and complimentary interplay. The trio balance bursts of energy with delicate stillness to create a feeling of meditation. Nuanced, textural, subtle yet devastatingly affective as well as sensitive and contemplative where appropriate, they also deliver bursts of incredible energy and impact; navigating a path between expressions of dismay and meditative healing resolutions – both a protest and paean for harmony.’
‘Killer!’, says Gilles Peterson.
‘Exquisitely constructed… They are not landscapes to be admired at a distance, but inscapes to be explored with attentive care’ (The Wire).
‘Solace for the soul’ (All That Jazz).
Late-sixties… with Marshall Allen on Jupiterian flute and Danny Thompson on Neptunian libflecto. ‘Great slow blues, creepy space voice, very cool space-exotica, crazed circus fanfare and a cacophonous romp.’
Two studio albums from 1973, though Friendly Love was never released at the time — and Pathways now comes with an unissued track.
From 1979, and including UFO — rumbustious disco, Arkestra-style, featuring Marshall Allen on oboe, with solos from John Gilmore, Taylor Richardson and Michael Ray (who also mixed the album, layering in pre-recorded material).
Seductive Fantasy lines up John Gilmore, James Jacson’s bassoon, some fine baritone saxophone and some electric guitar and bass, Marshall Allen’s oboe and Eloe Omoe’s bass clarinet, with great piano-playing from Ra throughout, and towards the end some arco strings.
From the same 1979 recording sessions as Strange Celestial Road, this is one of Sun Ra’s best-loved, funkiest records, with John Gilmore in full flight, and a bigger Arkestra than had just played the Moers festival.
Live at Teatro la Fenice, Venice, November 1977. From the same tour that produced Disco 3000 but this is a different cup of tea. Thoughtful solo piano. Limited edition.
The LP is in the ‘Verve By Request’ series.
Ace, late-seventies set, warmly buoyant and inimitably baggy, including Space Is The Place.
Six reeds (including John Gilmore and Marshall Allen), three trumpets (including Michael Ray and Eddie Gale), two trombones (with a young Robin Eubanks), the French horn of Vincent Chancey, guitarist Dale Williams, three bassists, four percussionists, singer June Tyson and of course Ra on keyboards.
Those Christmas records just keep on coming.
This one’s a Jihad, originally, featuring Leroi Jones on a mission.