JuJu - 'A Message From Mozambique' (Black Fire)

And that message is, loud and clear, 'we are teeming with life and energy'. Except JuJu aren't from Mozambique, they're from Richmond, VA and some form of this band still exists today, still based around saxophonist Plunky Nkabinde. 1972 was a great era for merging free jazz and African nationalism, or perhaps I should say continentalism; the iconography is made clearly visible on the cover and clearly audible throughout the heavily percussive LP of searing jazzjams under review here. If one didn't know better, this photo could pass as the bizarro Art Ensemble of Chicago (from around this same era), but the music is much more built around flow than space, showing that facepaint alone does not indicate sound. Compositionally, A Message From Mozambique is spread across the whole band, and the six cuts here have distinct personalities. Nkabinde's '(Struggle) Home' opens up with 16 minutes of rapid, toe-tapping melodic jamming, creating the sound that I remember the most about this record. It's driving, with two percussionists and fast, thunderous piano runs from Al-Hammel Rasul and much soloing from Nkabinde; free, yes, but the dissonance fits within a widely defined space and the overall motion is harmonic and energy-producing. Rasul's beautiful 'Soledad Brothers' would seem to pull things down a notch, except this open piano framework allows vibes and smaller percussive elements to run amuck between the chords. It's rising and falling cadences are beautiful and propelling, wrapping up the nervous energy into the centre of the soundstage and harnessing the group power in a quieter, more focused form. It's my favourite cut on the record and a tragedy that it's only five minutes long. A more 'traditional' group jam comes with the wonderfully titled 'Make Your Own Revolution Now', which feels most at home against the ESP/skronk scene of the preceding few years. The drums and piano tend to dominate here, but when Nkabinde and flautist Lon Moshe come in, they make their presence felt through fast, dynamic exaltations. The remainder of side two pulls away from western jazz entirely, being drum/percussion workouts that are sometimes deceptively minimal-seeming ('Freedom Fighter') or more explicitly exploring the influences of indigenous music (the traditional 'Nairobi/Chants' which does involve some spirited vocalisations). JuJu's success is in synthesising these genres in such a palatable way - certainly we've heard it before in ways more impressionistic (the aforementioned Art Ensemble, or the work of Don Garrett) or more futurist (later Ornette Coleman), but this is an Afro-jazz record that is remarkably fun and I daresay even 'accessible', at least for a free jazz entry. That JuJu and Nkabinde never became household names, nor even enshrined in the same canon as other figures from this time (Archie Shepp, Frank Wright, etc.) may be due to this balance being slightly more 'fun' that one would expect; yet both the playing and compositional sense are as strong as anything else from the era.

Philip Glass - 'Powaqqatsi' (Elektra/Nonesuch)

Whoa, Powaqqatsi is pretty fucking awesome! I didn't remember enjoying this so much as it's a far more upbeat beast than Koyaanisqatsi, as I guess the film probably is too. (I know I saw it too, years ago, and it's more of the same time-lapse stuff meant to indict the Western world's behaviour). This is another record that keeps inspiring me to jack up the volume knob on the ol' Luxman, all the way to 12 O'clock (It's rarely ever past 10, normally) and it's the percussion that makes me keep wanting more and more and more. Powaqqatsi is mostly instrumental until we're about 75% of the way through, though in addition to the instrumentation (again, a mix of synths and instruments that sound like synths), there are some field recordings (possibly from the making of the film) mixed in, and some children's voices that are sort of creepy. Side one's 'Anthem' is split into three parts, intercut with some shorter tracks which take us around the world (as the whole album and film itself manages to do - 'Train to Sao Paulo', 'From Egypt', 'New Cities in Ancient Lands'). But Glass's compositions very delicately walk the line between ethno-musical forgeries and a minimalist composer's vision; you can maybe pick out hints of 'ethnic' melodies in these tracks, but that's pretty much a reach. It all feels united, with pounding drums (the presence of which are the major difference between this and the first soundtrack) and bright brass instruments driving the middle of the soundstage. 'Anthem' is the centrepiece, reminding me of some feeling I've only found in really random bits of music (some Vietnamese pop music, Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath, and I guess Arnold Dreyblatt as the closest composer influence though there's a feel of a harder-edge Lou Harrison to this music too); it has a pulse, a heartbeat, that is echoed in both the body and the head. See, Dad, minimalism is more than just an intellectual exercise! I suppose the pulsebeat is supposed to echo the relentless assault of modernity on traditional ways of being, or maybe that's just a childish interpretation - either way, it makes this sound so good. The record is well-sequenced (perhaps just matching the film, though the film would be longer than this and from what I remember it's all music throughout); the driving pieces are cut with the more restrained ones, though even 'The Unutterable', the first part of which is probably the record's most mellow point, has an unsyncopated pulse at its centre. More romantic elements enter - the string melody that opens 'Mosque and Temple' is wet and emotional, a million light years from the idea that many people have of Philip Glass as a cold and overly intellectual sound-lord. The 'New Cities' trilogy (which blend into each other seamlessly) also use flutes and some other higher wind instruments over all the synths, making a really accessibly sweet sound mix, but not one that feels manipulative or false. 'CAUGHT!' is the one for the mix tape, a fast-paced escalating maelstrom, just before the vocal-driven ('From Egypt'); but on either side of it, Foday Musa Suso plays guest kora and balafon on two very short tracks named after him, and it feels like a really short interlude that really should have been a lot longer. The track in the middle has an amazing use of a flutter echo/delay behind the Egyptian vocalist; it's one I completely forgot about and easy to overlook after all the dense, driving instrumentation. The only real disappointment is the titular closing track, which feels obligated to chant the title in a deep scary voice just like in Koyaanisqatsi; here, it just feels like an empty gesture, a repetition of an idea that doesn't work so well in this one. But the album, overall, is a zillion times better than I remembered it and maybe I'll even give the film another go.

Art Ensemble of Chicago - 'Reese and the Smooth Ones' (Get Back)

I hate to keep comparing each Art Ensemble release on these blogs to the previous ones, but when you're dealing with 9 albums in a row by a single artist you tend to look for continuity. If their Paris soujourn (which is our starting point in their discography) began with the 2fer CD of Jackson/Message's playful, maybe even zany, excursions -- and was followed up by the somber, tentative People in Sorrow - then Reese and the Smooth Ones splits the difference. Which is to say that this is a complex beast, a work that is decidedly more distant than its predecessors. The two sides are strangely labeled as both "Reese", a Roscoe Mitchell compositions, and "The Smooth Ones" by Lester Bowie, but it's not delineated where they begin and end, and if "Reese" starts side one followed by "The Smooth Ones", it also starts side two and "The Smooth Ones" comes back as well. What this label might be saying is that the whole record is one piece that is simultaneously Mitchell's "Reese" AND Bowie's "Smooth Ones", and that neither begins nor ends in a traditional sense. Though we don't have two compositions being played on top of each other. The opening of this record is a very exact, synchronised group-step that is cranked up with distorted tones and buzzing. It's like the dirty, cheap-amplification sound of Konono no 1 only human breath alone drives this clanging. The intonation is slightly off, or maybe it's supposed to sound detuned or microtonal or something. But what does it say? This may be the first occurance of the noted "difficult" sounds of the Art Ensemble, for as non-traditional as their earlier records are in terms of style and aesthetic, there is something very direct and fluid there. But here, I'd even say it's cold. When it stops and shift to the quiet/sparse vibe you feel like the Smooth is making it's presence felt. But as the momentum starts to pick up, we get oddball instruments thrown in - gongs, steel drums, other weird pieces of percussion - and full on tribal drumming by the end. It continues for awhile and feels so herky-jerky but kinda awesome, cause all those screeching sax lines and crashing cymbals reach the ecstatic pulse but not in an ESP/loft way. It's like, Paris, man, and Chicago too - the CTA superimposed on (Malachi dans) le Métro, a screeching out-of-control subway with the physics all wrong smashing through the Mediterranean and ending up on some African savannah. The heat musta been sweltering in Studio Saravah in the middle of August; I bet they didn't have any air-conditioning. Post-Varèse neo-classical composition can meet traditional African flavours, and it can knock your socks off if you're in the right mood. Prepare to feel your brain and your blood both reverberate.