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.

Art Ensemble of Chicago - 'Chi-Congo' (Paula)

This is sadly the final Art Ensemble of Chicago record we'll be exploring, and I placed it here because some online discography placed it after Fanfare for the Warriors, though I now see this has a copyright date of 1973 and Fanfare is '74, so I most likely screwed up! Dusty Groove calls this 'a lost chapter' and maybe that's a good one; they're right in that it's closer to the open-form style of the Paris years, though Don Moye (misspelled here as Moxe, kinda like that weird medicinal soda they love in Maine) rocks the fuck out, and the opening track resembles the drum circle mode of Bap-Tizum (though significantly more tentative and, I daresay, amateurish). Roscoe Mitchell's pieces comprise 75% of this and 'Enlorfe' is a real winner, split over both LP sides and featuring some nervous-ass Jarman soprano while Favors and Moye accelerate to an outer dimension. Mitchell moves to the steel drums over some repetetive hole digging by the rhythm section and makes things into a buzzing perpipatetic run-on sentence. At the end it slows down to a thick drone, almost remniscent of 'Tnoona' but then flurrying back to life at the end. I'm a bit sad to leave the Art Ensemble of Chicago (though excited for a change in the Underbite). The crazy thing is that after 24 LP sides and 4 more on CD, we haven't even covered their whole career - just a middle part of it. Their pre-Paris, earliest recordings, which were released on a super hard to find box set, are a thing of wonder though I have only experienced them in the non-physical form. (The blog where I review my mp3 collection in alphabetical order will not be started until, I dunno, 2013 or so). And for some reason I don't have any of their later records for ECM, even though they're pretty easy to find and a few of them (Full Force in particular) rank among their best-ever work. But there's a real difference between 28 sides of the Art Ensemble of Chicago and 28 sides of, say, The Fall, or Kiss or something. Not that I don't like The Fall or Kiss - I do, in the case of the Fall quite a lot - but the inherent diversity of avant-garde jazz means there's going to be a lot more surprises among 28 sides of the Art Ensemble. Now this might be a bit of a fetishisation of the genre, like an attempt to fight my 'rockist' urges and associate a sophistication to this 'other' music - and I'm aware of it! I mean, I've read Carducci and I certainly agree with him on a lot of points (though not all the stuff about gay people, I mean that's just out-of-line) and I really do often wonder if I fall into that particularly as I (like most of ya kids, unless your Dad is John Corbett or something) grew up with rock first and came to 'other' musics in my late adolescence. Because the development of The Fall across 54 LP sides might be an even greater thing to experience, as the variations will be more subtle. Cause it's hard for me to even really say what I've learned from the AEoC Gauntlet I just finished. Despite the compositional basis to these records, it's hard for me to say what distinguishes a Joseph Jarman jam from, say, a Roscoe Mitchell one. Whereas any fool can listen to a Sebadoh record once and know the difference between Lou Barlow and Eric Gaffney's songs, right? Of course there's a lot more freedom/improvisation present in the works of Jarman, Mitchell etc and that makes things a bit more difficult. But maybe that's also what makes it feel so much more dynamic overall. Am I just stating the obvious and sounding idiotic again? It's hard to say because my head actually kinda hurts from all of this AACM theorizin'. When I got into this band it was like being touched by the Hand of God, but then again I used to feel that Touch quite often in those days, when everything was being blown wide open again and again, like an artificial ski slope eternally rolling downhill. But I would have died to see them live, particularly as their theatrical costumes, paint, and antics were allegedly an antidote for the dullness of much other contemporary jazz, visually. At the time the band was pretty much defunct - Bowie died just about that time and Joseph Jarman had retired, running a karate dojo just down the street from my friend's place in Brooklyn. Now I believe they're active again, with some new members, and I'd certainly go if it was local or cheap but it's pretty clear I missed my chance. But how many groups today are there, blending theatre, tradition, and radically groundbreaking assaults on theatre and tradition, that I am also missing the chance to experiencein their prime? I think not that many, but then again, what do I know?

Art Ensemble of Chicago - 'Phase One' (America)

America Records is actually a French label but the liner notes don't tell us where this was recorded. The title could mean many things - some intergalactic plan to rule the world, or some special instructions for hooking up your speakers in some Brian Eno method - but really I think it's misleading, cause this sounds to me like the beginning of phase TWO for the AE of C. The record opens with Jarman's 'Ohnedaruth', a swirling mass of oceanic cymbals that explodes into full-on, free, loft-style blowing -- and it never lets up. There's solo after solo and the guys sound great but the intensity never lets up and it becomes a bit, I dunno, horizontal? Bowie somehow manages to sound a bit richer than the rest though maybe that's just my bias. The second side is a tribute to Albert Ayler wonderfully titled 'Lebert Aaly', except it makes me think that my sides might be mislabeled. Cause, the rocking reverberations on 'Ohnedaruth' sound more like the ESP-styled Ayler records, almost like these genre-busters are dipping into a genre to show their affection for the then-just-deceased Cleveland gale. 'Lebert Aaly' would actually resemble a Jarman composition more, with it's open cadences, thick chords, and careful pauses. It's definitely more on the modern classical tip and why would you compose a tribute to Ayler in that style? It's not a eulogisin' piece, at least not to these ears. But that doesn't mean I don't think it's beautiful and dynamic and shows (on yet another LP) a different side of these dudes from the 11 sides we've already heard.

Art Ensemble of Chicago - 'Live in Paris' (Get Back)

Wikipedia incorrectly reports that Don Moye plays on this, which is an easy guess to make since this came out in '74, but the recording is from '69 in pre-Famoudou Paris; I'll stand by the liner notes. But more confusing is the essay in the gatefold, which is from the late 70s so it refers to events that haven't happened yet when this music was being made. Also I should note that my cover is slightly different than this as the word "Live" is actually in grey, and it says "Live in Paris" and the Affinity logo isn't in the bottom right. A beautiful black gatefold with four black sides of great black music - about 100 minutes of it! The first record is "Oh Strange", supposedly a Jarman/Bowie tune though it sounds like a group improvisation if I've ever heard one. It's long and sprawling and it changes a lot but has some absolutely jaw-dropping moments of groupthump. At one point near the end of the second side the band shifts into a detuned, strummy banjo-led bit but instead of referencing some American folk music or country lineage, it's a warped abstracted soundworld. If you told me it was some cassette from the corners of the American underground avant/noise scene of maybe 3, 4 years ago, I would have no reason to doubt you. This prescience is evident at all points of the piece but it sounds most 'current' here; clearly, the rest of the world is still catching up to these guys. The second LP is "Bon Voyage", penned by Bowie, which explodes with a drumset-led freeform freakout. I assume the drums are being played by Malachi Favors though we also hear bass and marimba or vibes or something pulsing underneath. Whoever's doing it is a madman, exploding in little shouts with a rampant nervousness that drives the horns to accelerate towards the sun. Bowie is seriously one of the most expressive trumpet players ever, even if he's just shooting flutters to the winds - they feel so human, and so warm, that they bring a dynamic basis to the colder moments. When it finally starts to settle down we get a really melodic, repetetive trance and then special guest Fontella Bass, aka Mrs. Lester Bowie, chants with the rest of 'em. This record really sounds 'live'; great fidelity, but you can hear the room and feel the energy of the audience (Ils ont été perplexe, non?). I don't mind the fadeouts at the ends of sides 1 and 3 either - it's almost necessary to have a breather in the middle of these dense pillars. Listened to chronologically (by recording date, not release) it's a nice release after all the carefully calculated space on the last couple of records. Some might decry that they've moved into a more traditional free jazz area here, but there's still so much depth and sensitivity in their playing that's more like they moved free jazz into their area.

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.

Muhal Richard Abrams - 'Sightsong' (Black Saint)

Source: Not sure, but I think I got it from Ross for a couple of bucks in 2002, maybe around 2 August?

This album by the AACM founder and president isn't really a solo album, as its 'featuring Malachi Favors' and thank heavens for that because Favors is the real icing on the cake. While Abrams goes off on some shimmery runs, Favors thumps his bass (which sounds like it's been intonated by a drunk man). His solo sounds like a bowl of oatmeal that's been left in the sun to dry, hardened to the point where you have to really bang it with your spoon to break through. The dark curtains are the best bits here and the last track, "Unity" is the most explosive, but I think Abrams piano work benefits the most from some breathing. A lot of the pieces have this real satisfying ending, tinkling around like the "land of make-believe" trolley. You can hear the 80's breathing in the distance.