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.

Julius Hemphill - ''Coon Bid'ness' (Arista/Freedom)

I'm still kicking myself for missing out on the Dogon A.D. reissue last year, but at least I have this LP to enjoy whenever I'd like. I get uncomfortable saying the title but it makes sense, cause with this record, Hemphill attempts to musically interrogate the question of blackness head-on, particularly with side 1, the first half of which is fairly avant-classical in nature. The presence of a white drummer (Barry Altschul) doesn't matter, as this record opens around the slow, melodic rumblings of the altos against Abdul Wadud's cello and Hamiett Bluiett's baritone. Both 'Reflections' and 'Lyric' are careful, somber, and rather beautiful, with sonorities akin to Messiaen in places. They never stay 100% calm, though, with flutters in the corners to reveal the inherent and potential freedom of it all, perhaps described as a benevolent instability. I'm reminded a bit of Ornette Coleman's 'Sadness', but maybe that's a simplistic comparison, because these two pieces have an awareness that situates them in the mid-70s Bohemian/artistic milieu, much more than mere throwbacks to either Coleman's work or third stream jazz. 'Skin' parts 1 and 2 is where the rhythms start to kick in, with Wadud's cello sawed at like a rock guitar. It's genuinely riffy, a bit like those late 70s Ornette Coleman records only really more strident & driving than funk-leaning, and could be mistaken for a 'black' analogy to Rhys Chatham, Branca, or the minimal rock chops to come in the early 80s. The three saxophones share the soundstage and while it freqently revs into some really punchy sequences, there's enough space for everyone to explore their themes. I love the cello and Altschul is such a great player that he's able to set a pace without dominating, just like on all the stuff he did with Chick Corea. It's the B-side, 'The Hard Blues', that lets everyone stretch out the most. It feels more improvised after the tightly composed (in parts) first half, though it's not anything close to a free-for-all. Blues it is, but not in a 12-bar way (thank god), and I continue to hear rock tendencies in the way Wadud saws at his strings, and maybe the lower baritone sax contributes as well. Over 20 minutes the group comes together, comes apart, and comes back together, and they embrace dissonance wholeheartedly, and you can feel Hemphill's vision not just as a composer, but as a bandleader. There are moments in 'The Hard Blues' that recall Captain Beefheart circa Trout Mask, not necessarily as whacked-out or surreal, but in the sense of otherness, except here using blues as a crossing point for jazz instead of rock. 

John Cale and Terry Riley - 'Church of Anthrax' (Columbia)

When titans meet! Except this is really surprisingly grounded in art-rock stomp, much closer to a solo Cale than Riley's stuff. It's hard to deny that this sounded like an avant-minimal supergroup on paper, yet the execution is less than amazing. It's good though -- but not one of the best records by either artist. If anything, it's too much of "here's what I do and here's what you do" -- not so surprising. They clearly strive for a balance between them, made the most evident in 'Ides of March' where we literally have Cale doing his piano thing and Riley doing his, with a different drummer behind each. As a bit of stereo experimentation it's rudimentary, but as a work of polyrhytmic sketching, it's sort of great. But first things first -- 'Church of Anthrax' blasts off the vinyl like a locomotive, and pounds away almost relentlessly. There's more of a focus on Dream Syndicate monotony than Riley's harmonic gliding, which is saved for next track. But as 'Church' pounds away, the layered organs and keyboards flex the right amount of muscle; the bassline ascends forever, picking a hole into my brain. So when Cale's microtonal piano meets the palace of mirrors in Versailles, it's awesome how Riley's reverb-drenched sax teases things. Riley is playful and a bit sassy; Cale is practically lowbrow in his Palestineque technique. The sax part is like 'Music from The Gift' all over again, but with the scary, unknown 70's looming ahead. There's an oceanic tide that darts around this double-helix, but at times, it feels like an afterthought. When it turns more thoughtful, I love the warm buzz underneath as it takes it's own natural breaths. It's a coda to side one, and a hell of way to fade out. After the flip, Adam Miller sings 'The Soul of Patrick Lee', which is such a John Cale solo song it's almost a parody. It has the same guitar riff as 'Venus in Furs' but then that moody, literate sensibility that he perfected on Paris 1919. I'm trapped more in the dark-psyche side of Cale here than I'd like to be -- I much prefer the sentimental, nostalgic whinging -- but it's okay. Riley is only plinking a few piano keys here, so it's funny to think of him as a mere sideman. Does 'Patrick Lee' stick out like the sore thumb of an otherwise instrumental record? Quite a bit, yeah, but maybe that's why it's smart in the middle. 'Ides of March', as already stated, is the meat of side 2, and it starts to take on a 'Bad Bad Leroy Brown' feel after about 8 minutes, which is probably just a successful sign of the delirium they were trying to induce. 'The Protege' closes things, a mirror image of 'Church of Anthrax', with pounding bass and drums and an elegant, slightly dirty edge to the piano part. The dissonance creaks out of the edges rather than being front and centre, and then there's a surprise ending which just sounds like a mastering error. Hmmmm. I remember buying this when on a trip to England, when I still lived in the US - it was a reissue (or maybe bootleg?), with a nice glossy cover and a pretty good sound to it. The shop proprietor made a comment about why would I come all the way to England to buy an American LP, but I don't think things are as simple as that.

Anthony Braxton - 'Creative Orchestra Music 1976' (Arista)

Jumping off from the concise, quartet-based stuff on Five Pieces 1975, we get this large enesemble masterpiece - in some ways the culmination of everything Braxton 'represents'. He keeps his orchestra on a short leash for the most part, but at some points, particularly cut three on side 2, we hear some of the most fully realised potential of big-band improvisation/composition meetings. But let's start at the beginning - side 1, track 1 is a go-getter, a sprightly or attention-grabber that shows off the potential of what happens when you get 15 talented people together. The tune is concise and everyone is held somewhat in check by each other; solos come out but they're balanced in a brass vs. reeds structure and it's a pretty dazzling opening. And well-recorded too! But then, cut two is 8 minutes of quiet experimentation - with an even larger lineup of twenty. There's MEV guys, AACM guys, and some lesser known names but they all take their time feeling out how they can interact spatially. There's some bass drum rubbing, tuba bleats, and other motifs that people associate with 'smart' free jazz, but it's restrained enough that I would maybe even finger this as a track to pick out as a potential eye-opener for the doubters. Cut three is an experimentation with marching band music and is such really fun and, well, fucking racous. Leo Smith is conductor, and I can imagine him wearing some strange red uniform. The liner notes make a reference to Tutti music but all I know is that is fucking rips. When you flip the record, though, you get a very moody, ECM like exploration that steps through several tonal progressions (while still leaving room for piano tinkles and marimba gurgles). There are improvisational sections but they are like the floss between these heavy, post-classical teeth. I like it, but I've always had a thing for mildewy cobweb jazz composition. Braxton musta really carefully sequences Creative Orchestra Music 1976 to balance the peaks and valleys; these slower bits really work well against the full-fledged rock-out-with-your-cock-out moments. Of which the final cut is definitely that, as mentioned above. Creative? Yes. Orchestra? Well, 20 is an orchestra to me though there's a distinct lack of strings. But not a lack of swing; and even the slower, spatial bits maintain some sort of reflection on 'blues' or whatever it is that is the voice of African-American jazz espression.

Muhal Richard Abrams - 'Lifea Blinec' (Arista Novus)

Source: Ross, of course, on Aug 2, 2002 (the day that 3 MRA albums entered my life a la fois)

Muhal Richard Abrams really rips it up as bandleader, here flanked by Douglas Ewart and Joseph Jarman. I don't know what a "lifea blinec" is but I'm into invented languages, so why not? The Bud Powell tribute is enough to wake the guy from the dead - it ain't Chicago Eye and Ear Control style-energy but rather AACM alumni at their best. It bounces just right without that sheen that takes over jazz just a few years later. Whenever Amina Claudine Myers' voice pops into the mix it's great, though her contributions are more percussion and piano . Jarman and Ewart slice each other apart liked waxed-paper kazoos and Abrams has his moments too. It might be a bit easier to excel on a record when your solos are here and there (instead of 40 straight minutes of solo). The ending duos are maybe even the highlight; 'Duo 1' actually sounds a bit like Third Ear Band or some Swedish prog-folk band if they were trying to pay tribute to Coltrane. I was gonna try to end this with a horrible joke somehow involving the punchline "Muhal-land Drive" but instead I'll just quote the sleeve: ALL THERE IS OR IS NOT USING MUHAL AS A CHANNEL. Blinec, blinec!