Label:
hat ART – hat ART CD 6197
Format:
CD, Album, Limited Edition; Country: Switzerland - Released: 1996
Style: Free Jazz,
Free Improvisation
Recorded
At WBAI's Free Music Store, N.Y. N.Y., October 30, 1971.
Design
Concept [Graphic Concept] – fuhrer vienna
Liner
Notes – Chris Albertson, Joe McPhee
Liner
Notes [Producers Note] – Werner X. Uehlinger
Mixed
By [Mix], Mastered By [CD Master] – Peter Pfister
Photography
By [Photo] – Ken Brunton
Producer
– Pia And Werner X. Uehlinger
Recorded
By – Chris Albertson
The
Hat Art label (Werner X. Uehlinger) was formed in the mid-'70s partly to
document the music of multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee. The tapes of this live
concert, which was broadcast by the small New York radio station WBAI, were
released for the first time on this 1996 CD. Doubling on tenor and trumpet,
McPhee is joined by Clifford Thornton (heard on baritone horn and cornet),
Byron Morris (on soprano and alto), pianist Mike Kull, and percussionist Harold
E. Smith. Due to the passionate nature of much of this fairly free music and
the use of Thornton's baritone horn, one does not really notice the absence of
a string bass. The six lengthy pieces (which are sandwiched by somewhat stilted
announcing) are full of fire but also have their quiet and lyrical moments. A
strong all-around performance that should not have taken 25 years to release.
McPhee
– the Poughkeepsie-based saxophonist/trumpeter/composer – came on the scene in
the late 1960s and appeared on a now-reissued recording by his mentor Clifford
Thornton (whose Gardens of Harlem is in desperate need of reissue, by the way).
After a few releases on CJR (all now available on Atavistic’s Unheard Music
Series), Uehlinger released McPhee’s Black Magic Man and the relationship has
existed ever since, resulting in some of the finest improvised music of the
period. The music – by McPhee on tenor and trumpet, Thornton on baritone horn,
Byron Morris on soprano and alto, Mike Kull on piano, and Harold E. Smith on
percussion – is hot and intense, coming straight from McPhee’s most fiery
period. It features the core of McPhee’s repertory at the time, including the
acetylene torch intensity of “Black Magic Man,” the declamatory “Nation Time”
(where the horns blend with wonderful color), and the gorgeous ballad “Song for
Lauren,” where McPhee really begins to establish his powerful lyric strain that
would become so recognizable on later recordings. McPhee already sounds in full
command of his horns – listen to his lovely trumpet intro to “Message from
Denmark” – and the band sounds great too (the underrated Kull just crushes on
“The Looking Glass I”). They’re at their most powerful on the intensely dark
rise-and-fall of “Harriet,” an exceptional document of free improvisation from one
of the music’s true masters.
_
By JASON BIVINS, 1996
hat Hut catalog: http://www.hathut.com/home.html
hat Hut catalog: http://www.hathut.com/home.html
If
you find it, buy this album!
