THE 360 DEGREE MUSIC EXPERIENCE – In:Sanity (2LP-1976)

Label: Black Saint – BSR 0006/7

Format: 2 × Vinyl, LP / Country: Italy / Released: 1976

Style: Contemporary Jazz, Free Jazz

Recorded at Generation Sound Studios in New York City on March 8 & 9, 1976.

Producer By – Giacomo Pellicciotti

Engineer By – Tony May

Photography By – Nina Melis

Cover Art By – Marlo Convertino

Distributor – Northcountry Distributors

A1 - Tradewinds ...................................................................... 6:31

A2 - In:Sanity Suite Part 1: Skull Job ...................................... 6:42

A3 - In:Sanity Suite Part 2: Tm's Top ...................................... 4:25

B  -  In:Sanity Suite Part 3: Complete Operation ................... 18:42

C  -  Open .............................................................................. 21:30

D1 - Full, Deep And Mellow ..................................................... 6:31

D2 - Sahara ............................................................................. 9:15

Beaver Harris — drums, percussion

Dave Burrell — organ, piano, celesta

Azar Lawrence — tenor sax

Keith Marks — flute

Hamiet Bluiett — clarinet, flute, baritone sax

Sunil Garg — sitar

Cecil McBee — bass

Francis Haynes — drums (steel)

Titos Sompa — congas

Steel Ensemble:

Francis Haynes — soprano sax

Roger Sardinha — soprano sax

Coleridge Barbour — alto sax

Alston Jack — tenor sax

Michael Sorzano — tenor sax

Steve Sardinha — bass

Lawrence McCarthy — iron

360 Degree Music Experience: The name of this group says a lot and means that with him, it will be primarily to experiment, and do not impose limits around. And especially not those invited to turn its back on tradition, that on which it was necessary to insist at the time emerged this training, so the idea of inherent struggle to Black Power (then almost always associated with free jazz ) had come to prevail in favor of single cry - anger, revolt - as the only possible aesthetic - no vanguard without a break with the old, it was thought hastily in the public fervent had eventually win free jazz.

On drums, Beaver Harris was first spotted alongside Albert Ayler, as part of a tour set up by the promoter George Wein. At the same poster, black and white, classical musicians and avant-garde: Ayler therefore, Sonny Rollins, Max Roach; but Dave Brubeck, Stan Getz & Gary Burton; or Sarah Vaughan and Willie "The Lion" Smith. Somehow a complete panorama of jazz then, 360 degrees.

A battery, in the 1970s, it was used to hearing in the company of Beaver Harris Archie Shepp. But at the time, Archie Shepp, labeled activist in the sixties, had become the target of former admirers reproaching him for having watered down its message - or at least what they had seen fit to hear behind his game During the previous decade. In the heart of fans of the New Thing, music and politics had eventually merge, sometimes generating debates heavily biased.

What reminds Beaver Harris, and this from the first LP of this self-produced group whose title almost manifesto figure (From Ragtime To No Time) is that free jazz did not emerge from nowhere, and that its pillars were of course able to play "old", and thus to return if necessary - a real guarantee of freedom-won. At Gerard Rouy and Thierry Trombert in Jazz Magazine, Beaver Harris confided: "What is needed is to show young people that the tempo is as important as the vanguard, as important as the off-beat. This ties that said Archie Shepp: Scott Joplin was first avant-garde, as his music seemed strange when you heard it for the first time. This was true for Willie "The Lion" Smith and Duke Ellington. "Later in the same interview, Beaver Harris strikes a strongly worded metaphor:" You can not pick apples or oranges before a seed has been planted and have it left to develop. "This explains that Doc Cheatham and Maxine Sullivan may have been invited by the 360 Degree Music Experience. For indeed, without the first, no Lester Bowie. And in the absence of the second, no Abbey Lincoln.

Originally, the 360 Degree Music Experience was conceived as a cooperative of which were part Dave Burrell, Cecil McBee, Jimmy Garrison, Cameron Brown, Howard Johnson, Hamiet Bluiett, Keith Marks, Bill Willingham and two singular musicians: Francis Haynes (steel drum) and Titos Sompa (congas). One like the other, and the sitar player Sunil Garg, brought unprecedented brilliant colors In:Sanity where the importance of the steel drum is crucial, as rhythmically as melodically speaking. Just listen to "Trademings" to be convinced, beautiful theme signed by Dave Burrell, whose saxophone emerges particularly inspired Azar Lawrence.

In fact, all along, In:Sanity never avoids complex arrangements, nor does would ignore in some long passages free (two whole faces reality), the urgency to play. Because anyway, here, everyone knows decompose rejoice cleverly arranged architectures like coming back - when necessary - to party like original proceedings.

Inaugurating and terminating this double-album, sides A and D are among the most delicately completed free jazz (Beaver Harris was also the Trickles Steve Lacy who possesses these qualities). While the faces B and C, in contrast, are only disproportion to broaden the osmosis between rhythm and harmony, until he dislocated offer wonderfully echoes.

(Text translated from French  -  http://merzbow-derek.tumblr.com/)

If you find it, buy this album!