Label:
Moers Music – momu 01072
Format:
Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: Germany / Released: 1980
Style:
Free Jazz, Post Bop
Recorded at:
Studio 57, Düsseldorf, June 1980, Garmany.
Design
[Cover] – Jürgen Pankarz
Photography
By – Mario Pelizzoli
Recorded
By – Hans Schlosser, Norbert Büllmeyer
Mastered
By – Christoph Backhaus
Lacquer
Cut By – SST
Producer
– Burkhard Hennen
Composed
By – James Blood Ulmer
Matrix
/ Runout (Side A Runout): MoMu 01072 A SST
Matrix
/ Runout (Side B Runout): MoMo 01072 B
Catalog
number "Moers Music 01072" on sleeve, "momu 01072" on
labels.
A1
- Time Table ............................................................................
10:00
A2
- Big Tree ..................................................................................
8:45
B1
- Baby Talk ................................................................................
9:36
B2
- Sound Check .........................................................................
8:06
James
Blood Ulmer – guitar, vocals
David
Murray – tenor saxophone
Amin
Ali – electric bass
Ronald
Shannon Jackson – drums, percussion
James
“Blood” Ulmer may well be the only constant in the Music Revelation Ensemble,
or MRE. For over 20 years, the self-professed blues preacher has remained the
sole permanent member of this ever-shifting group, known as much for mixing up
melodics as personnel. This is not to say the pursuit is a sketchy one: Since
its 1980 Moers Music release No Wave, featuring Ulmer on guitar, David Murray
on tenor saxophone, Amin Ali on electric bass, and Ronald Shannon Jackson on
drums, MRE has been fueling the free jazz torch lit by pioneer and Ulmer mentor
Ornette Coleman so adeptly that All Music Guide’s Chris Kelsey was moved to
call the group “one of the first and best free jazz/funk bands.”
One
of the most innovative electric guitarists since Jimi Hendrix, Ulmer is known
for pioneering “harmolodics,” defined by Richard Cook in the Penguin Guide to
Jazz, as quoted in materials from Ulmer’s publicist, as “a theory which
dispenses with the normal hierarchy of ‘lead’ and ‘rhythm’ instruments,
allowing free harmonic interchange at all levels of a group.” Ulmer told ,
“It’s a unison tuning where every string is tuned to the same note, like a one
string guitar… It’s total freedom.”
In
1971 Ulmer left for New York and the following year began working with the
legendary Coleman, who introduced him to the concept of harmolodics.
In
1978 Ulmer began performing under his own name, often joined by future MRE
members Murray and Jackson, who both share Ulmer’s Coleman influence, along
with trumpeter Olu Dara and saxophonist Arthur Blythe. MRE was formed two years
later.
Jackson
began playing drums professionally in Texas. He moved to New York in 1966,
where he worked with such jazz luminaries as bassist Charles Mingus, bop
saxophonist Stanley Turrentine, and freejazz saxophonist Albert Ayler. In 1975 he
joined Coleman’s group Prime Time and began playing with Ulmer in 1979.
Amin
Ali brought an impressive pedigree to the group; his father Rashied, also an
Ulmer collaborator, had replaced Elvin Jones as saxophonist John Coltrane’s
drummer in the 1960s. The younger Ali, who appears on four MRE albums, has also
performed with a host of others including Dara, drummer Samm Bennett, and
British saxophonist Django Bates. He appears on three of Ulmer’s solo albums as
well.
While
much of Ulmer’s solo work practiced harmolodics as rooted in the blues, his
work with MRE allowed him to explore different terrain. “The purpose was in
creating a sound that doesn’t inhibit. A freedom to play within jazz. It was a
job to do,” he told Steven Dalachinsky, who wrote the liner notes for MRE’s
fourth album, In the Name of the Music Revelation Ensemble...
Group
formed with Ulmer on guitar, Murray on tenor saxophone, Ali on electric bass,
and Jackson on drums, released No Wave on Moers Records, 1980.
No
Wave was not a universal hit with the critics, however. Graham Flashner and Ira
Robbins of the Trouser Press website called it “Ulmer’s most inaccessible work
and his least focused.” The band’s rotating lineup had already begun to take
shape, with Cornell Rochester replacing Jackson on drums and Jamaaladeen
Tacuma, another Prime Time alum, joining Ali on bass. MRE was quiet for the
next eight years, until the 1988 release of Music Revelation Ensemble. Jackson
returned for this album while Tacuma was the sole bassist...
Review by – Kristin Palm (Encyclopedia.com.)
If
you find it, buy this album!
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