WILDFLOWERS 1 – The New York Loft Jazz Sessions (Douglas / LP1-1977)

Label: Douglas – NBLP 7045

Series: Wildflowers: The New York Loft Jazz Sessions – 1

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: US / Released: 1977

Style: Free Jazz, Free Improvisation

Recorded May 14 thru May 23, 1976 at Studio Rivbea, 24 Bond Street, New York.

Engineer [Assistant] – Les Kahn

Engineer [Chief] – Ron Saint Germain

Engineer [Remote Assistant] – Matt Murray

Executive-producer – Harley I. Lewin

Liner Notes – Ross Firestone

Mastered By – Ray Janos

Photography By – Peter Harron

Producer – Alan Douglas, Michael Cuscuna, Sam Rivers

A1 - Kalaparusha – Jays ...................................................................................... 6:00

        Bass, Electric Bass – Chris White

        Drums – Jumma Santos

        Tenor Saxophone – Kalaparusha (Maurice McIntyre)

A2 - Ken McIntyre – New Times .......................................................................... 7:25

        Alto Saxophone – Ken McIntyre (Makanda)

        Congas – Andy Vega

        Percussion [Multiple] – Andrei Strobert

        Piano – Richard Harper

A3 - Sunny Murray & The Untouchable Factor – Over The Rainbow ................. 5:30

        Alto Saxophone – Byard Lancaster

        Bass – Fred Hopkins

        Drums – Sunny Murray

        Tenor Saxophone – David Murray

        Vibraphone – Khan Jamal

B1 - Sam Rivers – Rainbows ............................................................................. 10:00

        Bass – Jerome Hunter

        Drums – Jerry Griffin

        Soprano Saxophone – Sam Rivers

B2 - Air – Usu Dance ............................................................................................ 7:45

        Alto Saxophone – Henry Threadgill

        Bass – Fred Hopkins 
         Drums, Percussion – Steve McCall

In the mid-1970s, a jazz renaissance blossomed in large New York loft spaces that the musicians had reclaimed from the depressed blocks of the trendy Soho and Noho areas. The Wildflowers sessions, originally released on Douglas on five LPs, captured performances by almost 100 musicians in numerous configurations. The recordings were made over two weekends at the most famed of the lofts, Studio Rivbea, the home and workspace of saxophonist-flutist-composer Sam Rivers and his wife, Beatrice. Rivers orchestrated the lineup, played host to patrons, and performed as well. The sessions featured many figures well-established in New York, including Rivers, drummer Andrew Cyrille, and pianist Randy Weston, but they also attracted players from the seedbed of so much African American aesthetic jazz exploration in the 1960s and '70s, Chicago.

In addition, Rivers invited to town some key players from Philadelphia and New Haven; there were several newcomers to New York, too, including, from out West, a very young David Murray. The music all had immediacy and urgency fitting to the aesthetic task at hand--to consolidate the gains of the free-jazz and New Thing movements of the 1960s. Indeed, many of the players remain key figures today in that project: Anthony Braxton, Roscoe Mitchell, and Leo Smith among them. In addition to their performances, highlights of the package include Rivers's radiant meandering over his composition "Rainbow"; pianist Weston's impassioned homage to his father; and performances by important, but often under-recognized innovators, including saxophonist Ken McIntyre and pianist Dave Burrell. Here is a seminal document in American music...

If you find it, buy this album!

KALAPARUSHA MAURICE McINTYRE – Forces And Feelings (LP-1972)

Label: Delmark Records – DS-425
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album; Country: US Released: 1972
Style: Free Jazz, Free Improvisation
Recorded November 11, 1970 at Sound Studios, Inc.
Engineer – Stu Black
Photography By – Charles Stevens
Cover Design By – Zbigniew Jastrzebski

Kalaparusha Ahra Difda is a secret master of the tenor saxophone: Ignored by most, but a musical voice of value (if only the market system consistently recognized excellence). Kalaparusha's second Delmark session, with a group he called The Light, offers sunshine to all willing to emerge from hiding. Step into the light...

Recorded in late 1970, this is McIntyre's second release for the Delmark label. Much like his first effort, Humility in Light of the Creator, Forces and Feelings projects a spiritual tone. While it is occasionally more relaxed than his debut, that's not to say this is McIntyre's mellow disc -- far from it. Forces and Feelings has much in common with the otherworldly vibration Albert Ayler experimented with on his Impulse! date Music Is the Healing Force of the Universe, especially when comparing the vocals of Rita Omolokun with Mary Maria, Ayler's girlfriend/vocalist. It was during this period that McIntyre changed his name to Kalaparusha Ahra Difda, leading many to the conclusion that his uncompromising spirituality was keeping him from playing more gigs, especially those in nightclubs. McIntyre's band for this session was called the Light and featured AACM member Fred Hopkins on bass, Sarnie Garrett on electric guitar, Wesley Tyus on drums, and the vocals of Omolokun. The vinyl cover shot of the ocean with the sun rising (or setting) conveys the divine nature of the music inside the jacket. Considering the lack of recordings made by this underrated tenor saxophonist, any of his LP's recommended.
_ Review by AL CAMPBELL

Saxophonist Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre's recording sounds like a time-unbound, spiritual tour de force of black cultural history. He features vocalist Rita Omolokun (Worford) on spoken and soared vocals and plays fractured tenor saxophone throughout this key recording from the Chicago jazz avant-garde. The music rumbles across Fred Hopkins's bass and Sarnie Garnett's guitar with a careful precision before Wesley Tyus's forceful drumming carries the impact to the gut level. McIntyre plays an expressive tenor, bowing to tonal studies resembling so many straight-ahead jazzers and then ripping through the channels of regularity with what seems a hypnotic, blind storm of wind and thunder.
_ By ANDREW BARTLETT



If you find it, buy this album!