|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Quick Ordering for |
|
Patterns-Message
To South Africa
Noah Howard (alto saxophone) "Originally issued on his own Alt Sax label in 1971, the Patterns session is one of the great mystery spots in the Noah Howard canon. The blasted opening sequence, which we seem to enter whilst already in-process, is a space duet for conga and electric guitar unprecedented in the annals of jazz and new music. When the rest of the musicians enter there is a heavy attempt to Africanize Dutch architecture, a proposition which Mr. Mengelberg seems reluctant to accept. What eventually occurs is a primitivist aerial slugfest that invokes a world of shared experience, then negates its substantiality with hammers of nihilist beauty. Emblematic of the end of Europe's open arms policy towards America's expatriate improvisers, Patterns remains a ferocious, confounding ghost. The Message to South Africa session is another kind of spirit flare. Written in Paris the week that Steve Biko was killed, the date came together around two of the great South African jazz exiles, pianist Chris McGregor and bassist Johnny Dyani. Drummer Noel McGhee (who had played on Noah's Live at the Swing Club date) was enlisted to give the band Caribbean representation. In Paris as well was Kali Fasteau, who lends the proceedings some of the same vibrational magic she had used so notably on Archie Shepp's Bijou. Mr. McGregor spliced in the chords to what was then the South African National Anthem, and Mr. Dyani improvised vocals and invocations in Zulu throughout the suite. The combination of free-ranging throats and small, repeated melodic figures gives the piece a feel very congruent to that which flowed from the pipe of free Africa. It is truly a slab of riveting world music in the purest sense - cartwheeling through the changes like a shaman and surging up from a place beyond the reach of the western civ shuck. The project was done with the idea that Mercury might release it, but the heavy political vibe was too much for the company. Consequently, the track has never been released until now." -- Byron Coley More Eremite One Final Note Review :::>>> Tell A Friend About This CD From Drimala If you like this cd, you might also enjoy listening to: Alan Silva and the Sound Visions Orchestra Live At the Unity Temple (Howard, Few, Morris, Duncan) Red Star (Noah Howard, Kenny Clarke, Bobby Few) Spirit House (Jemeel Moondoc and Jus Grew Orchestra) Vivid (Kali Fasteau) Noah Howard at Documenta IX (Howard, Smith, Gregg, Henderson) |
