Survival Unit II with Clifford Thornton: At WBAI's Free Music Store, 1971
| Survival Unit II with Clifford Thornton: At WBAI's Free Music Store, 1971 | ||||
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| Live album by Joe McPhee | ||||
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Publication |
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| Label (s) | HatHut Records | |||
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Format (s) |
CD |
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Title (number) |
9 |
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running time |
78:44 |
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| occupation | ||||
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Pia Uehlinger, Werner X. Uehlinger |
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Survival Unit II with Clifford Thornton: At WBAI's Free Music Store, 1971 is a jazz album by Joe McPhee , recorded on October 30, 1971 in New York City. The recordings were made as a radio recording of the local station WBAI and were only published by HatOLOGY in 1996 .
Music of the album
At the time of the concert in New York's WBAI's Free Music Store (359 East 62nd Street) Joe McPhee and his band Survival Unit II had only released two albums on the small label CJR Records ; the 1968/69 Underground Railroad had only appeared in 450 copies. In 1971 the trio album Trinity was created with pianist Mike Kull and drummer Harold E. Smith , who also played in the quintet line-up, which was expanded to include Clifford Thornton and Byron Morris .
The concert, which took place at the end of October 1971, was overshadowed by the Attica prison riot in September, in which 44 people were killed, but also by the attacks by the National Guard against demonstrating students and the trial of the Chicago Seven , currently in September 1971 worsening Vietnam War and the arrests following the great anti-war demonstration in Washington DC
In this political situation, the small New York broadcaster WBAI seemed “the voice in the wilderness, a place of free speech and artistic expression”. Joe McPhees and his band Survival Unit II exclusively presented the musician's own compositions there, some of which he had already released on his first two albums for CJR ( Hamiet, Prince of Denmark and Nation Time ). The program ranged from the ballad Song for Lauren , the composition The Looking Glass I, dedicated to the dead of the Attica uprising, to the "anti-music establishment statement in Black Magic Man and McPhee's tribute to Ameer Baraka , Nation Time . They are all powerful expressions of a kind soul from Poughkeepsie [...], ”wrote journalist Chris Albertson .
Track list
- Joe McPhee & Survival Unit II with Clifford Thornton - At WBAI's Free Music Store, 1971 (HatART limited edition 6197 (1996), HatOLOGY 624 (2004))
- Announcement 1 0:33
- Black Magic Man 6:26
- Announcement 2 0:35
- Nation Time 14:13
- Song for Lauren 13:17
- Announcement 3 0:33
- Message from Denmark 13:39
- The Looking Glass I 16:01
- Harriet 13:35
All compositions are by Joe McPhee.
Edition history
Werner X. Uehlinger heard the tapes of the recording for the first time in 1974 during a visit to the USA. This was also Uehlinger's first encounter with Joe McPhee and Craig Johnson of CJR Records. The meeting and the impression that McPhee's music left on Uehlinger on the previously unpublished tapes were the initial spark for the Swiss to work as a music producer from now on. The release of the New York recording was originally planned for 1988. As the compact disc medium was just beginning to gain acceptance at that time , this was postponed and finally forgotten. It was not until 1996, 25 years later, that the concert recording appeared in a limited edition. In 2006, a remastered version of the recordings followed to celebrate the 30th anniversary of HatHut Records.
reception
Scott Yanow rated the album in Allmusic with four stars and wrote
- "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. "
According to Nic Jones, the absence of a double bass gives the music of the quintet “a light and airy feel, even in its heated moments, such as in the long Nation Time , when McPhee shows the ability to blow in a storm with the best tenor saxophonists. Byron Morris proves to be a capable musician on the soprano saxophone, although unfortunately he has disappointed the expectations of posterity. Baritone [horn] player Clifford Thornton brings his strangely stately but very satisfying approach to the hearing. “ Song for Lauren is an example of the kind of lyrical style of playing that has not diminished recently in McPhee's music, revealing the multifaceted composer and musician he can be. [...] The work of the pianist Mike Kull is, “in his own way, just as fascinating as that of the other musicians here. His distance from Cecil Taylor's rolling thunder is as evident as that from the stubborn minimalism of a Mal Waldron . He also manages to avoid any hackneyed phrase. You can't help but wonder what happened to Kull over the decades. ”Even if the sound restoration does not please finicky audiophiles, its shortcomings give the music a certain urgency that would probably not have been captured in a pristine studio setting. So now there is a great opportunity to meet McPhee at the same level and to follow his musical journey in time.
Jason Bivins wrote in Dusted Magazine that the music was "hot and intense, straight from McPhee's fiery period". The recording contains the core of his repertoire of this phase, the " acetylene torch intensity " by Black Magic Man , the pathetic Nation Time (in which the horns mix in wonderful timbres), and the great ballad Song for Lauren , with which McPhee really does created his powerful lyrical tension, recognizable in his later recordings. McPhee masters his instruments at all times - just listen to his lovely trumpet intro to Message from Denmark - and the band sounds great too [...]. Most powerful is this "with the intensely dark rise and fall of Harriet , an extraordinary document of free improvisation by one of the true masters of music".
Web links
- Review of the album Joe McPhee & Survival Unit II With Clifford Thornton - At WBAI's Free Music Store, 1971 by Scott Yanow on Allmusic (English). Retrieved June 25, 2012.
- Nic Jones: Review of the album at All About Jazz
- Notes on the album at Discogs
- Album at WBAI
Remarks
- ↑ The recordings were republished by Atavistic in the Unheard Music Series .
- ↑ The second edition from 2006 appeared with slightly different title under Joe McPhee & Survival Unit II with Clifford Thornton - At WBAI's Free Music Store, NYNY, October 30, 1971 (in the short version on CD and front as Joe McPhee & Survival Unit II with Clifford Thornton NYNY 1971 ).
- ↑ Uehlinger originally founded his label HatHut with the intention of documenting Joe McPhee's music and began publishing records as a part-time job. The first LP, which was released as HatHUT A , was Black Magic Man (recorded in 1970), as HatHUT B was released in 1975 by McPhee's The Willisau Concert , which presented him in a trio with John Snyders (synthesizer) and Makaya Ntshoko on drums.
- ↑ Original: The absence of a bass lends this quintet music a light and airy feel, even at its most heated moments, as on the lengthy "Nation Time," where McPhee proves he was able to blow up a storm with the best of the tenor players, and Byron Morris proves himself a worthy musician on soprano, though he has sadly escaped the attentions of posterity. Baritone horn player Clifford Thornton brings his own weirdly stately but deeply satisfying approach to bear here as well.
- ↑ Original: Song for Lauren is an example of a sort of lyricism that has arguably been downgraded in McPhee's music in more recent times, but it reveals what a multifaceted composer and musician he can be. This is just as it should be with any national treasure.
- ↑ Original: Pianist Mike Kull's work is, in its way, just as fascinating as that of any of the musicians here. His distance from Cecil Taylor's rolling thunder is as pronounced as his distance from, say, the insistent minimalism of the mature Mal Waldron. He also manages to avoid every hackneyed phrase in the book. One can't help but wonder what has become of Kull over the decades .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Information from HatHut ( Memento of the original dated December 1, 1998 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ See Richard Cook , Brian Morton : The Penguin Guide To Jazz on CD . (8th ed.) Penguin, London 2006, ISBN 0-14-051521-6 .
- ↑ a b c See Liner Notes by Chris Albertson , 1987
- ↑ Joe McPhee discography
- ↑ a b c d Nic Jones: Review of the album at All About Jazz
- ↑ < Jason Bivins in Dusted magazine
