Free America Series

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Free America Series is a number of free jazz records from the Verve vaults that are getting the reish treatment. I'm looking forward to finally hearing that Alan Shorter record, and also Roswell Rudd. What do the ilmers think, s/d? I'm not familiar with most of this stuff.

From the Verve site:
New Thing. New Jazz. Avant-garde…The list of names would be endless if common sense hadn’t finally retained a single denomination ‘free jazz’. Yet even today, in refusing to be just another style in Afro-American music, it still questions (and with what strength!) its foundations and developments. Taken from the America/Musidisc catalogue, and recorded in majority in Paris between 1969 and 1973, these 15 albums are now reissued for the first time on compact disc, remastered in 24-bits, as a numbered, limited edition

Art Ensemble of Chicago Certain Blacks
Art Ensemble of Chicago Phase One
Art Ensemble of Chicago With Fontella Bass
Paul Bley Improvisie
Anthony Braxton Donna Lee
Anthony Braxton Saxophone Improvisation
Dave Burrell After Love
Emergency Homage to Peace
Steve Lacy The Gap
Rosewell Rudd Rosewell Rudd
Archie Shepp Black Gipsy
Alan Shorter Tes Esat
Clifford Thonton The Panther and the Lash
Mal Waldron and Steve Lacy Mal Waldron with the Steve Lacy Quintet
Frank Wright Uhuru Na Umoja

― mcd (mcd), Thursday, 17 March 2005 16:02 (twenty-one years ago)

New free jazz answers.

― mcd (mcd), Thursday, 17 March 2005 16:03 (twenty-one years ago)

i saw a few of these in the store yesterday. they're beautiful. the artwork is absolutely stunning. i'm not familiar with any of the titles except the Art Ensemble of Chicago With Fontella Bass and i'm actually not a fan of it. it's got a lot of mellow, but discordant long pieces. not the style of theirs i like

― The JaXoN 5 (JasonD), Thursday, 17 March 2005 18:26 (twenty-one years ago)

it seems a daunting plunge to take, especially as it gets hard these days to go through so much free blowing, but i'm hoping someone like pdf can make some headway for the rest of us. i will at least dip into shepp's black gipsy, but can anyone else enlighten on these 15?

― imbidimts, Sunday, 20 March 2005 16:44 (twenty-one years ago)

This looks so interesting I want to like it, but I doubt I would like most of it. I might try that AEC w/ Fontella Bass actually. Slow but discordant and atypical of their usual sound might be just right for me.

What is Emergency Homage to Peace? Some sort of supergroup?

― RS £aRue (rockist_scientist), Sunday, 20 March 2005 17:05 (twenty-one years ago)

I've bought six of them - two Art Ensemble titles (Certain Blacks and Phase One), the Archie Shepp, the Clifford Thornton, the Frank Wright and the Alan Shorter. A friend burned me a copy of Certain Blacks a few years ago, so I just bought the reissue for the improved sound quality. Phase One contains two 20-minute blowouts, and is also excellent. In fact, all the ones I've heard so far have been great. The Shepp disc is a bluesy, stomping thing, and the Frank Wright is raw blare with gospelized melodies to set things up. Wright was a direct descendent of Ayler; in fact, you can hear them playing together on the Holy Ghost box (I think it's Disc Four). Far too little of his stuff is in print, so grab that one first, is my advice. These are all super-limited editions (1000 copies, I think). Best price is from J&R Music World - www.jr.com - they've got 'em for $11.99 each, where Tower is charging $18.99.

― pdf (Phil Freeman), Sunday, 20 March 2005 17:49 (twenty-one years ago)

that's the rev. frank wright of the center of the world recs?

― imbidimts, Sunday, 20 March 2005 22:04 (twenty-one years ago)

The same.

― pdf (Phil Freeman), Sunday, 20 March 2005 22:17 (twenty-one years ago)

so wait, are these all reissues of lps or are some of them issues of sessions that haven't been previously released?

the packaging is really luxe on these--was looking at them in the store this weekend. i think i'll pick up the archie shepp at least.

incidentally dusty groove (www.dustygroove.com), typically, has these for less $$ than elsewhere.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Sunday, 20 March 2005 22:19 (twenty-one years ago)

They are reissues of albums that came out on America (a French label) in 1970-71, sort of picking up where BYG/Actuel left off. (I'm still waiting for some of the BYG titles to be reissued, like Clifford Thornton's Ketchaoua, which is on vinyl but not CD, and Frank Wright's One For John, which is totally unavailable.)

― pdf (Phil Freeman), Sunday, 20 March 2005 22:21 (twenty-one years ago)

swear I've seen 'one for john' (which is really great, of course).

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Sunday, 20 March 2005 22:23 (twenty-one years ago)

i bought certain blacks tonite, listening now. it's really excellent - big messy discordant horn rumbles with booming rhythms and crazy loose ends. and of course as everyone says, the packaging on these resissues is absolutely beautiful.

― mark p (Mark P), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 02:32 (twenty-one years ago)

woah, just saw this thread. I didn't realize it was about the old America label! How weird that Verve's got the catalog now. Some of this stuff has been reissued (on vinyl) in the US in the past, both by the Prestige and Inner City labels. Like that Braxton Saxophone Improvisation Series F thing, you'd see the Inner City issue around all the time. Ditto the Art Ensembles on Prestige. So crazy to think of Verve putting these freaking things into Wal-Marts!!

I'm surprised Hstencil hasn't posted to this thread. Maybe he skipped over it as I did. He and I once got into a FITE when I outbid him for two of the Art Ensemble records on eBay!

the Paul Bley is good -- it's Bley with his then-wife Annette Peacock and the great Han Bennink on drums. Bley and Peacock alternate on synthesizer and piano, a real free affair. I have the Lacy and Shepp discs too, though I can't honestly recall too much about those particular dates right now.

One that I've definitely been dying to hear is that Frank Wright. I think it has Art Taylor on drums! that must be amazing. Now if someone would just reissue that Japanese Church No. 9 lp ...

― Stormy Davis (diamond), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 07:05 (twenty-one years ago)

discography (here's hoping that they'll eventually do the Howard/Wright disc as well):

http://www.fmi.uni-passau.de/~schneide/discogr/america.html

― Stormy Davis (diamond), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 07:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Can anyone say more about the AEC/Fontella Bass collaboration?

― RS £aRue (rockist_scientist), Friday, 25 March 2005 04:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Church Number Nine came out on CD a couple of years ago, on some French label called Black Keys. (For all I know, this could be their only release.) I have it, but it's hard to find again already, of course.

― pdf (Phil Freeman), Friday, 25 March 2005 14:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Sounds great. I'll take one of each.

― Austin S (Austin, Still), Friday, 25 March 2005 14:26 (twenty-one years ago)

I only know the Fontella Bass contrib from "Theme de Yoyo" from Les Stances a Sophie. It's totally amazing. I have an mp3 and could maybe post it or something. It's really one of my favorite Art Ensemble things that I have heard. Don't know what's on that LP, though. Anyone?

― mcd (mcd), Friday, 25 March 2005 16:09 (twenty-one years ago)

one month passes...

The Frank Wright & Shepp are amazing. Wanted Alan Shorter but they didn't have it. I'd like to collect all of them, but quite honestly I've never cared for Steve Lacy, Art Ensemble are way too hit and miss for me, and that Emergency record is kinda boring.

― Roger Fidelity (Roger Fidelity), Sunday, 1 May 2005 17:52 (twenty-one years ago)

I ordered the AEC w/ Fontela Bass but the distributor I ordered from ran out.

(mcd, I have Les Stances a Sophie already.)

― RS_LaRue (RSLaRue), Sunday, 1 May 2005 18:40 (twenty-one years ago)

I only know the Fontella Bass contrib from "Theme de Yoyo" from Les Stances a Sophie. It's totally amazing. I have an mp3 and could maybe post it or something. It's really one of my favorite Art Ensemble things that I have heard. Don't know what's on that LP, though. Anyone?

it sounds absolutely NOTHING like this. i know RS doesn't care for my opinion, but i think it's a really boring album and i've never listened to the whole thing.

― [that bastard] jaxon (jaxon), Sunday, 1 May 2005 19:13 (twenty-one years ago)

The AEC w/Bass is mostly for the hardcore. Actually, Phase One kinda is, too; it starts slow and takes a while to really get rippin'. I love both, but don't recommend 'em to non-obsessives. Stick with Certain Blacks, which rocks.

― pdf (Phil Freeman), Sunday, 1 May 2005 20:30 (twenty-one years ago)

i know RS doesn't care for my opinion, but i think it's a really boring album and i've never listened to the whole thing.

But your "mellow discordant" description sounds like Sundar trying to convinced me to buy something. The way you've described it makes it sound interesting to me, despite the fact that you obviously don't like it.

― RS_LaRue (RSLaRue), Sunday, 1 May 2005 20:46 (twenty-one years ago)

i've put one track from clifford thornton's panther and the lash in my podcast for stylus mag. it'll be up tomorrow.

― blackmail.is.my.life (blackmail.is.my.life), Sunday, 1 May 2005 21:21 (twenty-one years ago)

correction - it'll be up thursday. HUEY IS FREE!

― blackmail.is.my.life (blackmail.is.my.life), Monday, 2 May 2005 11:16 (twenty-one years ago)

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