Jams

ART ENSEMBLE OF CHICAGO, Actuel 529. 302

A Jackson in your House; Get in Line; The Waltz; Erika; Song for Charles.

Some of the most beautiful music on the whole planet recently cams to us by way of Paris. Joseph Jarman, Roscoe Mitchell, Lester Bowie, Malachi Favors. Not many people in this country have ever even heard their names. Joseph and them went into Exile in 1968 and sought asylum in France, because people in their own country were not ready to hear their music. Not the people actually. But the men (men!) who control the music industry, jazz as well as rock and roll. They have an ingerent interest in keeping this music from becoming popular as long as possible, because music as strong and free as this is dnagerous to their business. After people get exposed enough to this kind of music long enough, they'll never be able to listen to junk again.

These musicians will not compromise their music. They have to play for us. "We are here to REVEAL the Revelation of the ONE - spirit, that cannot be stopped, no matter what ANYONE tries to do. it is not our wish to be allowed to play music it is our fact - finally we have no choice. no other way -" JoJar.

So this record was made in Paris, in the Summer of 1969. You won't find it in most record stores. Discount Records on South U ordered one (1) copy and I copped that one the minute I saw it. They have a few copies left at the Land of Hi-Fi in Detroit, if you are lucky you might hear it on the radio on WDET on Bud Spangler's show some night (see TuneIn column).

The musicians on this album are all f rom Chicago. Out of the ruins of that experience, Chicago, for black Americans, these musicians create such incredible beauty - Joseph's songs a mixture of pure joy and infinite sadness; Roscoe and Lester, the cosmic jokers, carrying on a dialogue in all kinds of weird dimensions and then all of a sudden breaking out into a perfectly harmonious dixieland while marching across the stage like a New Orleans Funeral band - laughing their asses off inside because they caught some deaf honkies in their self - righteous assumption that these artists only play the "wrong" notes because they don't know how to play the "right" ones! Malachi -- all of them -- creating the strong rythymn, the beat, out of their breaths, as well as the bells and the gongs, and logs and vibes, etc.

"This album is given in the honor and memory of the beautiful spirit known to us as CHARLES CLARK. (March 11, 1945 - April 15, 1969)

Continued page 6

cont. from page 5

A pisces, like me. 24 years old. Just like the year before Christopher Gaddy, the piano player and one of the most beautiful people in the whole universe, left this planet, just as suddenly and unexplainable. On Joseph's second album "As if it were the Seasons" - Song for Christopher - that piercing wail of the female voice (Sherry Scott), sends shivers up and down my spine every time I hear it.

Erika, the german girl - Joseph Jarman, G. I. , stationed in Germany 10 years ago now becomes "ERIKA, the Panther, paying homage to the people. " Universal suffering of all women. Joseph understands.

ERIKA Child of uncharted microtones
thrown through the dawn the maze of longing
as she matures in Black America, the Panther, paying homage to the people torn with gun, television hero
gone to madness -
seeking the answer
can we............endure?
Mother, once freaked with acid
product of the "new frontier"
becomes the maiden lonely,
hiroshima's crime the horror, the insane
visions for her chiles locked forever
in het womb
seeking the answer
can we. ............endure?
Father, paints his nightmare, a black
sore of fear in technicolor
a silver cup again - his youth,
the bare facts of existence -
image, the Black Saint whom
LeRoi calis "the heaviest spirit. "
ERIKA
after this America where humans
wonder wandering - do peace movements
care,
her eyes, tender smile
a flower garden, all gentle
being
must she -ERIKA- endure visionless
alone, "rise up" - hari OM. Alone,
"rise up"
hari OM, Alone "rise up" HARI OM
Alone "rise up" hari OM
Alone "rise up" hari OM
to bring us-us to the facts of
universal life and death here
the Song for Charles our brother gone
into other aspects of himself so soon
from us his strong bass sound his LIFE
our sadness, act of not hearing his
sound in these terms the audio now
in another place, we only remember -

Joseph Jarman

There are rumors going around that this band is back in the U.S. They played for us in West Park in 1965 and 66. Now it's 4 years later. Are we ready for them ?

Leni