Hastings Street Jazz Experience

The Detroit Jazz Composers (Midnite Records)

Vocalist
Kim Weston

Musician
Louis Barnett, Charles Brown, Miller Brisker, Theodore Buckner, Theodore Harris Jr., Samuel Spraggins, Charles Gabriel, Earnest Rodgers, Walter Strickland, Ronald Fain, Sylvia Turner, Nasir Hafiz, Charles Hooks, Eddie Jones, Herbie Williams, John Wilson, Ed Gooch, Phil Ranelin,  Jimmy Wilkins, Duke Billingslea, Vaughn Klugh, Earl Thomas, Leonard McDonald, Will Davis, Ed Nelson, Mitchell Atkins, Sherrell Rowland, Sundiata O. Mausi, Edgar Spand, Margo Harris

Voices

Ava Rose, Miller Brisker, Sundiata O. Mausi, Sonya Gray, Ed Nelson, Sandra McCarther, Blaine Nichols, Olaju Kali, Guyanne Collins, Jerome Combs, Robert McCarther, Mikyo Adaku

Photos: Leni Sinclair

The artists that comprise the nucleus of the Hastings St. Jazz Expcrience will be perhaps the last generation of musicians to know directly the spirit and rhythm of Paradise Valley, the rhinestone belly of Detroit's teeming blackbottom. Like Harlem of the 20's and its legendary Renaissance, Black Detroit (roughly an area bounded by Hastings, Brush, Gratiot and Vernor Highway) in the 30's and in the 40's was bustling with all the activity that whisky, the "numbers," nightclubs and jazz could possibly inspire. The pace of this narrowly constricted community was frantic and often maddening, leaving little time to dwell on the oppressive dehumanizing conditions crowding each ghetto doorway .
Through the fog of today's urban blight it is difficult to imagine those crimeless times, and Fenkell, of course, cannot be compared with the "Great Black Strip," but with the appearance of the Hastings St. Jazz Experience's first album we are offered at least a glimpse of that era and the sophisticated, lightly transcendent quality of its music. No; this s not one of those "nostalgia" records. There is no deliberate attempt here to capture the vitality of any particular period of time. The music in one sense is timeless and to associate it more with the 50's than to the 30's and 40's is to suggest a flavor and not a category. Listen again to "Arjuna" and "Song for 'M'."
Looking over the roster of more than 50 people involved in completing this project of some two years I am reminded of Leonard Feather's comments on record companies. For him there are basically two kinds of record companies. One is the standard type of company which caters primarily to the general taste of the public. The other, determined ostensibly by some individual's love for a particular type of music, is nonetheless a company in pursuit of an untapped audience,
Recently, in many parts of the country, there has arisen yet a third type of company: small, independent producers who are normally the artists themselves. Locally based, asrtist controlled companies like Strata and Tribe are solid examples that this type of enterprise can at least survive if not prosper without the assistance of large, profit-grabbing distributors-promoters.
The arrival of the Hastings St. Jazz Experience not only perpetuates and strengthens the concept but marks for posterity a group of musicians deserving wider recognition. The Hastings St. Jazz Experience was founded in 1972 by musicians Ed Nelson, Dedrick Glover, and Charles Miles. Miller Brisker and Ed Nelson, who is percussionist on all of the compositions, have to be seen as the driving force both musically and from a production standpoint.
The musicians on this date all agree that without their energy and persistence the album would have never been finished. Miller Brisker, whose solo on "Ja-Mil" firmly demonstrates his lyricism and his ability lo swing, is also the founder of the Detroit Jazz Composers Ltd. which is responsible for all the compositions rendered here.
It is especially rewarding to hear Teddy Harris, Nasir Hafiz (Abe Woodling) and Herbie Williams. Herbie's arrangement on "Nobody Had To Tell Me" offers a perfect backdrop for Kim Weston's sensitive interpretation of Alma Foster's engaging composition. An additional suggestion would be more solo space for such a talented array of superb instrumentalists.
After what must appear to be a lifetime, the Hastings St. Jazz Experience is finally on record. A short range objective has been fulfilled and as Mr. Nelson advises . . . "We realize that this s a grassroots production and we're not thinking about making a lot of money. Our first objective was to get this done. In the long run we plan to put together a catalog of records and expand our operation into other important community projects." With this initial phase of the protracted struggle out of the way, the group is now preparing for the next step of the journey. The insight and dedication of the many musicians involved here practically guarantees that the next project will be of even greater quality and purpose.
At this point, having exceeded the self-imposed limits of one who has been traditionally opposed to liner notes, let me say that words without can but approximate the music within: Listen to the music. For he who says does not know and he who knows cannot say.

- Herb Boyd