It’s not every day that you run into a musician who joins a protean range of talents—as a composer, saxophonist, writer and bandleader–-with a commitment to Marxist ideology….For twenty years now Fred Ho and his Afro Asian Music Ensemble have been defending the turf where the personal and the political slam into the maelstrom of new jazz…a fiercely imaginative baritone saxophonist and composer.
Asian-American baritone saxophonist Fred Ho has been a champion of freedom and expressionism in modern creative jazz for some time. A continuing battle with cancer has inspired him to assemble the Green Monster Big Band, with reference to the famed left-field wall at Fenway Park in Boston, but more directly related to the huge sound and diverse ideas this juggernaut ensemble represents. Ho is influenced by the '60s big bands, television or movie themes, and the psychedelic rock he grew up with, all present on this ambitious program.
In 1974, five musicians - guitarists Chris Brown and Jimmy Doyle, sax player Col Loughnan and the master rhythm section of Duncan McGuire (bass) and Mark Kennedy (drums) - forged a brilliant and beguiling sound with Ayers Rock. They were hailed as “musician’s musicians” - the best in their field, commanding respect from all comers. Recorded in one, live-in-the-studio session in September 1974, Big Red Rock was one of the first albums issued on the mighty Mushroom label. Despite the brief nature of the recording, the band was well prepared and the album stands as a fine example of musical skill and technique combined with song writing brilliance. This is where jazzy pop and blues rock textures meet jazz rock explorations and trippy soundscapes, where the band’s sound coalesced into a cogent whole…
Tim Goulding, songwriter, performer (piano, keyboards and whistles) and member of Dr. Strangely Strange released his first solo album on Sweet Ticket Music.
Snake-Eaters debuts Fred Ho's Saxophone Liberation Front, featuring composer Ho on baritone saxophone and Hafez Modirzadeh (soprano), Bobby Zankel (alto) and Salim Washington (tenor). Darker than Blue, inspired by Curtis Mayfield's song, We the People Who are Darker than Blue, employs shifting meters (including a blues section in 11/8 and 11.5 /8), 12-tone serialism, compound meter ostinati, and Lydian chromatic approaches to orchestration. Ho's Yellow Power, Yellow Soul Suite coincides with the soon-to-be publication of the Drs. Roger Buckley and Tamara Roberts' festschrift by the same title, and includes the previously recorded "Fishing Song of the East China Sea" (originally a flute trio with bass violin on the out-of-print recording by Fred Ho and the Asian American Art Ensemble, Bamboo that Snaps Back; and the now-defunct Brooklyn Sax Quartet recording The Far Side of Here), as well as Afro-Asian adaptations of other Asian folk songs.
Calvin Massey (1928-1972) is virtually unknown with the exception of both highly knowledgeable jazz scholars and a small coterie of illustrious musicians who remain alive and were immensely indebted to Massey s musical influence and mentorship. Massey was a father figure and close friend to many of the greatest jazz musicians of the post-World War era until his early death in 1972. Massey was a trumpeter, but was most noted as a composer of magisterial works, of which his epic opus was The Black Liberation Movement Suite, an extended work of nine movements. Until now, the work had never been recorded in its entirety. Cal Massey ranked among the greatest jazz composers of the 20th century, included with Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk and Sun Ra.