Marcus Marcus (1976)

Great Britain's music culture is marked by a centuries-old tradition of choral singing, as is shown, for instance, in the institution of college choirs. Church policy had a beneficial effect on the development of sacred music. After the Anglican Church separated from Rome in the 16th c. and the abbeys were secularized, many cathedral choirs were founded which took over the Holy Office from the monastic communities. The fact that sacred choral music in the British Isles is still written largely with an orientation to liturgical purposes must be understood as an effect of this constellation. The close relationship between the way composers and performers work, moreover, explains the tendency of a large portion of this art to be addressed to the general public.

In Detroit, 1971, trombonist Phil Ranelin and saxophonist Wendell Harrison started a band, a recording company, and a magazine, and called them the Tribe. Though the three organizations lasted until 1978, Ranelin's Vibes From the Tribe, issued in 1976, was the last of eight records issued by Tribe/Time Is Now Productions. Musically, this is not only a solid portrait of Detroit's jazz scene in the mid-'70s, but is also a definitive portrait of its cultural mentality. While everyone in the nation had written off the city as a wasteland, a space devoid of anything worth celebrating, its residents were in the process of creating some of the most vital jazz, literature, and art in its history. Vibes From the Tribe is a wildly diverse collection of tunes to be on a single long-player…

This disc brings together Marcus Garvey, Burning Spear's debut album, with its dub counterpart, entitled Garvey's Ghost. The resulting package is one of the pillars of roots reggae, an album packed with thick, heavy grooves and uncompromising religious and political messages. Although this Mango reissue has been criticized as sonically weaker than the Jamaican original, it will sound plenty dread to all but the most critical ears. Songs like the title track, "Slavery Days" and "Give Me" (with its remarkably well-integrated flute part) all tremble with the intensity of Winston Rodney's dark voice, and some of the dub versions (in particular "Black Wa-Da-Da," based on "The Invasion") number among the most frightening ever created. There are no sing-along melodies here; Burning Spear has always been more about setting up a relentless groove and using it to get the words across. But that groove is glorious, and it's more than sufficient to support the significant weight of the lyrics.

Coming after the highly acclaimed Marcus Garvey (1975), Burning Spear's fourth album, Man in the Hills (1976), had a lot to live up to. It is generally conceded that they did not craft an equally impressive follow-up, but Man in the Hills has its charms nevertheless. Lead singer and main songwriter Winston Rodney turns back to reflections on his rural Jamaican childhood for many of the lyrics, which gives the album a gentler, more nostalgic message than the political, exhortative Marcus Garvey. Rodney's tenor is well suited to the sentiments, and the all-star band assembled to back him is supportive and, especially in the horn charts, complementary to the lead voice. The demands of recording schedules may have caused Burning Spear to recast earlier songs, but that contributes to the album's theme of looking back. "Door Peep" was the first song Burning Spear released in its Studio One days, and "No More War" updates the Jamaicans' 1967 song "Ba Ba Boom." With Dry & Heavy (1977), Burning Spear consisted only of Rodney, who also jettisoned producer Laurence "Jack Ruby" Lindo and handled the board himself.

OST-KRAUT!: the two-part double CD series - a long overdue addition to our KRAUT! edition - comprehensively documents the history of progressive music in the GDR for the first time with studio and live recordings!

Horace Tapscott - Ancestral Echoes - The Covina Sessions, 1976 (2020) {Dark Tree DT(RS)13}
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© 1976, 2020 Dark Tree | DT(RS)13
Jazz / Avant-Garde Jazz / Spiritual Jazz / Experimental Big Band / Piano

Under exclusive license from the Horace Tapscott family, of this previously unpublished studio recording. In January 1976, the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra recorded at Audiotronics Recording Studio in Covina, east of Los Angeles. Musicians assumed these tapes were lost, but they survived in Horace’s archive and a copy of some tracks in that of Nimbus West. Four pieces appear on this CD: Ancestral Echoes, the Eternal Egypt Suite, Sketches of Drunken Mary and Jo Annette. Includes a 16-page booklet with liner notes by Steven Isoardi, photos by Mark Weber and from the Horace Tapscott Archive.