The Picture From Issue 1408 From 11 July 2016

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…

"The road was our school. It gave us a sense of survival; it taught us everything we know and out of respect, we don't want to drive it into the ground…or maybe it's just superstition but the road has taken a lot of the great ones. It's a goddam impossible way of life" - Robbie Robertson, from the movie The Last Waltz, quoted in the box set…