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Free America


cayetano

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Yeah, an unusual move by Universal to put out such a great batch of avant garde titles. My guess, is that this is all we're going to see of any future Free America titles in the future, at least in cd form.

It's probably my favorite avant-jazz reissue series. Getting all 15 of these took a lot of work though, as I only started buying them early this year!

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There's lots of great Windo out there, and Tes Esat is certainly one fine, fine example. I don't know if one can say it's "canonically" an important date or anything, but it sure is a fun listen. There's a lot of speculation about the date of recording - the disc says what, '70, and the LP has no date on it. I believe Gary's widow had placed it in '73, around the same time as his work with Ray Russell.

I remember seeing the 'Tes Esat' LP as a deletion around 1978 but didn't pick it up I'm afraid. I'd always thought it came out around 73/74.

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  • 8 months later...

Christ, has it been that long since these were released?

I think there's one credentialed "Classic" in the AEC releases, and that's Phase One. You could take or leave the other two for me; Certain Blacks is just fun, whereas the w/Fontella Bass album is detailed and rich in early AEC fashion but without the majesty and drama of some of their other long-form sound pieces (I'm thinking of People In Sorrow or the long pieces on the Nessa box).

I think at some point that Phase One emerged as my favorite--one of their most brilliant "little instrument" pieces (the Albert Ayler dedication) paired with what is for me the definitive version of "Ohnedaruth"... much slower than in later years, but with a very deliberate, focused construction, ferociously swinging, and featuring maybe the best sustained freebop showcase for the band as a collective of soloists. With the Nessa box, Sophie, and People In Sorrow, I think you have pretty much the band's most eye-opening, startling work (though I might include some later essays with "best" and, honorarily, Sound for mindfucks--but that's Roscoe's album).

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Problem with that is who's got the tapes/rights - Universal or Charly (not that the latter cares/cared about "rights"). I have been told that the America edition, as with Coursil's Black Suite, is the original but it's hard to confirm.

Would've been nice to put the Wright and Howard on one disc as well as make a disc out of Coral Rock and the "Uhuru" track from Pitchin' Can. But I suppose all this stuff is floating around the share blogs anyway and there are heavier/more interesting things in this music to worry about than BYG and America reissues (there, I said it).

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Problem with that is who's got the tapes/rights - Universal or Charly (not that the latter cares/cared about "rights"). I have been told that the America edition, as with Coursil's Black Suite, is the original but it's hard to confirm.

The Americas were issued first but BYG claimed the tapes were taken from them.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I received the Wright CD from this series in the mail today and was surprised to find Frank's name spelled correctly on the spine and front sticker. I had been under the impression that the "Franck" typo was on the entire run of this. Because of this and the low price I found for a sealed copy, my first thought was that the label cheated on the "limited edition" and printed another batch, but if they had done that, one would assume they'd keep the web site active that's printed on the back (free-america.net). Also, I doubt sales for a Frank Wright CD would really be big enough to warrant going beyond the promised run of 5000.

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I received the Wright CD from this series in the mail today and was surprised to find Frank's name spelled correctly on the spine and front sticker. I had been under the impression that the "Franck" typo was on the entire run of this. Because of this and the low price I found for a sealed copy, my first thought was that the label cheated on the "limited edition" and printed another batch, but if they had done that, one would assume they'd keep the web site active that's printed on the back (free-america.net). Also, I doubt sales for a Frank Wright CD would really be big enough to warrant going beyond the promised run of 5000.

The spine on mine is correct. Don't know about the sticker, it is long gone.

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