Muhal Richard Abrams

[Rabshakeh]

2 minutes ago, mjazzg said:

I found the coverage of that in the Sites Ra Chicago book fascinating as I'd not come across it previously. Or I had if Szwed covers it but many years ago and it was lost to me by now

Szwed has a long passage on Sun Ra's use of afrocentric freemasonic / protestant books and pamphlets. He also links it back to the prevalence of freemasonry in the American south in the first half of the 20th century, including in the African American parts of Birmingham in Alabama.

Again, it is interesting to find that Anthony Braxton refers to some of the same books that Szwed says inspired Sun Ra in his interviews with Graham Lock.

[JSngry]

What I find comically tragic is that all this pre-Abrahamic referencing is tied into a post-Abrahamic construct. Nation of Islam? Wanting me to believe in a pre-Abrahamic construct in the name of Islam, which is a very much Abrahamic construct...so, sure...

I think enough anthropology is occurring that would allow us to get over all that. Let's see where all that leads, that's where the real fun is, imo. I think the freest thinkers, like Abrams, Braxton, the OG AACM, had already evolved past any of that specific-doctrinaire stuff.

In other words, I don't really know what I CAN believe about our true origins, but I'm pretty sure I know what I CAN'T believe. It may be that we never truly know, which is preferable (to me) than just making shit up and calling it "real".

 

[clifford_thornton]

On 8/23/2021 at 10:50 AM, Rabshakeh said:

I was thinking that specifically in relation to the poem on the second side. Some of the same imagery from it then recurs in the poem on the opening track of Fanfare for the Warriors, which I think is by Malachi Favors. I was a kid when Nas and Wu Tang were in their original pomp, and spent a lot of time as a teenager obsessing over what the 5% references meant, and this has the same "feel" as you say.

Query the Hebrew too - it looks like someone who does not know Hebrew has tried to transliterate the English name "Cain" back into Hebrew, without knowing the original spelling and using a non-final letter for the last letter by mistake. Then again, it could be anything.

as I understand it, the poem read on Fanfare is by Jarman. The poem on the record (not on the cover) of Levels and Degrees is by Amus Mor/David Moore. 

[Late]

Just listened to the whole of this. A record that (for me) takes some easing into, but by the final track is pretty glorious.

This thread has some good reading. 

I need to spin Blu, Blu, Blu next. It's been years, possibly around ten, which is way too long.

Considerations/call-outs for Abrams' "best" piano-centric recording? I'm really only familiar with his larger group work.

[colinmce]

5 hours ago, Late said:

Just listened to the whole of this. A record that (for me) takes some easing into, but by the final track is pretty glorious.

This thread has some good reading. 

I need to spin Blu, Blu, Blu next. It's been years, possibly around ten, which is way too long.

Considerations/call-outs for Abrams' "best" piano-centric recording? I'm really only familiar with his larger group work.

Hard to go wrong really, but for very piano-centric albums: Young At Heart/Wise In Time (maybe the single “most” essential if you have to choose), Afrisong, Duets 1976 (Braxton), Sightsong (Malachai Favors), Spiral, Lifelong Ambitions (Leroy Jenkins), Duets & Solos (Roscoe Mitchell) The Open Air Meeting (Marty Erlich), Streaming (Lewis/Mitchell), Sounddance (Lewis/Fred Anderson).

 

[Late]

3 minutes ago, colinmce said:

Hard to go wrong really, but for very piano-centric albums ... Sightsong (Malachi Favors) ...

I've been meaning to check this out for a while, but keep getting distracted by other titles.  Sightsong

Big fan of Malachi Favors.

 

[Guy Berger]

Muhal’s big band recordings are my favorite of his output, Mama and Daddy is the first entry in that amazing run

[clifford_thornton]

Agree, they're pretty unreal.

[felser]

On 10/29/2022 at 11:52 PM, Late said:

I've been meaning to check this out for a while, but keep getting distracted by other titles.  Sightsong

Big fan of Malachi Favors.

 

It's great.  That and his solo piano stuff are my favorites by him, especially the solo side of 'Young at Heart/Wise in Time'.

[JSngry]

1 hour ago, felser said:

...the solo side of 'Young at Heart/Wise in Time'.

Yeah, this. 

[Joe]

13 hours ago, JSngry said:

Yeah, this. 

Agree. Maybe my favorite solo piano performance ever.

[felser]

2 hours ago, Joe said:

Agree. Maybe my favorite solo piano performance ever.

MIne too.