Big band old school free-blowin' free jazz from the James Marshall Human Arts Ensemble. Featuring rare performances by Maurice Malik King, James Marshall, Luther Thomas, Thurman Thomas, Jim Miller, Carl Arzinia Richardson, Papa Glen Wright, and others. Recorded in 1975 & digitally remastered from the original studio tapes.
This atypical music typifies the "old school" free-blowin' free jazz of the times, replete with references. During this period ('74-'79) The Human Arts Ensemble, nominally led by James Marshall, often performed as a "Big Band" of 8 to 12 pieces heavily weighted with horns, drums & percussion. Performance-poetry was a matter of fact & often part of the mix long before it became a fashion & acquired a name. Concerts were usually self-promoted, occasionally with a modicum of institutional support, and media recognition was virtually non-existent. Playing in clubs was rare and always a special event. Amazing how times have changed! In spite of being under the underground, the music scene viewed from the perspective of music itself was a vibrant stew of energy, creativity & personalities. For years playing was an almost daily or nightly affair often at Marshall's crib. The roster was unpredictable and former members were always welcome. Some of those passing through this swinging door went on to a degree of fame if not fortune; most recall an atmosphere that fostered a pure & honest freedom in music making and an abiding reverence for the source of all creativity.
The nine-piece band heard here on Invocation and Oasis was a studio date dream team, a gathering of the players "on the scene" in late summer '75 & were collectively the musicians Marshall and Zelenka were playing with in various contexts over the previous year. By this time there were no strangers in town. Arzinia, Luther, Thurman & 'Reece (as he was known then) had a musical association going back to the late '60s and The St. Louis Black Artist Group (BAG). And beyond. Everyone had played together in various creative contexts including Marshall's Human Arts Ensemble. Rick Saffron, a regular at informal sessions and among the usual suspects in HAE concerts of the mid '70s had joined with Maurice King & Thurman Thomas in Zelenka's Thunderbolt Quartet playing some local college concerts and club dates over the previous year.
Jim Miller was hosting his own free-music jams and had already played with most everyone else by the time of this session. Miller, in his early '20s here, is heard as an empathetic and energetic free drummer whose technique was already a powerful asset. Miller went on to a career as a work-horse drummer in the St. Louis club scene playing in a variety of musical situations with jazz singers, R&B & Blues Artists, & rock bands; near-famous, famous, infamous and unknown for 20 years until his untimely death. At one time he was referred to as "The Man Of A Thousand Bands". This session is the only known recorded example of his free playing.
Maurice Malik King was a major contributor to the St. Louis creative music scene. Through the '70s & '80s Malik built a multifaceted reputation first as a member of The St. Louis Black Artist Group, later playing in The Human Arts Ensemble and leading his own various Emerging Forces Ensembles. These ranged from trios to 8 or 9 musicians and are remembered for their strong line-up of horn players, scorching rhythm sections, and Malik's superb directorial and compositional skills. Later incarnations of this group dealt increasingly with improvisations based on King's written structures. Working extensively with poets & writers, he was a member of Shirley LeFlore’s ensemble Free 'N Concert; and served as music director of the Creative Arts & Expression Lab, the African People’s Continuum, the Black Arts Alliance and the Warrior Poets. Known for his powerful alto playing (& a whole lot more), Malik played tenor & soprano saxophones as well.
--Jay Zelenka
"I find great pleasure in listening to "big bands" playing free jazz, adding sound upon sound upon sound. Very often it does not work though. You need this lucky moment when all instruments are in sync and focused around a central vision. This is one of those albums. It does not have the ambition to create complex interaction, nor does it have the ambition to create clarity in melody and rhythm. It just flows in a quite organic or natural fashion, like waves, or the wind blowing through leaves, or it has something tribal, with a cacophony of pure sound just there to accompany moments of deep emotional value : rites of passage, weddings, funerals. The pleasure is in the spontaneous creation, the deeply felt unity of the musicians playing without boundaries and restrictions, yet fully respectful to each other and to the musical end result. You can describe this end result as twelve musicians soloing at the same time, over/under/through/against each other, but it's rather the opposite : there are no solos, it's just one gigantic spontaneous musical movement, a sound evolving following its own inherent dynamical logic and emotional dynamics, unsteered and unplanned, a wild tidal wave of sound alternated with slow and subdued moments and with musicians joining in to add shades and color, depth and emotional accents. You need great musicians to accomplish that, and that's what this band was, when it recorded this phenomenal piece of music in the mid-70s. The band was considered to be led by saxophonist James Marshall, but in reality it was a loose gathering of like-minded musicians with shifting line-ups depending on availabilities. The first two tracks are pure gold in their uncompromising spiritual adventurousness, the third is more rhythmic, with a more prominent piano and more distinctive soloing, but it remains powerful throughout. Kudos for Jay Zelenka of Freedonia Music for having re-released this gem. It falls in the same category of great free jazz re-issues as "Thing" on
Re-release.com or Norman Howard's "Burn, Baby Burn" (I actually heard later that this is not a re-issue : it's a first issue of tapes which had never been used before, so even more appreciation for its release!). It is wild, fierce and yet controlled. Awesome."
-- Free Jazz Blog: Stef Gijssels, August 15, 2008
