It's very good...
jive rhapsodist | NYC, NY United States | 07/24/2009
(5 out of 5 stars)
"But why isn't better? A dumb thing to say in a 5-star review, right? But this is really a step backward from Sound and Nonaah. Sound deserves 10 stars! There is an audible crisis at work here. In the sixties, it may have seemed as though there was a group of players committed to advanced work. But even most of the AACM gravitated towards more "accessible" forms of expression. An Avant Garde Composer who works within the world of Improvised Music is nothin' - without great players who want to play his music. And great listeners who want to listen to it. This record is surely too much for the average Jazz fan. But the great composer who Mitchell showed signs of becoming is a little domesticated here. I'd recognize his signature in a minute - he hadn't lost his voice or anything like that. And the playing is alive and responsive. Guitarist A. Spencer Barefield brings up interesting issues - a relatively "straight" player who rises to the occasion. Anyway, sometimes more accessible can mean better - or at least, as good. Think of the Ligeti Etudes! But - no way around it - Mitchell's earliest discs remain his greatest.
But wait! I want to say a little more...
There is a very particular sense of humor apparent throughout this disc. It sounds like all of Jazz, the notion of Swing, indeed the whole Black Music tradition is being looked at through a loving, ironic, slightly jaundiced eye. If you don't find this kind of humor funny or at least interesting, the charms of this set may elude you. But the rhythm team - Jaribu Shahid - bass and Tani Tabbal - drums - keeps it all real and puts a real fire under everything. This inspires some of Mitchell's best-ever "Jazz" playing, especially on the title track. The swing is not merely conceptual, and thus, this is a more successful disc than many Art Ensemble of Chicago sessions, although trumpeter Hugh Ragin doesn't have the emotional range of Lester Bowie. The funk tune Stomp and the Far East Blues is an absurd cousin to the A E of C's Rock Out and Ellington's Blue Pepper. Is it funky, actually? Are its cousins? If not, why not? This would be part of a much longer discussion."
Track Listings (6) - Disc #1