Author: Derek Taylor
Source: Bagatellen
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Marion Brown survives as one of the few among the New Thing circle to have secured financial solvency in his advanced years. Sadly, the source of his income is not widespread recognition and consumption of his music, but instead a financial settlement in a medical malpractice suit. Brown’s music continues to exist on the fringes, treasured by aficionados, but invisible to the majority of music listeners. The longstanding experimental rock collective His Name is Alive takes important initiative to combat that condition with this new tribute album to Brown. Rather than focus on his Sixties work for Impulse and ESP, the nine piece ensemble taps the altoist/composer’s later Seventies work, a rare and ruminative songbook now generally available only as downloads on music blogs and high-priced vinyl in boutique shops.
Lush rhythm and a rich amount of modal atmosphere factor prominently into the ensemble’s readings of Brown’s already spacious compositions. “Juba Lee Brown” sounds like mid-Impulse period Coltrane, specifically “Alabama”, in its somber dirge structure. The version of “Capricorn Moon” riffs off vintage Fela, a referent not surprising given leader Warn Defever’s decision to populate the band with members of the Michigan-based Afrobeat outfit NOMO. An undulating vamp serves as spinal column for sinewy statements by horns and Defever almost seems to be channeling a more subdued side of his inner Eddie Hazel on guitar. “November Cotton Flower” and “Bismillani ‘Rrahmani ‘Rrahim”, the only non-Brown piece of the set, involve ample use of Rhodes and Wurlizter to drape the music in a cottony incense-scented haze. The second piece also contains one of the rare passages where the group plumbs conventional free jazz territory with keening saxophones and strident guitar.
A percussion section of Jamie Easter, Dan Piccolo and Olman Piedra keep the rhythms porous and enveloping and avoid more rigidly defined beats. The gentle rustle and click of small shakers and hand drums weaves with the plaintive strains of birdcalls on “Geechee Recollections” and “Sweet Earth Flying”. The combination of live and studio settings further varies the surroundings, the applause on the former pieces. If there’s one drawback it falls back to the Fela comparison in that a couple tracks stretch circuitousness to a fault.
It’s difficult to imagine Brown not being intensely pleased by the thoughtful attention accorded his music. A quote included on sticker affixed to the disc confirms it: “It’s beautiful, thank you. You really understand me.” The odds of the affirmation extending to listener impressions appear extremely favorable.