Customer Reviews

35th Reunion

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This review is intended to function as a corrective. The last reviewer contends he is a fan of NYAQ, Coleman...in short, a fan of avant-garde jazz, free-jazz, outside jazz (what Leroi Jones in his flawed but necessary work "Black Music" refers to as the new thing).

To be honest, I find this hard to believe. I listened to this album driving home from a night class yesterday evening. I was blown away. Indispensable when you're stranded on an urban island. As for Baraka, it's somewhat fashionable to criticize his poetry as dated, as, in retro.spect, sophmoric. I strongly disagree. His voice was important then, and not a damn thing has changed to make it irrelevant. A beautiful, moving album. Grab it while you can hungry souls.

This is a 35 anniversary reunion concert taken with excellent sound and published by Japanese label DIW (which means high values in mastering and overall production). Great performance by (mostly) original members (Tchicai, Graves, Rudd & Workman). Free music with an eye on tradition, some poetry, and excellent performance by all. Recommended if you liked their ESP legendary album from the sixties!

I saw these gentlemen live in Paris a year ago. THey were outstanding. Incredible technique (especially Workman). Great inventiveness. And they really listned and responded to each other. ANd so was Leroi Jones! Wise, powerfull stuff. Ovations lasted for 20 minutes.

Sure, this re-creation of the great New York Art Quartet comes decades after the group's inception, and aesthetic concerns have changed. But Amiri Baraka's in great form--hollering his poems over the bedrock of John Tchicai and Roswell Rudd. The band is a blowing gale, brassy and fat in the trombone and slippery and warm in the saxophone. Never mind any one-star reviews of this; it's gem-like in its complex refraction of the '60s avant-garde and that music's relevance beyond its time.

I don't believe that Mark Cutler was a member of the New York Art Quartet...

This is one horrible CD! I am a major fan of the AEC, Ornette and Air. There are great musicians here who were once a cohesive outfit, These musicians have now created an awful release . Amiri needs to remove himself from the mainstream of existence. His work here is sophmoric.

Please save your hard earned money and stay away from this!