Customer Reviews

Jackson in Your House/Message to Our Folks

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

 

 

Fuel 2000 Records has just released this CD and Don Cherry's "Mu First Part/ Mu Second Part" but the manufacturing plant mixed up the two titles and switched the music. Cherry's music inadvertently appears on this disc and vise versa. The defective CDs have black lettering on white background, whereas correct discs have been made with light blue background instead of white. Consumers wishing to exchange can send their bad disc(s) to Jazz CD, Fuel 2000 Records, 6607 Sunset Blvd., 2nd Floor, Hollywood, CA 90028

This legendary band (almost more of a collective, really) found the post-Coltrane American jazz scene so dead they hightailed it to Europe, hanging out in France where they delighted the locals with freaky concerts featuring face paint and props, and cutting wild albums in Paris studios. (And hey, don't believe the Ken Burns/Jazz swipe that this Franco popularity means they must have been phonies. Europe's always been at least two steps ahead of us Yanks as far as appreciating good jazz.) This cd compiles two individually released 1969 albums onto one disc. And they're pretty great, too. To be sure, there's more whoops and giggles than I really need, and I find them least compelling when they use their voices rather than their instruments to communicate, but that's part of the AEC package. As Lester Bangs once wrote, you gotta sit through lots of beads rolling around on drum heads to get to the good stuff. And there is good stuff, too - the faux-Dixieland breakdown the group slides into halfway through the opening cut, for one. Or their rendition of Charlie Parker's "Dexterity," which starts out utterly straight and quickly detours into glorious atonality. And I even like the two long side-closers, full of found sounds, snatches of melody, and, yes, beads rolling around on drum heads. Crazy music, but always full of life and energy, and light-hearted, too - a fine intro to the formidable institution known as the Art Ensemble of Chicago.

Dammit. Just when avant-gaurd jazz was finally getting heavy, getting a rep, street cred, along come the Art Ensemble of Chicago.

It is 1969. You are an avant gaurde jazz musican. You are making big statements about race and politics. You make the heaviest of the heavy music. Heavier than Hendrix, the Doors, or even the Beatles themselves.

In walks AEC: these guys play free jazz, but they are mixing dixieland, soul, little tunes; really, anything that pops into their eclectic little heads.

Is this some statement about the roots of jazz, race, the politics of music, a fist against the man, Nixon, Vietnam. No.

It is about making avant gaurd jazz fun. The mix of styles here is random: this band loves to play with the genres, and at times, seem to be having fun goofing on their implications. Like Zappa, AEC never tie themselves to a musical style. They pick up and drop pick up and drop over and over styles like hammers and saws.

This band sees all music as theirs for the taking, and this makes even their early work fresh forty years later.

I thought folks might like to know I just received "Jackson In Your House/Message To Our Folks" from Amazon today. Based on my copy, it looks like Fuel 2000 fixed the swap problem. Oh yeah, and the recording's worth every cent, too.

This CD does not contain the original material from either "A Jackson in Your House" or "Message to Our Folks". I recorded these records some 20 years ago and had hoped to replace my cassette with the CD. The music on the CD is not even by the Art Ensemble. Here are examples. 1)The real tune called Jackson contains some singing, including someone singing "there's a Jackson in your house", yet the Cd version has none of this. 2)The real version of Get in Line includes someone(probably Favors) saying "Get in Line", yet the CD version doesn't have this. 3)The real version of Old Time Religion is a well known traditionial tune that is nowhere to be found on the CD. So I am quite sure that my cassette is the real thing and the CD is who knows what.

New comments on 11/1/01: Thanks to one of the other reviewers, you now have the info you need to get the correct version of this CD. Buying this is well worth it for those looking to bulk up on Art Ensemble CD's, but I would not call it one of their best.

This is the first recording that the ensemble produced in their expatriate phase- it cannot strictly be evaluated in terms of quality- it represents something significant in the evolution of this seminal group's sensibility. You may find yourself listening over and over to the late great lester bowie showing his humor in the absolutely wonderful "jackson in your house" which is a distillation of the history of jazz and a wonderful affirmation of play and fun, something that when this was recorded, in the late sixties, was in short supply. I have no idea what is on the cd in terms of additional tracks, I am writing based on my appreciation for the original release; the art ensemble recorded three albumns on actuel, as well as participating in a number of other sessions; the original release was quite short in playing time, but unforgettable.

This is the first recording that the ensemble produced in their expatriate phase- it cannot strictly be evaluated in terms of quality- it represents something significant in the evolution of this seminal group's sensibility. You may find yourself listening over and over to the late great lester bowie showing his humor in the absolutely wonderful "jackson in your house" which is a distillation of the history of jazz and a wonderful affirmation of play and fun, something that when this was recorded, in the late sixties, was in short supply. I have no idea what is on the cd in terms of additional tracks, I am writing based on my appreciation for the original release; the art ensemble recorded three albumns on actuel, as well as participating in a number of other sessions; the original release was quite short in playing time, but unforgettable.

This is the first recording that the ensemble produced in their expatriate phase- it cannot strictly be evaluated in terms of quality- it represents something significant in the evolution of this seminal group's sensibility. You may find yourself listening over and over to the late great lester bowie showing his humor in the absolutely wonderful "jackson in your house" which is a distillation of the history of jazz and a wonderful affirmation of play and fun, something that when this was recorded, in the late sixties, was in short supply. I have no idea what is on the cd in terms of additional tracks, I am writing based on my appreciation for the original release; the art ensemble recorded three albumns on actuel, as well as participating in a number of other sessions; the original release was quite short in playing time, but unforgettable.