It had been quite some time in between releases for Archie Shepp, and this 2009 issue adds to his reputation as a musician who has always been known for mixing progressive modern jazz with spoken word. This live performance in Milano, Italy, at the Teatro Manzoni during the Festival Apertivo teams Shepp with a formidable band alongside fellow creative alto saxophonist Oliver Lake, drummer Hamid Drake, solid improvising bassist Joe Fonda, and rapper/poet Napoleon Maddox. The mutual respect between all of these artists is clear and present, as the group weaves in the outspoken music of the saxophonists with bold invention and pointed statements about current society and politics via Napoleon's wordplay. It's an engaging set of music that comes expected from the participants, but is consistently surprising in its depth and substance about recent events. If you remember Shepp's great story of "Mama Rose" from years past, "Revolution" will strike a similar chord as he talks about his grandma; slavery; a time with no instruments aside from bodies; and a trip from Philadelphia to San Francisco to Baghdad, looking for the sun amidst war. Maddox is quite the lithe linguist, speaking about "doing what you got to do" on the funky rap "Dig," and railing against the foibles of the George W. Bush administration's "illegal business controlling America" during the lengthy "Ill Biz." Lake and Shepp together push the harmonic envelope like few other sax tandems on the modal Latin jazz piece "Casket," while a third saxophonist, Cochemea Gastelum, joins in on occasion. For most listeners, a highly modified version of Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir" will seem an odd inclusion, but the band pulls it off. The original plodding drum beat of John Bonham is replaced by a much faster funky rhythm as the horns chip and bark while the frantic, manic rapping of Maddox refers to letting life pass by too fast, enjoying the natural and spiritual, and saying "I live because I was once dead." As these players have certainly expressed their share of freedom through music, so they do once again with an upbeat fervor, timely themes, and the animated Maddox raising the level of this hybrid art form to new contemporary heights. In many ways, it's a triumphant return for the unflappable and ever evolving Archie Shepp. Michael G. Nastos
Tracklist :
1 Dig 5'38
Napoleon Maddox
2 Ill Biz 11'04
Claire Daly / Napoleon Maddox
3 Kashmir 11'36
John Bonham / Napoleon Maddox / Jimmy Page
4 The Life We Chose 6'18
Aaron Albano / Napoleon Maddox
5 Revolution 13'26
Archie Shepp
6 Casket 9'08
Napoleon Maddox
7 Ill Biz 3'38
Claire Daly / Napoleon Maddox
Credits
Double Bass – Joe Fonda
Drums – Hamid Drake
Rap, Human Beatbox – Napoleon Maddox
Saxophone – Cochemea Gastelum, Oliver Lake
Voice, Saxophone – Archie Shepp
The world music-minded producer Bill Laswell gets a hold of Pharoah Sanders here and lo, the sleeping volcano erupts with one of his most fulfilling albums in many a year. Message From Home is rooted in, but not exclusively devoted to, African idioms, as the overpowering hip-hop groove of "Our Roots (Began In Africa)" points out. But the record really develops into something special when Sanders pits his mighty tenor sound against the pan-African beats, like the ecstatically joyful rhythms of "Tomoki" and the poised, percolating fusion of American country & western drums and Nigerian juju guitar riffs on "Country Mile." In addition, "Nozipho" is a concentrated dose of the old Pharoah, heavily spiritual and painfully passionate, with a generous supply of the tenor player's famous screeching rhetoric, and kora virtuoso Foday Musa Suso shows up on "Kumba" with a touch of village Gambian music. This resurrection will quicken the pulse of many an old Pharoah fan. Richard S. Ginell
Tracklist :
1 Our Roots (Began In Africa) 10:21
Written-By – Pharoah Sanders
2 Nozipho 9:43
Written-By – Pharoah Sanders
3 Tomoki 6:26
Written-By – Pharoah Sanders
4 Ocean Song 8:49
Written-By – Pharoah Sanders
5 Kumba 7:50
Written-By – Pharoah Sanders / Foday Musa Suso
6 Country Mile 6:03
Written-By – Pharoah Sanders
Credits :
Acoustic Bass – Charnett Moffett
Backing Vocals – Fanta Mangasuba, Fatumata Sako, Mariama Suso, Salie Suso
Bass – Steve Neil
Drums, Tabla, Drums [Frame Drums], Vocals – Hamid Drake
Electric Piano, Piano, Vocals – William Henderson
Guitar – Dominic Kanza
Keyboards, Programmed By – Jeff Bova
Keyboards, Vocals – Bernie Worrell
Kora, Kora [Dousongonni], Vocals – Foday Musa Suso
Percussion [Chatan], Congas, Bells, Gong, Vocals – Aiyb Dieng
Producer – Bill Laswell
Saxophone, Flute, Bells, Vocals, Singing Bowls [Bowls] – Pharoah Sanders
Violin – Michael White 
This in-concert recording at the Montreal Jazz Festival is a continual performance that acts as a suite in three basic parts, with Sanders on tenor sax, wood flutes, and percussion, helped by multipercussionists Hamid Drake and Adam Rudolph. The music is as the title suggests: spiritual, multi-ethnic, mostly serene, and quite improvisationally derived. It's a beautiful statement from Sanders, very similar to the music Yusef Lateef has played (with Rudolph and Eternal Wind) and different than his more major-label efforts. "Sunrise," running over 19 minutes, begins the hour-long program. Soft drone tones set up tenor meditations, slight percussive inserts, mbira and driftwood wordless vocals, and soulful chanting, then move back to tenor musings with bells, and visceral, gutteral chants. "Morning in Soweto" and "The Thousand Petaled Lotus" segue together with hand drum and tenor groove in a manner reminiscent of Thelonious Monk's "Well, You Needn't" nestled in the Sudan! The next movement of the suite is in five parts. A demure gong, animal growls, and moans from "I & Thou" easily move into free and repeated wood flute phrases and insistent hand percussion as a driving force on "Uma Lake." "Molimo" is a separate entity, as counterpointed wood flutes hoot like owls with sexual overtones and rattling percussion. Fans of Sanders will be easily able to connect this music with his past glories, but it could be a portent of bigger things, and bigger ensembles, to come. Recommended. Michael G. Nastos
Tracklist :
1 Sunrise 19:12
2 Morning In Soweto 5:00
3 Thousand Petalled Lotus 6:59
4 I And Thou 2:05
5 Uma Lake 3:14
6 Ancient Peoples 7:35
7 Calling To The Luminous Beings 5:54
8 Roundhouse 2:28
9 Molimo 2:44
10 Sunset 5:08
Credits :
Composed By – Adam Rudolph, Hamid Drake, Pharoah Sanders
Congas, Djembe, Udu [Udu Drum], Thumb Piano, Talking Drum, Bendir, Flute [Bamboo Flute], Overtone Voice [Overtone Singing], Gong, Percussion – Adam Rudolph
Drums [Trap Drums], Vocals [Vocal], Daf [Def], Tabla, Frame Drum [Frame Drums] – Hamid Drake
Producer [Produced By] – Adam Rudolph, Hamid Drake, Pharoah Sanders
Tenor Saxophone, Vocals [Vocal], Flute [Wood Flutes], Percussion [Hindehoo] – Pharoah Sanders
A powerful and breathtaking meeting of masters. With the tight rhythm section of Laswell and Drake, who have a long history working together in a variety of bands and contexts, and the empathetic insanity of Patton and Zorn, this set was as much of a surprise to the musicians as it was to the pumped up crowd that were lucky enough to hear it that night. Although billed as Painkiller, this once in a lifetime unit was really something completely different. At times hilarious, exhilarating, outrageous and transcendent, this is music only the New American Underground could create. East Coast meets West Coast meets Midwest: New York, California and Chicago come together in this twisted, funky improviser’s paradise. TZADIK
Esbjörn Svensson has stood not only once on stage in Montreux. He was already a guest in the summer of 1998 at the jazz festival on Lake Gen...
