Browse by Artist: HOWARD, NOAH

Artist:	HOWARD, NOAH
Title:	The Black Ark
Label:	BO WEAVIL RECORDINGS (UK)
Format:	LP
Price:	$23.00
Catalog #:	WEAVIL 024LP

Originally released on Freedom Recordings, 1969. Numbered vinyl edition of 1000 and another superior piece of documentation from Bo' Weavil. The Black Ark is one of the most sought-after underground free jazz releases of all time. This record simply is THE BOMB -- a perfect combination of Noah Howard's soulful compositions and playing, infused with plenty of sweet/sour/in/out forms and shapes from the incredible line-up assembled for this release. Plus we get to experience Arthur Doyle's outrageous debut on a recording session, increasing the playing and feeling to an intense level throughout. Other players include Norris Jones (bass), Juma (congas), Mohammed Ali (drums), Earl Cross (trumpet), and more.

Artist:	HOWARD, NOAH
Title:	Patterns/Message To South Africa
Label:	EREMITE
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.50
Catalog #:	MTE 019CD

"Originally issued on his own Alt Sax label in 1971, the Patterns session is one of the great mystery spots in the Noah Howard canon. The blasted opening sequence, which we seem to enter whilst already in-process, is a space duet for conga and electric guitar unprecedented in the annals of jazz and new music. When the rest of the musicians enter there is a heavy attempt to Africanize Dutch architecture, a proposition which Mr. Mengelberg seems reluctant to accept. What eventually occurs is a primitivist aerial slugfest that invokes a world of shared experience, then negates its substantiality with hammers of nihilist beauty. Emblematic of the end of Europe's open arms policy towards America's expatriate improvisers, Patterns remains a ferocious, confounding ghost. The Message to South Africa session is another kind of spirit flare. Written in Paris the week that Steve Biko was killed (1979), the date came together around two of the great South African jazz exiles, pianist Chris McGregor and bassist Johnny Dyani. Drummer Noel McGhee was enlisted to give the band Carribbean representation. In Paris as well was Kali Fasteau, who lends the proceedings some of the same vibrational magic she had used so notably on Archie Shepp's Bijou. Mr. McGregor spliced in the chords to what was then the South African National Anthem, and Mr. Dyani improvised vocals and invocations in Zulu throughout the suite. The combination of free-ranging throats and small, repeated melodic figures gives the piece a feel very congruent to that which flowed from the pipe of free Africa. It is truly a slab of riveting 'world music' in the purest sense -- 'cartwheeling through the changes like a shaman and surging up from a place beyond the reach of the western civ shuck. The project was done with the idea that Mercury might release it, but the heavy political vibe was too much for the company. Consequently, the track has never been released until now." ?- Byron Coley, liner notes

Previous Page Index of Artists Next Page