Music for Angela Davis
Cairo Free Jazz Ensemble
Music for Angela Davis
Boomkat Product Review:
Late great ambassador of the Goethe Institute, Hartmut Geerken (1939-2021) rallies his Cairene ensemble in the name of civil rights activist Angela Davis on this dizzying experimental throw down from 1971.
Salvaged from Geerken’s unparalleled archive, and hailing to his time in Cairo circa hosting seminal Sun Ra shows; the ‘Music for Angela Davis LP’ features a prime example of the composer/writer/journalist/playwright/filmmaker wrangling the Cairo Free Jazz Ensemble at Nile Hall, Cairo, on December 4, 1971. It remarkably stars two full ensembles, conducted by Geerken himself and Hubertis Von Puttkamer, “playing simultaneously without listening to each other, rising and falling within a brilliant and structurally complex expression of call and (non) response”. As one might be led to expect by that line, the results are right on the border of madness, but held by a thread of genius that makes them sound like a demented Ra, fully embracing dissonance and oiling rhythm in a way we’d imagine that Sonny Blount would approve of. It’s supremely sweltering and inventive gear, packing more in 24 minutes than other do on a full album.
“As described by Geerken in the liner notes: «One of my attempts with the Cairo Free Jazz Ensemble was my time-related, but timeless composition “Music for Angela Davis”. I divided the ensemble into two groups of roughly the same size, each with a conductor, and both groups played simultaneously, according to the different hand signals of the conductors, without one group reacting to or considering the other. The only two tone sequences consisted of the musicable notes of the name Angela Davis, i. e. a-g-e-a and d-a s. The composition was an attempt to get together in society through the medium of improvisation and a protest against the racial measurements of the American governments."
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Back in stock, Single-sided black vinyl.
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Boomkat Product Review:
Late great ambassador of the Goethe Institute, Hartmut Geerken (1939-2021) rallies his Cairene ensemble in the name of civil rights activist Angela Davis on this dizzying experimental throw down from 1971.
Salvaged from Geerken’s unparalleled archive, and hailing to his time in Cairo circa hosting seminal Sun Ra shows; the ‘Music for Angela Davis LP’ features a prime example of the composer/writer/journalist/playwright/filmmaker wrangling the Cairo Free Jazz Ensemble at Nile Hall, Cairo, on December 4, 1971. It remarkably stars two full ensembles, conducted by Geerken himself and Hubertis Von Puttkamer, “playing simultaneously without listening to each other, rising and falling within a brilliant and structurally complex expression of call and (non) response”. As one might be led to expect by that line, the results are right on the border of madness, but held by a thread of genius that makes them sound like a demented Ra, fully embracing dissonance and oiling rhythm in a way we’d imagine that Sonny Blount would approve of. It’s supremely sweltering and inventive gear, packing more in 24 minutes than other do on a full album.
“As described by Geerken in the liner notes: «One of my attempts with the Cairo Free Jazz Ensemble was my time-related, but timeless composition “Music for Angela Davis”. I divided the ensemble into two groups of roughly the same size, each with a conductor, and both groups played simultaneously, according to the different hand signals of the conductors, without one group reacting to or considering the other. The only two tone sequences consisted of the musicable notes of the name Angela Davis, i. e. a-g-e-a and d-a s. The composition was an attempt to get together in society through the medium of improvisation and a protest against the racial measurements of the American governments."
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