chris mcgregor/blue notes/brotherhood of breath

this is nice, too.

Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of breath: where do i start?

Have been meaning to delve further into this stuff for ages. Thanks for the reminders.

huh i searched for mcgregor and brotherhood and got nowt.

anyway now i'm convinced i need some assagai too.

possibly my favorite band / lineage / sound / group of musicians of all time.

the Cuneiform archival releases have been mind-blowing. They are up to three now (and one of them is a double-CD set). Fledgling just reissued the rare-as-hens-teeth 'Very Urgent'

as well as just releasing this, which I am dying to hear.

get all the Johnny Dyani albums as a leader. especially 'Song For Biko' (with Don Cherry )

old Assagai albums are ridiculously expensive

Also there's a Blue Notes 5CD box set imminently due from Ogun including the unavailable-for-30-years Blue Notes For Mongezi set so it's miss-a-meal-to-get-this time, I'm afraid.

i'm still in the glow of infatuation, but dyani/moholo strikes me as an A++ classic rhythm section.

of course, harry miller/moholo also seems like an A++ classic rhythm section. (what about harry miller's other stuff? isipingo?)

Go here and scroll down a bit.

Also there's a Blue Notes 5CD box set imminently due from Ogun including the unavailable-for-30-years Blue Notes For Mongezi set

:-O

hadn't heard about this one .. holy mackeral

Ogun put out a great Harry Miller three-CD box a few years back, his stuff as a leader. Totally awesome.

Yes, it's a pity that was only a limited edition, though Ray's Jazz Shop in Foyles still gets the occasional copy in. The Isipingo album in particular (Family Affair) is demonically brilliant and see also the Cuneiform Isipingo '75 live album with Osborne, Feza and Evans in the front line.

This reminded me I had The Bride on a wire tapper cd somewhere and had to find it and have a listen. Great stuff, must pick that first album up soon.

via assorted internet routes i've tracked down the first assagai album, the isipingo family affair and dudu pukwana/spear, and they're all pretty great. this whole constellation of players is really amazing. i love their range, from the early bop stuff through free jazz and rock/funk/fusion, with all the african influences more or less explicit in the different project. is there a good comprehensive history of this whole scene anywhere? i see chris mcgregor's wife wrote a book, anybody know if it's any good?

Maxine's book is pretty thorough and comprehensive in terms of history and facts and is definitely recommended. Don't know where you are but Ray's Jazz Shop in Foyle's in London's busy Charing Cross Road sell it.

Incidentally, the newly-released (and hitherto unreleased) 1969 Chris McGregor Septet Up To Earth is terrific. Still pretty free, but far more light and playful than you might expect from the line-up (Dudu, Mongs, Evan Parker and John Surman are the front line, Louis on drums, Barre Phillips alternating with a surprisingly effective Danny Thompson on bass), nearer to Chicago than Ayler doings of the period. Good sleevenote also from producer Joe Boyd.

Also I believe this represents the first and only occasion that Parker and Surman have appeared on the same record.

and it's on emusic too. excellent.

i'm in new york, don't know if anywhere here would be likely to have the book. all i see about it online is out of print and out of stock. just one more thing to keep an eye out for.

In the public interest I should point out that this is now available; miss a meal or two, readers, it's worth it, especially for the redux Blue Notes For Mongezi which is now twice the length it was on vinyl, includes virtually everything recorded at that session and tells a different and fuller story altogether.

Amazed at how well the '64 Durban live album has stood up; it's like Cannonball's Mercy Mercy Mercy gone back to the townships.

So I have finally tracked down an iteration of Blue Notes for Mongezi, and wow. The ebb and flow of it, the waves of joy and grief, it really is like a wake. Or, I mean, it was a wake. But it sounds like one, too.

Maxine McGregor's biography of her husband - which has been oop for years and occasionally comes up for sale on my Amazon wishlist for prohibitive prices in the hundreds - has finally been republished, according to a Wire review. But, err...anyone know where to actually buy it? I swear I spent half of my morning looking and can't find it, not even on the Rhodes University site (lotta umbrellas for sale, no books).

Just found a vinyl edition of Dudu Pukwana's first album (1968), with a second LP of unreleased 1969 recordings featuring Richard Thompson and others. Didn't realize this had been issued a few years ago, can't wait to put it on. (But I have to because I'm out of town at the moment and there's no turntable in the airbnb.)

And now tracked down a vinyl copy of Pukwana's In the Townships, which is one long party. (Not long enough!) Man, he was great and that whole scene was just fantastic. What a group of players.

Marcello has been writing a few blog posts about the releases from the Ogun label.

https://ogunrecords.blogspot.com/?m=1

One of his earlier, now unavailable blogs featured a rundown of all of these records, but it seems that he is going into more detail with these write-ups.