Soul Jams and Social Justice (Phil Cohran, Boscoe)
white_tea
3,262 Posts
Cool little article on some of the recent reissues out of Chicago...
Soul Jams and Social Justice[/b]New reissues from Chicago???s black arts movementPhilip Cohran & the Artistic Heritage Ensemble Singles (Midday Music) | Pieces of Peace Pieces of Peace (Quannum) | Boscoe Boscoe (Asterisk/Numero Uno)Direct link to articleBy Peter MargasakDecember 27, 2007Thirty years ago this month musician and educator Phil Cohran launched one of the most important chapters in the short history of Chicago???s black arts movement, opening the Affro-Arts Theater in an old movie palace at 3947 S. Drexel. Until it closed in 1970 it was a crucial fulcrum for black culture and community life, offering classes on history and language, all sorts of performing arts, and appearances by social lightning rods like Stokely Carmichael. Even though its history was hampered by landlord disputes and building code and license violations, the impact it made was undeniable.Although he???s inextricably linked to the Affro-Arts, Cohran actually pulled out of the venture a little more than a year after it started. It was the Pharaohs, a popular, hard-hitting, jazz-influenced soul and funk band, who took over and ultimately exerted a broader impact on black music. But several of the Pharaohs had played in Cohran???s Artistic Heritage Ensemble???including bassist Louis Satterfield, saxophonist Donald Myrick, and trumpeter Charles Handy???and their new band clearly borrowed from that outfit in both its spiritual messages and its extended improvisations.As the Pharaohs went on to become influential themselves, they inadvertently became a bridge between the powerfully original AHE and younger, harder-driving bands. Despite being recorded over a six-year span, recent reissues from the AHE and the soul-funk outfits Pieces of Peace and Boscoe all reflect the strong social-activist strain of music that was finding an outlet here in the late 1960s and early ???70s.Cohran played trumpet in Sun Ra???s Arkestra between 1958 and 1961 and cofounded the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians in 1965. He formed the Artistic Heritage Ensemble in ???65 as well, fulfilling the requirement that all AACM members lead their own groups and write original material, but within a few years he broke away, disinterested in the organization???s more avant-garde pursuits. He???s never made recording a priority: although he???s 80, he???s released only a handful of albums under his own name.The AHE???s 1967 self-titled debut is still probably Cohran???s greatest recorded achievement, but a terrific new compilation called Singles functions as a fine complement, collecting the singles the band released on Cohran???s own Zulu imprint around the same time the full-length came out. (It???s a Japanese import and not widely available in the U.S., but you can find it locally at Dusty Groove.) These haunting, mesmerizing tunes???still imbued with the spaciness and vaguely Eastern flavor of Sun Ra???s music???are built on Cohran???s hypnotic electrified kalimba (an African-style thumb piano he modified himself and dubbed the Frankiphone), rolling seas of hand percussion, horn riffs, and call-and-response singing. In places, like on the propulsive ???Loud Mouth,??? the band pulls off a sort of Africanized James Brown funk, with Cohran???s kalimba totally in the red a la the recordings that???ve earned Konono No. 1 an international reputation. Cohran???s distinctive kalimba sound also turned up later in the music of Earth, Wind & Fire, a band formed by Chicago drummer Maurice White, who clearly knew the AHE; its horn section later featured members of the Pharaohs and Pieces of Peace.When the AHE was in full swing, the future members of Pieces of Peace were working as session men, several of them in the JaLynne Sound, the house band for JaLynne, the company run by producer Carl Davis. Made up of trumpeter Michael Davis (who eventually joined Earth, Wind & Fire), bassist Bernard Reed, saxophonist Jerry Wilson, and several others, the band played on quite a few records for Davis, including multiple hits at Brunswick Records. In fact, they recorded the instrumental classic ???Soulful Strut??????which the label credited to Young-Holt Unlimited, although neither Eldee Young nor Red Holt played on it. In addition to working in the studio, they also played in Brunswick touring revues. But they only made one record as the JaLynne Sound, an instrumental take on the Intruders hit ???Cowboys to Girls.??? By 1968, increasingly frustrated with Davis???s controlling style, they changed their name to Pieces of Peace and hooked up with Twinight Records, headquartered just a few blocks away from JaLynne. They made one single for that label, in 1971???a dose of hard funk called ???Pass It On Pt. 1 & 2,??? recently reissued on Numero Group???s Twinight???s Lunar Rotation collection. But they backed up a variety of singers, both live and in the studio, including Syl Johnson on his classic 1970 album Is It Because I???m Black.As the excellent liner notes by the Numero Group???s Rob Sevier point out, around this time the band, by then up to seven members, was tight with the Pharaohs, whom they admired greatly. In 1972 they cut their only album, a self-titled recording for the Pharaohs??? own independent Scarab label, and that group???s tubaist, Aaron Dodd, and percussionist Derf Reklaw-Raheem sat in.While the Pharaohs held onto Cohran???s focus and self-determination, Pieces of Peace were rooted in enterprise and had a smoother, more polished sound. Live, like many R & B and soul groups of the era, they would play a set of covers before tackling original material. On the hard-charging ???Pollution,??? singer King Johnson makes some fairly benign attacks on litter (???We???ve got to clean / Up our scene???), but for the most part the Pieces were out to rock the party, albeit with generous strings of jazz-informed soloing by Davis and Wilson and protean post-Eddie Hazel guitar playing by John Bishop.Though every component of the album was ready to go to the pressing plant, its production was delayed until the Pieces could finish a six-month tour of Southeast Asia. They struggled through a relentless performance schedule, travel, strange food, and homesickness, and by the time they returned they???d broken up. Scarab, a shoestring operation, put the album on the shelf, where it stayed until 2004, when Rob Sevier heard about it from former Pieces of Peace keyboardist and producer Benjamin Wright. For the next two years, Sevier says, he ???bugged??? Wright until he tracked down the master tapes.It was a critical rediscovery, because the album is a stunner, a sharply executed mix of tough funk and lush soul balladry, much of it propelled by heavy grooves and extended improvisation. The music definitely foreshadowed what Earth, Wind & Fire would soon be up to.If Pieces of Peace worked to keep their sound broad and accessible, Boscoe played like they didn???t give a fuck. Like Pieces of Peace, they got their start backing a variety of vocal acts, including Ruby Andrews, Johnny Moore, and the Sequins. Using the name From the Womb to the Tomb, they often played at the same nightclubs as Pieces of Peace, but they were far less popular. Manager/trombonist Fred Griffin left in 1971 after a dispute, but the remaining members stuck together and emerged as Boscoe.Not content to keep running in place on the club circuit, they hooked up with an investor who financed an economical live studio recording that brilliantly captured the sextet???s seething intensity, precision, and range. Drummer Steve Cobb guesses maybe 500 copies of this self-titled document were pressed on the vanity label K
ingdom of Chad. Most of them were given away as demos.The first side reclaims the black consciousness of Cohran???s aesthetic but turns the heat way up. Following the gorgeously spooky ???Introduction,??? with atmospheric guitar arpeggios by James Rice that could be straight off Maggot Brain, ???Writin??? on the Wall??? is a furious attack on complacency and exploitation. ???If you can???t see the writing on the wall / God damn you,??? Cobb sings over rising and falling grooves; meanwhile, Darryl Johnson???s meandering flute recalls the exploratory jazz of the AACM. ???He Keeps You,??? a loose, tough funk jam, seems to anticipate both Bob Marley???s ???Get Up, Stand Up??? and Steve Miller???s ???Fly Like an Eagle.??? An unabashed assault on white oppression, it suggests that the Man is using everything from drugs to factory automation to keep blacks in a perpetual state of slavery. ???We Ain???t Free,??? with its mocking quote of the national anthem and redneck impersonations, keeps up the offensive. The flip side tones down the rhetoric a bit, but the tautness and power of the music are undiminished.Boscoe???s lyrical directness didn???t help them much in terms of developing a career. They too would also preface their originals with covers of the day???s hits, but their own stuff was so hard and uncompromising that it drove off the fence-sitters. Not long after the 1973 album was released, internal conflicts over the direction of the band brought things to a halt. Only drummer Steve Cobb continued in the music business; he???s still active locally, performing with his wife, Chavunduka.By the mid-70s the dream of black power was fading. The sense of unity that had propelled the movement into prominence less than a decade earlier had been shattered by disappointments, disputes, and institutionalized oppression, and you can almost trace the growing frustration on these records. But they???re more than cultural artifacts???the music is very much alive, and its sentiments still seem relevant today.
Soul Jams and Social Justice[/b]New reissues from Chicago???s black arts movementPhilip Cohran & the Artistic Heritage Ensemble Singles (Midday Music) | Pieces of Peace Pieces of Peace (Quannum) | Boscoe Boscoe (Asterisk/Numero Uno)Direct link to articleBy Peter MargasakDecember 27, 2007Thirty years ago this month musician and educator Phil Cohran launched one of the most important chapters in the short history of Chicago???s black arts movement, opening the Affro-Arts Theater in an old movie palace at 3947 S. Drexel. Until it closed in 1970 it was a crucial fulcrum for black culture and community life, offering classes on history and language, all sorts of performing arts, and appearances by social lightning rods like Stokely Carmichael. Even though its history was hampered by landlord disputes and building code and license violations, the impact it made was undeniable.Although he???s inextricably linked to the Affro-Arts, Cohran actually pulled out of the venture a little more than a year after it started. It was the Pharaohs, a popular, hard-hitting, jazz-influenced soul and funk band, who took over and ultimately exerted a broader impact on black music. But several of the Pharaohs had played in Cohran???s Artistic Heritage Ensemble???including bassist Louis Satterfield, saxophonist Donald Myrick, and trumpeter Charles Handy???and their new band clearly borrowed from that outfit in both its spiritual messages and its extended improvisations.As the Pharaohs went on to become influential themselves, they inadvertently became a bridge between the powerfully original AHE and younger, harder-driving bands. Despite being recorded over a six-year span, recent reissues from the AHE and the soul-funk outfits Pieces of Peace and Boscoe all reflect the strong social-activist strain of music that was finding an outlet here in the late 1960s and early ???70s.Cohran played trumpet in Sun Ra???s Arkestra between 1958 and 1961 and cofounded the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians in 1965. He formed the Artistic Heritage Ensemble in ???65 as well, fulfilling the requirement that all AACM members lead their own groups and write original material, but within a few years he broke away, disinterested in the organization???s more avant-garde pursuits. He???s never made recording a priority: although he???s 80, he???s released only a handful of albums under his own name.The AHE???s 1967 self-titled debut is still probably Cohran???s greatest recorded achievement, but a terrific new compilation called Singles functions as a fine complement, collecting the singles the band released on Cohran???s own Zulu imprint around the same time the full-length came out. (It???s a Japanese import and not widely available in the U.S., but you can find it locally at Dusty Groove.) These haunting, mesmerizing tunes???still imbued with the spaciness and vaguely Eastern flavor of Sun Ra???s music???are built on Cohran???s hypnotic electrified kalimba (an African-style thumb piano he modified himself and dubbed the Frankiphone), rolling seas of hand percussion, horn riffs, and call-and-response singing. In places, like on the propulsive ???Loud Mouth,??? the band pulls off a sort of Africanized James Brown funk, with Cohran???s kalimba totally in the red a la the recordings that???ve earned Konono No. 1 an international reputation. Cohran???s distinctive kalimba sound also turned up later in the music of Earth, Wind & Fire, a band formed by Chicago drummer Maurice White, who clearly knew the AHE; its horn section later featured members of the Pharaohs and Pieces of Peace.When the AHE was in full swing, the future members of Pieces of Peace were working as session men, several of them in the JaLynne Sound, the house band for JaLynne, the company run by producer Carl Davis. Made up of trumpeter Michael Davis (who eventually joined Earth, Wind & Fire), bassist Bernard Reed, saxophonist Jerry Wilson, and several others, the band played on quite a few records for Davis, including multiple hits at Brunswick Records. In fact, they recorded the instrumental classic ???Soulful Strut??????which the label credited to Young-Holt Unlimited, although neither Eldee Young nor Red Holt played on it. In addition to working in the studio, they also played in Brunswick touring revues. But they only made one record as the JaLynne Sound, an instrumental take on the Intruders hit ???Cowboys to Girls.??? By 1968, increasingly frustrated with Davis???s controlling style, they changed their name to Pieces of Peace and hooked up with Twinight Records, headquartered just a few blocks away from JaLynne. They made one single for that label, in 1971???a dose of hard funk called ???Pass It On Pt. 1 & 2,??? recently reissued on Numero Group???s Twinight???s Lunar Rotation collection. But they backed up a variety of singers, both live and in the studio, including Syl Johnson on his classic 1970 album Is It Because I???m Black.As the excellent liner notes by the Numero Group???s Rob Sevier point out, around this time the band, by then up to seven members, was tight with the Pharaohs, whom they admired greatly. In 1972 they cut their only album, a self-titled recording for the Pharaohs??? own independent Scarab label, and that group???s tubaist, Aaron Dodd, and percussionist Derf Reklaw-Raheem sat in.While the Pharaohs held onto Cohran???s focus and self-determination, Pieces of Peace were rooted in enterprise and had a smoother, more polished sound. Live, like many R & B and soul groups of the era, they would play a set of covers before tackling original material. On the hard-charging ???Pollution,??? singer King Johnson makes some fairly benign attacks on litter (???We???ve got to clean / Up our scene???), but for the most part the Pieces were out to rock the party, albeit with generous strings of jazz-informed soloing by Davis and Wilson and protean post-Eddie Hazel guitar playing by John Bishop.Though every component of the album was ready to go to the pressing plant, its production was delayed until the Pieces could finish a six-month tour of Southeast Asia. They struggled through a relentless performance schedule, travel, strange food, and homesickness, and by the time they returned they???d broken up. Scarab, a shoestring operation, put the album on the shelf, where it stayed until 2004, when Rob Sevier heard about it from former Pieces of Peace keyboardist and producer Benjamin Wright. For the next two years, Sevier says, he ???bugged??? Wright until he tracked down the master tapes.It was a critical rediscovery, because the album is a stunner, a sharply executed mix of tough funk and lush soul balladry, much of it propelled by heavy grooves and extended improvisation. The music definitely foreshadowed what Earth, Wind & Fire would soon be up to.If Pieces of Peace worked to keep their sound broad and accessible, Boscoe played like they didn???t give a fuck. Like Pieces of Peace, they got their start backing a variety of vocal acts, including Ruby Andrews, Johnny Moore, and the Sequins. Using the name From the Womb to the Tomb, they often played at the same nightclubs as Pieces of Peace, but they were far less popular. Manager/trombonist Fred Griffin left in 1971 after a dispute, but the remaining members stuck together and emerged as Boscoe.Not content to keep running in place on the club circuit, they hooked up with an investor who financed an economical live studio recording that brilliantly captured the sextet???s seething intensity, precision, and range. Drummer Steve Cobb guesses maybe 500 copies of this self-titled document were pressed on the vanity label Kingdom of Chad. Most of them were given away as demos.The first side reclaims the black consciousness of Cohran???s aesthetic but turns the heat way up. Following the gorgeously spooky ???Introduction,??? with atmospheric guitar arpeggios by James Rice that could be straight off Maggot Brain, ???Writin??? on the Wall??? is a furious attack on complacency and exploitation. ???If you can???t see the writing on the wall / God damn you,??? Cobb sings over rising and falling grooves; meanwhile, Darryl Johnson???s meandering flute recalls the exploratory jazz of the AACM. ???He Keeps You,??? a loose, tough funk jam, seems to anticipate both Bob Marley???s ???Get Up, Stand Up??? and Steve Miller???s ???Fly Like an Eagle.??? An unabashed assault on white oppression, it suggests that the Man is using everything from drugs to factory automation to keep blacks in a perpetual state of slavery. ???We Ain???t Free,??? with its mocking quote of the national anthem and redneck impersonations, keeps up the offensive. The flip side tones down the rhetoric a bit, but the tautness and power of the music are undiminished.Boscoe???s lyrical directness didn???t help them much in terms of developing a career. They too would also preface their originals with covers of the day???s hits, but their own stuff was so hard and uncompromising that it drove off the fence-sitters. Not long after the 1973 album was released, internal conflicts over the direction of the band brought things to a halt. Only drummer Steve Cobb continued in the music business; he???s still active locally, performing with his wife, Chavunduka.By the mid-70s the dream of black power was fading. The sense of unity that had propelled the movement into prominence less than a decade earlier had been shattered by disappointments, disputes, and institutionalized oppression, and you can almost trace the growing frustration on these records. But they???re more than cultural artifacts???the music is very much alive, and its sentiments still seem relevant today.
Comments
Thanks again!!
btw does anyone know what the symbol of Cohran stands for? You know the one that's on the On the Beach LP.
havent heard the other stuff though so i will check that out
Yeah, I just read it to keep up with current releases mostly. Maybe "look at it" is more accurate.