In looking at the personnel listing on a given record, the engineer often slips through the cracks. Some of what’s most important to a group’s recorded identity, however, is based in the mixing board. In the liner notes to the reissue of vibraphonist/percussionist/clarinetist Khan Jamal’s Drumdance to the Motherland LP, Ed Hazell name-checks Thomas “Bugs” Hunter for his real-time reverb and delay circa Sun Ra’s Cosmic Tones, and the legions of dub engineers, but we can also note the in-the-red or reverb-heavy work of Conny Plank, Joop Visser and the lesser-known Günther Zipelius (Brötzmann’s Machine Gun), not to mention the tinny ephemerality of ESP’s regular engineer Richard Alderson. To this list we can also add Mario Falana, who, like Hunter and Plank, added layers of live reverb and echo effects to this October 1972 performance of Jamal’s group at Philly’s Catacombs. Indeed, Falana's engineering is perhaps what has made this LP so unique and storied.
Originally pressed in a miniscule run on Philly’s Dogtown records (also home to Byard Lancaster’s Live at Macalester College and the funky Lancaster-Jamal collaboration Sounds of Liberation), the original release was something of a mystery. Its recording date was, until now, virtually unknown and the jackets of the LP were often blank, though some featured personnel and track information scrawled in ballpoint pen (a reproduction of the latter variant is underneath the CD tray). Active primarily in 1972-3, The Creative Arts Ensemble featured regular Jamal collaborators guitarist Monnette Sudler, clarinetist/drummer Dwight James, as well as bassist Billy Mills and auxiliary percussionist Alex Ellison.
The session starts with the jolt of “Cosmic Echoes,” a space-echo of reverb-heavy percussion, thick with Tago Mago effects. James apparently had an echo device on his snare, adding a second layer of live manipulation, but the purely psychedelic wash of cymbals and natural metallic reverb of glockenspiel and vibes are multiplied by Falana’s real-time spatial production. Jamal’s plaintive marimba sounds watery as light plinks from Sudler’s guitar and steady, subtle arco drone appear in the background, fleshing out ethereal improvisation. Jamal and James launch into a shrill banshee wail of reedy rage on “Drumdance to the Motherland” as Mills and Ellison settle into a loose groove, each player’s contribution multiplied and spread out into an allover wash of sound. Jamal’s ensuing marimba solo is a measured steamroller of intercontinental groove, calling out to the dried spider eggs of its ancestral parent, as the connection to modern expression is solidified in a twin-engine beat. Sudler’s muted explorations are given room to stretch on “Inner Peace,” her introspection enveloped by Falana’s otherworldly palette as Jamal’s clarinet flits about in auto-dialogue. Sudler and Jamal are birds of a feather, highly rhythmic players who can turn the most condensed runs into a lofty expanse – made evident by the interplay between guitar and vibes throughout the piece’s delicate electricity. Drumdance to the Motherland closes just as it began, in a massive wash of reverb, though the vibraphone and guitar coda of “Breath of Life” brings the band home with reverberations of humanity and joy. Sonically courting uncertainty at the outset, the affirmative resolutions that return throughout the recording put Jamal (and us) back in the arms of the motherland.
~ Clifford Allen
Posted by clifford on October 8, 2006 8:17 PM.................................................. © 2003 - 2006 bagatellen ..................................................