Huh.

I think it's one of the best LPs of the period.

Haven't checked the new CD reissue yet, but it's in the pile.

Don't think it's any more pretentious than the New York Contemporary Five, out of which this group comes. Their lone LP for Fontana, "Mohawk," is a motherfucker, and combines the post-bop sentiments of the NYCF with the tonal/rhythmic openness engaged on the ESP.

yeah weird, i never thought of the LP cover being pretentious or anything... always just thought of this as a killer album and one of the rare documents of Milford in action. The Baraka poem is very much of the period, and could be seen as pretentious, but it was heavy times so taking yrself seriously was often what the situation called for if you saw yrself as a revolutionary.

Seen from today's vantage point, a lot of cultural documents of this period might seem pretentious, or in more cases naive. But I think this album doesn't date very badly and I still listen to it.

Full concurence with Clifford on "Mohawk" - love that album and there's also a ripping Fontana session under Tchicai/Shepp co-leadership w/JC Moses on drums (title eludes memory at the moment). Hell, that whole Fontana batch is awesome, and next to impossible to find on CD these days (I have a couple of the imports, but never see them anymore). Definitely candidates for Paris Transatlantic's REISSUE THIS.

There's a thread of the same title over at IHM, Rob (or Cliff), if you want to mention it. PT is still very much on sabbatical, as I'm working on no fewer than four forthcoming album projects and have little time for scribbling, other than a handful of Wire reviews each month.

The Baraka poem is one of his strongest and it's great that it was recorded at the time.

Who knows what's up with the Fontana catalogue these days, but this might be of interest: http://jazzlab.iwarp.com/discographies.htm/fontana.htm/fontana_discography.htm

(we did our best)

Though it might not be obvious from the review, I think the music holds up just fine too, it’s the trappings I was tagging as pretentious. Baraka’s poem, while vivid & bracing in parts, sounds sorely dated to my ears and “New York Art Quartet”, or “New York Contemporary Five” for that matter, carries a whiff of the same to my nostrils. I can get with the necessity for revolutionary rhetoric, but Amiri often tipped over into near parody, IMO. I like his jazz commentary (Apple Cores, anyone?) better than his poetry.

"Seen from today's vantage point, a lot of cultural documents of this period might seem pretentious, or in more cases naive" -- Rob

I'm inclined to think that from their vantage point, we appear naive. The problem always about speaking of "today's vantage point" is that it confers on "today" a mysterious affirmative emphasis more than it's entitled to--in fact, all we've done is come later, and this with no particular evidence of ever-expanding intellectual or cultural sophistication. Far from it.

I like this record. I agree that the name of the groups is pretentious (they dropped the ball by not opting for "ensemble," even though the "seriousness" of the tone here is the assertion that black music can also be serious), but I can't accept the hint of this kind of thing: "Black pretentiousness--what was all that radical stuff about anyway?--saved from timewarp oblivion by the 'lone Caucasian' and his pragmatic trombone."

Interesting perspective, Susan. But you added the ascription “black” to pretentiousness. I was thinking of it more in terms of an “avant garde” context, not a racial one. Rudd is indeed the lone Caucasian, but his playing feels just as “black” as that of his partners to my ears with its clever tapping of a trombone continuum from tailgate to free. Also, not sure about his saving it from “timewarp oblivion”, this date still sounds intensely fresh to my ears. Glad to see the piece garnering such differing opinions though.

I think the tension between the name "Art Quartet" and the fact that the sound was f'in STREET is part of what makes the record (and the band) so damn interesting.

No argument here, & pretty much what I was also trying to say at the top.

Whoa folks, hold on there. The key words in my statement that Susan sites are "might" and "seem". I wasn't saying that revolutionary/radical statements from the 1960's are, by definition, naive and that somehow we are automatically wiser by existing later in time. It's just that we are undoubtedly in a more cynical time and that - especially to people born well after the heady days of the mid/late '60's - the revolutionary content can come off as well-intentioned but ultimately naive based on the outcome. Unfortunately we now know how thoroughly "The Man" (to use the patois of the times) has things locked down.

Peter Brotzmann - a veteran of those times and its politics - has said as much in interviews, and John Sinclair (whose status as '60s revolutionary type is pretty solid) has told me similar things in conversations. Take a read on Sinclair's book "Guitar Army" and you'll get the idea.

FWIW i love this band and was at their reunion concert at South Street Seaport in NYC opening for Sonic Youth and own a vinyl copy of "Mohawk."

Dan - I'll check that thread out. PT is much missed by me, but glad to hear yr getting some music out. I'll have to e you soon with a report on the No Idea Festival in Austin, which 'twas a mighty fine time...

If one reads Frank Kofsky's "Black Nationalism and the Revolution in Music" (retitled and in print as "John Coltrane and the Jazz Revolution of the 1960's") the reader would get an idea of where Rob's first statement is coming from.

While it's true that many of the ills Kofsky tried to address with his Marxist analysis have not gone away (but have morphed in interesting and tragic ways), the philosophy he espoused in 1971 was, at best, misbegotten, irrelevant and outmoded even then. Today it seems very dated indeed, even laughable if it weren't so earnest and deadly boring to slog through.

The music Kofsky championed has outlived all that blarney.