TeledyN

For the end of the year (and for closing this little ex-cursus about
the 70s/80s Big Bands) i want to propose one of the rare recordings
of the J.Hemphill B.B. : God Bless Julius!
And Happy New Year To You All.

Rec. live at "The Public Theatre", NYC, on November 1980
(mics recording)

Julius Hemphill,reeds,composer,conductor
Stan Strickland/John Purcell/Marty Ehrlich/Henry Threadgill,reeds
Baikida Carroll/John Clarice/Charles Stephens/Erritt McDonald,brasses
Ed Schuller,bass
Warren Smith,marimba
Pheeroan akLaff,drums

1. The Hard Blues (16:47)
2. For Billie (08:51)
3. Open Air (02:23)
4. Border Town (11:56)
5. All Harmony (15:07)
6. Unknown [inc.] (02:43)

Total Time 57:49

Here for 2010, the Future of Jazz, the Future of R'n'B and the Future of Hip-Hop all rolled into one bold musical prognostic: From beyond time, from beyond space, from beyond even Money itself, Big Bands are Back.

2010 will see the return of the Big Band in a big way. They will cheer the tenacious survivors; already we have seen Carla Bley's return, we see Mingus charts the mainstream of highschool and community swing-bands, youtube proclaimes even Ornette Coleman arranged for dance orchestra and my autobot websearch on "Sun Ra Arkestra" has gone from a clean like clockwork one hit per day to a flood of web references so numerous I separate out the Marshall Allen hits. They will mourn the passed and passing heros, digging out ever more box sets of Mingus, of Stan Kenton, rarities stretching way back back into antiquity with each iTune download seeding some little local centre of influence. Next will come the Prodigal Sons, the Marselises and the Miles Alumni, suddenly seeing the light, calling everyone they know and dusting off the old bandbooks for some post-Hop enlightened modernized rewrites. And then the New Heroes, already toping the best-of charts all over the world, pulled together as if out of thin air, impossible new names like Secret Society and the Industrial Jazz Group, Hypnotic Brass, all thumbing their noses at the money machine, cramming into the smallest crevace stages and making the Big Sonic Blast happen, not for dreams of fame or fortune, but for the sake of making it happen, because the sound is needed, scratcing an itch, finally correcting an abberant path in Jazz set adrift in Cotton Club days when somehow the tangle with Prohibition obscured the social function with a dual-space of 'business plan', 2010 is the return to a music-in-the-real experience uncapturable by ipods and bootlegs, food for a half-century's hunger for an experience that is socially and musically important.

This is it, baby, for 2010 and on, Ellington's Revenge, Mingus Reborn, the Astral Perihelion Return of Planet Sun Ra.

The Big Bands, they are back.