Eddie Gale - 1969 - Black Rhythm Happening

Eddie Gale

1969

Black Rhythm Happening

01. Black Rhythm Happening 2:57
02. The Gleeker 2:16
03. Song Of Will 3:08
04. Ghetto Love Night 5:30
05. Mexico Thing 5:08
06. Ghetto Summertime 3:13
07. It Must Be You 5:44
08. Look At Teyonda 9:31

Alto Saxophone – James Lyons
Trumpet – Eddie Gale
Bass – Henry Pearson, Judah Samuel
Vocals – Fulumi Prince
Drums – Elvin Jones, John Robinson
Flute – Roland Alexander, Russell Lyle
Tenor Saxophone – Russell Lyle
Vocals – Carol Ann Robinson, Charles Davis, Joann Gale Stevens, Paula Nadine Larkin, Sondra Walston, Sylvia Bibbs, William Norwood

Vocals parts were sung by the 'Noble Gale Singers' (as indicated in the album notes): Sylvia Bibbs, Paula Nadine Larkin, Carol Ann Robinson, Sondra Walston, Charles Davis, Joann Gale Stevens, Fulumi Prince and William Norwood. They were conducted by Fulumi Prince.

Eddie Gale, Russel Lyle, Judah Samuel and Henry Pearson were indicated as 'Noble Gale Musicians'. Others were indicated as 'Guest Musicians'.

Love it or hate it, trumpeter Eddie Gale's second Blue Note outing as a leader is one of the most adventurous recordings to come out of the 1960s. Black Rhythm Happening picks up where Ghetto Music left off, in that it takes the soul and free jazz elements of his debut and adds to them the sound of the church in all its guises -- from joyous call and response celebration on the title track (and album opener), to the mournful funeral sounds of "Song of Will," to the determined Afro-Latin-style chanting on "Mexico Thing" that brings the pre-Thomas Dorsey gospel to the revolutionary song style prevalent in Zapata's Mexico -- all thanks to the Eddie Gale Singers. Elsewhere, wild smatterings of hard and post-bop ("Ghetto Love Night") and angular modal music ("Ghetto Summertime," featuring Elvin Jones on drums and Joann Stevens-Gale on guitar), turn the jazz paradigm of the era inside out, simultaneously admitting everything in a coherent, wonderfully ambitious whole. There is no doubt that Archie Shepp listened to both Ghetto Music and Black Rhythm Happening before setting out to assemble his Attica Blues project. The album closes with "Look at Teyonda," a sprawling exercise in the deep melding of African and Latin folk musics with the folk-blues, flamenco, and jazz rhythms. Funky horns (courtesy of Gale, Russell Lyle, and Roland Alexander) moan toward Fulumi Prince's startlingly beautiful vocal. Stevens-Gale's guitar whispers the tune into the field before the saxophones and brass come to get it, and when they do, long open lines are offered slowly and deliberately, as Jones' shimmering ride cymbals triple-time the beat into something wholly Other. Black Rhythm Happening is a timeless, breathtaking recording, one that sounds as forward-thinking and militant in the 21st century as it did in 1969.