The Entourage Music & Theatre Ensemble - 2022 - The Mermaid's Purse Live At Chatham College, 1976

The Entourage Music & Theatre Ensemble

2022

The Mermaid's Purse Live At Chatham College, 1976

01. Days / Percussion Solo / King's Birdcage 8:13

02. Theme / Gypsies 4:28

03. Neptune Rising / A Butterfly Impaled on a Dart (Solo for Viola) 7:09

04. Giraffes We Ride Through Lightning Spilling 2:07

05. Nature Spirits 5:57

06. Silver Drum / Daleth 5:54

07. Incantation for the Death of Self 2:17

08. Euphoric Bells / Druid Dance 5:25

09. Space Needle Suicide 3:55

10. The Mermaid's Purse 3:03

11. Sleazy Sue 4:01

12. Aperture 3:34

13. Soft Fist / Cleopatra Music / Harbinger 12:09

14. Outer Tiger / Days (Reprise) 6:02

Live archive release. The Entourage Music and Theater Ensemble uses saxophone, keyboards, percussion, viola, recorder, guitar, drums and thumb piano to explore an"experimental-spiritualistic environment" and builds improvised soundscapes reflecting techniques from many sources, including Noh Theater, Balinese Theatre and traditional and avant-garde Western multimedia.

In 1976 the Entourage Music and Theatre Ensemble reached a creative zenith. The nomadic troupe had just released The Neptune Collection, its iconic second album for Moses Asch’s Folkways Records, and decided to present the music to audiences across the rust belt in its most miasmic, elemental form. Extended stretches of full-group improvisation mingled with folk-tune like melodies during these performances, which featured multiple dancers spontaneously interpreting the music, at times in elaborate costume. Like contemporaries Popol Vuh, Sandy Bull, and Don Cherry, Entourage fused jazz and strains of traditional music from around the world to form a singular, kaleidoscopic vision of musical liberation. The Mermaid’s Purse: Live at Chatham College, 1976 is the most complete, best-preserved audio recording of these performances, featuring music from across the Entourage catalog. It is being released for the first time 45 years after its recording, and features liner notes by lone surviving member Wall Matthews.

Smithsonian Folkways has been serving up a wealth of archival material and reissues from the largely undersung Entourage Music Ensemble of late. Following the reissue of their debut and 2nd albums — an eponymous debut and The Neptune Collection — the label have dug up one of the most complete recordings of the group in the live setting. Like Don Cherry’s Organic Music Theatre, the Entourage group blended mediums and cultural touch points. The performances were as likely to touch on jazz, folk, and Eastern traditional structures as they were to incorporate poetry and multiple dancers spontaneously interpreting the music, at times in elaborate costume. While the latter might not come through in the recordings here, The Mermaid’s Purse: Live at Chatham College 1976 does present the band at its most well preserved in terms of capturing a live performance. The audio is pristine and finds the band folding in works from their two records along with improvisations that skew through psychedelic folk and free jazz territories.

The set is ecstatic, chaotic but carved from a studied sense. The pieces push from squall, a tornado in miniature, to plaintive folk. The title track, perhaps, exemplifying this most completely. The voices and horns die down, and a picked blues bends its way through the calm eye of Entourage’s storm. The theatrics arc throughout this performance, with the first half all tempest and tumult, while the second starts with a bit of serenity before letting the strings clamp down an anxious intensity. The group’s output was in dire need of a re-release, but this album is pure frosting on the campaign’s credibility. Finding the band in their element, blissful and blistering all at once.