Children of the Sun: Ofamfa

Here's another rarity - initially rescued from obscurity by the blog Reality Unit Concepts, whose description back in 2006 went as follows:

OFAMFA was the first of the releases put out by Universal Justice and the Black Artists’ Group (B.A.G.) collective out of St. Louis. Whereas the later releases of this loose-knit group might have some comparisons with mass-marketed music, OFAMFA is in the territory of unique recordings.

The track “Rent Man” might be the exception, and is very reminiscent of the album “Funky Donkey” by Luther Thomas. The rest is part spoken word, part rather inept but effortful jazz, and part collective free group improvisation. Depending on your state of mind, it is either brilliant next-level sound art, or an incomprehensible and bumbling train wreck. Or both. I always think to myself, I could just listen to the amp hum from an anonymous location in St. Louis some 35 years ago and be content.

One thing is for sure, there’s a good reason nobody else would release this. It makes John Coltrane sound like “Get on the Good Foot.” R-A-W. Even Arista avoided it when they raided the catalog to re-release “Under the Sun” and “Whisper of Dharma.” Hence, this is another entry in this blog’s catalog of un-loved recordings that still haven’t seen a proper digital release.

A couple years ago, I described Ofamfa as:

of interest to folks digging on some of the Black Artists Group & Human Arts Ensemble material I've posted on my blog - and of course it will be of interest to those who dig on what cats like Last Poets and Watts Prophets were doing back in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

In particular, the approach reminds me of Last Poets' album At Last - in other words think of it as jazzoetry.

Personnel:
Raju Áten - Conga, Small Instruments
Oliver Lake - Soprano Sax, Alto Sax, Flute, Poems, Small Instruments
Floyd LeFlore - Trumpet, Small Instruments
Ishac Rajab - Trumpet
Arzinia Richardson - Bass, Small Instruments
Vincent Terrell - Cello
Charles "Bobo" Shaw - Drums, Small Instruments
Ajulé - Poet, Arrangements, Small Instruments, Drums

In the credits, the following individuals are listed as "dancers who worked with the group": Carolyn Zachary, Etta Jackson, Johadi, and Sandra Weaver.

Tracks:
1. Sweet Street Song
2. Uu-Twee
3. After Jeremiah'swed
4. Sounds of Scorpio
5. Trane Songs
6. Rent Man
7. a. A Little Tom is a Dangerous Thing
7. b. Echos (O Susanna)

Note that tracks 4 and 7.a. are credited to Oliver Lake; track 7.b. is traditional. Poems copyright Bruce Rutlin, 1971. Released on Universal Justice Records.

Ajulé's liner notes are themselves a rather interesting read, offering something of a history lesson of a fertile period of jazz in the metropolitan St. Louis area:

All of the brothers playing and writing on this record are members of the Black Artist Group (BAG) which is based in St. Louis, "Misery." The Black Artist Group, a loose association of young Black men & women, is a potent/fertile creative force; a group which has contributed strong/fresh/inspirational creativity in the fields of Music/Writing/Dance/Drama. The Children of the Sun is one of the units operating under the BAG umbrella; others are or have been, The Oliver Lake/BAG, The 'BAG' Ensemble (Big Band), Red Black & Green Solidarity Unit, Onawali Dancers, Malinque Rhythm Tribe, BAG Drama Dept., Great Black Music Orchestra of St. Louis, Fire-Earth-Air-Water, Me We & Them, Julius Hemphill Quartet and some others.......all different creative approaches and reflecting a sum of influences and wisdoms which ranges across 500 years from here to Africa.......During their brief creative association the COS etched themselves into many hearts and minds. The group was together for little more than a year. Playing college concerts (when $ lucky), playing benefits for all kinds of groups of Black people and progressive whites. "A spiritual oasis in the baren desert of Amerika..." They would say, sometimes...... The conceptions reflect experiments which sought to establish a balance/harmony between the mediums of muse/ic and the spoken/sung word, (often the motions of dancers added still another depth) a balance which would catch the pulse and flame of the will of our people even tho they and we had already condemned the english language as the criminal insignia of the privileged class/es. (...Still, english wuz the only language we had in common so it was a dilema of how to reinspire the language). But because the members had to spend a majority of their time food getting their experiments and investigations were abandoned short of their goal which was/is to find a way to restablish the natural harmony of the Spiritual World; which has been upset and polluted to the same extent as our physical world: SPIRITUAL ECOLOGY?? Unfortunately, as it was, the experiments had to be cut short just as the techniques of communication were being perfected. Cut short by a manifestation of whut George Jackson called "over oppression." These young Black men look, walk, talk, eat, love, trip like us all but (unlike most) life is incalcuably more important to them than property values, hot dogs, cadillacs, or even "civilization;" if u can dig where i'm comin from! Their compassion for the Black, the poor, and the disadvantaged in general is reflected by the staggering numbers of free concerts they give/have given or the free classes they offer at BAG in the 4 major disciplines. And by the fact that they seek to maintain their comittment to life and creativity even as they exist at or near the starvation level. So these young Black men are emissaries of the Spiritual Universe....... the lost/abandoned universe they seek to describe in their creativity. "The main thing a musician would like to do is to give a picture to the listener of the many wonderful things he knows of and senses in the universe."* All these things are being said ...... u see ...... in an attempt to distinguish them favorably from their contemporaries in the Kapitalist "superstars"/entertainers/puppets who frolic like gelded puppies across the stages/footlights of the nation; at the end of the silver gaudy chains held by the bloody hands of the richest pale faces and their legions of sattelites and lackeys; who do come in all colors and races. This expression was recorded (by BAG) at various concerts and all of it was recorded "live"/accomplished in one taping. Other than regular microphones no electronic devices shaped this creativity (BLACK).

we are new yes we are old before and after the mighty winds of change and revolution The "Black Artist Group" wuz there yes we are the shambles, ruined tones of ancient memories and the sound of running waters, singing leaves flirting the silly air and yes sunlight splashed against dark wrinkled faces sighed winds driving the seasons the gifted moans of cherished lovers yes yes yes serene faces of beautiful children Ours..........

*John Coltrane

- Ajulé

All typos are solely mine. Ofamfa is worth checking out.

Download Ofamfa.

Kain - The Blue Guerrilla

This solo album by Gylan Kain, one of the original Last Poets -- before the group recorded for Douglas Records -- is a study in angry poetics, performance art, and killer presentation. Recorded and issued in the early '70s, The Blue Guerrilla is a freestyle set before such a thing was even a dream. Kain's one pissed-off cat, raging not only against the usual necessary concerns, but also against the stereotypes in his own community. Free jazz-funk grooves on guitars, electric violins, a slew of drums, and ghostly keyboards accompany his gorgeous and disturbing ranting that is far from pointless. From the opening ritual scarification of "I Ain't Black," with it's free jazz approach and over-the-top screaming, to the poignant indictment of "Harlem Preacher," to "Black Satin Amazon" and "Constipated Monkey," Kain is a hipster without a country, a street poet without an audience, an activist without sympathy. And rather than succumb and stylize his thang to get his message across, he becomes angrier, slyer, slicker, less forgiving, and more insightful. Music is placed here not as accompaniment, but as a framework for Kain to place his poetry in a context of the African-American oral tradition and the Living Theatre. And he gives no quarter. This man makes the Last Poets he left behind sound like schoolboys trying to sound pissed off. Kain would make Gil Scott-Heron run away for fear of being exposed as the effete he became before he turned into an out-and-out drug addict. There aren't any other records like this; this is the sound of the apocalypse, one that Amiri Baraka predicted and celebrated. Come to The System of Dante's Hell as narrated by Kain. Sit down, listen all the way though if you can; wake up. There's a riot goin' on.

Review from Allmusic Guide by Thom Jurek

The album, to say the least, is an intense listening experience performed by a cat who must be one intense individual. Jurek does a decent job of capturing the essence of Kain's one solo album. The music and words fit in with what his former Last Poets crew were doing at the time, although with more attention paid to musical arrangements - ranging from free jazz on the opening tracks to a cooler West Coast feel for much of the remaining album (though cooler here is only a relative term - the music has an edge to it).

To me the highlight of the album is the final track, "Look Out for the Blue Guerrilla." The tune starts out with a basic keyboard-bass-drum backing that has that hazy weed-smoke-filled room vibe to it as Kain drops these philosophical rhymes that build in intensity and religious imagery, with a travel-logue that sounds like Kain's been channeling HST as he was writing Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, or Oscar Zeta Acosta's Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo. Certainly, the song, like Thompson's and Acosta's books, captures the rotten core of the "American Dream" - in Kain's case, laying out a vision of an America with machine guns on every corner, and ending with a climax in which Kain and crew shout a warning to "Look Out For The Blue Guerrilla!"

If you can dig on some Amiri Baraka-inspired second generation beat poetry, that takes on issues of racism and oppression that are every bit as topical today as they were back in 1971, this album's for you. Last Poets fans should dig this. I've heard his work described as “Holy Roller Existential Blues” and “Poetic Aggression”. That's as good a description as any.

Gylan Kain has kept busy since his falling out with the Last Poets and the recording of The Blue Guerrilla as a playwright, multimedia collaborations with Z'ev, and of course performing his poetry both solo and with musical backing. He's most recently appeared with jazz/hip-hop/fusion artists Electric Barbarian since 2003, appearing on their 2004 album él. and Minirock from the Sun. Some press reviews from the Electric Barbarian website:

JAZZTIMES March 18, 2005 - Larry Appelbaum
Dutch Jazz Meeting
"Friday night began with a sound collective called Electric Barbarian, with electric bassist and leader Floris Vermeulen, and featuring a headphone-wearing trumpeter who kept one hand on his mixer, a turntablist named Grazzhoppa and a drummer prone to mock bodybuilder poses. After an opening instrumental with washes of sound and a pseudo tribal beat, Gylan Kain, one of the founding members of the Last Poets, wailed and ranted his piece about "My Niggaz" with textured accompaniment. At one point he came out into the audience and recited in the face of an audience member who was moved to get up and leave, but not before Kain followed the poor man up the aisle. "Kicking Mickey Mouse in his house", indeed."

[...]

Kwadratuur.be August 2, 2004 - Koen van Meel
"These songs are solidly driven on a simple harmonious basis and are underlayed by Floris Vermeulen's melodious bass, which gives the whole thing soul." (...) "Vocal contributions are laid on top of this instrumental foundation. Kain is especially fascinating. His poems are visual, difficult to pin down in the beginning, but are delivered as pure spoken word, with a flow which most MCs can only dream of."

Gylan Kain is in my opinion one of those writers and artists who deserves far more recognition than he's received. The recorded material he's contributed to Electric Barbarian's albums this decade (along with accounts of his performances at their gigs) has certainly been tantalizing. Given the dearth of recorded material available by Gylan Kain, that he's had any influence on the subsequent direction of underground rap is a minor miracle. Some of the more direct evidence comes from KMD's magnum opus, Bl_ck B_st_rds (maybe one of these days I'll re-up that one). In the meantime, "look out for the Blue Guerrilla."

Download The Blue Guerrilla.

Last Poets - At Last

This was one of those Holy Grail recordings, that I finally managed to track down. The one review that I've read about the album was pretty unflattering, but at least to my ears it hits the right notes. It's not as essential as their early albums The Last Poets and This is Madness, or other recordings from the 1970s such as Chastisement or Delights in the Garden, and unlike any of those albums seems doomed to remain out of print. I actually think it fits in quite nicely with Chastisement and Delights in the Garden - it's just a bit more lo-fi than those albums. And if the vocals sound strained, contrary to the allmusic.com review, careful listening will suggest that it is intentional on certain tracks rather than an artifact of trying to be heard over the jazz combo backing.

Download At Last