4 x 1 (From 3)

In The Long Form
Marion Brown/Red Clay And Cottonwood

Friday, August 05, 2011


'Four by One' by Jackson Pollack

No.#7 in a series

It's been awhile since the last entry in 'The Long Form' series. Twenty one months to be exact. Nearly two years. With that in mind, I thought now might be a good time to revive it and in doing so, also pay tribute to one of America's most neglected jazz musicians of the 20th Century, the late Marion Brown (1931-2010).

I only just became aware of Brown's death in recent weeks when in fact, he passed away nearly a year ago in October of 2010 after a long illness. But if you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll recall that I had some major distractions in my life around that time that no doubt prevented me from learning the news when it happened. That saddens me because I always admired Brown's work, and it just goes to show that even in death, many deserving souls continue to get passed over, and Brown was one of them. Apparently his demise didn't warrant a mention in the questionable newspapers that I was reading at the time.

To lend credence to this oversight, here's what writer John J. Emerson says about him, augmented by revisions of my own (in parentheses):

"Marion Brown (was perhaps) the most overlooked musician of our time, (and it's a crime that) some of his very best work remains out of print and almost completely unavailable today.

As a person, Brown (was) reserved and undramatic, and (throughout the years) all the trends have worked against him. He (first) made a name for himself in the most extreme 1960s avant-garde music community (playing alongside Archie Shepp and on John Coltrane's 'Ascension'), but he never (gained the same level of recognition of his contemporaries). (Unlike them, Brown was more understated, relying on the carefully chosen phrase, on clear motivic development rather than the pure sound/smear/scream tactic.) After ('The New Thing') collapsed in the 1970's, his avant-garde reputation (seemingly) did him more harm than good. Furthermore, his bucolic 'Georgia Trilogy' (tone poems based on the poetry of Jean Toomer),* weren't a good fit with the urban avant-garde scene that did survive. He (was) able to continue playing and recording in Europe and elsewhere, as well as teaching music at the college level, but he never received (the acknowledgment he so justly deserved). Although the first in his trilogy, 'Afternoon Of A Georgia Fawn' is now back print, the other two thirds (controlled by Impulse/Verve) have not only been long out of print, but were never even re-released digitally for the CD age."

*The trilogy includes 'Afternoon Of A Georgia Fawn,' 'Geechee Recollections' and 'Sweet Earth Flying.' Brown's 'November Cotton Flower' released in 1980 might also be considered as part of the 'trilogy' since it too is based on Georgian memories, but it is not generally considered a element in the trilogy. Brian Olewnick of AMG however does call the recording the "concluding volume." But then it would be a 'quartet,' wouldn't it?

Author Aldon Lynne Nielson discusses Brown's 'Georgia Trilogy' in his 1977 book, 'Black Chant: Languages of African-American Postmodernism':

"Marion Brown's best-known and most significant work is a series of recordings made between 1970 and 1974 and collectively known as the 'Georgia Trilogy.' Jean Toomer's 'Cane' is the central impetus for the trilogy and is directly invoked in the second of the works ('Geechee Recollections'), but the 'Georgia Trilogy' is not, strictly speaking, about Toomer and his work, nor is it limited to an aural tour of Georgia. As J.B. Fiji puts it, "Georgia is Marion's corridor to Africa." For Toomer, the Georgia turnpike that runs as a symbol through the locale of his stories and poems grows out of a goat path in Africa. For Brown, Toomer's poetic text was a path into his own past and into the cultural past of his race. Following an extended period in Europe, Brown and his wife spent a season in Atlanta, and the music of the 'Georgia Trilogy' grew out of Brown's return to the ground of his childhood and his meditations upon Toomer's poems of Georgia past.

Appropriately enough, the only overt reference to Toomer and 'Cane' appears in the centerpiece of the 'Georgia Trilogy,' 'Geechee Recollections.' The first record of the trilogy, 'Afternoon Of A Georgia Fawn' make no specific allusions to Toomer at all, and yet is motivated from start to finish by Brown's ongoing conversation with his literary and musical modernist predecessors. Like the works of such late nineteenth-century composers as Debussy, Brown's 'Afternoon Of A Georgia Fawn' is a "tone poem," as Brown says in his own description that accompanies the recording. With the use percussion on traditional instruments of the Akan peoples of Ghana, "It depicts nature and the environment in Atlanta. The vocalists sing wordless syllables. The composition begins with a percussion section that suggests rain drops --- wooden rain drops. The second section is after the rain --- metallic sounds that suggest night."

Like so many of his contemporaries, (Brown) uncovered the Africanity of modernist art and at the same time reasserted the modernity of black Americans."

David Grundy from EarTrip Magazine weighs in further from his essay, 'A Man Walking Into The Future Backwards: Marion Brown, The American South, And 'Afternoon Of A Georgia Fawn':

"It’s worth examining ‘Faun’ in depth: the most experimental of Brown’s works, it is also one of the richest in terms of its conceptual underpinnings. Indeed, an entire book, entitled ‘Afternoon of a Georgia Faun – Views and Reviews’, was dedicated to the album and published in 1973. Brown was not simply ‘making a record’, ‘laying down a few tunes’ for jukebox airplay: these were lengthy soundscapes for which the term ‘jazz’ seemed out-dated. They might not have existed without jazz, but they could not be constrained by the word, by the label ‘jazz’, or, at least, by the way in which critics and listeners sought to use that label in order to enforce and constraint a certain fixed idea of the music. Instead, things mix and merge, like the ‘eight-hour dialogues’ Brown remembers having with his fellow musicians, in which “stories go in and out of each other like Bach’s counterpoint.” Dialogue and the sounded voice turn out to be particularly apposite on ‘Faun’ – while the spoken word itself would not appear until Bill Hasson’s recitations (featured only briefly) on the following two albums in the ‘Georgia Trilogy’, the vocalizations of Jeanne Lee and Gayle Palmoré do function as a kind of wordless prelude to those recitations; once more that merging, that suggestive blurring of boundaries, between voice and instrument, between speech and music. Between ‘professional’ and ‘amateur’ musicians too: The main band of six instrumentalists is supplemented by a team of three ‘assistants’ who use various percussive devices and implements, some of them invented by Brown. While Andrew Cyrille, Anthony Braxton, Bennie Maupin, Chick Corea and Jack Gregg, can all be considered virtuoso practitioners of their respective instruments, here their sonic status is often the same as that of performers who might not even be considered ‘musicians’ in the normal sense: a democratic, if not communistic, openness. For Brown, this is an affirmation of the value of improvisation as the equal of composition: unlike composition, it allows anyone to communicate and jointly participate in a musical experience. Furthermore, as Brown hints when he talks about “mutual cooperation at a folk level,” the ‘open’ approach finds ‘avant-garde’ music coming to resemble a kind of imagined folk-music, very different in sound to the traditional folk melodies heard in West Africa, or Georgia, or New York City, where the album was recorded, but possessing a similarly radical means of making. From the liner notes: “Although I am responsible for initiating the music, I take no credit for the results. Whatever they may be, it goes to the musicians collectively.”

'Afternoon of a Georgia Fawn' by Michael Kelly Williams

As for 'The Long Form,' here's a short reminder of its simple premise --- to feature extended musical performances from any number of genres that all exceed 10 minutes in length while remaining relevant, focused and engaging. Sounds simple enough, but unfortunately that isn't always the case. No.#7 in this series features four individual suites composed and performed by Marion Brown which were taken from each of the 'Georgia Trilogy' recordings, hence the title --- '4 x 1 (From 3) In The Long Form.'

4 x 1 (From 3) In The Long Form

1) The Tokalokaloka Suite
(from 'Geechee Recollections'/Impulse Records/1973)
a) Introduction (Solo Improvisation By Marion Brown)
b) Tokalokaloka, Part One
c) Tokalokaloka, Part Two
d) Tokalokaloka, Part Three
e) Ending (Solo Improvisation By Leo Smith)

Marion Brown (as, ss, cl, per) Leo Smith (brass, strings, per)
William Malone (thumb p, autoharp) James Jefferson (b, cello, per)
Steve McCall (d, per) A. Kobena Adzenyah (d, African per)
Jumma Santos (cga, misc. inst.) Bill Hasson (per)

2) Afternoon Of A Georgia Fawn
(from 'Afternoon Of A Georgia Fawn'/ECM Records/1970)

Marion Brown (as, zomari, per) Anthony Braxton (as, ss, cl, cbcl, Chinese musette, fl, per)
Bennie Maupin (ts, afl, bcl, acorn, bells, wooden fl, per) Chick Corea (p, bells, gong, per)
Jack Gregg (b, per) Billy Malone (African d) Larry Curtis, Andrew Cyrille (per)
William Green (top o'lin, per) Gayle Palmore (voice, p, per) Jeanne Lee (voice, per)

3) Eleven Light City Suite
(from 'Sweet Earth Flying'/Impulse Records/1974)
a) Part One
b) Part Two
c) Part Three
d) Part Four

4) Sweet Earth Flying Suite
(from 'Sweet Earth Flying'/Impulse Records/1974)
a) Part One
b) Part Three
c) Part Four: Prince Willie
d) Part Five
(FYI: Part Two was never issued)

Marion Brown (as, ss) Paul Bley (p, el-p, org) Muhal Richard Abrahms (el-p, org)
James Jefferson (b, el-b) Steve McCall (d) Bill Hasson (per)

Bonus Track

Sweet Earth Flying*
*(A reworked version taken from
'November Cotton Flower'/Baystate Records/1980
offered just for the hell of it)

Marion Brown (ss) Paul Bley (p, el-p, org) Muhal Richard Abrahms (el-p, org)
James Jefferson (b, el-b) Steve McCall (d) Bill Hasson (per)