sweet earth flying part 2 (eleven light city)

today is the second day of the anniversary of the recording of the album sweet earth flying by marion brown.

there is of course no sweet earth flying part 2 on the first side of the record (and no one seems to know what happened to it) . the record goes straight from paul bley’s electric piano introduction part 1 to the drums and electronics work out of sweet earth flying part 3. it ends with muhal richard abrams answering piano track sweet earth flying part 5.



and then you turn would the record over and there would be eleven light city parts 1 to 4.

as far as horsemouth can work out eleven light city is a a ‘floater’ lyric in several blues songs - as the feed in line in some versions of sweet home chicago for example, in big boy knox’s eleven light city blues, in old original kokomo blues by james 'kokomo' arnold (1934), charlie burse, furry lewis & will shade play a version on beale street mess-around, recorded summer 1962 or 1963 in memphis.

kokomo is in any event a town in indiana. some claim kokomo is ‘stop light city’ with loads of stop lights on the main drag, others that it had 11 speakeasies during prohibition. kokomo arnold later explained the song's references eleven light city referred to a chicago drugstore where a girlfriend worked and "koko" was their brand name of coffee.

in robert johnson’s version (recorded in san antonio texas) kokomo is replaced by chicago and eleven light city with land of california. the song becomes an aspirational song of emigration rather than a ‘going back’ song (even if the geography is more than a little hazy).

on eleven light city marion brown and the band stretch out some more, there may even be an ARP synth in there (if horsemouth’s feeble eyes are reading the tiny (reduced to CD size) sleevenotes correctly. muhal richard abrams is on organ loads. it’s good to sit and listen to it (horsemouth’s ears often get tired out by sweet earth flying before he gets to it and so he doesn’t pay it proper attention).

in june (4th-5th) horsemouth will do a review of geechee recollections marion brown’s 73 album from the georgia trilogy (assuming horsemouth is still alive). ed michel (who produced all three of his records on impulse) said marion brown was easy to work with because he knew what he wanted.

eleven light city ends with cymbal hits. high up on the ‘bell’ of the cymbal.