‘thunder blossoms gorgeously above our heads' [sweet earth flying part 1]

‘thunder blossoms gorgeously above our heads [...] bleeding rain / dripping rain like golden honey.’ - jean toomer

for morning, start with the paul bley piano introduction. sweet earth flying part1.

paul bley is an interesting cat - a montrealler, he’s working as a jazz musician right from the 50ies, through the 60ies, this album is from 72?/ 74? (74) and he’s in boston with a pack of free jazz dudes, he’s playing one of those new rhodes electric pianos, a stargate, listen to that sustain (that bizarre envelope).

it’s influential - harold budd does a version. marion brown later re-records it with guitarist karl rausch on november cotton flower.

may 6th and 7th 1974 'sweet earth flying' was recorded, one of three albums marion brown made about his home state of georgia (sweet earth flying, geechee recollections, afternoon of a georgia faun). he left georgia to go to university and to play on ascension with john coltrane and on fire music with archie shepp, and he played in paris, but he came back to live in atlanta and recorded those three albums.

the inspiration for the series of albums came from the poetry of jean toomer - part of the harlem renaissance but distant from it. he became a fan of gurdjeff and later a quaker.

the bassist and the drummer (james jefferson, steve mccall) do sterling work, listen to the drummer go on part 2 (sorry that should be part 3, part 2 isn’t on the album). muhal richard abrams is on the album too (organ and piano), a founder member of the association for the advancement of creative musicians (together with steve mccall), and a sometime rosicrucian, he played with the art ensemble of chicago, anthony braxton, roscoe mitchell etc. but he’s another musician who’d been playing since the 50ies.



sweet earth flying part 5 is like muhal richard abrams’ reply  to paul bley (if anything it’s even more debussy-like than the opener).