Fans of Black Jazz and Strata East: listen up! The indisputable masterpiece of the god-father of spiritual jazz has managed to pass the seemingly impassable paths of the cutthroat-cooperative-behemoth by the name of music industry! Now, it has announced its conquering expedition towards our regions. Almost like a travel diary, its content is evidence of a burdensome way, which had initially started long before the album’s recording. The first lines came into existence about 400 years ago, on fields under the burning sun of the Southern States. They way they just happened – neither to impress nor to sweeten the day with a melody on one’s lips –, they were the incarnated will for survival and the only shimmering string that the slaves were to take from the fields without being punished. And even though slavery was long abolished in the 1970s, even though the super-race was pretty much tamed and so the risk of a sudden death through their hands was down to a minimum, the spiritual subjugation was still as present as ever. And still, there was a collective kind of courage to be found, in order to win back what had always been their own. That very courage is concentrated in this record’s 45 minutes of playing time, on which the titles read like headlines of a manifest that could have served as a guideline for spiritual liberation of the African American community. In the beginning, »Now Stand« sounds like the zigzagging of an escaping rabbit. However, in the main theme, it comes running back with new confidence, in order to make his Goliath-like tantalizer dizzy and then escape through his heels. »Of Life And Love And God« is about human trinity, which can be taken away by no one, and which serves as an anchor and resting place for the successful revolution. Then, the stretched sounds from a cello and a trumpet cut through the airwaves, dragging, like the long and winding road towards self-discovery. They dissect all the long-welled anger in such a cutting manner, that they get straight under your skin. »Returning To The Ways« is both starting- and finishing point of the argument: Its the return to a right to exist as a god-given gift, having survived in each individual since the beginning of mankind. This epiphany is celebrated with frenetic and exuberant solo parts, hoping to be heard beyond the territory of the »Tribe«, so that like-minded people outside the circle of the »Kindred Spirits«-enthusiasts can find their ways to the sounds.
Joe Henderson
Power To The People
Craft