Gil Scott-Heron - The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (2017 BGP/Flying Dutchman Reissue Vinyl LP)

Gil Scott-Heron - The Revolution Will Not Be Televised | Vinyl LP, 2017 BGP/Flying Dutchman Reissue (BGPD 306, Ace Records)

• Eleven tracks compiled from Scott-Heron’s first three Flying Dutchman albums (Small Talk at 125th and Lenox, Pieces of a Man, Free Will), recorded between 1970 and 1972, produced by Bob Thiele
• Session musicians include Ron Carter and Gerry Jemott on bass, Bernard “Pretty” Purdie on drums, Hubert Laws on flute and alto saxophone, and David Spinozza on guitar, with Brian Jackson on piano
• BGP Records reissue of the 1974 Flying Dutchman compilation, mastered by Nick Robbins at Sound Mastering, with Charles Stewart’s original cover photography

Gil Scott-Heron was twenty-one when Bob Thiele signed him to Flying Dutchman Records after reading his book of poetry, Small Talk at 125th and Lenox. The first album (1970) was recorded with just Scott-Heron’s voice and three percussionists. The second, Pieces of a Man (1971), brought in a band of first-call session musicians, and the music changed: “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” went from a spoken word poem over congas to a jazz-funk piece with Ron Carter’s bass, Hubert Laws’s flute and Bernard Purdie’s drums underneath it. This 1974 compilation draws from all three Flying Dutchman albums, and it remains the most concentrated introduction to Scott-Heron’s early work.

The material ranges from the blunt, witty spoken word of “Whitey on the Moon” (a minute and a half contrasting the space programme with conditions in Black neighbourhoods) and the brevity of “Sex Education: Ghetto Style” and “No Knock” to the fully arranged jazz-soul of “Lady Day and John Coltrane” (a song about finding solace in music), “Pieces of a Man” (a portrait of a man watching his father break down), and “Home Is Where the Hatred Is” (about addiction, with a directness that has lost nothing in fifty years). Brian Jackson, Scott-Heron’s primary musical collaborator for the next decade, plays piano throughout the band tracks. The session musicians (Carter, Purdie, Laws, Spinozza, Jemott) are among the most recorded players of their generation. Bob Thiele, who had produced John Coltrane, Benny Carter, and McCoy Tyner at Impulse!, produced all three source albums. This 2017 BGP reissue (Ace Records) is mastered by Nick Robbins. Cover photograph by Charles Stewart. Catalogue number BGPD 306.