Oliver Lake - Heavy Spirits (1976 Japanese Freedom/Trio Vinyl LP)

Vinyl: EX
Sleeve: EX
Obi: None

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Oliver Lake - Heavy Spirits | Vinyl LP - 1976 Japanese Freedom/Trio Records (PA-7147, Trio Electronics)

Lake had been in New York for four months when these sessions were recorded. He grew up in St. Louis, co-founded the Black Artists Group (BAG, St. Louis's answer to Chicago's AACM) in 1968, spent two years in Paris, and arrived in Manhattan in September 1974 to find the loft jazz scene already in full swing at Sam Rivers's Studio Rivbea and other artist-run spaces. Anthony Braxton recommended him to Arista, and Michael Cuscuna produced the sessions. The New York date (January 31, 1975) yields the album's most extended piece: the 11-minute "While Pushing Down Turn," a quintet workout with Olu Dara's trumpet (Dara would later become known to a wider audience as the father of rapper Nas) cutting against Lake's alto over Donald Smith's piano, Stafford James's bass and Victor Lewis's drums. "Owshet" and the short title track come from the same session. "Rocket" closes side B with a stripped-down trio of Lake, Joseph Bowie (brother of Lester Bowie, fellow BAG member) on trombone and Bobo Shaw (a BAG founding member) on drums, no piano, no bass, just three musicians pushing hard against each other for nine minutes.

The Boston session (February 3, 1975) is a different project entirely. "Movement Equals Creation," "Altoviolin" and "Intensity" pair Lake's alto with a string trio (Al Philemon Jones, C. Panton and Steven Peisch on violins), creating textures closer to contemporary classical music than to anything else on the album. "Lonely Blacks" sits between the string pieces and the trio track as a solo alto saxophone performance. The contrast between sides is deliberate. Lake was working at the boundary between composition and free improvisation, between the blues-rooted hard bop of Jackie McLean and Eric Dolphy (his stated influences) and the structural experiments of the AACM/BAG tradition. Within two years of this recording he would co-found the World Saxophone Quartet with Julius Hemphill, Hamiet Bluiett and David Murray. Braxton's liner notes sit alongside Lake's own. This is the 1976 Japanese pressing on Freedom/Trio PA-7147, manufactured by Trio Electronics.