The Descendants of Mike and Phoebe - A Spirit Speaks (2025 Strata-East/Mack Avenue RSD Black Friday Reissue LP)

The Descendants of Mike and Phoebe - A Spirit Speaks | Vinyl LP - 2025 Strata-East/Mack Avenue Reissue, 180g Gatefold (SES-19744, Kevin Gray/Cohearent Audio, RTI)

Bill Lee was a bassist, composer and arranger who had played with Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and scores of others before he recorded this album with his own family in December 1973. The group took its name from Mike and Phoebe, enslaved ancestors from South Carolina from whom four of the six members are descended. Lee played string bass. His brother Clif played flugelhorn. His sister Consuela Lee Moorehead played piano. His sister A. Grace Lee Mims sang soprano. The album was produced by Lee-Fam Enterprises and recorded at Minot Studios in White Plains, New York over three days. Ron Carran engineered; Howard A. Mims did the cover and liner photography and design.

Eleven tracks across two sides, moving from jazz through gospel, soul and blues without treating any of those traditions as separate from the others. The album opens with "Two Songs For A Boy Named Mark" — a two-part suite, "Little Bitty Baby" and "Soliloquy To A Man-Child." "Coltrane" is an instrumental tribute. "Well Done, Weldon" and "Chick Chick" are uptempo modal instrumentals. Billy Higgins — who played with Ornette Coleman, Thelonious Monk and Herbie Hancock before becoming one of the most recorded drummers in jazz — appears on "Well Done, Weldon," "A Spirit Speaks" and "Attica." "Attica" is a direct response to the 1971 prison uprising. "Take My Hand, Precious Lord" is the Thomas A. Dorsey gospel hymn from 1932. "Boll Weevil" is the traditional blues.

The original 1974 Strata-East pressing is rare and expensive. This Mack Avenue reissue was mastered by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio directly from the original analog tapes and pressed on 180g vinyl at RTI. It was released as a Black Friday Record Store Day title on November 28, 2025.