Lester Bowie/Art Ensemble of Chicago/Euro Free Jazz Orchester - 12. Deutsches Jazzfestival 1970, Frankfurt 3/22/70  3. concert

A surprisingly excellent sounding recording of what sounds like a gigantic group. With Bowie’s name in front I suspect his role as lead as conductor, and despite the number of horns involved in this, things stay rather quite for the first half, jumping out at little peaks here and there, but reigning in all this power for a while, something that makes it all seem like it crackles with static. Then as the 35 minute piece starts to close towards the end, it all becomes akin to Coltrane’s Ascension and the whole band starts to let loose all of this pent up energy into a glorious finish. Wow, hot stuff. More of this should be available to the public at large, that is, those that don’t run screaming.

Jose Chepito Areas s/t
Giants s/t

Albums by Santana musicians covering very similar territory, the first of these shows the percussionist work on that side of the equation with all sorts of neat drum rave ups. The second, a session from 1971, wasn’t released until 1978 and sounds as much like Malo as Santana with the occasional ripping instrumental solo. In fact, I’d say the Giants album is probably as much a funk record as it is a rock record and the band grooves a plenty as they work through some originals and hoary chestnuts like “Fried Neckbones and Home Fries.”