#mongezi feza

[jt1674]

[dustedmagazine]

Centipede—Septober Energy (Esoteric)

In June of 1971, the impossible happened, or maybe it’s just impossible now. An aggregate residing under the rather misleading, or at least incomplete, moniker “big band” converged on Wessex Sound Studios in London and recorded, under the direction of Keith Tippett and for a major label, the diverse and ultimately indescribable music comprising Septober Energy. It was to be the only album by Centipede, performing Tippett’s variously organized compositions, and it has now been reissued from the original tapes in a package that should prove as definitive as the disparately fragmenting and congealing sound-energies swirling from the speakers.

Listing the musicians would be a fruitless task; just check out the album’s Wikipedia entry for full details. Suffice it to say here that core membership from King Crimson, Soft Machine and Nucleus forms the heart of the venture, which was also produced by Robert Fripp. While he doesn’t play, Brian Godding, guitarist from Blossom Toes (whose albums have also enjoyed recent deluxe Esoteric reissues) provides still underappreciated distorted riffage, especially on the second piece. Even to cite those three groups as the orchestra’s power nexus is far from complete, as the personnel list comprises many of the finest improvisers on the English scene at the time, including Paul Rutherford, Maggie Nicols, Mongezi Feza, Dudu Pukwana, Harry Miller and so many others. Their ensemble and individual contributions fuse all manner of transcultural classical, jazz and prog influence to form the four-part epic, each piece one side of the double album.

Yes, there was a previous CD version taken from the master tapes, but there’s something richer about the sonorities here, something full, dark and sparkling by turn, presenting all instrumental and vocal details with new depth and amazing perspective. What now emerges with the most stunning clarity are the dynamic extremes. Godding’s raunchy lines blast their way onto the soundstage as wasn’t even the case with the first vinyl issue, but the album’s opening moments ring forth with crystal percussive clarity. Ditto the third part’s inaugural minutes, the vocals floating over the silence in something conjoining icy serenity and anticipation, and then those sinewy and delicious percussion dialogues, courtesy of Robert Wyatt and John Marshall, thrum, rush and roar only to fade, making room for a fusion of military and circus as exciting as it is confounding, as if Charles Ives had contributed passages to King Crimson’s Lizard. Best of all is the droning sections bookending the first piece, somehow raw and delicate, a foundation of tone transformation supporting constantly changing color and ensemble size, the initial six-minute arc anticipating the kaleidoscopic freakout and ritualistic repetitions to follow. Equally poignant are Keith Tippett’s effortless piano arpeggiations and the meditative unisons of Nicols and Julie Tippetts voices as they buoy shimmering string harmonics later in the track.

The album is a minor miracle of constantly morphing acoustic space, and this must be a consequence of Fripp’s production, which can now be appreciated afresh. Even beyond that, it cries freedom, a communal salute to a point in time when the enthusiasm underpinning such multileveled cross-reference and the projects housing it was real and immediate, perhaps less defined but inimitably palpable. If excess occasionally looms large, it is always tempered by a chamber-music veracity as the never-murky waves and rivulets ebb, flow and trickle in majestic succession. Syd Smith’s superb liner notes set the stage and spin the narrative yarn in his typically engaging and inclusive fashion. Taken as a whole, the package speaks to a time and a musical environment in which anything seemed not only to be possible but in reach, nearly tangible, the proximate dawn of another day that cycles through Julie Tippetts’ lyrics manifest. The organization gave several concerts; were any of them preserved? Either way, with the exception of Carla Bley’s monumental Escalator Over the Hill, it is difficult to think of another album encapsulating so completely the diversity in unity occurring when so many talented musicians gather in creative celebration. The fact that it is now reissued with the care it deserves is heart-warming. 

Marc Medwin

[protoslacker]

You Think You Know Me - Mongezi Feza

Duncan Johnson

You Ain't Gonna Know Me Cause You Think You Know Me (full name) was a protest song Mongezi Feza played with The Blue Notes after he went into exile in 1964, along with Chris McGregor and the rest of The Blue Notes band. This song was in protest to the Apartheid government of South Africa saying that "You think you know the black person but you never will and I'm not going to show you who we are (I am) either" Such a fitting song for what's happening around the world, especially in America with their struggles of fighting rasicm and police brutailty.

Mongesi Feza

[martincolyer]

Thursday, January 28th

It’s Thursday, January 28th, and time for a new Five Things Seen & Heard!

[cosmicanger]

Mongezi Feza died in London on Dec. 14, 1975; he was only 30. Nine days later his bandmates Dudu Pukwana, Chris McGregor, Johnny Dyani, & Louis Moholo met in a rehearsal room. "No discussion took place beforehand and nothing was said during the session, save through the music."

[plonkeepoos]

The Blue Notes: Dudu Pukwana on saxophone, Mongezi Feza on trumpet,  Johnny Dyani on bass and Chris McGregor on piano, Louis Moholo on drums (hidden)

[raspberryjones]

Eric Nomvete's Big Five, “Pondo Blues* (Cold Castle Jazz Festival, Johannesburg, SA, October 1962) | First of all, trumpeter/cornetist Mongezi Feza brought me here; it’s is his coming out party, he’s 17 years old on this recording, so you can’t tell him nothing, he knows he’s destined for...something. (And he is, but still gone too soon.) Actually, dig Aubrey Simane’s alto, how it plays in harmony, then takes a short easy flight...and then...starts pealing and pealing and pealing and pealing - before smoothly gliding back into the skanky theme. And, My Lord, what about the gorgeous, simple “is it a shuffle or is it a moan” theme — and, before that, those united horns playing a funereal thing that you can say is pure NOLA second-line...but, no you can’t...and not quite Port Au Prince marches either. It’s Joburg with whiffs of Kingston, and the way the Art Ensemble would speak about “ancient to the future” - but, really, it’s the Cape. Cause that’s a fact and not speculation. Actually, what brought me here was Johnny Mbizo Dyani talking to a reporter in 1985, about 10 months before his death. Saying of Eric Nomvete, the composer of this tune, a tenor from East London, Eastern Cape, “Everybody was playing so-called jazz and this old man was hip enough that he had original stuff...so this old man just came in with Pondo Blues and that was it. And then everybody started being aware of heir own thing, tradition, culture, whatever you call it.”  

[fakazavibes]

South African jazz musicians

South African jazz musicians

Top South African jazz musicians, South African jazz a longtime hit genre and still fashionable for old folks who love  healing and relaxation to their souls and minds through music. South African jazz is lovely, and so are the artists that have worked hard to develop this genre in the country.

ALSO SEE: South African House Mix 9 Feb 2020 Sunday Vibes

Top South…

[nickyb7]

Julia Holter - Tragedy

Julia Holter – Tragedy

Capita di trovare analogie tra differenti articoli dello stesso ciclo, similitudini non calcolate durante la scelta dei dischi da approfondire. È bello trovare dei sentieri differenti che si muovono paralleli alla strada maestra per poi perdersi e ritrovare – quando meno te l’aspetti – la via principale, ramificazioni, connessioni quasi neurali che rendono artisti apparentemente distanti più…

[jt1674]

[diyeipetea]

365 razones para amar el jazz: una aventura. La de la "hermandad" de exiliados sudafricanos que huyendo del apartheid vienen a Europa en los 60 [130]

#365RazonesParaAmarElJazz: una aventura. La de la "hermandad" de exiliados sudafricanos huyendo del apartheid [130]

The Blue Notes. Londres. 1965

Una aventura. La de la “hermandad” de exiliados sudafricanos que en los 60, huyendo del apartheid, vienen a Europa para poder seguir tocando juntos (Mongezi Feza, Dudu Pukwana, Chris McGregor, Johnny Dyani, Louis Moholo-Moholo)

Seleccionado por Jack Torrance

[martincolyer]

Thursday, January 28th

It’s Thursday, January 28th, and time for a new Five Things Seen & Heard!

[steamedtangerine]

Song for Che-Robert Wyatt (featuring Fred Frith, Bill MacCormick, Brian Eno, Gary Windo, Nisar Ahmad, Mongezi Feza and more)

[muddyfatty]

Dudu Pukwana - Mongezi Feza: Sonia

[jazzfunkdid]

Dudu Pukwana & Spear ‎– Flute Music

Dudu Pukwana & Spear ‎– Flute Music. Bass Guitar – Pete Cowling. Congas – 'Bob'. Congas, Percussion, Trumpet, Flute, Voice – Mongezi Feza. Drums – John Stevens. Electric Piano, Piano, Voice – Victor Williams. Piano, Percussion, Alto Saxophone, Voice – Dudu Pukwana. Vocals – 'The Princess'.

[bamboomusiclist]

8/5 Don Cherry / Home Boy 827488-1 等更新しました。

おはようございます、更新完了しました。https://bamboo-music.net

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