sunny murray's untouchable factor - "apple cores"

barabara sounds sez:

Spiritual, righteous, rare. What more can you say about this album? Just look at all the people involved... This is ripped from the CD reissue of the Baystate album (though the cover art was lifted from the philly jazz imprint which I found here on Discogs). Enjoy... I think you will!

If this is your bag, then go check out Charred Earth, which Sunny Murray recorded with a very different, smaller version of the 'untouchable factor' aggregation, also for Baystate. It's available over here...

dusty sez:

One of the hippest, tightest sessions ever recorded by drummer Sunny Murray -- a large group set recorded with his Untouchable Factor group -- a great ensemble that includes Frank Foster on soprano sax, Oliver Lake and Arthur Blythe on alto saxes, Hamiet Bluiett on baritone, Don Pullen on piano, and Cecil McBee and Fred Hopkins on bass! The sound is somewhat straighter than Murray's free jazz of a few years before -- almost in the mode that Foster was exploring with some of his large ensembles of the 70s -- a platform for righteous jazz expression, but in a way that's still tied together strongly with a sense of rhythm. Other players on the group include the enigmatic Youseff Yancy on a host of instruments, including theremin -- plus the under-recorded Monette Sudler on guitar. Some tracks are a bit more outside than others -- and titles include "Past Perfect Tense", "One Down & One Up", "Applebluff", "Apple Cores", and "New York Maze".

Sunny Murray: drums; Frank Foster: soprano sax (1, 2, 3); Oliver Lake: alto sax (2); Jimmy Vass: alto sax (1, 3); Don Pullen: piano (1, 2, 3); Monnette Sudler: guitar (1, 2, 3, 4); Cecil McBee: bass (1, 2, 3); Fred Hopkins: bass (4); Hamiet Bluiett: baritone sax (4); Arthur Blythe: alto sax (4); Abdul Zahir Batin: flute, whistles, percussion (5); Youseff Yancy: trumpet, flugelhorn, theremin, various electro-acoustical sound manipulating devices (1, 3, 4, 5); Sonny Brown: drums (5)

Music Revelation Ensemble - Knights of Power

barabara sounds sez:

The Music Revelation Ensemble make a righteous funky noise, propelled as ever by James Blood Ulmer who has a great line-up with him here: Amin Ali and Cornell Rochester as the rhythm section, with Arthur Blythe and Hamiet Bluiett sharing sax duties. The tracks that grab me are Noise And Clamor and Father Of Flame – but they're all kick-ass (as TJ says in his review). As far as I know this excellent album (1995) was only released in Japan and is well OOP.

On ebay I've seen this offered for substantial bucks: here it's yours for the price of a comment. [And remember no comment is in itself a comment :–)]

More info on the Music Revelation Ensemble here...

allmusic (Thom Jurek) sez:

James Blood Ulmer's sporadic and ever-evolving Music Revelation Ensemble has featured at one time or another everyone from David Murray and Roland Shannon Jackson to John Zorn and the late George Adams. The results have been spotty as well, but when Blood is on in this band, his true jamming unit, there's none better. This disc is one example of that power with a rhythm section consisting of Amin Ali on bass and Cornell W. Rochester on drums, and two guests saxophonists who go by the names Arthur Blythe (whose landmark Lennox Avenue Breakdown facilitated Ulmer getting a Columbia Records contract in the 1970s) and Hamiet Bluiett, splitting the eight tunes between them. Funk is the root key of everything here, slipped grooves and underhanded bass riffs kick the tunes off before a melody line gets stated played jointly usually by Ulmer and either Blythe or Bluiett, and then it's off to the stratosphere while never losing the groove. Ulmer's guitar work on this disc is truly astonishing as he plays lead and rhythm at the same time, chasing the train and keeping the groove. Standouts on the set are "The Day Of" and "Confusion," as well as "Father of Flame." On each of these selections, Ulmer and his rhythm section create wide spaces for the horn players to move around in. Once the saxists are established in their improvisations, Ulmer will stab through the mix with another idea of dimensional scale and either Blythe or Bluiett will be given the responsibility of opening that up. Blood eventually comes in for his solo and understates it while introducing yet another length of the harmolodic lyrical chain. In each case, it's amazing that the band finds its way back to the root, the groove never having been absent. Along with No Wave, this is the best of the Music Revelation Ensemble's recordings; it kicks ass.