People in Sorrow cover

People in Sorrow

Released

During their sojourn in Paris, which lasted from 1969 to early 1972, the Art Ensemble recorded over a dozen albums; this is among the most striking. A single 40-minute piece stretched across two sides of vinyl, it was made before drummer Famoudou Don Moye joined, so it begins as a meditative, sparse soundscape — the horns whisper and keen as Malachi Favors’ bass rumbles along and occasional splashes of hand-held percussion mark intervals — but in its final third it builds to multi-horn polyphony, sometimes quite beautiful, as one member, likely Roscoe Mitchell, subverts it all by producing a seemingly endless wavering tone like a malfunctioning door-buzzer from an unidentified reed instrument.

Phil Freeman

Recommended by

Suggestions
Mexican Pavilion, New Orleans 1884 cover

Mexican Pavilion, New Orleans 1884

Ramiro González Jazz Trío
Conspiracy cover

Conspiracy

Terje Rypdal
Shadowgraph cover

Shadowgraph

George Lewis
Nail cover

Nail

Scraping Foetus Off the Wheel
Song for Mother E cover

Song for Mother E

Amina Claudine Myers
Spiral Mercury cover

Spiral Mercury

Chicago/São Paulo Underground, Pharoah Sanders