Colliding currents. Ley lines & interchange. Serendipity serpentinous … the curlicue & the coilings cross collisionary cascading.
Eh?
Intersecting delta of creative conterminent contingencies & corresponding coincidences..
As you do.
Who & where?
So Roscoe & Kikanju got some hard hysterics in recently, in a triple trident through the sensory outer limits.
Y’ bast!
It’s been a while. Whole hulk of hazard hindering the histrionics….plenty of it ‘man made’.
The boys knocked out a tumultuous typhoon as a duo – yanked straight out of the ether & shot into the interstellar on sheets of molten rock propelled by the starkest of geo-sorcery.
The whole dash will be released as the EVOLUTIONARY EVENTS LP on Kikanju’s label Ethnicity Against the Error as a cassette some time soon. One-trillion-percent autonomy & artistic priority as always.
The clarion was recorded at Acklam Village over in West London, with long-time collaborator & fellow musician & activist Niles Asheber Hailstones, one of the few guys in the UK with the bollocks to associate & perform with Kikanju “Maddest of all Mothafukuz” Baku.
The premises was reclaimed shortly after the Grenfell Tower atrocity by “vigilante rescue workers” in leu of the local Cancervative fiefdoms contemptuous lack of emergency response to the internally displaced victims of the corporate massacre that had long been predicted with warnings continually ignored.
anyways, Kikanju pulled some of his esoteric cultural ambassador shit & got a trove of rare & specialist traditional Chinese percussion instruments from his good friend Ray Man to embellish the exorcism still further.
This wealth of arcane instrumentation was also annexed to the Wigmore Hall live performance that was divinated a few days later. This event conscripted two more musicians, brass n’ reed player Simon Sieger & drummer, percussionist & flautist Dudù Kouate.
Kouate & Kikanju interlocked & underwent some kind of symbioses, kneading a shifting shrouds of carefully congruent counterbalance over an extensive kaleidescope of time zones, climates & seasons conjured through like, 100 + individual instruments between them.
We couldn’t even film our own goddamn show (house rules), but there is some snatched footage from the rehearsal below, & yes! We got the motherfucker recorded (sound), acme!
You remember Marion Brown’s Afternoon of a Georgia Fawn? I’m telling’ ya! ….You ain’t heard nathin’ son.
Roscoe Mitchell’s intensely adventurous pairings placed together this extraordinary set of musicians, & once again, the considerable & brazen creative risk taking produced astonishing results.
ah! The Village again? – the Village was also the venue where most of Baku’s Citizens of Nowhere & Concussion Projectile Trio with Chris Pitsiokos & Luke Stewart was recorded & performed. The results produced the Do Not Underestimate the Depravity of your Oppressor cassette & also made up half of the double album Revolt Against State Stimulated Stockholm Syndrome/No Justice = Justification, an opus of such ferocity, originality & hi-ex incendiaries that probably directly captured the bedlam, horror, insanity & extremism of the Trump Disintegration era better than anything else in the field save NABEG’s Economic Gain – Ecological Ruin LP that was released simultaneously.
danger.
the Enko Ecto Explo ep by Concussion Projectile Trio is available here for download – https://www.gakishidosha.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Concussion-Projectile-enko-ecto-explo-EP.zip
Where the hell did this Mitchell/Baku divine duumvir come from?
So Kika threw a javelin at Mitchell back in something like 2011 by typical heterodox methodicals. The gambit was initially dismissed, but then Mitchell actually heard what the fuckin’ kiddd was playing (a 30 minute bass & drums improvisation with Baku’s Phosphorus Funk/Glyph Hop project Piscatorial Boat Herder), & the ship changed course.
A recording session led by Baku fell into the surgical waste, cos’ Baku did not have the loot for the fee … but the two met whilst Mitchell was over playing a gig at trespasser, commercial pustules Cafe Oto (fuck em’!) & got on like an imperial palace on fire.
Baku was invited to guest/perform/collaborate with one of Mitchell’s gigs at the stooge cafe … & fucked it up like the indelible, wild-card iconoclast he is.
From there – Kika was brought out to Berkley in 2013 for a joust with Roscoe & probably the most revered contemporary Jazz pianist about’ – Craig Taborn – to see if they could get a lil somthin’.
Well, they got more than that ducks! – they ended up with not one – but two – of the most profound, exorbitant & exhilarating “Free Jazz” albums of all time – the Conversations series, described by one esteemed reviewer as Roscoe’s best album since his 60’s classic Sound.
The Conversations recordings also spawned the Conversations/Discussion Orchestras … a stint of western classical orchestras (Montreal-Toronto Art Orchestra, Ostravska Banda, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, blah blah blah) that attempted to interprate transcribed adaptions of our original Conversations improvisations. This resulted in a series of albums Splatter, Ride The Wind, Roscoe Mitchell With Ostravska Banda & Discussions Orchestra being issued & performances in Europe, Iceland, Canada, & the US …
not sure about all that shit kiddd.
Anyways, at some stage before this, Kikanju brought Roscoe over for a gig with him & some of his loons at the time (billed as Full Moon Mysticism) that detonated just down from where Nile’s spot is today under Kikanju’s Blacc Azz Mzfkrz Unincorporated schema.
But wait a second, Ray Man.
So Ray is this legendary Chinese multi-instrumentalist that came to the UK from Hong Kong in 1959 – with nare but a fiddle & a handkerchief – & established this gigantic, long running Classical Chinese music, Chinese opera & folk music artistic ambit that toured all over Europe & nurtured a colossal diaspora of musicians & artists for decades to come.
Reams of history in China Town & close collaborations with Ronnie Scott, back in the day when the venue actually had integrity, are also a part of his extravagant & sprawling history.
Kika has been playing with Ray for years as part of his larger group & smaller trio.
They relate closely also as both have rather fiercely consecrated art over business … & suffered the consequences of such necessary principles.
Yusef Lateef would visit Ray’s shop/cultural centre when visiting the UK – & Lateef & Mitchell of course recorded an album together, Voice Prints.
Rashaan Roland Kirk would also come through & pick up specialist Chinese reeds & wind instruments from Ray.
Now dig this … just up the road (well sort of, Ray’s shop is gone now, like so many cultural vestiges in this scorched austerity smited crater-scape) – Rashaan Rolland Kirk played a gig at a joint called the Iroko club in Belsize Park back in the 70’s (1976 I think?). It was run by a Nigerian Brazilian brotha called Ginger Johnson aka George Folunsho! Right there on Haverstock Hill.
Always keen to bury black success, especially in any kind of executive capacity, it remains effectively redacted from “official” history channels.
Anyways, who else play’s there? Fela Ransom Kuti of course.
I Negerian dude I knew that lived with Kuti in the 70’s in Queens Way (where they would jump out the back window when the landlord showed up pursuing arrears) took these exclusive pictures that worked their way into my vats … a freakin’ black owned club in Belsize Park cranking it out …. gal fi flex….& ain’t a goddamn thing Peter Tatchell can do about it!
The ace that engineered the session with me & Roscoe at the Village was David Ross – who also had just done sound for Sean Kuti’s recent gig just days previously, which Asheber had been present at also (Ross has worked on a whole series my albums & recording sessions over the years).
Ah ha! The overlay & intersplay. Cross pollination. An intersectional ecosystem.
It was at Ray’s antelier that I also met Kash Kilion of the Sun Ra Arkestra – who then propositioned me to set-up a recording session between us … naturally, it was staged at the Village, with Niles fully participating. Three cuts from that session will be out on the Biggg Knyf in tha Noggg compilation CDR later this month on on yet another of my five record labels; Erst-while Antrum.
Spirits in commune.
At some stage, inter alia, I crash by Wilfred Walker, a veteran (now retired) black promoter & organiser. Heavily involved in Notting Hill Carnival from it’s very first event & personally responsible for introducing the first live stage in 1979, he extended into Jazz n’ mo, bringing the Art Ensemble of Chicago over for their first ever UK show at the Royal Albert Hall as well as Lester Bowie’s Brass Fantasy. Walker was due to bring over the late Sam Rivers for a tour I had pitched to Sam that unfortunately did not quite happen. Rivers & Roscoe recorded & played together with WARM, & would appear at River’s renowned Riverbea loft in New York along with pretty much everybody, including of course Michael Gregory Jackson & Joe Daley (both MGJ & Roscoe Mitchell feature on the Wild Flowers LP series that covered some sessions from the famous loft).
So the first expedition of the recent trinity continuity with myself & Roscoe exalted at the Big Sad – some sub-section of the LCMF 2022 thang at the mzrfkn Fireworks Factory or some such?
Jesus! The last time I was in Woolwich was at four in the morning, in the absolute grip of winter, mangling it at a squat party on a drum-kit they’d skip-salvaged … some ten + years ago or sumthin ….
Some more of the past ..
in 2015 – Roscoe gets me out to throw-down at the 2015 Visions Festival in New York with Craig Taborn, Tyshawn Sorey & Hugh Ragin.
Besides some of the worst equipment & sound set-up I have ever experienced attached to a quality event, we to’ it down … as always.
Unfortunately there is no viewable footage of our performance, even though it was all expertly captured in HD by multiple film crews. Despite Roscoe’s consistent requests for the material, Arts for Arts are still, actively & willingly suppressing & withholding it being shared with the artists or public … that’s how they role & that’s another example of the kind of shit we have to endure in this deeply corrupt & supremely disingenuous environment of knaves & thieves.
Still, being in town gave me the chance to bounce over to a decent studio in New Jersey & orchestrate a session with one of the most enigmatic musicians in the game – Michael Gregory Jackson – along with the superb tuba player & Sam River’s adjutant Joseph Daley. This resulted in another starkly rare & extraordinary episode in the Avant Jazz orbit, the Endogeny & Exogamy LP.
Further integrations bifurcate into Black Artists Group, with MGJ’s recordings with BAG members Julius Hemphill & Oliver Lake, & Baku’s collaboration & recording with the late Hamiet Bluiett.
Next was the 50th anniversary for the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) that sprang at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago with a whole gaggle of goons.
The double performance ended up being issued on ECM Records a year or so later as a double disc as Bells for the South Side & also on the 21 CD box set The Art Ensemble of Chicago and Associated Ensembles.
2016 in Stockholm – a duo with Roscoe at the rah rah Jazz festival!
Smoked em’ out & sent em’ reeling … as always.
Na’ video footage? Oh! What a coincidence.
In 2017, after the Charlottesville incident in the U$ (“Heil Trump!”/“The Jews will not replace us!” et al), & Shitler’s official response “ very fine people”, & Benjamin Netanyahu sliming in shortly after & not even mentioning the latter, I decided to say fuck off U$A! permanently! Enough is enough.
sometimes you gotta draw the line … & no career, money or even personal safety can prevent these critical choices of principle when the action is required.
That fucked up hella’ opportunities with me & Roscoe, & i had to turn down some big offers to play in the U$ with him…..which sucked crease! cos’ Europe ain’t doing shit for a niggu…..ZERO!!!!
Meanwhile the UK’s toxic sump of manifest bribery, corruption, nepotism, cronyism, falsehood & artificial appointment continues to supply the same screaming zilch of opportunities.
It’s a good job I never relied on these bicthes for nothin’ ^_* !!
Next was some junk with the pseudo Art Ensemble of Chicago at the Barbican in London around the 2019 mark … but there was shit in the broth & serious credibility issues & artistic integrity hazards – so I got the fuck outta’ dodge.
兎も角, so that leads us to now …. Its good to be back in the volcano.
& there is a lot more to come….with escalating emergency.
keep it real…..at all times….no matter what.
