Nation Time

Personnel: Joe McPhee (tenor saxophone, trumpet); Otis Greene (alto saxophone); Tyrone Crabb (trumpet, acoustic & electric basses); Mike Kull (acoustic & electric pianos); Herbie Lehman (organ); Dave Jones (electric guitar); Bruce Thomspon, Ernest Bostic (percussion). Recorded live on December 12 & 13, 1970. Originally released on CJ Records (2). Includes liner notes by Ken Vandermark, Joe McPhee and Chris Albertson. All tracks have been digitally remastered. This is part of Atavistic's Unheard Music series. McPhee is a composer and multi-instrumentalist who has established himself outside the jazz mainstream. His saxophone and trumpet playing, charged by the Coltrane/Ayler/Shepp canon of the '60s, is unfettered and uncompromising. As a result, his work is generally available through small domestic and European import labels. NATION TIME, a reissue of a long-unavailable album from 1970, presents an emotional, highly-charged set of jazz caught at a crossroads and bears signs of the Black militancy of that era, hard bop, the avant-garde, and the fusion of jazz with funk, rock, and overtly ethnic elements. Filled with lengthy, freewheeling and impassioned solos and churning, driving, and funk-laced swing, NATION TIME superbly captures the spirit of its period. McPhee plays in a gutsy style best described as '60s-era Coltrane mixed with the earthiness of Gene Ammons. The band follows McPhee's lead for a sound that crosses Miles Davis' BITCHES BREW with late-'60s James Brown. This music implores, struts, wails and moans, the players testifying with a rare fervor. The disc includes the album's original liner notes and, as a bonus, new notes by idiosyncratic saxophonist/composer Ken Vandermark.