“Examples on record of Sunny Murray’s enduring originality & influence as a drummer are many, but very few recordings demonstrate his strikingly unusual voice as a band leader & composer. None do so more spectacularly than his 1969 album “Big Chief”. Unfortunately it’s been a sick collector's item since long before Ebay.  So it is with great pride & satisfaction that Eremite returns to our friends in the human clan this long unavailable masterpiece.  The group assembled for this Parisian studio date includes musicians from France, South Africa, Jamaica, & the USA, & the huge sweeping sound they conjure while absolutely NAILING Murray’s highly irregular compositional structures is as thrilling as free jazz gets. Hart le Roy Bibbs appears once only in a wildly memorable turn.  Everywhere & thru-out, Murray uses the instrumentation’s orchestral range to explore his fascination with the far extremes of the frequency range. Prepare your hearing for searing high-end burn! The record resolves beautifully in a performance of ‘This Nearly was Mine’ that manages to be both otherworldly & poignant.

“Not only is ‘Big Chief’ one of Murray’s great achievements, it’s one of the truly special recordings in free jazz history. Seriously. There is no greater love. The music was fastidiously remastered from the best available sources by Mike King, pressed on premium HQ-180 gram vinyl by RTI, & presented in a heavyweight Stoughton replica sleeve in an edition of 600. PROJECT PRODUCED WITH THE ARTIST'S FULL PERMISSION & COOPERATION.”

Sunny Murray: drums
Ronnie Beer: alto saxophone
H. le Roy Bibbs: vocals
Becky Friend: flute
Beb Guerin: bass
Francois Tusques: piano
Alan Silva: viola, violin
Kenneth Terroade: tenor saxophone
Bernard Vitet: trumpet

“This concert was originally dedicated to Jimi Hendrix, & performed on the day of his death.  Originally produced & issued by Charles ‘Bobo’ Shaw himself, ‘Red, Black & Green’, by the band ‘Solidarity Unit, Inc.’ documents what happened at ‘The BAG Room’ in St. Louis, MO, the day Jimi Hendrix died. Captured in a gloriously blunt & low-res recording that is as stark as the b&w cover art, Shaw & the ten-piece group produce a raw, teeming, clattering sound that never relinquishes. Lake & Bowie were by this time already powerful soloists, & both declaim fervently & damn near relentlessly over Shaw’s swaggering themes. Dead at age 34 & recorded just four times, guitarist Richard Martin’s performance is a true revelation; as Martin leaps from blues idioms to screaming attacks to pure howling feedback, one wonders if even Sonny Sharrock reached these places with the instrument. Furious kit & hand drumming, violently rattling little instruments, jabbing percussive Rhodes, thundering bass guitar, these guys don’t hold back! Easy to say ‘lost underground free jazz classic,’ but that’s the real story here.
“The music was remastered from the best available sources by Mike King, pressed on premium HQ-180 gram vinyl by RTI, & presented in a heavyweight Stoughton replica sleeve in an edition of 600. PROJECT PRODUCED WITH THE ARTIST'S FULL PERMISSION & COOPERATION. For more on BAG: http://press.umsystem.edu/fall2004/looker.htm “

Charles Wesley Shaw, Jr. "Bobo" percussions
Richard Martin: guitar
Oliver Lake: alto saxophone, flute
Floyd Leflore: trumpet
Joseph Bowie: trombone
Carl Richardson: bass
Clovis Bordeaux: piano
Danny Trice: conga drums
Baikida Yaseen: trumpet
Kada Kayan: bass