Monday, September 30, 2019

Improvise Men

Let's finish off September with this fantastic 40th anniversary show featuring 2/5ths of one of my favorite groups of all time.
One of these gents passed back in January, but the other is still thankfully going strong.
The band of which they were part for decades is one that I've seen play live maybe more than any other.
This set, a duo improvisation in four segments, was taped exactly 40 years ago tonight and features the two of them in total telepathic synchronization.
I even delved into the microfilms to figure out where this happened, as the precise venue of the performance was never specified in all the years this has circulated.
This one documents the period in the late 1970s when The Art Ensemble of Chicago was on a break and these cats teamed up for a few records with Johnny Dyani and Don Pullen, among others.
What can be said? When you get the opportunity to hear the meshing of mammoth musical minds like those of Joseph Jarman and Famoudou Don Moye extemporizing like this, you seize the moment.
Joseph Jarman & Famoudou Don Moye
RC Auditorium
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan USA
9.30.1979

01 untitled improvisation #1
02 untitled improvisation #2
03 untitled improvisation #3
04 untitled improvisation #4

Total time: 1:04:41

Joseph Jarman - reeds, flutes, vocals & percussion
Famoudou Don Moye - drums & percussion

looks like off-air FM reels of indeterminate origin
slightly retracked & repaired by EN, September 2019
403 MB FLAC/September 2019 archive link
Joseph Jarman left us in January, so take this as a humble tribute to a lifetime musical warrior for the ages, OK?
And we sure hope Don Moye lives to be 119 or so, if not longer. Long may he strike objects forcefully.
That about does it for the September to remember; now it's on to an October to bowl y'all over. Stay tuned and enjoy!--J.
                                        9.14.1937 - 1.9.2019