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Byard Lancaster: It's Not Up to Us


John L

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This 1968 Byard Lancaster session with Sonny Sharrock (g), Eric Gravatt (d), Jerome Hunter (bass), and Keno Speller (congas) was just reissued on Water Records (Water115).

I had never heard it before and bought it out of curiousity. I find the session to be rather uneven, but the high points are quite striking. Lancaster has a very personal approach to the alto based on a nuanced and highly lyrical use of bends and slurs. Sonny Sharrock and Eric Gravatt give very tasty support throughout. This one is staying in my rotation for a while.

Anybody else heard it?

Edited by John L
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Loved the energy and the constant flow of ideas on that album when it came out

(was it in 1969?. And Sonny Sharrock was really bringing new sounds to the guitar.

Byard Lancaster was playing in Paris pretty often in the 60s and 70s. He still

does from time to time. Should go and check him out next time when he plays here.

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Gave a fresh listen to the Vortex LP. Outstanding music.

The back cover indicates a 1968 Atlantic Records copyright.

By the way, the cover was shot by that photography master Lee Friedlander as

was the backcover image of Lancaster.

Also while doing a search on Lancaster on the Internet, found this disturbing story:

http://citypaper.net/articles/011101/cb.ci...t.jazzman.shtml

Hope this has been settled and he is free to play his music on the streets of

Philadelphia.

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Thanks for that interesting link, Brownie.

Could it be that it was recorded in 1966 and released in 1968? The liner notes somehow neglected listing the recording date. Although the difference is only two years, they were important years.

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About that Byard Lancaster album, The Lord lists the following:

December 18, 1966 session (Lancaster, Sharrock, Hunter, Gravatt)

- Garden of Prayer Unissued

- Last Summer Unissued

- Ghost Unissued

- Mr. A.A. Unissued

- Dogtown Unissued

- Satan Vortex 2003

- John's Children Vortex 2003

- Misty Vortex 2003

- Over the Rainbow Vortex 2003

- Hello Eric Vortex 2003

July 12, 1967 session (same musicians)

- Dogtown Vortex 2003

- Mr. A.A. Vortex 2003

- Peanut Unissued

- Hello Eric Unissued

- Traning Unissued

- It's Not Up to Us Vortex 2003

- Last Summer Vortex 2003

- Untitled (electric b solo) Unissued

- Untitled (guitar solo) Unissued

Quite a lot of material still in the can!

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Also while doing a search on Lancaster on the Internet, found this disturbing story:

http://citypaper.net/articles/011101/cb.ci...t.jazzman.shtml

Hope this has been settled and he is free to play his music on the streets of

Philadelphia.

He won his lawsuit against the transit agency and they've promised not to harrass him for playing...

(He actually won two to lawsuits. The article is about the first one. Septa was stupid enough to arrest him again a year later. I went to his criminal hearing. The judge was rather amusing before he threw out the case.

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  • 19 years later...

Just listened again trough Spotify and this remains a special one to me. It’s pretty unique in its sound, not really comparable to something else I know. The sound of Superior Viaducts Nation Time is great. I’ll get this. 

Edited by Pim
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I may have mentioned this before, but it took years for It's Not Up To Us to reach me. Had the record forever, but preferred his playing on other dates, notably with Sunny Murray, Bill Dixon, Burton Greene, et al.. But at this point I think it's a gem.

The unissued material is enticing. The Palms are also excellent... supposedly a session with Eddy Louiss was recorded for Gilson's label but remains unreleased. There's also that bevy of unreleased Dogtown dates that Lancaster reported to Mike Hames for the latter's discography book. Now there's a rare volume...

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On 8/6/2003 at 1:33 AM, brownie said:

About that Byard Lancaster album, The Lord lists the following:

 

December 18, 1966 session (Lancaster, Sharrock, Hunter, Gravatt)

- Garden of Prayer Unissued

- Last Summer Unissued

- Ghost Unissued

- Mr. A.A. Unissued

- Dogtown Unissued

- Satan Vortex 2003

- John's Children Vortex 2003

- Misty Vortex 2003

- Over the Rainbow Vortex 2003

- Hello Eric Vortex 2003

 

July 12, 1967 session (same musicians)

- Dogtown Vortex 2003

- Mr. A.A. Vortex 2003

- Peanut Unissued

- Hello Eric Unissued

- Traning Unissued

- It's Not Up to Us Vortex 2003

- Last Summer Vortex 2003

- Untitled (electric b solo) Unissued

- Untitled (guitar solo) Unissued

 

Quite a lot of material still in the can!

Would love to hear that stuff sometime!

Glad they reissued this because the old copies were getting expensive, I think I paid about $50 for my original lp

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  • 3 weeks later...

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