Selwyn Lissack's Friendship Next of Kin - Facets of the Universe

[Head Man]

I see that Downtown Music Gallery DMG have made this very rare Selwyn Lissack BYG recording available on CD on their own in-house label. It's remastered from vinyl and is claimed to sound better than the original BYG recording (That shouldn't be too difficult to believe!)

I can't comment on the music since I've never heard it, but anything with Mike Osborne playing with elements of the Brotherhood of Breath is likely to be worth hearing. One thing you can be certain about is that you won't be humming along with the tunes!

Here is some of the blurb from DMG et al about the recording:

THE FIRST RELEASE ON OUR 'DMG ARC' LABEL [after two years, finally!!!]

SELWYN LISSACK'S FRIENDSHIP NEXT OF KIN With MIKE OSBORNE /MONGEZI FEZA/KENNETH TERROADE/HARRY MILLER/EARL FREEMAN - Facets Of The Univers (DMG ARC 702; USA) The First Release on our newly formed DMG ARC label is considered by many fans to be one of the rarest late '60s Euro/Brit avant jazz recordings

Originally released on the BYG associated 'Goody' label in France [in fact the only one of seven Goody releases that was an original release, and not a questionable reissue], the LP has commanded high prices ranging to $100 to $300 from collector's shops and auction websites including eBay.

"Recorded September 1969: London, England. The career of white South African Selwyn Lissack is a mysterious one. It is unclear when he left, but he was in England in the late '60's. He played in a group with Lol Coxhill; recorded Facets, his only album as a leader; and played on The Sun is Coming Up by Ric Colbeck (whatever happened to him?). He then gave up music and is now a well known sculptor, working mainly on holographic sculpture. This album has a stellar lineup, including alto flamethrower Mike Osborne

and fellow South African Harry Miller. It also borrows two participants and the side-long track format of Kenneth Terroade's Love Rejoice (BYG/Actuel, 1969).Free Jazz is best categorized geographically. Groups like the Spontaneous Music Ensemble and Iskra 1903 cast the mold that will forever be equated with improvisational music from the UK-sparse, understated and often quite tedious.

However, this is definitely NOT what Facets of the Univers or its players are about. Players like the always-intense Mike Osborne, like Harry Miller, who could and did play just about everything with everybody, like Kenneth Terroade, who participated in the American expatriate free jazz scene in Paris that was well documented on the BYG Actuel series. The approach to extemporization is in fact closer to the Actuel model than one might expect. The brief march-like melody of the title track is merely a jumping off point for various solos, both unaccompanied, and in tandem with others. Lissack plays with an appealing sense of urgency, each line always rolling out towards the next phrase, keeping the music mobile. The piece ebbs and flows as three horns simultaneously ascend to frenzied peaks, then descend into near silence.

The second piece "Friendship Next Of Kin" is more influenced by contemporary classical music in its

sparseness. It does not disappoint in energy as the intensity rises steadily for the second half. It is perhaps only marred by some bizarre spoken word that is unfortunately common to this kind of music. The liner notes did not originally identify the piano player or speaker but it can be safely assumed that it is Earl Freeman [and passerby Louis Moholo provides some incidental percussion]."

Andrey Henkin, AMG

Ltd Ed CD for $14

[clifford_thornton]

Amazing LP, and good to see that this long-awaited reissue is finally out.

I didn't think it was all that valuable a record, though, in terms of "eBay wallet damage."

[clifford_thornton]

Sel at Paris Transatlantic

[ep1str0phy]

So this isn't an LP rip--it's an actual remastering?!

Nice to have it back in the catalog (enjoyed it since clifford introduced me to it...)

[clifford_thornton]

Yeah, Sel is in on it and they had it remastered and there's an extra track or two on the final edition.

[Chalupa]

So this isn't an LP rip--it's an actual remastering?!

Nice to have it back in the catalog (enjoyed it since clifford introduced me to it...)

From the rest of the DMG email...

HE FIRST RELEASE ON OUR 'DMG ARC' LABEL [after two years, finally!!!]

SELWYN LISSACK'S FRIENDSHIP NEXT OF KIN With MIKE

OSBORNE /MONGEZI FEZA/KENNETH TERROADE/HARRY

MILLER/EARL FREEMAN - Facets Of The Univers (DMG

ARC 702; USA) The First Release on our newly

formed DMG ARC label is considered by many fans

to be one of the rarest late '60s Euro/Brit avant

jazz recordings

Originally released on the BYG associated

'Goody' label in France [in fact the only one of

seven Goody releases that was an original

release, and not a questionable reissue], the LP

has commanded high prices ranging to $100 to $300

from collector's shops and auction websites

including eBay.

From Clifford Allen:

"To most historians of the "new music",

creative improvisation took a somewhat different

turn in Europe during the late '60s than it did

in the United States, concentrating less on

African roots (understandably) and building on

both European folk forms and innovations in

academic art music and other time arts. Yet in

England there was a greater confluence of African

musical forms and influence, which is crucial in

distinguishing vanguard British improvisation

from its brethren in other parts of Europe. Chris

McGregor, a white classically-trained pianist

from Cape Town, brought the Blue Notes with him

to Germany in 1966, finally settling in London.

This was the ensemble that, ostensibly "led" by a

white South African (though clearly drawing more

from kwela and township music as well as jazz),

introduced drummer Louis Moholo, bassist Johnny

Dyani, trumpeter Mongezi Feza and reedmen Dudu

Pukwana and Ronnie Beer to the European jazz

community. In addition to the South African

scene, expatriate improvisers from Jamaica

(reedmen Joe Harriott and Ken Terroade) and

Barbados (trumpeter Harry Beckett) were also at

the forefront of London's new music community.

Drummer Selwyn Lissack, though often not

mentioned in the same breath as the above, is

nevertheless an interesting piece of the

British-South African puzzle. Born and raised in

Cape Town, Lissack emigrated to England in 1967

(independently of the Blue Notes) on his way to

New York - visa problems kept him in Europe until

the end of 1969. Lissack was active on the Cape

Town scene in the early 60s, despite

anti-integration laws that often broke up musical

associations (he's white), but the pull of more

fruitful work opportunities elsewhere was

undeniable. Upon joining the London community,

the young drummer began organizing sessions in

his apartment with John McLaughlin, Mike Osborne

and other luminaries of the scene, while also

studying with Philly Joe Jones (at the time

living in Kensington). Lissack's style merges the

tidal waves of Elvin and Sunny Murray with the

fleetness and occasional bombast of Roy Haynes

and Philly Joe, and is more rooted in bop than

Louis Moholo.

The result of two years of weekly

rehearsals with the British and South African

avant-garde, Facets of the Universe, released in

a limited edition by the BYG subsidiary Goody in

1969, features Lissack in a sextet with Feza,

Osborne (alto and clarinet), Terroade (tenor and

flute), South African expat bassist Harry Miller

and American bassist and multi-instrumentalist

Earl Freeman, a stalwart on many BYG-Actuel

recordings, heard here also on piano, flute and

reciting his poetry. Produced by Aynsley Dunbar

vocalist Victor Brox, Facets of the Universe

consists of two sidelong pieces: Terroade's Love

Rejoice, retitled Friendship Next of Kin for this

LP; and a lengthy collective improvisation

inspired by Freeman's poetry entitled Facets of

the Universe (though confusingly the poem also

includes the line Friendship Next of Kin). Yet

this music has little in common with strains of

British or South African jazz of the time;

rather, the approach is somewhere between Sunny's

Swing Unit, the Art Ensemble (of Chicago) and

fiercer Brotherhood of Breath dates.

For this reissue on New York avant record

store Downtown Music Gallery's own ARC label,

Friendship Next of Kin is presented in two

versions: an edited version which includes a drum

solo excised from the original take (replayed

here), and the album version without the solo.

With masters apparently long-gone, the original

vinyl in all its French-pressed glory was used,

and it is a credit to the engineer that the muddy

mix has been brought up to clear, crisp levels

that do well in separating the musicians and the

music. Friendship (under its alternate title)

appeared in somewhat more frantic form on

Terroade's BYG session (Love Rejoice, Actuel 22,

recorded a few months prior to this date), with

reedmen Ronnie Beer and Evan Chandley (Cohelmec

Ensemble), pianist Francois Tusques, drummer

Claude Delcloo, and Freeman and Beb Guerin on

basses. The tune is a weighty, churchy dirge much

like those penned by Sunny Murray and Frank

Wright that the leader directs into a fast tempo

to gird a brittle, smeared Feza contribution, the

composer's paint-peeling tenor pyrotechnics

(under which Freeman switches to piano), followed

by a collective lead-in to Osborne's thoughtfully

searing contribution (of the three horn players

only Osborne maintains the tempo and character of

the original theme, however distorted the notes

get) and, finally, Lissack's restored drum solo,

a dense thematic exposition recalling his opening

salvo on trumpeter Ric Colbeck's Aphrodite. After

a brief collective improvisation, the joyous

processional through the back streets of Cape

Town and Kingston returns to close the piece.

Facets of the Universe is something

altogether different from the post-Ayler material

on side one, and echoes Ra and the AACM in its

wide-open spaces, with Freeman reading a highly

disparate imagist poem over a stew of tympani,

finger cymbals, organ, marimba (courtesy Brian

Gascoigne), piccolo and clarinet that recalls

Joseph Jarman's reading on Song For or David

Moore's with Muhal Richard Abrams and Anthony

Braxton on Levels and Degrees of Light. Following

this otherworldly declamation, Feza, Terroade and

Osborne take off into a maelstrom of brass and

reed smears over surging bass and percussion, an

ecstatic tidal wave of activity brought on by the

tension of words and poetic ideation. Such a

setting necessarily focuses the attention on

Freeman, who went on to lead the Sound Craft

Orchestra in the early 1980s, which featured

leading lights of the New York underground, and

recorded a hideously rare LP with clarinetist

Henry Warner and percussionist Phillip Spigner,

The Freestyle Band. His poetry and arpeggiated

piano on Facets of the Universe add to the

mystery of the uniform of aviator goggles and

union work suit. Facets closes just as sparsely

as it began, with the last gasps of tenor and

pocket trumpet encircled by castanets, celeste,

wooden flute (Freeman again) and gongs as it

comes full circle. In a way, this is not

surprising, as the session was taped on the night

of a lunar eclipse.

The record sank upon its release, even by

BYG offshoot standards. Goody was a bootleg label

that released unauthorized versions of records on

Delmark, Metronome and Clifford Thornton's Third

World imprint, and Selwyn Lissack's one and only

LP as a leader was the closest thing to a

"legitimate" release in the series.

Unfortunately, Claude Delcloo butchered both the

English liner notes and the track listing,

leaving some to wonder who the poet was on side

two, which along with poor mastering and shoddy

pressing and even the omission of a major solo by

the leader (!) resulted in nothing less than a

shameless mishandling of one of the heaviest

slabs of improvised music of the late 60s.

Lissack made one more startling appearance as a

sideman with Osborne and bassist Jean-Francois

Jenny-Clarke on trumpeter Ric Colbeck's lone LP

for Fontana (The Sun is Coming Up, 1970) before

finally heading to New York to become involved

with holographic sculpture and design (he taught

and assisted Salvador Dali in holographics),

still practicing music but concentrating his

research on three-dimensional forms.

Despite its inconsistencies at the hands

of its label, Facets of the Universe is truly a

fascinating document of the Pan-African

avant-garde captured at a place where European,

African, American and West Indian roots merged to

create two universal improvisations. What more

could one have asked of a single opportunity to

record as a leader?" - Clifford Allen