"John Carter, a not-so-well-known clarinetist, creates in the ’80 a series of albums, 5 to be precise, that summarize the history of afroamerican music. Those lp’s are obviously not a scientific effort to classify and organize the musical experience of black people in United States, all the elements are nevertheless present and finely mixed. Avantgarde, swing, blues, minimalism, dixie marches share the same ground and justappose and interwine each other homogenously. Each of the five chapters deals with a different historical moments, from Africa to deportation, from the fields to the urban migrations in America. Castles of Ghana is the second part of the series, the title itself invokes dark dungeons where men were gathered and lately deported to cotton fiels and hard labor. The music is never relaxed, it goes from hectic to humble, sad and obscure to ironic, almost playful, with an wry irony disdainful of the oppressors. Altough the disc stands by itself, the listening of all 5 chapters, chronologically or not, is an engaging and imageful sham of a barbarity and of one of its painful but most sublime aftermath: jazz."
nowhereville
Discogs
YouTube: Castles of Ghana, Theme Of Desperation, Conversations, The Fallen Prince
