GIL SCOTT-HERON — Free Will (review)

GIL SCOTT-HERON — Free Will album cover Album · 1972 · RnB Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
Sean Trane
Third album from the African-American activist, and the last “pure solo album”, since his career will include some strong collaboration with woodwind/pianist Brian Jackson for the next five years. In some ways, Freewill is much in the line of of his previous Piece Of Man album, but fails to equal it, quality-wise, but it is quite different from Small Talk, partly because there are a full cast of musicians backing him up.

It gives us a GSH facet that shows his singing talents, between a soul singer (Middle Of Your Day), a blues man (Ghetto Blues) and a over a sometimes jazz instrumentation, but in general the words “soul-jazz” applies perfectly to this album. This is not to say that GSH softened much his lyrical propos, though. It’s still quite incisive and still denounces the then-actual situation, but it’s not quite as obsessive as Small Talk, where it was almost the only subject. The most moving of his tracks (IMHO) is the closing tribute to Coltrane.

This album is a bit too much of a mixed bag affair for its own good, and despite a few accusations, it doesn’t have the incisiveness of his debut, but it more than makes up with a much more complex and complete instrumentation. Like all GSH, Freewill is worthy of a listen, especially with the political context of the times, but his soul-jazz is rather common, outside the lyrical contents.

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