CHRIS MCGREGOR — Up to Earth (review)

CHRIS MCGREGOR — Up to Earth album cover Album · 2008 · Avant-Garde Jazz Buy this album from MMA partners
2.5/5 ·
Sean Trane
In between two attempts at creating his big band formation, McGregor did record with a smaller formation this rather “difficult” album, whose line-up would be the spine of his BoB project, born the following year. Actually all but contrabassist Danny Thompson (better known with The Pentangle or John Martyn) were either old South African expats or soon-to-be collabs. With a triple-sax attack (Surman, Pukwana and Parker, and fellow countrymen drummer Muholo and trumpeter Feza, we’re facing a highly-policed formation that never hesitate to cross the border of dissonance and a semi-controlled improvisation XXX. Although by the end of the 60’s, Joe Boyd had evolved from a jazz camp into a folk or folk-rock king, he still took time to produce this rather un-trad album in London studios, but the session for that album was never released until the mid-00’s.

Only four lengthy tracks (two aside), none any easier than the rest, even if the short half-track Yickitikee is probably the most accessible of the album with its gypsy-jazz influence. One of the characteristic of this album is that the mood is generally happy, which might be somewhat surprising, since one doesn’t associate dissonant improvisations with frivolity or joy, but rather seriousness and depth or even anger and revolt born out the civil rights fight across the Atlantic, despite the South-African fight against its own white-suppressors. So, if you’re fearing an over-the-top avant-garde album, you’re right, but for some reason Up To Earth is not as arduous or repulsive to a trad-jazzhead as one might expect from the genre, despite the album not being the usual big-band that McGregor was well-known for.

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