5 January 2008

Two oldie-goldies from the Human Arts Ensemble



I thought I'd do a bit more of recycling from the now defunct C#9 blog. These posts were initially put in the comments section in response to Flux'us posting of the Black Arts Ensemble so I thought they deserve front-page status here.

Both ensembles were basically made up of a small core of musicians, centered around the drummer Charles "Bobo" Shaw. This was a St. Louis-based outfit which would invite guest musicians, including the Bowie (Lester, Joseph) brothers and Oliver Lake. They would later shift to New York where Shaw made more records under the "Human Arts Ensemble" umbrella and Joseph Bowie founded Defunkt, a well-known 80s jazz-funk band.

The HAE records were mostly side-long jams with collective improvisation from the regular band members and guests. As such, they drew upon the dixieland tradition rather than the standard one of serial improvisation with one soloist at a time.

These four sides have all their different characters. The two pieces on Under the Sun are obviously inspired by folk music of the Middle East and further beyond. The title piece on
Whisper of Dharma invokes the serenity of the Asian jungles with its assortment of small instruments and quiet moods, not unlike the early Art Ensemble of Chicago, another ensemble from another city , but with Lester Bowie as the human link. Some similarity may also be found with the early quartet pieces of Anthony Braxton. The other side of Whisper, on the other hand, expresses the hustle-bustle of the North American urban reality.


Tracks:

Under the Sun

side 1: A Lover's Desire
side 2: Hazrat, the Sufi

Whisper of Dharma

side 1: Whisper of Dharma
side 2: A World New

The cast of characters is a bit too long to reproduce here, but the full line-up can be found in the attached scans.

Both these records were initially privately released and fetch huge sums of money for original copies. These rips, however, are from the Arista Freedom rereleases from the mid-70s, but I dont think anyone will notice any difference, audio-wise.

35 comments:

kinabalu said...

Whisper of Dharma:

http://www.divshare.com/download/
1426132-374

Under the Sun:

http://www.divshare.com/download/
1425975-45d

These are both high-quality mp3s. I haven't done any conversions to a lossless format, but I do keep the wav files on the computer, just in case.

Scans are included in the rar files.

Anonymous said...

Good to see your continued support, Kinabalu.

Anonymous said...

kinabalu, thanks! Already had your earlier files, but realized these are substantial bit upgrades of great performances :)

Boromir said...

Great posts kinabalu. I already have them from some time ago. There is another one, "Streets Of St Louis" I have which I got from james's "Nothing Is" blog. The link is still active:-
http://ajbenjamin2beta.blogspot.com/search?q=human+arts

There are others of the same ilk there. Thanks to james.

kinabalu said...

glmr,

thanks for your continued support, too ... do keep firing them cds in our general direction ...

I do realise that the hard core folks do not just skim the front page, but peruse the comments section as well. But still, might attract some extra downloads.

Boromir,

Yes, the HAE did one with Luther Thomas which is the one you're referring to. Looking closer, they actually did more than one. I'll keep investigating ... Luther Thomas is still active, I believe ...

ghostrancedance said...

It's nice to see this material again. Thank you!

gerireig said...

rare as hen's teeth. Thank you!

pepper67 said...

thanks for posting. I love both of these albums. It will be nice to have a cleaner copy. I believe someone told me that both or at least one of these albums were on import cd at one time. Any idea if that is true?

thanks again

kinabalu said...

pepper 67,

as far as I know, these two have not been reissued on cd, but second-hand vinyl copies can still be picked up.

Tantris said...

Listened to these for the first time today - truly excellent, fascinating music. Thank you.

Tantris said...

I have just found a copy of 'Under the Sun' in my local CD emporium - it is a Japanese reissue from 1994 on the Freedom label (seems to be part of Black Lion). I thought the music was superb when I listed to kinabulu's vinyl rip, so didn't hesitate to snap this CD up.

I can post a lossless rip if that would be of interest.

Anonymous said...

Under the Sun would definitely be of interest!

kowalczyk said...

thanks for these

Anonymous said...

Is there anyone who would kindly post link of "Poem for Gratitude" which is very rare works of Human Arts Ensemble of this time?

kinabalu said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ernst Grgo Nebhuth said...

Thank you again Kinabalu!

Will listen again tonight...

kinabalu said...

You're very much welcome, Onx!

Anonymous said...

Can anybody provide a re-up for that lossless Whisper of Dharma? I'd be ever so grateful.

kinabalu said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
jim said...

Thanks! kinabalu

shy said...

Many thanks!

Anonymous said...

I've got the "Whispers Of Dharma" LP, but no turntable, and have never heard "Under The Sun", so it will be great to hear them both. "Whispers" was my introduction to the St. Louis jazz scene and players like Julius Hemphill, Oliver Lake and the Bowie brothers. Many thanks for the opportunity to listen to these records again/for the first time!

-Brian

auntadadoom said...

Many Thanks for these and all the other excellent uploads.

auntadadoom said...

Many Thanks.

Sergio said...

Fantastic albums! A lot of thanks!

Anonymous said...

Any chance of a re-up?

kinabalu said...

New link for Whisper of Dharma:

1fichier

and Under the Sun:

1fichier

DW said...

kinabalu, thank you so much for both of these. Cannot say it enough. Both are great. Thanks!

Adam Tinkle said...

Incredible stuff. SO grateful

Scraps said...

Thank you so much!

Anonymous said...

Merci beaucoup pour le 'Whisper Of Dharma'.
I was looking for this one lately.
Deep thanks.

Funky Fred From France

David said...

Hi, could you please repost "Under the Sun"? 1f link is dead. Thank you!

funksta said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
francisco santos said...

yeah!...post it, please...
THX!...

visitor said...

The link for "under the sun" is broken.
Could you fix it?