(Free Jazz) Frank Wright - Uhuru Na Umoja - 2004, FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Exact Audio Copy V0.99 prebeta 5 from 4. May 2009
EAC extraction logfile from 3. September 2010, 19:03
Frank Wright / Uhuru Na Umoja
Used drive  : HL-DT-STDVD-ROM GDR8162B   Adapter: 1  ID: 1
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Delete leading and trailing silent blocks   : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations       : Yes
Used interface                              : Installed external ASPI interface
Gap handling                                : Appended to previous track
Used output format              : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate                : 768 kBit/s
Quality                         : High
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TOC of the extracted CD
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        3  | 16:45.62 |  6:54.42 |     75437    |   106528
        4  | 23:40.29 |  6:30.65 |    106529    |   135843
        5  | 30:11.19 |  3:54.17 |    135844    |   153410
Track  1
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Track  4
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Track  5
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REM GENRE Jazz
REM DATE 1971
REM DISCID 3107FD05
REM COMMENT "ExactAudioCopy v0.99pb5"
PERFORMER "Frank Wright"
TITLE "Uhuru Na Umoja"
FILE "01 - Oriental Mood.wav" WAVE
  TRACK 01 AUDIO
    TITLE "Oriental Mood"
    PERFORMER "Frank Wright"
    ISRC FRZ027080540
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  TRACK 02 AUDIO
    TITLE "Aurora Borealis"
    PERFORMER "Frank Wright"
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    INDEX 00 08:55:05
FILE "02 - Aurora Borealis.wav" WAVE
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
  TRACK 03 AUDIO
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    PERFORMER "Frank Wright"
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    INDEX 00 07:43:42
FILE "03 - Grooving.wav" WAVE
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
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  TRACK 05 AUDIO
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Frank Wright is one of the avant-garde sax players I have only just been jumping into in the last year and a half or so, and man can he swing. Uhuru Na Umoja is a really heavy and powerful album that even though it's a baseless quartet, it assaults the listener as if it were Coleman's Free Jazz or Coltrane's Ascension. Originally part of the American Records catalog, the series is now reissued under the Verve label under the series Free America and is definitely worth diving into with other artist like Mal Waldron, Steve Lacy, Anthony Braxton, Archie Shepp, Paul Bley and others. The album showcases Art Taylor in rare form as he strays away from his usual bop performances. And Bobby Few lays another amazing session on the ivory keys.
The opening cut, Oriental Moods, starts off with a subtle, melodic theme that sets the tone for the rest of the album. It is beautiful yet striking with layers and textures of piano and percussion. You can definitely here the influence Albert Ayler has had on Frank Wright and it's hard to imagine him blowing sessions with B.B. King and other blues and R&B artists earlier in his career. Aurora Borealis is the second tune which starts off with a cloud of slowly building free playing that's reminiscent of some Pharoah Sanders material from Impulse.
My favorite is the closing track, Pluto, which starts off with a quick written part that reminds us of the chords in Oriental Moods with more variations on the notes within them and a faster tempo. It's so catchy that even my girlfriend (who can't stand free improvised jazz) over heard me listening to it and was like, 'wow I can dig this.' Within 30 seconds of the cut it further erupts into an Ayler-esq montage and far out free improvisation before it ends up back to the original compositional theme to ultimately close out the album. I could listen to it 10 times a day and never get bored of it.

Frank Wright died June 9, 1990, in Wuppertal, Germany, the city of his friend, tenor saxophonist Peter Brotzmann. Alongside Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp, Marion Brown, and Albert Ayler, Wright was a post-Coltrane generation player who, like Brotzmann, took an extremely vocal and explosive approach to the tenor saxophone. In Wright’s case, the clear, gutsy emotions of R&B and the blues wailers and shouters from his Southern roots (Wright was born in Memphis, Tennessee) are abundantly present in this music, a music which reveals the raw stresses and trials of living, but always aims for musical catharsis.
In this Swahili titled album, Uhuru Na Umoja (‘freedom and fraternity’), we hear pianist Bobby Few’s impressionistic statement in “Oriental Mood” and how it is twisted and stretched into eventual free group speech; we hear the players in “Being”, with its repeated drone and staccato theme, as they gather and produce a growing sound environment which eventually ends with the sound of a lingering piano chord; we hear in the peaceful ballad, “Aurora Borealis”, the swim of bells and sweet sound offerings much like the calm spiritualist playing in John Coltrane’s Crescent album.
Joining Wright are the underacclaimed and highly sensitive Noah Howard on alto and Art (Arthur) Taylor, principally known as a serious hard bop drummer, now hanging out with these free cats where he's enthusiastically and deftly spreading the rhythm out.
Uhuru Na Umoja contains compositions all written by Noah Howard. They're simple incantatory tunes (compare Albert Ayler’s tunes “Ghosts” and “Spirits”) that function as excellent spurs to creative group improvisation where melody and new melody combine and recombine into a progressively renewing albeit unfamiliar unity.
Named, Little Brother, by John Coltrane, Frank Wright was a man on a mission.
“I was put on this planet by the Creator to proclaim the message of the Universal Spirit, to shout it to the people.”
With this reissue, we hear Frank Wright’s urgent message loud and clear. He is the Sound Messenger.