usa: Lewis Jordan and Music at Large-This Is Where I Came In(2017)
In this recording, saxophonist and poet Lewis Jordan brings together all the elements that have nurtured him from the beginning: a love of free improvisation, a love of structure, a love of words, and always an eye/ear to how our art shapes our world.
With Music at Large, he has involved longtime collaborators, Jimmy Biala, Karl Evangelista and Erich Hunt, together with new collaborators, David Boyce and Ian Carey. The compositions and poems expand Music at Large's palette from early productions to contemporary expressions. The sweep of over a generation of influences shows up on this recording—from the inspired instrumental approach that he helped pioneer in the Sound Clinic (with George Sams and Bruce Ackley), to the seminal work expanding the palette of improvisational sources in United Front (with Sams, Mark Izu, Carleton Hoffman and Anthony Brown), to the ever-present need to put words to what and how we feel.
The genesis of Music at Large was the commitment to bring people together by bridging arbitrary distinctions that have only served to divide us from ourselves, as well as serving to divide us from others.
Musical inspirations—including Albert Ayler, Charles Tyler and Lester Bowie—are recognized in the poetry and music on the recording. Reflection on and refraction of society are part of the soundscape. Poetic license is claimed and declaimed. The collection closes with a musically-framed reading from Bertolt Brecht's "To Those Born Later."
