The Last Poets – Flabbergasted Vibes

Lightnin’ Rod – Hustlers Convention (1973)
Original release on United Artists (UA-LA156-F)
Reissued on Celluloid (1984) and Charly (1996)

1. Sport – Kool & the Gang, Lightnin’ Rod
2. Spoon
3. Café Black Rose
4. Brother Hominy Grit
5. Coppin’ Some Fronts for the Sets
6. Hamhock’s Hall Was Big (And There Was a Whole Lot to Dig!)
7. Bones Fly from Spoon’s Hand
8. Break Was So Loud, It Hushed the Crowd
9. Four Bitches Is What I Got
10. Grit’s Den
11. Shit Hits the Fan Again
12. Sentenced to the Chair
———————–

I’ve got some news // you dude’s could use // that might help y’all get by // So I thought I’d nonchalantly mention // the hustler’s convention // taking place at the end of July

This is the masterful and influential record from Alafia Pudim (aka Jalaluddin Mansur Nuriddin) of the Last Poets, supported by a group of musicians who can best be described as ecumenically funky. In fact the sheer number of well-known heavy hitters who appear on what was by and large a pretty underground and radically uncommercial album is astounding: Pretty Purdie, King Curtis, Julius Hemphill, Cornell Dupree, Eric Gale, Chuck Rainey, and a percussion army featuring Candido, Bobby Matos, Johnny Pacheco, and Norman Pride. The record allegedly features an uncredited Tiny Turner and the Ikettes, presumably on the last track. And of course there is the young Kool & The Gang, who in 1973 had been around for a while but were only just about to break into the mainstream.

While the Last Poets are infamous for the radical politics and black nationalism, this record is the aural equivalent of a blaxploitation film focused on two friends on an all-night gambling spree punctuated by drug use and violence set in 1955. There’s even a car chase and a shoot-out with the cops. And like some of its blaxploitation film peers, the record could be construed as political metaphor by the time it ends, the real draw here is the word play and the outrageous groove. A press kit from the original LP (scans of which are included here, scavenged from the interwebs) elaborates the narrative a bit and provides background on the two main characters of Sport and Spoon. This promo material also maintains that Lightnin’ Rod had a book in the works for Viking Press – anybody know about this? Production was done by Alan Douglas who has long pedigree or interesting work (in addition to infamously tampering with some posthumous Hendrix material). Sandwiched between the funk jams are instrumental extracts of a few actual songs borrowed from Buddy Miles, Sly Stone (uncredited) and Traffic. The pressing linked here is the Celluloid one.

————–
A1 Sport

Backing Band – Kool & The Gang

A2 Spoon

Bass – Fred Backmeier
Keyboards – Neil Larsen
Saxophone [Tenor] – Brother Gene Dinwiddie
Guitar – Howard ‘Buzz’ Feiten*
Drums – Phillip Wilson
Congas – Rocky Dejon*
Saxophone [Alto] – Julius A Hemphill

A3 The Cafe Black Rose

A4 Brother Hominy Grit

A5 Coppin’ Some Fronts For The Set

A6 Hamhock’s Hall Was Big

Bass – Jerry Jemmott
Organ – Billy Preston
Saxophone [Baritone] – James Mitchell
Saxophone [Tenor] – Andrew Love, King Curtis, Lou Collins*
Guitar – Cornell Dupree
Drums – Bernard Purdie
Trombone – Jack Hale
Piano – Truman Thomas
Trumpet – Roger Hopps, Wayne Jackson
Congas – Pancho Morales

B1 The Bones Fly From Spoon’s Hand

Backing Band – Kool & The Gang

B2 The Breack Was So Loud, It Hushed The Crowd

B3 Four Bitches Is What I Got

Backing Band – Kool & The Gang

B4 Grit’s Den

Bass – Chuck Rainey
Timbales – Bobby Matos
Drums, Congas – George McCleery
Saxophone [Tenor] – Maurice Smith, Trevor Lawrence
Guitar – Eric Gale
Percussion – Gordon Powell
Drums – Jimmy Johnson (2)
Piano – Richard Tee
Trumpet – Charles Sullivan, Gerry Thomas, Wilbur ‘Dud’ Bascombe*
Congas – Candido, Johnny Pacheco, Norman Pride

B5 The Shit Hits The Fan Again

Effects – Tom Clack

B6 Sentenced To The Chair

password/senha: vibes

The Last Poets – Chastisment
1972 Blue Thumb Records – BTS 39
This reissue, Celluloid Records, 1992

Tribute To Obabi (Ogun) 10:16
Jazzoetry 3:46
Black Soldier 5:56
E Pluribus Unum 4:38
Hands Off 4:05
The Lone Ranger 0:28
Before The White Man Came 3:43
Bird’s Word 6:10

Artwork By – Jim Dyson
Bass – Jon Hart (tracks: A1, A2, B5)
Congas – Obabi, Omiyinka (tracks: A1, A2, B5), Omonide (tracks: A1)
Cowbell – Alafia Pudim (tracks: A1)
Engineer – Tony Bongiovi
Other [Undefined] – Last Poets, The* (tracks: B3)
Photography – Edmund Watkins
Producer – Last Poets, The, Stefan Bright
Saxophone [Alto] – Sam Harkness (tracks: A1, B5)
Saxophone [Tenor] – Sam Harkness (tracks: A1, A2, B5)
Shaker – Bessermer Taylor (tracks: A1)
Vocals – Monjile (tracks: A1), Okantomi (tracks: A1), Olubiji (tracks: A1)
Voice [Poet] – Alafia Pudim (tracks: A2, B, B5), Suliaman El-Hadi (tracks: A3, B2, B4)
Written-By – Alafia Pudim (tracks: A2, B1, B5), Suliaman El-Hadi (tracks: A3, B2, B4)

Produced by The Last Poets and Stefan Bright for True Sound Communications, Inc.
Recorded at Media Sound Studios, New York City
Manager for The Last Poets: Obawole Akinwole
All Selections: Spoet Publishing Corporation

I had a request to repost this one, so here it is. The early work of the Last Poets, like Leroi Jones/Amiri
Baraka, or Gil Scott-Heron, has to be contextualized in the Vietnam era
of post-MLK, post-Malcom X Afrocentricity, anger and indignation, or else any
interpretations you make are going to be as clueless as the kind of stuff they publish on, let’s say, the All Music Guide… Anyway, the Poets records are ones I listen to
occasionally rather than frequently (in contrast,for example, to Gil’s work), not
so much because of its intensity but because they are more interesting
poetically than musically most of the time. This record has a lot more
variety than their first two, however, although not as much as the next one, “At Last” which is probably the most compelling to my ears. The jazz elements in the instrumentation that are only occasionally present here are given pride of place on “At Last” so that also probably explains my predilection for it. (Unfortunately for “Chastisement” one of those tracks here is “Bird’s Word” which is a bit tediously didactic.) The opening cut plays like a
long candomblé or santeria invocation, drawing down the blessing of the
Orixás on the rest of the music that follows. It goes without saying that The Poets didn’t shy away from polemic. The track Black Soldier questions the priorities of Black men going to fight in a foreign land in the name of a country that was also making war on their own people in the streets, “helping your oppressor oppress another man.” Jalaluddin Mansur Nuriddin served as a paratrooper but was discharged for not saluting the flag; he’s sympathetic towards soldiers but thinks their skills could be put to better use at home. The track is so tightly written, packed with excoriating critique, that it’s unjust to single out single lines. But when they end the cut by warning that the violence in Newark and Detroit “wasn’t a riot, it was a dress rehearsal for things to come”, it’s chilling enough to make it clear why these guys were in the sights of COINTELPRO. This album is also
impressive in that, given how much this music is tied in with a
particular place and time, it still sounds refreshingly relevant,
sometimes unnervingly and depressingly so: listen to E Pluribis Unim
and you might think you’re hearing an anthem written for the Occupy
movement. A classic, solid record all the way – I just wish they would get around to reissuing “At Last” already.

password: vibes

Tag: The Last Poets

Lightnin’ Rod – Hustler’s Convention (1973)

The Last Poets – Chastisement (1973)