The Fire This Time Lester Bowie's Brass Fantasy

• 1Night Time (Is the Right Time)02:56
• 2For Louis07:12
• 3Journey Towards Freedom10:54
• 4Remember the Time08:32
• 5Strange Fruit09:14
• 6Siesta for the Fiesta04:13
• 7Night Life10:28
• 8Black or White07:20
• 9Three for the Festival06:06
• 10The Great Pretender07:33
• Total Runtime01:14:28

Info for The Fire This Time

A critically acclaimed live album inspired by the Los Angeles riots in the spring of 1992, recorded just one day after that explosion of civil unrest and featuring the Brass Fantasy's highly individualistic interpretations of "Strange Fruit", "Remember The Time", "Black Or White" and "The Great Pretender". This dramatic recording, which pulsates with energy and spontaneous creativity, vividly captures the essence of the Brass Fantasy ? a band which draws its repertoire from the entire pantheon of black music and endows it with its own special vitality and emotional eloquence. Says Lester Bowie: "This is a great example of our music - it is the way the band really sounds: no overdubs, no doctoring."

"Un disque superb" (Jazz Magazine)

"It is exceedingly pleasurable to listen to a band loaded with confidence and capable of shifting easily from mood to mood." (DownBeat)

„During this live recording of the Brass Fantasy at the Moonwalker Club in Aarburg, Switzerland, Lester Bowie and his nonet go through many phases of jazz, funk, and progressive music. Old favorites of the Brass Fantasy are complemented by some new material. Arrangements are assigned to notables such as brother Byron Bowie, Steve Turre, E.J. Allen, and Earl McIntyre. Trumpeters Lester Bowie, Allen, Gerald Brazel, and Tony Barrero are joined by Vincent Chancey on French horn, Frank Lacy and Luis Bonilla on trombone, Bob Stewart on tuba, Vinnie Johnson on drums (replacing Phillip Wilson who was murdered in the streets of N.Y.C. weeks before this performance), and Famoudou Don Moye on other percussions. Of the well-known pieces, there are non-vocal versions of the soul ballad "The Great Pretender" and the slow gospel dirge blues "For Louis" (Armstrong) dedicated to Wilson. Funk, in its myriad conjugations, rears up on the fun Ray Charles number "Night Time," and on the harder, marching band-like Michael Jackson tune "Remember the Time," as well as on Jackson's hot-to-heavy dance tune "Black or White." The hard-driving Latin funk of Bruce Purse's "Night Life" sports more soloing from Allen, Lacy, and Lester. At their most fervently swinging, Rahsaan Roland Kirk's "Three for the Festival" is a little ragged, but pretty hot featuring a solo from Johnson. Jimmie Lunceford's "Siesta for the Fiesta" is the surprise; it's a jumping chart with a funky edge and outer limits solos from Chancey and Bonilla. The heaviest pieces are "Strange Fruit" and Allen's "Journey Towards Freedom." On the latter, a Billie Holiday classic about a lynching in the south, Bowie terms racism "the crime of the century" with an abstract intro leading to a solemn, hymn-like theme and a whip or pistol-shot sequence; the music tells stark tales of what has not changed, and all without speaking a word. The "Journey" is a heavy water experiment, a 6/8 strutting, juggernaut melody with a tuba ostinato that has a distinctly forward motion, counterpointed horns that call out/respond in loud symmetry, and a rather seriously wrought solo by Stewart. A polyphonic coda concludes this stunning piece of modern creative music for the ages. The variations on themes and styles, and a sense of utter outrage, as well as good feelings toward those in their family and in the audience, earmark this session as one of the most important in the Brass Fantasy's history and development.“ (Michael G. Nastos, AMG)

Lester Bowie, trumpet
E.J.Allen, trumpet
Gerald Brazel, trumpet
Tony Barrero, trumpet
Vincent Chancey, French horn
Frank Lacy, trombone
Louis Bonilla, trombone
Bob Stewart, tuba
Vinnie Johnson, drums
Famoudou Don Moye, percussion

Recorded live on 1 May 1992 at the Moonwalker Club, Aarburg, Switzerland
Engineered by Johannes Wohlleben, Martin Lachmann
Produced by F. Kleinschmidt*, J. Schwab

Digitally remastered

Lester Bowie
Unlike his cohorts in the Art Ensemble Of Chicago, trumpeter Lester Bowie (1941), who relocated from St Louis to Chicago in 1965, was grounded in the jazz tradition. Unlike Roscoe Mitchell, Bowie maintained a close relationship with the idea of music as fun. In a sense, he represented Mitchell's alter-ego, complementing the partner's classical ambitions with a more populist approach. Nonetheless, Bowie was one of the most daring trumpters of his generation, and one of the few to adopt free jazz, capable of producing a broad range of sounds. Bowie's debut album, Numbers 1 & 2 (august 1967), contained two lengthy free-form jams that basically previewed the Art Ensemble Of Chicago (one is a trio with bassist Malachi Favors and saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell, and the other one is a quartet with Joseph Jarman). His sense of humour emerged from Fast Last (september 1974), an odd collection of different styles, highlighted (on the serious front) by a duet with altoist Julius Hemphill, the 13-minute Fast Last C, and Rope-A-Dope (june 1975), with Favors, Don Moye, drummer Charles Bobo Shaw and trombonist Joseph Bowie. These albums amply betrayed his tender love for blues and gospel music, a love that blossomed on The Fifth Power (1978), a quintet featuring altoist Arthur Blythe, pianist Amina Myers, Favors and drummer Philip Wilson that reworked a gospel traditional into an 18-minute juggernaut; while the same quintet crafted the double LP African Children (april 1978) that synthesized all his disparate influences and moods in 20-minute pieces such as Amina, Chili MacDonald and For Fela. The Great Pretender (june 1981) marked the beginning of his conversion to a more radio-friendly form of gospel-jazz-rock fusion, that, despite the parenthesis of All the Magic (june 1982), whose second disc is a suite of brief satirical trumpet solos, led to Bowie's artistic demise. Whether it was a case of crossover or sell-out, the Brass Fantasy (a brass octet of four trumpets, two trombones, French horn and tuba plus a drummer) that debuted with I Only Have Eyes for You (february 1985) and Avant Pop (march 1986) ended up playing mainly pop, jazz, funk and blues covers. The best original material was provided by trombonist Steve Turre.

Bowie was also a member of the Leaders, a supergroup formed by tenor saxophonist Chico Freeman with alto saxophonist Arthur Blythe, pianist Kirk Lightsey, bassist Cecil McBee and drummer Don Moye that debuted with Mudfoot (june 1986). Their second album Out Here Like This (february 1987) contained Bowie's Zero. Bowie rejoined them for Unforeseen Blessings (december 1988).

Lester Bowie died in 1999.

This album contains no booklet.