#58 GIL SCOTT-HERON & BRIAN JACKSON - Bottom Line, NYC. 1977 (Flac)

Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson
Live at the Bottom Line
New York, NY
August 20th, 1977

Recorded SBD - PCM > WAV

Gil Scott-Heron - genius, activist, brilliant poet, jazz-funk pioneer, rap pioneer, possessed of a beautiful spoken and singing voice, possessed of both a searing intelligence and a sense of humour. The guy's had his troubles with drugs in recent years, but got it together for a final album 'I'm New Here' released in February 2010 his first release since 1994's 'Spirits'. A fitting epitaph, the world can ill afford to lose people of his calibre. In combination with Brian Jackson he's just unbeatable.

Some unreleased live recordings sound like they've been recorded from the venue's bathroom, then there are the quality ones like this one. This fantastic, powerhouse two hour performance was recorded straight from mixing desk at the Bottom Line club into a PCM, an early digital recorder, then transferred to WAV and then FLAC. It sounds great, and is now my favourite live Gil Scott-Heron album. 

This performance comes a year after the mostly-live album "It's Your World" and the week before the release of "Bridges". It's comprised mostly of tracks from the latter, with some favourites and one-offs added. These are not just renditions of album tracks - the Midnight Band is steaming, with long percussion sections and improvisation. So even if you've got all of these tracks, and all of his live albums, you really, really need this.

Gil starts with a ten minute monologue that turns into the poem "New Deal". He starts seemingly casually talking about the state of the world, and builds into a scathing media commentary, an africanist world perspective and an account of a black hostage taker in Cleveland whose demands were "All white folks leave Earth!". The starker and darker his commentary becomes, the more humour he brings in ... It's extraordinary to hear his summation of "change" at the end of the monologue and to realise the resonance of his discourse on contemporary thought and politics.

This band is HOT - up to three people on rhodes with Brian Jackson at the forefront - check the fifteen minutes of keyboard and brass workouts on "Home is Where the Hatred Is" - three or more people on percussion under the guidance of Barnett Williams, latin-tinged trumpet solos from Delbert Taylor, great sax work from Allan Barnes.

The percussion workouts here are insanely good. The band follow the monologue with the five minute percussion / chanting of "Gumbai", and there are six minutes in the middle of "The Bottle" with just latin percussion and voice.

I think there's something about the intimacy of the Bottom Line that brings out the best in people. I could go on all day and all night about how good this 1977 concert is - but i'll hold back and say: just download it and enjoy it. (Thanks to Simon666 for the notes, artwork and making this available)

disc one
01. New Deal - 10:20
02. Gumbai - 5.28
03. Race Track In France - 10.50
04. 95 South - 6.47
05. Hello Sunday, Hello Road - 3.51
06. It's Your World - 6:57
07. Home Is Where The Hatred Is - 15:55

disc 2
08. Almost Lost Detroit - 7.22
09. Vildgolia (Deaf, Dumb & Blind) - 12:44
10. Winter In America - 6:54
11. Under The Hammer - 5:06
12. The Bottle - 16.02
13. Johannesburg - 5.44

MUSICIANS

Gil Scott-Heron - electric piano, vocals
Brian Jackson - piano, electric piano, clavinet, synths, flute, vocals
Allan Barnes - flute, tenor sax, synthesizer
Reggie Brisbane - percussion, drums
Siggie Dillard - bass
Tony Duncanson - timbales, percussion, djembe
Delbert Taylor - trumpet, electric piano (on "95 South" & "Home Is Where the Hatred Is")
Barnett Williams - djembe, congas

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lineage: 48kHz 16 bit 1,536kbps (DAT) Audio quality (DAT lossless) Encoder settings PCM
        > dBpoweramp converted to > WAV 16bit 44kHz 1,411kbps
        > FLAC 16bit 44kHz 1,411kbps

Disc one tracks 01-07
proven lossless see Tau Analyzer - 1.2 screen shots

Disc two tracks 08-13
proven lossless see Tau Analyzer - 1.2 screen shots

There are lossy versions of this circulating claiming to be Flac, they are in fact lossy.
These audio files have been checked and proven to be lossless, see images provided from Tau Analyzer.
(thebasement67, July 2016)