CAUGHT IN THE ACT

By Alan Heineman

(Reprinted from Down Beat magazine: October 16, 1969)



Tony Williams Lifetime
Jazz Workshop, Boston, Mass.

Personnel: Khalid Yaseen (Larry Young), organ; John McGlocklin, guitar; Tony Williams, drums, vocals.

Khalid: imploding church. John: banshee in love. Tony: purposeful, angry rattlesnake. Tranquility in the eye of an amorphous hurricane. Who is crying? Someone sobs hysterically, but everyone is laughing. The city, which forges hard minds; the country, which forges profound souls; the blues, and thus both, and neither, an all: I am you as you are me.
Chikchikchikchikchikchik
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
AhahahAHahahoowa-ah-oo-WA
I am sitting here, in the Jazz Workshop. I am listening to three people play musical instruments. I am a critic. They make this sound by doing this and that sound by doing that. Listen to hear if one misses a note or a beat. Listen to hear internal logic. Listen to hear influences. Tony played with Miles. Khalid has made a number of Very Interesting, nay Promising Blue Note albums. I've never heard of John. Well, then; he'd best be good, because I've heard a great many guitarists. I am a music critic. My head has come loose from my shoulders. The table is melting. The church is crystalizing, falling apart, restructuring itself. Stay in one avatar, damn you. I am a rat. I will hide in the church. Rattlesnakes eat rats and that rattlesnake is maddened. The church shifts shapes again (that commercial for housepaint-the house breathes in and out).
A little boy is calling. "Take me home with you. Take me ho-o-ome with you." That's Tony singing. Tony can't sing too good. I will go help the little boy because he is lost. The little boy is the rattlesnake. How can that be? How can a church be the ocean, warm and salty? How can a banshee be a music box with little ivory figures carved on it? I am a music critic. How many heads do I have? The rattlesnake has more.
ChikchikchikchikbaDAdadaDAadachikchikbaWHAY
Organchordsorganchordsorrrrganorrrrganorrrrgagagaga
Eee. Chingachingachingachinga. Eeedoodlyoodlyoodlyeeeee
How can the music be light and dark simultaneously? Listen to hear. A woman is pouring medicine down my throat. I don't want the medicine. It tastes wonderful. Why don't I want it? I do. I will either have orgasm or suffocate. Breasts. I am naked in a meadow. Tall flowers. With thorns. Hurts so good. Breasts.
Chikchikchikchikchik

*********************

Let me put it rationally, if I can: this is the most exciting group, new or established, that I've heard in a long time. A long time. All three players are of the first order, and they interact completely and convincingly. The music is a little of everything-rock, chordally-based jazz, free jazz and some other stuff. Vocals, such as they are, flow freely into instrumental improvisation, moods flow freely into other moods.
Some small criticisms might be made: Yaseen (and Williams, too, but to a far lesser degree) relies for climaxes of intensity on a relatively few devices. And McGlocklin's guitar is an inferior instrument; the three lower strings get horribly muddy response. If these faults were remedied, the group would be perfect and the world would end. Go see them. Listen to hear.