The Awakening: Hear, Sense And Feel (remastered, blue with black swirl vinyl) [REAL GONE MUSIC]

Why you'll love it

This Real Gone Music reissue is remastered, pressed on blue with black swirl vinyl and limited to 500 copies. Both of The Awakening's Black Jazz albums rank among the most collectible in the label's catalogue.

This edition

• Blue with black swirl vinyl
• Remastered
• Limited to 500 copies
• Liner notes by Pat Thomas

About the album

Chicago in the early 1970s had two jazz worlds running side by side: the free, searching sound of the AACM and the Art Ensemble of Chicago, and the deep soul-jazz grooves of labels like Cadet and Brunswick. The Awakening lived in both. Co-leaders Frank Gordon on trumpet and Ken Chaney on keyboards came up in Young-Holt Unlimited, while bassist Reggie Willis and saxophonist Ari Brown were AACM members.

Hear, Sense and Feel opens and closes with the two halves of the "Awakening" suite, and in between, "When Will It Ever End," "Convulsions," "Kera's Dance" and "Jupiter" move from spiritual modal jazz to tight, funky grooves, with "Brand New Feeling" bringing a lift near the end. Ari Brown's tenor and flute weave through the horns while Chaney's keyboards keep the floor warm. Black Jazz founder Gene Russell produced and engineered the session, and the same line-up returned for Mirage the following year. Fans of Pharoah Sanders, Lonnie Liston Smith and the Strata-East catalogue will feel right at home.

For the reissue, Zev Feldman and Gordon Anderson co-produced and Pat Thomas wrote new liner notes. Original copies change hands for serious money, so this is a rather kinder way to hear it.

Also at Kops: more The Awakening on vinyl · browse Modern Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On Black Jazz / Real Gone Music (cat# RGM-1085), a reissue of the 1972 album.