This release contains never earlier released Survival Ensemble session from 29th May, 1977 recorded at A Day of Solidarity with Soweto in New York City.
Violinist Billy Bang made his recording debut as a leader with the Survival Ensemble, the first working band he ever led, on New York Collage in 1979. Bang, saxophonists Bilal Abdur Rahman and Henry Warner, bassist William Parker, and percussionists Rashid Bakr and Khuwana John Fuller played incendiary free jazz more clearly indebted to the New York avant-garde of the preceding decade than any album Bang would record again. The music’s urgency and passion arose from the exhilaration of artistic self-discovery shared by everyone in the group, and the intensity of their need to express their feelings. The albums really are a loft era classic. Proudly flaunting its New York roots, it insists that music based on the innovations of Coltrane, Ayler, Taylor, could grow in new directions, absorb new influences, and engage contemporary political realities.
- Billy Bang – violin, poetry, bells, shaker, percussion
- Bilal Abdur Rahman – tenor and soprano saxes, bull horn, percussion
- Henry Warner – alto sax, bells, shaker, percussion
- William Parker – bass
- Khuwana Fuller – congas
- Rashid Bakr – drums
CD1 Black Man’s Blues 1977 (01:12:35)
1 Spoken Introduction 1:07
2 Albert Ayler/Know Your Enemy 19:27
3 Ganges/Enchantment/Tapestry 30:47
4 Black Man Blues 18:27
CD2 New York Collage 1978 (00:44:36)
1 Nobody Hear The Music The Same Way (Dedicated To John Coltrane) 12:17
2 For Josie Part II 10:28
3 Illustration 8:22
4 Subhanallah 14:35
