People in Sorrow cover

People in Sorrow

Released

During their sojourn in Paris, which lasted from 1969 to early 1972, the Art Ensemble recorded over a dozen albums; this is among the most striking. A single 40-minute piece stretched across two sides of vinyl, it was made before drummer Famoudou Don Moye joined, so it begins as a meditative, sparse soundscape — the horns whisper and keen as Malachi Favors’ bass rumbles along and occasional splashes of hand-held percussion mark intervals — but in its final third it builds to multi-horn polyphony, sometimes quite beautiful, as one member, likely Roscoe Mitchell, subverts it all by producing a seemingly endless wavering tone like a malfunctioning door-buzzer from an unidentified reed instrument.

Phil Freeman

Recommended by

Suggestions
Codebreaker cover

Codebreaker

Matthew Shipp
EthioBraz cover

EthioBraz

Large Unit
Protect Your Light cover

Protect Your Light

Irreversible Entanglements
Rembrandt Pussyhorse cover

Rembrandt Pussyhorse

Butthole Surfers
This Is Our Music cover

This Is Our Music

The Ornette Coleman Quartet
Live at the East cover

Live at the East

Pharoah Sanders
Rope-A-Dope cover

Rope-A-Dope

Lester Bowie
Adnos I-III cover

Adnos I-III

Éliane Radigue
Enter cover

Enter

Fire! Orchestra
Live in Seattle cover

Live in Seattle

John Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders