Gale's Inner City Blues

One of the most obscure albums in the Blue Note Catalog.  It's an album that has a mix of genres that include Blues, Gospel, Soul, and Jazz.  It's a band that has a whopping 11 members.  It's also album co-founder Francis Wolff payed out of his own pocket to get released.  It's an album that Eddie Gale shows us that playing with Sun Ra and Cecil Taylor has a direct influence on what kind of music you make.  An album that may sound crazy, is considered one best in the Blue Note catalog.  

I stumbled upon this gem while looking for a few other Blue Note albums.  It was a blog where you can download links from a post and listen for your very own.  The poster, mentioned all these great things about a Blue Note album that is forward thinking, spiritual, and best albums of 1968.  Ghetto Music is one of my favorite albums.  

When I looked it up for reviews on All-Music I was totally in shock that this album got the best review that All-Music could give.  I thought 1968 the years of Blue Note putting out their prime music was behind them.  After reading this, it made me seek out more Blue Note from the late 60's era. An era more and more people were leaving Jazz for Rock and Roll.  Miles Davis mentioned that the kids don't dig Jazz, they dig Rock and Roll.  Who wants to listen to a large ensemble that really has no connection to the audience.  Well, hearing this album, it quickly resonated with me.  It quickly grabbed you and your ears and gave me the full attention.

Ghetto Music is an album that I wish I heard early in my Jazz listening.  It would have given me an idea how far Jazz went in the 60's.  This album is nothing like I heard since.  It was really not even replicated or even equaled.  The vocals on the album make me flashback to a great Donald Byrd album called A New Perspective.  Byrd's album was a group of eleven, it felt like eleven, Eddie Gale's had a whopping seventeen and it felt like more like twenty or more.

What made this album more interesting was that of the seventeen band members Eddie was the only one who was a known in the Jazz world.  All his backing band were people who were not even known or found on other Jazz albums.  When you look at Blue Note albums in past releases everyone appeared on other albums.  This was a group where no one made appearances on other projects.  It was not till his follow up Black Rhythm Happening where Jazz well knowns helped him with his albums.  This album had two bass players and two drummers like Free Jazz by Ornette Coleman, but this album they played more in step with their fellow musicians.  

Eddie Gale's Ghetto Music, while a bit narrower in scope, succeeds because it concentrates on creating a space for the myriad voices of an emerging African-American cultural force to be heard in a single architecture. This is militant music posessed by soul and spirit. (AM)

A great description from All-Music.  I'm listening to it now while writing this.  It is an album of unusual joy.  It's extremely creative and will make you think a bit harder then on normal albums.  I love it for it's fresh sounding to ears every time I hear it.  It is well worth seeking out and I'm sure you will be shaking your head like I do.  A timeless classic?, sure but that shows more creative then you can imagine.  Moments like this make me love music more and more.  Enjoy!