One of several recordings issued by
the Art Ensemble's own label and the only one to document the group as a whole,
Kabalaba is a live, 1974 performance at
the Montreux Jazz Festival by the same augmented band (with the addition of
Muhal Richard Abrams) that recorded the superb
Fanfare for the Warriors album for
Atlantic. While not as heady as that release,
Kabalaba offers a typical example of
the Art Ensemble's live concerts from around that time.
There are several percussion interludes and solo horn features interspersed among stronger thematic pieces such as
Theme for Sco, which gets an energetic workout here.
Roscoe Mitchell produces an especially acerbic solo alto piece,
Improvization A2 [sic], all gnarls and bitter asides, followed by one of
Lester Bowie's patently puckish, smear-filled outings. The concert ends with a free-for-all multi-horn blowout that dwindles off without apparent conclusion, though the group sees fit to add several unnecessary minutes of audience applause to conclude the album. This recording contains several fine episodes, but the interested listener would do better to hear the aforementioned
Atlantic album for a full picture of this particular
Art Ensemble incarnation's great powers. ~ Brian Olewnick
