Album Notes

In the late 1980's our first collaborative project explored the music of Huddie Ledbetter [Leadbelly Legacy Band, OUT ON THE WESTERN PLAINS, Postout 1999A]. Shortly after, our common love of roots and folk musics led us to research the African-American gospel songbooks in the library of the Center for Folklore and Ethnomuiscology at the University of Texas at Austin. We were instantly attracted to the vernacular harmonies in these choral arrangements, and soon found ourselves playing and improvising on them. Spreading the voices between two high saxophones and two low brass, with just snare and cymbal rhythm accompaniment, the Live Action Brass band became a compact, mobile, rough and ready band emphasizing LIVE spontaneity and collective ACTION.
Although the core repertoire began with gospel classics, we also expanded into Afro-Brazilian and West African songs. Jay Rozen arranged Baden Powell's Boxocé for us, and our version of Amadou Jarr's Alone in Sierra Leone comes from an arrangement by saxophonist John Tchicai. A further extension is an original...And Justice for All, which connects gospel roots to Texas soul. For the more minimally inclined we've included the theme from Twin Peaks, the famous David Lynch TV series. The recording session ended with some collective jamming on a tuba riff brought to Jay by the spirit of the finish, and the spontaneous result was Gospel Chaos. We couldn't resist taking it out with Jay's Bo Diddley beat version of Winter Wonderland, from a live Christmas performance on KUT radio.
Live Action's current repertory still has plenty of old and new gospel. But it also includes doo-wap, funk, soul, Dixie, movie themes, originals, holiday songs and classic jazz tunes by composers like Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, Herbie Hancock, and Horace Silver.

Alex Coke & Steve Feld