Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath "Brotherhood" Nick Tete: Joyful Noises/Think Of Something: Do It: Funky Boots March. RCA SF8260 (a.29).

When I reviewed the Brotherhood's earlier LP in August 1971 it was with several pangs of disappointment, because that record failed to give much idea of the excitement which the band can conjure up in the flesh. Luckily this second attempt is highly successful, the band sounding much more inspired as well as less ragged and out of tune. The way the saxophone section flattens some notes in the kwela-tinged numbers is deliberate, a part of this group's South African background. In fact, it is these particular pieces, with the themes tossed from trumpets to trombones to saxophones, that come across best. Nick Tete, composed by Dudu Pukwane, whose tough, aggressive alto playing is very much to the fore, and Do It, with Mongesi Feza's trumpet scurrying like a jumping cracker, partnered by a saxophonist who is—I believe—Gary Windo, both mix kwela patterns with avant-garde solos. The latter piece, incidentally, leads directly into the short but uproarious Funky Boots March. Think Of Something, a bumpy tune, rather like one of Monk's, was composed by Mike Osborne, whose alto saxophone playing, explosive but slightly more linear than Dudu's, is featured at length before Nick Evans takes over, his gusty trombone style in a direct line of descent from J. C. Higginbotham's. But the brilliance of this band does not derive entirely from the solos; there is also the spirited ensemble, loose yet disciplined, and the impetus provided by the bassist, Harry Miller, and Louis Moholo, a superb drummer and the only man who seems capable of holding this anarchic assemblage together. Joyful Noises is different; out of tempo and lasting for nearly 14 minutes, it presents Chris McGregor at the piano, improvising percussively, often atonally, rather like Cecil Taylor does, but with skirmishings from Moholo's drums and a rich orchestral backcloth, very Ellingtonian in its harmonies and textures. On the right occasion, when they steer clear of the self-indulgence that occasionally afflicts ensembles of this kind, these musicians can create some of the most exciting big band jazz to be heard anywhere in the world today. C.F.