Used-Bin Bargains: Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson

So I spent all yesterday sledding... I may have the body of a 23-year-old but inside is the mentality of a 7 & a half-year-old. You know you're jealous.




Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson - A Lovely Day (TVT 1976)

Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson – From South Africa to South Carolina / TVT

I don’t think that 1976’s From South Africa to South Carolina has ever been cited as Gil Scott-Heron’s best album; with records like his debut Small Talk at 125th and Lenox, 1971’s Pieces of a Man, 1973’s Winter in America or even the live It’s Your World released the very same year, it’s hard to justify the slightly less potent From South Africa as the most essential of Scott-Heron’s amazing discography. But personally, there is just something striking about the more laidback, jazzy approach to the album; on a couple occasions, especially “South Carolina (Barnwell),” Scott-Heron even sounds jaded and tired. He sounds fed up and exasperated with the increasingly chaotic world outside, and I’m sure his lack of chart success and label hounding also contributes to his waning mental attitude. Besides the live album released the same year, I feel this marks the end of his fantastic recordings because from this point on the music turns much slicker heading towards pop-R&B and disco, so it has a sort of poignant vibe throughout as if he’s almost realizing the direction he is having to head. No more will there be the heated skronk of “Essex” or the blazing sax solos of “Beginnings,” its all concise pop tunes from here on out and the album reflects the spirit of moving on.

The Chicago-born Gil Scott-Heron, son of a Jamaican soccer player and a college-graduate mother, is one of the most intriguing figures in all of African-American music. He’s often cited as one of the key figures in the development of rap music, specifically the political and socially conscious side of the genre (which should be pointed out as the original reason for the style), along with his contemporaries The Last Poets. As a youth he moved to Tennessee with his grandmother and faced harsh racism as one of the first Black students to be integrated into the White school system. His ventilation of choice was poetry and completed his first volume of poems by 13. During his high school years he moved to the Bronx with his mother giving him a wide range of experiences to influence his increasingly prolific literary works. He spent a year at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania before dropping out to concentrate on his first novel, the well-received The Vulture that featured four interconnecting narratives of racial, class, political and generational issues in New York City. His increasing interest in music was influenced by the many experimental jazz and beat poetry circles dominating the New York art scene in late 60s and the final push came from legendary jazz producer Bob Thiele (John Coletrane, Charles Mingus, Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp, etc etc etc etc) who invited him to record for his Flying Dutchman label.

His first album, Small Talk at 125th & Lennox recorded by Thiele, featured a 21-year-old Scott-Heron backed by jazz-funk rhythm section (a set-up that would follow his entire career) featuring the classically trained and V.S.O.P. bassist Ron Carter, the quintessential soul/funk drummer Bernard Purdie, Jazz Crusaders flautist Hubert Laws and the one musician Scott-Heron requested, his college buddy and keyboardist Brian Jackson. The album was an instant classic, featured the landmark “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” and set the revolutionary, political vibe of every recording to follow. With each album from this point on, music played as an important role as the poetry that inspired it. Jackson played an increasing role on every concurrent recording and eventually becoming his music director and the leader of The Midnight Band which supplied the music for every album until 1978. The first half of the 70s saw Scott-Heron attempting varying degrees of his sound with each of the following four albums, the soulful Pieces of a Man, the more poetry based Free Will, the fed up Winter in America and finally 1975’s First Minute of a New Day which found the balance of jazz, R&B and poetry that would define Scott-Heron’s sound.

That brings us back to 1976’s From South Africa to South Carolina. Scott-Heron and Jackson were now a full-fledged duo and had signed to Clive Davis’ Arista imprint TVT for a three-album stint that would lead to their push for the charts. This also could be noted as the last great album to feature Jackson, who left in 1978, though Bridges from 1977 could make an argument. The album kicks off with the first song to make a significant notch on the R&B charts: the buoyant and worldly music-inspired “Johannesburg,” which described the uprising and struggling of Africans with poor work conditions in the mines of South Africa and how we should show our support and be influenced by their cause. Jackson takes vocal duties for the next track “A Toast to the People,” and ode to the great African-American leaders who we have to make sure are not forgotten in passing time and features a much more soulful and jazzy vibe. The next two tracks follow suit with another bouncy track in “The Summer of ‘42” and back to the mellow tip with the incredibly moving “Beginnings (The First Minute of a New Day),” which features one of the most poignant lyrics ever: “We want to be free / and yet we have no idea / why we are struggling here / faced with our every fear / just to survive.” “South Carolina (Barnwell)” features a killer piano and alto sax duet between Jackson and Bilal Sunni Ali, which is followed by the slow-burning New Orleans skronk of “Essex.” “Fell Together” finds a nice middle ground vibe with upbeat congas and flute, but with a soulful chorus line: “Can you see the things that man has done cannot set you free?” The final track, “A Lovely Day,” is one of the most striking songs Scott-Heron has ever recorded in my personal opinion. It features a very stripped down, settling accompaniment of electric piano, bass and congas and is incredibly optimistic, “All I really want to say / is that problems come and go / but the sunshine seems to stay.” And then… and then, the most heartbreaking line I have ever come across: “Sometimes it rains and I feel kind of strange. / Because it seems that my problems begin without the sunshine on which / I depend.”

The late 70s and 80s saw the departure of Jackson and The Midnight Band as producer Malcolm Cecil took over the musical direction of Scott-Heron’s career. The result was the upbeat, synthetic funk and disco leans that plagued that era. He did accomplish Scott-Heron’s best charting track, “The Bottle,” though, but I’ve never been able to get too much into that sound. Ironically and quite sadly, the rest of Scott-Heron’s career was belittled by his increasing struggles with cocaine addiction of which he spoke out against so frequently in his early days. In the last 5 years alone, he has been incarcerated twice for possession and publicly stated being HIV-positive. It’s an incredibly sad conclusion to an amazing artistic career, but at least we have fantastic recordings like From South Africa to South Carolina to continue on his legacy as a striking poet and revolutionary inspiration.