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"...A New Black Poet..."
Picture the scene – New York City, USA, 1970. You're a young black man, fresh out of college and ideological. But you're also broke and living in a city that is being consumed by drugs and violence - and whether or not you've big hopes and even larger dreams – it doesn't matter because in truth 'the man' couldn't give a rat's ass about your future. So in your gut you're angry and you feel betrayed - the stench of political hypocrisy is everywhere. You look forlornly at a system that has consistently defiled your colour for centuries and in the last five years has gingerly sent you and your brothers draft papers followed by a plane ride to an actual war – murderous Hell in Vietnam – where you and your friends are being slaughtered for some unspoken Communist agenda ruthlessly applied by an all-white Government regardless of the physical cost. But one afternoon (on word of mouth from those in the know) - you pop along to a poetry gig in Lenox Avenue and out onto the stage (accompanied by two Conga Players) steps this wiry-looking 21-year Negro who airs everything you've been feeling and thinking with the ferocity of a punch in the solar plexus from Cassius Clay. In 1970 and 1971 "Small Talk At 125th And Lenox" must have been mind-blowing - and in 2015 - it still is.
Talk about records you must hear before you die. Even now it's hard to envisage let alone phantom the cultural impact this concert and its subsequent low-key album release must have had. Re-listening to it now I'm still hammered by its fearlessness, mental clarity and yes rage. I'm also struck by the bad stuff - his arrogance and his awful 'fa**ots' piece - painful at best to listen to and at worst – outright offensive. Scott-Heron probably meant to attach hypocrisy towards gays but ended up sounding like he was smirking with the attackers rather than deriding them. But I'm also saddened by the sickening truth – that after 45 years - Gil Scott-Heron's debut LP still has a point. In fact his embittered hurt about poverty in city ghettos, police brutality and ingrained racism is ludicrously contemporary today because this kind of crap shouldn't be happening in Barack Obama's America - and yet we all know it is. Anyway - let's get to the paint it black details before someone else gets hurt.
Gil Scott-Heron approached BOB THIELE of Flying Dutchman Records hoping for a poetry piece. Thiele had been with ABC's "Impulse" Jazz label for over 10 years and had formed Flying Dutchman in 1969 with the idea of putting out Radical Jazz and Avant Garde recordings. Scott-Heron had already published a novel "The Vulture" and a book of poetry called "Small Talk At 125th And Lenox". So Thiele allowed him to invite a small audience in (mid 1970) and do the 14-track album on the cheap – giving the record the same name as his book of poems but precede the title with an announcement - "A New Black Poet".
No one seems to know exactly when the album "Small Talk At 125th And Lenox" by GIL SCOTT-HERON on Flying Dutchman FDS-131 was first released – it's copyrighted to 1970 but the first review for it is not until October 1971 in the USA press where the LP is viewed as 'taking off'. It's more likely it was available to the public in January or February 1971 although those dates are open to debate (CD 44:04 minutes):
1. Introduction – The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
2. Omen
3. Brother
4. Comment No. 1
5. Small Talk At 125th And Lennox
6. The Subject Was Fa**ots
7. Evolution (And Flashback)
8. Plastic Patter People [Side 2]
9. Whitey On the Moon
10. The Vulture
11. Enough
12. Paint It Black
13. Who'll Pay Reparations On My Soul?
14. Everyday
[Note: the version of "Who'll Pay Reparations On My Soul?" on the album ran to 4:20 minutes – the CD presents an Extended Version at 5:17 minutes]
2. Omen
3. Brother
4. Comment No. 1
5. Small Talk At 125th And Lennox
6. The Subject Was Fa**ots
7. Evolution (And Flashback)
8. Plastic Patter People [Side 2]
9. Whitey On the Moon
10. The Vulture
11. Enough
12. Paint It Black
13. Who'll Pay Reparations On My Soul?
14. Everyday
[Note: the version of "Who'll Pay Reparations On My Soul?" on the album ran to 4:20 minutes – the CD presents an Extended Version at 5:17 minutes]
This Monday 27 April 2015 CD (May 2015 in the USA) on BGP/Flying Dutchman CDBGPM 290 (Barcode 029667529020) is a reissue by Ace Records of the UK as part of their Flying Dutchman Jazz Classics Series (BGP is Beat Goes Public).
Although the mastering is credited to Nick Robbins in 2015 – the CD itself says 2001 – so this is the RCA Victor Gold Series CD remaster from that period. The audio is fabulous - incredibly clean as the congas pound across the speakers and Gil raps away about being "...chained by leg irons..." in "Enough" and "...no hot water, no toilets, no lights...a rat bit my sister..." in the loaded "Whitey On The Moon". The album also contains the first version of his most famous piece "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" available here in its original poetry-only form (the music version turned up on his next album – 1971's classic "Piece Of A Man" – see separate review).
The 12-page booklet repro's the original Flying Dutchman labels for Side 1 and 2, pictures the book of poems that gave the album its name and has superb liner notes from DEAN RUDLAND explaining about the making of the record and its radical history. It also wisely reproduces the liner notes from NAT HENTOFF of the Jazz & Pop Magazine that graced the back cover so you can read them properly - themselves full of information and not hyperbole.
With Scott-Heron introducing and speaking the Poems in a spoken scat vocal style – he is backed by a percussion duo consisting of Charlie Saunders and David Barnes on Congas. It's not all poetry. Scott-Heron plays Piano on three tracks - "The Vulture", "Who'll Pay Reparations For My Soul" and "Everyday" – while David Barnes does some secondary vocals on "Who'll Pay Reparations On My Soul?" and "Everyday". And the lyrics are genius - "...Call my brother a junkie...say he ain't got no job...so my old man leave me when times get hard...so my mother...she’s got to carry me all herself..." he sings on the brilliant "Who’ll Pay Reparations On My Soul?"
The crowd response ranges from polite claps ("Brother"), awkwardness "The Subject Was Fa**ots") to giggles and affection ("Whitey On The Moon"). But when he starts on that piano at the beginning of "The Vulture" – the magic kicks in big time when it stops being poetry and starst to become music. And when they clap at the end with real feeling and appreciation – you can 'so' hear that someone 'big' has arrived. You begin to wish the whole album had avoided just poetry raps and done every song as music. He would realise that potential in his next album – the classic "Pieces Of A Man".
"Small Talk At 125th And Lenox" is only a reissue I know (a milestone in the history of rap too) - but given the situation in Baltimore with 5000 troops on the streets in May 2015 - what a timely one. On "Everyday" Gil Scott-Heron sings - "...everyday I seem to be running from the truth..." Don't sweep his wisdom under a rug – this is one truth you should run towards precisely because it's uncomfortable...
