Lacy, Steve

The Sun

Label: Emanem Country: UK

"Four sessions of music mostly against the Vietnam War - all featuring Steve Lacy and Irene Aebi. A previously unissued 1968 presentation of a complex text by Buckminster Fuller intoned by Aebi - a veritable 5-minute tour de force that presages rap. Plus a 7-minute instrumental head arrangement or graphic score by the quintet with Enrico Rava, Karl Berger, Kent Carter & Aldo Romano. Also from 1968, a trio session with Richard Teitelbaum containing two versions of Lacy's first song, 'The Way', and two duo improvisations, which feature some very adventurous playing on saxophone and synthesizer. This was previously only issued in 2000 on the very limited edition Roaratorio LP 01. (3) The same trio performing the previously unissued 'Chinese Food' in 1967, with Aebi reading 2500-year old anti-war texts by Lao Tsu. Finally the powerful 1973 four-part anti-war suite, 'The Woe', with Steve Potts, Kent Carter & Oliver Johnson."-Emanem

Excerpts from sleeve notes:

"It is a disturbing fact that most of the major disputes throughout history have been settled by physical fighting involving killing. Have we really risen much above the rest of the animal world? On the contrary, many animals do not kill members of their own species even though they may fight. It used to be that battles were fought in a remote location between two armies that comprised a small percentage of the population. But let us not forget that military fighters, whether voluntary, conscripted or press-ganged, are human beings too. This mode of warfare culminated in the First World War, when millions of soldiers were killed in a puerile macho attempt to solve the differences between branches of the family that supplied most of the so-called royalty for European countries.

That cataclysm also saw the introduction of one of the most horrendous inventions of the 20th century, namely aerial bombing. This continued in 'peace-time' with the 1924 bombing of Iraqi villages and other rebellious parts of the British Empire. This barbaric practice reached its first nadir in the Nazi destruction of Guernica in the Spanish Civil War. Everyone, not just the military, became a potential casualty in the Second World War with its long list of cities devastated from the air - Coventry, London, Berlin, Dresden, Tokyo, etc, etc - culminating in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which had to be hastened when it was realised that the Japanese were already making approaches to surrender.

Perhaps the greatest density of aerial bombing occurred during the Vietnam War. People who subsequently flew over the remains of that country have reported that there are unbelievable numbers of bomb craters everywhere. That abortive invasion also involved the greatest use of chemical warfare, mainly Agent Orange and napalm which indiscriminately deformed people, animals and plants. It is therefore not surprising that millions of people throughout the world protested against this wholesale sub-bestial butchery.

Steve Lacy and Irene Aebi were amongst the protesters, their first musical protest being CHINESE FOOD using words by a Chinese writer who saw the futility of war some 2500 years previously.

"We were doing protest music about the Vietnam War at that time. Everybody was saying, 'Johnson. Baby killer' and all that. So we were in WBAI and Irene was hurling these Lao Tsu texts about politics and weapons and things like that. It was like political music. The name of the piece we were doing was CHINESE FOOD. Texts from Lao Tzu, which illustrated the absurdity of war and weapons and things like that, were chosen.Steve Lacy (1997 - interview with Lee & Maria Friedlander)" [...]-Martin Davidson