Roots Magic Sextet: Long Old Road

The poet Jayne Cortez once wrote "I'm taking the blues back to where / the blues stealers won't go / I'm talking the blues back home." For Roots Magic, back home isn't the crossroads where Robert Johnson made that infamous deal with the devil, but the peninsula in Southern Europe we call Italy. Long Old Road is the band's fourth release on Clean Feed Records and it follows Take Root Among The Stars (2020), Last Kind Words (2017), and Hoodoo Blues (2015). The ensemble has expanded from its original quartet, one which often featured guests, to a sextet. Joining clarinetist Alberto Popolla (who doubles on electric bass and banjo), saxophonist Errico De Fabritiis, bassist Gianfranco Tedeschi, and drummer (plus zither) Fabrizio Spera are saxophonist and flutist Eugenio Colombo and vibraphonist Francesco Lo Cascio.

Their brand of music is not unlike that of 1960s Charles Mingus' explorations and expansion of the blues aesthetic by incorporating the Black American traditions of musical expression from the Mississippi Delta to New York. In previous recordings they've covered artists such as Charlie Patton, Julius Hemphill, Ornette Coleman, Roscoe Mitchell, and Sun Ra. Here they open the affair with the pacific percussive grooves of Kahil El'Zabar's "When The Elephant Walks." Lo Cascio's inviting vibraphone summons first flute, then bass clarinet, with horns swirling a hypnotic euphonic sound. The ensemble digs deeper with their original composition "Sula" for Toni Morrison which roils with a turbulent energy and Cal Massey's "Things Have Got To Change," a composition that was the title track of Archie Shepp's 1971 Impulse! release. The blues are the fundamental building block here. "Blues Line" dedicated to Muhal Richard Abrams draws upon some urbane and elegant blues via flute and clarinet, plus percussive attack. The title track, a cover by Bessie Smith, is presented with a quiet reverential approach. Zither and banjo echoes behind snaking clarinet, saxophone, and flute. For Roots Magic, everything new is also ancient as ancient is also avant.