This hauntingly beautiful session was almost lost when the producer and the engineer, themselves being entranced by the transcendental sonic tapestry unfurling itself before them, did not notice that the master tape was running dangerously close to its end, when it finally sounded the ominous "kathwump" and they noticed that this brilliant group interplay will be lost forever. However, The four musicians present in the studio that afternoon (Eddie Gomez b, Milford Graves drs/tabla, Don Pullen p, Giuseppi Logan ts/pakistani oboe) were able to back track a few bars into the master, pick up where they left off, and continue to recreate what had originally been perceived as free form improvisation, and later splice it all together.
The result was a type of jazz that had not yet existed, a type of jazz that sounded more like the soundtrack to a nightmare, or a surrealist film. The sound of the Giuseppi Logan Quartet can be described as exotic, haunting, atmospheric, and chaotic. However, knowing the groups ability to recreate the conceivably "free-form" improvisation from a previous musical juncture is proof that although sonic chaos, nightmarish textures, and surreal random dissonances ensue, there is an extremely complicated unorthodox syntax governing the improvisation existing beneath it's surface.
The five tracks committed to tape that afternoon in 1964 are a captivating and disturbing insight into the mind and psyche of Giueseppi Logan, a realm which was/is profoundly and creatively brilliant while at the same time being deeply disturbed and in the throes of debilitating mental illness and drug abuse. Within six years of this recording Logan was living in various hotels in Harlem where for the last 38 years he has been spotted wandering the streets near the Apollo theater on 125th street.
Charles Ballas
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