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Unknown: New New Black radicalism last night at the forum, and many of you were present at that forum last night, we heard the first of the two series. Tonight, we'll hear the second also, as you can see here, we will be having some

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records played for us to illustrate some of the things that Frank Kofsky wants to represent in his talk, or to present in his talk. Before we go into the talk itself, I'd like to make a few announcements, and then I'll

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mention to you the procedure tonight's forum. After Frank speaks, we'll go directly into the question answer period, and after we have the question answer period, which can last until around 10 o'clock, we can all adjourn for coffee, donuts

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and refreshments, and have a general informal discussion amongst ourselves and With the speaker on the topic of tonight's discussion. I'd like to also mention that in the future, here at the forum,

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we'll be having a series of talks by Barry Shepherd on the dynamics of world revolution. And that will be a part of a few days of a socialist educational weekend Barry's talks. And Barry, by the way, is managing editor now of the militant which

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you can pick up in the back of the hall, and was former national chairman of the young socialist Alliance. You can pick up the leaflet in the back of the hall which will go generally into the nature of the three talks and what will be covered

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also on the second day of the socialist educational weekend, the Debs players are going to present an evening with Bertolt Brecht. I tolbreck as well as a dreamer in the three talks that are going to be given by Barry during this educational weekend.

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We're also going to wind it up in a picnic Kensington Park. I urge everyone to try and attend as much as they can at the socialist educational weekend and to pick up a reminder in the back of the hall. Also, if you'd like to be informed of future

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forums, here, you can sign the mailing list where you paid your entrance fee to the hall tonight. I also like to mention again that we do have the latest issue with the militant on sale. It covers the latest developments in the war in

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Vietnam, the latest developments in the anti war movement in this country. An editorial on the need to build the August 6 and ninth days of protest, analysis of the Communist Party convention, which was recently held, amongst other articles of

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general interest to radicals in this country. Also, in relationship to the speech tonight, we do have quite a bit of Afro American literature in the back of the hall, many of which has to do with Malcolm X also, as we've seen in the news

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in the past few days, what's been happening in Chicago and is being repeated in many other cities across the country. And was a repetition of what happened in walks last summer. It would be a good idea for everybody to pick up a copy of

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why walks exploded by della Rosa. It's an analysis of the uprising in Mort, and I think it has direct relationship and direct bearing to the recent developments today in Chicago. I think we can now go into the second part of the series of

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talks by Frank Karski, revolution in Jazz, the new black radicalism. Frank Kofsky: Thank you, Madam, Chairman, applause. About a year and a half ago, a series of avant garde jazz

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concerts were held in New York's cellar cafe, although the music itself was a vital significance, no less important was the title chosen for the series, the October Revolution. To be sure, most of the reporters present missed the implications in this

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reference to the triumph of Bolshevism in 1917 which is, by the way, an interesting commentary on the degree of political awareness of jazz journalists. But this was not at all the case with. Participating musicians. Subsequent

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developments have shown the October Revolution to be only one of a number of signs of a thoroughly radical upheaval, both musical and social, taking place among young Negro jazz artists. In every respect, this combined social musical

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revolution in jazz mounts to a repudiation of the values of white, middle class capitalist America. This is most obvious from the statements of the musicians themselves, but it is also apparent to those who trouble to listen with open ears

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in the wild and exciting music which the revolution is producing among the leaders of the revolution. Three names top the list, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor. These triumvirs are to continue the metaphor of October the Lenin

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Trotsky and Luxembourg of the new wave in jazz. To name the leaders, however, is simpler than to describe the movement they had, the substance of the music. For one thing is too elusive, the range of styles. For another is too great. Still,

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beneath the apparently endless diversity, there are common themes that unify the various aspects of the revolution on a strictly musical level, if one can speak on a strictly musical level, one of the common themes is the attempt of the

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revolutionaries to replace a static rhythmic pulse, an unvarying cycle of chords that jazz artists have used as a basis for their improvisations. Since men such as Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie first pointed the way in the mid 1940s

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new musicians have also been moving away from these now stale devices toward a fresh concept of group as opposed to individual improvisation. The reasons for this shift are, as I have said, both musical and social. I can't really undertake

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here to provide a detailed explanation for it, but for the moment, it will suffice to say that collective improvisation symbolizes, among other things, the recognition by musicians that their art is not an affair of individual geniuses, but

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rather the expression of an entire people, the black people in America. In any event that the subordination of the individual to the group has been an important element in the work of John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor and their

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numerous followers is no longer seriously disputable. At this point, I'd like to introduce an instance of group improvisation to my mind, the most successful and the most exciting as well. It's the latest John Coltrane album called ascension, in which

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Coltrane associates himself with many of the second rank leaders of the jazz revolution, Archie, Shep, Marion, brown, Pharaoh, Saunders, Johannes, jakai and others. The entire album, of course, is too long to play. It really is one piece which

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occupies both sides of the album. And since we can't play at all, we'll have to content ourselves with merely a portion. I'd like to play the opening statement, which is a group improvisation, the solo of John Coltrane. Then skip to what I

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consider one of the most exciting solos after Coltrane's Pharaoh Saunders. And then to conclude with the solo of Marion brown on alto. The first two are on tenor saxophone, the second two on alto. There are no tracks as such on this record, so

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therefore there's a certain amount of hunting and pecking involved in finding exactly the part I want to play. I hope you'll be patient with me. One other thing, I've had some experience in lecturing on jazz to white audiences, and I

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noticed that usually people are too inhibited to move or to respond to the music. This is a mistaken approach. Music is meant to be experienced on all levels, and I have difficulty sitting still doing it. So if you do too I hope You'll give

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vent to your feelings. So much for collective improvization Frank Kofsky: So much for getting these records back in their jackets too, a second and related unity underlying new

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black music, a name bestowed by poet, playwright critical Leroy Jones, who himself functions as an unofficial spokesman for the musicians, is the rejection of Western musical conventions, such a rejection, as I've suggested, possesses obvious

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social implications above and beyond the artistic ones. In point of fact, it mirrors the larger decision of the Negro ghetto to turn its back on an exploitative and inhumane white American society. Thus, tenor saxophonist Coltrane draws on

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the non white world, especially Africa and India for inspiration, his compositions bear titles like Africa, to whom we dance India, while alto saxophonist Coleman explains to one interviewer, quote, I came up with a music that didn't

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require European laws applied to it, which Coleman considers, quote, a revolutionary breakthrough for jazz. Some other examples at this point, Unknown: two selections for Ornette Coleman to begin first

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from an ESP record of a concert at town hall. Donut. Frank Kofsky: This record. Coleman plays alto saxophone You It weld, Hey, I. Money Frank Kofsky: the full degree to which Ornette Coleman's playing

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is non european can't really be appreciated, I think, unless one takes a look at his work, or rather a Listen at his work on the two other instruments, which as of the moment he plays, I say as of the moment because one doesn't know what may be next.

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He also plays trumpet and violin. And while we won't have a chance to listen to this track at its full length, I think a few minutes of it should give you some idea of why he claims that he's invented in music which doesn't follow European

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laws. Unknown: You Linley, Brahms, The this Is David Izenzon, nice Jewish boy from Pittsburgh, and Charles Moffat on drums. You Hans

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Frank Kofsky: well, those smatterings should give you some notion of what Ornette Coleman is about, that's one kind of non european evolution of the new black music. There's another, hinted more direct influence. And I want next to look at an

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album by John Coltrane called Africa Brahms, in which Coltrane portrays his idea of what Africa is saying to black people in this country, again, as is typical of the new black music, the tracks are very long, because the works of art are

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very profound, and we won't be able to listen To the whole thing, but enough to see what Coltrane is thinking about when He hears the word Africa. Unknown: Weldon is.

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Wherever, The I And Weldon In She everywhere. We Frank Kofsky: Oh, I put a satellite in orbit with all the

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energy that Coltrane develops here and on Ascension. That's another characteristic of the new black music energy. If the non white world abroad, then has been influential in shaping the new music. The same applies to the non white world,

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at home Watts and Harlem, the greatness in jazz pianist Cecil Tara told NAT Henze, occurs because it includes all the mores and folk ways of Negroes during the last 50 years. Despite outraged denunciations from white writers who argue

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that statements such as Taylor's are in a pejorative sense, racist, there's not much question that Taylor is correct. His remarks, moreover, illustrate a growing trend for jazz artists to draw on the ghetto environment for their

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material. It has often been remarked, for example, that the new jazz resembles human speech. This is certainly true, but it must be added that it is ghetto speech and not speech in some amorphous sense in general that one detects. Since I've

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mentioned Cecil Taylor, it seems only apropos to give you an example of his work, and it's a commentary on the recording industry and what is rightly called the jazz business, but Cecil Taylor has no record out that is newer than three years

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old. I think, am I right about that? Charles, this comes from 1962 or 1963 and it isn't even recorded under Cecil Taylor's name, because Cecil Taylor might not have sold enough records under his own name, so he had to have the sponsorship of Gil

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Evans, who is much better known for his collaboration with Miles Davies. Here, this record is really three tracks of Cecil Taylor and three tracks of John Carisi, recorded under the name of into the hot Gil Evans orchestra. And one doesn't know

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until one gets it home that it isn't Gil Evans at all. But these three, these two different aggregations, of course, one isn't any the worse off for having gotten Cecil Taylor, but it's too bad that the impulse didn't feel that he could sell

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his records under his own name. The Selection I'd like to play is called mixed, and you can read into that whatever connotation you want do. This is from the period when Cecil Taylor had Archie Shep

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with him on tenor saxophone. He Taylor plays Piano, Hey, We You Unknown: Oh, me COME Back. Baby Me Weldon, OH. Weldon,

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Frank Kofsky: Me, I don't know what you think, but my opinion is that there's something drastically wrong with a society that can pay Frank Santa $100,000 a week, whatever it is a year, and Kees Cecil Taylor unemployed.

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Taylor points out that jazz is indebted to the mores and folk ways of the ghetto. Nowhere is this indebtedness of the jazz revolution to the vocal patterns of the ghetto more manifest than in the huge rock of sounds that emerge from the tenor saxophone

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of Archie Shep a student, and as you've seen, a one time employee of Cecil Taylor, before branching out with his own quartet, Shep, who describes himself as, quote, an Anti Fascist artist, also typifies the social radicalism inherent

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in the new black music. He has scandalized the white jazz establishment, comprised of conservative white recording company executives, editors, publishers, promoters, nightclub owners and critics with poetic declarations that link jazz

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black nationalism of the Malcolm X stripe and revolutions of national liberation in the underdeveloped world, jazz, he maintains, is quote, one of the most meaningful social esthetic contributions to America. It is anti war. It is opposed to

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Vietnam. It is for a revolutionary Cuba. It is for the liberation of all people. Why is that so? Because jazz is a music itself born out of oppression, born out of the enslavement of my people.

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Unknown: A song is not being seen tomb, perhaps bird, whistled, white in America, a America, listen, We play, but we aren't always dumb. We are married.

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Attempt in empathy is on the podium of the Autobahn Philadelphia, 1945, Malcolm, my People, dear God. Malcolm. I Oh,

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Weldon, Frank Kofsky: Oh, that, of course, was a. Archie Sheps column, composition, Memorial.