Though only ever released in Japan and in sore need of reissue (affordability not being among the virtues of an original copy), Green Line sits easily alongside the most progressive jazz albums of the early 70s, many of which featured the work of the quartet’s alumni—namely Sharrock’s uncredited appearance on ‘Yesternow’ for Miles Davis’ A Tribute to Jack Johnson, Vitous’ early fusion-defining tenure with Weather Report, and Marcus’ collaboration with Japanese jazz-rock outfit Jiro Inagaki and Soul Media…
Each musician a total master of their craft, and I’m only assuming that about the drummer who I don’t know much about, but paired with Sonny, Steve & Miroslav?
Clearly no slouch, and he sounds great. Free improvisational jazz yes, but this is what real free jazz is made of. Listening to each other, supporting one another’s freak outs, and playing all at once.
This is the shit that scares you in your dreams, but also has you wishing you could do it to, how can you be on this level?
Too many free jazzers think they could get away with it, the music on Green Line are masters at work.
As a side note, it was wonderful to hear Sonny Sharrock play some “normal” guitar in spots, he’s an awesome freak of nature. I had never heard him play standard guitar notes before this recording,
Truly stunning LP from four hungry young badasses in 1971. Miroslav Vitous, Sonny Sharrock, Steve Marcus and Daniel Humair are all heavyweight cats captured in their youthful prime here, not a weak moment to be found. They each just sound so great! Vitous really stands out with a ton of seriously sick bass viol action–what’s up with those simultaneous arco and pizzicato parts?!
He’s just exploding on the groove in “Melvin”, with Sharrock doing a perfect lean funky part, holding back to keep the groove simmering instead of blowing hard over it. Vitous’ solo in “Mr. Sheets at Night” is something else. It’s a gorgeous piece with a bristling spirit underlying the ballad surface. This album is a bit overlooked in Sonny Sharrock’s discography, probably because it was released as a co-billing for the quartet, alongside the fact it’s more of a straightahead jazz album than the legendary freakbombs he’d dropped in the preceding years in cahoots with Queen Linda.
His explosions on side B make for some seriously essential listening for any Sharrock-head. All four cuts are distinctive gems, but “The Echoes” is the one track that is crossing the line to 4.5 stars for me, with an epic blowout that tastes good down to the last gnarly drop. This is the real sound of jazz in 1971.
Noisy, early 70’s free jazz stuff; quite enjoyable, with some hallmarks of early 70’s fusion and funk-oriented stuff, but ultimately it’s more than just a vehicle for Sharrock, since for once he’s surrounded by players who can hang with him, not unlike Black Woman and Monkey-Pockie-Boo, though it feels a little nicer and less ferocious than those albums can get. But if anything it’s missing the ecstatic transcendence that those albums deliver at their finest.
But I’ll settle for the hard punch this often delivers, and I’m more than happy with the amount of Sonny Sharrock that it does put across, even if I think it would probably be fairer to co-credit the record to all four players equally. It’s a step up from the Herbie Mann albums with Sharrock for my tastes, though it calls them to mind at times, but it’s often got a hell of a kick – most notably the final blowout “The Echoes” – that Mann fans who think Sharrock is just nuts will not enjoy.
But those who can’t listen to the Mann records because of the elevator-y qualities that creep in may find this a little tame, except when Sharrock is soloing, though when Steve Marcus’s soprano has a layer of effects and sounds not unlike the violin played by ( who is that anyway) the record’s doing something special that Mann would never dream of. Solid, and I’ll definitely be giving this more spins before long – it may be better than my initial rating; I know I dig it.
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