Lasana Kazembe was a poet I met on the Poetry scene - probably at Afrika West. Afrika West was a black bookstore owned by Kwodjo Ababio. I first met Kwodjo when his store was located on the northside near the Wilson Redline el station. Walking through the neighborhood and came upon it. This was around 1993. He moved his store to the West side down the street from Bobby Wright Mental Health Center, across the street from Marshall High School, and around the corner from Ednas Soul Food. They would have weekly open mic poetry sets in the store. I was just starting to play out at jazz jam sessions and somehow started playing with poets at open mics. Lasana frequented the open mics at Afrika West. I dug his poetry - mostly black socially conscious political stuff, more analytical than most, and more critical than most, and i liked his delivery, his cadence, it always reminded me of Malcolm X.

I met Lawrence Jones (on congas) at the same place. And brother Nate Germany (not playing on this record but a great poet, painter, and visual artists) as well. Lawrence also plays on Evidence on Life on Other Planets, the first recording I made, in 1999. This record (Chicago) was probably recorded in 1998 or 1999. There was a couple of shows that i was blessed enough to have Avreeyal Ra playing drums with us. The group was evolving. I had started with a trio in like 96 and added Nicole in like 97 and maybe Glenda in like 98 and so on and so on. Darius Savage was a new young bass player on the scene at the Velvet. As the group got bigger, more people needed to solo, and songs got longer. So these two gigs that resulted in the recordings Chicago and Space Garden Mission and Remote Depossession and one other joint, might have been a week apart. The night Space Garden Mission was recorded, somebody was asking about the set list and I said we was just gon play Space Garden Mission for the whole 1st set. The sets usually be 45 min to an hour. We was stretching out like that.

So this night was a similar kind of thing. I’d invited Lasana to do something with us over this yet untitled song with a slick foreboding horn line on the saxes countered by a funky melody on the flute and Glendas vocals, upheld by tow contrasting bass lines, one a slow plodding over the 7/4 time signature the other playing a funky double timed 10 beat phrase that repeats like 2 and 7 tenths times. Avreeyal’s playing in the double time swinging hard on the ride and dropping these funky bombs on the snare and bass and crash accenting the seven.


Jeff Parker
I had admired Jeff Parker since the first time i saw him playing at a New Horizons Concert probably close to like 1992. He was killing it. Playing so hard he broke a string and cut a finger, or fingers. The musical intensity was face plastering as it was with Ernest Dawkins, Ahmeen Muhammed and Steve Berry but then you had the Jeff Parker shredding the guitar till strings brake and blood drips. He was playing more like Sonny Sharrock than Wes Montgomery at the time. Anyway, i had met him at some point through Josh and we never played together. I would ask him sometimes but he was always too busy and never available.

Then this night i get to the gig and he’s there asking me where to set up and I’m like “What? “I didn’t ask you play tonight” and he’s like “Yes You did” - and I’m like well shit maybe i did, told him where to set up, hand copied him a chart from somebody else's part, told him what we was gon do, and that was that. No rehearsal or nothing and he fit in perfectly. The whole thing was magic.