This album is a re-issue on International Anthem Records of Ben LaMar Gay’s first album, which was a compilation from seven albums that LaMar Gay had recorded in seven years, but never actually issued. The eclectic music on this album foreshadows LaMar Gay’s later work on albums such as Certain Reveries or Open Arms To Open Us..
Ben LaMar Gay is a member of Chicago’s AACM and has recorded with many of Chicago’s key players, for example Mike Reed, Joshua Adams and Nicole Mitchell. He spent three years in Brazil and frequently returns there; the influence of Brazil’s music is apparent in this album.
Downtown Castles Can Never Block The Sun – IA11 Edition consists of twenty short tracks with bizarre titles such as Music for 18 Hairdressers, Braids and Fractals or Me, Jayve & The Big Bee. Each track focuses on a particular idea and, overall, the twenty tracks build up a comprehensive picture of LaMar Gay’s various influences and interests.
Many of the tracks feature vocals or spoken word, often over a Brazilian type funk rhythm, as on A Seasoning Called Primavera or Carousel. Uvas varies that pattern with a vocal track based on more Brazilian contemporary song.
Other tracks show the influence of minimalist music, but with a stronger rhythmic backing; Music for 18 Hairdressers, Braids and Fractals is clearly a tribute to Steve Reich, and has a repetitive groove with what seems like a saxophone sound in the background. Carousel and Super Science both have a similar groove based on Brazilian funk rhythms and Swim Swim has a more traditional Brazilian music feel with spoken word delivered over a melodic line from the South American cavaquinha Instrument. Other tracks draw on free jazz, for example Oh No, not again moves from a group vocal into short bursts of straightahead then free jazz before concluding with a repetitive unison passage from the horns over a fast rhythm. The excerpt from Lapsus which rounds off the album is taken from a more ambitious work for a large ensemble.
In live performance, such as the one I heard at Jazzfest Berlin in 2023, the genre-hopping by LaMar Gay’s group can come across as difficult and lacking in coherence. Here, however, presented in twenty short tracks, it definitely does make sense, and is an excellent introduction to Ben LaMar Gay’s eclectic approach.
