CONJURE / MUSIC FOR THE TEXTS OF ISHMAEL REED

COMPOSITIONS WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY TAJ MAHAL, ALLEN TOUSSAINT, DAVID MURRAY, STEVE SWALLOW, CARLA BLEY, LESTER BOWIE, KIP HANRAHAN, CARMAN MOORE, OLU DARA, JAMAALADEEN TACUMA, PUNTILLA, MILTON CARDONA, KENNY KIRKLAND, EJAYE TRACEY, DON JAY, JEAN-PAUL BOURELLY, BILLY HART, FRISNER AUGUSTIN, OLUFEMI CLAUDETTE MITCHELL, ROBERT JASON, MOLLY FARLEY, BRENDA NORTON, ELYSEE PYRONNEAU, ANDY GONZALEZ, PETER SCHERER, SAL CUEVAS, ARTO LINDSAY

Produced by Kip Hanrahan
recorded August/September 1983
released March 1985
AMCL 1006



"This is spooky, richly allusive and liberating... Conjure is a luminous and unified ..."
-Francis Davis, Philadelphia Inquirer

"One of the year's best records (1985) ... To hear Taj Mahal, David Murray, and Allen Toussaint playing not alongside, but with one another is really something... Hail Ishmael Reed, whose pan Afro-American modernism was the occasion for these miracles."
-Village Voice

"One of the year's ten best records (1985) Conjure creates an exquisite tension between word and sound, accentuates the rhythms of both and intensifies the perceptions contained in each. It's immediately enjoyable, yet rich and challenging ... funky jazz, blues, R&B stewpot that bubbles, gurgles and steams..."
-Derk Richardson, SF Bay Guardian

".music to conjure  with... This is poetry that sings, music that makes you think... Reed says that the universe is 'a spiraling big band in a pokl-dotted speakeasy / effusively generating new light every one-night stand'  Hanrahan and his friends embody that last line perfectly."
-Richard Harrington, Washington Post

"One of the years ten best records (1985) ...a stunning collaborative effort..."
-Blumenthal, Boston Phoenix

"an exceptionally rich album, one whose textures are as lush, brown and warm as ghostly lyric images of rural life."
-Fred Goodman, Musician

"a fine album... Funny, sad, rich in color and profound in spirit and thought..."
-Planas, Novus

"One of the 10 best records of 1985 ... one glorious gumbo... This is a damn fine record.
- Scott Becker, Option

"Ishmael Reed has long been one of the baddest wordsliners in the land!... Combine some motor booty lyrics with fine music from the likes of Allen Toussaint, Lester Bowie and Carla Bley and you have something special.  Hanrahan's Desire develops an Edge is still one of the most special international style records ever, and Conjure
compares well to that classic set." One of the top 10 albums of 1985
- Bob Blumenthal, Francis Davis, Don Snowden, Boston Phoenix

"One of the best records of 1985 ...a funky jazz, blues, R&B stewpot that bubbles, gurgles and steams.  Just to hear those musicians collaborate on the same tracks is exciting.  Reed roots the  songs in real life culture."
- Express

"Conjure is a cross-genre treasure to be savored."
-Don Snowden, Los Angeles

One of the Ten Best of The Decade (1980s)
- Jazziz

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