A new year coming up, the end of one era and the move into a new one. 1967. The year that will make history begin again, with some relevance to our lives. What we are. I mean I can feel it in the air, the vibrations are so strong now and when they are united it will be truly beautiful. Believe me. Believe yourselves. Believe in what you feel.
I mean there HAS been a change over the last year, a change for the better certainly, and maybe now, for the best. All you have to do is look around you to see what it’s done. Or walk outside and feel the vibrations of all the new turned-on people filling the air. The Grande Ballroom. THE FIFTH ESTATE. Mixed Media. And the PEOPLE moving into and through these places. The new Workshop. GUERRILLA. LEMAR. The MC-5. Thousands of teenyboppers. These things are all happening now, where a year ago all there was was rampant paranoia. The world moves with us, and tries to catch up. A new year, YES.
Some coming manifestations: On January 4, Wednesday, at 8:30 p.m. at the Artists’ Workshop, the second LEMAR meeting. On January 6, “The Underground Happens to Cranbrook,” at the Cranbrook Auditorium, 520 Lone Pine Road, Bloomfield Hills. Michigan: The Charles Moore Octet and readings by Jim Semark, Allen Van Newkirk, Art Rosch, this writer and others from the Artists’ Workshop. Friday, January 6th, 1967, 8:00 p.m. And later in January, in Ann Arbor, the Creative Arts Festival, with concerts by Andrew Hill and the Charles Moore Double Sextet featuring Stanley Cowell, plus the annual Ann Arbor Film Festival. Details on those happenings in the next column, but get ready for them now. Dance/ concerts every Friday and Saturday at the Grande Ballroom and if you haven’t made any of them yet you just don’t care. These things are all done for YOU, people. Because YOU are where it’s at.
Artifacts: The first issue of GUERRILLA will be ready a week after you read this, with 24 pages of kulchural news and flashes of the new consciousness. GUERRILLA will serve as the “kulchural supplement” to the Underground Press Syndicate and will have news, reviews, interviews, poetry and prose from the new literary and music centers in the US and abroad, including, in the first issue, an interview with altoist Marion Brown, a statement by Albert Ayler, a section from Joel Oppenheimer’s new play, sections from Michael McClure’s DARK BROWN (one of the greatest love poems ever), the famous essay on “revolutionary Art” by Andre Breton and Diego Rivera, reports from NY, San Francisco, Chicago, Paris, Warsaw and other places and record and book reviews. All this for 35 cents per issue, $3.50 for 12. You can subscribe by making out your check for $3.50 ($7.00 for a 24-issue sub) to the Artists’ Workshop Press, 4863 John Lodge, Detroit 48201. And you get free surprises with your subscriptions too!
WORK/4 will also be out by the time you read this, with a reprint of McClure’s POISONED WHEAT pamphlet, hundreds of poems from the poets of today, the Artists’ Workshop Active Anthology (with great stories by Bill Harris and Bill Hutton and poems from all the people here), cover by Grimshaw, and things you’ve never thought possible. All for $1.50 at the 5th Estate and Mixed Media Bookstores. Or by mail from the above address.
Records you should have: EVERYWHERE, the Roswell Rudd Unit, with Guiseppe Logan, Robin Kenyatta, Charlie Haden, Lewis Worrell, and Beaver Harris, on impulse; JOHN COLTRANE RETURNS TO THE VILLAGE VANGUARD, with Pharaoh Sanders (!!), Alice McLeod Coltrane, Jimmy Garrison, and Rashied Ali, on Impulse; also on that label, ARCHIE SHEPP IN SAN FRANCISCO, with Roswell Rudd, Beaver Harris, Lewis Worrell and Donald Garrett. On Galliant, a new label: THE PSYCHEDELIC SOUNDS OF MARION BROWN, featuring pianist Stanley Cowell (formerly with Charles Moore and the Detroit Contemporary 4), bassist Norris Jones and drummer Rashied Ali. Available from Pixie Records, 1619 Broadway, New York, NY, $3.00 cash. Another esoteric record label you have to write to: SATURN RECORDS, P.O. Box 7124 CHICAGO, ILL. 60607. For the last 10 years Saturn has released records by SUN RA & HIS SOLAR ARKESTRA, including these masterpieces: THE MAGIC CITY, WHEN ANGELS SPEAK OF LOVE (they say: SUN RA), OTHER PLANES OF THERE, and WHEN SUN COMES OUT.
ESP has just released 4 more important contemporary sides: THE CHARLES TYLER ENSEMBLE, featuring cellist Joel Freedman; THE SONNY MURRAY UNIT, featuring altoist Byard Lancaster; and the NOAH HOWARD ENSEMBLE, featuring trumpeter Ric Colbeck. A new Sonny Simmons record will be out soon and it is out of sight. You can get these at the 5th Estate Bookstore too, if you’re lucky.
One last word: the bookstore has just now received the complete line of Open Space/White Rabbit books from San Francisco, including-Jack Spicer’s last book, THE BOOK OF MAGAZINE VERSE, which everyone should have. Check it out.