Phil Ranelin
The Time Is Now !

I am unable to review this record.

Because it is damn difficult. 

Do you know who Phil Ranelin is? a) he’s a trombonist b) he’s avant-garde in its raw state. What does Ranelin do in the '70s? He takes off to New York, an artistic melting pot brimming with terrifying ideas. And here he establishes the collective known as "The Tribe." And then he records this monster. Year 1974. 

Why is this record so difficult?

Because it combines a terrifying openness to free form and congests it with insane rhythmic sections. It stuffs it with challenging, long, and terrifying melodies. Try it to believe it. It starts with the title track, almost fourteen minutes where a nervous countertime melody transforms, and shatters, relentlessly from one thing to another, where the piano is incessantly paranoid and where the trombone melody is just frightening, opening the mind to dark (or) scenarios, in times full of change, of old hatred crashing on entire masses, in the United States then there's "laughter," ask Nixon. And then? Then comes the time to dive into the calm hard-bop tide of "Of Times Gone By", these titles that derive from the social commitment to the black cause, or perhaps just from a profound melancholy, drive me crazy, like Ranelin’s trombone phrasing makes me lose it, perfect, warm, and terrifyingly on point, the groove on which the melody is set is something more, it foretells what is to come, rhythms like this you can only dream of, and also the moment when the alto sax goes crazy, and with it the entire rhythmic setup, is to make you bang your head against the wall, and if we also want to talk about the bass "solo" part, we might as well bow our heads. And speaking of the bass? The opening of "Black Destiny" is something more, it grabs you in the stomach, the bass is the master of the house, the piece is nervous and the percussion insistent. Ah, and you’re telling me that a Les Claypool never heard in his fingers and ears the riff of "He The One We All Knew, Pt.1"? Don’t kid about. 

So. Phil Ranelin. A composer as thick as a reinforced concrete wall, a musician with balls like blocks of granite. In short, a palace of indecent power. Why isn't he as famous as his associates? Maybe because he was "late" on the times (Coleman was putting out in '61, etc., etc.)? Maybe. Nothing takes away this gentleman's artistic importance.

Modern notions? Who remembers him in the mainstream (or less-mainstream) world? First of all, the Red Hot Chili Peppers who invited him to play on their debut album (not fools, first they snatch Cliff Martinez, who knows a certain Captain, and then Ranelin), and later John McEntire, drummer of Tortoise, who dusts off this jewel and the subsequent "Vibes From The Tribe", which should make drummers and four-stringers' ears perk up.

Call them fools.