Vinyl Vault Entry #11: Essential Free Jazz with Julius Hemphill's Dogon A.D.

According to David Mittleman, host of the all vinyl, free format radio show Observations of Deviance on KXCI, Dogon A.D. is an absolute essential for any free jazz lover. "It brilliantly combines the most forward looking avant-garde jazz with gut-bucket funk like no other album before or since." In this vinyl vault, David talks to us about Julius Hemphill's extraordinary band, the various re-releases, and the Dogon creation myth that inspired it all.

Album: Dogon A.D. (1972)
Artist: Julius Hemphill
Label: Mbari
Genres: Free Jazz, Funk, Great Black Music
Favorite song: “Dogon A.D.”
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Why did you choose this record? 
 
Dogon A.D. blew my mind when I first heard it circa 1994 and it remains a personal favorite in any genre. Absolutely essential to any Free Jazz collection. It brilliantly combines the most forward looking avant-garde jazz with gut-bucket funk like no other album before or since. It’s a great entry point to Free Jazz if you’re new to the music - simultaneously inside and far out.
 
Robert Palmer (Insect Trust), one of my best-loved music writers, wrote the liner notes for the 1977 reissue. Robert Palmer (not the UK singer-songwriter) liner notes are a sure sign that an album is interesting. A must for any serious music fan is the book “Blues & Chaos: The Music Writing of Robert Palmer (2009)” edited by Anthony DeCurtis. According to Palmer, Dogon A.D. is “an authentic underground classic, and reviewers in various publications have compared it to the finest works produced by improvising musicians during the past decade ... This LP contains some of the most gripping improvisational music to be recorded during the past ten years.”
 
Give us some background on this record. What does the album sound like?
 
Sax player Julius Hemphill self-released the album on his own Mbari record label in 1972. It was reissued with different cover art in 1977 by Arista/Freedom and then again in 2016 by International Phonograph. (The International Phonograph edition spreads the single album across 2-LPs and adds a bonus track, “The Hard Blues,” from the same session). Both Hemphill and trumpet player Baikida Carroll were part of the St. Louis jazz collective Black Artists Group.
 
One unique aspect of Hemphill’s band is the use of cello (by Abdul Wadud) instead of bass. Wadud is a master of the cello, an unusual instrument for jazz of any variety. His son is R&B/neo-soul musician Raheem DeVaughn.    
 
Philip Wilson is the drummer on this quartet set. An amazing musician whose effortless talent could fit with any type of group - be it the Free Jazz of the early Art Ensemble of Chicago or the psychedelic blues of Paul Butterfield. One of the premier Free Jazz drummers; he was sadly murdered in 1992.     
 
The album’s title was taken from the Dogon people of Mali, in West Africa. The Dogon are known for their cosmic oriented religious traditions, intricate mask dances, wooden sculpture, and cliff-side village architecture.
 
They have an intricate belief system that revolves around the star Sirius, which has a sister star, Sirius B, undetectable without special observing tools. Although it’s been part of the Dogon’s creation story for thousands of years, Sirius. B was only located by Western astronomers in 1862. According to the Dogon mythology, thousands of years ago, celestial creatures, Nommos from Sirius B., left vital knowledge on Earth.
 
Tangentially, Craig Leon (producer for Blondie, The Ramones and Suicide) issued an LP titled Nommos (1981), issued on John Fahey’s Tacoma label; then later on RVNG as Anthology of Interplanetary Folk Music Vol. 1: Nommos/Visiting (2014). Nommos, like Hemphill’s Dogon A.D., was inspired by the Dogon creation myth. Leon had visited an exhibition of Dogon sculpture and art at the Brooklyn Museum in 1973 which lit a creative spark.
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RIYL (Recommend If You Like): 
 
Ornette Coleman, Art Ensemble of Chicago, John Zorn, Don Cherry, John Coltrane
 
Is this a highly collectible record? 
 
Yes, the original 1972 version on Mbari is rare and rather expensive these days. It may not be the rarest or most expensive Free Jazz “Holy Grail,” but it’s definitely one of the best IMHO as far as the music goes.
 
The 1977 Arista/Freedom reissue was a modestly priced album for many years. Over the past few years prices for it have risen significantly. The 2016 2-LP version isn’t that cheap either these days.
 
Do you own other pressings of this same record? 
 
You betcha. The 2016 2-LP version probably sounds the best. I have all three versions (Mbari, Arista/Freedom and International Phonograph) plus the 2011 CD reissue. 
 
The bonus track on the 2-LP and CD versions, “The Hard Blues,” originally appeared on an Arista/Freedom Hemphill LP titled Coon Bid'ness (1975), another LP worth investigating. 
 
On Georgia Blue (1984) Hemphill and his JAH Band perform “Dogon II” and “The Hard Blues” live. The JAH Band features Nels Cline, who later went on to greater fame as a member of Wilco.

Where did you get it from?
 
I purchased the 1977 reissue circa 1994 at the Beastie Boys’ Grand Royal store in LA, CA. I purchased the 1972 original from Double Nickels Collective in Tempe, Arizona circa 2015. I got the CD & 2-LP reissues new when they were first issued.
 
Any specific memories of DJing this song? 
 
I’ve played it several times on Observations of Deviance, my radio show on 91.3 KXCI Tucson. It’s also part of “Avant-Garde Got Soul Too,” a mix I did for the Aquarium Drunkard music blog.
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