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Press Snippets:
“Last Exit Angel”, pure gold by any standard………incredibly inventive and new, each of the eight songs has enough singular depth to reveal itself in layers over multiple listens with a magic not often achieved by any other music.----Stephen George, LEO
Martin Kasden Jr., of Louisville Music News says: "Imagine a meeting of Charles Mingus, Sun-Ra, and Carla Bley, if you can stretch your minds this far...."
Leo Weekly says: "They are open, wierd, and creative with their instruments: it's a carnival of sound that mixes Sun Ra and Charles Mingus to something Zappa would have done."
Liberation Prophecy has been described by acclaimed pianist and composer Chuck Marohnic as... "Some of the freshest music I've heard in years. The writing and playing is intelligent, humorous, and thought provoking."
And Harry Pickens, empowering activist, educator and pianist with countless jazz greats including, Kenny Garrett, Robert Hurst, Dizzy Gillespie, and Freddie Hubbard says... "Liberation Prophecy is a powerful journey through countell moods, textures, dimensions, and possibilities. The groups' considerable viruosity takes a back seat to pure expression---at times raw, at times haunting, at times melancholy, and at times jubilant---but always real."
Five Important Questions with Liberation Prophecy
By Stephen George of LEO Magazine
Reviews:
Aquarian Online
Liberation Prophecy
Last Exit Angel
Basement Front
Well, this is certainly one of the best jazz records I’ve heard in a while. Combining elements of free jazz, groove-rock, Frank Zappa’s orchestral work and Sun Ra, Liberation Prophecy create a constantly engaging listen with their latest album Last Exit Angel. The musicianship of the 10-piece is excellent throughout, led by leader Jacob Duncan, who plays some great solos on alto sax, flute and clarinet. Right as the first song “Armed Ant War” starts playing, you can hear the immense Frank Zappa influence. The horn parts sound like they are right out of Roxy & Elsewhere. This influence is what sets them apart from straight jazz. The horn parts get funky, they can certainly keep a groove going with their phenomenal rhythm section, and the music itself can get quite psychedelic. I have written on my page of notes, “freaky-ass psychedelic jazz” as one of my first impressions. The album fares even greater due to the smooth, crisp female vocals of Amber Estes and exmember Norah Jones, who guests on “Lonely Lament.” In A Word: Surprising Grade: A —by Chris Murino
Music publicists tend to extrapolate when they characterize a band for critics. The press release that came with this album described the band as a “genre-confounding nine piece band from Louisville with influences as diverse as Sun Ra, Coltrane and Frank Zappa.” Now come on – what old fart music professional like me wouldn’t be intrigued by such a description?
Surprisingly, the press release for the new Liberation Prophecy album, Last Exit Angel, is pretty on target about the band, which does borrow heavily from avant-garde jazz, the Mothers of Invention, and mixes it with a little free-spirited R&B. And the results are more than gratifying.
Liberation Prophecy is probably best known as the group where multi-Grammy winner Norah Jones had her humble beginnings. On Last Exit Angel, Jones enthusiastically contributes an extraordinary bit of soulful balladry on the third track, “Lonely Lament”. The rest of the album swings wildly with horn sections that sound like they’re following arrangements from a tipsy Ornette Coleman on “Armed Ant War” to a Latin-oriented sound a la Tito Puente, cast against a carnival backdrop in the instrumental bridge in “Passage” to wondrously beatific vocal wizardry provided by Amber Estes on “Strange New Figurine”, “Dreams”, and the title track, with a spoken word intro provided by Jacob Duncan doing a great Zappa impression. It’s all gloriously mad – a number of hits of musical acid immediately followed by sips of fine, rare wine.
The patient leading this asylum is Jacob Duncan, playing alto sax, flute, clarinet, and toy piano. Duncan’s arrangements are playfully tongue-in-cheek at times, but when he gets serious, there is some extremely intense work to be found here. The horn section is completed by tenor saxman Aaron Kinman, Chris Fortner’s trombone, and Josh Toppass on baritone sax. They are ably supported by the rhythm provided by Jason Tiemann on drums and percussion, Todd Hildreth’s piano, Hammond B-3, and occasional accordion work, Sonny Stephens on double bass and electric bass, and Craig Wagner’s guitars. They all make this complex blend of styles sound easy to pull off. That the album works so well is a tribute to their musical chops.
Last Exit Angel accomplishes what few albums can anymore. It actually lives up to the distorted representations of the band's publicists and goes far beyond their effusive treatment. The album both entices and enchants, and even makes a cranky critic like me believe in the magic of original music again. --- Larry Sakin
Liberation Prophecy’s album, “Last Exit Angel” is a stunning mix of jazz and a sort of rock. This is a riveting mix of sounds like never before heard. This music is so intriguing you can’t help but listen. Their vibrant sound will make you an instant addict. This album is full of spectacular music; each song evokes different and varying emotions. I would recommend this to all jazz lovers. It is a beautiful new album that will make any collection complete. ---Beth Bowers
Courier-Journal Scene Review
Liberation Prophecy
Prophecy fulfilled
Indie jazz band finally has its dream debut
By Jeffrey Lee Puckett
jpuckett@courier-journal.com
Liberation Prophecy is not kind to critics. Oh, they're nice enough people
-- real sweethearts, actually -- but their music has been making writers
swerve wildly, causing massive pile-ups of wordplay that have left sentences
totaled nationwide.
Some of the better efforts include descriptions such as "dysfunctional samba," "gloriously mad" and "tipsy Ornette Coleman." Then there are the efforts to compare the band with a disparate collection of artists that rarely fails to include Charles Mingus, Carla Bley or Frank Zappa. Think about what might happen if those writers saw the band's practice space, which is decorated with posters of Hendrix and the Stones -- but no jazz musicians.
No one is right or wrong. Band leader Jacob Duncan isn't going to help clear up the confusion, especially for those who insist on categorizing Louisville's Liberation Prophecy as a jazz band.
Although it is. Mostly. Sort of.
"We're really more indie," Duncan says, although his version of indie can include anyone from underground rock band Pavement to the avant-garde's Sun Ra. "I'm not really part of the Jazz Age. I think a big part of jazz died in the 1970s and it turned more toward jazz education.
"My No. 1 goal, I think, is to play in Tom Waits' band."
Further attempts to nail down Liberation Prophecy's free-thinking, intuitive and yet sharply skilled approach to music will come hot and heavy in the coming weeks as the band promotes its debut album, "Last Exit Angel."
It's a high-profile release, especially for a city whose jazz scene has traditionally struggled for notoriety. On Aug. 28, the band will play a CD-release show in Greenwich Village's Blue Note, long considered the world's finest jazz club -- or at least most famous.
"Last Exit Angel" also raises the bar for guest appearances, with multiplatinum artist Norah Jones singing lead on the gorgeous "Lonely Lament." Her appearance isn't the result of a big budget; a pre-fame Jones was a member of the band for 18 months in the late 1990s, when Duncan lived in New York, and she is merely revisiting one of her favorite songs.
Still, the attention drawn by having Jones' name in the credits won't hurt a band that has already gained plenty of notice for its ability to appeal to a wide range of rock and jazz fans while bringing an accessibility to the avant-garde.
Ken Shapero, co-owner of Louisville's Jazz Factory, has been a fan for years. The band's weekend-long celebration of the album's release on Basement Front Records, after negotiations with ECM and Nonesuch, continues tonight at the club.
"They touch the part of me that likes to see what new directions music can go in," Shapero said. "That's really what I love about what they're doing, because Jacob hasn't constrained himself. There are elements of a lot of things that have come before, but it's creative in its own right."
A dream band
The nine-piece Liberation Prophecy represents much more than a career opportunity to the easygoing Duncan, a multi-instrumentalist with a specialty in alto saxophone.
This is his dream band, a collection of Louisville's finest, including Sonny Stephens (bass), Todd Hildreth (keyboards), Aaron Kinman (tenor sax), Craig Wagner (guitar), Jason Tiemann (drums), Chris Fortner (trombone), Josh Toppass (baritone sax) and Amber Estes (vocals).
"With Liberation Prophecy, the whole idea comes from believing that music has the responsibility to express the times, what's going on in the minds of people in our age group, the anxiety and the joy in everyday life," said Duncan, 30, who writes and arranges the music.
"We also deal with spirituality, politics, day-to-day emotions, idealism, romanticism -- things you don't hear jazz dealing with a lot these days. You know, music is a communal art form, and once you take the community out of it, it's no longer art."
Hildreth, who fronts a piano trio and an accordion band and is a mainstay in indie-rock band King Kong, finds even more room for growth in Liberation Prophecy.
"I'm always up for a band with a different approach, and in Liberation Prophecy the band delivers not only creatively but has the chops and knowledge, as well. Too often you get very educated players who lack the creativity or you get very creative guys who lack the discipline and follow-through. Liberation Prophecy has both."
A dream deferred
"Last Exit Angel" is, as they say, long-awaited.
Duncan began Liberation Prophecy a decade ago when a quartet version performed at the original Twice Told Coffee House. It was part of a multifaceted and frequently self-motivated music education that took Duncan to three states and Europe. He began playing sax at age 11 and quickly decided music would be his focus.
"Once you get involved in it, you can't get out," he said. "It's a true love, music."
Duncan fared less well with music instruction. He left Male High School as a disgruntled sophomore after scoring a scholarship to Michigan's acclaimed Interlochen Arts Academy. From there he went to the University of North Texas, which has a reknowned jazz program, and played lead alto in the school's famous One O'Clock Lab Band.
Duncan, disgruntled, left UNT after a year. He enrolled at the University of Louisville where he became -- wait for it -- disgruntled before returning to UNT for a bachelor's of arts in music and psychology.
"I finally realized it wasn't about the quality of the schools," he said. "It was me. I just didn't like going to school."
After graduating from UNT in 1998, Duncan busked around Europe for nearly a year before moving to New York. He resurrected Liberation Prophecy, which had never officially disbanded, with New York musicians and added Jones, whom he had met at UNT. Duncan said that the three years he spent in New York were a "total immersion in music," but stress, poverty and band conflicts eventually drove him home to raise a family.
Duncan, a social worker by day, settled in Germantown with his wife, Joanne, and their 18-month-old son, Rizzy. His younger brother, Daniel, lives next door and has his own uniquely skewed band, The Commonwealth, in which Duncan also performs.
Upon returning to Louisville, Duncan found a compatriot in vibraphonist Dick Sisto, whose long stint at the Old Seelbach Bar has been a mainstay of the scene.
"He is a jazz improvisor, and more importantly he embraces the same wider palette of jazz innovators that have influenced me," Sisto said of Duncan. "Liberation band is his thing, and it has many influences since he is open to the masters and the tradition and he draws from the music of his generation as well."
Stability finally allowed Liberation Prophecy to grow into its ultimate form and record, but the band is far from satisfied. Although it would be expensive and logistically challenging with nine people, a regional tour is Duncan's next goal. Then there's the stack of songs that didn't get recorded and the local clubs that haven't been played.
Ten years down the road, Liberation Prophecy is just getting started.
"A lot of people get into a rock band and then give up at 32 and just move on," Duncan said. "I've put too much into this relationship to get out of it … and I have a responsibility to the music. I've been given this passion, and if you don't move with the passion, what's the point?"
Sojourn
Music Review: Liberation Prophecy’s Last Exit Angel Written by Mike Cosper
Louisville’s jazz scene has long been one of the city’s treasures. With artists like Dick Sisto and Harry Pickens, whose resumes include work with Dizzy Gillespe and Miles Davis (amongst countless others), the small scene Louisville has is rich with talent and history, and one of the real gems to emerge in recent memory is the wild and virtuosic Liberation Prophecy.
The brainchild of Jacob Duncan, who composes much of the music and plays alto sax, flute, and clarinet, the band has had several incarnations over the years, including stints in Denton, Texas and New York City (with the then-undiscovered talents of Norah Jones). Recent years took Jacob back to his hometown here in Louisville, where he assembled an all-star cast of Louisville Jazz musicians. Jacob leads a horn section with Chris Fortner (trombone and trumpet), Aaron Kinman (tenor sax and clarinet), and Josh Toppass (baritone sax). Todd Hildreth and Craig Wagner of the Java Men hold down keys and guitars, respectively, and the rhythm section is made up of veterans Jason Tiemann (drums) and Sonny Stevens (bass). Rounding out the band is Amber Estes, whose powerful and beautiful voice is well suited to the genre jumping stylings of the band.
The band’s first album, Last Exit Angel, was released on August 8th. The album, like their live show, regularly takes a listener by surprise, with moments of inspired melodicism, uncontrolled cacophony, humor, and longing. “Armed Ant War” begins with tinkering at a toy piano and erupts in a march to war. Tiemann and Stevens drive the song ferociously, and the horns create an atmosphere of neuroticism and chaos. Hildreth’s solo on the piano is a real highlight. “Passage” is a prayer for God to show up and give hope, beginning with a Latin beat, slamming into a gypsy jazz refrain. Chris Fortner’s dueling solo with Craig Wagner is one of my favorite moments on the record, demonstrating why many believe Craig to be one of the best guitarists on the planet (listen also for Hildreth’s accordion). Other songs include “Lonely Lament”, featuring Norah Jones and a wonderful solo by Duncan; “Strange New Figurine”; “Last Exit Angel”, which highlights the skills of Estes and contains a great moment of beat-generation-inspired spoken word, and “Slush Pump”, which begins with what sounds like dying water fowl (actually just the sounds of dismantled horns) and dives into its muddy world of funk meets free jazz.
My favorite song on the record has to be the closer, “The Happiest Man.” I wonder who the happiest man is: is it Duncan, perpetually smiling and jovial, is it Stevens, whose happy groove drives the song, or is it Wagner, whose unbelievable skills and tastefulness paint a glowing and beautiful musical picture of joy against the singing backdrop of the rest of the band. Tiemann’s drums throb like a heartbeat, and the interplay that develops between all of the band members, never crowding, rising higher and higher, captures the imagination and carries the listener along.
Last Exit Angel features the artwork of Mickie Winters and is available at Ear XTacy and at the band’s live shows. With musical influences from Coltrane to Zappa to Mingus to Django Reinhardt, and with songs that bridge those styles with incredible fluidity, it is an album well worth your attention.
It’s not often I run across a band that has nine members but
Liberation Prophecy is one such group. From Louisville, Kentucky, this
nine-piece dusts off some Zappa records and confounds the mind and ear
with time signature shifts, free jazz forms, and eclectic psychedelia.
You find yourself following along anyway and almost wanting to jump into
the speakers and join the fray. Varied music like this would seem risky
if it wasn’t so damn infectious.
- J-Sin
The Liberation Prophecy is a nine-piece cataclysmic ensemble, led by Jacob Duncan, capable of astonishing power, beauty, inventiveness and precision, as well as the occasional flight of inspired anarchy. The music has elements of jazz, Frank Zappa, Randy Newman and Tom Waits, woodcut novelist Frans Masereel, and the fiction of Kerouac, Salinger, and Hubert Selby, Jr.
Check out the song, Passage, off Liberation
Prophecy's debut CD, Last Exit Angel. It is a beautiful
convergence of instruments and vocals that will have you up swaying your
hips.
Posted by jasin on July 27, 2006 08:43 AM | Permalink
Comments:
This band is amazingly creative. Its debut album made me feel like I was
a 19-year-old creative writer again--several lives ago. They coalesce creativity
and spiritual quest in amazing time signatures, getting at the heartbeat
of meaningful experience. If they avoid the constant pitfalls of musicians--addiction,
etc., in time they may be a band for the ages. Don't tell them but they
may be close to there now.
Posted by: Geoff | August
17, 2006 09:01 PM
Velocity
When the kids talk about the Louisville "scene," they're pretty much talking about indie rock. It doesn't have to be the stuff of slim jeans and Chuck Taylors, but it's usually independently produced and about guys with guitars. It's almost never a jazz ensemble that once included one of the most famous jazz singers around in its ranks.
Background
There are nine musicians in Liberation Prophecy. Jacob Duncan plays saxophone,
clarinet, flute and even a little toy piano. Todd Hildreth plays piano,
theremin and accordion. Jason Tiemann is the drummer. Craig Wagner plays
guitar and Amber Estes sings. Then there's Aaron Kinmen and Josh Toppass,
both of whom play sax. Chris Fortner is on trombone, and Sonny Stephens
plays bass.
But there's another name that used to be with the band: Norah Jones. The famous vocalist spent time in Liberation Prophecy during its time in both Texas (where Duncan went to college) and New York City. But the band was first born in the back room of a Louisville coffee house in 1995. More than a decade later, the band is back where it all began.
Sound
On the band's debut album, "Last Exit Angel," there is a very organic,
almost intuitive link between the songs. One piece flows easily into the next.
The piano, at times frigid, grows warm and sonorous when the moment calls for
it. The brass compositions are solid and never too demanding of the listener.
Estes may not have one of the most recognizable voices in modern jazz music,
she can carry every one of these tunes without breaking sweat. And Jones lends
her vocals to "Lonely Lament."
Outlook
The CD is selling well at Ear X-tacy and the band just got back from playing
the legendary Blue Note in New York City.
"That's a huge deal for anybody," Duncan said. "It's probably one of the top three jazz clubs in the world. The guy liked our music and gave us the gig."
