Black Woman, Sonny Sharrock (8/10)

Just read this absolutely fantastic essay by Juliana Huxtable called "Praise Poem for Linda" which was published in the 2022 anthology "This Woman's Work: Essays on Music" edited by Kim Gordon and Sinead Gleeson. The essay was in praise of this 1969 free jazz album by Sonny and Linda Sharrock with lots of excellent theoretical moves made about noise and Blackness and language. Fav excerpt from the essay:

At work in what I'm proposing here is a communicative noise, a noise that emanates from encounters in which speech is both foreign (unintelligble) and sovereign...where noise, which frames the outbursts that reconcile or recompense audibly for the multiple denials that frame the strictured life of the disposed. Noise becomes an opportunity to literally break, but break as a form of recognition. (52)

Listened to the album and it is excellent. Just five songs in 31 minutes so not difficult at all. And I think Huxtable articulates so clearly and beautifully what is so epic about it. Would recommend both the essay and the album (I made a PDF so comment if u want). Fav tracks: Bialero, Blind Willie, Portrait of Linda in Three Colors, All Black



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