Reviewing “The Black Ark” in an earlier post, I typecast Earl Cross as playing “post-bop” in a later trio performance, recalling a 1980 Third Eye Centre performance as having respected conventions. Recently revisiting that performance by “The Philadelphia Movement” (Cross, bassist Rashid Al Akbar and Jon Christensen substituting for intended drummer Muhammad Ali) shows the poverty of memory.
This trio's music was some distance from a “post-bop” catch-all. Post-Coleman-Cherry open structures were underpinned by significant forward propulsion from Christensen (as ever), with a brightness under-served on the night by the PA coping poorly with Cross’s horns, especially when he moved from trumpet to flugel or French horns.
The collective self-sustenance in this music, the continuing commitment despite the turning tide, are notable. A few years before this concert, Val Wilmer in “As serious as your life” placed a focus on those socio-economics, on these decisions, with Earl Cross as one of her examples.
Now, it is a concert from another age – several twists and turns from the economics of music today. Non-star musicians taking such opportunities as were available to play, without a well-known back catalogue, without a merch stall.
Cross, who died in 1987, remains barely a trace, Al Akbar not even that. Even in this age of aggregated digital documentation, Cross has only passing mention in Wikipedia, and a bare presence in Discogs and review sites for one album which documents another 1980 concert.
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