1. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
2. Save The Children
3. Lady Day And John Coltrane
4. Home Is Where The Hatred Is
5. When You Are Who You Are
6. I Think I’ll Call It Morning
7. Pieces Of A Man
8. A Sign Of The Ages
9. Or Down You Fall
10. The Needle’s Eye
11. The Prisoner
12. Chains
13. Peace
14. A Toast To The People
Gil Scott-Heron - Guitar, piano, vocals
Brian Jackson - Piano
Ron Carter - Bass
Bernard “Pretty” Purdie - Drums
Burt Jones - Electric guitar
Hubert Laws - Flute, sax
The August 9, 2010, edition of the New Yorker contained a profile
of Gil Scott-Heron by Alec Wilkinson which was entitled New York
Is Killing Me. The profile documents in bleak fashion the deterioration
of Scott-Heron from the effects of his addiction to crack cocaine.
However, at the beginning of the piece Wilkinson gives the reason
why Scott-Heron was such an influence on the music scene : “Gil Scott-Heron
is frequently called the godfather of rap which is an epithet he doesn’t
really care for. In 1968 when he was just 19, he wrote a satirical
spoken-word piece called The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.
It is a species of classic that sounds as subversive and intelligent
now as it did when it was new.”
Pieces Of A Man
was the debut studio album by Scott-Heron and was a fusion of jazz-funk and early rap that had an impact on subsequent dance and hip-hop music. It would be
hard to minimize the force that this artist had on the black music scene of the 1970s which, from his perspective, was a time of turbulence and
uncertainty. Much has been made of the album’s opening track, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, which is based on the tradition of oral poetry
and is filled with force and relevance. Tracks 2 to 11 complete the original release of Pieces Of A Man and feature Scott-Heron the singer, whose
voice was along the lines of a Marvin Gaye but with a sharper edge. They were compositions of either Scott-Heron or pianist Brian Jackson and while they
had a more conventional song structure, they were replete with social, moral, and political commentary.
Save The Children
for example, has a reflective approach regarding the need to be attentive to children’s needs and the adult’s responsibility to help them grow into
accountable individuals. Hubert Laws does some masterful flute work throughout the tune. As Gil moves on to Lady Day And John Coltrane, there is a
change of pace to accentuate the issue of the liberating quality of music, with pianist Jackson delivering a solo that propels the piece along. As if to
presage the crack addiction that dominated Scott-Heron’s later life, he offers the following lyric lines in Home Is Where The Hatred Is: “junkie
walking through the twilight/on my way home”. On the title track Pieces Of A Man the story is told from a child’s vantage point and addresses a
theme of disappointment, betrayal, and family dissolution.
Some of the later tracks of the original album demonstrate that Scott-Heron was more than just a socialized radical. On The Needle’ s Eye and The Prisoner which were written by Brian Jackson, there was a subtle shift to the plight of the individual and the ability to
cope within the system. In the case of the latter cut, which opens with a strong bowed bass from Ron Carter, it gives the tune a more jazz-like emphasis,
even though the story revolves around a man trapped by his place in society. The final three tracks on this reissue are a bonus and were recorded by
Scott-Heron’s college group called Black & Blues. The principal vocalist on the tracks was Victor Brown assisted by Scott-Heron on several choruses.
These compositions are true twelve-bar blues-based adventures but they still have the same strong, socially relevant messages that both Scott-Heron and
Jackson had been preaching throughout the album.
Gil Scott-Heron died on May 27, 2011 in St. Luke’s Hospital in New York, but the cause of his death has never been confirmed although it was known that he
had been HIV-positive for many years. Ben Sisario, writing in the New York Times of May 28, 2011, noted that: “[his] syncopated spoken style and
mordant critiques of politics, racism, and mass media…made him a notable voice of black protest culture of the 1970s.”
Pierre Giroux
CD Reviews
Flying Dutchman Jazz Classics 
