Marion Brown - Capricorn Moon Why Not? & With Burton Greene Quartet

2026
The rhythm team by Rashied Ali and Reggie Johnson (with former Sun Ra member Ronnie Boykins adding texture on "Capricorn Moon") establishes a solid foundation, complemented by Alan Shorter's sharp trumpet, while Benny Maupin's close expressions in monophonic form also support it. The fact that pianist Burt Green recorded an almost unnoticed ESP album (just a month later) with Brown as a sideman illustrates how fluid and negotiable musical activities were within this nascent community.

Although Rashied Ali played drums intermittently in this quartet, he was working with John Coltrane at the time of the recording and could not participate in this session. The music, balanced by Green's delightful dissonant clusters and melodic developments within the piano, grants Brown a broad range of interpretative possibilities. This spans from the mournful symphonic poem "Ballad II" to the fierce rebellion of "Taking It Out of the Ground," in which Brown's alto saxophone interacts with Frank Smith's unstable tenor sax, creating a knife-edge intensity.

Brown's second ESP album, "Why Not," suggests a transitional phase in his conceptual evolution. This shift toward moods that evoke or reveal emotion and programmatic details eventually leads to the highly regarded Southern trilogy of the 1970s: "Afternoon of a Georgia Faun," "Geechee Recollections," and "Sweet Earth Flying." Each of the four tracks on "Why Not" is distinct, portraying composer Brown through a storytelling method that weaves in references and allusions from the past through its characters and plots.

For instance, while Stanley Cowell's lengthy piano rhapsody and Brown's punchy alto give the piece changes, the theme of "La Sorella" is entirely borrowed from the French composer Charles Borel-Clair's piece of the same name, composed in 1905, which was originally arranged from Brazilian folk dance. "Fortunato" is an eloquent and poignant ballad of traditional thought, and the title may reference the unfortunate victim from Edgar Allan Poe's story, "The Cask of Amontillado."