Sunshine Road and Sweet Earth Flying: Two Marion Brown Gems

There is so much great music on the Web that exemplifies Better Blackness. I could spend years re-posting it and completely disregard all other forms of expression. So I try to refrain from sharing as much as I would like. However, there are some instances when it seems downright negligent not to share outstanding work that is deserving of much wider appreciation. This is the case with lots of music by the late Marion Brown.  To keep him from being almost totally forgotten, here are two of his finest creations, “Sunshine Road” and “Sweet Earth Flying”, both from the 1970s — when there was more room for “creative music” within the jazz idiom and everything didn’t have to sound like a branch of Ellingtonia or vapid New Age. Alas, we can be thankful these recordings exist and that generous souls have made them available for our listening pleasure and edification (“Sweet Earth Flying” and the album November Cotton Flower, for example, take their inspiration from Jean Toomer’s genre-bending Cane).