BST 84304

Larry Young - Heaven on Earth

Released - 1969

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, February 9, 1968
Byard Lancaster, alto sax, flute #1,2,4-6; Herbert Morgan, tenor sax #1,2,4,5; Larry Young, organ; George Benson, guitar #1,2,4-6; Eddie Gladden, drums; Althea Young, vocals #6.

2037 tk.1 Call Me
2038 tk.3 The Infant
2039 tk.6 The Cradle
2040 tk.10 Heaven On Earth
2041 tk.11 The Hereafter
2042 tk.12 My Funny Valentine

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
The Infant	Larry Young	February 9 1968
The Cradle	Larry Young	February 9 1968
The Hereafter	Larry Young	February 9 1968
Side Two
Heaven on Earth	Larry Young	February 9 1968
Call Me	Tony Hatch	February 9 1968
My Funny Valentine	Lorenz Hart, Richard Rodgers	February 9 1968

Liner Notes

THIS ALBUM reflects the continuing evolution of Larry Young—the music being the man. "All of the music here," Young told me, "is by way of tribute to what I've learned — the enlightenment I have experienced—from Elijah Muhammad. I would call it 'peaceful strength, the ability to communicate with other people regardless of race. You see, growing up, I met a lot of people who influenced me through the teachings of The Messenger, and for the past four years, I've been a member of a mosque. Islam has given me a broader scope of understanding and, through my music, a broader scope of expression. It's made my music more earthy. I always wanted to play music that has life in it, and I think I've been able to do that especially in this album.

"I want to emphasize," Young continued, "that contrary to some of the inaccuracies written about Islam and The Messenger, the effect of the teachings has to have been to produce a kind of beautiful strength. In my case, in this music. Let me go back in time. When I started out as a musician, I wanted to grow, and I was influenced by many different musicians—John Coltrane and Cecil Taylor, among them. I was becoming an artist, or was trying to. But I also came to realize that I had to do more. The new music was challenging to me as an artist, but I wanted to communicate widely too. I wanted to play for the people on the street; I wanted my music to relate to the people on the street."

THE INFANT, Young declares, is an illustration of what he calls "going back to the roots," The song, he says, "tells of the strength of life in our surroundings, in the streets, and it also says something else. I've been able to see through the years how the general level of street knowledge has risen, From infancy, so to speak, to the situation now when it's possible to communication with the people on the street on ail levels — intellectually and spiritually. Ail of that is in THE INFANT."

THE CRADLE is also about evolution. "It's about man being born, growing, learning to communicate with other men. Part of the feeling in that song consists of my understanding of what I've seen Miles Davis express in his music —peace, strength, maturity." Those same qualities suffuse THE HEREAFTER. There is in both a serious joy in the playing, in the collective act of creation, that makes these compositions, and the rest of the album, reverberate in the mind.

The idea of HEAVEN ON EARTH, Larry recalls, came from the title of an article he was reading in Muhammad Speaks, the national newspaper published weekly by Muhammads' Mosque No. 2 in Chicago. "That title," Young continued, "led me to think of those different moments in which a man can peacefully communicate with his surroundings. It's at those moments that you know what it is to be a man — to be able to express yourself without any unnecessary fears and thereby to be in real contact with everything that's around you. And then — this is all part of the formation of this composition—in 1968, I went to the annual Savior's Day Convention in Chicago and saw The Messenger in person for the first time. I was able to feel what he was speaking about, to understand about HEAVEN ON EARTH. One other thing. This song, along with THE INFANT, is particularly concerned with that getting at the roots I was talking about— with speaking to the people on the street."

CALL ME, one of the two songs in the album not written by Larry Young, is a piece he says people have often requested when he's playing. "It speaks for itself," Young said. ' 'It's about offering aid to anyone having a problem. And that too is what live learned from The Messenger. The universality of the call for aid, and of the call in response. You see, that's something else that isn't always understood about The Messenger. He's teaching universals."

MY FUNNY VALENTINE, Young says, "is another song I've liked. And in its way, it too expresses universal feelings. It has peaceful strength. It says music is beautiful." The vocalist is Althea Young, Larry Young's wife. "She has a strong under. standing," Young emphasizes, "of what she wants to do. And a very warm quality. 'Althea' means 'the healer: And that's what she has—a soothing quality."

I asked Young about the other musicians because they, like Althea Young, seemed so natural a part of Larry Young's overall conception in this album "I met Byard Lancaster," he said, "through Sunny Murray and Pharaoh Sanders. He is, as you know, part of the new music, but my thing is to bridge the gap between the new and the older roots. I feel like I've done it here. Both parts together can be very powerful. Herbert Morgan, who grew up in Newark as I have, has been like a big brother to me. I remember when I was about thirteen and trying to stabilize my energies so that they could be used constructively, he helped me spiritually and musically. He embraced Islam before I did.

"As for Eddie Gladden," Young continued, "he and I went to school together in Newark. There's a beautiful spiritual quality in his music. And George Benson, there's a man deeply rooted in his Feelings. We dug each other musically from the first time we met, and it was a pleasure to have him on this session."

For this listener, HEAVEN ON EARTH is an important watershed in the evolution of Larry Young's music. The album is characterized by a maturity, with no loss of fire, that should expand his audience considerably. Listening to it again, I remember what Young said of Herbert Morgan: "He never left Newark much. He stayed here and grew." It's a description that also applies to Larry Young. I think both are about to do o lot of traveling.

—NAT HENTOFF