BST 84377

Reuben Wilson - Set Us Free

Released - 1971

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, July 23, 1971
Jerome Richardson, tenor, soprano sax; Eugene Bianco, harp; Reuben Wilson, organ; David Spinozza, guitar, electric sitar; Richard Davis, bass; Jimmy Johnson, drums; Ray Armando, congas; Gordon "Specs" Powell, percussion; Mildred Brown, Rosalyn Brown, Naomi Thomas, vocals #3,6,7; Jimmy Briggs, vocal arranger #3,6,7; Wade Marcus, arranger.

8166 Tom's Thumb
8167 Right On With This Mess
8168 Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)
8169 Sho-Nuff Mellow
8170 Set Us Free
8171 Mr. Big Stuff
8172 We're In Love

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Set Us Free	Eddie Harris	July 23 1971
We're in Love	Reuben Wilson	July 23 1971
Sho-Nuff Mellow	Reuben Wilson	July 23 1971
Mr. Big Stuff	Joseph Broussard, Carol Washington, Ralph Williams	July 23 1971
Side Two
Right on with This Mess	W. Marcus Bey	July 23 1971
Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)	Marvin Gaye	July 23 1971
Tom's Thumb	Reuben Wilson	July 23 1971

Liner Notes

...

Rare Groove CD Reissue Notes

Reuben Wilson recorded "We're in Love" for Set Us Free with no idea what the future would hold. When Premier looped up those now-ubiquitous Hammond B-3 licks, percussion flourishes, and backing vocals for Nas's "Memory Lane," the two tracks were indelibly linked.

What is most interesting about the use of "We're in Love" is how Premier effectively removed it from every other producer's radar in terms of sampling material. This isn't "Funky Drummer" or "Impeach the President" — songs with breaks so widespread and recognizable, they've almost become a sub-genre all their own. "Memory Lane" led off the b-side of a certified masterwork in Illmatic, one of the most revered productions in the 30-year history of hip-hop music. No way could anyone touch "We're in Love" at this point, nor should they want to.

"It's exciting, in its own way, that I could even be there at that particular time to lead the pack," says Wilson about how his original became part of a cornerstone of an entirely new culture. "Nas doing that was kind of a stamp of approval on what I was doing, and with the generation gap, being able to appeal to those who were also doing what he was doing, that was a knockout to me."

It is fitting terminology for the former boxer, who I first met in 2002 when Wilson was on the Masters of Groove tour with drummers Clyde Stubblefield and Bernard Purdie. While filming an interview at Wilson's hotel, he straight up told my cameraman and I how much he liked it funky. "That's where my head is," the organist declared, but that much we already knew.

Blue Note picked up two options on Wilson's contract before Set Us Free, his final release for the label, and a major departure from the smaller, more elementary soul combos on his previous dates. "Every organ group sounded, in a lot of ways, like the same thing," says the Oklahoma native when I spoke with him by phone about the album. "I was there [at Blue Note] with some really great organists, and we all sounded like sort of a melting pot."

Wilson couldn't actually read music at the time, but purposefully sought to do something different with this project. "On some of those songs we had as many as 23 pieces, which is really an orchestra," he explains, giving much credit to executive producer George Butler, who passed away on April 9, 2008 at the age of 76, and was the architect of Blue Note's reinvention during the rapidly changing musical landscape of the 1970s. "George came along and he was to jump out there in the water. That was wonderful to me."

And why the title, Set Us Free?

"Maybe it was setting us free from the regular jazz thing," Wilson suggests. "The idea that jazz, and organ groups in particular, had to sound a particular way. But the way I did it kind of set us free. "You follow that?"

— Ronnie Reese, 2008