Search - Gil Scott-Heron :: Free Will

Musician in transition

Michael Stack | North Chelmsford, MA USA | 06/03/2005

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Often a favorite among fans, "Free Will" was Gil Scott-Heron's third album. Featuring a number of blues-influenced pieces mixed with a series of spoken word over flute/percussion pieces, the album has always felt somewhat uneven to me. Nonetheless, there's some great material here.



The band on the bluesy pieces is similar to the ensemble on "Pieces of a Man", with Scott-Heron backed largely by New York session guys, although without Ron Carter anchoring at bass, the music feels a lot weaker and drags a bit. On the spoken word pieces, he's accompanied by Brian Jackson on flute and the same pair of percussionists who were with him on "Small Talk at 125th & Lenox". The latter is designed to sound as though its been recorded live, with Scott-Heron introducing the material.



The blues material is largely pretty dark in mood, "The Get Out of the Ghetto Blues", an exposition of states in which people keep themselves down (cheating on welfare, drugs, etc.) perfectly illustrates this (and is probably the strongest song on the album), although the best on the record is probably "Speed Kills", a clear pointer to the coming "Winter in America", with its stripped down arrangement and dual vocal.



The spoken word material is of mixed quality and subject, is largely more paranoid than the material on "Small Talk..." and tends not to be quite as good-- "Billy Green is Dead" is the exception to this, what a fantastic piece, full of the sort of commentary that Scott-Heron excels at: "is that familiar anybody? Check what's inside your head, 'cause it never seems to matter when its Billy Green whose dead".



The remaster adds a pile of alternate takes, none of which are particularly essential. But the sound is superb on this one.



Check out Scott-Heron's other material first (either of the other Flying Dutchman albums-- "Pieces of a Man" for songs and "Small Talk on 125th & Lenox" for spoken word, would serve), and if you like it, come back to this one, there's some great stuff on here, but its overshadowed by Scott-Heron's other work."