''The African Game'' is a live album by George Russell released on the

Blue Note In jazz and blues, a blue note is a note that—for expressive purposes—is sung or played at a slightly different pitch from standard. Typically the alteration is between a quartertone and a semitone, but this varies depending on the musical c ...

label in 1984, featuring performances by Russell with his Living Time Orchestra recorded in 1983 in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

. The

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...

review by Richard S. Ginell awarded the album 3 stars and states "''The African Game'' is a major statement, a highly eclectic, nine-part, 45-minute suite for augmented big band that attempts to depict no less than the evolution of the species from the beginning of time to the present from an African perspective. Well, yes, this theme has been taken on by many an ambitious artist in every field, but Russell's work is remarkably successful because it tries to embrace a massive world of sound in open, colorful, young-thinking terms, with degrees of timbral unity and emotion to keep the idioms from flying out of control".Ginell, R. S.

Allmusic Review AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

accessed 12 November 2009.

Track listing

:''All compositions by George Russell'' # "Event I: Organic Life on Earth Begins" - 6:38 # "Event II: The Paleolithic Game" - 4:32 # "Event III: Consciousness" - 2:22 # "Event IV: The Survival Game" - 7:45 # "Event V: The Human Sensing of Unity with Nature" - 0:50 # "Event VI: African Empires" - 8:23 # "Event VII: Cartesian Man" - 3:28 # "Event VIII: The Mega-Minimalist Age" - 4:04 # "Event IX: The Future?" - 7:18 :* Recorded live at Emmanuel Church, Boston, Massachusetts, June 18, 1983.

Personnel

* George Russell - conductor, arranger * Marc Rossi,

Bruce Barth Bruce David Barth (born September 7, 1958) is a jazz pianist, composer, and producer. Early life Barth was born in Pasadena, California, on September 7, 1958. He started to play the piano around the age of five. He had private jazz lessons wit ...

- keyboards * George Garzone -

tenor saxophone The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor and the alto are the two most commonly used saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B (while ...

, soprano saxophone * Gary Joynes - tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, flute * Dave Mann - alto saxophone, soprano saxophone, flute * Janis Steprans - alto saxophone, soprano saxophone, flute * Brad Jones - baritone saxophone, bass clarinet, flute * Mike Peipman, Chris Passin, Roy Okutani, Mark Harvey -

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

* Peter Cirelli, Chip Kaner -

trombone The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate ...

* Jeff Marsanskas - bass trombone * Marshall Sealy -

french horn The French horn (since the 1930s known simply as the horn in professional music circles) is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B (technically a variety of German horn) is the horn most ...

* Mark White -

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...

* Bob Nieske -

acoustic bass The acoustic bass guitar (sometimes shortened to acoustic bass or initialized ABG) is a bass instrument with a hollow wooden body similar to, though usually larger than a steel-string acoustic guitar. Like the traditional electric bass guitar ...

* Bill Urmson - fender bass *

Keith Copeland Keith Copeland (born in New York City on April 18, 1946, died in Germany on February 14, 2015) was a jazz drummer and music educator. Career His father, Ray Copeland, was a jazz trumpeter, and he learned by watching him, but he decided to play d ...

- drums * Dave Hagedorn -

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...

* Olu Bata: Joe Galeota, Lazaro Perez, Kuto Perez, Amaro Laria, Enrique Cardenas -

African drums Sub-Saharan African music is characterised by a "strong rhythmic interest" that exhibits common characteristics in all regions of this vast territory, so that Arthur Morris Jones (1889–1980) has described the many local approaches as consti ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:African Game, The George Russell (composer) live albums 1984 live albums Blue Note Records live albums