''Avant Slant'' (subtitled ''One Plus 1 = II?'') is an album by American

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

ensemble the John Benson Brooks Trio, released in September 1968 by

Decca Records Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis (Decca), Edward Lewis after his acquisition of a gramophone manufacturer, The Decca Gramophone Company. It set up an American subsidiary under the Decca name, which bec ...

. Produced by Decca A&R executive

Milt Gabler Milton Gabler (May 20, 1911 – July 20, 2001) was an American record producer, responsible for many innovations in the recording industry of the 20th century. These included being the first person to deal in record reissues, the first to sel ...

, it was pianist and bandleader John Benson Brooks' third and final released recording, arriving ten years after his previous record, the acclaimed '' Alabama Concerto'' (1958). The record is a

sound collage In music, montage (literally "putting together") or sound collage ("gluing together") is a technique where newly branded sound objects or Musical composition, compositions, including songs, are created from collage, also known as musique concrè ...

that draws from several primary sources, namely ''The Twelves''–a 1962 live performance by Brooks' ensemble in which they improvised within the

twelve-tone technique The twelve-tone technique—also known as dodecaphony, twelve-tone serialism, and (in British usage) twelve-note composition—is a method of musical composition. The technique is a means of ensuring that all 12 notes of the chromatic scale ...

–and ''D.J.-ology'', a

musique concrète Musique concrète (; ): " problem for any translator of an academic work in French is that the language is relatively abstract and theoretical compared to English; one might even say that the mode of thinking itself tends to be more schematic ...

tape that Brooks privately created which consisted of numerous

sound effect A sound effect (or audio effect) is an artificially created or enhanced sound, or sound process used to emphasize artistic or other content of films, television shows, live performance, animation, video games, music, or other media. In m ...

s, one-liners and excerpts of records and radio broadcasts. Gabler contributed additional

pop Pop or POP may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Pop music, a musical genre Artists * POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gang Parade * Pop! (British group), a UK pop group * Pop! featuring Angie Hart, an Australian band Album ...

songs to the final album, which he largely created himself. The record uses the Brooks trio's

dissonant In music, consonance and dissonance are categorizations of simultaneous or successive sounds. Within the Western tradition, some listeners associate consonance with sweetness, pleasantness, and acceptability, and dissonance with harshness, unple ...

live music as a backbone while cutting to

sampled Sample or samples may refer to: * Sample (graphics), an intersection of a color channel and a pixel * Sample (material), a specimen or small quantity of something * Sample (signal), a digital discrete sample of a continuous analog signal * Sample ...

audio and recordings of

poetry Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...

comedy Comedy is a genre of dramatic works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. Origins Comedy originated in ancient Greec ...

, spoken comments, speeches and

found sound Found objects are sometimes used in music, often to add unusual percussive elements to a work. Their use in such contexts is as old as music itself, as the original invention of musical instruments almost certainly developed from the sounds of nat ...

s. Themes of war, racism, identity and personal freedom underpin the record. On release, ''Avant Slant'' was a critical and commercial disappointment. Although reviews ranged from positive to negative, many expressed puzzlement at the record. Some critics and listeners who enjoyed Brooks' prior work in experimental jazz found that ''The Twelves'' material was devalued by the presence of the

pop culture Popular culture (also called pop culture or mass culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as popular art pop_art.html" ;"title="f. pop art">f. pop artor mass art, some ...

-centric ''D.J.-ology'' snippets. Despite this, the album has gone on to be credited as a prophetic release in the fields of sampling and

mashup Mashup may refer to: * Mashup (culture), the rearrangement of spliced parts of musical pieces as part of a subculture * Mashup (education), combining various forms of data and media by a teacher or student in an instructional setting * Mashup (mus ...

Background and recording

Prior to ''Avant Slant'',

John Benson Brooks John Benson Brooks (February 23, 1917, in Houlton, Maine – November 13, 1999, in New York City) was an American jazz pianist, songwriter, arranger, and composer. Career Brooks worked early in his career as an arranger for Randy Brooks, Les B ...

had spent many years working as a pianist and arranger. His only two previous albums were ''Folk Jazz USA'' (1956), part of a personal project to adapt

folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be ca ...

idioms into

modern jazz Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early to mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo (usually exceeding 200 bpm), complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerou ...

, and '' Alabama Concerto'' (1958), the hybrid of jazz, folk and contemporary composition that became his most critically acclaimed work. After 1958, the musician's music became more experimental and he largely disappeared from the public eye for many years. In 1962, Brooks' jazz trio (pianist Brooks, alto saxophonist

Don Heckman Don, don or DON and variants may refer to: Places *Don (river), a river in European Russia *Don River (disambiguation), several other rivers with the name *Don, Benin, a town in Benin *Don, Dang, a village and hill station in Dang district, Guja ...

and percussionist Howard Hart) were commissioned to write a piece to perform at the International Jazz Festival at

Howard University Howard University is a private, historically black, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" and accredited by the Mid ...

. The resulting performance, named ''The Twelves'', was the culmination of Brooks' experiments in improvising jazz in the twelve-tone serial and

chance Chance may refer to: Mathematics * In mathematics, likelihood of something (by way of the likelihood function or probability density function) * ''Chance'' (statistics magazine) Places * Chance, Kentucky, US * Chance, Maryland, US * Chanc ...

idioms. Heavily influenced by

Ornette Coleman Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman (March 9, 1930 – June 11, 2015) was an American jazz saxophonist, trumpeter, violinist, and composer. He is best known as a principal founder of the free jazz genre, a term derived from his 1960 album '' Free Ja ...

, it was ultimately the trio's only public show. The genesis of ''Avant Slant'' came when Brooks created a tape entitled ''D.J.-ology'', described by

John Clellon Holmes John Clellon Holmes (March 12, 1926 – March 30, 1988) was an American author, poet and professor, best known for his 1952 novel '' Go''. Considered the first "Beat" novel, ''Go'' depicted events in his life with his friends Jack Kerouac, Neal ...

as "a curious melange of air-shots, record excerpts,

s and one-liners that Brooks had put together, more or less experimentally". The tape also included other sounds which Brooks had recorded off disc jockey radio programs. Intended as a Christmas present for Heckman and composer George Russell, ''D.J.-ology'' exemplified Brooks' longtime interest in "the possibilities of using the

tape recorder An audio tape recorder, also known as a tape deck, tape player or tape machine or simply a tape recorder, is a sound recording and reproduction device that records and plays back sounds usually using magnetic tape for storage. In its present ...

as a musical instrument." He had already created works of

, including a late 1940s piece created with a

wire recorder Wire recording, also known as magnetic wire recording, was the first magnetic recording technology, an analog type of audio storage. It recorded sound signals on a thin steel wire using varying levels of magnetization. The first crude magne ...

to "capture moments that seemed like 'emblems' of favorite jazz recordings and stringing them together with environmental sounds", according to author Phil Ford. Brooks later studied with

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and Extended technique, non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one ...

and composed ''Bird Meets Cage'', which combined his passions for musique concrète and chance procedures by mixing clips of his and Heckman's

atonal Atonality in its broadest sense is music that lacks a tonal center, or key. ''Atonality'', in this sense, usually describes compositions written from about the early 20th-century to the present day, where a hierarchy of harmonies focusing on ...

jazz with excerpts from

electronic music Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music ...

albums. In 1966, Brooks conceived the idea of creating "

meta Meta most commonly refers to: * Meta (prefix), a common affix and word in English ( in Greek) * Meta Platforms, an American multinational technology conglomerate (formerly ''Facebook, Inc.'') Meta or META may also refer to: Businesses * Meta (ac ...

-music", or music as "a play of competing

-ism ''-ism'' () is a suffix in many English grammar, English words, originally derived from the Ancient Greek suffix ('), and reached English language, English through the Latin , and the French language, French . It is used to create abstract noun ...

s," which, according to Ford, led the composer "to the idea of embodying those -isms in audio clips and making an album out of them". This resulted in ''Avant Slant'', based in Brooks' improvised twelve-tone jazz system and the " pop-art musique concrète" of his "DJology". He had partly financial motivations, as he hoped to earn enough money to account for his mother's medical bills and to "contribute something to his

household economy Home economics, also called domestic science or family and consumer sciences (often shortened to FCS or FACS), is a subject concerning human development, personal and family finances, consumer issues, housing and interior design, nutrition and f ...

." The record was a collaboration between Brooks and producer

, who worked as an A&R executive at

. Brooks gave Gabler tapes of both ''The Twelves'' and ''D.J.-ology''. Gabler then created much of the album; he added some of his own recordings and, according to Ralph J. Gleason, "let them sit for months while he played with them" before finally arriving at the finished album. Ford credits Gabler for finding the majority of the records's samples, sequencing most of its parts, writing lyrics for five of its six original songs and conceiving the "quick lines and snatches of dialogue read by actors" that also appear. An early problem was managing the costs of

licensing A license (American English) or licence ( Commonwealth English) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another par ...

all the intended audio excerpts, which was sometimes averted by Gabler re-recording clips he was unwilling to pay for.

Composition

''Avant Slant'' is a

, described by Gabler as a "twelve tone collage", which uses excerpts of ''The Twelves'' and ''D.J.-ology'' tapes and Gabler's additions to create what Gleason calls "a kind of kaleidoscope sound montage of contemporary America knotted together by the improvisations of the jazz trio of Brooks and the songs of Gabler." Author

David Toop David Toop (born 5 May 1949) is an English musician, author, curator, and emeritus professor. From 2013 to 2021 he was professor of audio culture and improvisation at the London College of Communication. He was a regular contributor to British ...

describes it as a "disrupted, haphazard narrative" in which the "intense angularity" of the trio's live playing is "intercut with recordings of comedy routines,

, piano solos and songs performed by singers such as Judy Scott,

Lightnin' Hopkins Samuel John "Lightnin'" Hopkins (March 15, 1912 – January 30, 1982) was an American country blues singer, songwriter, guitarist and occasional pianist from Centerville, Texas. In 2010, ''Rolling Stone'' magazine ranked him No. 71 on its li ...

The Tarriers The Tarriers were an American vocal group, specializing in folk music and folk-flavored popular music. Named after the folk song " Drill, Ye Tarriers, Drill", the group had two hit songs during 1956-57: "Cindy, Oh Cindy" (with Vince Martin) ...

and Corrine." Burgess calls it an

experimental An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs whe ...

work and "collage of sound" that uses the trio's

music, non-musical sounds and "fragments of poetry, bits of

tunes, broadcasts, spoken comments and instrumental snatches". Ford describes it as "an assaultive mix of

jazz,

Tin Pan Alley Tin Pan Alley was a collection of History of music publishing, music publishers and songwriters in New York City that dominated the American popular music, popular music of the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Originally ...

songs, poems,

s, and non sequitur lines read by ham actors". The record has also been categorized as jazz and a

mixed-media In visual art, mixed media describes artwork in which more than one medium or material has been employed. Assemblages, collages, and sculpture are three common examples of art using different media. Materials used to create mixed media art inc ...

collage. The 1962 Brooks ensemble performance forms the spine of the album. The different source materials are often presented in a linear and consecutive manner without any layering. In Toop's description, the album's subject matter covers an array of late 1960s concerns, including "

spaceflight Spaceflight (or space flight) is an application of astronautics to fly objects, usually spacecraft, into or through outer space, either with or without humans on board. Most spaceflight is uncrewed and conducted mainly with spacecraft such ...

sexual liberation The sexual revolution, also known as the sexual liberation, was a social movement that challenged traditional codes of behavior related to sexuality and interpersonal relationships throughout the Western world from the late 1950s to the early 1 ...

, the

Vietnam war The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...

, racism and

civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' political freedom, freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and ...

, identity and personal freedom". He adds that these themes are accentuated by poems and speeches that "range from Herman Goering's ' guns and butter' speech justifying Nazi Germany's rearmament policy in 1936 to a brief excerpt from ''Black Dada Nihilismus'',

Amiri Baraka Amiri Baraka (born Everett Leroy Jones; October 7, 1934 – January 9, 2014), previously known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka, was an American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays, and music criticism. He was the author of numerous b ...

's violent verbal assault on white imperialist civilisation". Gleason highlights the use of poetry from

Lawrence Ferlinghetti Lawrence Monsanto Ferlinghetti (March 24, 1919 – February 22, 2021) was an American poet, painter, social activist, and co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers. An author of poetry, translations, fiction, theatre, art criticism, and ...

and

John Donne John Donne ( ; 1571 or 1572 – 31 March 1631) was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a recusant family, who later became a clergy, cleric in the Church of England. Under Royal Patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul's, D ...

and snippets of voice which "sound like (and perhaps are)

Lord Buckley Lord Richard Buckley (born Richard Myrle Buckley; April 5, 1906 – November 12, 1960) was an American stand-up comedian and recording artist, who in the 1940s and 1950s created a character that was, according to ''The New York Times'', "an unl ...

Everett Dirksen Everett McKinley Dirksen (January 4, 1896 – September 7, 1969) was an American politician. A Republican Party (United States), Republican, he represented Illinois in the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate. As P ...

Dean Martin Dean Martin (born Dino Paul Crocetti; June 7, 1917 – December 25, 1995) was an American singer, actor, and comedian. Nicknamed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, King of Cool", he is regarded as one of the most popular entertainers of ...

, LBJ,

George Wallace George Corley Wallace Jr. (August 25, 1919 – September 13, 1998) was an American politician who was the 45th and longest-serving governor of Alabama (1963–1967; 1971–1979; 1983–1987), and the List of longest-serving governors of U.S. s ...

and others." Furthermore, Gabler wrote several

show tune A show tune is a song originally written as part of the score of a work of musical theatre or musical film, especially if the piece in question has become a standard, more or less detached in most people's minds from the original context. Th ...

-style ballads for the record, sung by Scott with Brooks' music, lifted some

ragtime Ragtime, also spelled rag-time or rag time, is a musical style that had its peak from the 1890s to 1910s. Its cardinal trait is its Syncopation, syncopated or "ragged" rhythm. Ragtime was popularized during the early 20th century by composers ...

music from an early Decca release and added portions of "

We Shall Overcome "We Shall Overcome" is a gospel song that is associated heavily with the U.S. civil rights movement. The origins of the song are unclear; it was thought to have descended from "I'll Overcome Some Day," a hymn by Charles Albert Tindley, while t ...

" and

Malvina Reynolds Malvina Reynolds (née Milder; August 23, 1900 – March 17, 1978) was an American folk/blues singer-songwriter and political activist, best known for her songwriting, particularly the songs " Little Boxes", " What Have They Done to the Rain" a ...

' "

Little Boxes "Little Boxes" is a song written and composed by Malvina Reynolds in 1962. The song was first released by her friend, Pete Seeger, in 1963, and became his only charting single in January 1964. The song is a social satire about the developm ...

" (1962) and works from critic

Seymour Krim Seymour Krim (May 11, 1922 – August 30, 1989) was an American author, editor and literary critic. He is often categorized with the writers of the Beat Generation. He wrote for the ''Village Voice'', ''Playboy'', ''New York Element'' and ''Inter ...

and

LeRoi Jones Amiri Baraka (born Everett Leroy Jones; October 7, 1934 – January 9, 2014), previously known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka, was an American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays, and music criticism. He was the author of numerous b ...

. In Ford's description, Brooks used ''Avant Slant'' to envision, represent and adapt to "the pop

postmodernity Postmodernity (post-modernity or the postmodern condition) is the economic or cultural state or condition of society which is said to exist ''after'' modernity. Some schools of thought hold that modernity ended in the late 20th century – in th ...

that buried his native culture of Cold War

modernism Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

", and believed it to be "more way-out" than contemporary listeners could realize. David Atkinson compared the album to early 1960s

jazz poetry Jazz poetry has been defined as poetry that "demonstrates jazz-like rhythm or the feel of improvisation" and also as poetry that takes jazz music, musicians, or the jazz milieu as its subject, and is Performance poetry, designed to be performed. So ...

, except that all the components on ''Avant Slant'' are "shortened down to mere fragments of an entire section." Toop writes that although the record is musically and politically serious, it is "still descended from

radio drama Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a dramatized, dramatised, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the liste ...

and the novelty

break-in record A break-in record is a Novelty song, novelty record which combines spoken word comedy with clips of popular music to create a humorous effect. The subject matter was often inspired by contemporary events or popular culture such as television show ...

s". In Marianna Ritchey's estimation, the record's combination of music and recorded

soundscape A soundscape is the acoustic environment as perceived by humans, in context. The term, originally coined by Michael Southworth, was popularized by R. Murray Schafer. There is a varied history of the use of soundscape depending on discipline, ...

s was merely one assortment of ideas from Brooks' archival work and, as Ford argues, thus could only be understood by Brooks.

Release and reception

''Avant Slant'' was released by Decca in September 1968 with a

psychedelic Psychedelics are a subclass of hallucinogenic drugs whose primary effect is to trigger non-ordinary mental states (known as psychedelic experiences or "trips") and a perceived "expansion of consciousness". Also referred to as classic halluci ...

album cover and liner notes by John Clellon Holmes. Brooks' final released recording, it sold very poorly and received few reviews; according to Ford, "what notices it did get were either respectful or dismissive but in any event puzzled. ''Avant Slant'' was the overcooked product of ten years’ private study and musical experimentation, and there was no public context for it." Critics and listeners who endorsed Brooks' experimental jazz work believed that the

pop cultural Popular culture (also called pop culture or mass culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as popular art pop_art.html" ;"title="f. pop art">f. pop artor mass art, somet ...

nature of the album's ''D.J.-ology'' elements devalued ''The Twelves'', including

Gil Evans Ian Ernest Gilmore Evans (né Green; May 13, 1912 – March 20, 1988) was a Canadian Americans, Canadian–American jazz pianist, Music arranger, arranger, composer and bandleader. He is widely recognized as one of the greatest orchestrators i ...

, who dismissed them as "entertainment". Brooks predicted these reactions, as – according to Ford – the record was a product of the moment where "jazz intellectuals could feel themselves being shoved aside by a new pop culture that did not share their modernist values." Martin Wiliams of '' Saturday Review'' praised the Brooks ensemble's original performance, noting the humor, swing and conviction in their playing, but dismissed ''Avant Slant'' for intercutting portions of the concert with "stilted, unfunny verbal gaggery, sound effects, snippets of other music, quasi-poetry, '

mod Mod, MOD or mods may refer to: Places * Modesto City–County Airport, Stanislaus County, California, US Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Mods (band), a Norwegian rock band * M.O.D. (Method of Destruction), a band from New York City, US * ...

' verbiage, and a few conventionally conceived pop tunes." He added that despite the liner notes describing the album as a work for "Right Now", what he wanted was "to be able to listen to it tomorrow". A reviewer for '' Coda'' similarly dismissed the ''D.J.-ology'' segments as "ultra-hip, pretentious, money-grubbing, and several other things the editor would not be allowed to print." In their review, ''

Cash Box ''Cashbox'', also known as ''Cash Box'', is an American music industry trade magazine, originally published weekly from July 1942 to November 1996. Ten years after its dissolution, it was revived and continues as ''Cashbox Magazine'', an online ...

'' commented that ''Avant Slant'' provides "a highly unusual listening experience" in which the four twelve-tone jazz improvisations are "broken up to allow space for 'ghost-voices' of contemporary figures, which reflect today's complex confusions." In ''

The San Francisco Examiner The ''San Francisco Examiner'' is a newspaper distributed in and around San Francisco, California, and has been published since 1863. Once self-dubbed the "Monarch of the Dailies" by then-owner William Randolph Hearst and the flagship of the H ...

'', Gleason believed it to be an innovative and "impressive performance" that pushed the boundaries of the album format further back following

the Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. The core lineup of the band comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are widely regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatle ...

' ''

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' (often referred to simply as ''Sgt. Pepper'') is the eighth studio album by the English rock band the Beatles. Released on 26May 1967, ''Sgt. Pepper'' is regarded by musicologists as an early concept ...

'' (1967), with regards to using it as a single artistic entity from start to finish rather than a reproduction of a live performance or a straight musical program. He considered there to be "flashes of real genius" on the record and concluded that it could help broaden the appeal of the album medium to young people who had been increasingly using film to express their worldviews. Paul Burgess of ''

The Press of Atlantic City ''The Press of Atlantic City'' is the fourth-largest daily newspaper in New Jersey. Originally based in Pleasantville, New Jersey, Pleasantville, it is the primary newspaper for southeastern New Jersey and the Jersey Shore. The Designated marke ...

'' wrote that the album "seeks a rational whole out of irrational components" and compared it to the " surrealistic fur-lined tea cups" of

Dadaism Dada () or Dadaism was an anti-establishment art movement that developed in 1915 in the context of the Great War and the earlier anti-art movement. Early centers for dadaism included Zürich and Berlin. Within a few years, the movement had s ...

. He believed it to be a "turned on affair that will strike you as either a relevant piece of art or as a big put-on, depending on how you view such things." Similarly, David Atkinson of ''

The Kansas City Star ''The Kansas City Star'' is a newspaper based in Kansas City, Missouri. Published since 1880, the paper is the recipient of eight Pulitzer Prizes. ''The Star'' is most notable for its influence on the career of President Harry S. Truman and a ...

'' described it as a "montage of social comment and musical experimentation, but there are many elements of each which can be enjoyed, depending on the listener's point of view."

Legacy

Despite the critical and commercial failure of ''Avant Slant'', it has been credited with anticipating "aspects of collage,

, and sampling." Duncan Heining of ''

All About Jazz ''All About Jazz'' is a website established by Michael Ricci in 1995. A volunteer staff publishes news, album reviews, articles, videos, and listings of concerts and other events having to do with jazz. Ricci maintains a related site, ''Jazz Near ...

'' has listed ''Avant Slant'' as an example of jazz that experiments with

electronic Electronic may refer to: *Electronics, the science of how to control electric energy in semiconductors * ''Electronics'' (magazine), a defunct American trade journal *Electronic storage, the storage of data using an electronic device *Electronic c ...

s. In 1999, Heckman wrote in ''

The Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper in the U.S. and the larges ...

'' that the album had become "hard-to-find". Retrospectively,

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

have named ''Avant Slant'' an "Album Pick". The authors of ''The Essential Jazz Records Volume 2'' (2000) highlight Brooks and Heckman's work in improvisation and composition, but believed that ''Avant Slant'' presented them "in an extremely unsatisfactory manor", due to how it mixes segments of their music with excerpts of pop, poetry and radio broadcasts "in ways that make it impossible to decide what they had achieved and whether there was a further potential." Academic writer Casey Nelson has called it a "deeply strange jazz/pop/found-sound fusion album".

Track listing

Side one

# – 10:41 ##"The King Must Go" (Segments) (

) ##"The Gods on High" (Brooks,

) ##"Pie in the Sky" (Brooks, Gabler, lyrics by

) ##"El Bluebirdo" (Brooks) ##"A Bird Can Be" (Gabler) #

– 12:11 ##"Cherries Are Ripe" (Brooks) ##"What's a Square?" (Brooks, Gabler) ##"Slapstix" (

Jack Shaindlin Jack Shaindlin (April 14, 1909 – September 22, 1978) was a Russian-American musician, composer, arranger, conductor, and music director. He was musical director for ''The March of Time'' newsreel series. Early life and career Shaindlin was bor ...

) ##"True Blue Heart" (Shaindlin) ##"Little Boxes" (Excerpt) (

) ##"But, Where Are You?" (Brooks, Gabler)

Side two

– 13:07 ##"Ornette" (Segments) (uncredited) ##"Love Is Psychedelic" (Brooks, Gabler) ##"The Life I Used to Live" (

) ##"When I First Came to To Town" (uncredited) ##"Mend Them Fences" (Brooks, lyrics by

Robert Graves Captain Robert von Ranke Graves (24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985) was an English poet, soldier, historical novelist and critic. His father was Alfred Perceval Graves, a celebrated Irish poet and figure in the Gaelic revival; they were b ...

) ##"But, Where Am I?" (Brooks, Gabler) #

– 9:38 ##"Satan Takes" (Segments) (Brooks) ##"Pie in the Sky" (Brooks, Gabler, lyrics by Catherine Lee Bates) ##"We Shall Overcome" (

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (, 1743July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was the primary author of the United States Declaration of Indepe ...

)

Excerpt credits

Sammy Davis Jr. Samuel George Davis Jr. (December 8, 1925 – May 16, 1990) was an American singer, actor, comedian, dancer, and musician. At age two, Davis began his career in Vaudeville with his father Sammy Davis Sr. and the Will Mastin Trio, which t ...

– '' Sammy Davis Jr. at Town Hall'' *

– piano solo portions from ''50 Years of Movie Music'' *

– "

" *

– ''The Magic Underwear Panty (with Detachable Garters)'' *

– ''Autobiography'' *

Carl Sandburg Carl August Sandburg (January 6, 1878 – July 22, 1967) was an American poet, biographer, journalist, and editor. He won three Pulitzer Prizes: two for his poetry and one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln. During his lifetime, Sandburg w ...

– ''

The People, Yes ''The People, Yes'' is a book-length poem written by Carl Sandburg and published in 1936. The 300 page work is thoroughly interspersed with references to American culture, phrases, and stories (such as the legend of Paul Bunyan). Published at the ...

'' *

– '' Black Dada Nihilismus'' *

– "Life I Used to Live"

Personnel

Adapted from the liner notes of ''Avant Slant''. ;The John Benson Brooks Trio *

– piano *

– alto saxophone *Howard Hart – snare drum, cymbal ;Others *

– producer, editing supervisor *Ernie Stone – voice actor *Herb Hartig – voice actor * Jack Gibson – voice actor *Joyce Todd – voice actor *Judy Scott – voice ("The Gods on High", "What's a Square?", "But, Where Are You?", "But, Where Am I?") *

– voice ("El Bluebirdo") *

– piano ("Slapstix", "True Blue Heart") *

- performer ("Little Boxes" (Excerpt)) * Frank Hamilton – voice ("We Shall Overcome") *

Guy Carawan Guy Hughes Carawan Jr. (July 28, 1927 – May 2, 2015) was an American folk musician and musicologist. He served as music director and song leader for the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, Tennessee. Carawan is be ...

– voice ("We Shall Overcome") *

Pete Seeger Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and social activist. He was a fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s and had a string of hit records in the early 1950s as a member of The Weav ...

– voice ("We Shall Overcome") * Zilphia Horton – voice ("We Shall Overcome") *Emil Korsen – engineer *George Chandler – engineer *Joseph Curran – engineer *Rudy May – engineer *Joan Franklin – recording *Robert Franklin – recording * Steinweiss – cover *

– liner notes

Notes

References

Bibliography * {{cite book , last1=Ford , first1=Phil , title=Dig: Sound & Music in Hip Culture , date=2013 , publisher=Oxford University Press , location=New York , isbn=9780199939923 , pages=177–226 , chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iMJpAgAAQBAJ&dq=%22medium+is+the+massage%22+musique+concrete&pg=PA194 , access-date=August 14, 2023 , chapter=Chapter 6: "Let's say that we're new, every minute" (John Benson Brooks) 1968 albums Decca Records albums Albums produced by Milt Gabler Pete Seeger Sound collage albums Experimental music albums by American artists Jazz albums by American artists Pop albums by American artists Musique concrète albums Field recording Postmodern music Twelve-tone compositions