Revolutionary Ensemble

This group was a favorite of many avant-garde jazz fans in the '70s, appealing to a generation of listeners who had been weaned on Frank Zappa, some only temporarily lured into his camp by the intoxicating sound of electric violin soloists such as Jean-luc Ponty and Sugarcane Harris. The violinist in The Revolutionary Ensemble, Leroy Jenkins, was cut from the same mold as these players, bluesy and swinging, but he created his sometimes fiery solos within the context of something like a free jazz power trio, removed from the corny Zappa arrangements or repetitive rhythm & blues structures. This is just a partial description of the music of The Revolutionary Ensemble, however, just as calling Jenkins a violinist was only part of the story. He was also a composer, and played a variety of so-called "little instruments," the point of which wasn't so much the development of virtuosity but the creation of a musical space where some spaced-out tooting on a kazoo or harmonica might make sense. Percussionist Jerome Cooper and bassist Sirone, also known as Norris Jones, were the other members of the group, also as likely to create an ambient universe of miniature sounds as to take off and cook. The group's early recordings on labels such as ESP often suffered from crummy pressings, the soft passages inspiring "you had to be there" reactions, while the louder, swinging sections with electric violin soloing converted one and all.

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