Consumer Guide Album

Ronald Shannon Jackson and the Decoding Society: Eye on You [About Time, 1981]
There may be drummers who can cut Jackson, but nobody else moves so fluidly from free time to on-the-one. I only wish he'd indulge himself with a drummer's record. The music is never less than dense and jumpy, and he's keeping things compact--eleven cuts total. But handing your themes over to (guitarist) Bern Nix and (violinist) Billy Bang is no way to show off your composing. Stanley Crouch has a word for this kind of thing: eso, as in esoteric. Pretty good eso, sure. But even in my head I don't dance to it. B+