EUGENE CHADBOURNE & WARREN SMITH – Odd Time – CD – E043

All art is activist; or at least it should be when it challenges established and accepted forms that play to the laissez-faire, the reactionary and the antisocial—and the greater good of the greater number of people experiencing (or trying to experience) it. The music of Beethoven was just so, the composer cancelling the dedication of his mighty Symphony No. 3 (“Eroica”) to Napoleon Bonaparte after the Frenchman declared himself Emperor. So, too, has some of the finest music of modern times been activist, whether stemming from the folk tradition, the blues or jazz. Every time this has been forgotten a bard has raised his head and voice: Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus…and Eugene Chadbourne… and of course, the mighty Warren Smith.

Raul d’Gama Rose / All About Jazz