Ego
The back cover of this 1971 record shows Tony Williams's head exploding and that image pretty well hits the mark. The Lifetime was a volatile ensemble, in terms of the nature of the music it created, the erratic quality of that music, and the ever-shifting personnel creating it. This incarnation ushers in little-known guitarist Ted Dunbar alongside bassistRon Carter, organistKhalid Yasin (Larry Young), and a pair of percussionists to augment Williams's own skin work. Even the Lifetime's best albums--EmergencyandTurn It Over--contain a few unsatisfying and muddled moments amid their chaotic, cluttered brilliance, and this record's ratio is even a bit worse (especially during the dated vocal droning). But when the ominous and burning fusion peaks, as it does on "Circa 45" (spearheaded by Dunbar's acute guitar) and the ghoulish "The Urchins of Shermese," the stuff oozing from your head will be the jelly of delight.--Marc Greilsamer