Spaced is an ‘authorized’ anthology of trumpeter Longineu Parsons‘s work from 1980 to 1999, and with even the author’s own liner notes. The eclectic trumpeter has a strong link with the West Indies and Guadeloupe in particular. He led the Big Band Mavounzy in the second half of the 80s (with Magic Malik, Jean-Michel Lesdel, Christian Amour and others). His eponymous debut album is selling like hotcakes these days. But this compilation features a good two-thirds of that first album on the first disc. And Longineu Parsons is very wisely accompanied by Roger Raspail and Georges Edouard Nouel (as well as Suleiman Hakim, Jack Gregg and Chris Henderson, let’s be fair!). Throughout the two volumes of Spaced, we travel between free jazz, North African influences, afro-jazz and even electro-funky beats, further underlined by the remixes included here. A particularly apt – and affordable – summary of this fertile period in the career of Parsons, who has sometimes been compared to Jon Hassell or even Brian Eno.
Spaced: Collected Works 1980-1999 – Longineu Parsons, 1999
