Jazz Dispensary’s prestigious Top Shelf series has announced the official reissue of a landmark live recording: Gary Bartz NTU Troop’s I’ve Known Rivers and Other Bodies. Scheduled for release on November 13, this definitive package returns the historic double-album to high-grade vinyl for the first time since its original Prestige pressing.
Cut directly from the master tapes by renowned engineer Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio using an all-analogue chain, the release features 180-gram heavyweight pressings manufactured at Fidelity Record Pressing, housed inside a deluxe gatefold jacket. Crucially, this new edition restores the unedited, continuous suites of Sides A and B—including the full-length iteration of "Sifa Zote"—which were previously trimmed down for the single-disc compact disc release.
Capturing a blistering performance at the 1973 Montreux Jazz Festival, the recording preserves a fleeting, powerhouse line-up of the NTU Troop. Led by alto and soprano saxophonist Gary Bartz, the ensemble featured virtuoso bassist Stafford James (then just 27 years old), keyboardist Hubert Eaves (newly recruited to the fold), and 17-year-old drumming prodigy Howard King, a product of New York’s esteemed Jazzmobile program.
More than a mere archival artifact, this reissue serves as a masterclass in early-1970s spiritual jazz, fusing deep African consciousness, hard-funk grooves, and political urgency. For longtime aficionados and audiophiles alike, it offers a definitive window into a pivotal era when jazz broke free from traditional boundaries to become a force for cultural and spiritual liberation.
Detailed Chronology
The Road to Montreux: 1973
By the summer of 1973, Gary Bartz’s NTU Troop was operating at a furious artistic peak. Bartz had established the ensemble at the turn of the decade, anchoring its philosophy in the Bantu concept of Ntu—defined by the saxophonist as the "unity of things African." Having already recorded seminal works such as Juju Street Songs (Berkeley, 1972) and the Harlem Bush Music volumes, the band embarked on its inaugural European tour.
The itinerary took the Troop through Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and Norway’s Kongsberg Jazz Festival. In his original sleeve notes, Bartz vividly recalled sitting up all night in Norway alongside legendary arranger and composer Gerald Wilson, waiting for a polar darkness that never arrived. Throughout the grueling trek, bassist Stafford James acted as the anchor, guiding the ensemble in and out of complex arrangements with veteran precision.
By the time the tour culminated at the 1973 Montreux Jazz Festival, personnel shifts were already underway. Vocalist Andy Bey—whose distinctive singing defined the NTU Troop’s early studio output—had departed shortly before the festival, prompting Bartz to step up to the microphone himself. Additionally, this European run marked the final chapter for this specific rhythm section; by October 1973, when the NTU Troop opened a five-night residency at Joe Segal’s Jazz Showcase in Chicago, James Benjamin had taken over the bass chair, and Hubert Eaves and Howard King had moved on to other ventures.
The Montreux Performance: Uncut and Unbound
Captured live in front of an international festival audience, the Montreux performance is presented across four sides of vinyl, offering an uninterrupted journey through the ensemble’s expansive repertoire.
- Sides A & B (The Continuous Suite): On the original double LP, the first two sides ran as a continuous, unpaused suite. The performance opens with "Nommo – The Majick Song," utilizing a fierce blues vamp to clear the venue of negative energy. Bartz recites the lyrics of "Sifa Zote" (Swahili for "all praise") before shifting to alto saxophone—an instrument he spent years trying to make sound like a tenor. The suite barrels through "Jujuman" (built on the opening vamp of John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme) and features Stafford James’s own composition, "Bertha Baptist," propelled by Hubert Eaves’s dynamic electric piano. The suite winds through a heavy funk groove on "Don’t Fight That Feeling" before concluding Side B with Eaves’s "Mama’s Soul," featuring Bartz on soprano saxophone.
- Side C (The Message): Side C gathers the socio-political core of the performance. The title track, "I’ve Known Rivers," sets lines from Langston Hughes’s poem "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" over a Latin-jazz cushion, delivered in Bartz’s plain, breathless, yet deeply moving vocal style. "The Warriors’ Song"—a tribute to John Coltrane and Malcolm X—pushes the quartet into avant-garde territory, while "Uhuru Sasa" (Swahili for "freedom now") delivers a potent anti-war message.
- Side D (The Electric Resolution): The final side opens with "Dr. Follow’s Dance," expanding a brief sketch from the studio album Follow, the Medicine Man into an extended electric funk workout. Here, Bartz briefly treats his saxophone with electronic effects over a locked-in rhythm section. The night closes with "Peace and Love," serving as a spiritual bookend to the opening invocation of "Nommo."
Supporting Context & Metrics
The Personnel and Their Legacies
- Stafford James (Bass): Classically trained at the Chicago Conservatory and Mannes College in New York, James came to jazz via an unconventional route, balancing daytime mail delivery with late-night gigs. After a chance meeting with Pharoah Sanders, James rapidly ascended the jazz hierarchy, playing with Sun Ra, Alice Coltrane, Albert Ayler, Art Blakey, Woody Shaw, and Dexter Gordon (appearing on Gordon’s legendary Homecoming). Renowned for treating the double bass as a lead melodic voice, James later transitioned deeply into classical performance under Ludwig Streicher in Vienna. Half a century after Montreux, he remains the gold standard for contemporary bassists.
- Gary Bartz (Alto/Soprano Saxophone & Vocals): Rejecting the restrictive label of "jazz musician," Bartz positioned himself simply as an African-American artist creating functional music meant to be danced to, sung to, and lived with. Influenced by Nat King Cole, Bartz took over vocal duties to ensure his lyrical messages were never misunderstood. His ongoing connection to London—highlighted by past collaborations with Trevor Watkis, Gary Crosby, and Robert Fordjour, as well as his recent Where Rivers Meet project with Your Brother’s Keeper—proves his creative rivers continue to flow.
- Hubert Eaves (Keyboards): Providing critical harmonic and rhythmic punch on both acoustic and electric piano, Eaves was the NTU Troop’s newest recruit at Montreux. Following his tenure with Bartz, Eaves (recording as Hubert Eaves III) went on to co-found the legendary post-disco/R&B band D Train alongside James "D-Train" Williams.
- Howard King (Drums): A phenomenal 17-year-old talent emerging from New York’s Jazzmobile educational initiative, King provided the rhythmic engine and structural maturity required to drive the Troop’s complex polyrhythms on an international stage.
Production and Audiophile Specifications
- Mastering Engineer: Kevin Gray (Cohearent Audio)
- Source Material: Original analog master tapes
- Vinyl Pressing Plant: Fidelity Record Pressing
- Specifications: 180-gram heavyweight vinyl, deluxe gatefold jacket
- Historical Context Note: In his original five-star review for DownBeat magazine, critic Herb Nolan praised the dynamic execution of the set while noting that Stafford James was occasionally under-recorded—an artifact of the era’s live mixing that is brought into sharper, warmer relief through Gray’s all-analog remastering chain.
Official Statements
Reflecting on the philosophical bedrock of his music during a 1970 interview with DownBeat’s Herb Nolan, Gary Bartz elaborated on the true meaning of the NTU Troop:
"It is the unity of things African. We are not jazz musicians; we are African-American musicians making music that is meant to be used—danced to, sung to, never just sat through."
Discussing his transition into vocal performance and the imperative of lyrical clarity, Bartz added:
"Lyrics are my way of making sure I am not misunderstood. The word matters here."
Reflecting on the enduring legacy of the music and his decades-long reverence for bassist Stafford James, critic and archivist Steve Williams observed:
"That night [in February 1993] settled the question of my favourite bass player. Nobody has shifted him since… Hearing its composer [Stafford James] drive it in front of a festival audience is reason enough for me to want this pressing. Half a century after Montreux, and thirty-odd years after Birmingham, every bassist I hear still gets measured against Stafford James."
Future Outlook
The release of I’ve Known Rivers and Other Bodies via Jazz Dispensary on November 13 arrives at a time of renewed global appetite for transcendent, spiritually charged catalog jazz. By rescuing this essential live document from out-of-print obscurity and presenting it with uncompromising audiophile fidelity, Craft Recordings/Jazz Dispensary bridges a vital generational gap.
For contemporary listeners, the album serves as an urgent reminder of music’s capacity to unify, protest, and heal. Meanwhile, Gary Bartz—active, visionary, and still connecting international scenes from New York to London—proves that the cultural currents he navigated in 1973 are just as vital today. As new generations of musicians and fans unpack the unedited Montreux tapes, the legacy of the NTU Troop will undoubtedly continue to flow forward, deep and uncontainable.
