1972 WL promo La Mont Johnson “Sun, Moon And Stars” on Mainstream.

I have to laugh at how unbelievably great this record is, one you rarely see around and can still basically get for the price of a mod RE of something not half as cool. Friends, this wax is FAT. I mean, it’s worth every penny alone for the drumming of Raymond Pounds, who appears on Chester Thompson’s mighty “Powerhouse” on Black Jazz, plus played with assorted randos like Stevie W, Jack-0, Quincy “Smackwater” Jones, Blue Mitch, and Lenny Williams. I mean, the best thing about it, and really all of Johnson’s music, is that it’s TOTALLY DEMENTED and sounds like it was recorded on a nuclear sub beneath the arctic ice shelf, warbly and claustrophobic with ideas and unhinged, but it also simultaneously rocks, gets aggressively avant, and GROOVES hard, which is an extremely difficult mix to pull off, and is often the difference between Shelf Filler and Total Grail.

​Charles Owens on tenor, soprano, and flute is great and Reggie Johnson on bass fills the room up while Sal Marquez (Alphonse Mouzon, Zappa) swings heavy with the boogaloo trumpet, but really, it’s the crazy genius of pianist composer Johnson that moves this ultra funky banger to the final square. If you don’t regularly spin “M’Bassa”, it’s possible you should hold a mirror in front of your face to make sure you’re still breathing. Also breathing-adjacent is the fact that Scientology’s own L. Ron Hubbard thanks LaMont on the cover of “Nine…”, but apparently Lamont dropped the Dianetics in favor of his own version of arcane numerology, so I give him a pass. Oh yea.