Winter in America - Background

Background

After leaving his former label Flying Dutchman Records, Gil Scott-Heron signed with the New York City jazz-based Strata-East label in early 1973, accompanied by jazz keyboardist and songwriter Brian Jackson, with whom he had worked with on his previous studio albums, Pieces of a Man (1971) and Free Will (1972). While some sources allege this may have been over financial or creative differences, Scott-Heron maintains the switch was due to producer Bob Thiele's unwillingness to give Jackson co-billing. By the time of their move to Strata-East, Scott-Heron and Jackson had achieved underground notice among R&B and soul music listeners, particularly for the political and social nature of their music's themes, as well as Scott-Heron's emphasis on African-American culture and social plight in his compositions. Their musical fusion of jazz, blues, soul and spoken word styles helped them earn some notice among less-mainstream black music listeners at the time.

Social circumstances and musical events preceded Scott-Heron's and Jackson's signing with Strata-East. After the decline of popularity in traditional jazz forms and the civil rights struggle, which had sought racial equality during the late 1950s and 1960s, black pride and Afrocentric sentiment by many black Americans emerged. During 1970 to 1974, the Black Panthers organization had been neutralized and pan-Africanism came into vogue. Following the free jazz and avant-garde breakthroughs of Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane, a creative stasis among most jazz musicians set in during the decade that led to an eclecticism where no style or conception of jazz maintained a zeitgeist among players. However, jazz fusion had gained mainstream notice for its stylistic adoption of rock and funk music, despite being the subject of controversy in jazz purist circles. Highlighted by the works of Roy Ayers, Herbie Hancock, and Donald Byrd, jazz-funk also emerged in response to the growing popularity of funk, leading to a trend of funk rhythms among jazz musicians formerly of the hard bop tradition as an attempt to reconnect with their African-American audience. This factored into the popularity of Scott-Heron's and Jackson's work in the black underground scene, with the former obtaining a reputation as a "street poet", while his work with Jackson served as an early recording of jazz poetry.