I’m Going Home

Steve Coleman and Five Elements: Steve Coleman (alto sax, vocals, backing vocals), Graham Haynes (trumpet), Kelvyn Bell (electric guitar, vocals), Geri Allen (synthesizer), Kevin Bruce Harris (electric bass, backing vocals), Mark Johnson (drums, percussion), Marvin “Smitty” Smith (drums, percussion, backing vocals) and Cassandra Wilson (vocals, backing vocals). From the album On the Edge of Tomorrow (1986).

Steve Coleman formed a group with the trumpeter Graham Haynes with which he played on the street for four years, later becomimg the Steve Coleman and Five Elements, where he developed his theory of improvisation inside nested loops structures. Coleman joined other young African American musicians like Robin Eubanks, Geri Allen, Gary Thomas, Greg Osby and Cassandra Wilson, and they founded the M-Base movement.

In 1985, the Steve Coleman and Five Elements signed with the German label JMT, where they had the opportunity to record in three albums their experimentations mixing soul, funk, world music and jazz. In the second one of them, On the Edge of Tomorrow, we can listen to M-Base music at its best with creative and avant-garde themes. Afterwards Coleman moved to the BMG record company and founded three other groups: Metrics, the Mystic Rhythm Society and Council of Balance. He was also part of Dave Holland’s trio and quartet, and played with Roy Hargrove and Craig Harris.

The song looks like commercial music with funky elements and Wilson begins to sing it saying that she knows she’s coming home, but then she is replaced by other vocalists who alternate between them supported by the rest of the group, whose rendition is impeccable. To wind up exposing the theme, Wilson returns with the same phrase. Then Allen enters with a synthesized sound to offer a solo that conveys enthusiasm and optimism. Next the vocalists reappear successively exposing their messages until Wilson repeats her sentence and then gathers with the others creating a collective conversation that gradually fades out.