After four albums that achieved some underground success, poet, novelist and jazz singer Gil Scott-Heron's heavily promoted debut on Arista Records is gaining him wider recognition. Scott-Heron has been best known for his antiestablishment accusations, "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" and "H₂Ogate Blues." The high point of The First Minute is Scott-Heron, and pianist/flutist Brian Jackson's followup to the latter, "Pardon Our Analysis (We Beg Your Pardon)," a brilliant, bitterly sarcastic diatribe against the Nixon pardon, recorded before a live audience. The album's only spoken cut, "Pardon" reaffirms Scott-Heron's devastating power as a poet of the immediate moment. This power is somewhat diminished within the context of the eight-member Midnight Band's cool jazz. While Scott-Heron's incantatory lyrics are excellent, he speaks more eloquently than he sings. The invocations of the album's eight songs range from the spiritual ("Offering") to the revolutionary ("The Liberation Song"). The most musically cohesive is a remake of "Winter in America," a beautiful despairing poem whose compassion embraces more than just the Third World movement: "And all of the healers have been killed or betrayed/It's winter; winter in America/And ain't nobody fighting because nobody knows what to save."^*

^*©1974, Brouhaha Music Inc. (RS 184)

STEPHEN HOLDEN