The Colson Unity Troup

No Reservation is the second album of the Colson Unity Troupe, the Chicago band led by pianist Adegoke Steve Colson and singer Iqua Colson, recorded in Milan in July 1980 for Black Saint. Steve Colson had moved to Chicago in the late 1960s to study at Northwestern University, where he met Iqua, and joined Muhal Richard Abrams's AACM in 1972, aged about 21; by his own account he spent the next ten years in Chicago. The Unity Troupe had made its first record, Triumph!, the year before. Here the quintet plays five originals by the Colsons, songs with words as well as instrumental writing, and the two leaders wrote the liner notes themselves.

The line-up has Wallace LaRoy McMillan on saxophone and flute, Reggie Willis on bass and Dushun Mosley on percussion, with Steve Colson at the piano and Iqua Colson singing. The session took place at Barigozzi Studios on July 22 and 23, 1980. The record opens with Family Members, more than eight and a half minutes, and its longest piece, Teachers/World Heroes, runs over eleven. Clockwork is the short one, about five minutes. Thought From Duke nods to Ellington in its title, and Patch N.2 closes the album, which comes to about forty minutes.

This is the Black Saint CD 120043-2 of the album first released in 1980, with the five original pieces.