tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61490400518045980582024-03-08T14:01:30.098+00:00Night of the Living VinylMMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05975688422273299541noreply@blogger.comBlogger100125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6149040051804598058.post-66342789524182987122013-05-15T17:56:00.000+01:002013-05-15T17:56:41.354+01:00BRITISH JAZZ AND POETRY - 1959 - 1965 <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It's often said that the British are a literary nation, particularly when discussing the nation's relationship to visual arts.<br />
However, we are also a nation that likes music and in the early part of the sixties, very briefly, there seemed to be a moment when literary words and jazz might become bedfellows.<br />
Jazz and poetry had already been having a liaison in the United States. The beats, in the main, loved jazz. Writers and poets such as Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jack Kerouac and Kenneth Rexroth recorded their poetry in jazz settings and many others praised the world of jazz in their work. The relationship between the beats and jazz was by no means straight forward and it has been pointed out that the racial tensions of 50s America were revealed in this relationship. Nevertheless one of the aspects that made jazz so appealing to the beats was that is was seen to be music from outside the (white) mainstream. It was, according to them, music that was somehow more in touch with emotions and music that was part of the popular, rather than highbrow, culture.<br />
<br />
In Britain the worlds of jazz and poetry didn't make it on to vinyl until 1959 when Red Bird, Jazz and Poetry by poet Christopher Logue and drummer and band leader Tony Kinsey was released.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1140103_zps86064a15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1140103_zps86064a15.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
In some ways Logue could be seen as the link between the beats and British jazz-poetry. In the mid-1950's he lived in Paris and became friends with Scottish poet/writer and heroin addict Alexander Trocchi. Trocchi later moved to the US where he moved in beat circles.<br />
Logue was also something of an outsider as he was a pacifist who was very involved in both anti-war and anti-nuclear arms movements. Both of these interests aligned him to many in the British jazz world.<br />
According to the sleeve notes, the pieces on this EP were originally broadcast on the BBC.<br />
Logue is a very intriguing poet, not least for the ways in which his political views were expressed in his work. Although he could be direct, often the politically message is implicit rather than explicit.<br />
Logue performs his poetry while the music is played behind him by Les Condon, Kenny Wray, Bill Le Sage, Kenny Napper and Tony Kinsey - all names that will be familiar to anyone with even the slightest knowledge of British jazz. Le Sage and Kinsey composed the music around Logue poetry and it shows. Logue's voice, with it's received English pronunciation and slightly arch and melodramatic delivery, is pushed to the front of the mix, with the effect that the music is often background to the words. This split between the music and the words is alluded to on the record sleeve which lists each track as having a name for the poem and a different name for the music. Largely the poems deal with romantic problems, or rather the hypocrisies of 'modern' love.<br />
Listen for yourself. I feel that the You tube poster dismisses Logue and the music too quickly. Although I have to admit I don't often listen to this EP, it is wrong to approach it as a comedic relic. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/xFPE1n4aiKs?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/TAChMGAhfmA?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
If you want to hear Logue and Jazz getting it on beautifully then you must track down Annie Ross with the Tony Kinsey Quintet.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1120979_zpsc7014b4d.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1120979_zpsc7014b4d.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
There is another slightly earlier edition of this record called Loguerhythms from 1963 - mine is on Xtra from 1966.<br />
Annie and Tony and the band reprise songs for the LP that they have been performing at Soho's Establishment Club, owned by Peter Cook and dedicated to the new satire boom.<br />
Logue's anti-establishment words must have fitted in perfectly in such a setting, however, to modern ears they sound very dated. The targets of these barbed words (capitalism, conformity, class) no longer raise the ire of audiences. Either we have become inured to the inequalities of the world or they have been solved - take your pick.<br />
Ross is one of my all time favourite jazz singers. Like Sinatra, she sings without seeming to try. Her delivery is so natural that it fits Logue's complex words very well. Although she is singing, she does so in a way that retains the spoken-word delivery of performance poetry.<br />
Kinsey is joined by most of his cohorts from the Red Bird recording together the Peter King, Brian Brockelhurst, Gordon Beck, Roy Willocks, Malcolm Cecil, Johnny Scott and Stanley Myers.<br />
Just as with Red Bird the words are pushed to the foreground and are clearly meant to be the most important part of the ensemble., However, with a voice as good as Ross's that is no hardship.<br />
<br />
Logue would further successfully mix his poetry to music when Donovan set his poem Be Not Too Hard to music in the film Poor Cow in 1967 and Joen Baez went on to cover it.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/Picture608.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/Picture608.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1120969_zps54e48e62.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1120969_zps54e48e62.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
However, Logue was not the only poet that was attracted to jazz. A very different approach led to the release of Poetry and Jazz in Concert One and Two in 1964 on Argo. Argo was a fairly small but diverse record label that had released a number of recordings of poetry readings, plays, adaptations of novels and other spoken word projects, not to mention a number of recordings of steam trains.<br />
<br />
The rational for the Poetry and Jazz was to harness some of the power (as well as the popularity) of the two art forms to their mutual benefit Intriguingly, of the musicians, Michael Garrick, Shake Keane and Joe Harriott were also deeply involved with literature. Shake Keane wrote his own poetry although he did not get much published while in England. I wonder what he though about the poets he accompanied, and about the irony of a situation of a poet playing trumpet for other poets? Did he ever want to put his trumpet down and read some of his verse? And why did no one ask him? Garrick was an English Literature student and would often use literary sources as inspiration for his music, while Harriott had been friendly with Michael Horovitz for some time. These LPs are the only recorded relics of the Poetry and Jazz movement, although there were numerous concerts and recitals throughout the mid to late 60s.<br />
<br />
A meeting between Michael Garrick and the poet Jeremy Robson lead to a fusion of the somewhat underground jazz world and a poetry world that Robson was determined to bring above ground. Garrick brought Harriott, Keane and later Coleridge Goode on board as part of the band that would accompany the poets during their recitals. Poets such as Laurie Lee, Ted Hughes., Stevie Smith and Dannie Abse were involved at one stage or another, Not all of them were comfortable with a jazz accompaniment and on these LPs, it is only Adrian Mitchell, for his poem Pals and Jeremy Robson for his poems Approaching Mount Carmel and The Midnight Scene that have the band behind them. <br />
<br />
The jazz is impeccable. Salvation March and Wedding Hymn on the first LP and Vishnu and She's Like Swallow are great examples of the inventiveness of mid sixties British jazz. They are all Garrick compositions but Harriott and Keane undoubtedly bring their own style. Together with Goode, they had only recently finished recording the last album in their Free Form style and in parts that iconoclastic style can be heard. Garrick was undoubtedly sympathetic to the Free Form experiment although his music is too lyrical and open to so many influences that it can never quite be subsumed into Free Form. My personal favourite is Vishnu which has some incredible solos from both Harriott and Keane as well as some amazing examples of how completely they could play as a single unit and Goode's bass solo on Wedding March is as good an example of his talent as you could wish to hear. <br />
<br />
The poetry often touches on the same concerns as Logue's verses, class, hypocrisy, capitalism, and a counter-cultural view of the establishment. Jazz, of course, also played its part in this. Interestingly, however, by 1963 it was not a truly popular music and certainly not popular in the same was as it had been during the bid band ere in the 50s. Pop music and rock and roll were soon to be edging jazz out of people's houses. However, in 1963 jazz, and in particular the type of modern jazz played by Garrick and Harriott could be seen as an intellectual form of popular music that embodied many of the anti-establishment ideas then-current. I think it is telling that modern jazz was thought to be suitable for a concert in which the audience was seated. Long gone were the days when jazz automatically meant dancing. While you could dance to some of Garrick's music I suspect that none in the audience did.<br />
<br />
Although Poetry and Jazz had a life that lasted well beyond these two LPs, none of it was recorded. The uneasy split between the music and the poetry, evident when you listen and clearly acknowledged by the reluctance of most of the poets to put their words to music, meant that there were no more recordings. Adrian Mitchell would go on to record with folk musician and wordsmith Leon Rosselson. I feel that, for Mitchell, this is a much more suitable setting.<br />
<br />
While this was the end of contemporary poetry and jazz it was not quite the end of the intersection of jazz and poetry. In 1965 Stan Tracey released his Jazz Suite inspired by Under Milk Wood. <br />
Undoubtedly one of the highlights of British Jazz, Tracey's Under Milk Wood it a beautiful record that demands repeated listening. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/Picture459.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/Picture459.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Tracey, together with Bobby Wellins on sax, Jeff Clyne on bass and Jack Dougan on drums take Thomas's famous long poem as a the starting point for making heart rending beautiful music.<br />
However, I am not sure that the listener would immediately connect any of the songs on this record with Thomas. Nowhere are Thomas's words used in the music, although they do provide the names of the songs. <br />
There is a later reissue of this record which is not expensive and I urge everyone to track down a copy and luxuriate in the beautiful music.<br />
<br />
1964 was the four hundredth anniversary of the birth of William Shakespeare and to commemorate it two jazz records were released that used his verses as their basis.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1140104_zps22bb1b29.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1140104_zps22bb1b29.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
The better of the two was Swinging the Bard by the Ken Jones Orchestra with Elaine Delmar. It also benefits from the inclusion of Shake Keane, Stan Tracey, Eddie Blair and Kenny Baker.<br />
The music is provided by David Lindup, David Mack (read about his work with Shake Keane <a href="http://nightofthelivingvinyl.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/david-mack-new-directions-essays-for.html">here</a> and his work with Joe Harriott <a href="http://nightofthelivingvinyl.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/joe-harriott-personal-portrait.html">here</a>), Ray Premu (read about him <a href="http://nightofthelivingvinyl.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/peter-burmans-jazz-tete-tete.html">here</a>), Johnny Hawksworth and John Mayer (read about his work with Harriott <a href="http://nightofthelivingvinyl.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/indo-jazz-sitar-and-sax.html">here</a>). Phew!<br />
Using the Elizabethan Consort of Viols and Geoffrey Emmott's Recorder Consort, together with the Bard's words this is a surprisingly effective set of songs. Unfortunately the weakest element is the married between the words and the music. Delmar is a good singer and tackles the lines with aplomb but it just doesn't swing as the title would have you believe.<br />
David Mack's contribution is very cinematic and Keane's playing is wonderful. Meyer's piece, tablas and all, seems in some ways to be a precursor to his Indo Jazz experiments that would begin in the following year. However, his classical training, rather than his love of jazz, is all to evident here. <br />
While there is nothing here that lifts itself above the conceit of the concept it is a great listen from start to finish. Shakespeare-ploitation anyone?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/Picture593.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/Picture593.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Dankworth and Cleo Laine attempt a similar exercise on their Shakespeare and All That Jazz.<br />
Unfortunately it is not as successful as Jones's effort.<br />
Laine's singing is good and Dankworth's music, while not breaking any boundaries is also interesting.<br />
Unfortunately the Bard's words stubbornly refuse to translate to a jazz setting and as such the whole exercise falls flat.</div>
MMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05975688422273299541noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6149040051804598058.post-51563533042477118022013-04-19T11:03:00.003+01:002013-05-15T16:05:31.385+01:00Exploito Records Update - is there no end????<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I must say I'd thought I'd come to the end of the line with the whole 60s exploito thing. I mean could I scrape the barrel any more?<br />
The answer, of course, is yes, I could.<br />
Over the last few months I've spotted some more records from the same stable as some of the ones I've already mentioned.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/P1140087_zps30d12857.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/P1140087_zps30d12857.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
First up is this beauty. It just goes to show how in thrall I am to these kind of records that I got really excited by finding a Spanish issue of the Black Diamond's Hendrix tribute record. Which of course is nothing more than a repackaging of the Animated Egg record. How many copies of this in different versions do I now own??<br />
Read about some other Hendrixploitation records <a href="http://nightofthelivingvinyl.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/exploito-7-hendrixploitation-and-beyond.html">here</a> and <a href="http://nightofthelivingvinyl.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/live-experience-band-hendrixploitation.html">here</a><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/P1140088_zps99f5fa4f.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/P1140088_zps99f5fa4f.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Another find that got me hot under the collar was the 101 Strings Play Hits Written By the Beatles. The image on the front is from a California Poppy Pickers LP and lurking towards the end of side two is Blues For the Guru - a sitar type thing written by Mike Kelly that also appears on their Sounds of Today LP and Love is Blue - <a href="http://nightofthelivingvinyl.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/exploito-psych-2-101-strings-astro.html">here</a> and <a href="http://nightofthelivingvinyl.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/exploito-7-german-connection.html">here</a><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/P1140090_zpsabacf406.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/P1140090_zpsabacf406.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
But, by far and away the most exciting find has been this one. On the even-more-budget-than-Alshire label Oscar, Block Busters by the Young Sound of Today, this is manna from heaven for an exploito addict like myself.<br />
<br />
Recognise the girls on the front? Of course you do, they first appeared on the Mustang's Organ Freakout (you can see his organ in the foreground - phoar) before making another appearance on the Haircuts and the Impossibles - <a href="http://nightofthelivingvinyl.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/exploito-5-now-generation-donnie-burks.html">here</a> and <a href="http://nightofthelivingvinyl.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/exploito-6-haircuts-and-impossibles.html">here</a><br />
And as for the music....<br />
Basically this record is a reissue of the Young Sound of 68 record put out by Somerset <a href="http://nightofthelivingvinyl.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/exploito-5-part-2-even-more-examples-of.html">clicky</a><br />
<br />
Everything on it appears on other releases as well. There are two Animated Egg tracks, one by Donnie Burks, one by The Mustang, one by Little Joe Curtis and four by the Strings for Young Lovers/ 101 Strings. I could go on and on about where they all appeared (for instance the MacArthur Park appears with vocals on the Stone Canyon Rock Group LP). If you really want to know, go through some of my old posts and join the dots.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/P1140105_zps42a0d68e.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/P1140105_zps42a0d68e.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Here we have Golden Oldies Vol. 3 by the 101 Strings. Surely none of the Animated Egg tracks could be described as a Golden Oldie? I know that the record originally came out in 1968 and this record was released in 1973 (on Alshire International in Canda no less!), but not even DL Miller could call it a Golden Oldie?<br />
But guess what? On side B we have Flameout from the Astro Sounds Beyond the Year 2000 LP. Amazing cheek I call it!<br />
I quite like their take on Hound Dog, so if you see this, pick it up! <br />
<br />
<br />
No doubt there are even more out there. If anyone wants to point me in the right direct I'd be very grateful.</div>
MMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05975688422273299541noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6149040051804598058.post-57582154886450994052013-04-18T22:31:00.001+01:002013-04-18T22:31:24.996+01:00Bert Kaempfert - A Swingin' Safari <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Easy/P1140085_zps09400359.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Easy/P1140085_zps09400359.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
There was a time when you could pick this record up in virtually any charity shop in Britain, and for all I know from everywhere else in the world! At one time I had four copies of it - I'm still not really sure why.<br />
<br />
It's long held a strange fascination for me. Its clearly an example of exotica. I mean just look at the cover!<br />
The picture on the front tells you all that you really need to know about the kind of music you are going to find inside. The pretty girl is dancing or swinging, she is happy, clearly because the music is happy. Around her are signifies of Africa (although I'd swear that its a rubber plant in the foreground). However, she's not really in Africa and, just as the music has only a spurious link to music from Africa (although more than you might think - more of that later), so too does the cover image make no attempt to make you think that the lady is anywhere other than a photographer's studio.<br />
Compare this cover to another exotica classic, Les Baxter's Ritual of the Savage.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Easy/P1110011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Easy/P1110011.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Although the couple are still in their evening clothes, they are surrounded by carved idols and seem to be genuinely in a lush, jungle-like landscape. In comparison the Kaempfert cover seems to be revelling in its knowing unreality. The woman swinging away knows she is in not in an exotic location, so do we and what's more none of us care!<br />
<br />
Bert is also not trying to fool us with the music either. You won't find any bird calls, unusual percussion, 'hot' backing vocals, chants or indeed any of the other staples of exotica records. This is lightly swinging big band music that wouldn't be out of place anywhere in Europe and America in the late 50s and early 60s. It was very much in the style of Billy May, Nelson Riddle, Ray Coniff, James Last or Ted Heath. Of course it has Bert's signature arrangements but he's nowhere near as experimental as Les Baxter.<br />
<br />
However, I defy anyone to listen to this record and not tap there foot or at the very least smile. For me its the playing of trumpeter Fred Moch. Beautifully restrained and lightly swinging, Moch is (uncredited) at the front of every song on this record and his happy tone, together with Bert's arrangements, give the whole record its upbeat and exuberant feel. <br />
<br />
But its not just the arrangements that capture my attention. Its the songs as well. Lets start by looking at the ones that Bert didn't write.<br />
First off we have That Happy Feeling by one of my obsessions Guy Warren. That's right, Guy Warren Ghanaian drummer extraordinaire! How did Bert get to hear Guy's song? In 1962 when this record was recorded Warren was leaving America in disgust over the lack of interest in his fusion of African and American jazz. It cannot be an exaggeration to say that more people must have heard Kaempfert's utterly European take on one of Warren's compositions than any of his other tracks. It completely lives up to its title. However, given Warren's passionate Afrocentrism he must have been somewhat dismayed by its adoption as an easy/exotic classic.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/HVBM5Msq8yw?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
He did, however, return to it on his son's album. Perhaps this is more the way he imagined it?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/QW2wxiQbN5w?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
The next cover is Similau. Similau is an old song, the earliest recorded version of which is by Peggy Lee in 1949 and quickly became a standard with versions by Artie Shaw, Jimmy Dorsey and Edmundo Ros amongst many others. Apparently it was based on a voodoo chant from the Caribbean. However, I suspect that it was Martin Denny's version from his 1957 hit Exotica that prompted its inclusion. Bert's version doesn't have the, frankly annoying, bird calls of Denny's instead replacing them with a rather lovely string section and some female wordless vocals. Moch's pure trumpet rounds off the song. Altogether lovely and about as far from a voodoo ritual as its possible to get.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/gfIc9mqbHfA?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
Having made a slight detour to the Caribbean, Bert returns to Africa with the next track. Zambezi, written by South Africans Nico Carstens and Anton de Waal was another well covered track (it was even revived by the Piranhas as a kind of post punk novelty number). Using a jaunty flute section that is clearly intended to recall kwela penny whistles Bert's version of Zambezi is certainly not grey green or greasy and will have you dancing all the way through Southern Africa.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/FtIg60VurqA?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
On the B-Side Bert continues to cover Southern African songs, this time Wimoweh and Skokiaan. The story of how Wimoweh became world famous is well known. Written by South African Solomon Linda Mbube, already a huge hit in South Africa, folk music collector Alan Lomax played it to Pete Seegar and the Weavers. Rather than copyrighting the song to its true author it was credited to the fictitious Paul Campbell. Not until the 1990s did Linda see any royalties from a song that had become a global smash hit.<br />
<br />
Skokiaan is another song written by someone from Africa, this time from Zimbabwe. Originally recorded by the Cold Storage Band and written by August Musaruwa in 1951. Similarly to Mbube, after becoming a huge hit in South Africa, the record made its way to the United States but unlike that song it was played in its original form and became a hit there too. Covered by numerous people including Louis Armstrong and Bill Haley it was another well known song by the time Bert included it.<br />
<br />
Although none of the songs sound particularly African, Bert's arrangements are just too European and easy, I think its interesting that he should chose so many songs that originated in Africa. It would have been easy for him to either use other exotica songs or to use only his own compositions. I suspect that by including songs written by Africans (both black and white) Bert was trying to give his record a degree of authenticity, to somehow include an element of the continent in his music (without actually making it sound at all African).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/6KFGIqNznic?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<object width="320" height="266" class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://img.youtube.com/vi/eYBclmZk_QM/0.jpg"><param name="movie" value="http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/eYBclmZk_QM&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/eYBclmZk_QM&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></div>
<br />
<br />
For his own compositions, Bert seems also to have tried to retain a (Southern) African feeling. The title track is clearly Bert's take on kwela. Although he didn't cover Tom Hark, A Swinging Safari obviously owes a lot the record that put kwela on the international map Make your own mind up. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/66TLrby1R1g?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/zKz5kpqctV0?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
And keeping with the Southern African theme another one of Bert's originals is called Afrikaan Beat. And wonderfully, just as he covered tracks from overseas, the rhythm of Afrikaan Beat has become a much sampled reggae rhythm. What goes around......<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/vGmR2dJSDvo?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/vwuR5nVO0x0?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br /></div>
MMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05975688422273299541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6149040051804598058.post-3290183510622392052013-02-19T22:08:00.002+00:002013-02-19T22:08:50.863+00:00THE WATTS TOWERS AND JAZZ RECORD SLEEVES<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Travel/Pix/pictures/2011/8/24/1314188088808/Watts-Towers-Los-Angeles-007.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Travel/Pix/pictures/2011/8/24/1314188088808/Watts-Towers-Los-Angeles-007.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The Watts Towers in Los Angeles are fascinating examples of outsider art, public art, community art, and inventive engineering.<br />
They have come to stand as symbols not just of the place in which they were build, the Watts area of Los Angeles, but also of racial politics in California as well as the United States.<br />
I am fascinated by them, both as a unique work of art and as structures that have developed symbolic meaning that go well beyond anything their creator may have envisaged.<br />
In his phantasmagorical autobiography, Beneath the Underdog, Charles Mingus, who grew up in Watts describes the Watts Towers thus: "At that time in Watts there was an Italian man, named Simon Rodia - though some people said his name was Sabatino Rodella, and his neighbours called him Sam. He had a regular job as a tile setter, but on weekends and at night time, under lights he strung up, he was building something strange and mysterious and he'd been working on it since before my boy was born. Nobody knew what it was or what is was for. Around his small frame house he made a low wall shaped like a ship and inside it he was constructing what looked like three masts, all different heights, shaped like upside down ice cream cones. First he would set up skeletons of metal and chicken wire, and plaster them over with concrete, then he'd cover that with fancy designs made of pieces of seashells and mirrors and things. He was always changing his ideas while he worked and tearing down what he wasn't satisfied with and starting over again, so pinnacles tall as a two storey building would rise up and disappear and rise again. What was there yesterday mightn't be there next time you looked, but another lacy-looking tower would spring up in its place.<br />
Tig Johnson and Cecil J. McNeeley used to gather sacks full of pretty rocks and broken bottles to take to Mr Rodia, and my boy hung around with them watching him work while he waited for Gloria Stopes, one of his classmates who happened to live across the street....<br />
Mr Rodia was usually cheerful and friendly while he worked, and sometimes, drinking that good red wine from a bottle, he rattled off about Amerigo Vespucci, Julius Caesar, Buffalo Bill and all kinds of things he read about in the old encyclopedia he had in his house, but most of the time it sounded to Charles like he was speaking a foreign language. My boy marvelled at what he was doing and felt sorry for him when the local rowdies came around and taunted him and threw rocks and called him crazy, though Mr Rodia didn't seem to pay them much mind. Years later when Charles was grown and went back to Watts he saw three fantastic spires standing there - the tallest was over a hundred feet high. By then Rodia had finally finished his work and given it all to a neighbour as a present and gone away, no one knew where."<br />
Buddy Collette,. who grew up with Mingus in Watts, described Rodia and his creation in this way: "Simon Rodia was a little Italian guy with an old, dirty hat; a very quiet man, who didn't seem to have any friends and lived alone. Most of the neighbours ignored him and he didn't talk much. I don't know if he spoke English. Although he was a full-grown man, it seemed he weighed only about 100 pounds. He carried an old burlap sack on his back that he'd fill with little rocks, bottle caps, broken bottles, shells and all that material he was gathering to build his towers. Mingus and I would take these gum machines and put them on the railroad tracks. When the Watts Red Cars would come by, they would break the cast iron bottoms, which held all the pennies, maybe five dollars worth, which was a big haul. There would be a lot of litter like that among the tracks and Rodia would pick it up and make the most of it. Simon knew what he was doing with it, but we had no clue. Most people thought, 'That crazy guy, what's he building?' We had never seen anything like that before and he just kept adding to the structures. It wasn't until later that we could see that the guy was very artistic and knew what he was doing."<br />
Rodia built the structures, as outlined in the above descriptions, by hand from found materials. He did not use a scaffold, a blowtorch or power tools. Instead he used a system of pulleys to winch himself and thousands of tonnes of cement and materials up and down the towers. In 1954, having worked on the towers since 1921, he stopped work, and as outlined by Mingus, gave his land and towers to a neighbour and disappeared. He never explained his work or attempted to justify or recreate it.<br />
As Mingus and Collette's descriptions show, while he was building the towers, his neighbours gave him little encouragement and failed to empathise with his work. Watts during the 1930s and 1940s was a racially mixed area but Rodia seems not to have made any effort to mix with those around him. Instead he worked alone and without any need to consult local opinion.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1110700.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1110700.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
However, four years after he disappeared Harold Land released Harold In the Land of Jazz (my copy is a later issue retitled Grooveyard).<br />
This was Land's first record as a leader, and although not born in California he was by this time a stalwart of the West Coast jazz scene.<br />
West Coast album sleeves of the period were, in my view, beautifully designed and photographed, in particular those for Pacific Jazz by William Claxton.<br />
However, if they did include references to LA or California these tended to be of the beach or the sea, sometimes of the desert as in Sonny Rollins Way Out West sleeve or other rural locations such as that for Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section.<br />
In just four years the Watts Towers had gone from weird aberration to structures that conveyed a message. What was that message?<br />
In 1958 the Towers were under threat of demolition by the city authorities who claimed that they were unsafe and dangerous to local inhabitants. Instead a local, grassroots group bought the Towers with the intention of preserving them. The city authorities, already engaged in a programme of closing public arts programmes, attempting to control sites of cultural activities and suspicious of contemporary art, through attempting to close down what was a local symbol only succeed in creating a local movement.<br />
Could Land's album cover be a comment on the repressive efforts of local government as they attempted to control the LA arts scene, is it a comment on pride in a racial mixed area, or in unity of a local movement, or could it simply be a statement about pride in a predominantly black area of the city in which he lived? I like to think that there is a similarity between his sax and the structures behind him.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1010694.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1010694.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
It wouldn't be until 1968 that the Watts Towers would appear on the cover of a jazz record.<br />
Big Black's Message to our Ancestors is, as you might expect, a showcase for his impressive percussion skills. With only a flautist and some vocal encouragement accompanying him, this record is largely a percussive tour de force. Black, who played with Olatunji, Freddie Hubbard and Randy Weston amongst others, was well versed in African music (he also played with Hugh Masakela).<br />
As you can see from his leopard print shirt and hat, he was at this point in his career fully "an exponent of African music" as the sleeve notes state.<br />
What, then is he doing in front of a structure made by an Italian in Los Angeles?<br />
In 1965 Watts was the centre of one of the largest civil uprisings in US history, requiring the National Guard to suppress it. A frustrated response to high unemployment, a dire educational system, a lack of social services, a history of police violence and a dearth of public transportation, the riot left 34 people dead, 1,032 injured and about 4,000 arrested.<br />
The riots immediately changed how the Towers would be seen as they changed how Watts was perceived. Watts become associated with violent crime, urban blight and black revolution.<br />
Big Black's Afrocentric stance, in his music and clothes, therefore chimes with his positioning in front of the Watts Towers. He is saying not only that he has pride in his African ancestry, a pride that was becoming more widespread and strident amongst black Americans but also that this pride in his ancestry was linked to contemporary events and actions in the United States. The Towers post-Watts Riots now served as a symbol of embattled racial politics as well as racial pride.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1110715.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1110715.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Willie Bobo's 1971 record, Do What You Want to Do isn't really a jazz record,. But I'm including it not just because of his jazz credentials but also because I think it shows another shift in the symbolism of the Towers.<br />
Bobo's group, the terribly named Bo-Gents, included black, white and latino musicians. While this may not have been anything special in 1971, the fact that they chose to be photographed in front of the Watts Towers is significant.<br />
The Towers have changed from symbolising a type of black militant ism to symbolising great equality. Given that the 1970s saw the hardening of conservative opinion towards inner city areas which led to a lack of empathy and reduced financial support, Bobo's statement of racial unity specifically located at a site that was known as place of racial tension was a brave move. However, I think it has a wider significance beyond the Watts area. The Towers are a symbol of urban LA, perhaps one of the few that is instantly recognisable to people outside of California. Was Bobo making a point about the wider situation in the city, one where racial tensions and property development were mixing to undermine what little unity there was in the city's population as so brilliantly exposed in Mike Davis's City of Quartz?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1110704.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1110704.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Don Cherry's Brown Rice is an incredible record and deserves a review of its own (which I will probably give it as some stage).<br />
Cherry, of course, had come to prominence in LA as part of Ornette Coleman's group and had been instrumental in developing what would become termed free jazz.<br />
For Brown Rice, Cherry drew on Arabic, African and Indian music to create a truly unique sound.<br />
Yet, on the cover of the LP he is posing with the Watts Towers in the background. Interestingly for the CD reissue the photo is cropped to cut out the Watts Towers.<br />
The racial unity expressed by Willie Bobo on his sleeve is now extended beyond the city of LA to the whole world. The Towers have come to symbolise not only the potential of Watts but of the whole world, perhaps as people are brought together through music.<br />
<br />
From the localised message of Harold Land's record through to those of Cherry's we have seen how the Tower's meanings have changed and been adopted by jazz musicians who are seeking to use them to express their own messages. Situated in a neighbourhood that has seen enormous racial tension, famously exploding into violence, the Tower's have come to symbolise not just local pride but also racial (and musical)<br />
openness.<br />
<br />
That sense of the music uniting different people has been adopted since 1977 by the Watts Jazz Festival.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1110745.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1110745.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Not a great record (although Willie Bobo's contributions are suitably cooking) but it is an incredible photo of the Towers.<br />
<br />
The jazz festival continues to this day.<br />
</div>
MMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05975688422273299541noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6149040051804598058.post-54157753303579709902012-11-28T16:18:00.003+00:002012-11-28T16:18:50.074+00:00THE PAUL BLEY QUARTET - SOLEMN MEDITATION<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1120912.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1120912.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Excuse this slightly rambling post. I;m trying to work out some ideas on the fly so I hope some, at least, makes sense!<br />
<br />
<br />
Don't expect Paul Bley's Solemn Mediation to be as exotic as the cover might make out. There is Paul, looking very serious and preppy with his buzz cut and button-down shirt but still without shoes, reading a book at the foot of the Buddha. What is he reading? Is it a religious text, is he seeking enlightenment, is he in some way meditating? Meditation, Buddha, a quest for knowledge, possibly a jungle behind him, all of these things point to the record being concerned with Eastern spirituality. Is this record going to be in any way exotic I hear you ask.<br />
<br />
Solemn Meditation was released in 1958, the same year as another pianist called Martin Denny released Exotica. The covers of both records evoke and unnamed 'other' place with east Asian overtones. The titles of the Bley compositions, are Drum Two and Beau Diddley with Dave Pike contributing Persian Village. Compare these to Quiet Village, Love Dance, Ami Wa Furi and Waipio on Exotica. However, the two record could not be more different despite these superficial similarities.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Easy/P1120916.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Easy/P1120916.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Denny's group and Bley's were quartets, both also including vibes, Arthur Lyman in Denny's group and Dave Pike in Bley's and neither group featured brass players.<br />
Why am I comparing these two records you might ask? I want to draw some parallels with non-American influences in jazz and in 'pop' or in Denny's case exotica.<br />
Of course the most obvious difference between the two records is that the music on Bley's record is much more clearly in the jazz idiom. He covers songs written by Dizzy Gillespie and Roy Eldridge as well as Porgy from Gershwin's jazz influenced musical. Meanwhile Denny relies heavily on Les Baxter who, although recording a number of records with the word jazz in the title (Jungle Jazz, African Jazz), writing for prominent swing bands in the 1940s and experimenting with rhythms and instruments from Latin America and elsewhere, is not considered to be a jazz musician.<br />
While i grant you there is considerably less swing in Denny's record it is clearly as concerned with the nature of sounds and rhythm as Bley's. Indeed at times I can hear Dave Brubeck's experiments underneath the bird calls and percussion flourishes.<br />
What is also missing on the Denny record are the clear references throughout Solemn Meditation to other jazz musicians and trends, most notably bop and pianists such as Bud Powell and fellow Canadian Oscar Peterson. <br />
Strangely what I don't hear on Solemn Meditation is much experimentation. Given that Bley was, at the time of recording this record, playing with Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry and that his bassist Charlie Hadden would go on to join the Colemen group, Solemn Meditation is solidly in the bop tradition.<br />
Now, I'm not suggesting that Exotica is more experimental than Solemn Meditation but perhaps it pointed the way for a new direction in a way that Solemn Meditation did not. Remember that both Coltrane and Yusef Lateef listened to and liked exotica records before they discovered field recordings. What they were listening for were new instruments, unusual sounds and original approaches to composition.<br />
<br />
To be continued......... <br />
<br />
<br /></div>
MMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05975688422273299541noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6149040051804598058.post-45757573150863967762012-11-28T14:00:00.001+00:002012-11-29T10:58:03.850+00:00PETER BURMAN'S JAZZ TETE A TETE<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1120911.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1120911.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
This record is a Britjazz obscurity. Recorded in 1962 it reveals British jazz trying to find a distinctive British (as opposed to American) voice. The role and influence of America on the jazz music of the rest of the world is a hotly debated issue. Here we get a glimpse of some of the leading jazz musicians in Britain in the early sixties attempting to pull away from the enormous influence of American jazz and create a new indigenous kind of jazz music. <br />
<br />
Peter Burman ran a nightclub in 1960s London called the El Toro and was also involved in the National Jazz Federation. Many well known British jazz musicians played the El Toro and Burman used it as a place to identify and promote (in all meanings of the word) musicians who he felt had promise. Thus he brought to the attention of the BBC some of the leading jazz bands of the period. Bands he recommended would be auditioned by the BBC and, if they passed, were given the opportunity to appear on the radio.<br />
This led to Burman organising concerts, which he called Jazz Tete a Tete's, in the Recital Room at the Royal Festival Hall. These concerts were broadcast on the BBC's Jazz Club.<br />
Although none of the broadcasts survive Burman, with the help of the ubiquitous Denis Preston, managed to get some of the musicians to record in Preston's Lansdowne Studios. This record is the result of these sessions.<br />
<br />
If I'm honest what first drew me to this LP was the presence of Shake Keane. Keane had already recorded some of the most adventurous avant garde jazz ever committed to vinyl with Joe Harriott. The Joe Harriott Quintet released the seminal Free Form in 1960 and Abstract in 1962. When Keane recorded the tracks on this record in January 1962 the Harriott Quintet were half way through recording Abstract.<br />
Of course, Harriott's free form experiments were utterly original and owed little to America. However, they were also not taken up by the British jazz scene. Indeed many British jazz musicians were openly scornful and mocking of the Quintet's music.<br />
There is none of this experimentation in Keane's playing here. Instead he supports the Pat Smythe Trio. Smythe was also a member of the Harriott Quintet. In his way he was as important to the Harriott sound as was Keane. According to Coleridge Goode it was Smythe's harmonic subtlety and range of musical knowledge that made free form music a real possibility.<br />
Keane and Smythe both had knowledge of classical music and, perhaps not surprisingly for music that originated in one of London's most prestigious concert venues, the music they produce here is very much influenced by the mix of jazz and classical music that came to be known as the 'third stream'. I think given Keane's other appearances on experimental third stream recordings, most notably David Mack's New Directions, this is hardly surprising.<br />
However, of all the recordings on this record the Smythe Trios are perhaps the most 'jazz'. Of the three tracks, two are from recognised jazz greats, Miles David and Max Roach, albeit in radically different forms, while the third is the standard, Ole Devil Moon.<br />
For me these tracks are the highlight of the record. however, they are not at all the most ambitious.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/j3IbMxjnThE?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
Johnny Scott, in 1962, was the leader of a quintet and had been playing jazz for a number of years. He would later move into studio work for movie scores which in turn led him into cinema composing where he has scored music for movies such as The Shooting Party and Greystoke. He has also scored classical pieces, played in classical orchestras and even conducted.<br />
His contribution to this record is a Suite in Three Movements. I can hear definite elements of cinematic music in each movement and although his music definitely has a foundation in jazz, it is obviously pulling in a completely different direction from Harriott's free form experiments.<br />
Although the sleeve notes compare these pieces by Scott to the American third stream I would suggest that they rather represent a more British approach to the fusion of jazz and classical music. I find his flute playing and the percussion to be very evocative of Benjamin Britten.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<object class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://0.gvt0.com/vi/Rw6d5_KzSbQ/0.jpg" height="266" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Rw6d5_KzSbQ&fs=1&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Rw6d5_KzSbQ&fs=1&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></div>
<br />
<br />
Ray Premru's group consisted of some great British jazzmen. Kenny Clare, Bob Efford, Kenny Napper and Eddie Blair. Unfortunately their contribution is the least interesting on the record, perhaps because it is the least experimental.<br />
Despite also leaning heavily on classical conventions it is rather stale music that never manages to lift itself above or beyond its conventions.<br />
<br />
Finally, the record closes with some marvellous music from Alan Clare. Again owing rather a lot to classical music, in this case Debussy, Clare's music is truly sublime. I think its his playing, his tone and phrasing, that really give his contributions such depth and beauty. It is a shame he did not record more!<br />
He is ably assisted by Lennie Bush on drums, Dave Goldberg on guitar and Bob Burns on soprano sax. Their playing is very restrained putting Clare's playing at the forefront.<br />
Of all the music on this record, Clare's is the most difficult to pigeon-hole. Is it jazz, or classical, or something else entirely? Its certainly very beautiful and unique.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/X4DxbQ21ivU?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
Overall, this record is not a lost masterpiece. At best if provides a snapshot of a moment in the development of British jaz as it stuggled to find its identity. If you come across it, pick it up. Its an interesting listen.<br />
<br /></div>
MMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05975688422273299541noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6149040051804598058.post-77157839862881516192012-10-15T15:03:00.001+01:002012-10-15T15:03:10.790+01:00DON BURROWS PLUS SIX - ON CAMERA<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1010039.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1010039.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
For reasons that I can't begin to explain, this record hasn't been far from turntable for the last few weeks.<br />
In case you don't know him, Don Burrows is one of the key figures in Australian jazz. If you ever come across a record from Australia that contains jazz it will also probably have Burrows playing on it!<br />
Released in 1963, On Camera collects together some of the music Burrows and his band recorded for TV shows such as The Bryan Davies Show and This Is Jazz.<br />
Oh, for a time when you could see and hear jazz on television. I don't know about you but round these parts the only jazz that gets shows on any of the hundreds of channels I get are concerts of sixties jazz luminaries but only recorded at the sunset of their careers, usually for some reason in the early nineties. There is definitely nothing showing young, avante garde, or interesting modern jazz. Imagine a whole programmes devoted to it! But then again in 1962 the world hadn't yet been completely changed by the arrived of the Beatles! I'm sure they didn't mean to, but their success put an end to the era when jazz could be considered pop music, much less popular music.<br />
Anyway, I digress!<br />
With Burrows on this record is a veritable supergroup of Australian jazz musos. Accompanying Burrows on brass is Errol Buddle on tenor, as well as oboe, bassoon and clarinet (that's him on the front cover with a bald head and 'tache). Rounding out the brass section is Johnny Bamford on trombone. Judy Bailey is on piano, as well as celeste, glockenspiel, George Golla is on guitar, John Sangster is on drums and George Thompson on bass. Each one is a name to be reckoned with in Australian jazz. <br />
In the early sixties all of these musicians, and many other jazz musicians, were making the lions share of their livings playing for TV, movies, and adverts. Just as in the UK and America, there was a demand for musicians who could play jazz, but who could also read music and be relied upon to turn up to a recording session at the right time and not too drunk! It was in this atmosphere that musicians such as John Sangster learnt about arranging and writing. All of the musicians on this record had long experience in this world. It may not have been very glamorous and you may not have been able to play exactly what you wanted but it paid well and was fairly solid work. <br />
I'm sure that is why Burrows chose these six for his band. After all they would be recording music for TV shows, often broadcast live and frequently with little time to rehearse before hand.<br />
But these were no faceless session musicians. At the same time as they may have been knuckling down to session work, in the evenings, everyone on this record, and many more musicians were jamming in the El Rocco. A Sydney nightclub in the Kings Cross district, El Rocco became in the early 60s one of the places for jazz musicians to congregate and engage in sometimes fearsome jam sessions that might last all night. Everyone apparently could have a go, but few could take the pressure. All styles were welcome from Trad Jazz (of which there seems to be a lot in Oz) to more avante garde styles influenced by what was going on in New York.<br />
Like all such crucibles of musical invention, the El Rocco was both welcoming and off putting at the same time. However, it provided a place for musicians to push at the boundaries of jazz in a way that paying gigs never would have done.<br />
Can you hear any of that experimentation in On Camera?<br />
I'm not sure. Don't forget the music here was intended to be sent by the Australian Broadcasting Company into the living rooms of Australians all over the country. It wouldn't do to have anything too 'way out'. You might be pleased to find jazz on the box but you wouldn't have been able to get anything experimental, much less dissonant!<br />
However, there is something playful and irreverent about the whole record. Perhaps its the way they deconstruct the songs they cover. The Porgy and Bess Medley, Moon River, Nutcracker Suite, Begin the Beguine all start conventionally enough. You might think you were getting an easy listening version of each one. Then, almost without you realising it, the band have headed off in their own direction and left the familiar song somewhere far behind them. What's going on, you might say, I know its supposed to be Begin the Beguine, what's happening now? And just at the point that you might wonder if they are still playing the same track, like the professionals they are, they slide back in and you can sit back in your armchair, puff your pipe and drink your tea. Phew, I thought for a terrible moment that those jazzers were up to their old tricks, and were trying to pull a fast one on me!<br />
However, by a long way the standout track for me is the Burrow's penned The Wailing Waltz. Everyone has a crack at trying to wrestle it away from the others. From George Golla's intro to Burrow's own flute solo, Sangster's pushing drumming in the background, Bailey's strident, off-kilter piano until to winds up a slightly sweaty but very pleased with itself heap at the end its an endless enjoyable piece of music.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<object width="320" height="266" class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://3.gvt0.com/vi/DMYyKS6gM_c/0.jpg"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/DMYyKS6gM_c&fs=1&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/DMYyKS6gM_c&fs=1&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></div>
<br /></div>
MMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05975688422273299541noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6149040051804598058.post-25824238094981655582012-10-05T14:59:00.002+01:002012-10-05T14:59:15.932+01:00DAVIE ALLAN - FUZZBUSTIN'<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The surf scene in California started the careers of many musicians who would go on to be mainstays of rock, jazz and pop music. Lee Hazlewood, Jerry Cole, Emil Richards, Phil Spector, Jack Nietzsche, Glenn Campbell, Carol Kaye, Tommy Tedesco, Hal Blaine and many others came out of the surf music scene. One of the strangest collaborations was between aspiring producer and label owner, Mike Curb and a young adventurous guitar player called Davie Allan. Never really part of the mainstream, Davie Allan nonetheless produced some of the toughest wildest music ever to have come from surf - that is until Klaus Fluoride of the Dead Kennedys!<br />
Allan is most famous for his work on a number of budget biker flicks. His unique fuzz guitar sound seemed to perfectly emulate the sound of an angry Harley and his wild, almost psych, approach to music seemed to encapsulate the growing counter culture in California. That he was a very straight guy with no personal experience of bikes or drugs doesn't seem to matter. As well as the biker films Allan also provided music to any number of drugs, teen, violent, mondo films <br />
The story of Curb and Allan's work together is usually portrayed as one of typical record company exploitation. It's alleged that Curb took writing credit for many of the tracks that Allan played on, forced Allan to play on many of the releases on his Sidewalk and Tower labels and mismanaged Allan's solo career. It doesn't help that after Allan and Curb stopped working together, Curb went on put out ever poorer quality records usually by the eponymous Mike Curb Congregation, became an executive for a 'proper' record label, MGM, where, having got religion her persuaded them to drop any artists whose drug use he disapproved of and then finally he got into politics as a Republican.<br />
However, although the relationship between Curb and Allan was not equal, I don't see it as being any more unequal than many other producer/artist relationships. Curb genuinely did write a lot of the material that Allan recorded and Allan has even said as much. As for the accusation that Allan was forced to work on too many sessions and record too many terrible song, Los Angeles was full of session musicians looking for work and who were prepared to play any gig as long as it paid. The list above shows how many brilliant musicians there were who also appear in some surprising and not always very good musical places.<br />
Having said all that it is Allan's playing that stands out and long after Curb is forgotten it is Allan's signature fuzz guitar sound that will live on.<br />
Follow me through the Davie Allan story on vinyl. As ever there are some omissions and I will aim to fill these in as soon as I come across the necessary records! <br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/60s%20rock/P1120826.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/60s%20rock/P1120826.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Curb and Allan were in the same choir and when Curb's ambitions led him to Mercury he took Allan with him. Finally he was taken on as a producer and worked alongside surf producer extraordinaire Gary Usher. He used many of Usher's techniques on his motorcycle records, including the recycling of tracks and the tendency to include one or two great songs and lots of filler. West Coast Action Sounds - Go Go With the Buddies is the second Mercury motorcycle record he produced and already it contains a number of tracks lifted of his earlier Buddies and Compacts record! Covering just about every Californian fad from bikes, to cars, to skate boards to skiing this is a nice but not exactly adventurous record. Allan had yet to fully explore the possibilities of fuzz and while there are some hints his playing is very much in the Dick Dale mould. Good, but don't loose any sleep if you haven't got a copy!<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/60s%20rock/P1120821.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/60s%20rock/P1120821.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Allan and the Arrow's first album is a little cracker. Skip over their version of the Shadow's Apache and head straight to Tee Pee to get a full blast of their sound. Driving, fast paced, relentless surf with pounding drums and a catchy piano lick, its a great tune. A harmonica makes an appearance in Twine Time and to close the first side we get the great Rebel (Without a Cause). Side two is dominated by Scratchy. A great slab of Duane Eddy inspired guitar instrumental with a hint of the fuzz that would make Allan's name. The LP closes with Comanche (after Apache - geddit?) and a great end it is too.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Soundtracks/P1120827.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Soundtracks/P1120827.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Allan would explore the fuzz further on his next record and first soundtrack, Skaterdater. Released on the Mira label and featuring Al Casey on guitar, Larry Brown on drums and Joe Osbourne on bass, this is the soundtrack to a short film about LA teenage skateboarders. The film was quite successful as you can see from the record cover!<br />
However, in the main it's still basically coming from the world of surf music. Producers had been trying to find other pursuits to replace surfing that would continue the music and take it beyond the West Coast. So there were hot rod records, motorcycle records, power boat records, skiing records, and skateboarding records. However, perhaps unintentionally it lay the foundations for the rest Allan's career.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/60s%20rock/P1120822.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/60s%20rock/P1120822.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Before leaving Mira Allan was session guitarist on this frankly bewildering record.<br />
Without doubt the campest record in my collection, Teddy and Darrel take out most of the double in double entendre and leave you in no doubt that they are singing (if you can call it that) about sex.<br />
Lisping and simpering in a completely stereotypical way the duo fly very close to the bone for a record released in 1966. Someone must have thought that there was a market for these camp covers or else why would they record These Are The Hits You Silly Savage? You should listen to These Are The Hits as, for no other reason, it will make you completely reasse Hold On I'm Comin! As far as Allan in concerned there is nothing in the way of fuzz guitar and so don't get it if you want something tough!!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/biker/Picture093.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/biker/Picture093.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Luckily for history exploito film producer Roger Corman liked the fuzz he heard in Skaterdater and decided that it was what he needed for his forthcoming biker flick Wild Angels (what kind of movie might he have made if he'd heard Teddy and Darrel!).<br />
The Wild Angels created a template that Allan would follow for much of his soundtrack work. There was a theme, The Theme From the Wild Angel, a freakout track, an absolute powerhouse of crazed fuzz, in this case the justly famous Blues Theme and some filler - no one needs to hear the Hands of Time's Lonely in the Chapel. Although some of the tracks are credited to Davie Allan and the Arrows, Allan and his Arrow cohorts played on every track and the bands credited were entirely fictional. Curb obviously liked to make it seem that he was in charge of a larger roster of acts when in fact other than Allan there were few others.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/biker/Picture079.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/biker/Picture079.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
So successful was The Wild Angels and Blue Theme was such a runaway hit that Curb hurriedly got Allan and the Arrows back into the studio to knock out a follow up.<br />
The Wild Angels Vol. II runs to just under twenty minutes and is nothing more than a retread of material on the original record.<br />
However, Dark Alley and The Last Ride come to the rescue and save what might otherwise have been a pretty desperate record.<br />
Allan's fuzz sound is now very much to the fore which is a good thing.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Soundtracks/Picture209.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Soundtracks/Picture209.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
But Allan and Curb won't only working on biker soundtracks. Dr Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs was a kind of James Bond meets Gidget movie staring Vincent Price and Fabian. There is even a sequel of sorts Dr Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine.<br />
The soundtrack includes Curb stalwarts, Terry Stafford, Guy Hemeric, Harley Hatcher and Davie Allan.<br />
If you listen closely you can hear him playing on the Candles track This I Say.<br />
Overall I like this record more that I should. Its stupid and lightweight and generally pointless. Or perhaps those are reasons that I should like it? I'm particularly partial to the Mad Doctors tracks for some reason!<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Soundtracks/P1120831.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Soundtracks/P1120831.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Riot on Sunset Strip is justly a classic soundtrack if not a classic movie. Using real band, The Standells and the Chocolate Watch Band there is a real garage punk feel to this record. It might really be music that kids listened to rather than music that record and film company executives thought they listened to! However, Curb, as he was the producer, couldn't help but add some of his own bands. So we get the forgettable Debra Travis, Drew, The Mugwumps and The Mom's Boys. There was also the Sidewalk Sounds, really Davie Allan and the Arrows. Allan also played on Mugwumps and Mom's Boys tracks. None of these stand up to the fuzz of the earlier biker soundtracks unfortunately.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/biker/Picture087.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/biker/Picture087.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Meanwhile Curb agreed with Corman that Allan would provide the soundtrack for Corman's next biker film Devil's Angels.<br />
Curb pulled out all the stops and teamed Allan with Wrecking Crew stalwarts Carol Kaye, Hal Blaine, Larry Knechtel and Jerry Styner.<br />
My God but its a killer group! Fuzz monsters such as The Devils Rumble, The Ghost Story and Devil's Angels are just too mean and hard to keep within the grooves of a record. They demand to be let loose to go screaming down the road, raising hell, taking bad drugs, and sleeping with your wife. If you have to get one Allan biker soundtrack it must be this one. Sure there is the usual filler, a bongo theme and a strange carnival track but the good tracks are just too good to miss.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/Picture806.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/Picture806.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Taking a small break from relentless soundtracks, Allan and the Arrows next appeared on Sidewalk's Freakout USA LP.<br />
Anyone familiar with exploito psych records will immediately see this for what it is - a plastic trip of the first order!<br />
Curb 'bands' the Hands of Time, the Mom's Boys and The Mugwumps reappear for this cash-in. They are joined by other 'groups' The Aftermath, International Theatre Foundation, The Glass Family and Everybody's Children.<br />
I'm pretty sure its Allan on the Hands of Time (I Like the Way You Freakout and Psychotic Reaction), the Mom's Boys (Yellow Pill and Up and Down) and the Mugwumps (Season of the Witch). Most likely its him on the other tracks too!<br />
As it says on the back "..you can rest assured that you'll fall down and pass out screaming with the Psychotic Reaction sounds of today's frenzied Freakouts - USA". Of course! Pick it up for fun. If you look closely at the photo of my copy you'll see that someone has added transfers of old cars to the cover - in my mind that just makes it even more of a freakout!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Soundtracks/P1120830.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Soundtracks/P1120830.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Thunder Alley was a vehicle (geddit?) for Fabian and Annette Funicello after the surf movie fad had run its course it was similar to Elvis's racing movies, Spinout and Speedway.<br />
The soundtrack boldly announced that it was introducing the Band With No Name and includes on the reverse a picture of some likely looking lads in 'mod' attire. In fact not only did the band have no name it wasn't even a real band. It was really just Davie Allan and the Arrows in disguise. And so was the Sidewalk Sounds who we last saw on the Riot on Sunset Strip soundtrack and who we will see later.<br />
As for the music, all the Band With No Name and the Sidewalk Sounds contributions have Allan's twangy fuzz guitar in full effect. My favourite is the Theme From Thunder Alley which closes the record but Calahan's Vision is also very fine. Pete's Orgy wins the prize for best title even through the song itself is only about 30 seconds long!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Soundtracks/Picture217.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Soundtracks/Picture217.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Isn't this one of the best record covers you've ever seen? Very cool. Teenage Rebellion was a mondo movie purporting to show the 'real' life of teenagers. And in case you are in any doubt the track titles tell you what these kids are up to. Orgy Around the World, The French Kiss, Pot Party, The Call Girl and The Gay Teenager (perhaps Teddy and Darrel?). Oh to have been a teenager in the 60s when it was all sex and drugs. When I was a teenager I would have killed for sex or drugs, but that's a different story.<br />
There are no bands credited on the record but there can be no doubt that its Allan behind the opener Teenage Rebellion, The Young World (an early version of Action on the Streets) Make Love Not War and Pot Party. Only Allan could produce that deep down dirty fuzz sound. I'd guess that the slightly surf inflected other tracks feature our man as well. Special mention must be made for Pot Party. Over a Duane Eddy like background a super serious voice over warns/titillates the listener about the drug problem. "If marijuana is the appetiser the advent of the space age technology has provided the main course - LSD, the crazy acid!" Of course.<br />
I also have a soft spot for A Young Girls Mistake which is a crazy moog track that could be straight off a JJ Perrey library record.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/60s%20rock/P1120825.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/60s%20rock/P1120825.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Gypsy Boots was a LA character who was into nature and the ecology before it was hip. A friend of Eden Ahbez who wrote Nature Boy, Gypsy Boots had his own health food store and appeared numerous times on Steve Allen's TV show.<br />
With long hair a beard he look positively bizarre in the late 50 and early 60s. Now he wouldn't make anyone look twice.<br />
I've no idea who was the brains behind this record. Boots can't really sing but shouldn't have been a problem. The real problem is that the songs are terrible and the music is appalling. My advice to you is not to buy this record.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/60s%20rock/P1120832.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/60s%20rock/P1120832.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Now we're talking! Packed with mosrite monster fuzz action Blues Theme is all killer and no filler. Every track is a perfectly delivered slice of guitar instrumental mind warp. However, in 1967 no one was interested in this kind of music. The cash-in movies that Allan provided soundtracks for were a better indication of where the kids' minds were and unfortunately for him they were no longer at the beach.<br />
The record starts with the Arrows most famous cut, Blues Theme and also includes Theme from the Wild Angels. Theme from the Unknown and Sorry 'bout That are all recycled from elsewhere. But as they are amazing examples of surf guitar shredded by fuzz its not a problem.<br />
Action on the Streets is a particularly wild and crazed piece of music that could only have more fuzz if the vinyl grew a beard. It has to be heard to be believed. Their take on the Thunderball Theme is also pretty damn fine too.<br />
I can't tell you how great this record is, you'll just have to go out and buy a copy and find out for yourselves!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Soundtracks/Picture215.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Soundtracks/Picture215.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Mondo Hollywood was a similar kind of film to Teenage Rebellion. A 'documentary' the supposedly revealed the strange side of LA it included our friend Gypsy Boots.<br />
Thankfully he didn't contribute to the record but some other familiar names crop up. Remember Teddy and Darrel and The Mugwumps? It also has the first appearance of the 18th Century Concepts, a band for whom Curb would produce a number albums.<br />
Allan only contributed Moonfire, a typically fuzzed out excursion into the freakiest areas of guitar action.<br />
I suspect that he is also on all the other tracks but who knows? <br />
Great cover, don't you think?<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/biker/Picture083.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/biker/Picture083.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Another great record cover.<br />
Using their Sidewalk Sounds alias, Allan and the Arrows fourth biker soundtrack could have built on the strengths of Devil's Angels.<br />
Instead someone at Tower/Sidewalk though that the way to go was Mariachi Brass. Not so much fuzz as brass!<br />
There are some moments of relied, notably The Loser's Bar and Gangrene's Fight but its too little too late.<br />
By now Allan had been working on so many records, soundtracks, sessions and his own records, that perhaps the quality control had gone a little awry? Or maybe Bob Summers, who produced the record had cloth ears?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/60s%20rock/P1120833.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/60s%20rock/P1120833.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Cycle-delic Sounds - the title says it all. If you are reading this you should stop right now and go and track down a copy of this record. It is without doubt one of the greatest instrumental records ever produced and it takes the surf-based format and injects about as much fuzz as anyone before or since has injected into any music.<br />
There are three tracks from biker movies - Cody's Theme and Devil's Angels from the Devil's Angels soundtrack and Born Loser's Theme from the Born Losers.<br />
The rest are all originals and are incredible. The record opens with what is Davie Allan's greatest moment. A seven minute trip into the unknown and back again. Layers and layers of distorted and crunched guitars attack the music as though life itself depended on it. Screaming from every side, Allan's guitar sounds like it is blazing off to another planet and is taking you along for the ride. It weaves in and out, builds up, comes back down only to build up once again.Its a howling fuzz monster that you need to hear - now!<br />
After that the other tracks seem almost polite in comparison. But they aren't. Invasion, Blue's Trip, 13th Harley, Another Cycle in Detroit and Grogg's Hog tear through your ears like bats out of hell. Rough, raw and fierce they are the sounds of surf put through a blender and reconfigured as a new musical creature. The record closes with Mind Transferal which features backwards vocals and even backwards drums!<br />
If you have any taste at all you will love this remarkable and unique record.<br />
Oh, and isn't the cover cool?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/biker/Picture085.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/biker/Picture085.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
After reaching such a pinnacle of fuzzed out mayhem what else was there to do but record another biker soundtrack? Credited to the Sidewalk Sounds and Eddie and the Stompers the music on this record keeps up the tremolo/fuzz pace of its predecessors.<br />
The main action is at the Stompers and the Souls and the Glory Stompers.<br />
As usual there is a fair share of filler but you've come to expect that by now haven't you?<br />
Apparently some of the music on here was originally intended for another Corman classic The Trip but the Electric Flag got that gig instead!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Soundtracks/Picture208.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Soundtracks/Picture208.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
I wonder what a film called Mary Jane could be about???<br />
Staring Fabian and Diane McBain its a rather disappointing dangers of drugs film. Its not as good as Psych Out.<br />
The soundtrack on the other hand is very good. Grogs Hog gets recycled as Bay City Boys but the rest of the music is original. You'll have to skip over the Mary Jane Theme twice. Once by Mike Clifford was bad enough but to have it again sung by Mrs Miller is too much for anyone to take.<br />
There's no mental fuzz action but that's ok because its a largely percussion lead affair.<br />
Standout is Gas Hassle.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Soundtracks/Picture210.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Soundtracks/Picture210.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Fabian was, again, the star of the next Allan soundtrack record - Wild Racers.<br />
Its largely a snooze-fest despite the Arrow's involvement, again sometimes credited as the Sidewalk Sounds.<br />
The Wild Racer's Theme raises a little interest but overall its not a very interesting record.<br />
Possibly the most interesting thing about my copy is that its from Canada!<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Soundtracks/Picture165.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Soundtracks/Picture165.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Wild in the Streets is a pretty groovy movie starring Christopher Jones, Shelley Winters and Richard Pryor.<br />
Allan's fuzz doesn't feature much on this record although it does have its moments, most notably Psychedelic Senate which has some groovy sitars. The music was composed by exotica god Les Baxter or Barry Mann and Cynthia Weill.<br />
Mos of the tracks are credited to the 13th Power which I suspect is really another Curb non-band and is actually Allan and his Arrows.<br />
Allan and the Arrows also recorded their own version of the soundtrack which was released at the same time. I haven't tracked a copy down yet but as soon as I have I'll add it in.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/Picture835.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/Picture835.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Another spin off from the movie soundtrack was this record which included the tracks Shape of Things to Come and Fifty Two Per Cent from the movie.<br />
Its actually not a bad record and has some fine moments. I particularly like Captain Hassel and Shine It On as well as the two movie tracks.<br />
I don't think its Allan, there is certainly none of his trademark guitar sounds on it.<br />
Does anyone out there know who Max Frost and the Troopers were?<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/biker/Picture084.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/biker/Picture084.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
The next biker movie that Allan would work on was the Hellcats.<br />
As you can probably tell from the cover it was about female bikers.<br />
Just as the momentum was going out of biker films so it was going out of Davie Allan and the Arrows. The title track is another fuzzed out stormer but is it just me or by now hasn't Allan done about all there was to do with this sound? Its not a bad track it just isn't very inspired.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/biker/Picture086.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/biker/Picture086.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Allan would play on a few further biker soundtracks. Wild Wheels pitted beach buggies (good) against bikers (bad).<br />
The music is a bit of a disappointment although it does have Allan singing on Makin' Love which is a re-recorded version of the Arrows' Makin Love Is Fun.<br />
Its credited to the 13th Committee - possibly related to the 13th Power from Wild in the Streets?<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/biker/Picture077.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/biker/Picture077.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Allan also contributed a very surf sounding track to another biker movie The Hard Ride.<br />
Its a lovely song but has absolutely no fuzz at all.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Allan would also play on a surfing movie called the Golden Breed. I've yet to track down an original copy I can afford but when I do I'll include it here.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
In 1969 Curb would sell of Sidewalk Productions for $2 million and go and work at MGM. Allan found that the work simply dried up and disappeared. tI wouldn't be until the 80s that he recorded under his own name but it is for his incredible body of work in the late 60s that he will be best remembered.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
</div>
MMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05975688422273299541noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6149040051804598058.post-29559391424287948472012-10-02T22:46:00.000+01:002012-10-02T22:46:00.468+01:00Jerry Cole - Between Surf and Psych<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Between his reign as the go-to guy for surf and hot rod instrumentals (read about it <a href="http://nightofthelivingvinyl.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/jerry-cole-super-charged-knock-offs.html">here)</a> and inadvertently spawning a slew of psychedelic cash-in (read about The Id and the Animated Egg <a href="http://nightofthelivingvinyl.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/exploito-psych-1-id-and-animated-egg.html">here</a>), Cole was involved in a series of rockabilly inspired records. Sticking with the Bihari's Crown and then Custom labels, Cole followed the tried and tested cheapo record formula - get into the studio, record as much material as possible, use as many old ideas as you can (why waste anything) and leave the design geniuses at the record label to package them up in as corny a way as possible. <a href="http://www.bsnpubs.com/modern/modernstory.html">If you want to read more about Crown click here.</a><br />
However, despite everything seeming to count against these records having anything of interest in their grooves, Cole's musicianship and professionalism shine through.<br />
Its not psychedelic, its not surf, its not really even rockabilly. But don't let that put you off. These are worth turning your ears to.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/photos099.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/photos099.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Credited to the Stinger, Guitars A Go Go features some fine, fuzzy blues based playing. I particularly like Mo Jo, which is really just a Howlin Wolf knock off - but this is the world of exploito so who cares? I'm also partial to the opener, 007 Rides Again, if only because the title is trying to link the record to the Bond-craze. Its got zero to do with James Bond. Meanwhile, Mustang has a very Buzzsaw-type vibe with loads of Link Wray-esq fuzzy guitar action. Side one closes with Dang Thing which has some nice, clean, surf playing from Cole. I'm pretty sure it appears on one of his hot rod records but I can't place it. Time to crack open the sax for side two and frankly, to these ears, its not an improvement. That is until we get to the slightly crazed, uptempo One for the Money. You can image the kids go-going to this one! All in all I like what the Stingers are doing on this record. Sure the production is almost nonexistent and sure the music is derivative but its no-nonsense fun stuff. And I've got to love it for that!<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/P1120820.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/P1120820.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
It made a kind of sense to put out the first Stingers record in 1965 but by 1967, when Volume 2 (now credited to Jerry Cole and the Stingers) came out it must have been old hat. However, it does open with Yeah Yeah Yeah, which is just The Id's Boil the Kettle Mother without the strange lyrics. Done in a more obvious rock and roll style its pretty good although it fails to reach the levels of weirdness the Cole got to with the Id. There's a lot of very fine blues-y piano on this record, and thankfully no sax! It's not as good as its predecessor, however. As usual the titles are amusing as they are obviously trying to reference hits of the day. Paperback Lover (Paperback Writer), Along Came Mary (And the Wind Cried Mary), Yeah Yeah Yeah (She Loves You Yeah Yeah Yeah).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/P1120819.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/P1120819.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Its a return to form with A Go Go Guitars, although unfortunately not a return to fuzzy guitar. Now Jerry has dropped the Stingers altogether so perhaps Crown thought people would buy the record for his name alone. It opens with Hip Hugger - which appeared in a different guise on a number of other Crown exploitos. And guess what, next we have another version of the song that would become Boil The Kettle - here called Boss Hair. I'm sure I've also heard Teen Age Fair before as well, but I'm so addled by all these exploito records I can't be sure where I've heard it. Side 2 has a distinctly blues-derived sound and while its a long way from actually being the blues, its very listenable for all that!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/photos111.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/photos111.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/Picture049.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/Picture049.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
What do you do when there's a new 'fad' and you are a knock-off label like Crown? Of course you repackage your old stuff as new stuff. Don't buy these records. Why I hear you ask? Because they are just repackages of the A Go Go/Stingers stuff, because they are NOT psychedelic in any way, and because, for some reason, they sound even worse than their predecessors. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<br />
</div>
MMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05975688422273299541noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6149040051804598058.post-65858273087436720012012-09-13T11:53:00.003+01:002012-09-13T11:53:20.173+01:00GLENN (GHANABABA) WARREN - RHYTHMS OF HAPPY FEELINGS<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1120775.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1120775.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
This, unjustly neglected record, is by Glenn Ghanababa Warren. However, it has his father, Guy Warren's fingerprints all over it!<br />
The description on the sleeve perfectly described the music within the grooves:- "Discussed in Africa ... Recorded in Europe ... Mastered in America." So we have a record with a definite African flavour, largely played by Brits and remixed with a light (and sometimes not so light) fashionable disco-influenced style. And when it works its a pure joy!<br />
Released on Ghana's Safari Records in 1980 - what a great record label symbol! Does anyone know if they released any more records? <br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1120776.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1120776.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
It seems plausible that a young man would persuade his father to adopt a more modern sound. But I can't help feel that the ever ambitious Guy would have been well aware in 1980, when this record was produced, of the successes of such African musicians as Manu Dibango, Fela Kuti and his old rival Olatunji in the US disco scene. He was certainly aware of the rock band Osibisa as the string arrangements on this record and rhythm guitar were supplied by Kiki Gyan who had played extensively with the band. Furthermore, he must also have been aware of the jazz-funk, jazz-rock movements if for no other reason than the British jazzers on the record were part of these scenes.<br />
Foremost from the British jazz scene on this record was Ian Carr. Carr played with Guy Warren in the sixties on his own records and on Warren's Afro Jazz LP. By 1980 Carr, together with saxophonist Brian Smith and keyboard player Geoff Castle and bassist Billy Kristain had all played together in Carr's jazz-rock-funk outfit Nucleus.<br />
The final elements in the mix are Tom McCarthy and Sharon Shapiro who produced a number of disco records in New York. I think the presence of Michael Benedictus, also as arranger, who would go on to produce Don't Make Me Wait together with Larry Levan as the Peech Boys, must also have helped give this record its dance-floor-friendly flavour.<br />
<br />
For a Guy Warren fan such as myself one of the joys of this record is hearing three of the great man's tracks re-recorded. Monkies and Butterflies and Highlife are from Africa Speaks, America Answers (<a href="http://nightofthelivingvinyl.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/guy-warren-africa-speaks-america-answers.html">read about it here</a>), while Happy Feeling is, perhaps his most well know track as it was covered by Bert Kaempfert.<br />
<br />
Needless to say the playing is exemplary. There is a different feel for each track. The opener, Monkies and Butterflies is a joyous party track with the band chanting and singing over a, sometime shambolic, but always infectious rhythm. Carr provides a great solo.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/NSituxisRi8?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
Next is Eyes of a Fawn which reminds me somewhat of a slightly less tight Brotherhood of Breath - which is a compliment!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/qGBw2QEHx2M?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
The best part of the final track on the first side, Laakpaa, is the second half which consists of nothing more than chanting, singing and basic percussion. Magnetic, hypnotic stuff.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<object class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://0.gvt0.com/vi/SG_MhTXHRYA/0.jpg" height="266" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/SG_MhTXHRYA&fs=1&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/SG_MhTXHRYA&fs=1&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></div>
<br />
Over on side two we get the full disco treatment. I'd love to hear this in a proper club situation - in fact I'll have to play it sometime! It just builds and builds without a let up as strings, female vocals and even some disco synth stabs are added. Its definitely the most 'modern' track on the LP.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/wHlXF--BWC8?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
After such a dancefloor killer the last two tracks, both covers of earlier Guy Warren tracks seem somewhat subdued. However, after you have calmed down from Love of Rhythm, both Happy Feeling and High Life have much to offer.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/QW2wxiQbN5w?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<object width="320" height="266" class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://2.gvt0.com/vi/R-zuo99u_MY/0.jpg"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/R-zuo99u_MY&fs=1&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/R-zuo99u_MY&fs=1&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></div>
<br />
I urge you to track down a copy of this fine record. Although its not super rare, I've seen it in some shockingly bad conditions, so spend a bit of time and track down a decent copy! Good luck</div>
MMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05975688422273299541noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6149040051804598058.post-8177592796976144982012-08-09T17:02:00.003+01:002012-08-28T10:18:41.231+01:00GUY WARREN - AFRICA SPEAKS, AMERICA ANSWERS!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/Picture636.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/Picture636.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Africa Speaks, America Listens is a truly remarkable record. Remarkable not only for its musical content, an as-yet-unheard-in-the-US-fusion of West African highlife and jazz, but remarkable also for its assertion of a cultural equality between the American and the African continents. Indeed, from the title you might be forgiven for thinking that America is the passive member of the partnership. Furthermore, unlike many of Warren's later solo recordings the other musicians on the record were, with two notable exceptions, white Americans. Although this is Warren's conversation with America, I am afraid to say that my copy is a UK Brunswick copy. The cover on the US album shows Warren playing against an almost Constructivist background and is much cooler that then UK version. There's also an Australian version with its own sleeve but I haven't seen one.<br />
Guy Warren arrived in the US in 1954 and having played in London with Kenny Graham's Afro-Cubists (if anyone has any recordings of Warren with the band let me know!) and in Ghana with ET Mensah, he quickly found gigs, albeit not immediately very lucrative.<br />
Through a contact at Down Beat magazine he met Gene Esposito who hired him to join his Latin Jazz band, which was composed entirely of Italian and Jewish musicians. He also met Red Saunders, again through connections. Saunders was a veteran drummer who had played with Albert Ammons and Joe Williams. Through Saunders, Warren secured a recording date at Decca. Saunders would play on the record but only minimally, despite receiving top billing and a hefty slice of the royalties. <br />
It may, on paper, have sounded like an unpromising combination but Warren was able to marshall his forces and pull of a coup.<br />
As I've mentioned in reviews of Warren's later LPs, he was never interested in producing jazz with an African flavour but was rather determined to produce a hybrid of the jazz played in America and the jazz played in Africa. The music on this record, considering it was his first LP as leader, is an amazing mix of highlife, traditional African music and American jazz. That the mix not only works but that he manages to get the right combination of all the differing elements (and managed to get his diverse band to play at the top of their game) is, I believe a tribute to his advanced vision and musicianship.<br />
The record opens with Guy and band members chanting - presumably Africa speaking! Warren then plays the bamboo drums, the first example of a wide variety of African percussion instruments used throughout the album. Where Warren's playing and overall musical vision differs from those of percussionists such as Olatunji is that he employs traditional instruments in the service of modern music rather than jazzed up versions of African songs. Just as the listener thinks the track is going nowhere it takes a sudden swerve (or should I say fade out) into a more forceful and muscular direction. It is almost as though, having started to speak softly and attractively, Africa is now speaking directly and demanding to be heard as an equal. It is a great introduction.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/RmJfp1ypWMg?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
Ode to a Stream, like the later My Minuet, seems to me to owe something to the European classical tradition, in this case to the impressionist composers. Johnny Frigo plays the violin solo. Frigo would go on to record some interesting but scarce records for modern dance. Maybe we'll get to this one day!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/HBfGgZ4zC-E?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
Duet sees Warren playing with Red Saunders. I must admit that while it is interesting, Saunders is just too conventional against Warrens imaginative percussive onslaught. Not I suspect Saunders' fault but Warren is just better!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/a1E70LSGJ5I?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<br />
Eyi Wala Don (My Thanks to God) has some great piano-work from Gene Esposito while Warren plays the drums. Can someone tell me what he is saying?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/L6p-1wIx-AM?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
Monkies and Butterflies on one of my favourite tracks on the record and in fact one of my overall favourite of all Warren's songs. The band really comes together there, particularly Esposito and Johnny Lamonica on trumpet.With the female vocals in the background this is such a happy track.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<object width="320" height="266" class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://1.gvt0.com/vi/9_od5WUsOsE/0.jpg"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/9_od5WUsOsE&fs=1&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/9_od5WUsOsE&fs=1&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></div>
<br />
<br />
The first side closes with J.A.I.S.I (Jazz as I see It). While very enjoyable, compared to the previous track, it just seems too conventional to my ears, although the conga and bass interplay and solos are a highlight.<br />
Side two kicks off with Invocation of the Horned Viper. As ever Warren's playing is terrific. I can't help feel, however, that overall it is a little too 'exotica'. What do you think?<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/Exve2JO8hxA?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
Chant continues the adoption of traditional music, in this case, a drum ritual to accompany a dead body being carried to a cemetery. Just as it is about the go the way of its predecessor, the piano and sax come in to add a jazz element.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<object width="320" height="266" class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://0.gvt0.com/vi/U_IPDlCIY4A/0.jpg"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/U_IPDlCIY4A&fs=1&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/U_IPDlCIY4A&fs=1&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></div>
<br />
<br />
My Minuet is a very strange song indeed. I would love to know more about it. The sleeve notes very unhelpfully just say that it is "almost 18th Century Drawing Room style". What were Warren's influences to create such a song?<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/iusyucbEeDE?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
The Highlife is, to my ears, surprisingly flat when you consider that Warren was a key part of highlife music in Ghana. I think the most off-putting aspect of it are the lyrics which are incredibly trite.<br />
I like the Eyes of the Fawn. The horn section really seem to be comfortable with it, perhaps because it allows them space to improvise over the top of Warren's playing. For some reason it makes me think of some of the experiments of Kenny Graham in the UK!<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<object width="320" height="266" class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://3.gvt0.com/vi/Lq_rzjzaIfM/0.jpg"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Lq_rzjzaIfM&fs=1&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Lq_rzjzaIfM&fs=1&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></div>
<br />
<br />
Finally FE-ED-TO-NE closes the record with a bang. What a great track! It perfectly pulls together the various elements of jazz from both continents into a perfect blend that allows both to come out. The beginning of Warren's singing and playing, gives way to Esposito's driving piano solo. He is joined by the horn section which pulls the track in a more 'American', West Coast-cool direction. The Warren comes back in to finish the track. Africa and America are in conversation but Africa has the last word. <br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/Tk4jjzElcKw?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br /></div>
MMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05975688422273299541noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6149040051804598058.post-14218349764427855072012-07-19T18:32:00.002+01:002012-07-19T18:32:10.009+01:00SATHIMA BEA BENJAMIN - SINGS ELLINGTON<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1110018.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1110018.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
When Bea Benjamin (or Sathima as she was nicknamed by Johnny Dyani) and Dollar Brand (who would change his name to Abdullah Ibrahim when he changed his faith) arrived in Zurich as self imposed exiles from apartheid their prospects cannot have been good. They knew few people, didn't speak French or German, and had little money.<br />
That would all change when Benjamin managed to persuade their hero Duke Ellington to come and listen to them perform after a concert he was giving in the city. Ellington, recently given an A&R role at Reprise by its owner Frank Sinatra, loved what he heard of the pianist and the singer. He booked both of them into a recording session in Paris a few days later and out of this came Brand's Duke Ellington Presents the Dollar Brand Trio. However, the session also produced about twelve tracks which highlighted Benjamin's singing. For reasons that are not clear these were not released at the time and only saw the light of day in 1997 because an engineer kept a copy of the tapes.<br />
Both Benjamin and Brand had grown up loving the music of Ellington and it seemed a natural move for them to record his songs. However, Benjamin continued to return his music. She recorded Prelude to a Kiss with Brand in 1969, sang with Ellington at a Jazz Vespers service in New York in 1972, in 1976 staged a concert tribute to Ellington in Harlem and in 1979 she recorded this record.<br />
Sathima's musical development was marked by the influence of American jazz musicians, including Ellington as well as singers such as Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald and more 'pop' singers such as Doris Day, Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole. She has also spoken of the influence of the church on her singing as well as of South African songs, both traditional and modern. So, like most South African jazz musicians, her musical style was born from a mix of different and competing influences which came together to produce something unique.<br />
There is nothing on this record that sounds as though it could only have come from Africa. However, Benjamin's take on these tracks is truly her own and, whether it is the glacial tempos, the sparse accompaniment or her precise and subtle singing style, she sounds as though she could not be an American singer much less a European one.<br />
Benjamin is sympathetically backed by Americans Onaje Allan Gumbs on piano, Vishnu Woods on bass, John Betsch on drums and Claude Latief on congas.<br />
My favourite track on the album is Benjamin's take on Billy Strayhorn's Lush Life. She really seems to encapsulate the world weary, dissipated, disappointed but still resilient essence of Strayhorn's lyrics. I can believe that she really has been through the 'too many through the day, twelve o'cocktail.' and that she will 'rot with the rest of those whose lives are lonely too'. Gumbs' is terrific and Betsch provides just enough brushing on the drums. It is truly moving and unique take on a classic song.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/jwRFozKULro?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>MMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05975688422273299541noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6149040051804598058.post-25777327370538338982012-07-19T14:46:00.002+01:002012-07-19T14:46:57.843+01:00The World of Sitarsploitation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
George Harrison's love of India, its music and philosophies, would have a profound effect on the Beatles and, as they were leaders of pop cultural matters in the mid to late 1960s, this influence would extend beyond the band to the rest of the world.<br />
Allegedly first introduced to the sitar by Roger McGuinn and David Crosby of the Byrds in California in 1965, Harrison, the instrument first appeared on a Beatles track on Norwegian Wood.<br />
The Beatles were not the only band interested in the exotic sounds of the sitar, in particular its drone effect. The Kinks, the Who and most importantly the Yardbirds can claim to have been ahead of the Beatles in utilising the Indian instrument on some of their tracks.<br />
However, they did not go as far as Harrison and record a track that was closer to Hindustani music than to European pop music. Using musicians from the North London Asian Music Circle, Love You To, on Revolver started a minor pop music trend. Followed up by Within Without You on Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club band, the use of the sitar in pop and rock quickly became a shorthand for exoticism, spirituality and transcendence. In other words its was another way of saying that the music was like a trip!<br />
Unfortunately, as Harrison discovered, the sitar is a difficult instrument to master and its use does not always complement the structure of pop music. Masters of the instrument such as Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan found themselves becoming increasingly popular in the US and Europe and audiences strove to become part of this authentic and new (to their ears) music.<br />
However, where there is money to be made, there will be exploitation records. I have already written about the brief Indo Jazz moment in UK jazz (<a href="http://nightofthelivingvinyl.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/indo-jazz-sitar-and-sax.html">read about it here</a>) as well as Bill Plummer and Emil Richard's jazz sitar experiments <a href="http://nightofthelivingvinyl.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/bill-plummer-and-cosmic-brotherhood.html">read about it here</a> and <a href="http://nightofthelivingvinyl.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/emil-richards-and-microtonal-blues-band.html">here</a>. Despite being musically intriguing and genre expanding, sitar jazz records were always going to be a minority interest. How much more lucrative it would be to use this strange sound and, just as the leading groups of the day were doing themselves, use it on pop music.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/VV%20Classics/P1000314.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/VV%20Classics/P1000314.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Released in 1966, Raga Rock in many ways epitomises the Sitarsploitation LP phenomenon. Using LA's crack session musicians, the Wrecking Crew, this record features Tommy Tedesco, Howard Roberts and Herb Ellis on guitars, Dennis Budimir on 12 String, Bill Pittman on bass, Larry Knechtel on organ and electric piano, Lyle Ritz on fender bass and Hal Blaine on drums. A killer band if ever there was one. Prior to this there had been another Folkswingers record, which although not including any of the same musicians, did include other LA session people. The first records more accurately lived up to the name being covers of folk hits of the day. This time round they added Indian sitar player Harihar Rao. Rao, an ethnomusicologist at UCLA and an associate of Ravi Shankar would, in 1967, publish the influential Introduction to Sitar.<br />
Here he is mainly used to play around the American musicians giving the hits of the day an exotic feel, Having said that, it is a very enjoyable record. Songs such as Hey Joe, which has a very enjoyable exchange between Rao and one of the guitarists certainly benefit from a sitar treatment.<br />
The choice of material is also important. Paint it Black, Eight Miles High, Norwegian Wood, Shapes of Things were all songs that in their original forms used Indian influences.<br />
The first and possibly the best of the genre.<br />
The concluding track is an original penned by George Tipton. Tipton was the arranger on this record and, according to the sleeve notes, was qualified to arrange a sitar record because he had worked with Jan and Dean and the Mariachi Brass! However, with its fuzz guitar, insistent sitar lines and tight rhythm section it is a triumph and leaves me wishing that they had given him the chance to write a whole album.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/VV%20Classics/P1000320-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/VV%20Classics/P1000320-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Meanwhile on the other side of the Atlantic at Decca, the label that had originally turned down the Beatles, decided to get aboard the sitarsploitation bandwagon with this effort.<br />
I have not been able to track down any info about Mr Kothari other than what is offered in the sleeve notes. Kothari was a Ugandan Indian who at the time of recording the record had been in the UK for seven years. Amazingly during that time he has spent all of his leisure time playing the sitar.<br />
Unfortunately instead of going down the rock route of the Folkswingers, Kothari draws on pop hits of the day. We therefore get Strangers in the Night, Winchester Cathedral, Downtown, Guantanamera, the Sound of Music and Cast Your Fate the Wind.<br />
Of greater interest is his version of Eleanor Rigby which is the best thing on the record. His own compositions, traditional in sound rather than pop or rock orientated, are also worth listening to.<br />
All in all I'd recommend passing on this one unless you find it in a charity shop for a few pence.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/VV%20Classics/P1000318.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/VV%20Classics/P1000318.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Who was Lord Sitar? Was he a moonlighting George Harrison as some believed at the time? No he was instead Big Jim Sullivan one of London's premier session musicians (Big Jim Sullivan as opposed to Little Jimmy Page), whose work appears on any number of UK records in the 60s and 70s including, apparently, over 50 UK number ones.<br />
On the face of it, Lord Sitar looks as though he is going to give us more of the same medicine as Chim Kothari. Look at some of the tracks, If I Were A Rich Man, Emerald City, Black is Black. But wait! We also get Daydream Believer, I am The Walrus, Eleanor Rigby, I Can See For Miles and Harrison's Blue Jay Way. Can the good Lord pull it off?<br />
Well its touch and go. If I Were a Rich Man struggles to overcome the material and in some places succeeds. However, its not until we get to the Monkees Daydream Believer that things start to look positive and that is more to do with the strength of the song rather than the chamber orchestra arrangements. Over on the b-side I Am The Walrus, already a very trippy track, gets the full sitar treatment and comes out all the better for it. Eleanor Rigby trundles along nicely. However, all the stops are pulled out for I Can See For Miles which I'm sure would have made Pete Townsend proud - or cry - or both. I'm also very partial to the version of Blue Jay Way with the wordless vocals at the start really giving me a thrill.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/VV%20Classics/P1000317.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/VV%20Classics/P1000317.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
In the same Big Jim comes around for another crack at sitarsploitation, or as they call it Sitar A Go Go. My copy is part of the Super Stereo Sounds series that also reissued records by Pete Rugolo, Quincy Jones and others. The first press has a green cover with Big Jim twanging away and ethereal figures floating above him.<br />
Perhaps because he arranged the record himself or maybe he was just getting better at it, but Sitar Beat is a far superior record to Lord Sitar.<br />
Kicking off with a great take on the Beatles' (you almost can't have a sitarsploitation record without a Beatles cover!) She's Leaving Home, Sullivan gets stuck into Sunshine Superman which I love. Perhaps this version of Whiter Shade of Pale is a bit limp but then again the song nothing more than a puddle of slush anyway. However, it is on Sullivan's originals that this record really takes off. Ltts and The Koan are intriguing and effective tracks that show off his playing to the best. The Koan has some great tabla, flute and guitar as well - its a really interesting track.<br />
On the second side Graham Gouldman's Tallyman lends itself well to Sullivan's sitar work. Another highlight of the album is the Sullivan penned Translove Airways (Fat Angel). Over a funky drum beat, fuzz guitar and maddeningly repetitive flue riff and a string section, Sullivan's sitar swirls around, creating a floating, flying, falling feeling. Far out man!<br />
In the top league of sitarsploitation records and one that is well worth picking up.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/VV%20Classics/P1120525.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/VV%20Classics/P1120525.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Chiitra Neogy's The Perfumed Garden isn't really a sitarsploitation record but it does have Jim Sullivan playing on it. Sexual liberation was a key tenant of the hippy ideal. The sexually explicit writing, sculpture and painting in India seemed, to Western flower-children to be more in tune with their views of sexual freedom than the button-downed European views on sex and love.<br />
Thus a record such as this could be produced. The Perfumed Garden "contains writings which are designed to help human beings to achieve the fullest joy in their sexual lives." By today's standards they are not terribly sexual, but perhaps that's not the point.<br />
Sullivan provided an underscore throughout the record and particular highlights are The Encouragement of the Lusty Wife, Leila the Flatterer and Krishna and the Cowgirls.My copy cost less than $5 on ebay and I wouldn't recommend you pay any more than that. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/VV%20Classics/P1000316.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/VV%20Classics/P1000316.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Ananda Shankar was the nephew of Ravi Shankar and he would go on the make a number of amazing records that fused jazz, Indian classical music and his own far-reaching vision.<br />
However, his first record, made in the US in 1970, is often regarded as sitarsploitation because of its covers of the Stone's Jumpin' Jack Flash and The Doors' Light My Fire. Jumpin Jack Flash in particular is an amazing dancefloor killer. Throughout the record Paul Lewinson's Moog adds another layer of incredibly sounds and fascinating textures. Listen to the washes of sound he adds to Light My Fire.<br />
However, don't be fooled into thinking that this record is just about pop cover versions. Its so much more than the Folkswingers or Big Jim Sullivan. Shankar's own compositions are quite beautiful and are worth the price of the record alone. Tellingly he shares writing credits with Moog-player Lewison.<br />
My favourite original compositions are Snow Flower, Metamorphosis and the epic Sagar (The Ocean). All three seem to me to combine the 'exotic' sounds of the sitar with some of the hippy peace and love vibe the instrument was meant to symbolise. Through using new music and with the addition of the moog, Shankar creates truly different music that is as spaced out as you want it to be.<br />
It's really great stuff.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/VV%20Classics/P1000319.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/VV%20Classics/P1000319.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
On first glance this would seem to be an exploitation record of the first order. I mean, why else would you call a record Pop Explosion Sitar Style and then NOT include any pop music. Why else would you have such an obvious 'eastern' sleeve that is an insult to women and Indians? Why else would the sleeve notes say that the music comes with "the heavy rhythms of the Rock Era"?<br />
Strange as it may seem, however, the music on this record is not about exploitation but about authenticity. Read the story <a href="http://www.magiccarpetrecords.com/">here</a>. Suffice to say that the musicians behind this music, Clem Alford on sitar, Kashav Sathe on tabla and Jim Moyes on guitar did not expect their music to be packaged in this way.<br />
Don't expect any cheap, ironic thrills from this record. Instead expect a serious attempt to fuse Indian classical music with western musical idioms.<br />
Truly far out stuff.<br />
<br />
Still to be included - Balsara and His Singing Strings, Rajput and the Seapoy Mutiny.<br />
<br />
More info and soundclips to sitar records, including and amazing number of Bollywood soundtracks can be found <a href="http://soulsitar.blogspot.co.uk/">here</a><br />
<br /></div>MMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05975688422273299541noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6149040051804598058.post-70606725484440380382012-07-05T18:23:00.001+01:002012-07-10T12:00:20.359+01:00LUBAT, LOUISS, ENGEL GROUP - LIVE AT MONTREAUX 72<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1110731.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1110731.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
A while ago I wrote about Bernard Lubat and His Mad Ducks (<a href="http://nightofthelivingvinyl.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/bernard-lubat-and-his-mad-ducks.html">read about it here</a>).<br />
In 1972 the band got back together, this time dropping the Mad Ducks name, and instead following a trend in rock groups (borrowed from jazz groups) of using their own names.<br />
Still on the chic Les Disques de Pierre Cardin label, they were recorded in action at the Montreaux Jazz Festival. The '72 jazz festival also produced live recordings from label-mates Phil Woods and his European Rhythm Machine and Jean-Luc Ponty (neither of which have come my way yet but I'm sure they will!).<br />
It like the fact that session-kings and studio-masters like Lubat and Louiss get the chance to play in front of people and at such a prestigious event as Montreaux. I also like the fact that this record consists of material that doesn't appear elsewhere - maybe even written with the event in mind!<br />
And what a mix of music it is!<br />
Unlike the Mad Ducks record, Live at Montreaux seems to stretch out and explore some pretty wild and frankly psychedelic places. Whereas the Mad Ducks was a fun, well dress mod, kind of a record this one really lets its hair down and goes on a trip!<br />
Claude Engel's playing is also much more prominent and he bring a definite rock element to the proceedings. Perhaps not surprising for one of the founder members of prog group Magma, Engel's playing is technically brilliant and drenched in acid. Mindblowing stuff! His playing has the same effect as John McLaughlin's does in Miles Davis' group of about the same time. Its rock, its psychedelic, its 'out-there' and it pushes his band mates into some interesting and 'un-jazz-like' territory.<br />
Jazz-veteran Eddy Louiss, however, is the jazz-foil to Engel's rocking. Playing fender and electric organ, his playing is more 'straight' jazz around which Engel seems to jump and dive.<br />
Lubat's playing is also out of the top drawer. Never predictable, never repetitive (which for a drummer is really saying something) he isn't laying down the rhythm, he's a front-line contributor up there with Tony Williams.<br />
Finally, Marc Berteaux provides the funk with his electric bass.<br />
All of these elements come together on the opening track Les Adventures de Pinpin au Togo (Emmanuel Pinpin Sciot being their producer as well as the designer of the collage on the Mad Duck's album).<br />
If you don't like jazz-rock or fusion then this track isn't for you!<br />
What I like best about it is that, while you can hear the fantastic musicianship of the people involved, it never becomes self indulgent like much fusion.<br />
Live in a Magic Forest changes the tone from frantic and furious to calm and relaxed. Gently weaving the organ is relaxing, leading the listener further and further into the Magic Forest, accompanied by percussion and eventually joined by Engel's guitar and the music becomes more forceful and strident and suddenly the Forest is no long calm but buffeted by musical winds. Eventually, Engel takes off and we leave the jazz behind and move into a very prog world.<br />
Over on side two we kick off with 5th of July, Dulong Street. A driving funky monster of a track this is, for me, the highlight of the record and the reason to track it down. Tight and funky bass, wild drumming, great organ work and, when he comes in blistering guitar, this is incredible stuff. I can only imagine what the audience where doing while this track was being played - and it wasn't sitting down! Engel's solo perfectly complements and doesn't overwhelm his band mates. It only lasts for 6 minutes and 20 seconds but it feels a lot longer.Terrific stuff!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/mTqd6WcZk3U?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
The record concludes with Mickey Schroeder's Dream, which shifts gears from dancing through Dulong Street, to drifting away on a narcotic haze. Written by Lubat I wonder if it is him on the electric piano that opens the track. In a similar way to Live in a Magic Forest, this is swirls and eddies around your head. Gradually the drifting organ meets some phased percussion (could this really have been done live in 1972?) adding a further layer of psychedelia. Disembodied singing kicks off some slightly 'eastern' sounding percussion (still phased and treated) and we feel we are falling into a drugged up dream-like state.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/NQsjoOZvadw?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
That's enough for now. I'm off to find more Lubat stuff!</div>MMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05975688422273299541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6149040051804598058.post-1140277439755071012012-07-03T17:08:00.000+01:002012-07-03T17:08:01.294+01:00SOLOMON ILORI - AFRICAN HIGH LIFE<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1120430.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1120430.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
I don't really know very much about Solomon Gbadegesin Ilori and I would like to know more.<br />
Ilori was born in Nigeria and, according to the sleeve notes of this, his only record as a leader, he had only been in the US for five years at the time of its recording. African High Life was recorded in 1963, a year after Art Blakey's African Beat on which Ilori also played. <a href="http://nightofthelivingvinyl.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/art-blakey-and-afro-drum-ensemble.html">Read about it here</a>.<br />
In some ways this is a continuation of Blakey's African Beat as many of the same people played on both records. Ilori, Chief Bey, Robert Crowder, Montego Joe, Garvin Masseaux and Ahmed Abdul-Malik all appear on both sessions. They are joined by Josiah Ilori on sakara drums and cow bell (a brother perhaps?), Jay Berliner on guitar and Hosea Taylor on sax and flute.Taylor had previously played with Olatunji and also played on two unreleased at the time cuts on Freddie Hubbard's Blue Spirits. Hubbard of course played in Blakey's Jazz Messengers!<br />
I don't know as much about Taylor as I would like to but his playing on this record is exemplary.<br />
African High Life falls between the work of Guy Warren on one hand and Olatunji on the other. Neither as complete a fusion of American jazz and African highlife nor as obviously indebted to 'traditional' African music, Ilori manages to be both inventive and surprising. As the linear notes comment, "his use of African and European musical instruments on this album and the achievement of a perfect balance between them also point to his success in fusing together two diverse cultural elements without doing any professional injustice to either of them." The sleeve notes are penned by Oladejo Okediji, who I assume is the Nigerian writer. If so then these are the first sleeve notes on a US record by an African musician that I have read that are written by someone who may have been able to understand the music from its African source and not just as a new sound on American shores. Indeed Okediji's comments praise Ilori for attempting to correct some fundamental misconceptions about African music as being about "unmeasured and raw shouting", while "African dancers jump aimlessly into the air with a kind of martial impulse."<br />
As the sleeve note make clear African High Life is not a percussion record of the likes of Chiano but an attempt to explore a wide range of African music and instruments. Of course, there are drums and in some cases they are prominent but Ilori also uses other 'African' instruments such as the pennywhistle <a href="http://nightofthelivingvinyl.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/kwela-south-african-pennywhistle-jive.html">(read about South African pennywhistle kwela here)</a> and the guitar <a href="http://nightofthelivingvinyl.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/heshoo-beshoo-group-armitage-road.html">(read about the guitar and the Heshoo Beshoo Group here)</a> to create music of depth and interest.<br />
The opening track Tolani (African Love Song) is also the most drum focused track. It starts with some incredible drumming before the rest of the band join in. Listen out for Taylor's sax towards the end - New York meets Lagos if ever I've heard it!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/144jWJW29kI?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
Next is Ise Owula (God's Work is Indestructible). Berliner's guitar and Taylor's flute interplay are just beautiful and Ilori's sensitive drum work is perfect. His deep voice never fails to move me on this one!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/tIoVvDhGBLM?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
The first side closes with Follow Me to Africa,which again, is a melodic and beautiful song. It opens with some fine pennywhistle playing from, I think, Ilori. Abdul Malik's bass also stands out for me. Happy stuff.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/u8ZkfxCk8EU?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
Side two kicks off with Yaba E (Farewell) which is pure highlife. It starts with a refrain from an instrument that sounds like a xylophone before breaking into an infectious dance groove.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/oGlQ0oqlJek?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
The next track, Jojolo (Look at this Beautiful Girl), is another highlife track. With lovely call and response singing, Taylor's sax is once more to the front. The percussion is particularly good.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/jpbdVcGfLmk?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
The record finishes with Aiye Le (The Troubled World) which, at the beginning, is almost a duet between Ilori's voice and Berliner's guitar - although, inevitably, there is some inventive percussion work supporting them. Then it sounds as though the rest of the band join in and everyone sings this beautiful song together.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/kzDjgFB91dE?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
The English 'translations' reveal that Ilori was a spiritually minded person for whom God and life were linked and worthy of respect. <br />
<br />
In many ways this is a surprising record to come out on Blue Note, although it seems to have been an extension of Blakey's interest in African music.<br />
<br />
I would very much like to know more about this fascinating musician. Did he stay in the US or return to Nigeria? Did he make any more records. There is a fairly recent release of tracks from the African Highlife sessions which I haven't heard. Is there any more? Any information will be very gratefully received.</div>MMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05975688422273299541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6149040051804598058.post-62337716105579715512012-06-14T22:09:00.000+01:002012-06-14T22:09:07.871+01:00OLATUNJI- ZUNGO!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1110747.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1110747.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
If Guy Warren's musical journey was an attempt to introduce African drumming to jazz then one might think that Olatunji succeeded in the attempt. However, rather than fuse jazz and African drums, Olatunji served up a watered down version of traditional Nigerian songs that captivated record buyers and jazz musicians alike.<br />
Babatunde Olatunji was originally from Nigeria, first came to the US to study politics at Morehouse University and only started playing drums when he arrived in the US.<br />
Due to a combination of luck and and good connections Olatunji became known in New York jazz circles as the go-to-guy for African drumming He appears on a number of jazz records of the early 60's appearing on Randy Weston's Uhuru African, Cannonball Adderley's African Waltz, Herbie Mann's Afro-Jazz Sextet and Max Roach's We Insist.<br />
His Drums of Passion LP became a sensation, selling thousands of copies in the US. Unlike Warren and other African drummers such as Solomon Ilori, Olatunji's music was more 'traditional'. Using songs from his homeland and some of his own compositions (most notably Gin-Go Lo-Ba which would go on to become Jingo in the hands of Santana) Drums of Passion came off as a 'genuine' slice of Africa.<br />
It was however, nothing of the sort. Most of the musicians on it were African Americans perhaps most notably drummers and percussionists James 'Chief' Bey (who played with Guy Warren on Themes For African Drums - <a href="http://nightofthelivingvinyl.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/guy-warren-themes-for-african-drums.html">read about it here</a>), Thomas Taiwo Duvall and Montego Joe (<a href="http://nightofthelivingvinyl.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/montego-joe-arriba-and-wild-and-warm.html">read about his solo records here</a>) and the singers were also from America.<br />
Olatunji was not formerly trained as a drummer and his three co-drummers, by some accounts, provided most of the music and helped him overcome his initial limitations. Indeed in the introduction to his autobiography it is even admitted. However, Olatunji not only got top billing, the help he received remained virtually unknown.<br />
All three percussionists appear on Zungo which was released in 1961, together with Yusef Lateef on winds, Clark Terry on trumpet, George Duvivier on bass, and Ray Barretto on conga and timbalis. Interestingly Lateef, Montego Joe and Chief Bey would go on to play on Blakey's African Beat (<a href="http://nightofthelivingvinyl.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/art-blakey-and-afro-drum-ensemble.html">read about it here</a>) in 1962, while the previous year, 1960, saw Lateef, Duvivier and Olatunji play on Randy Weston's Uhuru Africa. The 'Africa' link surely doesn't need to be pointed out!<br />
Why was he so popular both with the jazz world and with record buyers if his playing was questionable and his music lacking in authenticity? Part of the answer lies in Lateef's recollections of playing with him. In his autobiography Lateef writes: "Later in 1960, I moved from Mingus to a group led by Babatunde Olatunji, the Nigerian percussionist. Playing with Babatunde was an interesting experience, mostly because for the first time I had to perform without a pianist or bassist in the group. It provided me with a lot of harmonic space and freedom. Olatunji's music also provided a wider appreciation for world music. To this extent he was a pioneer of what is termed today 'world music'."<br />
For Lateef, Olatunji represented an opportunity to play with an authentic African drummer and to learn about African drumming so as to incorporate it into jazz. The same was true of John Coltrane, who became friends with Olatunji and he and Lateef agreed to help him financially with his Center of African Culture. Indeed the last concert that Coltrane played, and the last recording of him playing, was at a benefit for Olatunji's Center. Coltrane was always interested in rhythm and drummers and his love of playing with Elvin Jones because of his fierce drumming style is well documented. Coltrane also said in interviews that he intended to record with Olatunji or at least learn about 'African' drumming and music from him.<br />
Even Nina Simone recorded Zungo, from this album, on her At the Village Gate LP. And Jack Kerouac, according to the sleeve note, loved Olatunji. Guy Warren must have been very put out by the song Jolly Mensah. After all he had actually played with the highlife king!<br />
So, Olatunji represented a potential new musical direction but also a physcial manifestation of pride in Africa and, for African American, African culture. At a time when Africa was coming out of the oppressive period of empire and was yet to succumb to other forms of economic colonialism, the continent could become a source of pride for African Americans. Meanwhile, 1960 also saw the sit in protests in the US (shown in graphic form on the cover of Max Roach's We Insist), while 1961 and 1962 saw more sit ins, freedom rides and boycotts across the Southern states of the US.<br />
However, despite his success both commercially and professionally I find Olatunji's music to be rather flat. It often lacks the rhythmic intricacies of other percussion records, notably by Guy Warren and Solomon Ilori. Both these musicians also strove, and sometime wonderfully succeeded to fuse Western jazz and African 'traditional' music, as well as the already existing fusion that was highlife. Lateef and Coltrane may have been fascinated by Olatunji's music, and I suspect that this was because he was perceived as authentic. They wanted something that sounded 'African' rather than sounding too 'Western'. Through wanting to create a fusion of their music with 'authentic African' music, ironically, American jazz musicians and record buyers ignored the music that already existed that was already a fusion of the two - highlife.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/i2oT872DUWg?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br /></div>MMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05975688422273299541noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6149040051804598058.post-22990684428422334202012-05-31T21:11:00.001+01:002012-06-12T13:05:15.718+01:00If music be the food of love * - Cleopatra Goes Jazz<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
1963 was the year of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in Cleopatra. The epic movie won four Oscars, not however, for the soundtrack which, although nominated lost out to the music for Tom Jones - remember that one (nor me)?<br />
But nothing could stop the juggernaut of Cleopatra and Alex North's music found itself covered by such easy listening stalwarts as Al Caiola, Ferrante and Teicher and Dick Hayman.North had already scored the sword and sand epic Spartacus and Yusef Lateef had taken the Love Theme and made it an achingly beautiful jazz classic. <a href="http://nightofthelivingvinyl.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/yusef-lateef-eastern-sounds.html">Read about it here</a><br />
Not only did Burton and Taylor sizzle on screen, their real life romance obvious to the millions who saw them, but the story of love against the odds, of passion and, lets face it, exotic sexual lust, was irresistible. <br />
Who couldn't fall for it? Who could jump on the bandwagon?<br />
In jazz, as in all other genres of music, a movement cannot be allowed to pass by in case it can bring you to the attention of more people. Hence the fad for producing records of jazzed up Broadway musicals, or doing James Bond knock-offs and exotica cross-overs. If millions liked the movie, maybe they'll buy a jazz records related to it?<br />
Three Cleopatra themed jazz records made it into the shops and each would take a slightly different approach to turning the epic movie into a piece of jazz history.<br />
<br />
Cleopatra represented something more than a sexy screen idol. She was exotic and sensual but not just in the way of any number of record covers that showed exotic ladies in states of undress, or North African belly dancers and concubines, or wild Cuban or Haitian female dancers. Cleopatra was a world famous beauty as well as a Queen. She was a perfect combination of beauty and brains - but because she was from Egypt and an historical figure she could be depicted wearing titillating clothes!<br />
And although she was played by the very British Elizabeth Taylor, the real Cleopatra was, of course from Egypt. In 1963 there was an ever growing awareness amongst black Americans that the history of the world was not necessarily the same as the history of white Europeans. Egypt was part of the African continent and therefore part of the original homeland of many who were starting to question their white-American-determined roots and heritage. Of course none of this is visible in the movie, nor in the music. However, it is worth noting Sun Ra's Egyptian obsession, Wayne Shorter's Black Nile and Jackie McLean's On the Nile as instances of the jazz world taking notice of Egypt.<br />
The first to give it a go was Paul Gonsalves. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1120390.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1120390.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Gonsalves for some reason didn't take full advantage of the opportunity to have a picture of Liz Taylor on the front of his record and instead opted for a picture of himself in from of a stone, carved coffin. No accounting for taste!<br />
A very solid effort on Impulse, Cleopatra, Feelin Jazzy sees the ex-Ellingtonian teamed up with a crack group consisting of Hank Jones, Dick Hyman, George Duvivier, Kenny Burrell and Roy Haynes. Even I could make a great record with these guys helping! However, despite the all star cast its the least adventurous of the three records.<br />
Gonsalves acquits himself magnificently throughout, his tone and phrasing are impeccable. They cover two tracks from the original soundtrack, Caesar and Cleopatra Theme and Anthony and Cleopatra Theme. After that they are free to let rip. <br />
However, although the original compositions (and Ellington's Action in Alexandria) are all given titles that relate to the movie - Blues for Liz, Cleo's Blues, Cleo's Asp and Cleopatra's Lament, the music itself has no hint of Egypt, Africa, exotica or anything other than an American swinging hard bop. Its all very nice but not great. There is little that is either exotic, or indeed particularly spectacular about Cleopatra Feelin Jazzy. It a good sold listen but once the needle leaves the record the music quickly fades.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/GH88FNPKSYo?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1020056.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1020056.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Next up is another Paul - Paul Horn and he is fielding a more West Coast team than Gonsalves. This Paul called up some mates, Emil Richards, Larry Bunker who would later play with him on his Jazz Suite on the Mass Texts <a href="http://nightofthelivingvinyl.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/paul-horn-jazz-suite-on-mass-texts.html">(read about it here)</a> as well as some other experienced studio musicians such as Brit expat, Victor Feldman, Chuck Israels and Colin Bailey.<br />
They also used this opportunity to have a very suggestive picture of Liz Taylor on the cover. As you can see she fixes you with a direct stare before your eyes are dragged down over the amazing necklace and shimmering gown. <br />
Horn and co did not bring any original material to this record but their interpretations of Alex North's music is so original that I don't think that matters.<br />
Horn's soaring flute work is given an even more exotic backdrop by Richards' vibes and Bunker's percussion work and although it is uncredited Horn also plays the melodia on some tracks. Taken together this makes this a very enjoyable and satisfying record. It mixes just the right amounts of exotica and jazz to make it interesting throughout. Compared to the massive orchestration of the original, Horn's record sound refreshingly clear and fresh. <br />
There is nothing remotely North African or indeed Egyptian or even Arabian about this music. It owes its exotic nature as much to the movie's depiction of Cleopatra as to any knowledge of music beyond the borders of the United States.<br />
Having said all of that, this is one of my favourite Horn records and although it takes Alex North's music as its starting point it is, in my view, has very much its own character. Of course, Horn and Richards would go on to make more 'authentic' records later in the decade.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/CTwnmoeEbAU?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y1Cjh7LcXeM?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1120389.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1120389.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
So, finally, on to the wild card in the pack.. What is this all about? <br />
The Music of Cleopatra on the Nile was released on the small Mount Vernon Music label based in New York. <br />
There is exactly no information on either the sleeve or the label as to who was behind this record. No musicians listed, no producer credited, no writer acknowledged. It seems to have come out of nowhere.<br />
And the music, I hear you ask? Well the it is an amazing amalgam of jazz, of what to my ears sounds like Eastern European clarinet - almost klezmer in places, an instrument that sound like an oud <a href="http://nightofthelivingvinyl.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/ahmed-abdul-malik-east-meets-west.html">(read about Ahmed Abdul Malik and his fusion of oud and jazz here)</a>, and some great percussion of bells, gongs and hand drums. It sounds like music from North Africa rather than music from America - or more precisely it sounds like music played by musicians who were familiar with music outside of jazz but familiar with jazz as well. Particular highlights for me are Passionate and Exotica, both of which provide a great danceable mix of styles. Dance of the Perfumed Veils is strangely hypnotic and alluring.<br />
Who made this music? There is some speculation on the web that Sun Ra had a hand in it. I'm afraid that I just can't hear that. I know he made the Batman and Robin record but this just doesn't sound like anything by Sun Ra I've ever heard.<br />
I like the fact that we may never know who was behind this. It just means that there is nothing to distract you from the music. Unless its the busty drawing of our Liz on the front cover!<br />
Track this one down. Its an obscure joy.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/hMMBY-249ps?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
Or <a href="http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL73ED9F2942D4B92E&feature=plcp">click here to go to the whole album</a><br />
<br />
<br />
* Yes I know this is from Twelth Night - so sue me!</div>MMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05975688422273299541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6149040051804598058.post-48421377406505678682012-05-24T18:02:00.003+01:002012-07-10T16:17:01.055+01:00Jerry Cole - Super Charged Knock Offs<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Jerry Cole was a go-to guy in the LA session world. Not only that he had a sideline (lucrative I hope) in exploito records, usually, but not exclusively with Crown Records.<br />
Hot Rods, Surf, Bikes and even Drag Boats - he provided soundtracks to them all under a number of pseudonyms.<br />
<br />
Here are some.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/P1120379.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/P1120379.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Hot Rodders - Big Hot Rod</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/P1120378.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/P1120378.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jerry Kole and the Stokers - Hot Rod Alley (not a very good attempt at hiding his identity)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/Picture624.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/Picture624.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Deuce Coupes - The Shut Downs</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/Picture625.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/Picture625.jpg" width="320" /> </a></td><td style="text-align: center;"></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Winners - Checkered Flag</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/photos082.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/photos082.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Blasters - Sounds of the Drags (notice that all of the images have been used for other records!)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/photos110.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/photos110.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Kickstands - Black Books and Bikes</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/P1120376.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/P1120376.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Scramblers - Cycle Psycho</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/P1120375.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/P1120375.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Hornets - Motorcycles USA</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/P1120377.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/P1120377.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Hornets - Big Drag Boats USA (this boat apparently was trying to break the water speed record)</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/P1120374.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/P1120374.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mike Adams and the Red Jackets - Surfers Beat</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Jerry of course, had his own band Jerry Cole and the Spacemen as well as playing in a lot of the Gary Usher studio bands, such as the Super Stocks and The Risers.<br />
<br />
Any more that I've missed off?</div>MMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05975688422273299541noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6149040051804598058.post-18679753708150895002012-05-24T09:37:00.000+01:002012-05-29T15:15:15.831+01:00DOLLAR BRAND - MANNENBERG - IS WHERE IT'S HAPPENING<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/Picture397.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/Picture397.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
My very first South African jazz record. Given to me by a friend in Johannesburg along with some non-jazz stuff.<br />
My mum used to play this, he told me. Its a an anti-aphartheid anthem, he said.<br />
Well, when I first played it I must confess I couldn't see why, an instrumental, should have any great political significance - beautiful as the song is.<br />
If you want to know more about how it was made and how it came to be an anthem as well as an icon <a href="http://www.africa.ufl.edu/asq/v9/v9i4a3.pdf">click here</a> to read an amazing article about Dollar Brand and Mannenburg.<br />
Its full of interesting stuff, such as the fact that the piano had drawing pins in the hammers (I'd always thought that - I wonder if its the same piano that crops up on other As-Shams, The Sun records?), that Mannenburg is spelt with two 'n's on the cover but only one in real life and the lady on the front is Gladys Williams, Morris Goldberg's former housekeeper.<br />
It also puts the song in the political context of its time, which is essential. <br />
Well worth reading in my opinion.<br />
And here is the song in question to listen to while you do:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/tJw6weFdJOw?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br /></div>MMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05975688422273299541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6149040051804598058.post-33629909438151838802012-05-10T21:00:00.000+01:002012-05-10T21:00:01.642+01:00Cal Tjader - Several Shades of Jade<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/2008108.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/2008108.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
I love this record but I'm not really sure why.<br />
Tjader, the most famous latin musician from St Louis, is always a favourite of mine. He sometime comes under fire for being a bit too 'pop', and somehow not being authentic.<br />
I'm not so sure. Just listen to his records with Eddie Palmieri and tell me that Tjader hasn't got the chops. Fiery stuff and no mistake.<br />
Which brings us to Several Shades of Jade. Why did Cal think that he should ditch Latin America for Asia and the Middle East? Perhaps we will never know for sure but I wonder if Lalo Schifrin had anything to do with it.<br />
Schifrin, from Argentina, recorded a number of latin-jazz and bossa records as well as arranged for Xavier Cugat. You might have thought that a collaboration with Tjader would have led to more sounds for 'south of the border'. However, Schifrin was always an experimental and adventurous musician who wrote Paul Horn's Jazz Mass (read about it <a href="http://nightofthelivingvinyl.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/paul-horn-jazz-suite-on-mass-texts.html">here</a>), and went on the conduct and produce for the likes of Jimmy Smith, Dizzy Gillespie and Stan Getz amongst others. Schifrin was never afraid to stretch out.<br />
Just don't expect any authentic sounding music. This is music for people who don't know what the music of Asia and the Middle East sounds (or sounded) like and don't particularly care.<br />
<br />
In that regard it is a purely exotica record.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1110729.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/P1110729.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Like the music of Les Baxter, the music on this record owes as much to the movies as it does to a study of 'traditional'music.<br />
As one might expect given Schifrin's later success as a film and TV composer, there is a definite filmic quality to this record. I suspect that this is helped by the crack team of studio musicians that appear here. Almost all of them veterans of film recording sessions, but also coming from jazz roots the likes of George Duvivier, Clark Terry and Urbie Green help give the music its swing and funk. Tracks such as Borneo and Horace Silver's Tokyo Blues could be used in any crime or spy show of the period without turning any heads. Perhaps Tokyo Blues has a little too many crashing gongs for the average New York cop but the horns provide cop show punch.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/5f0rPM3cLDc?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
And, of course, Tjader plays his part too. When he really lets go (and starts to sound like the brilliant Latin player he was) he adds, just the right amount of attack and flair. When it doesn't work, the music starts to slip into middle of the road exotica territory. Song of the Yellow River has Tjader playing like a fiend while the band race to keep up with him. The 'Chinese' into and outro are, perhaps, slightly unfortunate.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/BfKPiqrRHSk?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
However, the highlight of the record is the song the kicks it off - Fakir. A somewhat spurious 'Middle Eastern' theme is beefed up by think heavy drums until Cal takes control. Awesome stuff.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<object width="320" height="266" class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://3.gvt0.com/vi/8AU_91XRstM/0.jpg"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/8AU_91XRstM&fs=1&source=uds" />
<param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" />
<embed width="320" height="266" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/8AU_91XRstM&fs=1&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed></object></div>
<br />
<br />
A great example, to my ears, of the permeable line between exotica, jazz and soundtracks. If you can find the original Verve gatefold so much the better. </div>MMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05975688422273299541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6149040051804598058.post-25431797581832776992012-05-03T21:57:00.001+01:002012-05-03T21:57:37.220+01:00The Heshoo Beshoo Group - Armitage Road<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/Picture760.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/Picture760.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
The Heshoo Beshoo Group comprised Henry Sithole on alto sax, his brother Stanley Sithole in tenor, Cyril Magubane on guitar, Ernest Mothle on bass and Nelson Magwaza on drums. This is there only record together and it is marvellous. Like Batsumi (read about them <a href="http://nightofthelivingvinyl.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/South%20Africa">here</a>) The Heshoo Beshoo Group created a persuasive mix of American jazz and African jazz and create a sound of their own.<br />
The music was composed by guitarist Cyril Magubane and, as you might expect, the guitar features prominently on every track. Magubane's playing owes a lot to US jazz guitarists such as Wes Montgomery and Kenny Burrell. However, it owes just as much to South African traditions of guitar playing.<br />
The guitar features on many South African jazz records with amazing guitarists such as Phillip Tabane, Lucky Ranku, Allan Kwela and Ray Phiri of Stimela featuring prominently. Unlike US jazz, guitars are an integral part of jazz in South Africa rather than a slightly unusual instrument struggling against the horns.<br />
Like jazz itself, the spread of the guitar throughout Africa, and in South Africa in particular, was a symptom of increased urbanisation. With increasing numbers of people migrating to urban areas, especially with the development of the gold mining industry, traditional music making, and traditional instruments were forced to adapt to new social conditions. Mineworkers who came from across southern Africa, brought their instruments with them but slowly replaced them with Western instruments. Instruments such as guitars, accordions and pennywhistles, while relatively cheap and easy to come by, also represented modernity, and a new urban condition and could even be seen as sign of success and prosperity.<br />
It is probable that the guitar, like the accordion, was brought to Africa by European sailors and it seems to have arrived at about the same time in West Africa and South Africa. Like the pennywhistle, its popularity owed something to its similarity to already existing instruments, making its adoption somewhat easier. Styles of playing changed from one part of the continent to the other. However, the advent of recording, and of radio in particular, made it easier for styles of playing, as well as the songs themselves, to spread much further than ever before.<br />
In South Africa the kwela boom also helped popularise the guitar. While not as cheap to buy as the pennywhistle many aspiring musicians made their own guitars. Apparently jazz superstar Sipho Gumede started his musical career on a home-made guitar. <br />
However, the guitar might also represent a bridge between 'traditional'music and 'international' jazz. The adoption of the instrument by mineworkers, in particular Zulus, meant that, when they finished their work periods, they took their guitars back home with them. So popular was the instrument that it became an integral part of 'traditional' music making, while at the same time being an 'urban' instrument. In contrast, saxophones, pianos or trumpets were urban and owed much to European styles and methods of playing. I think that the popularity of the guitar in South African jazz was a factor behind the rise of Afro-Rock bands in Europe in the 70s. Without the guitar the bands would have seemed too 'jazz' for rock audiences, but their presence allowed bands such as Osibissa and Assagai to be considered 'rock'.<br />
One of the things I like about Armitage Road is the way that the guitar is an equal partner to the horns. For me US jazz records with lead guitars are, like US jazz records with lead saxophonists, often about the 'star' with the other musicians backing him up. The Heshoo Beshoo Group are not like that at all. They feel more like a band in which they are all equals, and as such the music is much more integrated. Magubane provides rhythm as well as lead guitar giving each song amazing continuity. His playing is shown off to outstanding effect on Emakhaya, which starts with him playing unaccompanied before the rest of the band come in behind him. His solo on this track is a thing of funky beauty. <br />
The Sithole brother's playing is also great. To me their style seems to owe a great deal to Winston Mankunku and therefore, I guess to John Coltrane. The brothers, together with Nelson Magwaza would go on to form The Drive, one of South Africa's most successful soul jazz groups.<br />
Ernest Mothle eventually left South Africa, as did so many musicians, and played in Jabula with another great South African guitarist, Lucky Ranku, and Julian Bahula, as well as in Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath. <br />
There is a 'funky', danceable element to this record, and I invariably find that without knowing it I am tapping my feet and nodding my head. It combines graceful and moving playing with invention and passion. What more do you want?<br />
The cover, as has been pointed out on flatinternational (<a href="http://www.flatinternational.org/template_volume.php?volume_id=157">here</a>) references The Beatles' Abbey Road sleeve. The message is clearly that Armitage Road, in contrast to Abbey Road, is a place of poverty which has been caused by apartheid. The guy in the wheel chair is Magubane who suffered from polio.<br />
My copy is a French copy on Pathe Marconi. I'm not sure how this record came to have a French pressing, international distribution being something that South African jazz records simply didn't have. If anyone knows let me know!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/3ds-Qjqmi3k?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/a9-WuXxOmII?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br /></div>MMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05975688422273299541noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6149040051804598058.post-32857349081884689322012-04-27T17:30:00.002+01:002012-04-27T17:30:45.413+01:00Thomas Leer and Robert Rental - The Bridge<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/80s%20rock/P1010192.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/80s%20rock/P1010192.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
The classic theme of the story of electronic music in Britain is told is one of an amazing synchronicity. In different cities, different people, with different influences, were playing with machines that could make music.<br />
Bravely, these pioneers were turning their backs on the macho posturing of guitars and drums, and were diving headfirst into the world of noises that owed nothing to the acoustic world.<br />
Taking the DIY aesthetics of punk, so the story goes, and melding it to avant garde machines, these trail blazers took their strange noises and made them public and accessible. It was, so it seemed, only a hop skip and a jump from The Normal's Warm Leatherette to The Eurythmics, Sweet Dreams.<br />
Maybe.<br />
Of course, in any history, there are always more continuities than clean breaks. Things always, whether you want them to or not, have antecedents, influences, forebears. Punk didn't rid the world of pompous rock stars, and it certainly didn't invent rebellion or independence. It just seemed like it.<br />
This wonderful, emotive and captivating record has elements of Brian Eno and Bowie, of the electronic side of Krautrock such as Tangerine Dream or Manuel Gottsching, of the Radiophonic Workshop but also of early PiL, of the dark brooding proto-goth of early Bauhaus and of course of Throbbing Gristle. It an amazing concoction.<br />
Thomas Leer and Robert Rental were both from Edinburgh and came down to London to pursue their musical ambitions.<br />
Releasing Private Plane (Leer's first single) and Paralysis (Rental's first single) on their own labels they found that they were in the company of other electronic musicians such as Cabaret Voltaire, the Human League and Daniel Miller's The Normal. <a href="http://iconfess45s.blogspot.co.uk/http://iconfess45s.blogspot.co.uk/">Listen to some of them here.</a><br />
<br />
Leer would go on to attack the pop world, producing some lovely, but largely overlooked music. Rental, unfortunately died in 2000 having only released two singles, a one sided live album recorded with Daniel Miller and this collaboration.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/80s%20rock/P1010191.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/80s%20rock/P1010191.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
On one level it is possible to enjoy this record simply for the variety of unusual sounds and noises it contains. Although synthesisers played a pivotal role in the music, they were much less sophisticated than current ones. Sounds were harder to produce and harder to reproduce. To my ears, these limitations can be heard on The Bridge, as can the efforts of Rental and Leer to overcome them. The first track on side 2, Interferon, starts with a noise that sounds like the wind whipping against a tall tower block, or an electronic machine gone wrong, or the half-heard noise of a massive city. I find that very exciting.<br />
<br />
Added to these electronically produced noises, the pair provided pecussion by hitting objects to produce drum sounds they liked, and, as the sleeve notes say, "All blips, clicks & unseemly noises were generated by refrigerators & other domestic appliances & are intrinsic to the music". This was the soundscape of Eno's Ambient records taken to its logical conclusion. Not only were 'normal' objects used to make music but 'normal' noises became music. Leer and Renal were acting as 'the bridge' between the sounds of the everyday and the sounds of music. In effect making the everyday into the unusual.<br />
<br />
Unlike many of Eno's ambient records of this period, the everyday sounds used by Leer and Rental were defiantly urban sounds. They aren't pretty or sweet but are hard edged and utilitarian. One might say they are industrial, although that might make you think that the music is hard and abrasive and meant to shock in the way of label mates (and the people who lent them the equipment) Throbbing Gristle. Although, at times, The Bridge does feel as though it might be a Chris and Cosey record there is something defiantly different in its sound and approach.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Easy/Picture128.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Easy/Picture128.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
The use of strange noises, and of found sounds, has some pretty clear antecedents in the world of pop. The 1950's particularly saw the exploration of the boundaries of sound as musicians used everyday tools to create sounds, such as on Jack Fascinato's Music From A Surplus Store, which uses only builders tools to create a 'now sound' record, or Joe Meek's famous studio trickery, heard to the best effect in his I Hear A New World (which is just a crazy, crazy record and I can't recommend it enough to people who like strange sounds).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
What makes this record different, and indeed, The Normal and Throbbing Gristle,<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Easy/Picture201.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Easy/Picture201.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
is that they are very serious. There are no frivolous or throw-away aspects to The Bridge. To me, this record reflects a very monochrome, hard, decaying, faded, city, not a New World, or even an amusing way to reconfigure the existing world, It is a reflection of the realities of the urban experience. Unlike music made with the traditional guitar, bass, drums, singer configuration, Rental and Leer, were able to conjure up not just the emotions that they felt through being in the city but the very sounds of the city itself.<br />
<br />
The cover shows a dark brooding picture of the Thames looking from Chelsea across to Battersea. Battersea Bridge, a late Victorian structure that looks as through it was designed by a cake maker, is lit up giving it a further unreal quality. Ironically, it was designed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette who also created London's sewerage network - a case of both low and high architecture!<br />
<br />
Indeed the record itself is split, with Side 1 being more song-based, with guitars and vocals, and Side 2 being more filmic, with washes of sounds, atmospheric pauses, tension and drama. I can't help thinking that in its construction it is very like Bowie's Low in this regard - and Heroes as well in its use of noise and sound.<br />
<br />
The whole record needs to be listened to in one sitting, rather than taken as individual tracks. Only in this way can the full emotional impact of the music properly be felt. I'm not sure if listening to it on CD would be the same experience. For me, getting up and turning the record over, perfectly marks the two sides, the dichotomy, the duality of the music. Two sides that are spanned by a bridge.</div>MMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05975688422273299541noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6149040051804598058.post-15734705186572094272012-04-02T20:18:00.003+01:002012-04-02T20:18:53.083+01:00GUY WARREN - THEMES FOR AFRICAN DRUMS & AFRICAN RHYTHMS<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/Picture609.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/Picture609.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Guy Warren, in the late 1950s, was on a mission in the US to show the jazz world, and the rest of the musical community, the importance of drumming. Not only that but he was determined to show people that the drums of Africa were as expressive and versatile as any other instrument in America. For Warren, drums were not just for providing a steady background beat while other instruments took the lead. For him the drums were the centre stage instrument.<br />
Not only that, for Warren jazz was all about the drums, and African drums at that. The music, its development, its history, was for Warren inextricably linked to African music, specifically music from West African, the part of Africa that provided many, but not all, of the people who would become slaves in the US.<br />
Warren had played jazz in the UK with Kenny Graham's Afro Cubists and in the US with established jazz musicians such as Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk, to whom he dedicates one of the tracks on this album. He had also played highlife in Ghana as a member of the Tempos along with ET Mensah and Joe Kelly. By 1958, when this record was released, he was an experienced, sophisticated musician with a vision for his music. "This is the album I wanted to make ... This is MY album" he proclaims in the linear notes.<br />
His jazz credentials are for all to see in the linear notes. He thanks critics Nat Henthoff and Lee Shapiro. His band mates include James Hawthorne (Chief) Bey (who would play on Art Blakey's African Beat - <a href="http://nightofthelivingvinyl.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/art-blakey-and-afro-drum-ensemble.html">here</a>), he mentions Monk, he uses jazz terms such as free-form and jazz slang such as 'laid it down'. How can this be anything other than a jazz record?<br />
That is, unless you ignore the truly obscene cover. From the cover you would think that this record was firmly in the exotica genre.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Easy/P1020070.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Easy/P1020070.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
What is the crazed man in front of a fire supposed to represent? Is it a reference to voodoo, or just a blanket heart of darkness reference? I think it is tragic that a man so proud of his country and the contribution that it had made to world culture should find that his first solo record, the "album I wanted to make", should be packaged in such a crude and insensitive way. I have included a few other exotica sleeves to show that this sort of thing was not uncommon. But it also shows how Themes for African Drums suffered. The record sleeve made it seem as though the music was not authentic, that the music was neither genuine African music nor genuine jazz. On the evidence of the sleeve you might have thought that Warren's music was on a par with Thurston Knudson or maybe Augie Colon.<br />
In fact it is fascinating and amazing music. If you've read any of my other Warren posts you will probably know I am fascinated by him and his music.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Easy/photos050.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Easy/photos050.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Warren, however, was a somewhat confusing proposition to the record buying public of America. For a start, although he is pictured on the reverse in Ghanaian clothes, his music was not a strict 'ethonographic' reproduction of Ghanaian or African music.<br />
The complexities of music from Africa, the enormous range of external influences, from Europe in the form of church choirs or military marching bands, from Cuba in the form of a wave of Latin records that swept over the continent after the second world war, from the West Indies in the form of calypsos and from the US in the form of jazz, was never acknowledged in European imaginations. Instead, as can be seen from the cover, music from Africa was assumed to be from a place untouched by the influences of the outside world. Wild, primal, sexualised (as can be seen from the cover above) and 'savage' drumming was the music that most Westerners expected from Africa. Jazz, particularly sophisticated fusions of the jazz idiom and African traditional idioms, was not expected. Few Americans were familiar with highlife or any of the other forms of modern music being created in Africa. <br />
Furthermore, Warren's pride in his Ghanaian roots, pride in his country and Continent, proved problematic at a time when many African countries were gaining their independence. The response of jazz musicians was to pen tracks whose names recognised new nations, or the creators of new nations. The response of jazz critics and white audiences was either to ignore this or to label this as some form of racism. Where within this dichotomy could an African jazz musician and his music find a home? Warrren was, I suspect, too proud to accept any easy assimilation into American cultural imperialism.<br />
I would guess that Warren was very influenced by the writings of Ghana's first president, Kwame Nkrumah. Nkrumah explored ideas about cultural transformation through the traditional culture of his country. He took popular artists such as EK Nyame and the Uhuru Dance Band with him on his trips outside Ghana and he encouraged musicians to use traditional instruments and rhythms and wear national costume. As the cover of Themes for African Drums shows, this could only be interpretedin America through a lens of colonialism and Western superiority, rather than as an equivalent and valid cultural statement. Jazz was American and even if many of its practitioners were not white Americans, for white record company executives and the white record buying public the concept that an African could explore new areas of jazz was just too incredible a proposition in 1958.<br />
Themes for African Drums contains the amazing, Love, the Mystery Of, later covered by Art Blakey on his The African Beat LP only four years later in 1962. It also contains the incredible My Story which, if anyone's autobiography can be written using drums, then this must be it. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/Picture612.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/Picture612.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Warren maintained the same musical path for his next record, that is a mix of jazz and traditional African music. To my ears he achieves a more successful fusion on African Rhythms. Again, the sleeve notes make it clear that this record is jazz and not exotica. He is joined by Richard Davis on bass and Ollie Shearer on vibes and marimba. He is praised by the likes of Leonard Feather and Nat Henthoff and is even called "a jazz genius" by Earl Wilson.<br />
Yet once again the sleeve puts the music firmly in the exotica genre. Stylised dancers, looking very similar to depictions of black jazz dancers in the 1920, particularly Josephine Baker, replace the crazed drummer of the previous LP. However, I would say that they reveal nothing about Warren's music, instead giving the impression that it is something to accompany a Tarzan movie. There wasn't even a photograph of him on the reverse.<br />
For me African Rhythms is slightly more pleasurable than Themes for African Drums. Although Warren plays more trap drums in African Rhythms, there are no brass instruments. This means that each track is carried entirely by the drumming - by the rhythm. I find tracks such as My Anthem and both parts of the Third Phase to be utterly hypnotic and captivating. <br />
As Warren revealed in an interview in 1960, he was aware of the problems that his music making created in the jazz community in the US. "I could never play like Gene Krupa, Max Roach or Louis Belson. They have a different culture. So I had to make a choice of being a poor imitation of Buddy Rich or playing something they couldn't. So I started playing African music with a little bit of jazz thrown in, not jazz with a little bit of Africa thrown in. For it is African music that is the mother, not the other way round. But I had to find out the hard way!" <br />
What he found out was that, like many innovators, he was too far ahead of his time. In a few years, in America, the concept of Africa, the concept of the continent's meaning in jazz and for jazz, and the concept of what music from the continent could sound like, had changed completely. Records by Olatunji took the same elements as Warren's records but found a wider audience. Olatunji became friends with John Coltrane and apparently the two considered recording together. Other drummers, Big Black, 'Chief' Bey, Solomon Ilori, Montego Joe, put out records and carved successful careers within the American jazz scene. Symbols taken to represent Africa became more common as did the adoption of musical signs and idioms to indicate that black jazz musicians recognised that Africa was their spiritual home. All too late for Warren who unfairly has been neglected as anything but a footnote in jazz history. Buy his records and rediscover his greatness.<br />
<br /></div>MMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05975688422273299541noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6149040051804598058.post-75696855179956864742012-03-17T23:54:00.000+00:002012-03-17T23:54:19.742+00:00THE LIVE EXPERIENCE BAND - HENDRIXPLOITATION<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/P1120198.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/P1120198.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Oh my ears, my beautiful ears!<br />
The things I do for this blog! Its not all soft jazz and biscuits I can tell you.<br />
Sometimes you have to suffer a bit, to put yourself through something that you otherwise might not do.<br />
How else can I explain the fact that I've just sat through six whole records of wild, ear-busting, fuzz drenched, screaming, gut-bucket, primal, fuzzed out, no-holds-barred, crazed, derivative, unleashed, fuzz-monster, insane, guitar madness, grimy, gritty, fuzzy (have I already used that word?) Hendrixploitation. This music is so out there that at times it almost feels like free-jazz - there's a point and a melody but you don't always know it. My God, its the kind of music that can only be made by people who either want to break boundaries or who don't know that there are any boundaries in the first place.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/P1120197.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/P1120197.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Sure, there's the Hendrix connection - but you could have guessed that by the name of the band. Is the Experience Live or the is the Band Live?<br />
Hendrix is the way into the madness. The work of the world-famous, and as at the time of the release of these records, recently dead, guitar-slinger is just a leaping off point.<br />
Sure they cover the great man's songs, sure they want to sound like him and sometime achieve a quite reasonable facsimile, sure the records are marketed to trap unsuspecting Hendrix fans.<br />
Having died young, and leaving behind a small and confused legacy of recordings, the world in the late sixties and early seventies was crying out for more of the good stuff. You know, the stuff that people loved about Hendrix - the controlled feedback, the guitar pyrotechnics (who else can set his axe on fire and still be cool?), the hard rock and crunching blues.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/P1120193.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/P1120193.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
But there are plenty of records of people trying to sound like Hendrix. And plenty of records of people covering his songs (read about some of them <a href="http://nightofthelivingvinyl.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/exploito-7-hendrixploitation-and-beyond.html">here</a>).<br />
<br />
That's not what makes the Live Experience Band's records worth tracking down. Yeah, they tackle some of his well know stuff. Voodoo Chile, Hey Joe, Red House, Purple Haze, all appear. It's not really important to analyse which record includes which version. All we need to know is that it's the same band on every record, pumping out the same vibe. Of course, given the nature of these records, its inevitable that the same performances of the same songs appear on different records. What else did you expect?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/P1120195.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/P1120195.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Don't spend too long on the cover versions. Instead revel in the originals, let yourself dive into the ocean of fuzz and feedback. The musicians on these records, allegedly a German band from Hamburg, used Hendrix as a leaping off point, an excuse, a reason to go further, harder, deeper, fuzzier into the realms of the free. To explore some of the territory that Hendrix hinted at through his music and others thought they heard.<br />
Its still hard rock, still blues-based but it contains a wild abandon that for whatever reason, Hendrix just didn't get into his music. Of course, there is none of the genius, none of the boundary challenging approach, nor even the musicianship. What you get is just a balls-out, devil-take-the-hindmost, inspired guitar freakathon. If you want something high-brow, look away now.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/P1120196.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/P1120196.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
For my money, and lets face it I've bought all of these records, this is the one to aim for.<br />
That's not because it has the best performances, although in places the music is transcendent, but because all of the songs are originals. Whoever 'Icem' is, he certainly could channel the muse of Hendrix.<br />
You could see this as a final squeeze of the sessions that produced these pieces of vinyl. Or you could see this as the triple distilled, 100% proof Live Experience Band. Shorn of attempts to recreate Hendrix's efforts the faintly anonymous Icem lets rip.<br />
What you are presented with are a set of songs that are wilder and more intense than anything Hendrix recorded. Its the kind of music that you wish was used in a biker movie, the kind of music that you know would soundtrack some wild drug-fuelled orgy, the kind of music that long-haired dope-smoking hippies listened to while having tantric sex. Or alternatively the kind music that middle class teenagers listened to because they couldn't get any sex or drugs. You decide.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/P1120194.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Exploito/P1120194.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Despite being attributed to Peet Shaw, this record includes music that came from the same sessions that produced the above records.<br />
Repackaged for the Italian market, this one adds some vocals which suddenly brings the way-out music back to earth with a bump.<br />
<br />
There is one last record from the same people, although it doesn't purport to be Hendrix related. Its called Blues Happening but, after pummelling my mind with hours of axe-wielding, face-melting, fuzz-busting, free-from, I just don't think I can take any more.</div>MMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05975688422273299541noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6149040051804598058.post-65873936094362719082012-03-17T17:19:00.000+00:002012-03-17T17:19:05.446+00:00YUSEF LATEEF - EASTERN SOUNDS<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/Picture371.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm311/expury70/Jazz/Picture371.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
I'm not sure I can do justice to this record. Whatever I write will only scratch the surface of what this amazing record has to offer. I feel as though I have decided to write about A Love Supreme or Milestones!<br />
<br />
For me, it is a cornerstone of my love of jazz. It opened my ears to the potential that the music has and the fascination that I have for the exploratory nature of jazz stems directly from Eastern Sounds. Like all great jazz records it not only shows its jazz antecedents, it adds original elements, and the resulting mix points the way towards a new approach to the music.<br />
<br />
It may sound slightly improbably but I found this record in a charity shop.I was out to lunch with my wife and had dropped her off at the restaurant while I parked the car. As I walked back to the restaurant I went passed a charity shop. Someone had obviously just dropped off a jazz collection, or perhaps it had been there for some time and the 'real' gems had already been bought. To find any jazz records in charity shops is pretty rare. Over many years I've been lucky enough to find a handful, but the reality is that you are more likely to find records by military dance bands or soundtracks to the Sound of Music than anything jazzy -much less original US pressings in perfect condition! Needless to say when I finally met up with my wife, a large bag of records under my arm, she was not very pleased that I had taken time off from being a husband to be a record collector instead!<br />
<br />
But it was all worth it for Eastern Sounds.<br />
<br />
This album was recorded in 1961. Lateef had been recording steadily for the previous five years, producing as many as four albums a year in 1957 and in each recording he included at least one experimental track. Often the experiment was the use of an unusual (for jazz) instrument such as an oboe, a piccolo or something from another country.<br />
<br />
Lateef's interest in the music of Africa, initially the music of North Africa, stemmed from his conversion to Islam in the early 1950s. As he puts it in his autobiography, when faced with the prospect of having to produce records each year he realised that he would need something more than, then current, hard bop. "To break the mould, I began to study other instruments from different cultures. This new pursuit meant I had to spend time in the public library doing research on Africa, India, Japan and China."<br />
<br />
Prior to Eastern Sounds, Lateef has been involved in Olatunji's Zungo and Randy Weston's Uhuru albums. Both records took their inspiration from Africa, the second particularly celebrating the recent withdrawal of British colonialism from many African countries. Music from Africa, particularly Nigeria in Olatunji's case, was used for both records and although Lateef's playing is not decisive on either recording, I think it is an indication of the man's interest in music from outside of America as well as his technical ability to play in other idioms.<br />
<br />
Intriguingly, however, the recording Lateef produced of his own music prior to Eastern Sounds is Lost In Sound, which to my ears sounds very much a straight forward, of its time, hard bop record. While the record that followed Eastern Sounds, was Into Something, which again is less experimental than Eastern Sounds. What makes this record stand out from the records Lateef was making at the time, and in some ways from all the records he would ever make, is its relentless experimental approach. With the exception of Don't Blame Me, each track has something different, not just unusual instruments, but also unusual approaches to jazz, ,choices of tracks and influences. Ironically, although it is the least experimental track on the record, the writer of the linear notes, Joe Goldberg pays it more attention than any of the tracks. Perhaps he felt most at home with it?<br />
<br />
Lateef's band comprised Barry Harris on piano, Ernie Farrow on bass and Lex Humphries on drums. They are all very competent musicians in the hard bop style and Harris is particularly good throughout, both inventive and sympathetic to Lateef and playing some really fine solos. However, I don't think it is disparaging to these musicians to say that I doubt they could have produced such a classic record without their leader. <br />
<br />
The record kicks off with The Plum Blossom on which Lateef plays a Chinese globular flute. It produces such a particular sound that I have never heard anything like it on a jazz record. With some fine piano work from Harris and some interesting bass work from Farrow (is it the rabat he is playing? What kind of instrument is it?) the minimal nature of the song, its repetitive nature, its paucity of percussion and overall simplicity make it utterly captivating.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/BhqQFs7huwU?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
Blues for the Orient is slightly more conventional except that Lateef is playing the oboe rather than his tenor. This gives the track the, no doubted intended, 'oriental' feel. Its clearly an attempt to merge the American blues idiom with music from the 'orient' as the title tell us. To my ears there is a lot of blues and not a lot of orient - unless the oboe is all the orient there is!<br />
<br />
Chinq Miau is, according to the sleeve notes, so-called because of a scale in Chinese music. Based on nothing more than a hunch I wonder if it is the most 'authentic' track on the record! While still 'jazz' it also points the way to the potential for something else, something more.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/aPme-hRAwUw?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
Lateef's interest in exotica is also evident in the two movie themes on the record. Lateef's versions of the Love Theme from Spartacus, written by Alex North for the movie of the same name, is one of my favourite songs in any genre of all time. Harris's playing is beautiful and Lateef's oboe is keening and heartfelt. I have to admit that there is something almost too deliberately 'exotic' about it, too knowingly 'out-there' and 'strange', as though Lateef is stretching to find the right way to express his interest and love of non-American music. Indeed the choice of covering a song 'about' an exotic place rather than listening to music from that place, only seems strange in the modern world. Coltrane, like Lateef, would listen to ethnographic recordings, but that would be some years hence. These records were not always easy to find in the US and the taste for them was not set in 1961. I am sure that there would be much to be gained from closely comparing this record to Coltrane's Africa Brass of the same year.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/BhqQFs7huwU?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
Snafu is, to my mind, an acronym from the US military which stands for Situation Normal, All Fucked Up. Is this song in some way a comment on the war in Vietnam. In 1961 the war had yet to become to take quite the divisive position in the US that it would later take. However, many young soldiers, disproportionately poor and therefore black, were being sent there to fight. The refrain maintains the 'exotic' feel of the rest of the record although the rhythm section play it fairly straight. I could see this as being the 'experimental' track on another Lateef record. Here is comes across as almost 'straight'.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/G9rPpmXlcqE?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
Following the frenetic Snafu, Purple Flower is achingly slow. Lovely piano from Harris and restrained brushing from Humphries underpin Lateefs deep tenor tone. Makes me think of feeling 'heavy' and 'happy' - too deep to do anything but enjoying it nonetheless.<br />
<br />
He also covers another sand and sandals tune, the Love Theme from the
Robe. A film that has somewhat lapsed into obscurity, it tells the
story of a Roman Centurion assigned to crucify Jesus. Supposedly set in
Palestine it was shot in LA but retains a somewhat otherworldly
character.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/igLRRKPyrOE?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
The record closes with the Three Faces of Balal which acts as a coda to Plum Blossom. The instrumentation is similar as is the mood. I am not sure what the Three Face of Balal are, but I doubt the explanation given in the sleeve notes. Could it be another biblical reference to go with the two songs from biblical movies? Perhaps, given the composer's faith, it is not Biblical related, however, it may have a North African reference which would fit with the other tracks on the record.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/iGJvAbS7ly0?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<br /><br />
<br />
<br /></div>MMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05975688422273299541noreply@blogger.com1