Thelonious Monk... Mal Waldron/Marion Brown... Evan Parker/Eddie Prévost... Donald Byrd...

'Monk plays Ellington' was never rated as one of Thelonious's great albums. Yet I have always had a fancy for it, if only for the fascination of hearing one great pianist/composer take on another's work. This is 'I got it bad and that ain't good.' Monk leads in solo, stretching phrases to their breaking point, using almost unbearable periods of silence with the placement of a master. Suddenly bouncing off in a jaunty ride, joined by bass and the subtle tick of Kenny Clarke's drums. Pettiford solos, showing his class. Monk again, staying close to the melody – then suddenly dropping off into another space with an oblique turn, a rush of notes, a crunching chord. Thelonious in his heyday, sounding as if he was enjoying himself.

Mal Waldron is of the line of Monk – a minimalist vision at times, using space to great effect. Here, he is joined by Marion Brown for a slow, elegaic version of 'My Funny Valentine.' Piano starts off, allowing the air to blow through both melody and chords, holding back the beat, using repeated figures for emphasis. Late night feel, perhaps, but thoughtful rather than brooding, Just over three minutes in, Brown enters, holding the mood with keening long notes, harking back to an older tradition, saxophonic pyrotechnics stripped right back. At the end, Waldron rips out chords for the alto to pirouette through in an elegant coda.

Evan Parker and Eddie Prévost duet on 'Knowledge is power,' from a 1997 session. A long track that uncurls at its own speed, lazily snake-like with the occasional lash of the tail to snap the dynamics up a few notches. Opening on mysterious sonorities and scrapings, a fluttery sax like an early morning bird call. Prevost moves into more conventional percussive territory with some hammered toms. Parker worries a phrase across the registers. Moving from busy back into freer space, utilising a wide range of sounds between them, Parker getting so much out of his saxophone in between the usual long lines of circular breathing, at one point approximating a muted trumpet. They go into a more jazzy feel as the track progresses – at its back I hear Coltrane's sax/drums workouts, but Parker always acknowledged the influence – and proceeded over the years to fully work out his unique strategies rather than remain a copyist. This goes long because it has to...


Donald Byrd and band play 'Beale Street,' not the W.C. Handy piece but a choppy funky composition of its time – out of 'Sidewinder' etc. Hank Mobley blows a couple of choruses then Sonny Red takes some – playing with texture and sonorities, sounding bluesy. Byrd next, high up the range, spurred on by front line riffs. Cedar Walton comes in for a brief piano interlude. An odd mix of funk and bop, nothing particularly earth-moving, perhaps, but a snapshot of the trumpeter's working band from 1967, under the stamp of Blue Note...


Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk (p) Oscar Pettiford (b) Kenny Clarke (d)
I got it bad and that ain't good
Download


Buy

Mal Waldron (p) Marion Brown (as)
My Funny Valentine
Download

Buy

Evan Parker (ss) Eddie Prévost (d, perc)
Knowledge is power
Download

Buy

Donald Byrd (tp) Sonny Red (as) Hank Mobley (ts) Cedar Walton (p) Walter Booker (b) Billy Higgins (d)
Beale Street
Download


Buy

Easing back in...

Just bought netbook for mobility and trying it out now - live blogging from the pub... well - I missed Bartley and Kitching last night - buried in wires/cables trying to get my networks up and running at the new house... And I was going to see Sonny Simmons tonight in Sheffield - alas, that's gone down as well... Never mind - looking forward to the London Jazz Festival - most of it of no interest to me but managed to book three nights in succession - Keith Tippett, Peter Brotzmann and Rudresh Mahanthappa... may try some live blogging during the sessions if I can find wifi points adjacent... Some music back up here asap... watch this space etc...

Just realised that the landlord of this establishment bears a resemblance to Thurston Moore... Increasing I've been feeling like Old Tom Moore (from the bummer's shore)... But the worst of the move is now over...

Almost there... and a birthday...

We're in the new house - but internet will not be arriving until next thursday when hopefully things will be back to normal. But I could not let the day pass without a mention that it is my daughter's 21st birthday today. Many happy returns - from your proud parents...

Moving...

We are moving house (again!) today - which is why posting has been non-existent since I got back from the Brighton festival... more to come when the dust has settled (literally).

Review; Colour out of Space Festival, Brighton, Sunday 7th September, 2008...

Sunday. Unfortunately I missed the films at midday due to a prior gig and wasn't grabbed by the afternoon talk/panel (my loss I'm sure) so just came down for the last evening. Again, I was a little selective – stayed in the main hall throughout so didn't get to everything – but that's the nature of festivals... By the way - the first image is from a boozer over the road from the festival - the jakes in Hector's House... very anarcho-punk, dudes... but the booze was cheap and it was good to hear Kraftwerk again...

Black to Comm: Quite delicate traceries building into a solid drone that developed intriguingly. Flecked with 'small instruments' and violin.

Muscletusk: Again, great programming as they were a complete contrast to the previous act. Noise rock meets freejazz drumming shot through with electronics and good use of dynamics. I thought they were great!

Graham Phillips/G Park: Another programmatic contrast. These two take a much more theatrical performative stance. The lights were taken right down, the curtains pulled over the doors. Out of the ensuing pitch blackness two lights appeared on stage – like miners' helmets – necessary for the duo to see the sound sources on their respective tables. But also: acting as minute focal points if somewhat eery. A clangour – bell sounds moving into darker noise. Creaking doors – we are in the haunted house, made more atmospheric by the darkness. Then what seemed to be a scrawling veering dizzying ride on an aeroplane, spinning out of control, accompanied by shouts, cries, screams of scared passengers. This became quite unsettling – close to the bone for many? Some people did leave, too disturbing? In my mind I would like to think the plane righted its course - but more was to come. Slaughterhouse dance macabre – sharp shocks of sound interweaving with the plaintive baas of sheep. Human and animal mortality at stake here? My private movies, anyway – a genuinely harrowing experience... even in the realisation that this was clever manipulation. Edgy brilliance...

Pigs in the Ground: 'Inspired by the work of Necrosearch Society of Colorado – forensic pathologists who bury swine corpses and study the results to discern the whereabouts of clandestine graves...' When you have read this description of their music in the program notes, it colours your perception – certainly the deep bass and scuttling rattles give an air of the subterranean, dark condensed spaces and movements of earth. Shifting into a more defined beat with a jerky one two march figure – the troll two step? Bass melody moves in and out... spartan vocal gestures. As colour.. wafts of more defined rhythms. Another great set – this weekend has given out some good music...

Lionel Marchetti/Yoko Higashi: Marchetti has been a wheel in musique concrete for some time, moving into more improvised strategies in the nineties. Hagashi came from the dance world in Tokyo before developing her vocal projects. Collectively they provided another highlight of the weekend – moving across from the more academic to the poppier ends of the spectrum with ease, in the main. A striking couple, one can see/hear the disparate worlds they inhabit mesh into the performance – not always an easy fit, perhaps, but that gives the occasional misstep that is picked up quickly an added piquancy, a lift of spontaneity, the fun of a chance taken...













To the end of the night: Corsano/Moore/Nace. The drummer – a revelation. I know his recorded work pretty well, but have missed him all over the UK these last couple of years. My loss. Live, he is just plain awesome. It's not just the flawless technique, but the FEEL... He is a striking figure, looking very young, the shaven head gives him a monk-like appearance and that re-inforces, perhaps, the purity of vision that seems to be at work here. The two guitarists, Thurston Moore, a co-founder of Sonic Youth, of course, who has developed his career into the free improv arena (and beyond) in recent years with many collaborations and solo projects, Bill Nace a new name to me, from Northampton, Mass, smash and burn across the truly mind-rattling percussive storm behind them. Hi-octave stuff... This was about smears of sound, guitars battered and pummeled to yield loud emotional ecstasies. Corsano carries the whole shebang, pausing occasionally, to give space to his cohorts – and no doubt to catch his breath. One small example of his technique – during a fast-spattering passage, he kept the rhythms going with one hand while he changed sticks with the other – and it sounded just as complex... A demonstration of how free jazz and avant-rock/noise can coexist and feed each other – which was one of the underlying theme of the festival, come to think of it...

So, a wild end to a great weekend. Salutations to the Brighton crew who put all this together with skill and good humour. Given the logistics of swapping so many diverse acts about and sound-checking etc, the musicians wheeled themselves on and off in good order, a truly collaborative effort on their part as well – no prima donnas spotted (doesn't mean there weren't any but it wasn't obvious). The relatively short sets helped, I think, concentrated bursts in the main of great, thoughtful, innovative, epiphanic wahoo... etc... Plus imaginative programming, contrasting the varieties of conception on display to good advantage. Everything I heard I liked, so I left happy. And it is rare to be able to say that... The packed crowd enjoyed it in good order throughout– even the drunks were in the main amusing – apart from the young gobshite behind me on Saturday off whose head I was tempted to whang a half-full can of Red Stripe at one point. But: that would have soured the evening, probably got me thrown out – and would have been a waste of expensive booze. I'm too old for that malarkey, anyway...

Hope to be back next year... My first time in Brighton, as well. Great town...

Posted from The Ranelagh, up on St James Street - on tap country/blues - an interesting contrast...

Sunday - Brighton...

The last night of the festival was a blast - no time yet to up review - hopefully tomorrow - and more crappy photos - too lazy to leave the back of the room...

Review: Colour out of Space Festival, Brighton, Saturday, 6th September, 2008...

Saturday

Afternoon.


Made it to the Bruce McLure show... Two pieces, introduced by the man himself – again, that American communication with the audience, this time to briefly explain his strategies. Hallucinatory mix of image and music – blips of scruffy white light flashing with the rhythms, occasional blurred images appearing and disappearing as if buried by the visual static. McLure sets loops running and blends/rams them into each other setting up cross-rhythms that collide and fall into step and separate again. The second piece introduced more syncopation in a jazzy way, moving across a strong three beat rhythm that changed to four and back, some fast ticking eighth notes giving a feel of 6/8 at one point. Usually falling back into a heavy pounding that echoed for me the Velvet Underground – a conscious New York influence? Hallucinatory flickers...

Night.

Fewer acts seen – got there a little later than planned due to apocalyptic downpour that had me pinned for shelter in the dooway of Safeways for ages! First up:

Charles Draheim. One man and his electronics table... but something different going on here. Draheim started innocently enough in the usual sonic territory but proceeded to go further and further away from the centre until he was banging mightily against the walls – and perhaps breaching them – of what an ear can tolerate. Not just the volume, particularly, but the high screeling, finger down the blackboard, dentist's drill nightmare granularities that did provoke a few to leave. Later he explored the deeper territories where bass gets very physical indeed and you feel that your heart beat is being interfered with... Transgressive stuff that posed many a question – which is what experimental music is supposed to do... This I dug...

Skullflower came straight out of the traps and held a climax for the whole of their segment. Tantric, what? Violin, guitars, blending into one roaring tangle of sound, powered on by the drums. Violin dropped out before the end – something to do with a dead lead? Or choice? Interesting, that sawed-out string sound out of the Velvets (back via John Cale to Tony Conrad/Dream Dyndicate and earlier minimalism) still rings on through the underground... A favourite band, encountered live for the first time.

Paul Hession and his two saxophonist cohorts, Biggi Vinkeloe (alto, doubling flute) and Sami Pekkola, tenor saxophone come straight out of free jazz. A purely acoustic lineup in such a predominantly electronic festival may have posed a few problems. Which were ridden over immediately. As they sound-checked and proceeded to play what turned into a taster for their main set people were drifting in and getting straight into their music. When they stopped, there were shouts for more! The hall filled up and they played a great set, coming off the polyrhythmic fire and skill of Hession, a master drummer who has been around in heavy company down the years. I hadn't heard his two bandmembers before and they were intriguing. Pekkola can go from what now has become straight ahead free playing across all the registers to the more conceptual interrogations of the the physicality of his instrument, in one sequence removing the mouthpiece, then later part of the neck to produce a variety of swooshing, farty sounds. Vinkeloe's flute was fascinating – plenty of orthodox technique again but she pushed into further territory, heavily breathing/speaking through it to produce other levels of sound – in Roland Kirk mode, certainly, but with her own spin. Overall, they gave a superb demonstration of dynamics, going from full-bore blowing to a quieter section that explored small nuances, bowed cymbals and brushes from the drummer and pointillism from the horns, bouncing ideas of each other all the way as Hession constantly varied his timbres and attack. Usually you see/hear this stuff in smaller venues, where the audience can get a bit precious, to be honest. I enjoyed the rowdier atmosphere as the saturday night fandango cranked up and the booze and whatever else flowed – many shouts and hoots of encouragement to the band that contributed to my thinking that this music benefits from being thrown out of the usual performance space into a more public arena. Hession and co looked as if they enjoyed themselves... one of my highspots of the weekend...

Vibracathedral Orchestra I have seen before and heard a lot of on cd , another favourite UK band. I remember first encountering them on a radio show ('Mixing It') about the music scene oop north and being blown away by the purity of their music and the way they build a set. No great surprises tonight perhaps – except maybe in the mellower sounds they produce compared to many other acts. Dissonance there is, cutting across the tonalities rising up from the drone base, but they tend to resolve rather than hang bleeding on the sonic wires. Not a criticism, rather the opposite in that they created their own space within the jostling sound worlds of the weekend – still widening the wide field they have fine-ploughed these last years. Rare beauty...

To the last act: Reines D'Angleterre. Ho ho... God save them... The enigmatic Frenchman Ghedalia Tazartes, flanked by Jo Tanz and él-g on electronics and 'vocals,' produced a barnstormer – something completely different. Singing in his own polyglot of fractured English, French and whatever else flits through his perception, moaning and hollering in cadences that seem to move from French chanson through minor key Jewish and Arab wail and beyond, he stands on the babel tower of his culture, producing a small accordion occasionally to blat out a fractured accompaniment and blowing and whirling a length of rubber pipe which is a secret signifier of Parisian street culture which I am sure he must be aware of. He's the same age as I am, and I remember the character who used to busk on the cinema queues on the Left bank, a clochard who blew a wild sound out of a length of garden hose looped round his neck. Whom we dubbed 'Hosepipe Feliciano,' circa 1970. Wish I could have asked him... (Wonder what happened to the Ratman? But that's for another day...).

The crowd loved him, as I did – I'd like to hear more. His accompanists gave out a sympathetic aural carpet of matching vocalisms and minimal but sufficient – and witty - background sounds from the kit on their respective tables.

There is a big article on him in this month's 'Wire' mag, worth checking out...

Apologies for the photos - I couldn't be bothered to jostle down to the front as I am just recovering from a broken toe... and no links either, as fast blogging off wifi and with duff battery...

Review: Colour out of Space Festival, Brighton, Friday 5th September, 2008

The balance had to be rectified... I don't have anything against folk music (well, not much) and have been to some great acoustic gigs recently. However – they have been the only gigs I've been to, for a variety of reasons. Just haven't made it to any jazz, improv, skronk/wahoo whatever gig away from the hey-nonny for too long. I had to travel to the south coast anyway to meet up with a friend for a project we are involved in, checked the dates and information – and found that the Brighton Colour out of Space Festival at the Sallis-Binney Theatre was on round about the same time. So: booked tickets and a cheap hotel – and here I am. Sitting writing this Saturday morning looking out across a storm-tossed sea with the wind rising – rehearsals for Armageddon again in this star-crossed country, economics and weather wise... At some point will find a wifi node to put it up...

Friday night.

Arrived a little late as needed a quick kip when I got to the hotel – not much sleep the last few days.

So: first set:

Core of the Coalman. Opening electronics hissing as an aircraft revs up... Your man proceeded to build an imposing, ever-spinning vortex of sound via his viola hooked up to a battery of loop/delay pedals. Simple long bowed notes with fragments of occasional melody overlaid to rise into mighty thunder. This cleared the acoustic cobwebs out... And a reasonable crowd (that would build to impressive proportions – these people know how to get the vote out) intent on digging the proceedings.

Red Stripe/sandwich interval then:

UK group Helhesten – a four-piece, clarinet, single drum and cymbal (floor tom), violin and vocal. Producing an almost ur-music of hollers, grunts and shattered syllables with high streaks of clarinet, low thumps of primal drum and sawed violin continuum. Clustered facing each other, it was if they were gathered round some primeval campfire, coming fresh at the world. A thought accentuated by the numbers sat in the main part of the hall, cross-legged and intensely listening. I don't do cross-legged these days (especially recovering from all my various wounds to feet and legs etc) but had a reasonable view of the ongoing eistedfordd from the sidelines where i found a seat that I managed to hold throughout various beer, sandwich and pissbreaks. Enjoyed these guys... cosmic Kumbaya...

HRT were out in a marquee in the garden area adjoining the Sallis-Binney theatre. Dressed in black cowled robes, spooky electronics – seemed like fun but I couldn't be bothered to stand in mud and needed a break anyway...

Gastric Female Refles, next up. Two fine young Canadians, providing some humour in their presentation – I noticed that the North Americans were the only ones (I saw) to address the audience direct which was an interesting point overall. A table full of electronics to wow and dazzle with ultra-fast jumpcutting across a massive range of samples and sounds in a hectic but good natured two-way call and response. Country guitar picking emerging a couple of times to be thrown down back into the slash and burn – FUN!

Rat Bastard came on resplendent in wooly black hat , big black shades and just a guitar plugged into an amp – with which he proceeded to fast strum and flat pick a gathering wild dissonance that was held together by open strings ringing throughout. Sort of drone crossed with metal replete with many of the stage gestures of that genre thrown in. Guy has a sense of humour. Joined by two young women with hand-held gizmos to throw electronic splatter across like acid, bumping and grinding in a stage mashup complete with hair-flailing which was extremely funny. Mock the rock, hey geezers?

Then: Peeeseye. Stripped down drum kit, guitar and electronics, the drummer doubling on vocals - talking in tongues jive esperanto. Led in by the electronics man producing a drone from what looked like a shoe-shine box with a flap that he manipulated to produce the sounds throughout – must have been hell on his arm muscles. An instrument seen in Indian music, I think – I was somewhat unsited by the crowd down front. An object lesson in how to build and sustain a set, rising from the drone to produce a three-way ever moving vector of powerful musics. The drummer led at first on voice , building it up and easing it down when he stepped out from the kit and went to the front stage mike to keep the vocal voodoo moving as the background settled back and the rhythm was kept just on a cowbell or some similar small metallic ringing intrument he was hitting. Back behind the kit, then the guitar rose up to spit swoosh and roar, then the electronics took front focus. Not solos as such, rather like a triangular movement where the three corners rotate in turn to hold the emphasis. Wild - and thoughtful... great attention to structure here...

To the final act – Aaron Dilloway. I'm a big fan but have never seen him live – and I suspect this really is the best way to experience his full-tilt electronic firestorm. He sat at his table of electronics, looking calm – that state which comes before the storm. Commencing on distant deep muffled dustbins kicked around some dark cellar in a ricocheting clatter. Slowly building, riff upon riff, call and response, as the lights hit him and he moved now to the cross-rhythms of the music. Chomping down on his contact miked mouth to produce howls and cries and squeals, lurching in his seated position into a desperate dance. The music enfolds and overwhelms like a thick rising tide – this is such physical music, coming from the body to hit the collective body of the audience. Truly a PERFORMANCE. As the old MGM trailer went for that compilation of Hollywood musical/movie clips some years back. 'THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT. AND BOY DO WE NEED IT NOW.'

Awesome... and again, a free-flowing structure born of experience and skill – and of course, imagination. A great end to a great night.

I missed some acts which was unfortunate – came back in late to Leslie Keffer's set as the stage was being loaded with invitees – this looked fun – but ya can't have everything? (Why not? I hear you cry – well... stamina these days, folks...). A great combo overall of youth and established musicians with nothing that I saw going by the numbers. Interesting dichotomy between the Canadians/US performers and the Europeans...

And apologies for the few photos – forgot to buy fresh batteries for my camera. So amateur...
No time to check links - will do that tomorrow as I have to grab a quick wifi window.

More to come... on the run...

Bill Evans/Lee Konitz/Warne Marsh... Matthew Shipp... Billy Bang... Cannonball Adderley...

Bill Evans and the Kings of Cool – Konitz and Marsh. 'Speak Low.' This is sparkling, frothy stuff. Evans leads off in rhapsodic mode before Konitz takes the theme and lifts it into steady rhythm. Warne Marsh joins in to weave round the alto in a high-stepping dance. Eddie Gomez springs a line across Evan's chording, firm-fingered, high up the neck. Konitz up next. Followed by Bill Evans, Warne Marsh. Listening to all of them stretch phrases across bar-lines and chorus demarcations is a fascinating master-class in modern jazz improvised melody. Evans returns then there is an almost old-school ride out by the ensemble... Not to get tangled up in racial stereotyping, but this is not the blues end of bop, out of the fountainhead, Bird, and the Afro-American vanguard , rather the oblique white line coming out of Lennie Tristano (which of course came out of the same vanguard, Bird with a large dash of Lester Young, yadda yadda)– yet there is plenty of tension and emotion, delivered on its own cultural terms. Joyous...

Matthew Shipp and 'Density and Eucharist' from his album 'Critical Mass.' Observing the late-night eucharist here in the Eagle's Nest, trying to get it back on track over Budweisers and a chocolate orange. High living... And no intentional blasphemy here – the antinomian takes his or her own way through... But it's a loaded word... Density follows... Led in again by piano, a loping line underscored by some biting harmonies before the violin enters, riding across an increasing complexity from bass and drums. Shipp solos, thick-fingered clusters and swirls, prodded by Parker especially, locking into the occasional almost groove. Manieri comes back in finger-plucking strikes, before returning to his bow. Grappelli it ain't, this is the astringency of contemporary classical whammed across into free jazz. Or the reverse, take your pick... Tension building with heavy deep piano chords bombing across the drummer's rising clatter. Dickey takes his solo before the violin comes back to utter some wrenched phases, answered by the hurly burly piano. Shipp solo – fast track moves that leap the registers before a crunching chordal phrase summons the violin. More fast-it whirligig piano. Slowing down into more reflective mood, yet suddenly criss-crossed by Parker arco, duetting with the violin. Bass switches back to a fast strum as the tempo ups again. Some percussive and also lyrical bass from Mr Parker throughout, the deep heartbeat that links it all together. Density a plenty... The violin gives it that trans-idiomatic riff, as Mr Braxton might say... And much is coming together here – in the interplay of the musicians and the resonance of the title:

'The Eucharist is generally... thought to have its antecedents in common meal practice of uncertain origin, which gradually developed into a rite central to the Roman Church in the first two to four centuries of the Common Era.' (From here...).

Meeting to participate in the easygoing practice and commonplace necessity of eating which will transcend the gathering to a higher plane and purpose... I just re-read Paul's 'First Epistle to the Corinthians,' the first biblical reference to the Eucharist, while also checking the etymology of 'εὐχαριστία' as my classical Greek is shaky after all these years and was struck (again) by the Will to Order implicit and explicit in that text – especially with regard to women and those who speak in tongues as opposed to prophesying as defined by Paul – this argument especially interesting in a jazz context, perhaps re fire musics and the neo-orthodoxies. Nietszche famously said that the Will to Order displayed a lack of integrity, if I remember correctly. But enough...

More violin... Billy Bang – whom I first heard with the String Trio of New York way back and loved instantly... This is from an album where he recorded a load of standards in a pretty straight-ahead setting. 'Sweet Georgia Brown' the title. Bang a player who can go all the way out yet here playing pretty much inside – the fire and attack reminding of earlier maestros like the great Stuff Smith – or to give him his splendid full name: Hezekiah Leroy Gordon "Stuff" Smith. Must dig some of his music out – sure I have some somewhere... Smith was always capable of enthusiastically looking forward, as a master musician from an earlier generation. Bang as a master musician from more contemporary times looks back in celebration of the lineage:

'Violinist Billy Bang is a marvelous bridge from early jazz - [a] strong influence [was] Stuff Smith - to the most cutting-edge innovations of the avant-garde.' (From here...).

As Gaston Bachelard wrote:

'True poetry is a function of awakening. It awakens us, but it must retain the memory of previous dreams. ' (Gaston Bachelard: L'eau et les rêves (Water and Dreams) 1942, quoted from here...).

Blimey. Let's move one...

The Cannon and brother Nat playing 'Soon,' from his album 'Them Dirty Blues.' Julian Adderley could, of course, get down with the best, but like his mentor, Charlie Parker, was capable of fast, complex flights while remaining drenched in the blues. I was just thinking that he was part of a great Miles Davis sextet – the one that made 'Kind of Blue' – and his position between the clenched minimalist burn of the leader who learned his trade on Bird's bandstands and the swooning swooping fire of John Coltrane, maybe gives an hint of where to place him on the rolls. Bobby Timmons opens the game lightly before hitting a heavier chordal vamp as Nat Adderley takes the theme on muted cornet and solos first – the two beat gait alternating with the four walk from the bass to give a curious lopsided dance. Cannonball takes it onwards, the band switching to straight-ahead behind him as he unreels some dazzle and flash. Louis Hayes hits rimshots on the fourth beats, ticking off the bars in Philly Joe mode. Sam Jones displays his credentials, supple melodic bass. Timmons grounds it back as the cornet picks up the theme and that heavy piano chordal figure surfaces to end the track.


Bill Evans
Lee Konitz (as) Warne Marsh (ts) Bill Evans (p) Eddie Gomez (b) Eliot Zigmund (d)
Speak Low
Download

Buy

Matthew Shipp
Matt Manieri (v) Matthew Shipp (p) William Parker (b) Whit Dickey (d)
Density and Eucharist
Download

Buy

Billy Bang
Billy Bang (v) Billy Bang (v) D.D. Jackson (p) Akira Ando (b) Ronnie Burrage (d)
Sweet Georgia Brown
Download

Buy

Cannonball Adderley
Cannonball Adderley (as) Nat Adderley (ct) Bobby Timmons (p) Sam Jones (b) Louis Hayes (d)
Soon
Download

Buy

Disappearances...

My apologies - things have been hectic as we are moving house yet again and I have also been a bit crocked up. I'm off to the Colour out of Space festival this coming weeekend in Brighton so some dispatches will no doubt trickle back from there. Hope the weather is better down south! Probably will put up some music before I go...

Red Garland... Jackie McLean... Rob Brown/Joe Morris... King Oliver... Count Basie/Frank Sinatra...

Red Garland leads a quintet for the long title track of his 1957 album 'Soul Junction.' A name very much of its time... The pianist leads in a slow blues with several choruses of rippling funky lines. Something always cleanly hit about Garland's technique, a finely calibrated springiness. The trademark block chords arrive later on, alternating with the single note strategy.. Coltrane enters, changing the mood into something more questing – as always, he seems to move the music into a different zone. Looking in front of the day while still secure on the back foot of the blues. Donald Byrd is secure and fleet while Art Taylor stirs sporadically behind him with some Blakey-like prodding. Garland returns for some rolling two-fisted sport to take it out.

Jackie McLean recorded the splendidly titled 'Swing Swang Swinging' in 1959 from which I have selected 'Let's face the music and dance.' Something I would have a problem with at the moment, reduced to gimp mode by the broken toe. Let's face the music anyway... Straight in at a sprightly bounce, McLean leads a solid quartet on this 1959 Blue Note date who all sound as if they are enjoying themselves. Art Taylor is on tough form, Garrison runs fast and deep, Bishop looking after the chords. Alto takes a joyous solo followed by piano - channelling Bud, slap bang in the bop tradition as is the whole of this session. Bishop had played with Bird before his death and McLean was seen as one of the heirs to Parker - this reminds me slightly of some of those later quartet sessions Bird made. Recorded 4 years after his death, something of a looking back perhaps, at a time when McLean was about to launch forwards into his own take on the coming New Thing, blown on the winds that Ornette was to send west to east.

'The music needs no further explanation. As Alfred Lyons said: “They came, swung, they split. That's why we called the album 'Swing, Swang, Swinging.' (from Ira Gitler's liner notes).

The Rob Brown/Joe Morris quartet playing 'Results.' Opens on splats, bangs and squiggles – or pointillism, mes braves. The bass starts to run free, with some stops and starts, the drums suddenly roll violently and sax and guitar spar in snatched grapples. Brown takes it up, with Morris occasionally throwing in a shard of comping and an answering or complementary line before he emerges to solo as the others pull back to let him through. The storm rises soon enough – this track never comes completetly to rest. Brown comes back to riff behind the guitar before Parker takes an arco solo. Rob Brown next, jumping across intervals with a Dolphy-esque skip across Morris's acid chording. Free for all to fall into the drums of Krall before they all return - Brown especially passionate and vocal, taking another fine section after the bass and drums indulge in a quieter interlude. Finely positioned quartet work that shows both ensemble and solo in perfect balance.

Back to the roots – King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, the avant garde of 1923 I put 'Dippermouth Blues' up some time back – but what the hell, here it is again, such a joyous piece of music. And I get the chance to riff: 'Oh play that thing!'

Another King Oliver, to make up for the repetition... 'Snake Rag.' There is a very good blog post on this track here (this blog dedicated to Louis Armstrong's life and work). By the way, this is the Gennett version. You have to make a certain leap of the imagination to really get to this music I think – disregard the fact that Baby Dodds' drums were reduced to woodblock minimalism by virtue of the early recording techniques, for example – but if you can create a channel, what joy... King Oliver in his heyday firing out the twin cornet breaks that thrilled the audiences at the Lincoln Gardens in Chicago with his protégé young Louis Armstrong, who was about to blow out the ramparts of New Orleans collective improvisation. Oliver is another tragic figure, in many ways – apparently when he was in New York a few years later he turned down the Cotton Club gig – which launched Duke Ellington and his band to greater glories...

Ring a ding ding – here's Francis Albert essaying forth on 'Hello Dolly,' backed by the mighty Basie ork. (Barbra Who?) 'This is Francis, Louie.' Some show biz fun... Recorded in 1964, a year or so after I saw Bill Basie and co at the Leicester De Montfort Hall. Ah, the memory of the messianic clenched craziness of a teenage jazz fan...

So: I came. I swung. Time to split. Man...



Red Garland
John Coltrane (ts) Donald Byrd (t) Red Garland (p) George Joyner (b) Arthur Taylor (d)
Soul Junction
Download

Buy

Jackie McLean
Jackie McLean (as) Walter Bishop (p) Jimmy Garrison (b) Art Taylor (d)
Let's face the music and dance
Download


Buy

Rob Brown/Joe Morris 4
Rob Brown (as) Joe Morris (g) William Parker (b) Jackson Krall (d)
Results
Download

Buy


King Oliver, Louis Armstrong: (c) Johnny Dodds (cl) Honore Dutray (tr) Lil Hardin (p) Bill Johnson (b, banjo) Baby Dodds (d)
Dippermouth Blues
Download

Snake Rag
Download

Buy

Count Basie Orchestra plus Frank Sinatra (v)
Hello Dolly
Download

Buy

Anthony Braxton... Phineas Newborn... Miles Davis...

Anthony Braxton and his Great Quartet playing 'No 159' from the 1991 set recorded at the Willisau Festival. Swirling, densely scampering brilliance held together with a repeated phrase that pops up like an annoying child repeatedly sticking their tongue out at you over and over again. (My dear wildboy grandson springs to mind...).

Phineas Newborn recorded the old bop/Afro-Cuban warhorse 'Manteca' out in Los Angeles, 1961, with one of the top rhythm duos of the day – Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones, who had come together in the first great Miles Davis Quintet during the years 1955-8. Newborn never attained the critical heights and was dogged with illness, both mental and physical. On form, though, a scintillating player:

'In his prime, he was one of the three greatest jazz pianists of all time, right up there with Bud Powell and Art Tatum...' (Leonard Feather, quoted from here...).

Miles in 1965 with his Second Great Quintet, bristling with the youthful energies he had surrounded himself with in another gesture of artistic renewal. Taken from the live sets taped at the Plugged Nickel, this is 'Round Midnight,' Monk's famous dark blue reverie which Davis recorded many times. Thoughtful trumpet leads in with a long pause before a sudden trill then into the main theme, Miles bending and squeezing notes, wry smears, sudden flurries. Changing gear as Shorter enters, the tempo busier now. An elliptical solo, finding almost as much space as the leader. Some nice interplay between piano and tenor. Herbie Hancock next, equally sparse to match the mood. Miles returns. More 'vocalised' horn - this is not about bop speed but something different, colour and a cunning use of silence...



Anthony Braxton
Anthony Braxton (as) Marilyn Crispell (p) Mark Dresser (b) Gerry Hemingway (d)
No 159
Download

Buy

Phineas Newborn Jr
Phineas Newborn Jr (p) Paul Chambers (b) Philly Joe Jones (d)
Manteca
Download

Buy

Miles Davis
Miles Davis (tp) Wayne Shorter (ts) Herbie Hancock (p) Ron Carter (b) Tony Williams (d )
Round Midnight
Download

Buy

Broken toes... new computers...

A weird week - breaking my toe (again) on sunday slowed me down somewhat - plus delivery of a new laptop has had me wrestling to re-network the Eagles Nest. Plus doing some recording for a friend of mine... Back on track soon...

Jon Hassell, Jimmy Giuffre/MJQ, Al Cohn/Bob Brookmeyer, Blind Joe Taggart, Bob Wills...

So here we go again... Having spent the sunny days listening to old Wolf Eyes wahoo and other assorted loud power electronics... here's...


Jon Hassell. Who sails away on 'Blues Nile.' A gag I could not resist. I'm all for cheap and easy laughs... Opens on a drone then shadowy trumpet, breathy and bending. Trumpet doubled up, a muezzin-like call across a misty landscape. The influence of his voice teacher Pandit Pran Nath comes through strongly here, it seems – a vocalised line of fragile beauty.
From his first album, 'Vernal Equinox.'

'Hassell coined the term "Fourth World" to describe his musical style, as expressed both in his trumpet playing and in his approach to composition.. This musical conception combines the philosophy and techniques of minimalism with Asian and African styles, and relies heavily on the use of electronic instruments. Critics of Hassell's style have noted its incorporation of New Age and world music styles, but have also detected the influence of Miles Davis, particularly Davis's use of electronics, modal harmony and understated lyricism . (From here...).

The comment about Miles's influence is interesting – Davis's reticence (often seen as lack of technique compared to the more flamboyant bebop trumpeters) on conventional sequences and his later jumps into the sonic unknown via electronics make him much more of a visionary than maybe is often realised. Because he could let rip when the spirit rose – check out some of the tracks with the quintet in the late sixties, where he is surrounded by young musicians and maybe wanted to lay down the odd marker. But by the time of 'Bitches Brew' and onwards, he was looking beyond 'jazz'... Hence the connection with Hassell? Who acknowledges the influence:

'After years of trying to make the case for an improvisational music which is 'not-jazz' and staying away from cliches of jazz instrumentation and style, I started to feel free enough to let more obvious elements of my respect for Miles creep in from time to time.'

(From a fascinating interview here...).

Colour and timbre – here's Jimmy Giuffre and the Modern Jazz Quartet from 1956, playing a Giuffre composition 'Fun.' I took a slight swipe at Connie Kay in a previous post but in this context you can understand his role in the MJQ. Percy Heath and Milt could carry the band with no problem – effortless swing as and when required.

Al Cohn and Bob Brookmeyer play an oblique, somewhat gruff restatement of the theme of 'Lady is a tramp.' An arrangement which, in its own quiet way, re-encapsulates the essence of how jazz deals with melody in a dynamic, elastic manner. Cohn solos first, swinging solidly. Brookmeyer next, looping nicely through the changes. Always an appealing player. They hook up for a double runthrough, a neatly arranged section taking the track out. Mainstream fun...

To a different area of emotion, experience and spirituality - Blind Joe Taggart sounds as if he is ripping chunks out of a hard reality and vocalising them through the filters of his culture and religion... 'When I stand before the King.' In 1926 '...Taggart became the first full-time guitar evangelist to cut a side [for Vocalion].' (From here).
A scuffling guitar backs up the beautifully raw vocals, Blind Joe backed by Emma Taggart (presumably his wife).

'If one ever ran into Blind Joe Taggart in a dark alley, the only possible protection would be to have Blind John Henry Arnold with you. According to the famous folk singer and blues artist Josh White, there was only one man on earth who was meaner than Taggart, and that was Arnold. White obviously knew what he was talking about, having been abused and kicked around by both men, as well as the even more famous Blind Lemon Jefferson.' (Ibid).

Given the nature of his life, perhaps one should balance up this quote with the following:

'Performers trying to survive in such a lifestyle can hardly be blamed for developing what can be best described as street-hardened personalities.' (Ibid).

As an ex street musician myself in another incarnation (albeit in much more benign circumstances) I have a little understanding of what the sentence means - especially with regard to a lot of the old boys I met down the road...

Thinking about going to Texas on my next trip to the States... here's old Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, one of my favourite groups, playing 'Basin Street Blues.' Saxophone, steel guitar, over a rock solid rhythm section. Echoes of Big T in the Tommy Duncan vocal perhaps - or just a shared timbral inheritance. 'Aw, Basin Street, yes yes...' as Mr Wills leads it in... Interesting to remember that Bob W outdrew the Glen Miller and Bennie Goodman bands in 1945... And a great story from here, just to go out on:

'By 1945, Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys had achieved enough notoriety that they were invited to play at the prestigious home of country music a little farther east. Bob unknowingly created quite a stir at his Grand Ole Opry performance. A drum set was a natural, integral part of the Playboys' music, but it was unheard of in the world of country music back then. When the Opry staff told Bob that his drummer couldn't play, he angrily declared that he would not leave a band member out. It was all the Texas Playboys or none. Bob did agree, however, to let the drums be set up behind the curtains. That is, until time to play, when he hollered, 'Move those things out on stage!' In that moment, Bob Wills had left a permanent mark: there would forever be a beat in country music. (He and the Texas Playboys, by the way, were not invited back.) '





Jon Hassell
Jon Hassell (trumpet, Fender Rhodes (specially tuned and altered by Buchla and Arp Synthesizers))
Nana Vasconçelos (congas, shakers, ocean, talking drum, bells, tropical birds)
David Rosenboom (mbira, rattles, tabla, dumbek) Miguel Frasconi (claves, bells)
Nicolas Kilbourn (talking drum, mbira) William Winant (kanjira, rattles) Drone (Serge Synthesizer, Motorola Scalatron) Night Creatures of Altamira Perrasita—distant barking...
Blues Niles
Download

Buy

Jimmy Giuffre/MJQ
Jimmy Giuffre (cl) John Lewis (p) Milt Jackson (vib) Percy Heath (b) Connie Kay (d)
Fun
Download


Buy

Al Cohn/Bob Brookmeyer
Al Cohn (ts) Bob Brookmeyer (tr) Mose Allison (p) Teddy Kotick (b) Nick Stabulas (d)
Lady is a tramp
Download

Buy

Blind Joe Taggart (g, v)
When I stand before the king
Download

Buy

Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys
Basin Street Blues
Download

Buy

Summer still here...

Still gently lounging in the languor of summer... posting will resume soon - honest... Probably when the monsoons strike, if the forecast is correct...

Summertime...

Posts will resume asap - the sun has been shining in God's Little Acre - and I've also been slowed down with a bad leg... but the barbecue has been going, the red wine flowing, the company cool...

Summer jaunts

Review of 'The Big Sing' featuring GU4/Steve Thomason at the Grand Union Folk Club, Monday, 14th July, 2008

We went to Grand Union Folk Club Monday last with high expectations – and were not disappointed. It's an older crowd, in the main, strictly Old School down the line vocalising tonight, no instrumental accompaniments. And none the worse for that – the title of the gig was 'The Big Sing,' after all... And they do not sing any bigger than here – a club noted for its audience's vocal talents, where performers are always buttressed mightily on the choruses and harmonies by the power, passion and depth of feeling round the room. A democracy of voices, indeed, that frequently blurs the distinctions between guest and audience. As tonight: the billed acts, GU4 and Steve Thomason, come out of the rotating floorsingers in an organic move, tall waves rising and falling into a rich sea of sound to create a seamless evening's music. The gamut of the Tradition was on display – from songs of the sea to songs of the land, songs of work, sport and pleasure. Tough times to good times, with what I have previously termed 'The Arc of Loss' inherent in the hard-dogged, problematic journey of our island music as it moved through the various revivals to the present day somewhat backstepped tonight. For this was a joyous celebration, sung out with fire, emotion and at times ferocity, a night where it would be unfair to single out any individual performers. In their own various ways they were all good – and it is rare that I would make that statement, given my often ambivalent relationship to the tradition down the years. Rather than empty gesture, channels were opened to the past, creating a autonomous zone where, for a couple of hours and a small effort of imagination, you stepped outside of time to experience the link to long dead ages and manners. A democracy of voices – not in the sense of a flattened-out banality but an area where the stronger aided the weaker to attain some rather wonderful aural grace, however brief the duration. You might gather we had a damn good time...

Noted in passing: GU4 now have a MySpace site here... which gives a small flavour of their music... and oddly enough, for such a quintessentially English musical bash, it was Bastille Day, Le Quatorze Juillet... Marchons, Marchons...

Clusone Trio... Mance Lipscomb... Herbie Hancock... John Coltrane/Milt Jackson... Cecil Taylor... Tito Puente...

Finally, after all the excitement and exhaustion – back to the music. So we beat on, boats against the current... whatever...

The Clusone Trio give the Herbie Nichols tune, '117th Street,' an outing. Always an element of drollery lurking when Bennink is involved – those crazy Dutch, eh? This swings in lightly over crisp old-school drumming as Moore states the theme and take the first solo – a limpid performance that builds through some more complex swirls into earthier smears. Reisjeger picks his cello through his turn before Moore returns for a brief passage then back in to the theme. Bennink throughout is in homage to earlier drummers mode. An odd mix of the old and disguised hints of the new, filtered through a wash of post-modernism, done with some affection...

Mance Lipscomb – a 'songster' whose material ranged far from the blues into many other areas – through 'folk' and beyond. The lines are never as straight as purists would have you believe - Lipscomb was indeed a river into which many streams flowed:

'Lipscomb represented one of the last remnants of the nineteenth-century songster tradition, which predated the development of the blues. Though songsters might incorporate blues into their repertoires, as did Lipscomb, they performed a wide variety of material in diverse styles, much of it common to both black and white traditions in the South, including ballads, rags, dance pieces (breakdowns, waltzes, one and two steps, slow drags, reels, ballin' the jack, the buzzard lope, hop scop, buck and wing, heel and toe polka), and popular, sacred, and secular songs. Lipscomb himself insisted that he was a songster, not a guitarist or "blues singer," since he played "all kinds of music." His eclectic repertoire has been reported to have contained 350 pieces spanning two centuries.' (Ibid).

(The 'buzzard lope' looks intriguing... may well describe my dance moves...).

This is 'Joe Turner killed a man' which builds a narrative out of a collection of familiar 'floating' verses over a thumping monotonic bass and slashes of slide (bottleneck/knifeblade?) that root it more in the blues.

Herbie Hancock from his bustout album 'Future Shock,' a track called 'Rough.' (Which matches the way I feel today – red wine too late at night!). Yeah, sure, it's a little dated but fun all the same... Ah, the outrage of the day from the jazz community... Play that funky music...

More blues – from the coupling of John Coltrane and Milt Jackson for a 1959 recording date. This is 'Blues Legacy,' a riffed-out twelve bar. Jackson up first to roll out a dazzling line, subtle yet blues-drenched as his playing always was. Coltrane takes it up, the relaxed tempo giving him plenty of ruminative space, yet unleashing those blinding flurries occasionally to spur things along. Connie Kay, somewhat surprisingly perhaps, gives out a solid if sedate backbeat throughout. Paul Chambers paces underneath like a velvet panther. Hank Jones solos, his single note strings echoing Jackson's vibes-induced linearity. Trane returns to spell out the theme. You would have thought that Kay was an odd choice for this gig, given the powerhouse drummers Coltrane was used to playing with, yet his simplified two and four here – almost r and b-ish – lets the bass take a supple role – one that Chambers was used to supplying anyway with his bandmate in the Miles Davis group. Maybe Jackson invited him – they were, of course, long-time partners in the Modern jazz Quartet.

Cecil Taylor – from his 1973 solo album recorded in Japan, this is the first track 'Choral of voice (Elision).' Not sure where I got this from – it's not one of mine, I found it buried amongst a collection of mp3s that I was searching for someone else - so homage to original up-loader. Amid the usual dense piano hurly burly, some more reflective passages. Cecil's solo work is probably the most accessible way into his unique sound world – although presenting formidable problems to the first-time listener, perhaps. But the format offers a chance to follow his logic a little more clearly...

The sun is shining here in God's Little Acre, for the moment at least, so here is some Latin fire - Tito Puente and band roaring through 'Para Los Rumberos.' A mighty sound... they cheer me up, anyway... as I do the buzzard lope round the room...




Clusone Trio
Michael Moore (as, cl, mel) Ernst Reijseger (cel, el-cel) Han Bennink (d, perc)
117th Street
Download

Buy

Mance Lipscomb (v, g)
Joe Turner killed a man
Download

Buy

Herbie Hancock, Michael Beinhorn (keys) Bill Laswell (el-b)
Rough
Download

Buy

John Coltrane/Milt Jackson
John Coltrane (ts) Milt Jackson (vib) Hank Jones (p) Paul Chambers (b) Connie Kay (d).
Blues Legacy
Download

Buy

Cecil Taylor (p)
Choral of Voice (Elision)
Download

Buy

Tito Puente
Tito Puente (vib, mar, tim) Charlie Palmieri (p, org) Mario Rivera (fl, bs) Santos Colon (v) Jose Madera (quiro, perc) Johnny (Dandy) Rodriguez (bongos) Jimmy Frisaura (t, b-t) Yayo El Indio (v) Roy Burroughs, Tony Cofrezi (t) Michael 'Mike' Collazo (d) Dick Meza (ts) Israel 'Izzy' Feliu (b-g) Pete Fanelli (as) Don 'El Barbito' Palmer (fl, as) Jose Merino (t)
Para los rumberos
Download

Buy

The Dynasty continues...

At last! The new baby has arrived - a little girl, born circa 7 a.m. Congratulations to my rather wonderful daughter and her partner. And a big shout to her mother, who has been a rock these last few days... Another grandchild... cor
blimey... regular posting will continue - when we've all had some sleep...

Francis 'Scrapper' Blackwell... Max Roach... Donald Byrd... Booker Ervin... Art Blakey... Derek Bailey...

I promised a commenter some more Francis 'Scrapper' Blackwell – so here's the man giving out 'Blue Day Blues.' He really is one of the missing links between twenties country blues and later urban styles – introducing more linearity via the single-string breaks, for example. No mean singer either...

From his 1967 album 'Blackjack,' this is Donald Byrd heading up a septet on 'Pentatonic.' Sonny Red solos first, a querulous piping sound to his alto. Byrd takes over, an assured performance, fast and accurate. Hank Mobley next, playing on his harder edge here. Cedar Walton, tumbling, rippling piano. Billy Higgins ensures that no one sleeps, punching the track along.

Max in Paris, 1949. This group is essentially the Charlie Parker quintet from that year with Bird out and James Moody in to partner trumpeter Kenny Dorham up front. 'Maximum,' the track. Bop of the highest calibre, stunning drums at a rapid tempo where everyone is locked onboard, not daring to jump off the rollercoaster ride – falter at this speed and you are dead...

Some more from one of my favourite big-hearted power tenors – the late Booker Tellefero Ervin and a track from one of his 'Book' series, 'Tex Book Tenor,' '204.' Woody Shaw at his shoulder guarantees superior front-line backup... Opens on stabbing piano before they hit a smooth uppish line – nothing more than an expanded riff, really, before the Book roars out straight from the blocks. Some high wild playing but always a strong thread of melody – a mix of accessible tinged with a tough bluesy edge that timbrally links old tenor keenings to the more recent avant-garde hollers – pretty much the same thing really, only changed by context and concept. Some dizzying playing here... Woody Shaw comes screaming in after him and unreels some beautifully knotted lines. The young Kenny Baron next, fleet and sure. Billy Higgins whams it all along in grand style, tracking every move, stepping up to trade with the horns . Jean Arnet solid throughout under the fire. A certain similarity to the Donald Byrd track above – the presence of Higgins on both maybe the defining factor – rhythmically supple and continually thrusting and prodding. Recorded a year later for the same label, part of that sixties Blue Note take on hard bop crossed with hints of the freer moves of the time.

Following on from that point, here's the mighty Buhaina leading one of his greatest congregations of Jazz Messengers on the stunning album 'Free for all.' I upped the title track a ways back, so here is the Freddy Hubbard composition 'The Core.' Curtis Fuller really thickened the usual band sound, adding deeper sonorities and expanded instrumental options apart from his soloing skills – this is BIG sonics. Wayne Shorter takes off first, sounding urgent – as how could he not with Blakey's firepower at storm force behind? Freddy Hubbard next, speed, accuracy and ideas – a man who was at the height of his game. Fuller cools things a fraction – the trombone does not quite soar timbrally as much as tenor and trumpet over the thunderous, dense backdrop. Fluent – you are aware of the J.J. influence perhaps, but with a more 'tromboney' sound, if that makes sense, a pleasing gruffness hinting at earlier stylists. Cedar Walton stomps in for his piece of the action before the razor-sharp ensemble returns for the theme. Blakey is just plain WILD throughout... I remember hearing this when it came out in the U.K. so many years back and it excites me just as much now... and I saw Blakey with a late manifestation of his band in a rather odd venue and when he was getting on in years - but the sheer force of his drumming was intoxicating, belying his age...

We like to jumpcut...

Opening on overspeeded drums (courtesy of DJ Ninj) as the mighty Derek Bailey slashes in and pours his hard scrabble guitar all over the first track of his 1996 album 'Guitar, drums and bass.' 'N, J, BM (remix)'. Improv meets the London street sounds of the time... I think this is a very underrated album: oddly, the rather staid programming lets Derek fly, acting as an earth to his fire... Or something...


Francis 'Scrapper' Blackwell (g, v)
Blue Day Blues
Download

Buy

Donald Byrd
Donald Byrd (tp) Sonny Red (as) Hank Mobley (ts) Cedar Walton (p) Walter Booker (b) Billy Higgins (d)
Pentatonic
Download

Buy

Max Roach
Kenny Dorham (tp) James Moody (ts) Al Haig (p) Tommy Potter (b) Max Roach (d)
Maximum
Download

Buy

Booker Ervin
Booker Ervin (ts) Woody Shaw (t) Kenny Barron (p) Jan Arnet (b) Billy Higgins (d)
204
Download

Buy

Art Blakey
Art Blakey (d) Wayne Shorter (ts) Freddie Hubbard (t) Curtis Fuller (tr) Cedar Walton (p) Reggie Workman (b)
The Core

Buy

Derek Bailey (el-g) DJ Ninj (drum/bass programming)
N, JZ, BM (remix)
Download

Buy

Yusef Lateef... Francis 'Scrapper' Blackwell... Max Roach...

Yusef Lateef recorded 'The Centaur and the Phoenix' in 1961. This is 'Every day (I fall in love),' a slow, gorgeous reading, bursting with sonorities and colour. Lateef features his flute here, against a plangent backdrop of three brass and two reeds (the unusual combo of baritone sax and bassoon). The theme unfolds in thick dense streams, as if conjuring the movement from deep sleep to slow awakening – when the flute solos, it has that sprightly morning feel of something new reborn again. What the hell, I'm in a soft and soppy mood, spending the morning with my extremely pregnant daughter. (Not long now!).

Back to the blues... Francis 'Scrapper' Blackwell has been a favourite of mine since I first heard his music in Dublin circa 1970, at the apartment of Merve the Perve who had an extensive collection of blues and sundry other unusual musics ( which I think he had brought back from his sojourn in the States). And where I first stayed with Veronica K (wonder where she is now? Ah, regrets... sigh... ). Blackwell achieved much fame and some fortune playing with Leroy Carr in the late twenties but is a fine performer on his own, his snapping single string guitar breaks proving his musicianship and influencing many guitar players to come. This is 'Kokomo Blues,' a steady rolling twelve bar, solid guitar chording alternating with those famous Blackwell breaks. His voice reminds me slightly of Bukka White... Fascinating interview with him in the sixties here...

Out on wings of fire... where bebop and Afro-Cuban rhythms intersected with the early sixties avant garde and Afro-American politics of the day – Max Roach leads a tempestuous band through the album 'Percussion Bitter Sweet' whose title gives a strong hint of the storms raised here. This track: 'Marcus Garvey's Ghost.' Abbey Lincoln's voice blends wordlessly with the ensemble over the rising thunder of the drums and added percussion, threaded on an insistent cowbell rhythm. Art Blakey was noted for being a powerhouse drummer but Max is just burning here – savage AND subtle. Booker Little solos, then Clifford Jordan, but good as they are, the torrential drums are the focus. Roach takes a fizzling solo, imperious rolls, slashed cymbals. Art Davis is a bit buried in the mix but his bass makes itself known. Mal Waldron not much in evidence here, some occasional comping. And the wild card of the session, Eric Dolphy, who takes some stunning solos on other tracks, is not featured either. Not that it matters – this is a classic track from a classic album. Anger filed to a razor's edge of instrumental brilliance... More of this with some Dolphy soon, I think...

'We are the bearers of the world's bright torch
To light our civilization as we go:
No one should fall or lodge at darkness' porch;
Right well we teach the people all to know:
There's much for us to do in toil of love,
In helping others as we climb the heights;
It is for us to reach and lift above
Those who are struggling up through gloomy nights.'

Marcus Garvey, from 'The Bearers' (1927), quoted from here...




Yusef Lateef
Richard Williams (tp) Clark Terry (flh, tp) Curtis Fuller (tb) Josea Taylor (basn) Yusef Lateef (ts, fl, argol, ob) Tate Houston (bars) Joe Zawinul (p) Ben Tucker (b) Lex Humphries (d)
Every Day (I fall in love)
Download

Buy

Scrapper Blackwell (v, g)
Kokomo Blues
Download

Buy

Max Roach
Booker Little (tp) Julian Priester (tb) Eric Dolphy (as) Clifford Jordan (ts) Mal Waldron (p) Art Davis (b) Max Roach (d) Carlos "Patato" Valdes (cga) Carlos "Totico" Eugenio (cowbell) Abbey Lincoln (vo)
Garvey's ghost
Download

Buy

Saturday: down the market...

And here's Don in his street environment the day after - looking remarkably fresh considering the festivities the night before... (I'm surprised there wasn't more camera shake)...

Review: Don Partridge at the Pack Horse, Friday, 13th June, 2008

Onwards to belated review number two...

... the mighty Don 'Snakehips' Partridge, King of the Buskers, complete with one-man band and two guitars – the big twelve string and a six for more elaborate stuff returned to the Pack Horse after a five-year hiatus. Another national treasure like Jack Hudson, Don has a good few old friends up here from his tenure in God's Little Acre and environs a few years ago – some of whom were here tonight. If you have seen him playing on the streets, the indoor performance is somewhat different. For one thing, he can rein back a bit, not competing with traffic and outdoor urban noise. And this gives another side to his music – Don has always been a clever and sensitive writer of songs and those who know him just from the pop hits of yesteryear ('Rosie,' 'Blue Eyes' and the recently resurrected 'Breakfast on Pluto') may be surprised at his depth and reach. Don is also a natural raconteur with a fast wit, interspersing the music with tales of the roads travelled. Coming from folk music, yet broadening out to include songs like 'Black-eyed Susie,' originally an old bluegrass number that mutated into a big hit for Guy Mitchell. (I remember a long time ago he used to do 'Hey Baby,' the old Bruce Chanel track, in a similar move – he probably still plays it).















Others - a loping 'Streets of Laredo' (joined effectively on squeezebox by the other half of the resident musicians duo, Dave Morton), the old Bessie Smith tune 'Nobody knows you when you're down and out,' a soulful 'I've got you under my skin' which featured some nifty harmonica. Of his own songs, 'Trans-Canadian Highway' is a favourite, recollecting a journey long ago and his seven minute version of his setting of Alfred Noyes narrative poem 'The Highwayman' displays abundantly his musical ear – both sensitive and rousing as befits the story being told. The one-man band sound of bass drum, cymbals and harmonica fleshes out his guitar work to give a full and solid support throughout, translating well from the streets to the club. A fascinating night, with odd fluffs here and there but they did not marr the overall performance and are almost obligatory for a folk club anyway. Only criticism, the vocals may have benefited from a touch of amplification – I was straining a bit at the back occasionally. Having said that, most of those in front of me probably heard everything more clearly... So: Hail the King! (Also, mention should be made of Mr Marmion's new instrument, seen in one of the photos, forged from the body of a six-string banjo and chopped into – something else... nominations for a name are being taken. 'The banjo from the Black Lagoon' was one...

Review: Jack Hudson at Loughborough Catholic Club, Thursday, 12th June, 2008...

Belated small review number one...

... we went down to the Catholic Club last week (hallelujah) to catch the ever-wonderful Jack Hudson, singer, guitar player, national treasure... He was on good form, despite some noise from the other bar (unavoidable at this venue but the p.a. compensates), leading in with 'L.A.Freeway,' giving us his usual wry, good-humoured but intense set. I've written about Jack before here and here, suffice to say he was compelling as ever, a man who knows how to penetrate a song to its core to mine the emotional content and bring it back intact. The channel not the tribute, if you get the dichotomy... Other songs - a stirring version of the old Tom Paxton number 'Did you hear John Hurt?' which ran the Van Ronk version close, 'Pancho and Lefty,' and his own 'Driftwood and Nails' which displays his writing talents. Great stuff... music for adults: songs from the other side of midnight...

Marilynn Crispell/Gary Peacock/Paul Motian... Ornette Coleman... Miles Davis...

A confusing time since I got back – family stuff – an impending baby (my daughter's) - technical problems – plus two great gigs back to back (Jack Hudson and Don Partridge) and a weekend with old friends which necessitated a surfeit of raking...

So to start again, before the reviews – here's Marilynn Crispell with Gary Peacock and Paul Motian. An understated trio, slow and ruminative on 'Albert's Love Theme,' taken from the set dedicated to the compositions of Annette Peacock, 'Nothing ever was, anyway.' Subtle flicks of nuance, discreet colouring – yet underneath a clenched and emotional rigour at work which makes of it something more than just a mood piece. Crispell who can hammer the exhilarating chromatic hell out of a piano with the best gonzo stylists around reins back here and lets the notes breathe. Peacock takes a solo in similar mode – the emotion conveyed beyond mere technique or considerations of the instrumental avenue chosen, thought matched to heart expressed immediately through the body's skill. Motian gives a brief patter across the kit before the piano returns... Somewhat beautiful...

A track of skidding brilliance. Ornette and Prime Time playing 'City Living' from the live set 'Opening the Caravan of Dreams.' A suitably romantic and utopian name for a venue graced by such a romantic and (impossibly) utopian musician. There is a damaged vulnerability to Ornette's playing armoured by an intrinsic courage that took him from facing early contempt – through facing later contempt and ignorance. To win out... Heartwrenching alto flies through the maelstrom that surrounds him – the clattering guitars and drums - rising free...

I'm coming down slowly after the last few days of insanity – so, something to ease the recovery... Miles playing 'There is no greater love,' backed by the grand rhythm section of the classic Fifties band, Red Garland, Paul and Philly Joe. Miles begins and ends - tight harmon muted stuff - bookending Garland, who comes in to his solo locked hands all the way, slow and bluesy. Dedicated to a special person...

Marilynn Crispell
Marilynn Crispell (p) Gary Peacock (b) Paul Motian (d)
Albert's Love Theme
Download

Buy

Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman (as) Bern Nix Charlie Ellerbee (g) Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Al MacDowell (b) Denardo Coleman, Sabir Kamal (d)
City Living
Download

Buy

Miles Davis
Miles Davis (t) Red Garland (p) Paul Chambers (b) 'Philly' Joe Jones (d)
There is no greater love
Download

Buy

Grrr... and double grrr... laptop crash...

Things might be suspended for a day or so while I sort everything out following my main laptop crash last night - it may not be a big problem but until I can figure out whether the power lead or the actual power point on the laptop is the source of the trouble I've had to switch to the travelling machine... most of the files were backed up so no major problem... hopefully... but all the mp3's I had converted/collated for uploading were on it so have to go and redo everything... later...

Return of the psychogeographer... back from the drift...

A belated post... I've been in Berlin (again) and the apartment had no wifi this time... and I was, to be honest, distracted with other things... in the drift... mightily... and the weather has been fantastic... what a town to spend summer in! After some consideration - the beat goes on for a while yet... posting to resume asap... Time for sleep here on God's Little Acre...