Review: Spaceshipp/Hauschka at the Ether Festival, Queen Elisabeth Hall, London, Monday 20th April, 2009...

An intriguing evening at the Ether Festival – Hauschka took the first half, playing acoustic piano with various preparations/interferences and a string quartet, Spaceshipp – Matthew Shipp and Jason Pierce (of Spiritualized fame)playing as Spaceshipp - keyboards and electric guitar plus visuals, the second. I enjoyed the show, the contrast between pastoral/bucolic folky dreamscape and the deep iron cone of drone erected by Spaceshipp. But there was a scrappy, bitty feel to the night – maybe the audience, many entering late in dribs and drabs in the first half, leaving in dribs and the drabs in the second, contributed to that rather listless feeling. You got the impression not many people were that bothered either way... Little sense of engagement, which was a shame...

Hauschka came on with his all female quartet, sat at the piano and introduced his music in a pleasant, amiable manner – mentioning the fact he had spent most of the day stuck in windowless rooms rehearsing while we all enjoyed a fabulous spring day outside. (I certainly had – went Tate to Tate up and down river with a muttered curse as the boat passed the Parliament of Rogues and Fools and caught the Van Dyck show at Millbank. Realised I had not been to the older Tate for a long time. Sun shining, sweet Thames rolling softly, etc...). The music was pitched right for the weather, I thought: airy, folky, minimalist in rhythm and tonality, the main areas of exploration being in granularity via prepared piano and occasional extended techniques on the strings. A lot of short pieces, starting off with solo piano and ending on same. Touches of Steve Reich perhaps, here and there, in the repetitions of the string figures. (No bad thing...). And played with humour and warmth. My only criticism would be that the prepared piano did not explore the sonorities as much as perhaps it could have – but maybe I am used to the darker and deeper sonic areas of Cecil Taylor, Keith Tippett et al and it is not fair to load that onto someone else's vision. In a way, the short pieces worked better due to the continual wandering in of latecomers right through the set – anything more extended would have been disrupted by these graceless fuckers.

The second set offered offered a complete contrast – a long drone piece essayed by Spaceshipp that flummoxed the attention spans of many – there was a continual trickle of absconders throughout. Certainly, if you only know Matthew Shipp for his jazz piano prowess this would have probably been confusing. Sat at two keyboards in an L, he spent most of the set at what I assume was some kind of electronic organ, thickening the fast-strummed electric guitar of Jason Pierce to create a slowly widening cylinder of sound with more than an echo of Glenn Branca's strategies. The friendly intimacy of the first set was also exchanged for a more serious 'distancing,' via the two musicians being overlooked by three large screens that flickered a set of images throughout seemingly based on spermatazoa forms and operated by a shadowy third participant on the side of the stage. At first I thought they were mushrooms – then figured it out about ten minutes later. Quite a daunting performance for many, then - at a festival dedicated to te experimental... Umm – I suppose I am used to these long drone forms so was happy to go with it – because once you engaged with the piece, you could hear the subtle variations at work, overtones ringing and colliding like atoms, slight rhythmic shifts, an occasional fragment of melody. Intriguing stuff – and good to see someone of Shipp's stature getting out of the box, although he has a track record of explorations parallel to and outside of free jazz. In fact his keyboard skills only surfaced right at the end as the screens went dead apart from a central blue circle (moon?) and he switched to the clavichord and struck off into a section of ghostly bell-like sonorities as the guitarist played some ratchety scraping stuff. This coda was meant to bring the voyage to an end, I suppose, with the blue circle slowly shrinking to nothing signifying 'The End' – I use the metaphor of journey deliberately because that was what was being offered by the imagery and use of the amalgamated names in the band title: 'Spaceshipp.' Interior voyaging – the images of pre-birth and slow growth/expansion/mutation – as well as the more obvious analogy of space travel provoked perhaps by the relentless onward metallic throbbing drive of the music. Not sure if this ending worked – a sudden stop would have been more dramatic - but I wonder if this piece would have been better in a smaller venue which might have pulled people into it more strongly. People did not just amble out – some came back in again with drinks, which struck me as odd. I would have thought that if you were not completely concentrating this would have been boring – hence the escapees. But this continual movement in the audience was distracting... The applause at the end almost seemed half-hearted, as well... Pity. I enjoyed it, for what it's worth, but would like to have experienced it at a more sympathetic venue...

Moderation...

A drag, but I have set comment moderation for an indefinite period as I am being spammed - some of it amusing but getting out of hand...

Return to God's Little Acre...

Back from my hols last night and ensconced in Warner Towers... I am intending after some thought to keep on with some mp3 blogging for a while longer - had been considering knocking it on the head but I rather enjoy it... Next week off to the Ether Festival,then Freedom of the City a couple of weeks later. So reviews will be forthcoming...

holidays with the tribe...

I am on holiday still with no internet connection except my mobile phone...back soon with more music etc...

The Lows and the Highs...

Murray Ward and Rod Warner are proud to announce that The Lows and the Highs web-based label -

is now open...

Featuring the following artists:

The Failed Nasa Experiment
DJ Spleenbaby
Plexus
Roderick A Warner
Whitedog

with more exciting projects to come...

Review: John Kelly/Big Al Whittle... at the Loughborough Acoustic Club, Thursday March 12th, 2009...

Back from Berlin... and a wander down to the Loughborough Acoustic Club with Mr Marmion to see John Kelly in a double-header with Big Al Whittle. An intriguing combo – Kelly mainly focuses on traditional materials, deployed in a unique style that uses harmonium and guitar as backing for his high, pure voice. Big Al – rumbustious blues/old jazz/nouveau music hall for want of a better term. The latter better suited to the venue – one would have thought. Yet John Kelly, seated at his harmonium in front of the stage and eschewing the p.a. - which is usually considered necessary in this club given the proximity to the bar, managed to weave his spell, drawing a rapt audience deep into his unique sound world. Performing, with his usual relaxed and gentle humour, a run through half a dozen or so songs – 'Banks of Ponchartrain,' Leasy Lindsay,' 'Lady Gregory,' among them... I have written before about John – here – but to repeat – he has a refreshing purity of vision that is not the stifling ignorant 'purism' of so much English folk music. Rather: a strong sense of purpose and skill that transforms even familiar material, spinning well-loved songs sideways to reveal new emotional depths.

Big Al Whittle has a George Melly-ish side to him – larger than life and rooted in American blues and jazz. Without the annoying campness and overwrought bathos of the late Melly... Al's Americana accent whips back into local dialect when necessary to refute any 'blackfacing' and his broad good humour is buttressed by his crisp, accurate picking skills – opening on a couple of standards – missed the first one as I was in the jakes releasing some of the Guinness, but I caught up with 'It's a sin to tell a lie,' - which had the bar staff singing along and doing some nice steps. Al writes songs such as 'Trish' (whose mini-skirt went 'swish, swish swish') – an evocation of long-lost and unrequited student love back in the earnest revolutionary day of Mao's red book and other murderer classics of late marxism: 'Trish, Trish, she was a communist.' 'Aunty Nellie,' a celebration of a game young lass's exploits during WW2 with our American cousins. Set in a 12 bar blues structure but sung in broad local accent – 'you've been having hankie pankie with those Yankees down in Burton Wood.' Great ribald stuff. Mr Marmion was laughing so much I feared for his health. As was I. Other joys – 'Buster the Line Dancing Dawg.' (Further explanation here...)... plus a link to a version of the song by the great Jack Hudson(!)). And 'Big Red Sausage.' Hmmmm... As for his song about Brides in the Bath murderer 'George Joseph Smith' – almost finished us off – 'drown 'em in the bath, drown 'em in the bath, drown 'em in the bath because I'm a psychopath.'

Note that Big Al's web site has links to all these songs. Worth buying the album, I'd say...

A great night – the contrast in styles created an interesting dynamic and spread the time further than I would have thought – two half-hour-ish spots seeming much longer with being so crammed with fascinating and funny musics...

As a footnote – Big Al reminded me glancingly of a local musician, Dave Turner, whom I saw many years ago playing in his hometown of Nottingham and surrounding areas. Dave also fused blues picking with baroque streams of comedic thought. Unfortunately I discovered he had died recently. But the anarchic spirit lives on...

Review: Johannes Bauer/Gebhard Ullmann/Jan Roder/Oli Steidle at Aufsturz, Friday 6th March, 2009...

A foul wet night – but we braved the weather to go to Aufsturz on Oranienburger Strasse – via a pint of Guinness in an Irish bar full of loud Brits. To see a quartet – Gebhard Ullmann reeds/Johannes Bauer trombone/Jan Roder bass/Oli Steidle drums. We had great seats, just getting in before the joint filled up and what better way to spend an evening than up close and personal to some excellent free jazz? The band played several long numbers that never seemed to ramble – possibly because the razor sharp drumming of Oli Steidle kept everything on track plus the variety of instrumental techniques that were used offered a large field of expression that held the interest throughout. Bauer is a rip-snorting trombonist who occasionally channels echoes of oldschool tailgating that interestingly ground the band in the older jazz traditions (I'm sure at one point I heard a quote from 'Ory's Creole Trombone!').Well capable of playing off the modern orthodoxies – fleet fast lines – he also showed an impressive personalised range of extended sounds and colours. Wows and flutters, mumbles and muttered whooshs plus he used a variety of mutes including a plastic cup. Gebhard Ullman moved between tenor sax, bass clarinet and bass flute and matched his front line partner all the way – with much humour at times as they sparred with each other. The bassist was a little sunk in the mix from where we were sitting down the front (maybe the balance was better in the rest of the room?) although he came through enough to demonstrate plenty of skill and drive. He ranged from fast pizzicato to his own experiments in granularity – clothes pegs stuck between the strings to distort and break up the sound, rubbing the strings with his shirt-sleeved arm, using the whole of his instrument as a sound board, bowing beneath the bridge etc... Ullman similarly travelled from some straight ahead blowing that extended frequently into squalling higher register forays or dropped into quieter, breathy sound colouring, sparse questioning squawks on the mouthpiece of his instrument. The set started with musical fragments/pointillist dabs tossed, caught and developed and the performance always offered contrast and variety via furious dense passages to occasional sections of almost straight four rhythm to more abstract sonics. The dynamic levels throughout were varied – right across the terrain from quiet passages to storming fire music. The drummer especially kept a tight rein on things – occasionally upping the game with rapid loud splatters that drove the front line into interesting responses – at one point Ullman was swept up by a percussional barrage that provoked a wild free blowing retaliation, with the bass dropping out and leaving them to it. Bauer's turn came and he showed his class in riding the storm - no quarter asked or given, some brilliantly savage drumming here as the trombonist blatted out roars, smears and flurries of notes. Interesting to ponder that 'free jazz' from the sixties onwards actually rooted the trombone back in the earlier modes of playing by utilising the natural expressive qualities that had been somewhat flattened out by the fast-moving linearities of bebop.

The whole performance tinged with good humour throughout – the musicians were smiling, enjoying themselves and at the end played around with an almost slapstick call and response silly sounds section played for laughs. This is how the music is meant to be heard – and understood, I suspect. For all the wildness and extremes of range, being in the room meant you could follow the improvisational logics more clearly than on cd/record. Also – the ridiculous canard that anyone can play this music gets killed off pretty quickly when you witness the skills on display...

Uplifted me, anyway...

Johannes Bauer/Gebhard Ullmann/Jan Roder/Oli Steidle at Aufsturz...

A great night at Aufsturz - Johannes Bauer/Gebhard Ullmann/Jan Roder/Oli Steidle giving their all... more later...

Off to Berlin...

Blogging has been a bit sparse of late - maybe I'll have more time this week - off to Berlin this morning...

My Bloody Valentine... Review: Black Carrot/Nigel Parkin at the Tin Angel, Coventry, Saturday 14th February, 2009...

Rose from my sick bed to go to Coventry – I've missed the Carrot a couple of times recently so thought I should make the effort... The evening started with our usual attempt at getting lost but we managed to find Taylor John's in the end thanks to Murray's electronic homing devices! Walked in paid money and were given a ticket for a glass of wine each – which should have alerted me... Murray suddenly twigged and said: 'We're in the wrong place!' (It turned out that we had wandered into a Valentine's Day Singles event – mucho hilarity). The gig was at the sister joint of Taylor J – the Tin Angel. Luckily the door guy was in a good mood and refunded the money. A brisk route march through a frosty night to the correct venue...

Black Carrot. I confess my allegiance to their cause. But have never seen them with storyteller Nigel Parkin live before ( I reviewed two of the cds he has made with them here...). As the main feature of the Tin Angel Valentine's Day celebration, I wondered how this would work in front of a lively crowd in a fairly cramped venue. Answer: very well... Parkin has a distinctive yet flexible voice that gets inside the material he uses – grand guignol splatters and vamps on Edgar Allan Poe, Kafka and horror films supported by free improvised music. Tonight he offers: a revisionary reading of Dracula, two bites, first and second half (ho ho)...




















But first up – a young busker, whose name I didn't catch, unfortunately. He played accordion and sang in a raw rasp, songs of the streets and beyond, starting with a version of 'London Calling' which was conceptually brilliant. The occasional east european overtones were interesting as well and reminded me of the Roma buskers I saw in London last year – this is going to be a big influence on music here. Plus a nuance or two of chanson/mainland europe's song traditions which broadened his performance further. To me – this is folk music now. Maybe I was sympathetic as an ex-street musician... but I loved this guy, a great opener who went down a storm. Raw, fiery and amusing... The Tin Angel is situated on a corner in downtown old Coventry with two windows that let you observe the streets outside in their gaudy Saturday night finery. That proximity made me fancifully ponder – this guy could have walked straight in off those streets from a pitch to the 'official' space he played in tonight, giving him that extra edge of reality. Yesterday before I wrote this I was cruising the Mudcat site trying to check something and ended up in mounting hilarious fascination at the conversations between some of the guardians of 'folk music' – inaccurate rubbish mostly by ageing tin-eared mediocrities. Not worth even posting a link... the contrast between the doormen to one manifestation of a dying/dead tradition and a sharp intelligent representative of a contemporary one struck me mightily. Hey nonny, dude...
















Black Carrot: for tonight, a three piece, Oliver Betts, Stewart Brackley and Tom Betts providing a subtle wrap for the storytelling of Nigel Parkin. They freely improvise around his narrative lead, bass recorder/keyboard, electric bass and drums in minimal mode. They can blast it out with the best when the occasion demands but emphasize their flexibility here, having worked out how to get a good balance with the voice over their past collaborations, using subtle splashes of colour to accent the movements of the unfolding stories. Two mighty riffs on 'Dracula' from two different character viewpoints that were witty, darkly amusing and also thought provoking without mentally beating you up – a splendidly warped journey into the blood and sexual obsessions of control and subordination, a gloss on Stoker's text that repositions it, turns it at different angles. And fiendishly clever. There is a sharp literary intelligence on display here – as in their other collaborations that spin from Poe to Kafka to now Stoker, an interesting trajectory. Kafka might seem the odd man out – being more obviously 'High Modern.' Yet: these collaborations work so well because their materials are deeply embedded in the wider culture – and the horror/grotesque of much of Kafka - and his feel for the twentieth century zeigeist - dovetails with the weirdness of Poe and this repositioning of Stoker – 'Dracula' is a somewhat rambling book but is a better novel, perhaps, than the guardians of the canon gave it credit for. All this works (apart from the obvious musical skills) because of Parkin's voice: middle class, yes, but avoiding that intrinsic English plumminess/old school actorrr dear heart schtick or the linguistic plague strains of Mockney or Estuary that pass among so many for the demotic. This is intelligent musical theatre... Another counterpoint to this gig was some listening I did over the days before it – random tunings into BBC Radio Four, a channel I never bother with as a rule. Ghastly unfunny and clumsy sitcoms, arrogant newsreaders, voices that struck me as grating – patronising and insecure at the same time. University students who never grew up... Lowbrow stuff by and large... Maybe I missed something... Like all good actors, Parkin avoids this bullshit by the double trick of appearing to be 'himself' and also letting the voices of his characters come through him 'naturally.' I highlight the suspect word deliberately. Much skill and artifice involved and all the more effective for being concealed. To do this in a packed space like the Tin Angel on a Saturday night – and succeed – is perhaps the ultimate test. Of course the choice of source material helps – yes, there are people chattering, laughing and getting pissed, but the overall conception succeeds because people KNOW the background story. “'Dracula,' isn't it...” The Count seems to have escaped from the novel into the wider culture many years ago – via the movies in the main, but also in theatrical adaptions. Almost expected him to be lurking somewhere close... You can dip in and out of the performance without having to follow the contours of the story religiously and still experience the overall power and skill on display. Because there is a loose narrative thread but it is made up from a series of powerful images that the music helps to lift into the room to be easily snatched. In microcosm, this follows the structure of the novel – epistolary, the story told from different viewpoints – in an organic move. Done with style and a great sense of fun – for Valentine's Eve, dark tales of blood and desire... and flies – ah, the flies, Renfield...

Miles Davis... John Coltrane... Perry Robinson... Warne Marsh... Frank Wright... Charlie Haden...

The first classic Mile Davis Quintet, recorded in 1955 when they were starting out, playing a Benny Golson tune, 'Stablemates.' Still finding their way at this point, a fascinating glimpse of what was to come when Davis road-hardened the band into a formidable playing and recording unit. With Philly Joe at the drums, they were always going to swing, yet Miles was evolving a new space to operate in, slowly clearing out the harmonic clutter of hard bop to point in new directions. (A process that was ongoing – arguably he had been on this road since the forties – see 'Birth of the Cool,' etc...).
A smoky theme, sinuously unwinding before Miles enters, open horn. Notice that use of space – most bop trumpeters of this time would have splattered sixteenth notes everywhere. Coltrane next – interesting to be reminded that at this time he was hardly rated as a tenor saxophonist. He edges through his solo, perhaps, rather than taking one of the almighty gallops that he would soon become famous for. The contrasts in the front line was one of the fascinations of this band – conventional wisdom has it that Miles was spare, his sax player much more fulsome, overloading the chords and the bars with torrents of notes. Yet this early in the game, on this track there is not much between them. Mind you, conventional wisdom held that Miles did not have the technique for grandstanding in the trumpet tradition – which was nonsense. A curio, then, snapshot of a new band. This was not their first recording date – a somewhat confusing move from Prestige to Columbia was underway and they had already done a session for the new label. As part of the deal for their release from Prestige, the band was to go into the studio on May 11th 1956 to record a slew of tracks – by which time they were firing on all cylinders... This resulted in the classic albums, 'Cooking,' 'Steaming,' 'Relaxin'.'


More Coltrane – taken from the album 'Cosmic Music,' this is 'Manifestation.' Straight in with howling saxophone, high hollers and sweeping querulous searching – joined by the shrill pipings of Pharoah Sanders on piccolo who takes over as Coltrane drops out. Almost folksy, a pastoral timbre as beneath the new Coltrane group boil the rhythms up – somewhat muddily as the mix is not so good. Alice Coltrane, comes next, having just succeeded to the piano chair after Tyner (and Elvin Jones, the drummer) had left. Swirling and stabbing as Rashied Ali and probably Ray Appleton drive her along. Bass pretty much inaudible. Coltrane returns magisterially to be joined by Sanders, who switches between tenor and piccolo. Coltrane punches at phrases as if spinning the speedbag, jagged shards of melody thrown out – and suddenly: they stop. Another oddity, this was recorded in February 1966 but never released until after Coltrane's death on an album that his wife, Alice, put together, overdubbing some tracks with strings and added organ and vibes to produce 'Cosmic Music.' An interesting snapshot, again, of a new band – although Coltrane had fine-honed his virtuosity by this time, he was still breaking new ground...


'The Call' – a composition by Perry Robinson, first recorded on an ESP date with Henry Grimes back in 1965. A vocalised folkbluesy squawking phrase bending up and answered by resolution. From which materials and rhythmic shapes, Robinson improvises solo on clarinet – mainly high up with the occasional double-blown note hinting at the deeper register before the exploration shifts octaves downwards and breathily sketches itself softly into the distance returning in volume to the theme and some Gershwin-like swooping rises (think 'Rhapsody in Blue') across the instrument's range. A bright morning feel to this – and a timeless journey referencing earlier styles but still resolutely contemporary... An unsung hero...

Warne Marsh received more recognition than Perry Robinson, perhaps, but only in the relative sense – overall, as one of jazz's 'Unsung Cats,' it seems as if he became more acclaimed in recent years after his death:

'There seems to be an increasing interest in the music of the late jazz tenor saxophonist Warne Marsh...' (From here...).

The usual... Marsh was a compadre of Lennie Tristano and was also one of those few who moved on from that initial influence to become a truly great saxophonist. (Along with Lee Konitz from the same generation, who is luckily still with us). Before Tristano, the influence of Lester Young, of course... that lighter, airier tone on the usually more burly tenor. But spun steel... there was always a solid emotional determination linked to the originality of Marsh's melodic conception. This is 'You are too beautiful,' from 1957, from the (annoying titled) album 'Music for Prancing.' (Is he a fucking horse?). A sprightly tempo, Marsh unreels his distinct melodic imagination over polite comping and strong bass. One hears the sound of distant drums – Stan Levey. Red Mitchell takes a fleet solo, followed by Ronnie Ball. Then a round of fours...

Marsh died onstage in 1987, in the middle of 'Out of nowhere,' which has to be ironic... Still, there are worse ways to go, I suspect...

I was re-sorting my cds into some kind of 'order' with a new stacker when I discovered this – Frank Wright's 'Uhura Na Umoja,' recorded in 1970. Wright was one of the band of black musicians who lit out for the European territories in the sixties and seventies – this session was recorded in Paris. No bass, unusually, the redoubtable Bobby Few on piano, Art Taylor on drums and Noah Howard on alto make up the quartet. This is 'Being,' a Howard composition, opening in declamatory fashion, an Ayler-esque fanfare before the alto solos over lurching drums and swirling piano. Wright follows, wilder, more abandoned, something of the yearning tone of Coltrane in his playing, beyond the usually stated influence of Ayler. I always associate Taylor with more hard boppy manoeuvres – here, he sounds like he's enjoying himself, hard-hitting in a freer style. Bobby Few solos – another underrated musician. The band ride out on the theme – the Ayler-esque echoes underpinned not just by Wright's allegiance but the fact that Few had played with Albert – in fact, the tenor player had brought him to New York from their mutual home of Cleveland. There is a gutsy spirit to this track that earths the ontological title and Wright's spiritual yearnings:

“I was put on this planet by the Creator to proclaim the message of the Universal Spirit - to shout it to the people,” (Quoted here...)

Gutbucket and space church – come to think of it, all of these musicians had links to r and b which gives the music a funky edge...

Recorded in a time of ferment – all these musicians had left America for Europe, Few and Wright were to remain. 'Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,' etc, in a memory of the original French Revolution... Few says of their arrival in post-68 Paris:

"We all said 'where can we go' and Frank said 'well, what about Paris?' We said, 'hey, wow, but we don't know anybody or anything,' and Frank said 'well, let's just go.' So we packed our bags and came to Paris...and we were like pioneers. We knew nobody—we didn't know the language or anything—and there was this student revolution that had happened in '68 and it was still going on by the time we came. Four of us were walking down the street and hundreds of police came with gas masks on in the back of us and in front of us were these students burning cars and everything, and we just started running because we got scared. We saw a light on that we thought was a restaurant and ran into this place and this guy closed the door and said 'wow, who are you guys?' and we said we were musicians. He asked if we knew where we were and we said we thought it was a restaurant. He said, 'it is, but downstairs is The Jazz Cave'...the owner said 'would you like to play here next week?'" (From here... ).

I remember something of the ambiance of the time – passing through Paris in 1969 I returned the following year for the first of a series on ongoing sojourns in the city and remember well the edgy craziness – riot police and students fighting it out in confrontations that eventually became ritualised into dark parody. Standing in the Saint Severin, we would watch a band of students engage with the cops – every weekend. It became a spectator sport after a while... As the promise ebbed away... But at least we still have the music – worth more in the long run and more powerful than slogans to this old anarchist's ears...

Somehow this all comes together... This is track 3 from Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra recorded in April 1969. A suite comprising three Spanish folk songs with new words added during the Spanish Civil War - 'El Quinto Regimiento,' 'Los Cuatros Generales' and 'Viva la Quince Brigada.'. An amazing arrangement by Carla Bley yokes folk music to oompa brass to free jazz, introduced by Sam Brown's spanish guitar – then the band come in, brass led, before Don Cherry solos – some skidding cornet that reaches up a couple of times to notes that are only just hit, re-inforcing the raw militia band atmosphere. The drums of Paul Motian are somewhat clattery in the mix – but nevertheless drive the band and contribute to that ragged feel, just holding it all together. The ensemble swirls around, eventually covering the soloing Cherry – with presumably Mike Mantler behind him. Ebbing away as the guitar returns, shadowed by the leader's growling bass, the flamenco rips fitting in seamlessly as if vindicating the 'spanish tinge.' ('In fact, if you can't manage to put tinges of Spanish in your tunes, you will never be able to get the right seasoning, I call it, for jazz.' Jelly Roll Morton, quoted from here... ). Haden solos, going down deep and sonorous and strong-fingeredly echoing some of the guitar figures. The band return with the second theme, punctuated by some Roswell Rudd trombone snorts that build into a solo over lurching background figures. Unusual for the time, a sample of an original Spanish recording (female voice) acts as a bridge into part three – 'Viva la Quince brigada,' led by Gato Barbieri who slowy builds up to a frenzy as another sample is dropped in – male voice now – and the band sprawl over a free-ish section and the original recording comes back again as an echo bouncing eerily over the intervening years. Effective and almost subliminal. The band take up the theme over two beat drums, ending on a bugle-like declamation. The first time I heard this song was in my teens from an appallingly pious but no doubt well-meaning Joan Baez warble through it. (What did Miles's trumpet teacher say about vibrato?). This is more vibrant, fierce stuff – while retaining an edge of memory that evokes the tragedies and betrayals of the Civil War in Spain.

¡Ay Carmela! ¡Ay Carmela!
que se ha cubierto de gloria,
¡Ay Carmela! ¡Ay Carmela!

Haden in the liner notes says:

'We use, with only slight changes, the original 1930 orchestra and chorus arrangements of "Los Cuatro Generales" and "Viva la Quince Brigada"as they were playing on the soundtrack of the film "Mourir A Madrid"... Parts of these same arrangements from that soundtrack are super-imposed under the improvising...

By synchronicity I was in Spain that year, a month or so after this was recorded in New York and hitch-hiked back from Madrid intending to go to France but by the accidents/magnetic forces of the road ended up in Sitges, near Barcelona, where I spent a happy time playing in a bar and meeting up with a disparate international crew on the beach. By some accident – or following my nose – I had landed in one of the few 'autonomous zones' that existed in those latter years of Franco's rule. Spain I remember as having dark overtones of the Civil War and mucho ongoing repression, the people suspicious – not surprisingly – of young long haired Brit itinerant musicians. But Sitges was zappy, touristy and relatively free of the general heavy manners – a place of fun, light and drunken camaraderie although the Guardia Civil could be relied upon to exercise those long batons on occasion to whop the shit out of anyone stepping too far over the edge... which somehow I managed to avoid, even though moving under the black flag – by luck rather than judgement... Following on from that Wordsworth quote above about the original French Revolution, the next line:

'But to be young was very heaven!'


Miles Davis
Miles Davis (t) John Coltrane (ts) Red Garland (p) Paul Chambers (b) Philly Joe Jones (d)
Stablemates
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John Coltrane
Pharoah Sanders (ts, fl, picc, tamb, per) John Coltrane (ts, bcl, bells, per) Alice Coltrane (p) Jimmy Garrison (b) Rashied Ali (d) Ray Appleton (per)
Manifestation
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Perry Robinson (cl)
The Call
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Warne Marsh
Warne Marsh (ts) Ronnie Ball (p) Red Mitchell (b) Stan Levey (d)
You are too beautiful
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Frank Wright (ts) Noah Howard (as) Bobby Few (p) Arthur Taylor (d)
Being
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Charlie Haden
Perry Robinson (cl) Gato Barbieri (ts, cl) Dewey Redman (as, ts) Don Cherry (ct, Indian wood and bamboo fl) Mike Mantler (t) Roswell Rudd (ts) Bob Northern (fh, hand wood blocks, crow call, bells, military whistle) Sam Brown (g) Carla Bley (p, tam) Charlie Haden (b) Paul Motian (d, perc)
El Quinto Regimiento/Los Cuatros Generales/Viva la Quince Brigada
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Back soon...

Somewhat of a hiatus... things to do interspersed between the usual boring episodes of illness... but I will be back soon...

Booker Little/Booker Ervin... Cecil Taylor... Lee Morgan... John Coltrane

Bookends – Booker Little, with Booker Ervin beside him in the frontline on a 1960 session, originally issued under the leadership of Teddy Charles. Recorded at the Museum of Modern Art, some fiery blowing here. The track: 'Scoochie.' Ushered in by a sharp burst of drums from Eddie Shaughnessy, who drives the band on throughout. Booker Little takes the first solo, twisting a sure-footed elegance into his lines. Ervin leaps in directly just as he finishes, full-throated tenor spurred on by the drummer's interjections. Mal Waldron follows, utilising his trademark phrase-worrying to good effect. Teddy Charles adds splashes of vibes throughout but takes no solo unfortunately...

I always check 'Destination Out' before I post – apart from it being a great jazz blog, on several occasions a weird synchronicity has come into play and a track that I have prepared for upload has already been featured by them in the same week. This particular selection is an example – I sidelined it a couple of years back for that reason. But: just been over there and we are ok and I figure two years is not a clash in the making. So...

There are times during this performance of 'Winged Serpent' when one fears for the piano's health as Cecil Taylor smashes out vast clustered eruptions with the ferocity of a lambeg drummer on an Orange parade in Belfast. This is the pianist leading an 11 piece ensemble mixed between American and European participants – his 'Orchestra of Two Continents,' recorded in 1984. Held together by fragments of melody, the soloists emerge from the boiling maelstrom thrown up by two drummers and the ever-dominant Taylor piano which chases and harries the front line towards a higher glory. Then Cecil solos – a wild violence perpetrated on the piano, as mentioned above. The ensemble assemble again, taking up the minimal theme, before suddenly dropping into a slow fall. Exhilarating...

Lee Morgan in 1957 on a classic Blue Note date – also noted for tenor player George Coleman's debut recording. 'City Lights,' the title track – opening on see-saw bowed bass and horns before moving effortlessly into a kicking hard bop swing. Coleman out the gate first, then Curtis Fuller, a little four square perhaps but his usual pleasing gruffness. Then Morgan, sounding older than his years, superb trumpet. Ray Bryant takes some bluesy lines before Paul Chambers displays his arco technique. Morgan returns to trade with Art Taylor. Shortish solos all round give this track a compressed and pithy texture.

One for Obama... I don't comment on the politics of other countries and, as an ageing anarchist, my experience in life has led me to mistrust all politicians, whatever the angle they come from. But it would be churlish not to wish the U.S.A. well on this deeply historic Inauguration Day. As we sink further into the mire here in the U.K., in the spirit of a wider sense of hope I offer this late track by the mighty John Coltrane. Recorded at Temple University in 1966 (for radio – there is an annoying bit where the commentator comes in), this is 'Naima.' The theme is barely hinted at before the roller-coaster ride begins. Looking at the tracks uploaded here and the collective intelligence, fire and beauty on display - if only politics was as uplifting as music...


Teddy Charles (vibes); Mal Waldron (p); Booker Little (tpt); Booker Ervin (ts); Addison Farmer (b); Eddie Shaughnessy (dr)
Scoochie
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Cecil Taylor
Enrico Rava, Tomasz Stanko (t) Jimmy Lyons (as) Frank Wright, John Tchicai (ts) Gunter Hampel (bs, b-cl) Karen Borca (bss) Cecil Taylor (p) William Parker (b) Raschied Bakr, Andre Martinez (d)
Winged Serpent
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Lee Morgan
Lee Morgan (t) George Coleman (ts) Curtis Fuller (tr) Ray Bryant (p) Paul Chambers (b) Art Taylor (d)
City Lights
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John Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders (ts) Alice Coltrane (p) prob. Sonny Johnson or Jimmy Garrison (b) Rashied Ali dr unknown perc
Naima
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Re-up... Cecil Taylor

I had a request for a re-up: Cecil Taylor. A cheap blog-out - no point re-writing so I can give what I put up at the time (with some minor edits):

'"To play with Cecil Taylor you need the stamina of an athlete and the imagination of a god." (Tony Oxley)

I love this quote... 'Last' from the album 'Nailed,' recorded at the Bechstein Concert Hall, Berlin on 26 September 1990... yes, it's heavy and fiery and wild but – I find this music exhilarating! A concert recording, Parker tussling with Taylor's lines – or the other way round at times, as Barry Guy and Tony Oxley – the Old Firm – grapple to underpin the reeling streams of notes. This is a long track... there are two on the album, the other clocking at about 50 mins: I wasn't sure about posting such a large chunk, but here goes... Any red-blooded collector wants their own solid copy anyway... and once you've been bitten by Cecil and co, it's hard not to resist the lure of their brand of sonic adventuring. This is a long track, yes – but it's full of interest all the way. Commencing with deep piano notes slowly spaced and then a couple of chords as the bass enters, the piano responding with more elaborate lines as Oxley cymbals his way into the opening spaces. A meditative start with busy bass behind the slo-mo piano – unusual and not the usual Cecil fire and brimstone - but not for long! Taylor starts to build up the intensity as a three way dialogue rises, suddenly erupting in splashing chords and the trade-mark lightning fast runs. This is densely packed music, brutal and bouncing at the same time. Music that almost demands an evolutionary response – to rise to a point where it can be truly appreciated on all of its levels. Oxley's customised drum kit sounds totally distinctive, his cymbals sizzle and splash like no one else's. Guy's bass a little buried at times, felt rather than heard. Ten minutes or so in – and Evan Parker joins the throng – the crowd of three expanded by his multiphonic saxophone, a man with the technique and ideas to match Taylor's speed and density of line – linear and vertical simultaneously it seems. This is heavy company but the sax player sounds undaunted. I've seen Evan Parker several times down the years, solo and in different combinations: he always impresses. I feel that he has been so consistently good for so long that he is almost taken for granted, in an odd way. A home-grown genius who vastly expanded the post-Coltrane saxophone: of how many others can we say that they achieved anything near that level of sublimity?

This sort of music throws up different challenges – how do you respond to – or lead - Taylor's cataclysmic style, for one? Go for the spaces in between? (Small and microscopic as they undoubtedly are?) Float across it – as Jimmy Lyons did, whose metalanguage of expanded bebop out of Parker melded so well with his piano playing partner, finely honed down their years of playing together? Or match it note for note - as Parker does here? As glanced at above, coming out of Coltrane, originally, (who only made the one record with Taylor - an interesting but flawed document as the rhythm section, good as they were, just didn't fit) and developing his accurate high-register work that expanded the saxophone range mightily coupled to his circular breathing techniques, Parker here rises brilliantly to the challenge, equal and more to the task. This is relentless music where there is so much going on on all levels. My only criticism is that the bass, as mentioned, is just a bit too far down in the mix – but that was probably a casualty of live recording levels and Guy's presence registers sufficiently for him to share in the glory. Just under twenty minutes in and Parker drops out – the bass can be heard a little better now, fast and loose, stepping up to the challenge. They start to slow down, Taylor muting the pyrotechnics, playing his own brand of acid lyricism, mirroring the quiet beginning as Guy displays his own virtuosity. They slowly wind down - to end on a high singing bass note.

This is an astounding piece of music – but, hey, I'm a fan...'



Cecil Taylor (p) Evan Parker (ss) Barry Guy (b) Tony Oxley (d)
Last
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Re-up: Clusone Trio... plus: King Oliver... Booker Ervin...

Slowly getting back into the field... I promised to re-up this a week or more ago. The Clusone Trio, playing '117th Street.' (7 beyond 110th up into Harlem?). Anyway, no point re-writing, at the time I said:

'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... '

Cute...

To keep it rolling... some early stuff. From one of the main sources, King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band playing 'Mandy Lee Blues.' The cutting edge of 1923... In his prime, soon to be overshadowed by his young protégé Louis Armstrong on second cornet and eventually falling from great heights of fame to riduculous obscurity but in the canon as we stand now because of his adventures with muted horn as much for his bandleading abilities - bending the trumpet away from the straight sound to echoes of the human voice and timbral shifts beyond - the line goes forward to such as the mighty Bill Dixon, to pull a name out of the ether... A calm controlled strut, mainly featuring Johnny Dodd's clarinet - but the King comes in later with some wah wah... Classic.

The Book - doing 'Autumn Leaves.' Muted trumpet sax intro - then that big-hearted horn booms in at a firm tempo to take the theme in his usual imperious fashion. More of that clenched trumpet from Richard Williams - drums busy him along nicely. Mr Ervin steps up and boots it up a gear - as he always did. They call(ed) this hard bop but BE had something else going for him that transcended those boring labels. The pegs we hang stuff on because we are lazy in our delineations, perhaps. His tone is somewhere near the keening edge of John Coltrane's but with an earthier dimension - fast blowing and all blues. One of my favourites, anyway... Cath and I have been figuring out a version... Les Feuilles Mortes encore... Nice to play behind a singer again...

Clusone Trio
Michael Moore (as, cl, mel) Ernst Reijseger (cel, el-cel) Han Bennink (d, perc)
117th Street
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King Oliver
King Oliver, Louis Armstrong: (c) Johnny Dodds (cl) Honore Dutray (tr) Lil Hardin (p) Bill Johnson (b, banjo) Baby Dodds (d)
Mandy Lee Blues
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Booker Ervin
Booker Ervin (ts) Richard Williams (t) Horace Parlan (p) George Tucker (b) Danny Richmond (d)
Autumn Leaves
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Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all... will get back to some serious blogging... soon... (and the guy who wanted the Clusone Trio - will reup asap)...

Merry Christmas...

A merry christmas to all... I've been celebrating with family and friends so no music yet... later, perhaps...

Stop press - Pack Horse Redux...

As hinted at below, the phoenix has risen from the ashes of the now defunct Folk at the Pack. Cath Mackie has ridden in on another train (appalling folk music joke) and started the Loughborough Folk Club at the same venue. Starting on January 9, 2009 and afterwards every second friday of the month. More details as they appear - apparently she will be taking over the Folk at the Pack website after it finally expires, due to the generosity of Mr Marmion. Incidentally, the free cd that was handed out at the last gig will be available for a brief period as a download from this site and I might put a link up here as well. But Christmas approaches...

Review: Pete Morton's Magic Christmas Tree at the Pack Horse, Friday, December 19th 2008... Farewells...

It is in the nature of the game – the wear and tear of organising music venues down the years eventually induces fatigue. Frank Marmion has lasted longer than most, running the Pack Horse Folk club with support from Dave Morton and his wife Joan. As a weekly venture, a brave even foolhardy exercise. From my own experience, a couple of years is about the burn out point – running our Club Sporadic every couple of months was enough stress! Frank's involvement with the club stretches back a good many years, since he arrived in God's Little Acre, up to the point when he took on the mantle of chief organiser when it would have folded otherwise. A sage move – committees seem to work best with established clubs that go for a monthly policy – time to plan and discuss things without the weekly urgency. One person on their own can be much more efficient in their delivery of class music than a mélange of people who often have little wider vision beyond their own narrow purist/ideological patch – let alone the financial nous to get 'bums on seats.' Without which the venture at some predictable point folds anyway. But the time came for Frank to move on – retirement looming, new adventures beckoning, uncertainty over the future of the pub which made future booking policy too much of a gamble – effectively he was not going to be able to run the place in the manner of his choice for much longer.

The Pack was always a quirky, eccentric, scruffy place, scene of much great music down the years – and one of the musicians who has played there since he launched his own career back in the eighties has been Pete Morton, a performer who to my knowledge has always pulled a full house, not just because of the local connection but the plain fact that he is a superb artist. So: fitting that Frank chose to go out in a blaze of glory with Pete's special Magic Christmas Tree roadshow. Accompanied by Chris Parkinson on accordion, the surprise of the night was the other cohort – depping for Roger Wilson, a young – an extremely young – fiddle player called Tom Moore. (Certainly not from the bummer's shore: old Dylan reference/joke). Pete never fails to move me with the breadth of his humanity, passion and sheer sense of fun, always questing, never settling for playing safe. A lesson that many on the folk scene – and beyond – should heed. 'Make it new,' as Ezra said. 'Play what you don't know,' as Miles Davis said. Tonight: we had songs in Chaucerian English – 'Rock around the Clock' and 'Knocking on Heaven's Door' – which make you laugh out loud at the sheer zany chutzpah on display. Later, perhaps, when you consider the other songs in French and Platte Deutsch, you realise how much this man loves language – further evidenced by his moving tribute to the English poet John Clare, 'The Shepherd's Song.' (A song that kills me every time I hear it, as a lover of Clare's poetry.) Which works as a rough paradigm for part of what Pete is about. He somehow manages to pull off the trick of collapsing distance, which brings the past into a temporary contemporary focus. Writing in the 'tradition,' he extends it, rather than allowing himself to be subsumed by it, as so many other writers do. First world war, anybody? This song, about the peasant poet Clare, off to London to be briefly embraced by fashion, later to be dropped and end up in the madhouse, is a provincial's wry comment not just on a historical tragedy but more contemporary manners as well in an over-saturated media age. He also celebrates the humanity of the marginal – the clientele of a city centre pub in 'The Battle of Trafalgar,' family life – 'My Best Friend,' dedicated to his parents, the random encounters of 'Post Office Queue.' Via detours into such areas as Marc Bolan/T Rex, for the glam rockers (!) and some spontaneous Irish dancing and jiving in the audience by Cath M and her children, to close: after a soaring version of 'To be a farmer's boy,' buttressed by some mighty singers in the audience – what else? - 'Another Train,' tonight transformed by the backing of violin and accordion. An anthem of hope which means so much to so many – and if I am being corny here, so be it, hipsters, flipsters and finger-popping daddies...

The other two musicians: young Tom Moore displayed a ridiculous sense of cool for one so young, showing poise and no little elegance in his violin playing both on his solo pieces and as part of the ensemble. Chris Parkinson's mature skills on accordion widened the musical ground further, expanding Pete's performance in a fascinating way, providing underpinning and commentary that gave depth and a different array of colours from the usual guitar accompaniment.

A rambunctious, fun night, then, celebrating the end of this chapter in the Pack story. Glory be to Mr Marmion, especially in his choice of the Pete Morton Christmas extravaganza – a fitting way to go out to a packed house. There has been a club here on and off for over thirty years. But – there's another train, there always is... the stop press news is that it will continue in another form, on the second friday of every month. Some feverish work going on behind the scenes by Cath Mackie to make it happen. But for this incarnation – goodbye.

Davy Graham R.I.P.

Sad news. Davy Graham, one of the pre-eminent genre-crossing guitarists coming off the folk scene (and beyond) in the Sixties, has died after a brief battle with lung cancer. Maybe the pre-eminent guitarist of that generation, alongside Bert Jansch, John Renbourne and Dave Evans... The Les Cousins generation is slowly being whittled away...