Twittering Machines

On Saturday I went with Jonathan and his friend Mark Donen to the Tube and Speaker Tasting at Oswald’s Mill. What an amazing place – an 18th Century house-mill filled to the rafters with vintage audio, new very large wood horns, new tube amps, turntables, open reel decks, antiques and very strange, some amazingly thin audio dudes. I’m writing this one up for the moons but wanted to share my favorite pic of the day(night).

Amazingly, so amazing I almost don’t like to remind myself of the fact that Jonathan Weiss not only lives in the Mill, he also lives here.

Archie Shepp
The Way Ahead

Recorded January 29, 1968 The Way Ahead is about as straight ahead as Archie Shepp gets. With Walter Davis Jr. on piano, Ron Carter on bass, Jimmy Owens on trumpet, Grachan Moncur III on trombone and Beaver Harris or Roy Haynes on drums this record simply smokes and smolders. Considering The Way Ahead sits between The Magic of Ju-Ju and Yasmina A Black Woman, it looks like Archie is playing with the freedom Impulse! was famous for and he took a momentary break from his socio/political statements and just laid down some mean tracks: “Frankenstein”, “Sophisticated Lady”, “Damn if I Know”, “The Stroller” and “Fiesta”.

And oh that Implusle! gatefold beauty!

Terry Riley
A Rainbow in Curved Air

A hearty vegan aural love-fest for a buck. If you’re minimal and you know it clap your hand (repeat). Terry Riley, the man that makes Devendra Banhart seem mean, plays all the instruments on this disc including electric organ, electric harpsichord, rocksichord (also used by Sun Ra and Stereolab), dumbec, soprano sax and tambourine (mandatory as far as I’m concerned). Riley’s 2nd LP release from 1967, Rainbow which has been described as “spooky” “haunting” and “enduring” includes the title track and “Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band” and a poem (also mandatory):

Excerpt:

And then all wars ended / Arms of every kind were outlawed and the masses gladly contributed them to giant foundries in which they were melted down and the metal poured back into the earth / The Pentagon was turned on its side and painted purple, yellow & green / All boundaries were dissolved

Michael Hurley
Hi Fi Snock Uptown

I love this guy. More relaxed than friends-on-your-couch, Hi Fi Snock Uptown is Hurley’s 2nd LP released in 1972 and includes tunes like “Ratface” coming in at just under 23 seconds and “Old Black Crow” with Snock doing the best old black crow I’ve heard put to vinyl. Story-teller country folk blues of the best travelin’ on the road kind. It’s no wonder Chan Marshall covered a few of his tunes like “Werewolf” and “Sweedeedee”and it’s no wonder Devendra is a fan.

What’s so important about this corner of the Lower East Side? Ludlow and Rivington.

Eleanoora Rosenholm
Vainajan Muotokuva

Talk about spooky…Freaky fare from Finland on this ’07 Fonal records release. Pop (with a touch of dance ambient folk) murder songs sung (cheerily?) in Finnish. I can only imagine what darkness lies within these twisted tales laced with sweet sonic confection. Check out the band’s website and videos for a taste of Nordic chill.

“With Noora’s amazing vocal work and the genius backing band they create a disco any housewife serial killer would be proud to dance to.”

Sam Rivers
Fuchsia Swing Song

Sam River’s 1964 Blue Note debut as leader. Rivers grandfather and parents were working musicians, he studied composition at the Boston Conservatory and Boston University (where he also took up viola) and played in Herb Pomeroy’s big band. He was also “music director” for various R&B artists including Wilson Pickett, B.B. King, Maxine Brown & T-Bone Walker.

Coming off his brief gig with Miles in ’64 (Miles In Tokyo!), Rivers performs his own compositions on Fuchsia Swing Song with Miles band-mates Ron Carter and Anthony (Tony) Williams with the addition of Jaki Byard on piano. Recorded at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio on December 12th just 2 days after Coltrane laid down A Love Supreme, Fuchsia Swing Song doesn’t sound like anyone else but is certainly moving in modal/cerebral directions. The playing is inspiring and amazing, cutting & polishing another gem from a treasure-rich time.

Tony Williams
Spring

Tony (Anthony) Williams was 17 when he started playing with Miles. In his auto-bio, Miles refers to Williams as “the center that the group’s sound revolved around”. Spring is Williams 2nd outing as a leader for Blue Note and was recorded on August 12, 1965 at the ripe old age of 19. Also featuring Sam Rivers and Wayne Shorter on tenor sax, Herbie Hancock and Gary Peacock.

The Sam Rivers connection: Tony Williams apprenticed with Rivers while they both lived in Boston in the ’50s. They started playing together when Williams was 13. Once Williams’ career took off, he brought Sam along for some of the ride.

Spring is a wonderful record bridging the post-bop, pre-fusion phase of Williams career. Great players playing greatly together.

From Downtown Music, 1971-1987: An Overview and Resource Guide, by Peter Cherches:

Jazz critic Gary Giddins denies that there is any style of music that one could call “loft jazz,” stating that “Loft jazz is any jazz played in a loft.” For practical purposes, however, one can identify certain elements that characterize a great deal of the music performed at the lofts in the ‘seventies. It was clearly music that fell outside the jazz mainstream, carrying forward the legacy of ‘sixties free jazz but informed by other strains. The musicians continued to eschew the popular-song harmonic foundation of bebop while often foregrounding the blues elements that were somewhat more subliminal in much of free jazz. Rhythmically, some of the music began to incorporate influences of funk, African and Afro-Caribbean music, alongside the more abstract free-jazz foundation.

Sam Rivers and his wife Beatrice ran THE NYC loft jazz hot spot in the ’70s at his Studio Rivbea on Bond Street. Hundreds of musicians hung and/or played at the lofts including not-so-obvious youngsters Joe Bowie of Defunkt, John Zorn and James Chance, “I did have a small trio or quartet that played in a few of those lofts. But, uh, I didn’t really see it going anywhere. I could just tell the jazz scene was not going to accept me.” Maybe it was the pompadour.

There’s a five LP set – Wildflowers: The New York Loft Jazz Sessions that collects one week’s worth of music from Sam River’s Studio Rivbea from nearly 100 musicians including; Ken McIntyre, Sunny Murray, David Ware, David Murray, Dave Burrell, Julius Hemphill, Anthony Braxton, Roscoe Mitchell, and Jimmy Lyons. Originally released on Douglas records in 1976 and re-released as a CD box set by Knitting Factory records.

I have Volume 1 on the way. In the mean time, check out this Sam Rivers ’74 release for some very cool and out-there free jazz big band funk from the height of the loft jazz era:

Sam Rivers
Crystals

James Chance and The Contortions
Buy

This 1979 release is the only LP from James Chance and The Contortions. Following on the heels of his previous band Teenage Jesus & the Jerks with lover/band-mate Lydia Lunch, James Chance, aka James White of James White and The Blacks, was infamous for beating up audience members at the Contortions shows.

“…the whole passivity of audiences used to really bother me. I wanted it to be beyond just a bunch of people standing around on a stage. As far as the form it took in terms of actually attacking people, it was spontaneous at the beginning. You know, the people at the early Contortions gigs were these Art-types in Soho and Tribeca and their attitude just really bugged me because they acted so superior. ” from an interview on The Blow Up

No-Wave, punk-funk, post-punk Chance cites Ornette Coleman, Monk, Lester Young, Film Noir and of course James Brown as influences. And I can hear that and more. I say buy Buy – it’s a timeless slice of raw punk funk free jazz energy. Contort Yourself!

Jimi Hendrix Experience
Smash Hits

Just like Are You Experienced, the UK and US releases of Hendrix’s Smash Hits contain different tracks and mixes. Available in the original mono (UK Track Records), fake stereo (UK) and stereo (UK Polydor Super and US Reprise), Smash Hits was released in the UK in April ’68 just four months after Axis: Bold as Love (which came out just seven months after the band’s debut LP Are You Experienced).

UK Version (April 1968)

1. Purple Haze
2. Fire
3. The Wind Cries Mary
4. Can You See Me
5. 51st Anniversary
6. Hey Joe
7. Stone Free
8. The Stars That Play With Laughing Sam’s Dice
9. Manic Depression
10. Highway Chile
11. Burning of the Midnight Lamp
12. Foxy Lady

songs in bold/italic are not on the US version

In the US, they held out for over a year and Electric Ladyland to be released before they felt The Experience deserved a Smash Hits. So the US version includes a few tracks from Electric Ladyland like “All Along the Watchtower” and “Crosstown Traffic”. Ah but you Hendrix aficionados have noticed so does the UK version – “Burning of the Midnight Lamp” is from Ladyland but it was originally released as a single way back in 1967. Oddly enough there are no tracks from Axis: Bold as Love on any version. Confusing?

US Version (July 1969)

1. Purple Haze
2. Fire
3. The Wind Cries Mary
4. Can You See Me
5. Hey Joe
6. All Along the Watchtower
7. Stone Free
8. Crosstown Traffic
9. Manic Depression
10. Remember
11. Red House
12. Foxy Lady

songs in bold/italic are not on the UK version

Recommendation: Stick with the US version unless you have an unlimited budget for Hendrix. The US Reprise first pressings (tri-color label) are still affordable and sound great (better than the UK Polydor but I have not heard the uber-expensive Track monos). While that means you won’t have any of the songs in bold from the UK release, you WILL get “Red House” which is so worth the trade. Jimi wanted “Red House” on the US release of Are You Experienced but it got cut.

It’s also interesting to think about the fact that all of the music we know from Hendrix as a leader was recorded between 1967 and 1970.

Imagine walking into your local record shop in 1967…

Debut LPs

New Releases

more

(more…)

’69

One player sitting at the center of fusion’s roots is Larry Young (aka Khalid Yasin (Abdul Aziz)), perhaps the ultimate fusor. Born in Newark in 1940, Young can be seen as the ‘Stones to Jimmy Smith’s Beatles in the universe of Hammond B-3 players. His recording career as a leader started with Prestige in 1960 (at age 19!) with Testifying. He moved to Blue Note in 1964 making his debut there as a leader the same year with Into Somethin! featuring Grant Green, Elvin Jones and Sam Rivers.

Fusion ’69: In 1969 Larry Young was at the center of the desire to fuse – he played on Bitches Brew, jammed with Hendrix (something Miles wanted to do but never did) which was later released on Nine to the Universe, and was part of The Tony Williams Lifetime debut Emergency! which also included John McLaughlin.

Young’s tentacles reach out farther and wider into both sides of the jazz/rock tree having played with Donald Byrd, Lee Morgan, Booker Ervin, George Benson, Alice Coltrane, Santana, Billy Cobham and Jack Bruce to name a few (Young also played some massively righteous B-3 on McLaughlin’s Devotion). Young attributed his shift away from his early straight-ahead style to Coltrane but I’m going to attribute the initial impulse to fuse to Betty Davis for the role she played in getting Miles into Jimi and the whole funk rock (sex) vibe to begin with.

It’s been suggested that Young’s 1975 funk release Larry Young’s Fuel is a not-so-subtle nod to Ms. Davis with vocalist Laura “Tequila” Logan moanin, squeekin and screatchin ala Betty. Young died in 1978 in New York City. He is probably best known for his 1965 Blue Note release Unity.

Valet
Naked Acid

Naked Acid is the 2nd release from Honey Owens as Valet. Tribal eclectic electric dronescapes inhabited by disembodied voices singed by acid guitar licks. Oh so creamy and oh so dreamy. Sweet, bitter, beautiful.

Who is Honey? Honey isn’t so much on-the-scene in Portland, she is a scene. From the Pitchfork review:

Owens has contributed to Jackie O-Motherfucker and Dark Yoga. She’s a member of broken funk trio Nudge and the touring bassist for Kranky labelmate Atlas Sound. She also co-owns Rad Summer, a hand-me-down and homemade clothing store that sells local music, hangs local art, repurposes used bikes, and, of course, hosts shows. Owens also co-founded and booked Dunes, a music club that the Portland Mercury calls the city’s “hippest dark hallway/dance club,” and she runs the tiny Yarnlazer label with her longtime boyfriend, White Rainbow’s Adam Forkner.

There’s also a limited edition (500 copies) 7″ single – Fire on tasty gold vinyl available from Burnt Brown Sounds (mine’s on order).

Caspar Brotzmann Massaker
Der Abend Der Schwarzen Folklore

Five live-in-the-studio tracks from 1992. Caspar, son of Peter, rips the guitar to shreds and the resultant sounds shimmer and quake in space. Backed by bassist Eduardo Delgado Lopez and drummer Danny Lommen this is power trio liquid angst, coming at you in sheets of molten cracked über-pysche of “yowling, tormented intensity”. Spooky.

Or as Caspar says, “I really have fun. If it’s no fun I don’t do it – sometimes musicians invite me to go in the studio to play this solo for this and I can earn this money – but if there is no feeling for myself, I don’t do that. That’s what I mean, that I take care of my own quality and my friends. What I’ve learned from these 500 interviews is to bring all words on a point that I am doing – it’s about that I take care of my work, my friends, my friends and my work. It’s really important to have friends in your life. It’s totally simple, that’s why all the time I am saying that I am just a musician. I can make interviews with really big words in a newspaper but I don’t. I like small words.“