Playlist 8-29-09

* Biber: Unam Ceylum (Holloway/Assenbaum/Mortensen) (ECM CD)
* Biber/Muffat: Der Türken Anmarsch (Holloway/Assenbaum/Mortensen) (ECM CD)
* Handel: Organ Concertos, Op.7 (AAM/Egarr) (Harmonia Mundi 2SACD)
* J.S. Bach: Six Suites for Violoncello (Japp ter Linden) (Harmonia Mundi 2CD)
* Christine Plubeau/Arnaud Pumir: Église Saint Nicolas, La Hulpe 3-20-09 (FM CDR)
* Charlie Parker: The Complete Savoy & Dial Studio Recordings (d.1+2) (Atlantic 8CD)
* Keith Jarrett: The Impulse Years: 1973-1974 (Impulse! 5CD)
* Matthew Shipp & Mat Maneri: Gravitational Systems (HatOLOGY CD)
* Mary Halovorson & Jessica Pavone: Thin Air (Thirsty Ear CD)
* Herbie Hancock Sextet: Barbican Centre, London 11-19-08 (FM 2CDR)
* Bill Laswell: Dub Chamber 3 (ROIR CD)
* Bill Laswell: Sacred System: Book of Exit/Dub Chamber 4 (ROIR CD)
* Santana: Santana (III) (Columbia/Legacy CD)
* Grateful Dead: Road Trips, Vol.1, No.2: “October ‘77” (GD 3CD)
* Grateful Dead: Road Trips, Vol.1, No.4: “From Egypt with Love” (GD 3CD)
* Grateful Dead: Road Trips, Vol.2, No.4: “Cal Expo ‘93” (GD 3CD)
* Jerry Garcia: After Midnight: Kean College, 2-28-80 (Rhino 3CD)
* Tom Waits: Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards (Anti- 3CD)
* Wilco: Wilco (the album) (Nonesuch CD)
* Boston Spaceships: Planets are Blasted (GBV, Inc. CD)

Commentary:

As the weeks go by, a pattern emerges: baroque music (in the mornings), usually some jazz, perhaps some “out” jazz, but almost always some Grateful Dead and/or Jerry Garcia, and, of course, Robert Pollard’s brand of rocking out…pretty boring, ultimately. I suppose I am getting old and ossified in my tastes. The topic of music came up at work yesterday (as it often does), and I was gently chided for my lack of knowledge about current pop music. It’s true, I never listen to the radio or watch TV and my record-collecting dollar is usually allocated towards things that I know I will like. And when I have taken a chance with recent pop music, I have been left feeling particularly underwhelmed (e.g. Vampire Weekend, Fleet Foxes) (sorry). In my estimation, the best band in the land is Wilco (so sue me). Frankly, I’m much more interested in young musicians such as Mary Halvorson and Jessica Pavone, who integrate a folk-rock sensibility with avant-jazz musicianship to create a genuinely new kind of music that, unfortunately, most folks will never hear. No doubt I am missing out on some great pop music, but I can live with that. Heck, I could never buy another record in my life and still have plenty of wonderful music to listen to.

Like for instance the Keith Jarrett box set – and I really did listen to all five discs this week! – comprising expanded reissues of the albums Fort Yawuh, Treasure Island, Death and the Flower, and Backhand. These records were out of step with the times and ultimately overshadowed by Jarrett’s prior tenure with the electric Miles Davis band and his later fame as the romantically rhapsodic, proto-New Age solo pianist. That’s too bad. The so-called “American Quartet” consisted of Jarrett, Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden, and Paul Motian, an all-star band that executed the post-Ornette free-bop and gospel-ish material with sensitive but high-spirited aplomb. Jarrett equitably shares the sometimes crowded musical space with these three strong personalities, but the friction is palpable and sometimes sparks flashes of uniquely brilliant music. (I plan to delve into Mysteries: The Impulse Years: 1975-1976 next week.) Or how about the complete Charlie Parker on Savoy & Dial? Eight CDs documenting the birth of Bebop, complete with every extant false start, incomplete and alternate take – and not just the Savoy and Dial material, but concomitant sideman dates with Tiny Grimes, Slim Gaillard, and Red Norvo on the Guild, Musicraft, Bel-Tone, and Comet labels. I could spend a lifetime studying this music and the accompanying literature and still not be able to digest it all. Who needs to keep up with the latest fads when there is this vast wealth of masterpieces worthy of my time and attention? Heh-heh. Spoken like a true fogey, an out-of-it fuddy-duddy. Oh well. Getting old sure beats the alternative. Thankfully, music makes life worth living.

Elvis

I used to think Elvis was a pathetic joke: bad movies and cheesy songs like “Do the Clam”; fat and sweaty in a ridiculous jumpsuit, dying on the toilet. Oh sure, the Sun stuff was pretty cool, but everything after was a sell-out. Yadda. Yadda. Yadda. Yep. I was such a fool.

It wasn’t until 1995, when we first went to Graceland that I learned to love Elvis. We went on a lark, while on our way back from a road trip to see my parents who had retired to Arkansas of all places. I wanted to come back through Tennessee, since I had never been there before. I wanted to see Beale Street and Graceland in Memphis, and head north to Nashville before making our way back to Boston. I wanted to visit the birthplace of rock’n’roll and country music. Lizzy thought I was crazy, but she is a great traveling companion and always game for new adventures. Memphis was just as I expected: the Mississippi River River is indeed black and muddy; there is drinking in the streets, blues in the parks and bars, and tasty gumbo and barbeque in the restaurants. Graceland was, however, not at all what I expected. I expected to snicker at the hopeless fans, smirk at the relentless kitsch, and sneer condescendingly at mainstream Middle-American culture. I did not expect it to be so expensive – we’re talking Disneyland-level pricing here! But, what the heck, we splurged for the Platinum Tour of the whole shebang, including Elvis’s two (2) airplanes. Moreover, I did not expect that it would wind up being worth every penny.

Tourists arrive across the street from the mansion itself where there are acres of parking next to the cavernous ticketing area which is attached to the many, many gift shops. A shuttle ferries ticketholders across Elvis Presley Boulevard to the front door of Graceland, where a friendly but no-nonsense tourguide escorts you through the residence. From the outside, the house seemed surprisingly small and downright tasteful, certainly not the imposing edifice I expected. As we made our way through the entryway and modestly-sized dining room, I was struck by how normal it all seemed – normal circa. 1976, that is. As we entered the kitchen, I noticed a set of “Apple Pottery” dishes proudly displayed in a cherrywood cabinet – just like the dishes of my own, 1970s suburban childhood. I was touched somehow, finding this humble dishware displayed like fine china in Elvis Presley’s house. I could feel my unfair caricature of Elvis quickly dissolving. Yes, the basement playroom with its bar and three TV sets conjured up visions of the “Memphis Mafia” and drugged-out gunplay and the “Jungle Room” was every bit as tacky as I expected. But these were the tastes of an ordinary man, from a dirt poor background, who happened to be Elvis Presley. Instead of seeming larger than life, he seemed simpler, guileless, more like a real human being. But what was truly impressive was an outbuilding containing a long corridor packed with hundreds of gold and platinum records, exiting into another room with a three-story wall of yet more gold and platinum records belatedly awarded after his death. It was… stunning. There is simply no arguing with the fact that Elvis sold (and continues to sell) A LOT of records. From there we were led out to the small courtyard where Elvis is buried. The gravesite was festooned with fan-made homages, oddly, deeply moving in their innocent earnestness. I could feel myself getting teary. What was going on with me? I was becoming a fan…

In Nashville, we visited the Country Music Hall of Fame and saw Elvis’s gold-plated Cadillac, complete with fold-down backseat turntable. We also toured RCA’s Studio B over on Music Row, which is still preserved, complete with Elvis’s footprint in a wall where he kicked in it anger at a frustrating recording session. By now we were utterly smitten…After returning to Boston, we started collecting Elvis CDs and we love it all, from the fifties through the seventies – yes, we even love the movies and fat Elvis in a jumpsuit (bless his heart). The guy could sing!

A couple of years later, we picked up and moved from Boston to Nashville on nothing but a wing and a prayer. We had no jobs waiting for us, only a fondness for the city, some meager savings, and a hope for a better life. When things seemed the most precarious, only Elvis could raise our spirits and he was a permanent fixture of our personal soundtrack in those first couple years. We made it through, in part thanks to the eternal optimism of Elvis’s music. It is impossible to feel sad when Elvis is on the stereo. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that we would not be here in Tennessee if it weren’t for our first sojourn to Graceland in 1995.

Batman & Robin

You might be wondering, “What’s with the superheroes?” Well, at one time, I was very into comic books. Of course, I loved comics when I was a child, but I didn’t really collect them. It wasn't until the late-eighties and early-nineties that I got turned on to the work of Frank Miller, Allen Moore, Neil Gaiman, and many others who have now become legendary figures in the transformation of “comic books” into what are now known as “graphic novels.” It was a heady time and there were some really cool comic book stores in Boston which made the whole experience loads of fun. Later on, however, things got out of hand. Cover prices kept increasing and publishers were milking fans for all they were worth with “special,” limited-edition, multi-variation “collector’s editions” and shoddy workmanship. The whole enterprise nearly collapsed under its own weight and around that time, I pretty much stopped buying them. Five bucks for a twenty-four page comic book is almost as ridiculous as the twenty-dollar CD – neither comes close to justifying its exorbitant cost except to unhealthily obsessed fans. It’s a shame because, like records, comic books have been priced out of the very market that most enjoys them, juveniles.

ANYWAY…I still have my comic book collection and, as you can see, various action figures and toys from that era. Lately, I had been considering boxing it all up and perhaps even getting rid of them altogether, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. But since getting the new camera, I noticed on the weekends that we get this really lovely mid-morning sunlight through the windows, which moves slowly across the west wall of the living room. Looking for subjects, I resorted to the toy box and started messing around with the camera settings and snapping pictures. While I have still not quite figured out the optimum exposure, the photos I’ve posted this week consist of the best shots of the bunch and I think, with some tweaking in Photoshop, they look pretty darn nifty. So, that’s why all the superheroes!

Peter Parker is Spiderman

Tony Stark is Iron Man

Reed Richards is Mr. Fantastic

Sun Ra Sunday

Sun Ra & His Astro Infinity Arkestra: My Brother the Wind Vol. II (Evidence CD)

In early 1970, Sun Ra returned to Variety Recording Studio with an enlarged Arkestra, including vocalist June Tyson. Tyson (b. 1936) had begun working with the band in 1968 at the recommendation of Sonny’s part-time manager, Lem Roebuck, but this is her first appearance on record. While Tyson was an integral feature of the Arkestra’s live concerts, with her lush singing voice and flowing dance movements, a woman’s full-time presence in the band posed some problems. Sonny considered her family since she was married to the Arkestra’s lighting designer, Richard Wilkinson, but Ra was patriarchal, if not downright chauvinistic in his attitudes: “I can’t create with women in my environment” (quoted in Szwed, p.250). Nevertheless, Tyson became a close confidant to Ra and remained a steadfast member of the Arkestra until her death in 1992.

She sings beautifully on the lilting space chant, “Somebody Else’s World” and on the slinky, jazz-funk number, “Walking on the Moon,” obviously written in response to Apollo moon landing in July, 1969. Ra also has another new keyboard in tow, a mellow-toned Farfisa organ (not a Hammond as I previously thought) which gives these tracks that “space-age barbeque” sound. “Otherness Blue” is another mid-tempo, off-kilter blues, featuring some tasty trumpet work from Kwame Hadi. “Pleasant Twilight” starts out as bright, swinging big-band tune, but a rubato section opens up space for Gilmore to blow sweetly on tenor saxophone before the melody returns at half-tempo to end. “Somewhere Else” begins with a fat, lurching riff over a stiff rhythm section, which eventually launches into some medium swing. Short solos come and go while the Arkestra tosses around variations on the opening riff. “Contrast” opens with some squeaking, honking baritone saxophone from Pat Patrick with Alejandro Blake jumping in with furiously plucked bass. Then Ra enters with some sustained, suspended chords and Marshall Allen wails away on oboe, the sound wrapped in think reverb (was Tommy Hunter present?) until fading out.

The remainder of the album is taken up with five brief synthesizer experiments, Ra having purchased a brand new Minimoog of his own. “The Wind Speaks” explores white noise and fluttering filter effects while “Sun Thoughts” focuses on sour intervals and swooping, sea-sick portamentos. “Journey to the Stars” uses the ADSR envelope filter to create wah-wah-ing attacks and swelling sustained notes while “World of Myth ‘I’” consists of knob-turning pitch-shifting. Finally, “The Design – Cosmos II” conjures up some resonant, bell-tone sounds, with increasingly busy atonal melodies scattered over a repeating bass note. While these tracks may sound a bit tentative, the Minimoog would become a fixture of Ra’s keyboard arsenal in the nineteen-seventies and most concerts would feature a lengthy synthesizer solo full of apocalyptic bombast. Unfortunately, My Brother the Wind, Vol. II comes across as kind of schizophrenic: some of this material is the most toe-tappingly accessible in all of the discography, but the Moog experiments are tough-going for even the most committed fan. Even so, this is an essential album and a necessary companion to Vol. I.

+++

UPDATE: I neglected to mention another track found on Out There a Minute (Blast First CD) which was likely recorded at this session (or shortly thereafter). Entitled, “Jazz and Romantic Sounds,” it fits right in, with Ra’s bluesy, juke-joint organ, Marshall Allen’s impassioned solo and Patrick interjecting a honking riff here and there. It unexpectedly ends with a weird cadence and minute or so of spaced-out bliss before fading out. Nice.

Bart & Lisa Simpson

Skies of Wonder

Playlist 8-22-09

* Carl Smith: Tudor Organ Music (Naxos CD)
* Uccellini: Sonatas (Romanesca) (Harmonia Mundi CD)
* Schmelzer: Unaram Fidium (Holloway/Assenbaum/Mortensen) (ECM CD)
* Biber/Muffat: Der Türken Anmarsch (Holloway/Assenbaum/Mortensen) (ECM CD)
* Holloway/ter Linden/Mortensen: Garrison Church, Copenhagen 4-8-08 (FM 2CDR)
* Pachelbel: Canon & Gigue: Chamber Works (London Baroque) (Harmonia Mundi CD)
* J.S. Bach: Motets (La Chapelle Royale/Collegium Vocale/Herreweghe) (Harmonia Mundi CD)
* Boulez: Repons (Ensemble InterContemporain/Boulez) (DG CD)
* Feldman: Piano and Orchestra (RSS/Zender/Woodward) (CPO CD)
* AMM: BBC Studios 4-23-79 (FM CDR)
* AMM: Ravensberger Spinnerei, Bielefeld, Germany 5-16-94 (FM 2CDR)
* AMM: International House, Chicago, IL 4-15-01 (AUD CDR)
* Evan Parker Transatlantic Art Ensemble: Boustrophedon (in Six Furrows) (ECM CD)
* Bill Evans: Everybody Digs Bill Evans (Riverside/JVC XRCD)
* Cecil Taylor: Silent Tongues (1201 Music CD)
* Anthony Braxton Quartet: (Birmingham) 1985 (Leo 2CD)
* Sun Ra: The Night of the Purple Moon (Atavistic CD)
* The AACM Great Black Music Ensemble: Umbria Jazz Festival 7-14-09 (FM 2CDR)
* Matthew Shipp: Equilibrium (Thirsty Ear CD)
* Antipop Consortium: Antipop vs. Matthew Shipp (Thirsty Ear CD)
* Fela Anikũlapo-Kuti: Original Sufferhead (Capitol LP)
* Bob Dylan: A Tree with Roots (Complete Basement Tapes) Vol.2 (fan/boot 2CDR)
* The Band: Music from Big Pink (MFSL SACD)
* Grateful Dead: Road Trips Vol.2, No.3: Wall of Sound (June 1974) (GD 3CD)
* Pavement: Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain: L.A.’s Desert Origins (Matador 2CD)
* Sonic Youth: The Eternal (Matador CD)
* Wilco: Wilco (the album) (Nonesuch CD)
* Guided By Voices: Alien Lanes (Matador LP)
* Robert Pollard: Elephant Jokes (GBV, Inc. LP)

Commentary:

I only recently heard the baroque violinist John Holloway thanks to the lovely Garrison Church 4-8-08 broadcast (which lives permanently on my iPod). I subsequently obtained his ECM recordings and they are ravishingly beautiful. The organ/harpsichord continuo may or may not be historically accurate, but it’s a luscious texture nonetheless. At the other extreme, AMM is capable for producing some bone-chillingly terrifying music, so I’m often scared to listen to them. How silly! These particular live performances were very enjoyable – especially the Bielefeld concert which features compositions by Cardew, Wolff, Cage, and Skempton as well as a thirty-minute, typically non-idiomatic improvisation. More AMMusic is on my to-do list.

Wagner Conducts

(Thanks, Stan!)

Jim Woodring's Crazy Newts

(Thanks, Keith!)

Ben Grimm is The Thing

Sun Ra Sunday

Sun Ra & His Astro-Solar Infinity Arkestra: My Brother the Wind (Saturn 521)

The advent of the transistor enabled Robert Moog (1934-2005) to develop the first modular synthesizer in the early nineteen-sixties and by late-1969, a truly portable synthesizer, the now legendary Minimoog, was already in development. Sun Ra was naturally intrigued by the instrument, with its cutting edge technology and ability to make truly otherworldly sounds. But in a 1970 Down Beat interview, Ra emphasized that synthesizers were not just weird noise machines or souped-up organs:

The Moog synthesizer in its potential and application to and for the future is tremendous in scope, particularly for those who are creative naturals. It most certainly is worthy of a place in music. There are many effects on it which at present are not upon any other instrument. On one of my compositions, “My Brother the Wind,” the Moog is a perfect projective voice. Of course, like other electronic keyboard instruments, it will require a different technical approach, touch and otherwise in most efforts of behavior. It is a challenge to the music scene…The main point concerning the synthesizer is the same as in all other instruments, that is, its capacity for the projection of feeling. This will not be determined in a large degree just by the instrument itself, but as always in music, by the musician who plays the instrument (quoted in Szwed, p.277)

Indeed, Ra’s approach to the Moog synthesizer was altogether different than the instrument’s later popularizers. In late 1969, and with the financial support of T.S. Mims, Jr., Ra obtained two prototype models (in order to achieve two-voice polyphony from the monophonic instruments) and booked time at Variety Recording Studio in New York City. He brought along only Gilmore (who mostly plays drums), Marshall Allen, and Danny Davis for the occasion. In addition, pianist/synthesist, Gershon Kingsley, was hired to program the synthesizer according to Ra’s wishes. According to Mims, “It was a duel between Kingsley programming and Sun Ra playing” (quoted in Campbell, 2nd ed., p.152).

The title track consists of two wildly contrasting Moog voices: a breathy whistle in the high register and a thick, reedy interval in the bass with Gilmore supplying some credible free drums. Ra’s two-hand independence and control of the highly differentiated textures is really quite remarkable. “Intergalactic II” pits the boing-boing-ing Moogs against braying horns. Gilmore turns in another typically riveting solo before hopping back on the drums to propel a dual alto sax extravaganza. Hypnotic synthesizer interludes set up some misty textures for the horns at the end. “To Nature’s God” features resonant, bell-like sounds on one Moog while the other rumbles around with a rounded, woody bass tone. Meanwhile, Allen and Davis twirl around on piccolo and flute and Gilmore lays down lurching, asymmetrical funk beats.

While the preceding pieces sound a bit like interesting but tentative experiments, “The Code of Interdependence” is more fully realized; a well-considered, conducted improvisation. Clocking in at a near-epic sixteen minutes, Ra explores the outer limits of the Moogs’ expressive ability while Gilmore’s drumming provides a remarkably supple, shape-shifting drive. Gilmore is not only a tenor saxophone colossus but a better-than-serviceable drummer as well! Davis sounds great on the rarely heard alto clarinet as he interweaves the sinewy horn with Ra’s spiraling synthesizers. Later on, Davis takes up the alto saxophone and again duets with Allen. Amazingly, Ra’s Moog textures subtly evolve over the course of the piece – whether by his own knob twiddling or Kingsley’s, who knows? He builds up the variegated intensities until Allen breaks through with a taut but assertive solo on alto sax. As the pressure subsides, Ra spins delicate webs of unearthly tones to end. According to Campbell, this piece was deliberately speeded up and mastered out of phase, lending it a sort of humanly-impossible quality that only adds to its considerable mystique. My Brother the Wind is essential Sun Ra and a great example of his innovative artistry on early electronic keyboards. The Minimoog would remain a staple of Ra’s arsenal for the next decade and beyond.

Front Porch @Night

This is what I'm talking about: a full one-second exposure at f3.5, ISO 800. Better than film!

Playlist 8-15-09

* Hesperion XXI: Orient – Occident: 1200-1700 (Alia Vox SACD)
* J.S. Bach: The Sonatas & Partitas for Solo Violin (John Holloway) (ECM 2CD)
* Corelli: 12 Concerti Grossi, Op. 6 (English Concert/Pinnock) (Arkiv Produktion 2CD)
* Veracini: Sonatas (Holloway/ter Linden/Mortensen) (ECM CD)
* LeClair: Sonatas (Holloway/ter Linden/Mortensen) (ECM CD)
* Rebel: Violin Sonatas (Manze/ter Linden/Egarr) (Harmonia Mundi CD)
* John Coltrane: Coltrane Time (Blue Note CD)
* John Coltrane: Ballads (Impulse! CD)
* John Coltrane: Transition (Impulse! CD)
* John Coltrane: Crescent (Impulse! CD)
* John Coltrane: A Love Supreme (Impulse! SACD)
* John Coltrane: First Meditations (for quartet) (Impulse! CD)
* John Coltrane: One Down, One Up: Live at the Half Note (Impulse! 2CD)
* John Coltrane: Living Space (Impulse! CD)
* Sun Ra: Night of the Purple Moon (Atavistic CD)
* The Brothers Johnson: Look Out For #1 (A&M CD)
* Grateful Dead: Veterans Memorial Coliseum, New Haven, CT 10-25-79 II (SBD 2CDR)
* Grateful Dead: Boston Garden, Boston, MA 10-1-94 (SBD 3 CDR)
* Bob Dylan & The Band: A Tree with Roots: Complete Basement Tapes, v.1 (Fan/boot 2CDR)
* Frank Zappa: Sheik Yerbouti (Zappa Records 2LP)
* The Cars: Heartbeat City (Elektra LP)
* Sonic Youth: The Eternal (Matador 2LP)
* Pavement: Slanted and Enchanted: Luxe & Reduxe (Matador 2 CD)
* Boston Spaceships: Brown Submarine (GBV, Inc. CD)
* Robert Pollard: Elephant Jokes (GBV, Inc. LP/CD)
* Circus Devils: Gringo (HJRR CD)
* Helios Creed: Boxing the Clown (Amphetamine Reptile LP)
* Boredoms: Onanie Bomb Meets the Sex Pistols (Reprise CD)

Commentary:

As you can see, I’ve been on a Coltrane binge this week. Not sure why exactly, but as much as I love Coltrane’s music, his sound is so intense, so emotionally heavy, that I have to be in the right mood to listen to him. I guess this was one of those weeks. Incidentally, Coltrane Time was originally released under Cecil Taylor’s name as Stereo Drive. While it’s not the sort of spectacular “clash of the titans” you might expect (after all, it was recorded fairly early in Taylor’s career, and several years prior to Coltrane’s own “New Thing”-styled recordings on Impulse!), it is a wonderfully inventive album for the period (1958).

Update: I only just learned that drummer Rashied Ali died on August 12th. While he does not play on any of the selections listed, he was an integral part of Coltrane's final, most aggressively avant garde band. No wonder I had Coltrane on the brain! R.I.P. Rashied Ali.

+++

Oh, boy. I hadn’t listened to Sheik Yerbouti all the way through in very, very long time. By 1979, Zappa was, in many ways, at the height of his powers. Yet he insisted on deploying them in the service of utterly puerile material which was, admittedly, titillating and uproariously funny back when I was a pimply teenager but now seems downright offensive (e.g. “Bobby Brown,” etc.). It’s not so much that I’ve become more conservative (hardly!); it just seems a shame that Zappa would squander his gifts for cheap, hurtful laughs. Well, ‘twas ever thus with Frank. Be that as it may, this album contains some of Zappa’s strongest guitar playing on record: the closing “Wild Love”>”Yo’ Mama” sequence is a stunning tour de force of guitar heroism (and deft editing). It remains pretty darn impressive even all these years later.

About the photograph:

After three years of semi-frustration with our Nikon Coolpix L3 point-and-shoot camera, we decided to take the plunge and upgrade to a digital SLR. After doing a little research (which we probably should have done prior to purchasing a point-and-shoot), we went with the venerable Nikon D40 for its light weight; ease of use; Nikkor’s super-high-quality lenses; and, of course, its (relatively) low price. Right out of the box, in automatic mode, the D40 took photographs that were impossible for me to capture with the L3, such as this full-body portrait of our beloved “rocking kangaroo.” I’ve been spending the weekend experimenting with it and I’m really looking forward to having some fun with photography again. We’ll probably hang on to the L3 since its pocket-size dimensions make it so convenient, but it will be really nice to have the flexibility of a full-function SLR with all the advantages of digital technology. And those advantages are huge! The ability to see the effect of various settings immediately after taking the picture is extremely useful! Back in the days of 35mm film, I could only take a rudimentarily educated guess at what the final result might look like but would have to wait for developing the film and printing -- which could be days (or months) later. With the D40’s big, bright LCD, I know right away whether any particular adjustment improves or degrades the image. Cool! Look for more amateur photography on the blog.

Sun Ra Sunday

Sun Ra & His Astro-Infinity Arkestra: Continuation (Saturn ESR 520)

Originally released in 1970, Continuation contains a handful of experimental small group tracks recorded at the Sun Studio in 1968 along with two tracks with the full Arkestra recorded live at The East in Brooklyn, New York in 1969.

Side A begins with “Biosphere Blues,” a typically spaced-out blues, taken at a relaxed, almost somnambulant tempo. Interestingly, John Gilmore is probably playing drums on this home recording. After Ra’s piano introduction, Wayne Harris takes a nice solo on trumpet, his tone is warm and mellow, his note choices exquisite. Next up, Ali Hassan takes a single tasteful chorus on trombone. Then, Pat Patrick jumps in with an incongruously aggressive solo on baritone saxophone before giving way to Ra’s jaunty piano. A swelling space chord ends the piece with an odd dissonance. “Intergalaxtic Research” sounds as every bit as alien and forbidding as its title. Robert Barry plays the booming “lightning drum” with James Jacson on log drum and other unidentified percussionists who construct throbbing, asymmetrical cross-rhythms while Art Jenkins does his bit on space voice. Ra twiddles with his space organ and clavinet like a mad scientist, emitting random blasts of noisy timbres, dense, lurching chords, or rapidly spinning constellations of notes. This is a wonderfully strange piece.

The presence of Tommy Hunter and his echo-echo-echo machine on “Earth Primitive Earth” and “New Planet” makes me think these tracks were recorded prior to 1968. In fact, the overall ambience (and massively increased hiss) sounds like some of the Choreographer’s Workshop recordings (but this might just be wishful thinking). Both pieces pit Ra’s echoing piano against a skittering flute choir. On “Earth Primitive Earth,” Hunter plays some kind of metal scraper quite near the microphone, making for an unsettling, spooky atmosphere. “New Planet” takes the echo thing to a whole other level and Robert Cummings turns in another spectacular solo on bass clarinet (I am really starting to appreciate what a great player Cummings is on that most difficult and unwieldy instrument). Incidentally, both of these tracks appeared on the 1989 compilation CD, Out There a Minute (Blast First), although “Earth Primitive Earth” was slightly edited and re-titled “Cosmo Enticement” and “New Planet” was re-titled “Song of Tree and Forest,” presumably at the request of Sun Ra himself.

Side B contains the nearly continuous nineteen-minute live concert segment from 1969, and it’s a corker. “Continuation To” opens with the Arkestra already in full flight over sultry African percussion but Ra soon takes over with a roiling piano solo, full of booming left hand chords and scampering right hand clusters. After bringing things back down a bit, Akh Tal Ebah extemporizes on trumpet while Ra hints at ballad forms and hand percussion gurgles nervously in the background. Suddenly Ra produces a bouncy, repetitive figure and bass and drums join in for some good, old fashioned swinging. Ebah, a newcomer to the band since Sun Ra’s relocation to Philadelphia in the fall of 1968, manages to hold his own amidst the shifting musical landscapes and things really start to heat up when the Arkestra enters with big angular space chords, full of wiry clarinets and blatting trombones. But just as Boykins begins to solo, the track cuts off. “Jupiter Festival” picks up with the end of Boykins’s bass solo and he quickly moves to the fast walking to introduce “Second Stop is Jupiter.” Ra joins in and the Arkestra chants, climaxing with “all out for Jupiter!” A massive space chord erupts which melts into manic group improvisation. Gilmore emerges from the din with a lengthy, super-intense tenor saxophone solo, full of “sheets-of-sound” flurries of notes, heroically over-blown honks and squeals, and impossible multi-register leaps. Sun Ra prods things along with more furious piano, conducting brief entrances and exits of musicians while Gilmore continues to wail. The music finally simmers down a bit with the various horns exhaustedly sighing and moaning but with Boykins agitatedly scraping away with the bow. At one point, there is a tense, held note before the return of the busy piano figures after which screaming clarinets provide contrast against some sweetly melodious alto sax and rippling brass, with Jarvis propulsively pounding away in free rhythm. This deliciously complex texture continues on for some minutes before abruptly cutting off. Argh!

Nevertheless, Continuation is another fascinating album from a fertile, if spottily documented, period in Ra’s career and well worth hearing.

+++

Good news! According to Amazon, Atavistic will be reissuing Continuation on October 6, 2009 as part of John Corbett’s Unheard Music Series. Rejoice!

Jerry Garcia (August 1, 1942-August 9, 1995)

Jerry Garcia died fourteen years ago today.

I was at work when I heard the news. A friend called me on the phone and told me she heard it on the radio. I was stunned but incredulous. After all, there had been rumors and scares in the past, notably the coma of 1986 and, more recently, the cancelled fall tour in 1992, but Garcia always pulled through. I logged onto the Usenet, but there was no word. Only minutes later, there were hundreds of messages piling up. TV news reports in San Francisco were confirming Garcia’s death by heart failure at the Serenity Knolls rehab clinic in Forest Knolls, California. Oh, no…it was true…

I went outside to the courtyard and wept. Just the day before, I had received mail-ordered tickets to the first three Boston Garden shows scheduled for September of 1995, including a second row seat for the 17th. The following day, like a one-two punch, I received my tickets to the following three nights.

I had been in deep denial about Garcia’s obvious morbidity. In retrospect, I had simply gotten lucky; several of the shows I saw in the later years were especially good ones, leading me to believe that the music would never stop. They’d written a batch of strong new songs in 1993 and, while 1994 was mostly uneven, 10/1 was one of the best top-to bottom concerts I ever witnessed. The March 1995, shows at The Spectrum in Philadelphia were also pretty spectacular with the breakout of “Unbroken Chain” on 3/19. Sure, the performance of the ridiculously complicated tune was shaky at best, but the rush of elation that surged through the crowd as they recognized the never-before-played-live song was a hyper-extraordinary event, perhaps the highest moment in my circa. one hundred show “career” as a Deadhead. Heck, even the Albany shows on that otherwise disastrous 1995 summer tour were surprisingly good. But now that heartfelt performance of “Black Peter” on 6/22 felt eerily prophetic.

I was devastated. Thinking about that day still makes me sad. Yet the widespread period of public mourning was surprising and touching at the time -- even president Bill Clinton made an official statement. Deadheads were no longer a fringe subculture; they were everywhere, even heads of state. But with Garcia’s death, the Grateful Dead were, um, dead and an era had ended. Like many other Deadheads, I had planned my life around Grateful Dead concerts for years. Spring tour, Summer tour, Fall tour – Liz and I even spent three days of our honeymoon at Cal Expo in not-so-lovely Sacramento, California in 1994. It may sound pretty pathetic to say this, but The Grateful Dead was something to live for. Jerry’s absence on this god-forsaken planet leaves an unfillable void that only grows larger by the day. As might be expected, Bob Dylan summed it up best:

There’s no way to measure his greatness or magnitude as a person or as a player.
I don’t think eulogizing will do him justice. He was that great – much more than
a superb musician with an uncanny ear and dexterity. He is the very spirit
personified of whatever is muddy river country at its core and screams up to the
spheres. He really had no equal. To me he wasn’t only a musician and friend, he
was more like a big brother who taught and showed me more than he’ll ever know. There are a lot of spaces and advances between the Carter Family, Buddy Holly and, say, Ornette Coleman, a lot of universes, but he filled them all without
being a member of any school. His playing was moody, awesome, sophisticated,
hypnotic and subtle. There’s no way to convey the loss. It just digs down really
deep.

Well, yes. By way of example, here is a heart-wrenchingly poignant performance of “So Many Roads” from the very last Grateful Dead concert at Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois on July 9, 1995:

Playlist 8-8-09

* Handel: 12 Solo Sonatas, Op.1 (AAM/Egarr) (Harmonia Mundi 2CD)
* Handel: Organ Concertos, Op.7 (AAM/Egarr) (Harmonia Mundi 2SACD)
* J.S. Bach: Trio Sonatas (London Baroque/Medlam) (Harmonia Mundi CD)
* Christine Plubeau/Arnaud Pumir: Église Saint Nicolas, La Hulpe 3-20-09 (FM CDR)
* Boulez: Pli Selon Pli (Ensemble Intercontemporain/Schäfer) (DG CD)
* Andrew Hill: Mosaic Select 16 (Mosaic 3CD)
* Cecil Taylor: The World of Cecil Taylor (Candid CD)
* Cecil Taylor: Jumpin’ Punkins (Candid CD)
* Anthony Braxton: Quartet (Coventry) 1985 (Leo 2CD)
* Anthony Braxton: Quintet (London) 2004 (Leo CD)
* Anthony Braxton/William Parker/Milford Graves: Beyond Quantum (Tzadik CD)
* John Abercrombie Quartet: Bimhuis, Amsterdam 10-2-08 (FM 2CDR)
* John Abercrombie Organ Trio: Congress Centrum, Bremen 4-25-09 (FM CDR)
* Olu Dara: In the World: From Natchez to New York (Atlantic CD)
* Olu Dara: Neighborhoods (Atlantic CD)
* Prince & The Revolution: Around the World in a Day (Paisley Park/Warner Bros. LP)
* Grateful Dead: Go to Nassau (GD/Arista 2CD)
* Grateful Dead: Cal Expo, Sacramento, CA 5-27-93 (SBD 3CDR)
* Jerry Garcia Band: The Keystone, Palo Alto, CA 2-5-82 IIx (SBD CDR)
* Talking Heads: Little Creatures (Sire/Warner Bros. DVD-A)
* Minutemen: Buzz or Howl Under the Influence of Heat (SST 12”EP)
* Sonic Youth: The Eternal (Matador 2LP/CD)
* Helios Creed: The Last Laugh (Amphetamine Reptile LP)
* Radiohead: In Rainbows (TBD CD)

Re-reading:

Christopher Miller: Simon Silber: Works for Solo Piano (Houghton Mifflin, 2002)
N.B: This book was retitled for paperback as Sudden Noises from Inanimate Objects: A Novel in Liner Notes. The first time I read this, I thought it was uproariously funny. I lent it to a friend, and, after a long interval, I re-read upon its return. This time through, it just seemed unbearably sad. The conceit of “a novel in liner notes” is actually very clever and Miller viciously skewers the vacuous pretentions of the classical music establishment. But his merciless evisceration of the ambitious yet utterly talentless Simon Silber (and his equally oblivious biographer) is hard to take a second time around. Still worth reading…once.

Sun Ra Sunday

Amiri Baraka/Sun Ra & His Myth Science Arkestra: A Black Mass (Son Boy 1 CD)

The controversial writer/activist LeRoi Jones was a fellow denizen of Greenwich Village and an early, influential supporter of Sun Ra’s music in New York. After the assassination of Malcolm X on February 21, 1965, Jones changed his name to Imamu Amiri Baraka, moved to Harlem and founded the Black Arts Repertory Theatre/School (BARTS). Sun Ra remained downtown, but he was intensely active in the short-lived institution, making the trip to the Harlem office “almost daily” (Szwed, p. 210). However, BARTS quickly disintegrated and Baraka decamped to his hometown in Newark, New Jersey where he established The Spirit House in a rented one-family dwelling. The first floor’s interior walls were removed to create performance/work space that would also come to house a book store and a record label, provocatively named Jihad.

A Black Mass was written in 1965 and published in Four Black Revolutionary Plays (Bobbs-Merrill, 1966). It was first performed at Procter’s Theater in Newark in May, 1966 with Sun Ra’s Myth Science Arkestra supplying incidental music. The Arkestra shared the stage with the actors and improvised its parts by following cues in the script such as “Sun-Ra music of shattering dimension” or by interjecting music or percussion amidst the actors’ speaking lines. For Jihad’s first LP in 1968, Baraka enlisted members of the Black Arts troupe and the Arkestra to record the play, loosely based upon the Muslim myth of Yacub, wherein an evil white monster is accidentally created by an overly curious black magician. Despite the overt (reverse) racism inherent in the work, Szwed helpfully points out that, “in Baraka’s re-telling, it is the aesthetic impulse gone astray which is at center, … a violation of the spirit of the black aesthetic” (p. 211). Baraka reinforces this message in the liner notes to this CD reissue: “Art is creation and … we must oppose the ‘creation of what does not need to be created.’” Even so, the play presents a number of problems for white listeners such as me!

The work begins with a brief guided improvisation by the Arkestra which introduces the actors, who enter humming and singing the melody to “Satellites Are Spinning,” a theme which runs throughout the play as a kind of leitmotiv. Unfortunately, the recording is crude and the acting is stagy and way melodramatic. Here is a representative declamation: “What we do not know does not exist. We know beyond knowing. Knowing there is nothing to know. Everything is everything.” A chorus of women screeches and screams when the while devil is unleashed. Meanwhile, the Arkestra keeps a running commentary varying from splattery percussion and the plinking of “strange strings” to alternatively aggressive and spacey organ/clavinet workouts or dissonant, massed space chords. Occasionally, horns make succinct solo statements or engage in vocalized call and response with the actors. Despite the ponderous, heavy-handed rhetoric, Baraka’s play surely appealed to Sun Ra’s own black sci-fi mythology, even if Ra’s musico-philosophy was more ecumenical than insurgent. Interestingly, Szwed takes pains to demonstrate Ra’s influence on Baraka’s thinking during this period: “[Ra] is there in [Baraka’s] historical allusions, in the tone and pitches of his reading, in his sense of the importance of language, and in his consciousness of the possibilities of playing the spoken word against the written, unleashing the phonetics buried in the printed word” (p. 209). Baraka would continue to be an important advocate for Sun Ra and his music. In Eulogies (1996), Baraka wrote: “Ra was so far out because he had the true self consciousness of the Afro American intellectual artist revolutionary…” (quoted in Szwed, p. 209). Yes, but A Black Mass seems to me a dangerously incendiary piece of sixties countercultural history and a difficult, painful listen, despite the sometimes interesting music.

Playlist 8-1-09

* La Ciaccona: Chateau de Grandson, Neufchatel 2-3-09 (FM CDR)
* J.S. Bach: Sonatas for Viola da Gamba (Pandolfo/Alessandrini) (Harmonia Mundi CD)
* Handel: Concerti Grossi, Op.3 (Academy of Ancient Music/Egarr) (Harmonia Mundi SACD)
* Handel: Organ Concertos, Op.4 (Academy of Ancient Music/Egarr) (Harmonia Mundi SACD)
* Boulez: Le Marteau sans Maître/Dérive 1 & 2 (Ensemble Intercontemporain) (DG CD)
* Andrew Hill: Black Fire (Blue Note CD)
* Andrew Hill: Smokestack (Blue Note CD)
* Herbie Hancock: Speak Like a Child (Blue Note CD)
* Herbie Hancock: Thrust (Columbia CD)
* Miles Davis: Live at the Fillmore East (March 7, 1970) It’s About That Time (Columbia 2CD)
* David Torn’s Prezens: Saalfelden, Austria 8-24-07 (FM CDR)
* Henry Threadgill’s Zooid: Stadtgarten, Köln 11-4-08 (FM CDR)
* Tortoise: A Lazarus Taxon (Thrill Jockey 3CD+DVD)
* Bill Laswell: Sacred System: Chapter Two (ROIR CD)
* Prince: 1999 (Warner Bros. 2LP)
* Nona Hendryx: The Art of Defense (RCA LP)
* Steve Winwood: Arc of a Diver (Island LP)
* Bob Dylan: Together Through Life (Columbia CD)
* Jerry Garcia Band: Warner Theatre, Washington, D.C. 3-18-78 (Pure Jerry 2CD)
* Garcia & Kahn: Marin Veteran’s Memorial Aud., San Rafael, CA 2-28-86 (Pure Jerry CD)
* Grateful Dead: Cal Expo, Sacramento, CA 5-26-93 (SBD 3CDR)
* Television: Marquee Moon (Rhino CD)
* Minutemen: What Makes a Man Start Fires? (SST LP)
* Sonic Youth: Rather Ripped (Geffen CD)
* Sonic Youth: The Eternal (Matador CD)
* The Flaming Lips: Yoshimi vs. the Pink Robots (Warner Bros. DVD-A)
* Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (Nonesuch CD)
* Guided By Voices: Bee Thousand (Scat LP)
* Robert Pollard: Elephant Jokes (GBV, Inc. LP)

About the photograph(s):

Grateful Dead: Boston Garden 9-29-94, photographed by me from the third row (!) with a Nikon FG. I glued the 4”x 6” prints to Bristol board in a “joiner” a la David Hockney. Wow. That was a long time ago! Jerry Garcia would have been 67 years old today. Happy Birthday, Jerry! Here are a couple more photographs from that concert:

Sun Ra Sunday

Released in 1968, Saturn 3066 is a seven-inch 45rpm single consisting of two tracks recorded at Sun Studio in 1967 and is available on The Singles (Evidence ECD 22164). “The Bridge” is an accompanied recitation of Sun Ra’s poem, “The Fire and the Dry Weeds,” which was later published in the 1972 edition of The Immeasurable Equation. Ra begins with spindly, echoing chords on electric organ and tremulous Clavioline until the horns and percussion enter with squalling, distorted space chords, tautly controlled by Ra’s conducting. Mobarak Mahmoud (an aspiring actor then residing with the Arkestra) dramatically declaims the poem, his voice swathed in claustrophobic, bathroom reverb. At the climactic line, “They must walk the bridge of the cosmic age!” the rest of the band joins in staggered, variously impassioned exclamations of “They must walk the bridge! They must walk the bridge!” Hmm. Some more keyboard noodling and a final, blasting space chord wraps things up in suitably enigmatic fashion. Curiously, “The Bridge” was reissued as a one-sided single in 1982, indicating that Ra considered the work to be of some inscrutable, talismanic importance. The flip-side, “Rocket #9,” finds the Arkestra re-tooling the all-purpose space chant with a radically slowed tempo, transforming it into a kind of funky march from the boiling, big-band swing of the original version heard on Interstellar Low Ways (Saturn 203/Evidence ECD 22039). Ra leads the Arkestra from the delicate electronic celeste, spelling out melodic figures to be taken up by the horns. Unfortunately, the track abruptly cuts off before the bridge or solo sections. Incidentally, Terry Adams claims that he was given a copy of this single by Sun Ra himself and it is this riff-happy arrangement of “Rocket #9” that was adapted by NRBQ on their debut album in 1968.

+++

Song of the Stargazers (Saturn 487 or sometimes 6161) was released in 1979 and is mostly a hodgepodge of various live recordings from the nineteen-seventies. But one track was obviously recorded much earlier, probably in 1967 or 1968, according to Prof. Campbell. Performed in a large, reverberant space in front of a sizable and enthusiastic audience, “Cosmo Dance” is an interesting quasi-modal composition featuring some evocative flute and oboe. Clacking wooden sticks set up a simple, repetitious rhythm with Boykins's bass and Pat Patrick’s “space lute” plucking out a droning three-note groove. Low horns and bowed bass enter with convulsively heaving whole-note fourths while flute and oboe and bass clarinet dance a medieval round. Flute and then oboe embark on expansive, Middle-Eastern sounding solos over the clacking sticks and throbbing bass/space lute, the audience bursting into spirited applause after each. Finally, the low horn/bowed bass whole-note fourths return, repeating several times before ending to more justifiably hearty ovation. Ra himself is not heard playing on this track, but the murky sound quality makes it hard to clearly make out who is doing what. Campbell says Marshall Allen is playing both flute and oboe, but that is impossible since both instruments are heard simultaneously during the ensemble section. So, is it Danny Davis on flute? It certainly sounds like him. There is also some talking barely audible throughout – is that Sun Ra lecturing the crowd or just random audience noise? In any event, this is a beautiful, prototypical Sun Ra composition of the period, perfectly realized by his Arkestra.

Playlist 7-25-09

* Lassus: “I Trionfi di Petrarca” (Huelgas Ensemble/Van Nevel): Brussels 12-19-08 (FM CDR)
* Christine Plubeau/Arnaud Pumir: Église Saint Nicolas, La Hulpe 3-20-09 (FM CDR)
* Berliner Barock-Compagney: Palas Festhalle, Wartburg zu Eisenbach 6-10-06 (FM CDR)
* Rebel: Violin Sonatas (Manze/Egarr/ter Linden) (Harmonia Mundi CD)
* Maurizio Pollini/Klangforum Wien/Eötvös: Kölner Philharmonie 3-11-09 (FM 2CDR)
* Bobby Hutcherson: “Mellow Vibes” (Blue Note mix CDR)
* Sun Ra: The Solar Myth Approach Vol.1 (BYG/Charly CD)
* Ornette Coleman & Prime Time: Quartier Latin, Berlin 7-4-78 (FM 2CDR)
* Anthony Braxton Trio: Elisabethbühne, Salzburg 4-3-82 (AUD CDR)
* Evan Parker/Marc Ribot/Han Bennink: Queen Elizabeth Hall, London 6-14-09 (FM CDR)
* Myra Melford’s Trio M: Small’s, New York 7-1-09 (AUD 2CDR)
* Weather Report: Heavy Weather (Columbia SACD)
* Parliament: Mothership Connection (Casablanca CD)
* Bootsy Collins: Back in the Day: The Best of Bootsy (Warner Bros. CD)
* Elvis Presley: Command Performances: The Essential 60’s Masters II (RCA 2CD)
* Bob Dylan: Greatest Hits Vol.1 (Columbia CD)
* Grateful Dead: Iowa State Fairgrounds, Des Moines, IA 5/13/73 (end of set 2) (SBD CDR)
* Grateful Dead: RFK Stadium, Washington, D.C. 6-10-73 (SBD 4CDR)
* Uncle Tupelo: No Depression (Columbia CD)
* Wilco: Wilco (The Album) (Nonesuch CD)
* Beck: Sea Change (MFSL CD)
* Genesis: Nursery Cryme (Charisma – UK LP)
* U2: The Unforgettable Fire (Island LP)
* King Crimson: Park West, Chicago, IL 8-1-08 (DGM FLAC Download 2CDR)
* The Orb: Orblivion (Island CD)
* Chrome: Half Machine Lips Move/Alien Soundtracks (Touch & Go CD)
* Sonic Youth: The Destroyed Room (B-Sides & Rarities) (Goofin’ 2LP)
* Sonic Youth: The Eternal (Matador CD)
* Cosmos: Jar of Jam/Ton of Bricks (HJRR LP)
* Robert Pollard: Elephant Jokes (GBV, Inc. LP)

+++

The highlight of the week was a visit from Sam Byrd, all the way from Richmond, Virginia! We recorded seventy-five minutes of music and/or noise in the Heeltop Home Studio, drank beer, listened to records and otherwise had a lovely visit. It’s always a treat to see Sam!

Sun Ra Sunday

Sun Ra & His Astro Infinity Arkestra: Atlantis (Evidence ECD 22067)

After a flurry of recording activity that began with the Arkestra’s arrival in New York City in 1961 and culminated with the ESP-era recordings of 1965-1966, the following years (until about 1970) are, by comparison, sparsely documented with individual tracks spread across various compilations, singles, and only a very few self-contained albums. So it seems to make sense to continue our chronological investigation with the albums proper (along with contemporaneous singles) before doubling back with the miscellaneous compilations that fill in the blanks. In other words, I’m putting off dealing with The Solar Myth Approach Vols.1 & 2 until all else has been examined from this time period!

Which means we jump ahead a year to Atlantis, recorded in 1967 and originally released as Saturn ESR 507 in 1969. There are changes afoot in the band’s sound: always an early adopter of technology, Ra can be heard on side one playing exclusively a Hohner Clavinet, a recently released electronic keyboard that was later popularized by Stevie Wonder (see e.g. "Superstition” in 1972). Ra renames it the “Solar Sound Instrument” and plays it in his own inimitable fashion. Recorded in rehearsal at the Sun Studio (the Arkestra’s rented townhouse located at 48 East Third Street in Manhattan’s Lower East Side), these tracks feature a bare-bones Arkestra: Gilmore can be heard from time to time on tenor saxophone, but these pieces mostly feature Ra’s clavinet over beds of percussion and sound more like sonic experiments than full-fledged compositions. But what interesting experiments!

“Mu” is a slow, 5/4 clavinet vamp with Gilmore tentatively outlining an up and down melody. “Lemuria” is another 5/4 boogie with Gilmore laying down some heavy duty riffing on top of Ra’s extra-funky clavinet. “Yucatan” is a dreamy, modal ballad wherein Ra demonstrates his remarkably sensitive touch on the primitive electronic keyboard. Hartmut Geerken points out in the discography that what sounds like electric bass us actually “two tightly interlaced African drum patterns!” (2nd ed., p.136). “Bimini” consists of roiling polyrhythmic percussion with Ra interjecting some jabbing chords on the clavinet. The Evidence CD also includes an alternate version of “Yucatan” that mistakenly appeared on the 1973 reissue of Atlantis on Impulse! Actually, this track has nothing to do with the other composition of the same name, but is rather another noisy percussion-fest interspersed with Ra’s distinctive clavinet chording. A telephone rings signaling a quick cadence to end.

The side-long title track was recorded live at the Olatunji Center of African Culture sometime after May, 1967 and is essentially one long Ra solo on the other new keyboard in his arsenal: a Gibson Kalamazoo organ. The Kalamazoo was a lower-priced copy of the Farfisa portable organ made famous by rock musicians of the time (think “96 Tears”). Ra attacks the instrument with unrelenting, two-fisted zeal, summoning forth a tsunami of sound that duly evokes the mythical flooding of Atlantis. It is a hair-raisingly terrifying performance and as menacingly psychedelic as any music of the period. After about fifteen assaultive minutes, an eerie calm sets in and the Arkestra plays an aching, moaning, richly voiced ensemble passage while Ra’s screeching organ threatens to overwhelm. The tension continues to mount until it is almost unbearable – then suddenly Ra cues the space chant: “Sun Ra and his band from outer space have entertained you here…” Holy moly! As Michael Shore puts it in his liner notes on the Evidence CD, “Atlantis” is “frightening, fascinating, enthralling, and finally overpowering music…[It] is one of the most monumental achievements of an artist who was always working in super-colossal terms.” Essential.

+++

The Sun Studio session(s) also yielded a single (Saturn 911-AR) released in 1969 and is available on The Singles (Evidence ECD 22164). “Blues on Planet Mars” is a typically spaced out blues, this time scored for the boing-ing clavinet and some lurching, cross-rhythmic percussion. The B-side, “Saturn Moon,” is something else entirely: Ra sets up some droning, guitaristic accompaniment on the clavinet for the Arkestra’s quietly majestic, harmonized humming while drums tap away ominously in the background. Interesting! Neither of these tracks would have conceptually fit on Atlantis, but are intriguing works in themselves and I can understand why Ra thought them worthy of release as a single.

Playlist 7-18-09

* Vivaldi: “Manchester” Sonatas (Romanesca/Manze) (Harmonia Mundi 2CD)
* Christophe Rousset: Chappelle Protestante, Brussels 5-4-09 (FM 2CDR)
* Celine Frisch: Musée de Croix, Namur 7-6-08 (FM CDR)
* Collegium Vocale Gent (Herreweghe): Église des Minimes, Brussels 6-9-09 (FM CDR)
* Holloway/ter Linden/Mortenson: Garrison Church, Copenhagen 4-8-08 (FM 2CDR)
* Grant Green: Idle Moments (Blue Note CD)
* Grant Green: Street of Dreams (Blue Note CD)
* Andrew Hill: Judgment! (Blue Note CD)
* Sun Ra: Nidhamu/Dark Myth Equation Visitation (Art Yard CD)
* Sun Ra/Amiri Baraka: A Black Mass (Son Boy CD)
* Jimmy Giuffre 3: 1961 (ECM 2CD)
* Jimmy Giuffre 3: Free Fall (Columbia CD)
* Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble: The Eleventh Hour (ECM CD)
* Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble: The Moment’s Energy (ECM CD)
* Sacred System (Bill Laswell): Chapter One: Book of Entrance (ROIR CD)
* Aphex Twin: Selected Ambient Works 85-92 (R&S – Belgium CD)
* Tortoise: KCRW “Morning Becomes Electric” 7-08-09 (FM CDR)
* The Band: Music from Big Pink (MFSL SACD)
* Led Zeppelin: How the West Was Won (Atlantic 2 DVD-A)
* Grateful Dead: RFK Stadium, Washington, DC 6-9-73 (SBD 4CDR)
* Wilco: Wilco (The Album) (Nonesuch CD)
* Rickie Lee Jones: Pirates (MFSL SACD)
* The Mekons: The Mekons Rock’n’Roll (A&M LP)
* Sonic Youth: The Eternal (Matador 2LP)
* Beck: Sea Change (MFSL CD)
* Robert Pollard: Normal Happiness (Merge CD)
* Circus Devils: Sgt. Disco (HJRR 2LP)
* Circus Devils: Ataxia (HJRR LP)

About the photograph:

From time to time, I see box turtles around Rancho Nuvoid but they’re usually lurking under the shrubbery or peeking out from the edge of the woody forest, by the remnants of the natural spring. Today, I found one right out in the open, lounging about in the grass in the back yard. Amazingly, he hung around there all afternoon. It’s unseasonably cool today (low-70s ¬ unheard of for middle Tennessee in July!), so I wonder if that contributed to his unusual gregariousness. I had to grab the camera and take a picture of this amazing creature to post it on the blog. I ♥ Kingston Springs!

Sun Ra Sunday

Sun Ra & His Arkestra: Spaceways (Freedom CD741047)

This record certainly has a tortured discographical history! In December, 1971, Sun Ra sold a cache of tapes to the Black Lion label so as to pay the Arkestra’s traveling expenses from Denmark to Egypt. Sadly, much of this music was never released. In 1974, El Saturn released this album as Outer Spaceways Incorporated (143000A+B) – although it was sometimes entitled A Tonal View of Times Tomorrow, Vol.3. Inexplicably, some of this music also appeared on numerous hybrid pressings of later Saturn albums such as Primitone and Invisible Shield among others. Finally, in 1998, the German DA Music label released a three-CD box set entitled Calling Planet Earth (Freedom 7612), containing some (but not all) the Black Lion holdings, wherein this album is stupidly re-titled Spaceways. I say stupidly because another disc in this otherwise fine box set is inanely titled Outer Spaceways Incorporated, making an already confusing discography needlessly opaque. This is the kind of thing that makes Campbell and Trent’s Earthly Recordings of Sun Ra so absolutely necessary!

In any event, Spaceways (or whatever you want to call it) is a great companion piece to the classic Nothing Is. Most of the music appears to have been recorded around 1966, given the presence of the trombonist Teddy Nance (who died in 1967) and Ra’s distinctive piano/Clavioline combo. Recorded in stereo, it offers remarkably good sound quality for the period. The first track, “Prelude and Shadow-Light World” (originally titled “Chromatic Shadows” on the El Saturn LP), opens with a long, dramatic piano introduction which prepares the way for the ensemble chant, “Sun Ra and His Band from Outer Space.” Then comes the notorious “Shadow World,” which is marked by a slightly more relaxed tempo than usual and a honking, wailing bari sax solo from Pat Patrick. Ra takes a solo turn before giving way to burbling percussion. Finally, Ra conjures up a mammoth space chord to bring things to a close. The second track, “The Wind Speaks,” appears to be from the same concert and is another beautiful Ra ballad featuring a choir of flutes and piccolo. Eventually, Boykins takes a solo turn with the bow and Ra enters to duet on the electric Clavioline. Ra then returns to the piano for some frenetic variations on the theme before an elegiac, full ensemble re-statement. This composition was later re-titled “Somebody Else’s World” after acquiring lyrics.

June Tyson’s unmistakable voice singing the end of “Satellites Are Spinning” opens “We Sing This Song,” indicating a probable 1968 recording date (the sound quality is also noticeably inferior to the rest of the album). Her singing gradually trails off leaving the stage to Sun Ra’s rhapsodic, thunderous piano. “Outer Space Incorporated” [sic] returns to the previous concert, with the bouncy space chant setting the stage for a swinging piano solo. Ra suddenly holds down a deep bass tremolo causing the rhythm section to die down, leaving Nance and Bernard Pettaway to engage in a friendly trombone duel, sometimes joined by Ra’s Calvioline or some jib-jabbering percussion. Ra then lays down a heavy piano chord which signals another lengthy drum solo from Clifford Jarvis. Now, Jarvis is a technically brilliant drummer (check out that bass drum!), but drum solos are almost never a good idea, in my opinion. Thankfully, after a few minutes, the rest of the Arkestra takes up various hand-percussion, giving things are more interestingly pan-African, poly-rhythmic feel (despite Jarvis’s continued show-boating). Ra shuts things down with a startling piano entry, signaling another heaving space chord. Some deft editing surreptitiously launches us into “We Travel the Spaceways,” which is clearly taken from a different concert, given the subtle change in soundstage (Boykins is suddenly stage left!). This version retains the original arrangement, featuring the prominent metallic clanging on the fours but, unfortunately, the Arkestra only sings the refrain a few times before the track fades out. Despite the anomalous titling on this reissue, Spaceways is a delightful album and an important live document of the Heliocentric-era Arkestra. The Calling Planet Earth box set is currently out of print, but can found on the secondary market for a modest premium. It is definitely worth seeking out, even with its myriad documentary flaws.

Playlist 7-11-09

* Marais: Suite d’un Goût Etranger (Savall, et al.) (Alia Vox 2SACD)
* Biber: Mensa Sonora (Musica Antiqua Köln/Goebel) (Archiv Production CD)
* Biber: Harmonia Artificiosa (Musica Antiqua Köln/Goebel) (Archiv Production 2CD)
* Musica Antiqua Köln (Goebel): Académie du Mont-Cenis, Herne 11-11-05 (FM 2CDR)
* Corelli: Violin Sonatas, Op.5 (Manze/Egarr) (Harmonia Mundi 2CD)
* Takemitsu: Quotation of Dream (London Sinfonietta/Knussen) (DG CD)
* Andrew Hill: Judgment! (Blue Note CD)
* Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble: The Moment’s Energy (ECM CD)
* Massacre: Lonely Heart (Tzadik CD)
* Parliament: Funkytelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome (Casablanca CD)
* Bootsy Collins: Ultra Wave (Warner Bros. CD)
* The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (+) (mono) (needle drop/fan-CDR)
* Rolling Stones: Singles Collection*The London Years (Abko 3 SACD)
* Rolling Stones: Emotional Rescue (Rolling Stones/Warner Bros. LP)
* Rolling Stones: Unsurpassed Masters, Vol.6 (fan CDR)
* Bob Dylan: Bootleg Series Vol.3 (Columbia CD)
* Bob Dylan: Bootleg Series Vol.8: Tell Tale Signs (Columbia 2CD)
* Grateful Dead: Academy of Music, NYC 3/23/72 (SBD 3CDR)
* Wilco: Wilco (The Album) (Nonesuch CD)
* Sonic Youth: The Eternal (Matador CD)
* Circus Devils: Sgt. Disco (HJRR 2LP)
* Circus Devils: Gringo (HJRR CD)

Reading:

Rose Rosengard Subotnik, Developing Variations: Style and Ideology in Western Music, Univ. of Minnesota, 1991.

Sun Ra Sunday

Sun Ra: Monorails and Satellites (Evidence ECD 22013-2)

Recorded at Sun Studio, New York, NY prob. 1966
Originally released as El Saturn SR 509 in 1968

While Sun Ra is highly regarded as a pioneer of electric keyboards in jazz, his prodigious gifts as a pianist have largely been overlooked, obscured by and subsumed within the Arkestra’s overall musical activities. Monorails and Satellites is one of the very few solo piano recordings Ra ever made and it is a fascinating document of his instrumental technique and singular musical thinking. Ra does not possess a dazzling virtuosity, but he approaches the piano as an immense orchestra, full of vibrant colors and contrasting timbres. Like a child at play, Ra delights in the resonant rumbling of the lowest octaves and the plinking, chattering chimes of the highest notes above. But Ra’s two-hand independence is sometimes truly astonishing: each hand in a different meter, in a different key, ten fingers layering multiple outer and inner melodies to create complex rhythmic/harmonic webs. Ra’s touch is aggressive yet supple, achieving illusionistic “bent” note effects. In a 1991 interview with Keyboard magazine, Ra was asked if he could hear quarter tones, the notes “between the notes” on a piano:

Oh, yeah, I’m using these intervals. You see, the way you attack a note can create those effects. Depending on how hard you hit the key, you can hear the third or the fourth or the fifth – those sounds in the cracks – coming out. So the touch, the attack, is very important. When I hit a note, the undertones also sound. With the undertones and overtones blended, I can get quarter-tones. Not too many piano players have that touch. […] I sing that way too, dividing the octave into 24 or 36 steps, just like the Indian singers do. I’m doing world music (quoted in Szwed, p.240).

Aside from the delightfully swinging standard, “Easy Street,” all the compositions are Ra’s and you can hear him using the piano as a sketchbook for the Arkestra’s larger canvas. “Space Towers” pits an agitated bass ostinato against jumping chords and horn-like riffing. “Cogitation” spills out tumbling blocks of clashing harmonies. “Skylight” is a beautiful ballad form spiced with intensely pungent dissonances. “The Alter Destiny” begins with an ominous roar and builds up a brittle, herky-jerky rhythm only to melt into sentimental tunefulness. “Blue Differentials” is a classic Ra blues, bright, uptempo, maybe a little old fashioned. The rhapsodic “Monorails and Satellites” contrasts gently rolling arpeggios and glissandos with enervated, multivoiced counterpoint. Finally, “The Galaxy Way” sounds more through-composed than wholly improvised as it maps the entire compass of the instrument through a sequence of descending chords and fleeting melodies. In the end, this is far from your usual jazz piano album but it offers a rare glimpse into Ra’s most intimate music-making.

+++

It’s too bad Evidence was unable to secure the rights to reissue Monorails and Satellites Vol.2 (released as El Saturn SR 519 in 1969), which contains additional solo piano music recorded at the same session (and would have easily fit on CD). Interestingly, “Astro Vision” opens with a bit of musique concrete with Ra’s sprightly piano set against sheets of howling electronic noise, generated by contact microphones and overdriven, distorted reverb (Boykins and Hunter are the likely suspects). It sounds to me like the effect was overdubbed after the fact, since Ra does not interact with it in any way and the noise eventually subsides some time before he finishes. Curious. The remainder of the album consists of four piano solos that are more expansive than on Vol.1, but also more diffuse. Several of the longer pieces reply upon an improvised, episodic construction that moves from ambiguous chordal statements through gentle ballad forms until finally evolving into furiously dissonant two-fisted attacks. “Solar Boats” is a little different and sounds more pre-arranged: Ra’s left hand sets up an off-kilter 5/4 groove while his right hand tosses off pan-tonal melodies and strident, widely-spaced chords. Vol.2 contains a great deal of dynamic pianism, but lacks Vol.1’s compact cohesiveness. Even so, it is well worth seeking out, if only for another opportunity to hear Sun Ra alone at the piano with his musical thoughts.

+++

The radically experimental Strange Strings was also recorded around this time period; I wrote about Atavistic’s excellent reissue of this bizarre masterpiece here. Ra’s discography gets very confusing at this point, with various albums containing material recorded at different times and places, with a slew of singles thrown in to boot. This sort of confusion continues until well into the nineteen-seventies! I would like to continue my chronological examination of Sun Ra’s albums, but I fear that a weekly schedule will be almost impossible to maintain. Just sorting out what is where will take some time. So expect some more YouTube videos in lieu of writing as I sort things out!

Playlist 7-4-09

* Schmelzer/Muffat: Sonatas (London Baroque/Medlam) (Harmonia Mundi CD)
* Hesperion XXI (Savall): Helmut-List-Halle, Graz 7-17-07 (FM CDR)
* Rebel: Violin Sonatas (Manze/Egarr/ter Linden) (Harmonia Mundi CD)
* Andrew Hill: Change (Blue Note CD)
* Anthony Braxton Quartet: Ljubliana, Slovenia 6-22-85 (FM CDR)
* Anthony Braxton Ensemble: Keuda House, Kerava, Finland 6-10-06 (FM CDR)
* Mary Halvorson Trio & Quintet: Joe’s Pub, NYC 6-28-09 (AUD CDR)
* Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble: The Moment’s Energy (ECM CD)
* Miles Davis: Sporthallen, Umeå, Sweden 10-26-85 (FM 2CDR)
* The Who: The Who Sell Out (Deluxe Edition) (Polydor 2CD)
* George Harrison: Somewhere In England (Dark Horse CD)
* Love: Forever Changes (Rhino CD)
* Electric Light Orchestra: A New World Record (Jet/United Artists LP)
* Grateful Dead: Memorial Coliseum, Portland, OR 6-24-73 (SBD 3CDR)
* Grateful Dead: Assembly Hall, University of Indiana, Bloomington, IN 10-30-77 (SBD 2CDR)
* Grateful Dead: Uptown Theatre, Chicago, IL 8-21-80 (SBD CDR)
* Grateful Dead: The Spectrum, Philadelphia, PA 3-17-95 (first set) (SBD CDR)
* The Mekons: Honky Tonkin’ (Twin Tone LP)
* Guided By Voices: Isolation Drills (TVT LP)
* Circus Devils: Five (Fading Captain LP)
* Wilco: Wilco (The Album) (Nonesuch CD)
* Beck: The Information (Interscope DVD-A)
* Sonic Youth: The Destroyed Room: B-Sides & Rarities (Goofin’ 2LP)
* Sonic Youth: The Eternal (Matador LP/CD)
* Tortoise: Beacons of Ancestorship (Thrill Jockey LP/CD)

Reading:

* Jon Meacham, American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House (Random House)

Tortoise: Beacons of Anscestorship

Tortoise: Beacons of Ancestorship (Thrill Jockey LP/CD)

The style of music termed “fusion” has become much maligned over the decades, and perhaps deservedly so. Originally coined to describe the “jazz-rock fusion” of Miles Davis and his progeny in the late nineteen-sixties and early seventies, the term eventually came to embody a cynical industry churning out insipid, commercial dreck, for which the genre of “fusion” justly deserves its now widespread disapprobation. Yet, what other word can one use to accurately describe the kind of music that Tortoise is pursuing? “Post-rock” is thrown around when folks write about Tortoise, and while it is a clever turn of phrase that effectively obscures the shame of “fusion,” it is also too vague and ill-defined to be really useful. Let’s face it: like the classic fusion of yore, Tortoise utilizes cutting edge technology and sophisticated musicianship to create instrumental soundscapes with quasi-danceable rhythms. And there is nothing wrong with that! But what is refreshingly absent in their music is the kind of histrionic displays of empty-headed virtuosity that came to define the fusion era. Instead, Tortoise fulfills the integrative promise of fusion in part by never devolving into ego-fueled exhibitionism. Further, Tortoise “fuses” the plethora of pop subgenres that arose since fusion’s heyday in the nineteen-seventies: punk rock, prog-metal, noise, hip-hop, dub, glitchy electronica, etc., thereby bringing fusion up to date. So, fusion it is, like it or not.

And I like it. And I like those classic fusion albums of the nineteen-seventies, too. So, how cool is it that a band like Tortoise can virtually single-handedly resurrect a disrespected genre and make it hip once again? I guess by folks calling it “post-rock.” Fine, whatever you want to call it, it is simply good music. Tortoise, based in Chicago, has been purveying their brand of fusion since the mid nineteen-nineties, releasing an extraordinary sequence of albums on the Thrill Jockey label which document a progression from the bass-heavy, dub-wise minimalism of their eponymous record (1994), to the expansive dreamscapes of Millions Now Living Will Never Die (1996), the richly Reich-ian interlocking polyrhythms of TNT (1998), and finally into the exuberantly elaborate electronic constructions of Standards (2001) and It’s All Around You (2004). Beacons of Anscestorship continues this progression and is perhaps their fusion-iest record to date: fat, analog-sounding synthesizers burble and whine, electric guitars are distorted, wrangled, and processed, lurching funk beats are constructed and deconstructed or evolve into ecstatically hard-driving rhythms. It’s fusion, I tell you.

Despite the increasing complexity, Tortoise still retains a collagist approach to group composition. There may not seem to be a whole lot going on at any one time, but as the music unfolds, a journey is taken that often winds up far removed from where you began. Melodies are stretched out and subtly submerged in texture, passed from instrument to instrument and “solos” only exist in the context of ever evolving ensembles. For example, “Gigantes” opens with exotic-sounding guitar/dulcimer over an insistent eight-note feel. Meanwhile, percolating sythesizers gradually overlay a herky-jerky disco feel while heavily processed electric guitar and swooning keyboards build up a long, richly-voiced orchestral climax. “Yinxianghechengqi” starts out like a punky rave up, with huge, nasty, distorto-guitar riffs. Then the tempo quickens and a modal chord sequence sets up some truly Mahavishnu-style electric guitar wailing -- but suddenly everything stops and keyboards and heavily processed guitar space out for a bit to end. The abrupt change of scenery is jarring yet evocatively cinematic. “The Fall of Seven Diamonds Plus One” sustains a dreamy, spaghetti-western mood with giant-toned guitar, smoky organ chords, clip-clopping percussion, and cavernous reverb. The album ends with a kind of three-part suite built around repeated guitar appregios and long-breathed synthesizer melodies that eventually erupts into a cool, prog-y groove propelling yet more radically processed electric guitar soloing and declamatory keyboards. Sounds like fusion, right?

If that sounds like your cup of tea, by all means, help yourself. All of their albums are excellent and each has a flavor all its own. The moderately priced box set, A Lazarus Taxon (2006), consisting of three CDs of outtakes, B-sides, remixes, and other rare tracks along with a live DVD compilation, conveniently plugs all the holes and is a must for the fan. Even so, TNT remains my Tortoise album (and one of my favorite albums of all time) so I would suggest the merely curious to start there. Then again, Beacons of Ancestorship is a seriously fun blast of full-blown fusion music for the Twenty-first Century and is highly recommended to those who think that is a long-overdue and welcome development. The beautifully pressed LP sounds fantastic (and comes with a download coupon for digital portability – nice!), but is limited to a thousand copies so vinyl aficionados need to act quickly. CD is OK too, modestly reproducing the luxurious, gatefold packaging of the LP. Hooray for fusion!