March 20, 2010

Playlist Week of 3-20-10

* Handel: 12 Solo Sonatas, Op.1 (AMM/Egarr) (Harmonia Mundi)
* Debussy: Piano Music, Vol.1 (Thibaudet) (Decca 2CD)
* Debussy: Orchestral Music (disc 1) (New Philharmonia, et al./Boulez) (Sony 2CD)
* Cecil Taylor: Jazz Advance (Transition/Blue Note CD)
* Cecil Taylor: Looking Ahead! (Contemporary/Fantasy CD)
* Cecil Taylor: Love for Sale (United Artists/Blue Note CD)
* Sun Ra: Delft, The Netherlands 11-11-71 (FM 3CDR)
* Anthony Braxton 12+1tet: 9 Compositions (Iridium) 2006 (d.2) (Firehouse 12 9CD+DVD)
* Mary Halvorson & Jessica Pavone: Thin Air (Thirsty Ear CD)
* Matthew Shipp: One (Thirsty Ear CD)
* Matthew Shipp Trio: Piano Vortex (Thirsty Ear CD)
* Bob Marley & the Wailers: Catch a Fire (Island/MFSL CD)
* Johnny Cash: Unearthed (d.3) (American 4CD)
* Jimi Hendrix: Valleys of Neptune (Experience Hendrix/Sony CD)
* The Mothers of Invention: Absolutely Free (Verve LP)
* Led Zeppelin: Mothership (d.1) (Atlantic 2CD)
* Grateful Dead: Fillmore East, New York, NY 4-27-71 (SBD 3CDR)
* Grateful Dead: Marin Co. Veterans Memorial Aud., San Rafael, CA 3-29-84 (SBD 2CDR)
* Reconstruction: The Keystone, Palo Alto, CA 7-07-79 (first set) (SBD CDR)
* Big Star: #1 Record (Ardent/Classic LP)
* Big Star: Radio City (Ardent/Classic LP)
* Big Star: Keep an Eye on the Sky (d.3) (Rhino 4CD)
* New Order: The Fulcrum, Slough, England 12-07-85 (SBD CDR)
* Pavement: Slanted and Enchanted (Deluxe Edition) (Matador 2CD)
* Beck: Odelay (Bongload Custom LP)
* Guided By Voices: Mag Earwhig! (Matador LP)
* Guided By Voices: “Bulldog Skin” (Matador CDEP)
* Guided By Voices: “I Am a Tree” (Matador CDEP)
* Guided By Voices: Do the Collapse (TVT LP)
* Guided By Voices: Daredevil Stamp Collector (FCS 12”EP)
* Guided By Voices: Isolation Drills (TVT LP)
* Guided By Voices: “Glad Girls” (TVT CDEP)

Commentary:

This week I finally picked up the “new” Jimi Hendrix CD, Valleys of Neptune. As much as I really wanted to purchase this from good old Grimey’s New & Pre-Loved Music, I was just too tempted by the two bonus tracks (totaling almost eleven minutes) tacked onto the limited edition version sold exclusively at Target -- of all places! It’s a good thing we made a last minute decision on the way home from work to exit the interstate and take a trip to a nearby strip mall. They only had a handful left -- and they were hard to find! If you want this, I suggest you act now. Anyway, Valleys of Neptune is a worthwhile collection of orphaned studio tracks that were either widely bootlegged or previously tacked onto posthumous LPs such as Crash Landing, Midnight Lightning, and War Heroes, all now long out of print. As such, this is a welcome addition to the catalog. But be forewarned, these are, for the most part, unfinished recordings that only hint at their ultimate potential as the elaborate studio creations Hendrix no doubt envisioned. Or, worse (perhaps), they are re-creations conjured up via digital wizardry (“Stone Free”) or the result of inexplicable 1987 overdubs by Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell on tracks recorded in 1967 (“Mr. Bad Luck”) and 1969 (“Lover Man” and “Crying Blue Rain”). That said, Hendrix’s own ineffable brilliance shines through on every track and it demonstrates his (semi)successful attempts to capture the improvisatory edge of a live performance in a studio setting. Hendrix’s meteoric career was brutally snuffed out at its peak, leaving behind only a handful of finished albums and if you don’t own these records, you really should; they are masterpieces of Twentieth-Century music. If you do, then I assume you also have the South Saturn Delta compilation and the monumental “purple velvet” box set on MCA, which are way more essential than this. In that case, I wholeheartedly recommend Valleys of Neptune as a useful appendix. Oh, and those bonus tracks are worth the trip to Target, especially the searing instrumental jam, “Trash Man,” an extended display of slash-and-burn guitar heroics over a proto-funky groove. Good stuff.

3 comments:

  1. Dang, it's a bad time budget-wise; I'll probably miss out on the Target special.

    It looks like you're working your way through the 12+1tet box again? I was thinking I need to do that, now that I've made my way through all my Braxton.

    Here are my lists for last week:

    Playlist 2010-03-22

    *Muhal Richard Abrams: One Line, Two Views
    *Marshall Allen & the Vertical Dogs: 2010-02-27 The Fridge, DC (wav)
    *Art Ensemble of Chicago: 1987-03-08 Nightstage, Cambridge MA (CDR)
    *Art Ensemble of Chicago: 1991-11-18 Hamburg, Germany (CCDR)
    *Anthony Braxton 12tet + 1: 2010-01-29 Vancouver (CDR)
    *Anthony Braxton's Sonic Genome Project: 2010-01-31 Vancouver (CDR)
    *Circle: 1971-03-04 Hamburg, Germany (CDR)
    *John Coltrane: Meditations
    *Chick Corea: Circulus
    *Joseph Jarman: Song For
    *Mahavishnu Orchestra: The Inner Mounting Flame
    *Music Improvisation Company: Music Improvisation Company
    *New Loft: 2010-03-03: "Spread Thick" (wav)
    *New Loft: 2010-03-10: live, "Chirp! summer in winter" The Bridge, Charlottesville (wav)
    *Nine Strings + Pilesar: The Sincerity of Non-Sentient Things
    *Sun Ra: 1971-11-11 Delft, Netherlands (CDR)
    *Sun Ra: 1974-09-08 Chicago (CDR)
    *Sun Ra: 1979-04-04 Champaign, Ill. (CDR)
    *Cecil Taylor: The Complete Candid Recordings of Cecil Taylor and Buell Neidlinger, discs 1, 2, 3
    *Cecil Taylor Trio: 1988-10-23 Freiburg, Germany (CDR)
    *Cecil Taylor Quartet featuring Anthony Braxton: 2007-06-08 London (CDR)
    *David S. Ware New Quartet: 2007-08-25 Sardinia, Italy (CDR)
    *Beatles: Yellow Submarine (2009 stereo remaster)
    *Big Star: #1 Record
    *Danger Mouse: The Grey Album
    *Bob Dylan: A Tree with Roots: The Genuine Basement Tapes Remasters, disc 2
    *Grateful Dead: Live/Dead (side 1)
    *Mojo Presents The White Album Recovered
    *Robert Wyatt: Nothing Can Stop Us

    Reading log 2010-03-22

    *Bolano, Roberto. 2666 (started)
    *Palmer, Robert. Blues and Chaos (started)
    *Kerr, Philip. German Requiem (finished)
    *The Complete Mad, vol. 1 (EC) (in progress)
    *Larson, Gary. The Complete Far Side (in progress)
    *Musil, Robert. Man Without Qualities (in progress)
    *A New Literary History of America (ed. Greil Marcus & Werner Sollors) (in progress)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, trying to get through that 12+1tet box one more time. Every time I re-listen, it sounds different.

    I'm also doing a Cecil Taylor chronological thing. Candids this week!

    How'd you enjoy "The Inner Mounting Flame?" ;-) Actually, I don't have that one anymore either. My favorite was actually "Between Nothingness and Eternity," the live one. I'd love to hear that again.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I used to have that on vinyl--I still might. I'll have to check. I actually really dug "Inner mounting flame"--that one was always my fave. It's not as polished as "Birds of fire", and I really like Jan Hammer's distorted keyboard contortions. And "Dawn" is one of those songs that periodically pop in my head for no reason. (I actually made a list one day of all the songs that do that--there are about 6 or 7 pieces that randomly occupy my head at random moments--the brain is a strange thing when it comes to music.)

    ReplyDelete