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.

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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)

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

Sun Ra Sunday

Sun Ra & His Arkestra: Nothing Is (ESP-Disk’ 4024 CD)

In May of 1966, the fledgling ESP-Disk’ managed to book a package tour for some of its artists under the auspices of Bernard Stollman’s Esperanto Foundation, who had somehow finagled financial support from the New York Council for the Arts to spread the ESP musico-philosophy to the denizens of various New York State public colleges and universities. The musicians included Sun Ra and the Arkestra, Ran Blake, Patty Waters, Giusseppi Logan and Burton Greene and much of the music was recorded and later released on ESP-Disk’. Nothing Is, released in 1969, captures the large-format Arkestra at the top of its game during this tour, bravely navigating conducted improvisations while also swinging hard on the jazzier numbers and otherwise bursting into space-chanting and polyrhythmic percussion freakouts ¬ it is the perfect soundtrack for the inspirational but imminently doomed counter-cultural revolution then at its peak in the wake of the Summer of Love, Woodstock, and widespread demonstrations of dissent. On the surface, Sun Ra’s music seems to fit right in with the outrageous sounds of the psychedelic era, but as has been noted, Ra’s politics were more complicated and quasi-authoritarian than might be expected. Ra’s ideal was not freedom, but discipline. Even John Sinclair had to admit: “We knew he was a dictator, but at least he was a benign dictator” (quoted in Szwed, p. 245).

Perhaps that is why, unlike much of the music of this period, Nothing Is still sounds fresh and not like a hopelessly nostalgic curio from a distant past. In fact, it still sounds like music from the future. One can only imagine what those college students thought about it at the time; surely many minds were blown. Nothing Is became a defining album for Sun Ra and, as with the Heliocentric Worlds albums, Nothing Is was widely bootlegged after ESP-Disk’s dissolution. I’ve owned various versions of this record: an Italian boot CD in the late eighties; the heavily No-Noised German ZYX CD circa. 1990; the better-sounding Dutch Calibre CD released in 2000; and now, the expanded 2005 edition on the resurrected ESP-Disk’. While the 2005 reissue includes almost thirty minutes of bonus material (and improved sonics), the tracks are disconcertingly rearranged. This album is indelibly etched into my brain through decades of repeated listening, so it was something of a shock the first time I heard the new CD. Upon reflection, it does seem likely that this rearrangement better reflects the running order of Ra’s sets of the time, but somehow the intensely visceral impact of the original is slightly diffused. Ra took great care in the construction of his albums and while additional, previously unreleased music is always welcome, I will probably keep my older CD containing the record as it was originally released, just for reference.

Be that as it may, Nothing Is is definitely one of the all-time great Sun Ra records and an essential document of the period. Highlights include a jaw-droppingly stunning Gilmore solo on the twisty post-bop composition, “Dancing Shadows,” the definitive performance of the insanely complicated “Shadow World,” and an evocative rendition of “Exotic Forest” featuring Marshall Allen’s serpentine oboe over that menacing 5/4 ostinato. Interspersed are brief space chants and songs (“Theme of the Stargazers,” “Outer Spaceways Incorporated,” “Next Stop Mars” and “Second Stop is Jupiter”), enormous, universe-engulfing space chords, and terse, densely compacted group improvisations. As for the bonus tracks, “Velvet” is an old-timey swing vehicle for Pat Patrick’s honking, squealing, and growling baritone saxophone, with pithy trombone and piano solos snuck in before the closing reprise. “Outer Nothingness” is fifteen-minutes of delirious, “New Thing” styled free jazz, marred only by an overlong drum solo by the irrepressible (and overindulged) Clifford Jarvis. (N.B. In a lazy bit of titling, this track bears little to no relationship to “Outer Nothingness” as found on Heliocentric Worlds, Vol.1.) A truncated “We Travel the Spaceways” ends the disc with a premature fadeout that feels somewhat anticlimactic. With or without the bonus material, Nothing Is is a must-have album for any Sun Ra fan and, truthfully, it belongs in any serious collection of post-war jazz.

Playlist 6-27-09

I’m surprised to find myself shocked and saddened by Michael Jackson’s death. I was never a big fan, but one of the first records I ever bought for myself was the Jackson 5 single pictured above in 1972 at the age of nine years old. Oh, what I want to know: where does the time go?

* Venice Baroque Orchestra (Marcon/Carmignola) Victoria Hall, Geneva 2-28-08 (FM 2CDR)
* J.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations (Hewitt) Royal Albert Hall, London 4-29-09 (FM CDR)
* John Cage Festival Milan (Arditti Quartet) 10-6-07 (FM CDR)
* Holloway/ter Linden/Mortenson: Garrison Church, Copenhagen 4-08-08 (FM 2CDR)
* Grant Green: Street of Dreams (Blue Note CD)
* Grant Green: Idle Moments (Blue Note CD)
* Bobby Hutcherson: “Mellow Vibes” (homemade mix of Blue Note material CDR)
* Jackson 5: “Corner of the Sky” b/w “To Know” (Motown 7”)
* Lee “Scratch” Perry: Arkology (Island 3CD)
* Jerry Lee Lewis: Original Sun Singles ’56-’60 (Sundazed 2LP)
* George Harrison: George Harrison (Dark Horse CD)
* Rolling Stones: Tattoo You (Rolling Stones/Atlantic LP)
* Bob Dylan: Bringing It All Back Home (mono) (Sundazed LP)

* Grateful Dead: Manor Downs, Austin, TX 7/4/81 (excerpts) (SBD MP3 CDR)
* Fleetwood Mac: Then Play On (Reprise/Pioneer – Japan LP)
* The Mekons: So Good It Hurts (Sin – UK LP)
* Sonic Youth: The Eternal (Matador CD)
* Beck: Guero (Interscope DVD-A)
* Robert Pollard: Fiction Man (Fading Captain LP)
* Circus Devils: The Harold Pig Memorial (Fading Captain LP)
* Circus Devils: Pinball Mars (Fading Captain LP)
* Boredoms: Vision Creation Newsun (Birdman CD)
* Boredoms: Super AR (Birdman CD)
* Tortoise: Tortoise (Thrill Jockey CD)
* Tortoise: Millions Now Living Will Never Die (Thrill Jockey CD)
* Tortoise: Beacons of Ancestorship (Thrill Jockey LP/CD)

Sun Ra Sunday

No time for me to write today; so I’m going to let Sun Ra speak for himself. This fascinating five-minute interview aired on VH1’s “New Visions” program circa. 1990:

Playlist 6-20-09

* Marais: Sonnerie de Sainte-Genevieve du Mont (Harnoncourt, et al.) (Harmonia Mundi CD)
* A. Scarlatti: Il Giardino di Rose (Accademia Bizantina/Dantone) (Decca SACD)
* Accademia Bizantina (Dantone): Orangerie, Potsdam, Germany 6/9/06 (FM CDR)
* Bartok: Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, etc. (BSO/Reiner) (RCA Victor LP)
* John Cage Festival Milan (Orch. Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, et al.) 9-28-07 (FM CDR)
* John Cage Festival Milan (Divertimento Ensemble/Valade) 10-1-07 (FM CDR)
* Andrew Hill: Dance of Death (Blue Note CD)
* Andrew Hill: Mosaic Select (disc 1) (January 1970 sessions) (Mosaic CD)
* Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble: Toward the Margins (ECM CD)
* Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble: Drawn Inward (ECM CD)
* Irène Schweizer/Roger Turner: Dampfzentrale, Bern, Switzerland 5/7/09 (FM CDR)
* Halvorson/Pavone/Hoff/Smith: Calling All Portraits (Skycap CD)
* Tortoise: Standards (Thrill Jockey LP)
* Rolling Stones: Beat Beat Beat at the Beeb (Invasion Unlimited (boot) 2CDR)
* Grateful Dead: Road Trips Vol.2, No.3: “Wall of Sound” (GD 2CD + “bonus disc”)
* Grateful Dead: Milwaukee Auditorium, WI 5/30/80 (set 2) (SBD CDR)
* Van Morrison: Back on Top (Virgin CD)
* Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers: She’s the One (soundtrack) (Warner Bros. LP)
* Talking Heads: Remain in Light (Sire DVD-A)
* My Bloody Valentine: Loveless (Warner Bros. / Plain Recordings LP)
* Beck: Mutations (Bongload Custom LP)* Beck: Midnight Vultures (DGC CD)
* Sonic Youth: Washing Machine (DGC 2LP)
* Sonic Youth: The Eternal (Matador 2LP/CD)
* Nels Cline & Thurston Moore: Pillow Wand (Little Brother CD)
* Circus Devils: Ringworm Interiors (Fading Captain LP)
* Fushitsusha: Gold Blood (Charnel Music CD)

Sun Ra Sunday

The Sensational Guitars of Dan & Dale: Batman and Robin (Universe UV016 CD)

Originally released as Tifton S-78002 LP (1966)

In a discography defined by indefinable strangeness, this has to be, on the surface anyway, the weirdest record of them all. In January, 1966, producer Tom Wilson cooked up yet another quickie cash-in attempt, this time based on the campy hit television show and aimed squarely at the children’s market. Wilson again enlisted Edward O. Bland to churn out some slapdash arrangements to be played here by the Greenwich Village-based acid-rock band, The Blues Project (billed as “The Sensational Guitars of Dan & Dale”), plus Sun Ra on occasional Hammond organ, John Gilmore on tenor sax, and Pat Patrick on baritone sax. The band is filled out with studio session stalwarts, Jimmy Owens on trumpet, Tom McIntosh on trombone along with some anonymous female vocalists. Sounds like a sure thing, right? What do you mean, “No?”

The Blues Project consisted of Danny Kalb on lead guitar and harmonica, Steve Katz on rhythm guitar, Andy Kuhlberg on bass, and Roy Blumenfeld on drums. They were hailed as New York’s answer to The Grateful Dead, after picking up organist Al Kooper during their short-lived stint on Columbia Records. Kooper, of course, was originally a guitarist, but became better known as an organist after his impromptu appearance on Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” – a session, not coincidentally, produced by Tom Wilson in 1965. The Blues Project made a couple records for Verve before disbanding in 1967. But in 1966, they were at the height of their powers and hungry enough to take a gig making a pseudonymous, one-off kiddie record.

It is puzzling why Wilson felt the need to add Sun Ra and his core musicians to the mix – on first listen you would never know it’s them. On the other hand, they do provide a certain big-band, jazzy élan that The Blues Project could never have pulled off on their own. Ra can be heard playing some bumptious organ on four of the twelve tracks, his “space-age barbeque” style contrasting with Al Kooper’s more conventionally rock-ish approach. Gilmore and Patrick are clearly audible in the ensemble passages and Gilmore even takes an appropriately glib solo on “The Riddler’s Retreat.” (It is unclear who is playing the loopy slide-whistle on “Flight of the Batman” or the boing-boing-ing jaw harp on “Joker is Wild.”) Kalb peals off a number of stinging electric guitar solos that might have seemed pretty groovy in a different context but, despite the musical firepower at Wilson’s disposal, Bland’s “compositions” are nothing but laughable arrangements of material lifted wholesale from the public domain (and elsewhere). As Prof. Campbell explains:

Except for the Batman theme [composed by Neil Hefti], nearly all of the music on this album was plundered from various sources. “Batman’s Batmorang” uses the slow movement of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony, “Penguin’s Umbrella” takes over Chopin’s A-flat Polonaise; “Batman and Robin Swing” is based on the love theme
from Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet; and “Batmobile Wheels” makes do with Bach’s Minuet in G, already recycled as “I Hear a Symphony” by the Toys. “The Riddler’s Retreat” lifts its guitar licks from “She Loves You” by the Beatles. (Campbell & Trent, p. 125)

One can only imagine a child’s disappointment when, after begging his parents for the Batman and Robin record, he discovers only a raggedy, ersatz rendition of his favorite TV theme and a bunch of hokey tunes punctuated with incongruously psychedelic guitar solos. Needless to say, the record sold poorly and only became a pricy collector’s item due to Sun Ra’s (un-credited) involvement and the connection to The Blues Project and Al Kooper. In 2001, the Italian label, Comet/Universe, issued the album on CD, complete with deluxe, gatefold mini-LP packaging, along with several other gray-market Ra reissues. While Batman and Robin is a fun bit of commercial ephemera of interest to hard-core Sun Ra fanatics, Blues Project aficionados (and, I suppose, comic book geeks), it is pretty much worthless musically beyond its value as pure sixties kitsch, a strange and curious artifact from a far-gone era.

Playlist 6-13-09

* Musica Florea: Schloss Eggenberg, Graz, Austria 9-1-08 (FM CDR)
* Handel: Organ Concertos, Op.4 (AAM/Egarr) (Harmonia Mundi SACD)
* J.S. Bach: Suites for Violoncello (Jaap ter Linden) (Harmonia Mundi 2CD)
* Cecil Taylor: Love for Sale (United Artists/Blue Note CD)
* Cecil Taylor: Conquistador! (Blue Note CD)
* Andrew Hill: Passing Ships (Blue Note CD)
* Andrew Hill: Lift Every Voice (Blue Note CD)
* Herbie Hancock: The Prisoner (Blue Note CD)
* Stevie Wonder: Talking Book (Tamla LP)
* Steely Dan: Aja (ABC/Cisco LP)
* ABC: The Look of Love (Mercury LP)
* Emmylou Harris: All I Intended to Be (Nonesuch CD)
* Bob Dylan: Blonde On Blonde (mono) (Sundazed LP)
* Grateful Dead: Springfield Coliseum, Springfield, MA 3/25/85 (first set) (SBD CDR)
* The Who: Sell Out (Deluxe Edition) (Polydor 2CD)
* Robert Pollard: Coast to Coast Carpet of Love (Merge LP)
* Cosmos: Jar of Jam, Ton of Bricks (HJRR LP)
* The Mekons: Fear and Whiskey (Sin ¬ UK LP)
* The Mekons: Crime & Punishment (Sin – UK 12”EP)
* The Mekons: The Edge of the World (Sin – UK LP)
* The Mekons: Slightly South of the Border (Sin – UK 10”EP)
* The Ex: “Stonestampers Song” (Ex Records – UK 7”)
* The Ex: 6 (Ex Records – Holland 6-7” + 1-12”)
* Hüsker Dü: Metal Circus (SST 12”EP)
* The Minutemen: Paranoid Time (SST 7”EP)
* The Minutemen: Joy (SST 7”EP)
* The Minutemen: The Punch Line (SST 12”EP)
* Sonic Youth: Daydream Nation (Goofin’ 4LP)
* Sonic Youth: The Eternal (Matador 2LP/CD)
* Sonic Youth: Battery Park, NYC July 4th, 2008 (Matador promo-LP + FLAC)
* Died Pretty: “Winterland” / “Wig Out” (acoustic) (Citadel – Australia 7”)
* Died Pretty: “Towers of Strength” / “From a Buick 6” (Blue Mosque – Australia 7”)
* Beck: Odelay (Bongload Custom LP)
* Beck: “Diamond Bollocks” b/w “Runners Dial Zero” (Bongload Custom 7”)

Sun Ra Sunday

Walt Dickerson Quartet: Impressions of “A Patch of Blue” (MGM/Verve CD)

While the record deal with ESP-Disk’ (and a concomitant flurry of releases on the El Saturn label) would eventually establish Sun Ra’s reputation within the burgeoning subculture, the nineteen-sixties would remain penurious times for the Arkestra. Even Sun Ra himself would find it necessary to take paying gigs here and there as a sideman – especially if his old friend, Tom Wilson, made the call. In late-1965, Wilson came up with the idea for quickie movie-tie-in LP to be led by vibraphonist Walt Dickerson and he summoned Ra and sometime Arkestra drummer Roger Blank to participate in the recording sessions. Impressions of “A Patch of Blue” was billed as an “interpretation” of Jerry Goldsmith’s soundtrack to “A Patch of Blue,” the Sidney Poitier film that boldly addressed miscegenation at a volatile moment in the Civil Rights period. Wilson had previously recorded Dickerson in a moderately successful jazz interpretation of the “Lawrence of Arabia” soundtrack for Audio Fidelity in 1963, so it probably made sense to try to repeat that formula – with the added benefit of timeliness and topicality. Unfortunately, Goldsmith’s score is unremarkable and the film itself overwrought. Although the movie enjoyed tremendous box office success, Impressions of “A Patch of Blue” sold poorly and was promptly deleted. It was finally reissued on CD by Verve in 1999, but only in an extremely limited edition that quickly disappeared.

Walt Dickerson was a phenomenal vibraphonist, but he never got his due as an important and innovative musician. He was a graduate of Morgan State College (and, according to the original liner notes, the Peabody Conservatory), made several records for Prestige and Audio Fidelity in the early nineteen-sixties, winning Down Beat’s “New Star” award in 1962 and “Innovator of the Year” award in 1963. Dickerson radically broke away from the Lionel Hampton/Milt Jackson tradition by playing the vibraphone with small, rubber-tipped mallets, gripping them near the head and using the motor and damper with the utmost restraint, resulting in a dry, clear, almost staccato articulation even at swift tempos. Sadly, and perhaps due to its commercial failure, Impressions of “A Patch of Blue” was the last record Dickerson made before withdrawing into a decade-long exile from music, thereby ceding the mantle of Great Modern Vibraphonist to Bobby Hutcherson virtually by default. Dickerson resurfaced in 1975 and made a number of records for the Danish Steeplechase label, including a lovely duet recording with Sun Ra (Visions) in 1978. Sadly, Dickerson once again dropped from sight in the early nineteen-eighties and died, unjustly un-famous, in 2008.

Despite its apparent status as a (failed) cash-in attempt, Impressions of “A Patch of Blue” is a very fine album and well worth hearing – even beyond the novelty of Sun Ra’s presence. According to session bassist Bob Cunningham, any connection to Goldsmith’s actual score was tenuous at best: “I don’t think there was any music there to refer to. Or if there was, we didn’t necessarily follow it” (quoted in the CD liner notes). The resulting music has a loose, late-night feel, but this is not the kind of cheese-ball commercial pabulum you might expect in such a work-for-hire situation; there is some adventuresome musicianship on display within these mellow grooves. In fact, the musicians approached their work with a solemn dignity appropriate to the film’s subject. Francis Davis writes in the liner notes for the Verve CD:

Along with Dickerson’s genuine admiration for the movie, the philosophical
underpinning of Impressions of “A Patch of Blue” was provided by the lengthy
discussions about race and other matters he had with Sun Ra. “Our conversations
were not the norm,” Dickerson told me. “Sometimes it was a conversation without
periods or commas, and we would extend that into the musical realm, with no
musical composition as such. Music was part of our extended conversation.”

This conversational tone is part of the record’s relaxed, yet scintillating presence. On four of the eight tracks, Ra spins gossamer spiderwebs of notes on a tinkling harpsichord (of all things) while his piano playing is deftly virtuosic, with a particularly daring solo on “A Patch of Blue – Part 2.” Ra also lays down some tasty, bluesy funk on “Bacon and Eggs” and, sometimes, he plays piano and harpsichord simultaneously, creating a delicate, weirdly polyphonic texture. Dickerson himself displays his innovative technique at the bars, especially on the expansive “Alone in the Park – Parts 1 and 2” and his quadruple-time swinging on “Selina’s Fantasy” is truly astonishing, yet far from mere empty showboating. Cunningham and Blank make for a sensitive rhythm section, with Cunningham’s solid pizzicato and arco bass complementing Blank’s singularly impressionistic (rather than overtly propulsive) trap drums. Blank also plays some darkly Arkestral tympani on the spooky set-piece, “High Hopes.” Impressions of “A Patch of Blue” is not just an obscure historical document, of interest only to obsessive record collectors; it is a transcendently beautiful work of art in its own right, an overlooked gem.

Playlist 6-6-09

* J.S. Bach: 7 Harpsichord Concertos (AAM/Manze/Egarr) (Harmonia Mundi 2CD)
* J.S. Bach: Suites for Violoncello (Jaap ter Linden) (Harmonia Mundi 2CD)
* Reger: Clarinet Quintet, op.146 (Drolc-Quartett/Karl Leister) (DG – W. German LP)
* Messiaen: Quatour pour la Fin du Temps (Barenboim et al.) (DG – W. German LP)
* Sun Ra: Strange Celestial Road (Rounder CD)
* The Thirteenth Assembly: (un)sentimental (Important CD)
* Mary Halvorson Trio: WFMU, NYC 12/17/08 (MP3)
* Tortoise: It’s All Around You (Drag City LP)
* The Velvet Underground & Nico (Verve CD)
* George Harrison: Gone Troppo (Dark Horse/Capitol CD)
* Grateful Dead: The Spectrum, Philadelphia, PA 8/30/80 (SBD CDR)
* Jerry Garcia Band: Jerry Garcia Band (live 1990) (Arista/GD 2CD)
* Sly & the Family Stone: Life (Sundazed LP)
* Steely Dan: Katy Lied (ABC LP) (white-label promo!)
* Steely Dan: Countdown to Ecstasy (ABC LP)
* Fleetwood Mac: Rumours (Warner Bros. DVD-A)
* Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers: Echo (Warner Bros. 2LP)
* Guided By Voices: Do the Collapse (TVT LP)
* Cosmos: Jar of Jam, Ton of Bricks (HJRR LP)
* The Feelies: Crazy Rhythms (Stiff LP)
* Sonic Youth: Murray Street (Geffen LP)
* Sonic Youth: Rather Ripped (Goofin’ LP)
* Yo La Tengo: I Am Not Afraid of You and I Am Going to Beat Your Ass (Matador CD)
* Tool: Lateralus (Zoo CD)

Sun Ra Sunday

Sun Ra: Heliocentric Worlds Vol.3: The Lost Tapes (ESP-Disk’ 4002)

In 2005, ESP-Disk’ released Heliocentric Worlds Vol.3: The Lost Tapes, purported to be unreleased material recorded at the November 16, 1965 session that produced Heliocentric Worlds Vol.2. After some close listening, I am pretty certain this date is incorrect, although some of this material might have been recorded at the April 20th session for Heliocentric Worlds, Vol.1 (but then again, maybe not). Confusing? Yes! But these are the eternal mysteries of Mr. Ra! Nevertheless, the discovery of previously unheard music from the nineteen-sixties makes this CD essential listening for the Ra-fanatic.

“Intercosmosis” is another expansive, 18-minute conducted improvisation wherein Gilmore establishes a terse melodic cell that is subsequently passed around the Arkestra in small concertino groupings punctuated with acappella horn solos and cued “space chords.” Meanwhile, the rhythm section lays down a propulsive free-tempo groove that enters and exits on cue – but the percussion is mostly held in reserve so that the relentless motion is internalized and carried forward by the chamber-music-like instrumentation. Ra plays densely arpeggiated piano throughout and the piece climaxes with an extended alto saxophone duel between Marshall Allen and Danny Davis which gives way to an almost-pretty piano interlude, with Pat Patrick blowing beautiful, breathy baritone saxophone. The rest of the ensemble enters with an improvised coda before a conducted ending. Was this recorded on November 16th? Admittedly, the piece shares a conceptual similarity to “The Sun Myth,” but the unmistakable presence of Danny Davis is troubling since he is not audible on the other Heliocentric Worlds Vol.2 material. Also conspicuously absent is the Selmer Clavioline, whose electronic whine defined the sound of that album. Finally, the presence of subtle reverb effects suggests the presence of Tommy Hunter, which would require an earlier recording date. Some have speculated this track was recorded at one of the When Angels Speak of Love sessions and, further, that When Angels Speak of Love was recorded later than 1963 as posited by Prof. Campbell. Who knows? Regardless, it is classic long-form Ra material.

It is plausible that the remainder of the CD was recorded at the April 20th session, with Ra on bass marimba, piano, and electric celeste and the prominence of trombones and tympani. The fragmentary “Mythology Metamorphosis” opens with tumultuous trap drums and hand percussion to which Boykins adds some thrumming bass. Ra enters on the bass marimba while Marshall Allen plays sinuous oboe. The instruments drop out leaving Ra to rumble around on the bass marimba until Boykins enters with an insistent bass figure to which Allen replies with a brief oboe phrase. At the four-minute mark, clattering percussion re-enters just before the track cuts off. “Heliocentric Worlds” is a showcase for Ra’s orchestral piano and electric celeste playing with only bass, trap drums and booming tympani to provide intermittently dramatic accompaniment. “World Worlds” is an interesting ballad form, obviously rigorously composed (if somewhat raggedly performed). After a piano/celeste introduction with bowed bass pedal, thick blocks of dissonant chords blare forth from the full ensemble, rich with trombones, saxophones, flute, and trumpet. Over a gently swinging pulse, brief solo statements hew closely to the weirdly shifting chord changes until the big, held ensemble chords return with a brassy trumpet lead to end. After repeated listenings, this piece sounds vaguely familiar – was it ever recorded again under a different title?

The final track, “Interplanetary Travelers” is actually an alternate take of “Other Worlds” from Heliocentric Worlds Vol.1 which first appeared on the 1989 Blast First compilation, Out There a Minute. However, Prof. Campbell dates this to the April-May 1965 session that yielded side-2 of The Magic City, creating yet more discographical confusion. In any event, this track is a stunner, a full-throttled New Thing-style blowout with lots of two-fisted piano/celeste action, intensely wailing horns, and hard-driving drums. Is it possible that Heliocentric Worlds Vol.1, side-2 of The Magic City and tracks 2-5 of Heliocentric Worlds Vol.3 were all recorded at the same session on April 20, 1965? For that matter, is it possible that When Angels Speak of Love was also recorded during this time period? The stylistic resemblances are striking and, taken together, all of this music demonstrates how intently Ra was developing his composed improvisational approach in the mid-nineteen-sixties. Heliocentric Worlds Vol.3 adds another fascinating piece to the puzzle, yet ultimately raises more questions than it answers.

Playlist 5-30-09

* J.S. Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, Vol.1 (Richard Egarr) (Harmonia Mundi 2CD)
* Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment: Corn Exchange, Brighton, UK 3/4/09 (FM/CD-R)
* Ensemble Baroque de Limoges: Brussels Conservatory, Belgium 11/2/08 (FM/CD-R)
* Mendelssohn: Songs without Words (Lívia Rév) (Hyperion 2CD)
* Grant Green: Idle Moments (Blue Note CD)
* Grant Green: Street of Dreams (Blue Note CD)
* Bill Frisell: Good Dog, Happy Man (Nonesuch CD)
* David S. Ware Quartet: Shakti (AUM Fidelity CD)
* Anthony Braxton: Four Compositions (GTM) 2006 (Important 4CD)
* The Red Crayola: The Parable of Arable Land (Charly CD)
* Bob Dylan: Street Legal (Columbia SACD)
* Bob Dylan: Together Through Life (Columbia 2LP/CD)
* Emmylou Harris: All I Intended to Be (Nonesuch CD)
* Big Star: Radio City (Fantasy SACD)
* Fleetwood Mac: Tusk (Warner Bros. – Japan 2 LP)
* Robert Pollard: From a Compound Eye (Merge 2LP)
* Sonic Youth: Sonic Nurse (Geffen 2LP)
* Spiritualized: Songs in A&E (Sanctuary CD)
* Tool: Ænima (Zoo CD)

Joe Morris / Lowell Davidson

While we were in New York City last month, I went with a friend to see the Joe Morris Trio at The Stone on April 3rd. I had been aware of Morris since way back when I lived in Boston, but was always kind of lukewarm about him if only because he plays (mostly) electric guitar yet eschews all attendant electrical aspects: no distortion; no effects; no feedback, no reverb. And he seldom bends a string or plays more than one (cleanly articulated) note at a time. Now, I always especially liked his Singularity record on AUM Fidelity, since the solo acoustic guitar set did not raise any unrealistic expectations of how I think the instrument should sound. But I also understand that my own biases and expectations can often be an unnecessary impediment to my enjoyment of music that tweaks those biases and expectations. So, I really was excited to see him perform live. We sat in the front row, not three feet from Morris, where I could closely observe what he was doing. The trio, consisting of Morris on electric guitar (a Washburn semi-hollowbody through a small Fender amp), Steve Lantner on piano, and Luther Gray on drums, played three long improvisations in the generous, seventy-five minute set. I was immediately blown away by Morris’s ability to spin endlessly intricate lines across such vast expanses of time, and, watching him play, I came to appreciate the subtlety of his technique: the widely variable range between dampened and ringing strings is always expertly controlled and deeply expressive, even at the fastest tempos. And when he did choose to play more than one note at a time, the effect was thrilling, at times intensely cathartic – there was a long moment during the second piece where the room seemed to levitate. It was an enormously satisfying concert and I have since been listening to his records with new, welcoming ears.

They were selling CDs at the door so, before the concert, I picked up Anthony Braxton/Joe Morris: Four Improvisations (Duo) 2007 (Clean Feed CF 100) at a very reasonable price. I was already a committed Braxton fan and, besides, I thought maybe I could get Morris to sign it. After the set, and nearly awestruck, I nervously approached him with my request and he was actually most gracious about it. We chatted a bit and I told him I thought he had a unique way of playing the electric guitar. He replied that he was trying to play the guitar like a horn, “like Jimmy Lyons.” I thought that was a revealing comment and it resonated with my own sudden revelations. As for the Braxton/Morris box set, well, it’s over four hours of music and I have only listened to it all the way through twice. I can only say it is beautiful, very compelling music, downright lyrical at times. Having never played together prior to this recording, it is remarkable how attuned they are to each other and how fearless their epic improvisations. I usually prefer to hear Braxton playing his own compositions rather than just freely improvising, but, as Braxton himself points out in the liner notes: “even though [the music is] improvised, it has a very strong compositional dimension to it in the sense of movement through time and space and interaction dynamics between the two of us.” Indeed, the music never feels ad hoc or static, but consciously develops a deep-form structure over each of the hour-long improvisations. Morris is a perfect foil for Braxton’s excursions on the full range of saxophones, contrabass to sopranino, unfurling a variety of approaches from single-note counterpoint to almost-jazzy chordal accompaniment. OK, I’m sold. If Joe Morris can successfully go toe-to-toe with Mr. Braxton, then he truly is a master musician!

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The following day, my friend and I went to the world’s greatest record store (for us fans of weirdo avant-garde music anyway), Downtown Music Gallery. While spending a good long while combing the racks and chatting with Bruce and Mike, they put on a CD consisting of some squiggly acoustic guitar, achingly strained bowed bass, and…trombone?! It was totally gripping.

RGC: What is this?!
BLG: MVP – LSD – it just came out.
RGC: Wow! Joe Morris?! We just saw him last night and I wouldn’t have even recognized him! I gotta get this!

So, onto the growing pile of CDs it went. But it wasn’t until I returned home that I could really examine what I had: MVP – LSD: The Graphic Scores of Lowell Skinner Davidson (Riti CD10). MVP is Joe Morris on guitar, John Voigt on bass, and Tom Plsek on trombone. LSD is, of course, pianist/multi-instrumentalist/composer Lowell Skinner Davidson. The disc consists of ten compositions by Davidson (and one group improvisation) and it is every bit as wonderful as I remembered it. I am kind of ashamed to admit I had never heard of Lowell Davidson before now. Born in 1941, he was a Harvard-educated biochemist who jeopardized his post-graduate scholarship by traveling to New York to play piano with Ornette Coleman in the 1960s. He recorded one LP for ESP-Disk’ in 1965 (see below) but, shortly thereafter, was badly injured in a lab accident that radically curtailed his burgeoning music career. Davidson managed to remain semi-active on the fringes of the Boston music scene in the nineteen-seventies and eighties where Morris, Voigt, and Plsek worked with him until Davidson’s death in 1990.

According to Morris’s liner notes, Davidson drew on his background as a biochemist in his music: “He often declared that new sounds had the capacity to reformulate the biochemistry of the brain. He was sure that had to happen with music and that there was no point in playing music that didn’t reach for that result.” To facilitate this goal, Davidson relied (in part) on a self-conceived system of graphic notation. The compositions featured here were written on 3x5 notecards, with arbitrary staves “that veer off somewhere or fade off the card completely,” amorphous blobs of proportional noteheads, and swathes of richly evocative color. The seeming dichotomy between composition and improvisation is squarely addressed through the use of these graphic scores. Morris says: “They offer the player a specific guide toward randomness and imagination, a requirement that they be read as regular notation, but that the results find a balance between melodic line and pure sound.” The music is something more than mere free improvisation with each piece cohering into a cogent, unified whole that is no doubt the result of the musician’s focused concentration on an external stimulus – even if that stimulus is utterly abstract and deliberately non-specific. Each player explores a range of extended techniques from Morris’s plinking and scraping, Voigt’s sul ponticello bowing, and Plesk’s gurgling and buzzing mutes; but such extremes are balanced with more conventional instrumental approaches and a delicate, selfless approach to chamber-like ensemble dynamics. Listening to this hour-plus-long CD is a contemplative, prayerful, experience. Or, rather, this is music that may indeed alter the biochemistry of the brain as Davidson intended. Morris decribes Davidson’s too-short life as “a psychedelic-like search, pondering light and darkness, the constructs of the Universe, and a way of expressing them with music.” With this exquisite CD, MVP has realized Davidson’s most profound, evolutionary ambitions.

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Naturally intrigued by the MVP disc, I soon thereafter picked up Lowell Davidson’s sole commercially available recording at Nashville’s finest record store, Grimey’s. Lowell Davidson Trio (ESP-Disk’ 1012) was recorded on July 27, 1965 thanks to the efforts of Ornette Coleman, who somehow convinced Bernard Stollman to sign Davidson to the fledgling label without so much as an audition. Accompanying him on this date are ESP label-mates, Gary Peacock (bass) and Milford Graves (drums) to comprise a typical piano trio that is anything but typical. Unfortunately, the sound quality is dry, boxy, closed in and, at times, downright distorted, with Graves’s extended kit swamped by bloated, ill-defined bass frequencies. Even so, Davidson’s uniquely brilliant musical conception is plainly apparent. At times, his piano playing reminds me of Andrew Hill, with his smeared notes, short-breathed phrasing and a harmonic sensibility that balances "in" and "out," tonal and atonal, "free" and composed. But, unlike Hill, Davidson is already wholly emancipated from any kind of “jazz tradition” and his compositions explore color, timbre, and gesture in a way that is sui generis. Much of the music is loosely modal and balletic in its rhythmic conception: flitting, leaping, and pirouetting here, stomping and stamping there; single-note runs alternating with blocky, chordal tuttis; grand, tremulous statements alternating with scumbled, scampering figuration. In this way, his approach resembles Cecil Taylor’s, but, again, the music sounds nothing like Taylor and points to a “third way” that is unprecedented. Peacock and Graves provide supple, sensitive, but at times overly-aggressive accompaniment, although the rough sound quality drastically distorts the instrumental balance. Davidson apparently led a working trio with David Izenson on bass and Paul Motian on drums around this time and it would be interesting to hear their (undoubtedly more intimately familiar) interpretations of this material. Quibbles aside, one should be grateful that this lone document of Lowell Davidson’s genius survives and, as such, it is unreservedly recommended. According to the liner notes, ESP-Disk’ is negotiating the release of Davidson’s self-produced cassettes from the nineteen-seventies and eighties and one hopes that this will come to fruition. It would go a long way towards rectifying the sad neglect of this visionary artist.

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So, thank you, Mr. Morris – not only for your own superb musicianship – but also for exposing me to the music of Mr. Lowell Skinner Davidson!