Sam Rivers RIP

Steve Kuhn Trio - Three Waves

Predictable is not an adjective associated with the recordings of pianist Steve Kuhn. He is joined by bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Pete La Roca for this exciting studio session from the mid-1960s, both of whom he had worked with under Art Farmer, as well as on La Roca's smashing debut as a leader, Basra. With the exception of "Ida Lupino" and "Never Let Me Go," the music will likely be unfamiliar to most jazz fans, but adventurous souls are in for a treat. Kuhn's originals include the furious modal work "Bits and Pieces," which sounds as if it represents the center of a storm, as well as "Today I Am a Man," which suggests a well-known composition from the heyday of the bop era. "Why Did I Choose You" is played with a soft bossa nova accent, while Sergio Mihanovich's "Three Waves" is intense, with overlapping changes of rhythm. "Never Let Me Go," a favorite of singers, is understated and subtle, only hinting briefly at the melody. Originally issued on LP by the long-defunct Contact label, and briefly available as a Flying Dutchman reissue, BMG in Japan has since released a CD version. (AMG)

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Trojan Reggae Sister

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Ramsey Lewis: Sound Of Christmas

This is a pleasing, if rather brief (29 minutes) Christmas jazz album that was originally quite popular. Reissued on a 1982 LP, the set features the Ramsey Lewis Trio (consisting of the leader/pianist, bassist Eldee Young, and drummer Red Holt) on ten Christmas songs, five of which add a string section arranged by Riley Hampton. The renditions of such tunes as "Winter Wonderland," "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town," "Sleigh Ride," and Lewis' "Christmas Blues" are fun and melodic, if not all that unique. (AMG)

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Reggae X-Mas

Serge Gainsbourg: Histoire de Melody Nelson

Serge Gainsbourg had no great attachment to genre. By the time he came to rock music, in his early 40s, the French star had traced his oblique, provocative course through chanson (French vocal music), jazz, and light pop. He'd made percussive café jams about suicide and given Eurovision popstrels France Gall and Françoise Hardy songs full of blowjob puns. Later on he'd make a rock'n'roll album about the Nazis and a reggae take on the French national anthem. A pattern emerges: Gainsbourg hops from style to style, but with a terrific instinct for finding the most startling content for any given form.
So it's no surprise his rock work-- the early 1970s albums, of which Histoire de Melody Nelson is the first and finest-- was so original. Melody Nelson is a collaboration with composer and arranger Jean-Claude Vannier, who assembled a bunch of top sessionmen for the album. But Gainsbourg and Vannier had little interest in the conventions that had accreted around early 70s rock. Like a lot of 1971 records, Histoire de Melody Nelson is a concept album: Unlike most, it's only 28 minutes long. The songs are lavishly orchestrated, yet the dominant instrument isn't guitar or organ but rather Herbie Flowers' lascivious, treacly bass, playing a seedy, rambling take on funk.
That bass is the first sound you hear on Melody Nelson, quietly tracking up and down in a windscreen-wiper rhythm: Gainsbourg starts talking in French 30 seconds later, describing a night drive in a Rolls Royce Silver Ghost. The album is routinely described as "cinematic," but the music is more of a mindtrack than a soundtrack-- a tar pit of introspection when Gainsbourg's brooding narrator is alone at the record's beginning and end, then giddy and savage by turns as he conducts his affair with the 15-year-old Melody across the short tracks in the album's middle. One of these-- "Ballade de Melody Nelson"-- is, even at two minutes, one of Gainsbourg's most assured and alluring pop songs.
A lot of Gainsbourg's records are hard sells for Anglophone ears-- the music is there to illuminate and pace the man's riotous, sensual wordplay. But Gainsbourg's alliance with Vannier produced a true collaboration: The arrangements seem to respond almost intuitively to the twists in Gainsbourg's language and narrative, to the point where they're carrying as much storytelling weight as the words. Even if your French stops at "bonjour", the music lets you know that this is a record about a dark, obsessional love. On "L'hôtel Particulier", for instance-- describing the sleazy grandeur of the rented rooms where the narrator and Melody make love-- Gainsbourg's voice shudders with lust and dread, and the music responds, flares of piano and string breaking into the song over an impatient bassline.
The actual story of Histoire de Melody Nelson is pretty negligible in any case-- man meets girl, man seduces girl, girl dies in freak plane crash. Melody herself (played by Jane Birkin, Gainsbourg's then-lover) is a cipher-- a breathed name, a ticklish squeal or two, and red hair. The album is all about its narrator: A natural obsessive just looking for an object; introspective before he meets Melody, more so after her death. First and final tracks "Melody" and "Cargo Culte" are musical siblings, with only the wordless chorales on "Cargo Culte" really distinguishing them.
Together these songs take up more than half the record, and when people claim Melody Nelson as an influence, it's almost certainly with this pair in mind. The soundworld they create is like nothing else in rock-- orchestra, bass, and voice circling one another, blending slow funk, intimate mumbling, and widescreen scope. One precedent is the epic soul Isaac Hayes had been pioneering, but where Hot Buttered Soul is full of warmth and engagement, the bookend tracks of Melody Nelson are a trip through far more hostile territories, the black spaces of a man's interior.
Gainsbourg realized he'd made something special-- he named his publishing company Melody Nelson after his fictional muse-- but, restless as ever, he didn't follow it up: His next album was a sequence of pretty acoustic songs, mostly about shit. Herbie Flowers, whose bass is the undertow pulling the album together, surfaced a year later playing on Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side", whose bassline is the first ripple of Melody Nelson's wider pop culture influence. Since then it's been left to others-- Jarvis Cocker, Beck, Tricky, Air, Broadcast-- to pick up this record's breadcrumb trail. But Gainsbourg's dark focus, and Vannier's responsiveness, aren't easily equalled. This reissue on luxuriously hefty vinyl is the first time the album's been released in the U.S.-- a superb opportunity to hear a record that's been occasionally imitated but never matched. (Pitchfork)

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100% - 600% Dynamite

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You're Learning

Polish Funk 2

A heady second helping of funky grooves from Poland – an unlikely source, to be sure, but one that's filled with a huge amount of great tracks just waiting to be discovered by a global audience! This volume may well be even better than the first – as it features a wealth of tunes that have a really unique approach – not just attempts to copy American styles of funk, but some really original ways of approaching a groove! (Dusty Groove)

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Boracay Drift

Fela Kuti: Confusion

Fela Kuti's 1975 Confusion shows him and Africa 70 at the heights of instrumental prowess and ambiguous jibes (the stabs are about to get a bit more direct and heated with 1977's Zombie). "Confusion" begins with an unusual free jazz interplay between Fela on organ and drummer Tony Allen that has the presence of 2001: A Space Odyssey in its omnipresent drama. Then the group falls into a lengthily mid-tempo Afro funk that plays with a sureness that only comes from skilled musicians and a dictator-like leader; here is the formula that had made Fela a genius: Once he has the listener (or the crowd -- as all of his songs were originally meant to entertain and educate his audiences at the Shrine) entranced in his complex (and at the same time, deceptively simple) arrangements of danceable grooves, he hits them with what he wants to say. "Confusion" is a comment on the general condition of urban Nigeria (Lagos, in particular). Fela uses traffic jams, no fewer than three dialects, and a multitude of currencies that make trading difficult to complete the allusion to the general post-colonial confusion of a Nigeria lacking in infrastructure and proper leadership. Confusion is a highly recommended 25-minute Afro-beat epic.

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Pharoah Sanders: Oh Lord, Let Me Do No Wrong

Although Pharoah Sanders was originally considered a firebrand, thanks to his wild early free jazz work in the '60s, his later records are actually more in the tradition of players like his one-time leader John Coltrane and, especially, Rahsaan Roland Kirk. The title track from this 1987 session could have been on any of Kirk's Atlantic albums, a mixture of gospel sway and free jazz honk that builds into a hypnotic swoon under Leon Thomas' rich baritone vocals. (Thomas also appears on his own composition, the blues "If It Wasn't for a Woman," and the closing "Next Time You See Me.") On the extended, relaxed take of Coltrane's "Equinox," Sanders doesn't try to copy his former boss' phrasing, but there's certainly a Coltrane-like elegance to Sanders' lyrical solo. In fact, Sanders' playing on the standard "Polka Dots and Moonbeams," which also features a lovely Vince Guaraldi-like piano solo by William S. Henderson III, is downright pretty. Oh Lord, Let Me Do No Wrong is a mellow and peaceful set by a player who no longer needs to make noise; whether old-school fans will appreciate this is debatable. (AMG)


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Romano Mussolini: Mirage

Great album from Il Duce's son.


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Moondog (IvoryHunterComp)

1 Theme And Variations
2 Caribea
3 Frog Bog
4 Lament 1 'bird's Lament'
5 Down Is Up
6 Rabbit Hop
7 Why Spend The Dark Night With You
8 Snaketime Rhythm
9 Instrumental Round
10 All Is Loneliness
11 Oboe Round
12 Be A Hobo
13 Dog Trot
14 From One To Nine
15 Improvisation In 4/4
16 Enough About Human Rights!
17 Viking 1

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Paul Motian RIP

A Tribe Called Quest: The Low End Theory

While most of the players in the jazz-rap movement never quite escaped the pasted-on qualities of their vintage samples, with The Low End Theory, A Tribe Called Quest created one of the closest and most brilliant fusions of jazz atmosphere and hip-hop attitude ever recorded. The rapping by Q-Tip and Phife Dawg could be the smoothest of any rap record ever heard; the pair are so in tune with each other, they sound like flip sides of the same personality, fluidly trading off on rhymes, with the former earning his nickname (the Abstract) and Phife concerning himself with the more concrete issues of being young, gifted, and black. The trio also takes on the rap game with a pair of hard-hitting tracks: "Rap Promoter" and "Show Business," the latter a lyrical soundclash with Q-Tip and Phife plus Brand Nubian's Diamond D, Lord Jamar, and Sadat X. The woman problem gets investigated as well, on two realistic yet sensitive tracks, "Butter" and "The Infamous Date Rape." The productions behind these tracks aren't quite skeletal, but they're certainly not complex. Instead, Tribe weaves little more than a stand-up bass (sampled or, on one track, jazz luminary Ron Carter) and crisp, live-sounding drum programs with a few deftly placed samples or electric keyboards. It's a tribute to their unerring production sense that, with just those few tools, Tribe produced one of the best hip-hop albums in history, a record that sounds better with each listen. The Low End Theory is an unqualified success, the perfect marriage of intelligent, flowing raps to nuanced, groove-centered productions. (AMG)


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Ian & Sylvia

Paul Bley: Open,To Love

Despite the fact that pianist and composer Paul Bley had been a renowned and innovative jazzman for nearly 20 years, 1973 saw the release of his most mature and visionary work, and one that to this day remains his opus. This is one of the most influential solo piano recordings in jazz history, and certainly one that defined the sound of the German label ECM. Consisting of seven tracks, five of which were composed by Carla Bley (his ex-wife) and Annette Peacock (soon to be his ex-wife), and two originals, Bley showcased his newfound penchant for the spatial pointillism and use of silence that came to define his mature work. In Carla Bley's "Ida Lupino," the pianist took the song's harmonics and unwound them from their source, deepening the blues elements, brushing the Errol Garnerish ostinato with pastoral shades and textures of timbral elegance, and reaching the tonic chords in the middle register just as he forced the improvisation just barely into the abstract with his right hand, percussively slipping in one or two extra notes to highlight the deep lyricism in the tune's body. On his own "Started," Bley illustrates brazenly the deep influences of the Second Viennese School on his sense of harmony and counterpoint. Recalling Arnold Schöenberg's solo piano pieces in their engagement of dissonance and glissando placement, it's still Bley playing jazz and improvising, vamping on his own theme while turning melody and timbre back on themselves for the purpose of complete tonal engagement in the middle register. And in Annette Peacock's "Nothing Ever Was, Anyway," which closes the album, Bley makes full use of an element he employs throughout the recording: space and its ability to create the notion of consonance or dissonance from the simplest of melodies. Here notes appear, related, but just barely, to one another in a more or less linear sequence, and Bley stretches that connection to the breaking point by using his sense of spatial relationship in harmony to silence. He elongates the tonal sustain and allows it to bleed into his next line just enough, as if it were a ghostlike trace of another melody, a another distant lyric, attempting to impose itself on the present one, though it had just since ceased to exist. Ultimately, what Bley offers is jazz pianism as a new kind of aural poetics, one that treats the extension of the composer's line much as the poet treats the line as the extension of breath. Sheer brilliance. (AMG)

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Michael Garrick: Moonscape

Moonscape is the first trio offering by famed British pianist, organist, and composer Michael Garrick. Garrick, who has since worked with everyone from Joe Harriott to Neil Ardley to Ian Carr to Don Rendell, is also a man of letters and has conducted and participated in more than 2,300 concerts of jazz and poetry. This set is the true Holy Grail of modern British jazz, and thanks to famed collector and blogger Jonny Trunk of Trunk Records, is available (on both CD and vinyl) widely for the first time since it was released in an edition of 99 copies on 10" 33-rpm vinyl in 1964. This is not some flawed early attempt at being the leader of a trio -- Garrick was already one. Instead, it is a remarkable, diverse collection of six tunes (all original compositions) that pointed the way for the era of British jazzmen to come. One can hear in this set the beautifully experimental (yet playful and accessible) rhythmic pointillism that Paul Bley was messing about with around the same time in "A Face in the Crowd" (with some arco playing by bassist David Green), initially composed to accompany a poem by Jeremy Robson. The opening title track is a whispering inquiry into minor keys and the use of space. Colin Barnes' drumming is used not so much to keep a beat but to create spaces between phrases -- some of which are dissonant but not angular. But that's just the intro. What emerges is a scalar set of contingencies around three or four different shapes by Garrick. This is early vanguard Brit jazz but it swings, too. And speaking of swing, these cats got to show what they were about in the blistering bop of "Music for Shattering Supermarkets." Easily the most lyrical track here is the ballad "Sketches of Israel." It commences with a subtle shimmering theme and chord pattern that increases and decreases dynamically, with some startling punched-up crescendo work and a fine bass solo by Green. The hard bop of "Man, Have You Heard" is rooted deeply in early English folk music and the blues with a set of harmonics worthy of Brubeck's best work. And this one, too, swings like mad. Finally, "Take-Off" returns to the notion of explorations of texture, tension, and space. Just under three minutes in length, it walks the line of free jazz without ever stepping quite onto it. Rhythmically organized around three seemingly simple chord patterns, the rhythm section offers real force, which Garrick engages by breaking his figures down and alternating them while building them again. This is an extraordinary and visionary piece of work that deserves its status, with only one complaint: the playing format of the 10" LP only afforded less than half an hour's playing time. This little slab comes in at 22 and a half minutes, which leaves the listener who encounters this for the first time breathless and wanting more. It also stands up to repeated spins as an essential piece of work. Great thanks to Garrick and Trunk. (AMG)

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Helen Merrill

Steve Kuhn: Trance

Trance, Steve Kuhn's second recording for ECM, was actually recorded a mere ten days after Ecstasy, his solo piano debut for the label. Trance features Kuhn playing both electric and acoustic piano, bassist Steve Swallow, drummer Jack DeJohnette, and percussionist Sue Evans. Two of the album's compositions, "Silver" and "Life's Backward Glance," are re-recordings of tunes appearing on Ecstasy. Adventurous and wide open, Trance is a mixed bag full of knots, twists, and turns. While firmly in the jazz idiom, Kuhn also draws on classical sources (check his solo in "Squirt"), drawing on Luciano Berio and Olivier Messiaen as well as Cecil Taylor. Performed on electric piano, "Silver" is a chugging, repetitive riff with a Latin rhythm, and Kuhn swings it like mad as Swallow's bass pops and spits along the melodic line as well as the rhythmic undertone. This is jazz that touches on fusion, modal, and the new spirit of the music as ECM came into the 1970s as a player. There is restlessness and calm, tempestuousness and serenity, conflict and resolution, and -- above all -- creativity and vision. (AMG)

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Tropicália: ou Panis et Circencis

This is the compilation that helped to define the sound of Tropicalia, whose artists made huge and influential strides in creating exotic pop that was as influenced by psychedelia as it was by samba, bossa nova, and more traditional South American genres. Tropicália not only includes tracks from the label's most important acts (Gilberto Gil, Os Mutantes, Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa), but presents a large number of collaborations between these artists, many of which are simply amazing. Given the fact that many of the original Tropicalia releases have not been reissued or are not widely available, the compilation stands as a near-definitive package for the sound, and a great opportunity for anyone unfamiliar with the artists to experience an amazing and hugely important genre. (AMG)

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Miles Davis: Doo-Bop

Underrated Miles album. Not that different from Jazzmatazz.

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Ann Peebles: I Can't Stand The Rain

This wonderful album, originally released in 1974 on the Memphis-based Hi Records label, deserved a wider audience than it ended up getting at the time. It played to Ann Peebles' great strength, her poised and sultry voice, and surrounded by the sparse, easy funkiness of the trademark Hi rhythm section and producer Willie Mitchell's perfect use of horns and strings, she sings like a resilient but disappointed angel on this impressive set of songs about the darker side of love. Her best song is here, the eccentric but brilliant "I Can't Stand the Rain," along with a marvelous version of Joe Simon's "(You Keep Me) Hangin' On," and perfect readings of a pair of Earl Randle songs, "If We Can't Trust Each Other" and "I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down." Peebles sings her heart out, and with those somehow bright-sounding Hi grooves behind her, it all comes together to make a classic album of dark, bouncy, and beautiful Southern soul. (AMG)

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Milt Jackson: Sunflower

Recorded over two days in December of 1972 at Rudy Van Gelder's Englewood, New Jersey home studio, vibraphonist Milt Jackson's Sunflower is the first -- and best -- of his three albums for Creed Taylor's CTI imprint. (And one of the finest offerings on the label.) With a core band consisting of Herbie Hancock (playing electric and acoustic piano), bassist Ron Carter, drummer Billy Cobham, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, drummer/percussionist Ralph McDonald, and guitarist Jay Berliner. A chamber orchestra exquisitely arranged and conducted by Don Sebesky adorns the session as well. Jackson's "For Someone I Love," opens the five-tune set, with Berliner playing solo flamenco guitar before the vibes, trumpet, and elements from the chamber orchestra delicately, impressionistically color the background. It gradually moves into a languid, bluesy ballad that slowly gains in both texture and dynamic until the strings trill tensely. Hubbard and Hancock engage them in solos that gently swing out the tune. The reading of Michel Legrand's "What Are You Doing for the Rest of Your Life" is a gorgeous showcase for Jackson; his solo dominates the arrangement. Carter gets downright funky on his upright to introduce Thom Bell's "People Make the World Go Round," and Hancock follows him on Rhodes. Jackson takes the melody, striking a layered contrast as Hubbard slips around all three playing an extension of the melody with requisite taste, fluidity, and taut phrasing. Hancock gets funky to the bone in his brief solo, as the vibes soar around and through his phrases. The title track is a Hubbard composition that floats and hovers with a Latin backbeat before shifting tempos as the solos begin. The expanded harmonic palette of trumpet with the reeds, woodwinds, and strings on the melody add an exotic textural palette for his solo. Jackson's "SKJ" closes the set with an old-school, swinging hard bop blues with barely detectable embellishments by Sebesky. While Sunflower sometimes feels more like a group session rather than a Jackson-led one, that's part of its exquisite beauty. (AMG)

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Lou Donaldson: Blowing In The Wind

Blowing in the Wind is perhaps the most curious and oddly compelling of the dates Lou Donaldson cut for Cadet during his mid-'60s exile from the Blue Note stable -- a mish-mash of contemporary pop hits, stage favorites, and standards all packaged in a bizarrely Picasso-like cover, the record's inconsistencies and contradictions make for an experience that's unique even in the context of Donaldson's erratic and eclectic oeuvre. The rollicking and buoyant reading of the Bob Dylan perennial which lends the set its title is completely wide of the mark -- Donaldson's arrangement is so upbeat and feather light, it's as if he never even glanced at the song's original lyrics, yet at the same time the groove is genuinely funky, and it's arguably the record's most truly soulful moment. A close second is the Donaldson original "The Wheeler-Dealer," which benefits from Sam Jones' "Duke of Earl"-inspired bass and its composer's blistering alto leads; although an ill-conceived rendition of "Hello Dolly" is forced and insipid, the group redeems itself with the lovely "Relaxin' in Blue," a 12-bar blues notable for the grace and restraint of its solos. (AMG)

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Sun Ra—Brother From Another Planet

Machine Gun

Forest Flower: Charles Lloyd At Monterey

When Charles Lloyd brought his new band to Monterey in 1966, a band that included Keith Jarrett on piano, Jack DeJohnette on drums, and the inimitable -- though young -- Cecil McBee on bass, no one knew what to expect. But they all left floored and this LP is the document of that set. It is difficult to believe that, with players so young (and having been together under a year), Lloyd was able to muster a progressive jazz that was so far-reaching and so undeniably sophisticated, yet so rich and accessible. For starters, the opening two title tracks, which form a kind of suite (one is "Forest Flower-Sunrise," the other "Sunset"), showcased the already fully developed imagination of Jarrett as a pianist. His interplay with DeJohnette -- which has continued into the 21st century in a trio with Gary Peacock -- is remarkable: whispering arpeggios surrounded by large chords that plank up the drumming as DeJohnette crosses hands and cuts the time in order to fluctuate the time. Lloyd's own solos are demonstrative of his massive melodic gift: his improvisation skirted the edges of what was happening with Coltrane (as everyone's did), but his own sense of the deep wellspring of song and the cross-pollination of various world musics that were happening at the time kept him busy and lyrical. Elsewhere, on Jarrett's own "Sorcery," his linking front-line harmonics with Lloyd is stellar -- this isn't communication, it's telepathy! Jarrett's angular solo is buoyed up by Lloyd's gorgeous ostinato phrasing. By the time the band reaches its final number, a sky-scorching version of Brooks Bowman's "East of the Sun," they have touched upon virtually the entire history of jazz and still pushed it forward with seamless aplomb. Forest Flower is a great live record. (AMG)

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The Temptations Sing Smokey

This was only the group's second LP, and it was an extremely strong one, built around two monster hits ("My Girl" and the previously recorded "The Way You Do the Things You Do") and one close runner-up ("It's Growing"), plus a brace of some of the best songs in the Motown catalog, including renditions of "You Beat Me to the Punch," "What's So Good About Goodbye?," "You've Really Got a Hold on Me," and "Way Over There." All are done in a style unique to the Temptations, with arrangements that are distinctly different from the familiar versions by other Motown acts, and all are worthwhile. (AMG)

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Ros Sereysothea

Ream Daranoi

Shin Jung Hyun

Lyn Collins: Think (About It)

At the time of the release of Think (About It) in 1972, Lyn Collins had been a member of James Brown's performing revue for about two years. Her full-throated voice had earned her the nickname "the Female Preacher" and a shot to record her own album. Of course, the Godfather was in the producer's chair, writing four of the nine tracks, directing the J.B.'s as they laid down their usual funky grooves, and liberally adding vocals throughout. The title track is the main point of interest here; from Collins' throat-ripping vocals to the track's nasty groove to Brown's background interjections, this is a killer. (Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock later sampled the track for their rap classic "It Takes Two"). The rest of the record is a little uneven: "Just Won't Do Right" is a good doo wop-ish ballad with some churchy organ and great vocals by Collins and Brown, "Wheels of Life" is a nice little groover that sounds like vintage Aretha Franklin, and "Women's Lib" is a very slow ballad that lets Collins show off her anguished yowl of a vocal to its fullest. Where the album stumbles is on the covers of familiar songs. Her versions of Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine" and the Gamble & Huff classic "Never Gonna Give You Up" are mediocre, and worst of all is her leaden take on "Fly Me to the Moon." Still, the record is worth tracking down for hardcore James Brown or funky soul fans. The less devoted should look for "Think (About It)" on one of the many compilations on which it appears. (AMG)

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Sam Rivers: Contours

On Contours, his second Blue Note album, tenor saxophonist Sam Rivers fully embraced the avant-garde, but presented his music in a way that wouldn't be upsetting or confusing to hard bop loyalists. Rivers leads a quintet featuring trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Joe Chambers through a set of originals that walk a fine line between probing, contemplative post-bop and densely dissonant avant-jazz. Each musician is able to play the extremes equally well while remaining sensitive to the compositional subtleties. Rarely is Contours anything less than enthralling, and it remains one of the high watermarks of the mid-'60s avant-garde movement. (AMG)

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Bajka

Star Borne - A Collection Of Black Fusion From CTI & Kudu

A great little dip into the CTI and Kudu catalogs of the 70s - put together by Kyoto Jazz Massive, and featuring some of the hippest funky tracks from both labels! The "Star Borne" title here is very apt - as the grooves are often spacey and cosmic - stretching out with plenty of keyboards amidst the funkier drums, and usually produced with a flanged-out way that electrifies the best elements even further! All tracks are long and soulful - and while the collection's not the most all-encompassing CTI set you'll ever buy, it may well be one of the hippest! (Dusty Groove)

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Debbie & Kermit

Big Apple Rappin' - The Early Days Of Hip Hop Culture In New York City 1979 To 1982

I can make no claims to be any kind of expert when it comes to hip-hop. Growing up in rural Arizona, it just wasn’t something I was exposed to outside of the occasional Salt-N- Pepa or LL Cool J video on MTV, unless you count the one kid at my Catholic elementary school who always wore a Malcolm X hat and talked a blue streak about NWA and Public Enemy. Much later on I would find out about Gang Starr and the Wu-Tang Clan and plenty of other things, but I was never really educated about hip-hop in the same way that I imagine people must be when they grow up closer to big cities like New York or Boston or Chicago.

From my vantage point, a release like Big Apple Rappin’ is an invaluable history lesson. The 16 tracks – plus 64 pages of photographs, liner notes and interviews – examine the birth of hip-hop in New York City during a four-year flurry of activity in the late ’70s and early ’80s. Needless to say, this isn’t just another old school compilation with the predictable Kurtis Blow, Grandmaster Flash and Sugar Hill Gang classics. You know you can expect more from a Soul Jazz release, and they really deliver with this one. The compilation doesn’t come from left field in quite the same way as New Star’s Original Style disc or Stones Throw’s similar Third Unheard anthology of hip hop from Connecticut, but there are definitely a ton of songs on here that most people probably haven’t heard before. Aside from a couple of big names like Spoonie Gee and the Cold Crush Brothers, most of the featured artists are pretty obscure: T Ski Valley, Masterdon Committee, The Fly Guys et cetera.

You can really hear the influence of disco on some of these recordings, starting on the very first track with Peter Brown and Patrick Adams’ production for the classic “Spoonin’ Rap.” Another song apes the backing track from Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” and Brother D & The Collective Effort’s ultra-political “How We Gonna Make The Black Nation Rise” is based around a loop of “Got To Be Real” by Cheryl Lynn. Reggae production techniques are all over the place too. “Rapping Dub Style” by General Echo is the most obvious example of this, but there are also some amazing echo effects on “Rock The Beat” by the Jamaica Girls. And Xanadu’s “Sure Shot” has the mighty Joe Gibbs himself behind the board!

Disregarding the aforementioned academic value of this double album, Big Apple Rappin’ is a hell of a lot of fun to listen to from start to finish. And that’s what’s most important, isn’t it? Whether you’re looking for some historical perspective on the emergence of hip hop or just looking to have a good time, there’s a lot to love about this release. (Rob Hatch-Miller)

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Merle Haggard: Mama Tried

Mama Tried is a typically fine late-'60s LP from Merle Haggard, comprised of a number of strong originals and several excellent covers. While "Mama Tried" stands out among Haggard's original material, "I'll Always Know" and "You'll Never Love Me Now" are both solid songs. Still, those two tracks pale next to the best covers on the record. Merle delivers "Little Ole Wine Drinker Me," "In the Good Old Days (When Times Were Bad)," "Teach Me to Forget," "Run 'Em Off" and "Too Many Bridges to Cross Over" with grit and an open, affecting honesty that makes Mama Tried one of Hag's best records.

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Kate & Anna McGarrigle

Debut albums simply aren't supposed to be as accomplished and beautifully crafted as Kate & Anna McGarrigle's first record, which is as lovely and superbly realized as folk-rock gets. While producers Joe Boyd and Greg Prestopino assembled an all-star crew to back up the McGarrigle sisters (including Lowell George, Tony Levin, Steve Gadd, and Bobby Keys), nothing steals the spotlight away from Kate and Anna, both of whom sing with a pure clarity that's never so pretty it fails to reflect the real world, harmonize with an uncanny grace, and write songs that are clever, witty, wise, and often deeply moving. Lots of folkies have written movingly about the troubling ties of home (as in "My Town" and "Talk to Me of Mendocino"), a good number have sung about the ache of a broken heart (like in "Heart Like a Wheel," famously covered by Linda Ronstadt), some can communicate bitter resignation or sly, sarcastic wit ("Go Leave" and "Jigsaw Puzzle of Life"), and no more than a few can express the joys of grown-up eros ("Kiss and Say Goodbye"). Kate & Anna McGarrigle is a record that manages to make all these emotions ring true, and never with one canceling out another. Quite simply a nearly perfect record, and if you're not a fan, repeated listenings to this album might make you one. (AMG)

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Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star

While Puff Daddy and his followers continued to dictate the direction hip-hop would take into the millennium, Mos Def and Talib Kweli surfaced from the underground to pull the sounds in the opposite direction. Their 13 rhyme fests on this superior, self-titled debut as Black Star show that old-school rap still sounds surprisingly fresh in the sea of overblown vanity productions. There's no slack evident in the tight wordplays of Def and Kweli as they twist and turn through sparse, jazz-rooted rhythms calling out for awareness and freedom of the mind. Their viewpoints stem directly from the teachings of Marcus Garvey, the legendary activist who fought for the rights of blacks all around the world in the first half of the 20th century. Def and Kweli's ideals are sure lofty; not only are they out to preach Garvey's words, but they also hope to purge rap music of its negativity and violence. For the most part, it works. Their wisdom-first philosophy hits hard when played off their lyrical intensity, a bass-first production, and stellar scratching. While these MCs don't have all of the vocal pizzazz of A Tribe Called Quest's Phife and Q-Tip at their best, flawless tracks like the cool bop of "K.O.S. (Determination)" and "Definition" hint that Black Star is only the first of many brilliantly executed positive statements for these two street poets. (AMG)

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An England Story

When it comes to any form of pop that involves an MC, it’s hard not to think in terms of geography. Pit bosses, rappers and party-movers love to shout out to their neighborhoods and cities because their represented denizens usually have their backs. But aside from touting area codes and flashing hand signs, MC’ing is, in itself, a geographic-specific art form. We make finely grained distinctions between styles – for instance, we distinguish Southern from Northern hip hop and then, within the former category, distinguish the styles of Texas, Louisiana and Georgia from each other. But the overarching assumption, at least in this country, tends to be that MC’ing is a singularly American form. Namely, it is rhyming to a beat, just as it used to be in the South Bronx more than three decades ago.

Soul Jazz’s An England Story, which impressively chronicles the last 25 years of the MC in the U.K., puts this American-centric view to the test. And, in the catalogue’s double-disc thoroughness, Stateside hubris suffers a serious blow. Indeed, the most striking part of An England Story is its revelation that America, where rap was coined and given currency, has had such minimal influence on U.K. MCs. In the States’ absence is an enormous indebtedness to that other former British colony across the Atlantic: Jamaica.

The entirety of An England Story is tinged, if not dyed in the wool, by Caribbean hues. This is true of even the segments of grime featured here. Grime, to many East Coast listeners, had always seemed to be the U.K. take on American hip-hop, a British subgenre that expatriated itself from Jamaica, Queens rather than from Kingston proper. But An England Story suggests otherwise. Gervase de Wilde and Gabriel Myddelton, who perform as the DJ outfit Heatwave and compiled this collection as well as wrote the informative liner notes, do a fine job situating grime, U.K. hip hop, and other variants as descendents of dub’s aqueous bass and dancehall’s scatted patois.

The arrangement of the material on this compilation helps expose the commonality between U.K. MCs. De Wilde and Myddelton choose not to segregate the songs by chronology or genre, but instead let them all abut each other from track to track. If the underlying order of the songs is not obvious, the cumulative effect is clear: England’s rappers do not need their American counterparts; their Caribbean heritage is enough. This is felt most strongly towards the end of An England Story’s first disc, in the trio of Riko’s “Ice Rink Vocal,” Jakes & TC’s “Deep” and Jah and Screechy’s “Walk and Skank.” The tracks evidence a multiplicity of British approaches to MC’ing – grime, garage and reggae, respectively – each of which, though borrowing from the Caribbean, are distinctly British. (“Deep” may be the most firmly British of the three; MC Jakes’ voice bears a striking resemblance to actor Alan Rickman.) As if to drive the point of British sufficiency home, de Wilde and Myddelton include London Posse’s “Money Mad,” which improves the Boogie Down Production kick drum formula, a hallmark of American hip hop. Navigator and Freestylers’ “Ruffneck” achieves a similar result with their take on Marley Marl and Pete Rock’s James Brown lifting. Neither song falls in the trap of Brits aping American originals.

An England Story is ultimately a worthy contribution for the simple reason that it exposes the Caribbean roots permeating contemporary Black English music – even in those styles that appear to hail clearly from African-American sources. More powerfully, it is proof that MC’ing need not be understood narrowly as an exclusively or dominantly American phenomemon. But enough theory. Whatever critical or historical position An England Story takes, it will remain a sweet mix of galvanizing British music that is often hard to find and navigate in the United States. There are few, if any, duds on the two discs; most of the material delivers convincingly. And as the weather warms here, finally, on the East Coast, An England Story’s reggae-themed material arrives right on time. (Ben Yaster)

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Horace Andy: Skylarking

Debut album from the legendary Horace Andy.

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Eden Ahbez: Eden's Island

Eden Ahbez was best known for writing "Nature Boy" - a big hit for Nat "King" Cole. This album, however, should be viewed as an instrumental album (a Martin Denny style cross between islandesque and jazz music - featuring jazz great Paul Moer!) with a sort of beat poetry accompanying it. (Bob Keane of Del-Fi Records described Ahbez's lyrics as a cross between Kahil Gibran and Rod McKuen.) In any event, the lyrics and the music work together to create a very ethereal sound that is absolutely haunting - in a positive way! (Amazon)

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Trojan Reggae Sisters

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Chick Corea: Now He Sings, Now He Sobs

This adventurous yet lyrical trio LP was Chick Corea's career breakthrough album, establishing him as a significant pianist and composer. Over three days in March 1968, Corea recorded with Miroslav Vitous and Haynes (they have since reunited many times over past 34 years) and produced a total of 13 great performances only five of which were used on the original albums. The material ranged from soon-to-be Corea classics like "Matrix" and "Windows" to extended improvised pieces like the title tune to creative interpretations of Monk's "Pannonica" and "My One And Only Love".
Newly remixed and remastered in 24-bit, this milestone session is complete on this CD and sounds better than ever. (Amazon)

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Charlie Haden: Liberation Music Orchestra

A fascinating reissue that comfortably straddles the lines of jazz, folk, and world music, working up a storm by way of a jazz protest album that points toward the Spanish Civil War in particular and the Vietnam War in passing. Haden leads the charge and contributes material, but the real star here may in fact be Carla Bley, who arranged numbers, wrote several, and contributed typically brilliant piano work. Also of particular note in a particularly talented crew is guitarist Sam Brown, the standout of "El Quinto Regimiento/Los Cuatro Generales/Viva la Quince Brigada," a 21-minute marathon. Reissue producer Michael Cuscuna has done his best with the mastering here, but listeners will note a roughness to the sound -- one that is in keeping with the album's tone and attitude. (AMG)

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Jef Gilson: Œil vision

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Jojje

Eric Dolphy: Out To Lunch!

Out to Lunch stands as Eric Dolphy's magnum opus, an absolute pinnacle of avant-garde jazz in any form or era. Its rhythmic complexity was perhaps unrivaled since Dave Brubeck's Time Out, and its five Dolphy originals -- the jarring Monk tribute "Hat and Beard," the aptly titled "Something Sweet, Something Tender," the weirdly jaunty flute showcase "Gazzelloni," the militaristic title track, the drunken lurch of "Straight Up and Down" -- were a perfect balance of structured frameworks, carefully calibrated timbres, and generous individual freedom. Much has been written about Dolphy's odd time signatures, wide-interval leaps, and flirtations with atonality. And those preoccupations reach their peak on Out to Lunch, which is less rooted in bop tradition than anything Dolphy had ever done. But that sort of analytical description simply doesn't do justice to the utterly alien effect of the album's jagged soundscapes. Dolphy uses those pet devices for their evocative power and unnerving hints of dementia, not some abstract intellectual exercise. His solos and themes aren't just angular and dissonant -- they're hugely so, with a definite playfulness that becomes more apparent with every listen. The whole ensemble -- trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, vibist Bobby Hutcherson, bassist Richard Davis, and drummer Tony Williams -- takes full advantage of the freedom Dolphy offers, but special mention has to be made of Hutcherson, who has fully perfected his pianoless accompaniment technique. His creepy, floating chords and quick stabs of dissonance anchor the album's texture, and he punctuates the soloists' lines at the least expected times, suggesting completely different pulses. Meanwhile, Dolphy's stuttering vocal-like effects and oddly placed pauses often make his bass clarinet lines sound like they're tripping over themselves. Just as the title Out to Lunch suggests, this is music that sounds like nothing so much as a mad gleam in its creator's eyes. (AMG)

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Los Tiempos Van Cambiando

Jan Johansson: Jazz på svenska

Jazz på svenska ("Jazz in Swedish") is an album by the Swedish jazz pianist Jan Johansson. It was issued in 1964 and consists of jazz arrangements of Swedish folk songs. All arrangements are very sparse, consisting only of Johansson's piano play and Georg Riedel's bass. It is one of the best selling jazz albums in Swedish history and many of the tracks are famous within Sweden, especially the lead track "Visa från Utanmyra". (Wikipedia)

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Roy Ayers: Coffy

A blaxploitation masterpiece on par with Curtis Mayfield's Superfly and Isaac Hayes' Shaft, Roy Ayers' soundtrack for the 1973 Pam Grier vehicle Coffy remains one of the most intriguing and evocative film scores of its era or any other. Ayers' signature vibes create atmospheres and textures quite distinct from your average blaxploitation effort, embracing both heavy, tripped-out funk ("Brawling Broads") and vividly nuanced soul-jazz ("Aragon"). The vocal numbers are no less impressive, in particular the rapturous opening cut, "Coffy Is the Color." Richly cinematic grooves, as inventive and cohesive as any of Ayers' vintage Ubiquity LPs. Highly recommended. (AMG)

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Back In The Crowd

Steve Young: No Place To Fall

Issued in 1978, No Place to Fall is, regrettably, the second and last album for RCA. Like its predecessor, Renegade Picker, Young's ever-evolving music is centered in the heart of outlaw country this time out, though there are, as usual, interesting twists and turns. The band is stellar, with Buddy Emmons and Buddy Spicher, Tracy Nelson, Jerry Shook, Dale Sellers, and a bunch of guitar pickers, as well as drummer Kenny Malone, among others. The material is noteworthy on many levels, not the least of which is Young's decision to record, for the third time, "Montgomery in the Rain" and "Seven Bridges Road." Once more, he reinvents both songs, fills them out, adds different textures and stresses, and as a result, in the grain of his voice the meanings widen and deepen. The title track was written by the late Townes Van Zandt, and Young's read is damn near definitive, with layers of guitars haunting the middle of the tune and his own voice carrying the lonely edge of Van Zandt's lyric into oblivion. In addition, Young delves deep into Okie blues with a barbed-wire-and-whiskey cover of J.J. Cale's "Same Old Blues," with stunning slide guitar work. But it is in the cover of Mentor Williams' composition "Drift Away" -- the multi-million-seller recorded by Dobie Gray -- that Young offers his greatest surprise. This is a soul song, performed by a soul singer originally, and here Young, while keeping the song's intent essentially the same, transforms it into a country prayer. The same can be said for his loose cover of Dylan's "Don't Think Twice It's Alright"; Young reworks the melody slightly while emphasizing different parts of the lyric as the band fills in the cracks to bring an entirely new light to the song. No Place to Fall failed ultimately to sell, but it did a great deal to bolster his confidence as both a bandleader and as a producer. Young is a survivor, albeit on the fringes; he is one of the few whose records are so consistent as to be essential listening for anyone interested in late 20th century country music and rock & roll. (AMG)

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You're The Top

Fairport Convention: Liege & Lief

In the decades since its original release, more than one writer has declared Fairport Convention's Liege & Lief the definitive British folk-rock album, a distinction it holds at least in part because it grants equal importance to all three parts of that formula. While Fairport had begun dipping their toes into British traditional folk with their stellar version of "A Sailor's Life" on Unhalfbricking, Liege & Lief found them diving head first into the possibilities of England's musical past, with Ashley Hutchings digging through the archives at the Cecil Sharp House in search of musical treasure, and the musicians (in particular vocalist Sandy Denny) eagerly embracing the dark mysteries of this music. (Only two of the album's eight songs were group originals, though "Crazy Man Michael" and "Come All Ye" hardly stand out from their antique counterparts.) Liege & Lief was also recorded after a tour bus crash claimed the lives of original Fairport drummer Martin Lamble and Richard Thompson's girlfriend; as the members of the group worked to shake off the tragedy (and break in new drummer Dave Mattacks and full-time fiddler Dave Swarbrick), they became a stronger and more adventurous unit, less interested in the neo-Jefferson Airplane direction of their earlier work and firmly committed to fusing time-worn folk with electric instruments while honoring both. And while Liege & Lief was the most purely folk-oriented Fairport Convention album to date, it also rocked hard in a thoroughly original and uncompromising way; the "Lark in the Morning" medley swings unrelentingly, the group's crashing dynamics wring every last ounce of drama from "Tam Lin" and "Matty Groves," and Thompson and Swarbrick's soloing is dazzling throughout. Liege & Lief introduced a large new audience to the beauty of British folk, but Fairport Convention's interpretations spoke of the present as much as the past, and the result was timeless music in the best sense of the term. (AMG)

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Mahavishnu Orchestra: Birds Of Fire

A great second album from Mahavishnu Orchestra – one that has them still very might in the same tight formation as the first! As before, there's a heck of a lot of power here – monstrous work on drums from Billy Cobham, sharp-edged guitar from John McLaughlin, and a range of great keyboards from Jan Hammer – all played without the cliche of his later years! The group's completed by the surprisingly great electric violin of Jerry Goodman and the bass of Rick Laird – and the tunes nicely blend a few more contemplative moments with full-on, rock-inspired fusion jamming. (Dusty Groove)

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This Is Lovers Rock

As the lovers rock sound began to emerge out of London in the mid-'70s, the city's longstanding reggae label Greensleeves got wise and set up the Cool Rockers imprint to separate the sweet and the dreamy from the revolutionary music they usually traded in. The liner notes in their 2007 compilation This Is Lovers Rock are brief, informative, and surprisingly defensive about this move and the music. One listen to One Blood's slick and thin "Get in Touch (With Me)" or any number of the sugary tracks included here and it's easy to see this isn't the respected Gregory Isaacs or even Dennis Brown definition of lovers rock. This is soulful reggae that aims for polish no matter what the budget, with love being communicated through tenderness and delicate crooning. The title to key track "I'm in Love with a Dreadlocks" is the compilation's most dangerous moment, although that doesn't mean there isn't room for sass, like when Sister Love gets rid of a lover with "Goodbye Little Man." The breezy "Let's Dub It Up" from Junior Murvin sound-alike Dee Sharp is wonderful, and with Keith Douglas' "I Specialize in Good Girls" plus Sandra Cross covering the Mighty Diamonds' "Country Living," the set proves it knows its way around the lesser hits. Without Louisa Marks' "Caught You in a Lie," Janet Kay's "Silly Games," or all the Jamaican spawned tracks that followed in the U.K.'s footsteps, This Is Lovers Rock is hardly the definitive collection the title may imply, and as the liner notes point out, this gentle set won't sway the roots men or rude boys. Still, the sound quality is impressive, there are some desirable extended mixes, and enough prime material from reggae's underappreciated, softer side to warrant a recommendation. (AMG)

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Best Of Steely Dan (according to me)

01. Babylon Sisters
02. Dirty Work
03. Bodhisattva
04. Rikki Don't Lose That Number
05. Kid Charlemagne
06. Aja
07. Hey Nineteen
08. My Old School
09. The Boston Rag
10. Doctor Wu
11. East St. Louis Toodle-oo
12. Brooklyn (Owes the Charmer Under Me)
13.  Any Major Dude Will Tell You
14. Josie
15. Third World Man

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Anthology Of American Folk Music

Originally released in 1952 as a quasi-legal set of three double LPs and reissued several times since (with varying cover art), Anthology of American Folk Music could well be the most influential document of the '50s folk revival. Many of the recordings that appeared on it had languished in obscurity for 20 years, and it proved a revelation to a new group of folkies, from Pete Seeger to John Fahey to Bob Dylan. The man that made the Anthology possible was Harry Smith, a notoriously eccentric musicologist who compiled 84 of his favorite hillbilly, gospel, blues, and Cajun performances from the late '20s and early '30s, dividing each into one of three categories: Ballads, Social Music, and Songs. Smith sequenced the three volumes with a great amount of care, placing songs on the Ballads volume in historical order (not to be confused with chronological order) so as to create an LP that traces the folk tradition, beginning with some of the earliest Childe ballads of the British Isles and ending with several story songs of the early 20th century. The cast of artists includes pioneers in several fields, from the Carter Family and Uncle Dave Macon to Blind Lemon Jefferson, Mississippi John Hurt, and the Alabama Sacred Harp Singers. Many of the most interesting selections on the Anthology, however, are taken from artists even more obscure, such as Clarence Ashley, Bascom Lamar Lunsford, and Buell Kazee. After the Anthology had been out of print for more than a decade, Smithsonian/Folkways reissued the set in a six-disc boxed set, with the original notes of Harry Smith, as well as a separate book of new reminiscences by artists influenced by the original and a wealth of material for use in CD-ROM drives. (AMG)

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Take A Picture

Impressed With Gilles Peterson

Talkin' Loud Records' big cheese is back to offer us another glimpse into his record collection, and for a change the opportunity to find out a little more about British Jazz from the 1960s. Given that British Jazz from this period is all but forgotten by most of us, Peterson shows that there was a treasure trove here on the grey side of the Atlantic to rival America's output.
Most of the names on this compilation will be new to many, with the possible exceptions of Tubby Hayes (featured here on Vibraphone rather than his usual Tenor Sax) or pianist/composer Michael Garrick, and a variety of styles are accounted for. From the hard bop of Ronnie Ross' "Cleopatra's Needle" to Garrick's modal workouts and even--on Joe Harriot and Amancio D' Silva's Gabor Szabo-esque "Jaipur"--a smattering of scatmanship, underscored by an eastern swing.
Peterson likes to keep things recognisably in the "cool" side with electric piano, vibes and muted trumpets as the most prominent lead instruments. He saves the best for last however, with the achingly beautiful "Lullaby for a Lonely Child" by Graham Collier and the Coltrane-influenced jazz waltz of "Dusk" where Don Rendell's soprano saxophone and Ian Carr's flugal horn trade with each other to catch the last glimpse of twilight. (Amazon)

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