Sunday, February 01, 2015

Wow, that's some weather we're havin'! OK, enough with the gosh-all crimonies and let's get down to bid'ness with this batch of smoothies, some donated thanks to the largesse of Tom Gilmore, P.D. Fadensonnen, Paul McGarry and Bill Shute so you know where my allegiances lie! Sorry there couldn't be even more platters to write up about and all but hey, here we are in the middle of winter and like, maybe I'd rather be roasting weenies in front of the fire'n listening to music if you can believe that (and given my voracious appetite maybe you better!)


Joe McPhee Quartet/Ernie Bostic Quartet-LIVE AT VASSAR APRIL 30, 1970 2-CD-r burn (originally on Corbett Vs. Dempsey, burn courtesy of Tom Gilmore)

Two top notch platters here featuring some of the admittedly (and unfortunately) lesser-knowns in six-oh jazz histoire, but as far as I'm concerned both really do hit the proper heights needed to make sounds of an interesting if not out-there nature that people like myself (and I assume you) have flocked to ever since we read about the direct connection between the new thing of jazz and your rockist favorites. Nothing over-the-hill running and screaming like Roscoe Mitchell here, but still quite entertaining for those more introverted late-night fret-a-thons that people like myself tend to get when the antidepressants wear down.

McPhee is lucky that he didn't get sued by Pharoah Sanders, what with his emulation if not imitation of the latter's Impulse-era Coltrane exultation which do work swell here. Piano's a bit too McCoy Tyner-esque and the bassist quite Garrisonish, but maybe that's what makes this so entertaining to begin with. The blooze chooze is apparent as well for those of you who like your old mixed with your new to a certain extent. If your thang's the "new wave of jazz" right before the abstractions really began pushing the sound into extraterrestrial realms you will enjoy this portion of the program.

Bostic's set begins dreamy, almost gnu age the way Harold Budd redid mid-sixties free modes with Marion Brown on side one of THE PAVILION OF DREAMS only not as fruity.  Quite invigorating in fact! Somehow I'm reminded of the SAAT album by Emtidi, but any connections between the two are what the geniuses would call "tenuous". The rest is rather raucous bloozy jazz quartet with a Hammond organ firmily esconced and loads of vibes which may alienate someone out there who's reading this, but not me.

In all this is some rather good if comparatively restrained free sound that you might want to part with the lucre to latch onto. Maybe not, but I get the feeling that you won't be finding it at any run down flea market in a good ten or so years the way you woulda found Sanders et. al.at your favorite 1977 outta-the-way greasy corn dog emporium right next to the stack of old NATIONAL LAMPOONs. But wha' th' hey... someday it just may happen!
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X_____X-LIVE @ CAKE SHOP, NYC 12-4-2014 CD-r burn (courtesy of P. D. Fadensonnen)

Is this the fabled "X-Mommy-X" that Andrew Klimyk was supposed to have formed with an already-settled John Morton when the former finally made the trek to En Why See in the very late seventies? It would be nice to think so. And it's sure nice to know that Klimyk and Morton are up and about with their old Cle group here inna mid-teens when frankly, rock 'n roll as a useful form of mid-Amerigan outrage is pretty much a dead and buried affair. All the old single sides and the leftover Electric Eels numbers are performed with typical disasto aplomb, and I gotta admit that given Morton's volatile nature in full view and the general art punk approach to the entire affair this coulda been a classic '77 recording that had only seen the light of day now! Like they used to say about the Heartbreakers, see 'em while they're still alive.
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Don Cherry-LIVE IN STOCKHOLM '69/'71 CD-r burn (courtesy of Tom Gilmore)

Dunno if any of this Cee-Dee has been released or not, but it's a good 'un. Even for a turd like me who (admittedly) thinks that a lot of the Cherry albums I've heard really ain't whatcha'd call the bee's knees in avant garde jazz (too multi-worldy for my tastes). The performance is a whole lot freer and less burundi'n some of those more ECM-ish offerings of his, and whoever the sidemen are they certainly are compatico with the direction that jazz was moving in right before the new thing era seemed to topple over some unforeseen cliff. If I weren't so lazy I'd do a little googlin' to see who plays on this, but it's so late and like I really could use the sleep...
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Various Artists-THE BROOKLYN BEAT LIVE AT CBGB'S CD (Comm 3)

I wrote about the Brooklyn Beat tape here and only recently had I found out that a Cee-Dee featuring many of the same Brooklyn-area bands (with some Shirts connections) was out and about. It's good too, as good as the tape was which would figure since many of the same bands there appear here. It's mostly in that eighties new unto gnu wave style, but since the recording, production and performances are so low budget these groups actually come out sounding non-pretentious and interesting. Interesting enough that you won't mind the pseudo-rap influences and eighties MTV pop moves that sometimes sneak into the mix. A fun diversion.
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MC5-SPORTATOREUM HOLLYWOOD FL 1971 CD-r burn (courtesy of P. D. Fadensonnen)

An up-'n-about HIGH TIME-era Five captured live proving that although they'd fallen from grace and are on the verge of getting their jams kicked off Atlantic they can still KICK OUT THE JAMS with the best of 'em. Typical audience cassette job doesn't deter from the fact that the Five are still firing on all pistons and can stand as a viable alternative too alla that Peace Train jive that was permeating the teenbo mindset during those very conflicting years. I wonder if the Alice Cooper portion of this particular night out was also preserved for posterity...'d love to hear that!
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Denney and the Jets-MEXICAN COKE CD-r burn (originally on Fanfare/Burger)

Hmmm, another one of those new retro/sorta/pseudo/rockabilly things that reminds me of early-seventies Rolling Stones meets early-seventies Flamin' Groovies. Not bad at all---in fact this would probably come off even nicer if it was released on some cheaply-pressed vinyl and I discovered it wallowing in a 99-cent bin I chanced upon at some Biloxi drug store on some 1976 cross country record buying trip. It sure is nice knowing that somebody out there is still cutting rock 'n roll records even if the only people who'd listen to this stuff are long-in-on-the-rock-game unrepentant seventies flea market and cut out schnooks like ourselves who still insist that the Velvets and the Stooges were the REAL Beatles and Stones and don't let any Pantsios out there tell you different!
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The Frank Lowe Orchestra-LOWE & BEHOLD CD-r burn (originally on Musicwerks)

What can I say? An ALL STAR LINEUP! Typically brilliant HOT FLASH PLAYING! Seasoned veterans (Lowe, Philip Wilson, Billy Bang, Joseph Bowie) intermingled with up-and-coming names (John Zorn, Eugene Chadbourne!) and the resultant she-bang is one you won't particularly forget unless you're a'cast in the throes of long-term memory loss. Maybe it ain't as full-blast as those releases Lowe had been tossing at us even a good two or so years earlier'n this '77 side but it's sure pleasing to hear especially after being marooned in an elevator with Chuck Mangione being piped in constantly! Definitely worth the time and effort to seek out and download.
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Bergerette-BEGUILED CD (available via CD Baby)

Not since THE INNOCENCE has Richard Meltzer steered me in such a right direction as the one he tilted me at via the first issue of BULL TONGUE REVIEW! Considering that I've been tingling my toes in the font of pre-enlightenment (hah!) musics as of late this particular platter comes in handy, what with these misses sweetly tackling a slew of 13th/16th century chorale music that takes on such a melancholy and mortal air that they make just about every bit of goth to creep outta the rectums of 2000's teendom look positively staid. Tales of intense love as a deathly pyre to gals tending to their sheep seeing an actual angel appear (not to mention those of woe and unrequited somethingorother) permeate, you too might wanna take a trip back in tyme if only to experience these moving chaisons first hand because they're that hotcha! Something tells me that Bergerette and John Dunstable woulda made some dandy double billing way back when.
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Various Artists-RINGSIDE TRANE CARAVAN CHECK CD-r burn (via Bill Shute)

Nice slap 'n dash from late-sixties psychedelic wannabe scuzz (Flower Power's "Stop Check It!") to English gal group wannabe Spectorian elegance (the Orchids) and El Lay jazz (Plas Johnson) with the usual six-oh garage goodies thrown in for good measure. Some of this has been heard by these ears before (Zarla's "I Hate Work" is a BONEHEAD CRUNCHER inclusion but worth another listen if only for the Sabbath/Purps blatant swipes that abound) but some hasn't (like Last Exit's "The Fire Drum" which at first I thought was thee famed punk jazz group given the opening drum solo but turned out to be a proggy psych act so fool me once and I'll know better!) so let's just say that this was a listening experience par-excellence! Weirdie of the batch, Cee-Dee closer "Lord of the Ringside" by Clown, a '72 release which sounds more '68 proving that while psychedelia might have turned into visions of the Old West inna USA it was still rip roaring lysergic over in Blighty!

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