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Allison was born and reared
in the tiny Mississippi town of Tippo, deep in the heart of the
Delta, where he soaked up the blues as played by Memphis Slim,
Lightnin' Hopkins and Sonny Boy Williamson. After honing his
chops in Louisiana, Allison landed in New York in 1959 with the
facility to play any kind of jazz from Ellington's complex swing
to the bop pyrotechnics of Bud Powell. But his own music never
strays too far from the blues. Ranks with Tom Lehrer and Spike
Jonze as one of the wittiest songwriters in American music, ie.,
"Your Mind is On Vacation," "I Don't Worry About
a Thing," "Your Molecular Structure." While lighting
a joint, Gnossos Pappadopoulis, the hirsute hero of Richard Farina's
classic Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me, slaps an Allison
record on the turntable, which you gives you an idea of his standing
in the beat underground. Was Mailer listening to Allison when
he penned the White Negro? Don't blame that tract on Allison,
but he remains the epitome of white cool.
Lee Morgan was the most gifted
trumpet player since Clifford Brown and like Brown he died too
young, gunned down by his wife during a gig at Slug's Club in
Manhattan in 1972 at the age of 34. Morgan was discovered as
a teenager by Dizzy Gillespie, who quickly made him a featured
player in his band, and promoted him to Blue Note, where Morgan
soon became a top session player. You can hear the early Morgan
sound on Coltrane's classic early 60s record Blue Trane. Morgan
had flair for writing catchy pop riffs that concealed the innovative
improvisational structure of his music. Three of his songs defied
the odds to become hit singles: Sidewinder, The Rumproller and
Cornbread. Search for the New Land, though, forgoes the pop flavor
of Sidewinder for a funkified excursion into modal jazz with
superb backing from Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and the wonderful
Grant Green on guitar. One of the forgotten masterpieces of 1960s.
The Radiators 20th anniversary
concert recorded in San Francisco captures the zestiness of one
of the all-time great roadhouse bands: the sound of New Orleans
funk mating with Memphis soul. Like most bar bands, the Radiators
excel at covers and Clarence Carter's "Slip Away" has
never been given a better treatment (except by Carter himself).
Clifton Chenier's guitarist
arrives as a solo artist with a classic of swamp slide. As a
sacrifice to the Gods of Hurricanes, drop the needle on "Great
Gulf Wind" and play. Or is that pray?
If, like me, you feel the urgent
need to eradicate the bad taste left over from Van Lear Rose,
the terrible Jack White album marketed as a Loretta Lynn record,
soak yourself in the inimitable twangs of this Lynn classic from
the mid-1960s.
The exquisite sound of three
talented junkies in a groove.
Jeffrey St. Clair's music writings (as well as CPers Ron
Jacobs, David Vest and Daniel Wolff) can be found in Serpents
in the Garden. He can be reached at: sitka@comcast.net.
Tom D'Antoni
While waiting for the new John
Ashcroft/50 Cent a capella collaboration to be released, I'm
listening to.
Sun Ra: Untitled LP
On one side the label is hand-colored
orange and green. Somebody wrote "Sun Ra" in black
above the hand lettered list of four tunes which include "Space
is the Place, "Dedicated to Natures, "The Cosmos Me,"
and "Space Shuttle." Under that is a crinkle-cut pasted-on
piece of paper that has "compositions by SUN RA" typed
in black. I have no idea when this is from. I know it's before
the summer of 1977, because that's when I got it. You've got
to pull out some Ra now and then. It's as fresh as it was the
day it was recorded, and has never been surpassed on a lot of
levels. Ra was the ultimate trickster, a genius who might have,
indeed, been from another planet. The brilliance and cheesiness,
the great musicianship and the head-shaking weirdness of it all
proves Ra's famous quote, "It ain't necessarily so that
it ain't necessarily so." And it ain't.
Best known as Gallactic's drummer,
he's already in the pantheon of great New Orleans drummers, having
studied at the feet of some of the current masters. This is from
1998 and has Charlie Hunter on 8-string guitar, Skerik, the little-known
but much admired saxophonist. This is Moore at the start of his
career, all young and bursting forth.
The interesting thing about
Moore is that as good as this is (I had it on in the car for
a week), he's gotten that much better over the years.
I once heard a street argument
in Portland, Oregon over who was the best drummer in New Orleans,
Russell Batiste or Stanton Moore. I voted for Russ between the
two at the time, but you can find great drummers on any street
there. Or you could before Katrina.
I could get started on the
current diaspora in New Orleans, but you can read about that
here, in a piece I wrote on Jazzfest
2006.
I was driving from Portland
to Seattle to see the Orioles game and suddenly remembered the
delights of driving fast with Phillip Glass blasting out of the
speakersespecially Mishima, with its electric guitars, and martial
drums.
Even though it evokes the persona
of Mishima, the music itself is more effective by itself than
it is in the movie it was written for. The opening is one of
the most thrilling two minutes and forty-five seconds ever written.
When they used to let you use
electronic equipment on planes during takeoff, this or The Photographer
would always be in my ears. I still think about it when I'm taking
off.or driving 85 on I-5 between Seattle and Portland.
Is that dishonoring Mishima?
He can't get to me. He daid.
Sundazed Music released all
of The Meters LPs a few years ago. This is a collection of tunes
that never got on any Meters' albums. There's some great stuff
on here, and some not-so-great. They take pains to point out
that the previously unreleased "Love The One You're With"
is based on the Isley Brothers' version and not the original.
Doesn't really matter though, there's a reason it wasn't released.
These are from the Warner Brothers/SeaSaint
days of the mid 1970s.
The gem is "All I Do Everyday"
which I re-discovered because New Orleans/now Portland, Oregon
saxophonist Reggie Houston does it in nearly every set his Earth
Island Band plays. I think I played this song 5 times in a row
one day in the car. I'm going to go play it again now.
When the Meters played their
famed reunion concert at Jazzfest 2005, they pulled out "He
Bite Me," a song that's also on this. It could be the funniest
song they ever recorded. It's about a dragon. Zig and George
growl. Don't ask.
"Keep On Marching (Funky
Soldier)" used to be in the regular set list of The Funky
Meters, Art and George's band with Russell Batiste and Brian
Stolz who kept the Meters' music alive until they finally figured
out how to get along.
Michael Haberman "Plays Sorabi-The Legendary Works for
Piano"
Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji
(1892-1988) wrote dense solo piano music, which Habermann discovered
in a little shop in Mexico City in the 1970s. He became the only
pianist Sorabi would trust to play his music.
It is not Cecil Taylor-like
pounding and histrionics. A lot of it is just flat-out beautiful,
if difficult. Some of these pieces have 8 staves for two hands.
It took Habermann years to get them down.
He used to live in the apartment
next to mine in Baltimore in the 1980s and I could lay in bed
and listen to him practice. Before he knocked on my door to ask
if he was bothering us, I thought angels lived next door.
Brian Eno "Music for
Films" "Music for Airports" LPs
Although he never really disappeared,
Eno has wormed his way back into public consciousness by working
on Paul Simon's latest album. What's fun about these is that
they're LPs and have scratches, adding to the "ambience."
I bought into the whole concept
when they were released in the late 70s. They hold up. Could
have been made today. In the back of my head there's a voice
saying, "It's not New Age. It's not New Age. Really, it's
not."
The music on here works the
way it was designed to work.
Oh man. Dolphy on alto, flute,
clarinet and bass clarinet. Ron Carter on CELLO and George Duvivier
on BASS and the young Roy Haynes at his young and gnarling best.
Recorded FORTY-SIX years ago.jazz players today should BE this
innovative.
What ever happened to the avant-garde?
Dolphy's tribute to Mingus,
"The Baron," a Randy Weston tune and the rest Dolphy
originals.
This album jumps out the speakers
and runs away begging for new listeners and the long life it
deserves.
I have the 1969 re-issue with
notes from Ralph Berton in which he says, "you won't 'know
where you are;' you won't hear the well known chords and changes;
you're on your own with the music being flung your way, music
representative of a great deal that's happening now. Are they
speaking to you? Or just thinking out loud? And do you like listening
in?"
Is it me, or did the avant-garde
stop? Somebody called today's scene "museumification of
the music." The music on here is bright life. A museum couldn't
hold it.
The final recording with Colin
Wolcott, and possibly their best. Well, it's the best one of
theirs I've listened to this month, anyway. I have never gotten
tired of Glen Moore's "Pepe Linque" and I've heard
it a million times.
They are still huge in Europe.
They are still little-known in America. Don't get me started.
Sometimes I think most of the greatest music will never be discovered
by most people. Oh well, that's show biz.
Glen Moore once unlocked Oregon
for me, even though I had always loved them. He told me that
when they started out, their objective was to make music as beautiful
as Bill Evans'. Makes sense, huh?
Back when Joe had to sit down
to sing. On the stool, becalmed until it was time for him to
sing a verse, he would fill with some sort of inspired helium
and belt out his lines, only to slump back on the stool until
it was his turn to sing the next verse.
This is a Pablo release from
1976 backed by a quintet, including piano and guitar. Joe was
a blues droner as well as a blues shouter by then. He's lanquid
and old and world-weary. This makes "I've Got the World
On a String" especially effective.
I've pretty much destroyed
this record over the years by playing it when I've been pretty
much destroyed, myself. It works every time. Like I said before,
scratches help.
Tom D'Antoni is a writer and TV producer/reporter
living in Portland Oregon. His book "Rabid
Nun Infects Entire Convent and Other Sensational Stories from
a Tabloid Writer" was published by Villard/Random House
in November. His documentary on Oregon's Death With Dignity
law "Robert's Story: Dying With Dignity" is currently
being marketed.
Now
Available
from CounterPunch Books!
The Case
Against Israel
By Michael Neumann
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