Jerome Cooper - The unpredictability of predictability

"this is not just an album for drummers... anyone into music can dig it this music. Classical music peoplecan dig it because it's structured, people into rock because of the beat. people into jazz because of the improvisation aspect, and those into ethnic music because of the instruments involved."--Jerome Cooper

Not many jazz drummers present entire albums of themselves in solo format, but when they do, chances are they're going to haul out everything including the kitchen sink to dazzle the listener with their range and dexterity. Not Jerome Cooper. This superb musician, known primarily for his masterful and invaluable contributions to the fine trio Revolutionary Ensemble, treats his solo performances as free-standing compositions scored for only certain instruments from which he extracts huge volumes of sounds and rhythms. For example, "Bert the Cat" is written for balaphone (an African ancestor of the marimba), chiramia (a double-reed instrument that sounds liked a more softly-timbred shenai), bass drum, and sock cymbal. Using only these four elements, Cooper constructs a rich, propulsive theme so inherently fascinating that one soon forgets one is listening to only a solo percussionist. Cooper has no interest in wowing the listener by playing fast or loud, but simply desires to develop lovely rhythms and melodic patterns and allow them to flower. A fine recording and wonderful antidote for those who claim to be bored by drum solos. --Brian Olewnick

-Side a:
The unpredictability of predictability
Movement A,B - flute, whistle, chiramia, bass drum, sock cymbal (9.59)
Movement C - drums set (mallet) (4.29)
Movement C1 - floor tom-tom, bass drum, sock cymbal, voice (6.40)

-Side b:
Bert The Cat - balaphone, chiramia, bass drum, sock cymbal (20.37)

(1979, About time 1002)

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Jerome Cooper & Oliver Lake - For the People (Hat Hut, 1978)

A great duo album with the master Jerome Cooper & the saxophonist Oliver Lake.

Jerome Cooper - Percussion, Drums, Main Performer
Oliver Lake - Glute, Sax (Soprano), Bells


Tracklist:
1. Movement A1 (8:40)
2. Movement A2 (5:34)
3. Movement B1 (5:33)
4. Movement B2 (4:46)
5. Movement B3 (4:56)
6. Movement B4 (5:31)

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Günter Christmann & Detlef Schönenberg - We play

1. Ninive (06.10)
2. Chuckling (01.34)
3. Creamcheese (12.28)
4. Swithe (09.20)
5. Fighting cats (03.07)
6. We play (07.16)
7. Jennifer's island (03.26)

Günter Christmann - trombone
Detlef Schönenberg - drums

Recorded at Studio F, Radio Bremen.
Released on LP only.

(Feb 1973, fmp 0120)

Thx to my japanese's friend for all his wonderful rips. And this is one of the greatest fmp's releases in my opinion. im completely obsessed by detlef's drumming! he's a monster, better than bonzo ahahah.


HOST REMOVED FILES (COMPLAINTS RECEIVED)

Revolutionary Ensemble - 164=11tc

Leroy Jenkins - violin, viola, thumb piano, claves, synth, vocals, gong
Sirone - bass, trombone, wood block, bells, shaker, vocals, gong
Jerome Cooper - drums, bugle, piano, balafon, temple blocks, wood block, gong, bell gong,
vocals, tympani, saw

recorded at Moosham Castle, Austria

(Aug 1977, Enja 3003)

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One of the greatest free jazz ensemble i ever heard so far.
Dedicated to the memory of Leroy Jenkins.

Paul Lovens and Paul Lytton - Moinho de asneira_A cerca da bela vista a graca

Paul Lovens and Paul Lytton - percussion and live electronics

1-Moinho da asneira [mill of stupidity] (23.15)

Recorded in the morning of Dec 1978 at Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, Aachen at the opening of 'IBK-Winterausstellung'.
Lytton's instruments strewn about the stage.

2-a cerca da bela vista a graca [the beeg view] (25.25)

Recorded in the evening of Nov 1979 at the Zimmertheater, Bremen at a concert organised by Torsten Muller of 'Kollektiv Freie Musik', Bremen.

(1978-79, Po Torch 05)

Two master of drums and improvisation at work. i hope someone will reissue the whole po torch catalog sooner or later..

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Frank Wright Sextet - Stove Man, Love Is The Word

Frank Wright Sextet - Stove Man, Love Is The Word

1. Stove Man, Love Is The Word
2. T-and-W
3. Rice Patch
4. Export

Frank Wright tenor sax
Ka-Kamal Abdul-Alm trumpet
Tony Smith piano
Richard Williams bass
Khalil Abdullah percussion
Gerry Griffin drums

Munich Loft, May 22, 1979

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Andrew Cyrille & Milford Graves - Dialogue Of The Drums

Track-list
side 1:
1. Message To The Ancestors 10.14
2. Blessing From The Rain Forest 6.16
3. Nagarah (Tymapni Duet) 6.16
4. Rejuvenation 5.19

side 2:
1. The Soul Is The Music 7.46
2. The Substance Of The Vision 7.07
3. Call and Response 6.13

Andrew Cyrille - tom tom,gongs,whistles,hand clapping,words,phonetics,temple blocks,
agogo bells,chimes,tympani,cymbals,darabukkeh,foot rhythms,osi-d,d,
castanets
Milford Graves - honetics,bgo,darabukkeh,whistle,gongs,osi-d,galloping,tympani,cymbals,
balafon,agogo bells,foot rhythms,bells,tambourine,shakere,words,
african talking-d,mnemonics,d

(1974, Institute Of Percussive Studies 001)

Thx to Murksonic and Nonwave.

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friedhelm schönfeld trio & hubert katzenbeier quintett

--side a:
01 friedhelm schönfeld trio - trio dimensionen

friedhelm schönfeld - leader, clarinet, alto sax, tenor sax
klaus koch - bass
günter sommer - drums

--side b:
01 hubert katzenbeier quintett - quartett
02 hubert katzenbeier quintett - ballade
03 hubert katzenbeier quintett - blues-fasching

hubert katzenbeier - leader,trombone
konrad körner - flute, tenor sax
manfred schramm - piano
hans schätzke - bass
wolfgang winkler - drums

ripped from vinyl by gasomat, thanks mate!

recorded at amiga-studio, berlin

(nov 1972, amiga 855 307)

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Bennink\Mengelberg Duo

Han Bennink - Drums, Dhung, rkanglig, log drums, khène, vibra-pan, kaffir piano, dhung-dkar, oe-oelong, voice.
Misha Mengelberg - Piano, Putney synthesizer.

-side a:
and the great spotted woodpecker....? "tsjik, tsjik, tsjik" or "kik" and a very fast roll
(bennink)

-side b:
where is the police? (mengelberg)

Recorded at stedelijk museum, Amsterdam.

(mar 1971, icp 010)

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Eric Dolphy, Misha Mengelberg, Jacques Schols, Han Bennink - Epistrophy

Eric Dolphy - bass clarinet (track 1)
Misha Mengelberg - piano
Jacques Schols - bass (track 1)
Han Bennink - drums (track 1).

1. Epistrophy (17.52)
2. Eeko (grey red-tail parrot)/Misha Mengelberg (02.00)

Track 1 recorded in Eindhoven, Holland on 1 June 1964
track 2 recorded in Amsterdam on 6 June 1972.

(1974, icp 015)

Sound quality is not nice at all, but... it is a pleasure to listen to Dolphy playing with Mengelberg and Bennink.Enjoy

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Sonny & Sunny

Nov 1968
Berlin Jazz Fest

Sonny Sharrock Guitar
Sunny Murray Drums

Here's a little bit O' History for ya.

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Phillip Wilson & Olu Dara - Esoteric (Hat Hut)

Phillip Wilson - percussion
Olu Dara - trumpet, horn (serpent)

Recorded in paris

(1977-1978, Hat Hut)

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michael smith - geomusic

1. qui s'excuse s'accuse
2. time II (geomusic 3.700)
3. a ballad for "k"
4. impressions on chinese prints
5. improvisations for traditionalist





michael smith - piano
laurence cook - drums
kent carter - bass, cello
claude canille bernard - drums
jacek bednarek - bass
zbigniew namyslowski - alto sax, cello

recorded in warsavia

(oct 1976, Poljazz 0614)

michael smith is a pianist of demoniac looks and an equally devilish approach to music. no wonder therefore that his
appearance at the festival jazz jamboree '76 was received with interest by some and with astonisment, even embarassment by others. there could at once be heard extreme views and heated discussions on his performance in the lobbies of the congress hall, the usual place for theoretical polemics at the festivals of jazz jamboree. the confusion was then increased by the
press notices. and although divergencies tend to disappear in time, even now, almost three years after that memorable night with michael smith, the still do persist in the evaluation of this output. smith's artistic conception was to a great extent a reaction to the views prevailing in his family which regarded art as something sinful. "I was brough up on the music of protestant churches, on blues and country, and nothing beside it has ever influenced me . . .", say smith himself.
very interesting are the attempts to classify the music, composed and performed by smith. jan "ptaszyn" wroblewski is of the opinion that it is jazz only when smith is playing jazz musicians. the pianist himself expresses interesting vies on the same subject. "when i am playing at the roujan festival in france my record are put in the section "contemporary composers", on another occasion the are sold in the jazz department. since i am participating in the warsaw jazz jamboree, people consider me a jazzmann. in new york they regard me as a composer of contemporary music, and in france i am known as an avant-garde musician."
we learn from one of michael smith's public pronouncements about the origin of his conception of making the most of piano tone possibilities. "I spent 8 year in a studio, my own studio, at the piano, exploring the possibilities of extracting from it harmonic tones, crotches, of makin use of the whole instrument, the whole piano. both of wood and metal, of all.
and these are not tones that have come from nowhere. they have been created, music has been written for them, as well as special notes. they (the tones) are a real part of the piano". and indded one can perceive it while listening to the record - the musicians observe no formal limitations in making use of the instruments.
smith's music is difficult in reception, being intendd for expert listeners. and the musician himself is aware of it. he says he highly thinks of everyone who is able to spend a few hours listening to his music. but any music of innovatory ambition is difficult in reception. is the music of john cage, gunther schuller, cecil taylor, morton feldman, of all those to whom michael smith has been referring, entertaining?
let us conclude by quoting one more thought of his: "I don't know in what direction music is going. it is going at the same time everywhere and nowhere..."

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Manfred Schoof - Horizons (1980)

Manfred Schoof Quintet - Horizons
Ecm - Japo 60030 (1980)

Manfred Schoof: trumpet, fluegelhorn
Michel Pilz: bass clarinet
Rainer Brüninghaus: piano, synthesizer
Günter Lenz: bass
Ralf Hübner: drums


Side 1
1. Horizons (9:41)
2. The Abstract Face of Beauty* (6:15)
3. Hope (8:50)

Side 2
1. Sunrise (7:37)
2. Old Ballad (8:51)
3. Sunset (3:29)

All compositions Manfred Schoof
except * by Ralf Hübner

Recorded November 1979 at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg.

My favourite Schoof's release. Enjoy!

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Patton, Slusser, Bennink - Perfect Victim (1996) [BOOT]

Rare bootleg recording: [1996.08.24] - Perfect Victim (Mike Patton, David Slusser, Hank Bennink) - 18th Jazz Festival, Saalfelden (AUSTRIA)

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Otomo Yoshihide - Plays Eric Dolphy's Out to Lunch

Eric Dolphy’s final studio album is hailed as one of the finest examples of mid-‘60s post bop. Its reputation is purely one of backwards significance. Dolphy, having recorded the album in February 1964, was in Europe less than six weeks later and was dead less than two months after that. Though likely he never held a copy in his hands or heard any critical opinion of it, it marked his last flurry of original compositions and is considered his apex. It is fascinating to consider whether he would had moved past or away from the album in 1965, had he lived.

Though Dolphy should not be considered an avant garde musician by the term’s most common definitions, most interpretations of Out To Lunch have been done by players working squarely in that area. So it is with this album, the most ambitious thus far in its recreation of the five-tune disc (with one original added to the final Straight Up and Down, extending the piece to almost thirty minutes) through the lens of fifteen Japanese and European musicians.

The New Jazz Orchestra is not a big band, but a loose amalgamation of distinct voices. This distinction is important, since a big band arrangement of Dolphy would sap the life out of his quirky, almost inconoclastic music. Here the intent is to bring a new meaning to the music, much like Warhol’s soup cans. Though the instrumentation of the original is represented (bass clarinet courtesy of Alfred Harth, one of the Europeans possibly influenced during Dolphy’s trip), also added are guitar, baritone sax (by the inimitable Mats Gustafsson), sho (a rare Japanese reed instrument played by international virtuoso Ko Ishikawa), electronic devices and piano. So while the melodies and spirit are in full attendance, there are often disturbing subtexts.

At times, the feeling is that of listening to the original Out To Lunch while a séance is going on to contact Dolphy’s ghost, with supernatural sounds swirling around the stereo. The effect is disconcerting, as is the post-apocalyptic cloud hanging over the arrangements, but it makes the effort more than an unnecessary tribute album. Instead, Dolphy is transported into the 21st Century and allowed to romp through modern developments in music. An inspiring concept and an album that will stretch the boundaries of anyone who comes into contact with it. allaboutjazz

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Guru Guru - UFO

As demonstrated on their first pair of albums for the German Ohr label, Guru Guru were the loosest, most experimental and most out there of all power trios of the early seventies. And the title of their debut “UFO” album was appropriate as many of the sounds within are not immediately identifiable -- Although the drums and guitars are recognisable enough, lodged as they are between breeze blocks of heaving, sprawling abandon where all manner of contact microphone misuse, tweaking of volume knobs on both amplifiers and guitars while everything coursed through all manner of fuzztone and echo boxes to make the studio air hang heavy and leaden as it curled at the corners like burning parchment and loads of fuck-knows-what-else. As a result, the five tracks that comprise “UFO” are saw-toothed, broken and resistant to all smoothness in their haphazard execution as they only approach the loosest organisation teased out from the knotty and matted wig of raw noise that hung atop their collective heads.

Guru Guru furiously nudge and burrow through silence with their mammoth ensemble clashes of processed signals, treated bass and guitar assaults pummeled senselessly to the ground by a battery of percussives that never seemed to quit. And on the rare occasion when it does relent, it’s just as easily content to simmer in a stew of disquietingly becalmed noise until inevitably re-boiling over into eruption. An altogether spasmodic musical proposition, “UFO” cascades fluid and free down corridors of improvisation caught in the throes of abandon with all apple carts of pop conventions overturned and in flames. It’s an ongoing rush in no hurry, heavy as bronze boots, looser than drunken shoelaces and all the while maintaining a top speed of about 8kph with enough elbow room to strike out at any (and all) directions at once.

Even in the studio, the three interlocking ‘Sektions’ that are Mani Neumeier (Percussion-Sektion), Uli Trepte (Bass-Sektion) and Ax Genrich (Gitarren-Sektion) play off each other as though from neighbouring Bavarian fields equipped with only a drum kit, guitars, amplifiers and a batch of cheap radio shop communication devices and play them like a trio of underground superheroes emerging 20,000 leagues beneath the sea to impart an new method of communication. Perhaps it’s really that Neumeier is a crazed and flailing octopus man with a stick from every limb and a penchant for high spirited thrash attacks, Ulrich Trepte an intercom/contact microphone obsessive dredging frequencies from the ocean floor while weighing bass lines as anchors and Ax “Victim” Genrich the proud carrier of a six-foot tall conch shell used not only for amplification (double stacked and rigged with a front line of wah-wah, fuzz and echo boxes as knobs on both guitar and amplifier are tweaked and twirled to yield maximum viscosity) but to part oceans as well. Or perhaps they only sound like it.

The improvisation of “Stone In” opens and features the sole lyrics of the album -- If you could call it that when Neumeier’s vocals intone the title with an accompanying set of words brayed out unintelligibly at the back of the ensuing racket, now commencing at the speed of a mid-level and high scoring pinball session. Neumeier hits his crash cymbal-positioned gong with drum sticks (not mallets) and it sounds like an oversized oil drum lid utilised as a pang while simultaneously sounding like a traffic accident as heard through a plastic tube half a block in length. Trepte is content to treat his rhythmic strumming bass with massed amounts of compression while Genrich plays his guitar through echo through fuzz through molasses through a block of amber and steeped in a basin of distortion. It’s reelin’, feelin’ squeelin’ and a-squallin’ all over the place. “Girl Call” is a further perpetuation of the previous track, and no less a breaking down of the senses. A damp electronic hiss permeates the air, interrupted by the eruption of a refried slapback bass note that reverberates and cracks open a primary fissure in the uneasy crust of silence. Then stillness. It erupts again, this time trimmed with feedback and cymbal swishes. Contact microphone picks up and magnifies all the tenseness in the air and makes it seem as though a wobbly dam of silence is about to burst...Which it does as Genrich cuts in to wail ceaselessly on guitar as a return to the slow, wallowing tempo at rune-cutting stone upon stone at the pace of a forced march into tomorrow. Genrich is one of the first German Rock guitarists who successfully channeled Jimi’s Electric Sky Church music while dispensing with its blues slurry, condensing the flurry of erratic notes and organic groove-tone placement into an electric storm. Neumeier methodically thrashes in the background while Trepte keeps a strong series of pulsation intact until Genrich slowly works up another elongated solo that burns, smokes and just melts into the ensemble’s roar. It’s a gloriously haphazard rush until it simmers down to allow Trepte’s bass to gain some sort of prominence. But this is only temporary, for it’s soon overrun by a forcibly shaken-out storm emerging from the surrounding air. A series of high pitched squeals and squonks and it’s one rude match cut into “Next Time See You At The Dalai Lhama” that catches them in progress several minutes later where they’ve picked up into a hammering stride. Trepte has switched over to a two-note propulsion, ratcheted up to soar above the chaos of Neumeier and Genrich which is now a darkening cumulonimbus mushroom of slammed cymbals, tom-tom rolls and fuzz/wah-wah guitar patterns. Trepte maintains the same grinding sludge bass at yo-yo speed, only to reassemble the sequence of notes until it’s all running together into noisy unison when it crossfades into a field recording of the band freaking out and vibing up the countryside with whistles, shakers, congas and tambourines until a young lady innocently asks “Guru Guru?” With no forthcoming response, the album side has no choice but to submit to the run-off groove and end.

Side two of ‘UFO” is far more abstract as it edges at points towards the outermost boundaries of stillness, as though confined to the innermost spaces and furthest points of ambient-dexterous reaches with two sonic elongations where no one really leads as everyone has the space to free form out of the ether. Unidentified sounds emerge, which is appropriate for they usher in the ten-minute odyssey “UFO.” This is where the component parts of Guru Guru are broken down and strained into degenerate composites of crackly, intermittent amplifiers, echoed shards of guitar and contact microphone treatments translating once quiet surfaces into sandpaper overrun with static. A high-pitched tone builds with forgotten kettle-boiling-the-last teaspoon-of-water-into-steam qualities sound the alarm to prepare for approaching interstellar craft and the piece builds ominously with amplified, whirring guitar and gongs smashing against a background of amplified heat. Single chords are plucked out, bass strings are detuned, scraped and left to resound and croak in the open air. The mix throws down the right guitar channel as soon as Genrich has found a repeated phrase to let his Stratocaster rear and buck and explode upon as the increasing accumulation of sounds and random static all gather into a focussed dissonance that continues to unfold and unravel at the same time. Volume dials twist out pitch shifting sculptures while contact microphones pick up an amassing of signals into a decaying, arrhythmic improvisation. As the flaming meteorite remains true to its holding pattern, cats fight, sparks fly and the song is left to fry interminably on the third rail with electric guitar building and building as it echoes and echoes and echoes and echoes... The air then clears, only to rage once again with humid flurries of sonic scrap metal and hit cymbals until the freak out they’ve been holding back on for so long finally lets loose just in time to be crossfaded into sounds of a leaky boat adrift upon the roiling wake and flotsam of the song’s crash landing. It quickly fades to reveal only a quiet drone and the onset of the dazed wonderment of “Der LSD-Marsch.” Circular, undulating guitar lines glide gently back down to earth while plastic flute dances shrill with trills, signaling a lone bass line to emerge unblinking at the edge of silence. Drums edge in, opening the door for the piece to expand into the sort of free-form-heavy-thing-always-mounting-and-on-the-brink-of-toppling-over that opened the album. One muted and hyphenated drum solo later, Genrich unleashes the last wailing guitar solo and before you know it: they’ve settled on a gradual fade out. If “UFO” were a double album, then time constraints would be of no concern and this and every other piece could traipse on thrice as long -- much like ‘Der LSD-Marsch” did in live performance as additional guitar solos, two separate drum solos and several hoarsely sung verses (“Every cell/ Owns a code!/ Every cell!/ Pierce your bone!/ Set you freeeee!/ LSDDDD!”) stamp it out forever. The Seth Man

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Clifford Thornton - Communications Network (re-up)

Jerome Cooper - Percussion, Drums
Jayne Cortez - Vocals
Nathan Davis - Sax (Soprano)
Vincent George - Percussion, Conga
Andy Gonzalez - Bass
Jerry Gonzalez - Percussion, Conga
Jay Hoggard - Vibraphone
Nicky Marrero - Percussion, Timbales
Lakshminarayana Shankar - Violin
Sirone - Bass
Clifford Thornton - Cornet, Piano (Electric)

Recorded Live at NYC's Festival of African-American Music

(1972, Third World)

This is a killer set, lot of african beats and Thornton's free themes.
un under-rated player.. hope someone will notice him!

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