Monday Long Song

The jazz-fusion sweet spot runs from 1969 to 1975, a period where electricity pushed and prodded its way ever further into the previously exclusively acoustic instrumental palate. Miles Davis didn't even regard his seminal 1969 LP 'In a Silent Way' (which effectively kick started the movement) as a part of the jazz genre at all, referring to it instead as '...directions in music...'. Les McCann's 'Invitation to Openness' falls bang in the middle of that sweet spot, being recorded in the summer of 1971 and released the following year. 'The Lovers' takes up the whole of side one and is an eastern infused, ethereal masterpiece. Yusef Lateef and Alphonse Mouzon are probably the prominent names from the jazz world on the LP, but who's providing the guitar hook that threads its way through the tune? It's David Spinozza, whose other credits include Paul McCartney's 'Ram', John Lennon's 'Mind Games' and Don McLean's 'American Pie'.

Les McCann - The Lovers

Monday Long Song

Albert Ayler once memorably noted that in terms of the saxophone '...John Coltrane was the father, Pharoah Sanders the son and I am the holy ghost...'  Coltrane left us at 40 in 1967, Ayler himself died in mysterious circumstances aged 34 three years later and the final link in that holy trinity, Pharoah Sanders, passed away in Los Angeles on Friday, just three weeks short of his 82nd birthday. In a 60+ year career, Sanders collaborated widely with artists such as Coltrane, Sun Ra, McCoy Tyner, Don Cherry, Jah Wobble and, most recently and memorably, with Floating Points & the LSO on the fabulous 'Promises' LP. 

Today's tune goes back to 1969 and the album 'Jewels of Thought'. The hypnotic 'Hum-Allah-Hum-Allah-Hum-Allah' features the vocals of Leon Thomas (who himself worked with everyone from Louis Armstrong to Santana) and the legendary Lonnie Liston Smith on keyboards.

Pharoah Sanders - Hum-Allah-Hum-Allah-Hum-Allah

Monday Long Song

I've felt a little all at sea these past couple of weeks. The small pile of records I picked up while in Edinburgh last month (including one generously gifted by our mutual chum Charity Chic) sit untouched and unplayed upstairs, awaiting my eventual attention. Half a dozen books lay scattered around the place, each with just a few pages thumbed through. It seems my powers of concentration have taken themselves off on an extended summer holiday. What do I traditionally do in these circumstances? I walk. But even this innocent activity has been curtailed somewhat in the recent blistering heat. 

The music I have been playing around the house is lengthy and largely instrumental - tunes to get lost in. Like this piece from Miles Davis, which was recorded on the final day of the 'In a Silent Way' sessions in February 1969, but bafflingly remaining unreleased until 2001. 'The Ghetto Walk' is a dense, humid, eerie meander of a thing, stifling and oppressive, much like several of my own recent local wanderings, photographic evidences of which are attached.

Miles Davis - The Ghetto Walk

Monday Long Song

American composer and keyboardist Chick Corea passed away last Tuesday. If he'd done nothing else in his 79 years but be a part of the transitional recordings made by Miles Davis between 1968 and 1972, his jazz immortality would've been assured. As it was, he was also a prolific and in demand sideman (for the likes of Stanley Clarke, Herbie Mann & Wayne Shorter), lead the avant-garde band Circle and fusion outfit Return to Forever and additionally released around 100 albums under his own name for labels such as Blue Note, ECM, Concord, Deutsche Grammophon, Polydor and GRP. A busy musical life, well lived. 

Return to Forever - Song to the Pharaoh Kings

Monday Long Song

The extraordinary 'Bitches Brew' by Miles Davis was released 50 years ago last week. It's particularly extraordinary because even from a vantage point of 2020, so much of the music contained on the double LP still sounds as if it's beamed in from fifty years in the future. You can call it jazz, you can call it jazz-rock, you can call it fusion, you could describe it as deeply funky, ambient, experimental electronic musique concrète - all those terms might well apply, yet are also simultaneously wide of the mark.

Using a band bolstered by such luminaries as Herbie Hancock, John McLaughlin, Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea and Joe Zawinul, the basic tracks were recorded across three days in the Summer of 1969, before being subject to a groundbreaking series of edits, splices, effects and loops in post-production by Miles and his producer Teo Macero. There's nothing quite like it.

Miles Davis - Pharaoh's Dance

Monday Long Song

Throughout long shifts in the supermarket over the weekend, I saw and heard things that caused my colleagues and I to wonder aloud what exactly the human race has become. In what is usually a friendly, good-natured working environment, rudeness, verbal abuse, meanness and greed had suddenly become the norm. We're all worried and no-one knows exactly what's happening or what comes next, but surely we can at least maintain a bare minimum level of civility and respect for each other as we go forward.

'Space is the Place' claimed Sun Ra and his Astro Intergalactic Infinity Arkestra in 1973 - and they could well have a point. Earth certainly isn't a barrel of laughs at the moment.

Sun Ra - Space is the Place

Monday Long Song

Tyner and Trane

The hugely influential jazz pianist McCoy Tyner passed away last week at the age of 81. His dense 60 year discography includes sessions with legendary artists such as Wayne Shorter, Grant Green, Art Blakey, Stanley Turrentine, Lee Morgan and, most notably, John Coltrane, with whom he recorded over 25 albums worth of material. In a very busy musical life, he also issued 70+ LPs under his own name. By way of tribute, here's the epic title track from Coltrane's 1962 album 'Olé', which features a stellar line-up of Tyner, Trane, Freddie Hubbard, Elvin Jones, Art Davis, Reggie Workman and Eric Dolphy.

John Coltrane - Olé

Monday Long Song(s)

Friday evening front row view

After managing, one way or another, to miss Soft Machine in concert for the entire first half-century of their existence, I'm now playing a belated game of catch-up having seen them twice in the past nine months, most recently last Friday evening at a venue just eight miles up the road from my house. Between tunes, guitar virtuoso John Etheridge mused on the band's long history, it's legacy, illustrious former members and, crucially, the precise nature of their genre - '...Jazz-rock? Prog-rock? Jazz-prog?...'

The original recordings of 'The Tale of Taliesin' and 'Hidden Details' are separated by 42 years, yet feature three of the same personnel - Etheridge (now aged 71) drummer John Marshall (78) and bassist Roy Babbington (79). The current line-up is completed by 55 year-old multi-instrumental whippersnapper Theo Travis, who has played with the band for a mere 13 years, while somehow also maintaining both a solo career and one as a sideman for artists such as King Crimson, David Gilmour, David Sylvian and Steven Wilson. Soft Machine ripped into both of these tunes and many others on Friday evening with all the thrilling inventiveness and attack of players a fraction of their respective ages. It really was a terrific show.

Soft Machine - The Tale of Taliesin (1976)

Soft Machine - Hidden Details (2018)

All That Jazz #8 - Elvin Jones

It's impossible to overstate the importance of Elvin Jones. The fact that he was behind the drums for the incendiary series of LPs put out by John Coltrane on Atlantic and Impulse between 1960 and 1966, guarantees his immortality in jazz circles, even though this merely scratches the surface of his phenomenal body of work. In a career stretching from 1948 until his death in 2004, Jones played for virtually every jazz musician of any significance, while also finding time to release close to 50 albums under his own name. The run of ten LPs he put out on the legendary Blue Note label between 1968 and 1973 are particularly noteworthy. The name on the sleeves was his, but the rotating ensembles he led were crammed with quality players. Here he is fronting an unusual keyboardless three horn line-up of Joe Farrell, Dave Liebman and Frank Foster plus Gene Perla on bass with 'Three Card Molly' from 1971's 'Genesis'.

Elvin Jones - Three Card Molly

All That Jazz #7 - Sonny Red

Large swaths Blue Note's legendary back catalogue were re-issued as part of a deal with EMI in the mid-1980s. The label's roster seemed an endless parade of wonderfulness to me. Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis, McCoy Tyner, Wayne Shorter, Lee Morgan, Jimmy Smith, the list went on and on and, working in a record shop, I was in the fortunate position of having access to many of the gems on offer.

A lesser known LP that I discovered sandwiched among the jazz giants in the reissue programme, was 'Out of the Blue' by saxophonist Sonny Red. Originally issued in 1960, it features Miles Davis alumni Wynton Kelly, Jimmy Cobb and Paul Chambers among the backing musicians. Biographical details are scarce, but later in the 1960s Sonny played extensively as a sideman for trumpeter Donald Byrd and eventually drifted into obscurity after releasing a final, self-titled, LP in 1971.

Sonny Red passed away 37 years ago at the age of 48, leaving 'Out of the Blue' as his only Blue Note LP as a band leader. Here's the very cool 'Bluesville'.

Sonny Red - Bluesville

All That Jazz #6 - Miles Davis / Reggie Lucas

Miles and Reggie on stage

Reggie Lucas, one of the two guitarists in Miles Davis' controversial 1972-75 band, died in New York last month at the age of 65. Great commercial success came to Lucas in the 1980s when he produced the majority of Madonna's first LP, wrote her hit single 'Borderline' and, with fellow Miles Davis alumni James Mtume, co-wrote 'Never Knew Love Like This Before' for Stephanie Mills and 'The Closer I Get to You' for Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway.

The music played on stage by Miles and his band from 1972-75 was often a dense fusion hybrid that, to many observers at the time, challenged the very notion of jazz itself. In contrast 'Chieftain', a studio recording from August 1972, but which remained unreleased until 2007, is a sparse, nervy piece, pushed along by the relentless tap-tap skittering of Al Foster's rim-shots and Lucas' periodic guitar stabs. Even if you're not a fan of jazz in general or Miles in particular, this may be worth a few minutes of your time.

Miles Davis - Chieftain

All That Jazz #4 - Mor Thiam

During a long career, Senegalese drummer Mor Thiam has played for Freddie Hubbard, Don Pullen and The World Saxophone Quartet amongst others, as well as occasionally recording under his own name. Thiam's first LP as a leader, 'Dini Safarrar (Drums Of Fire)', released in 1973, was a self-finaced effort with all proceeds donated to famine relief in Africa. The record features the talents of Oliver Lake on sax and Lester Bowie of The Art Ensemble of Chicago on trumpet. During its many years of unavailability, the reputation of 'Dini Safarrar' steadily grew amongst enthusiasts of jazz, funk, hip hop & African music, with an original copy of the LP changing hands for over £1750 in 2008. Thankfully, Jazzman records reissued the album on vinyl and CD in late in 2016, though stocks of the LP are apparently already exhausted.

A word of warning, 'Ayo Ayo Nene', which translates as 'Blessing For The New Born Baby', is total earworm material.

Mor Thiam - Ayo Ayo Nene

All That Jazz #3 - Sound Etiquette

The most contemporary contribution to this series thus far comes from Sound Etiquette, a trio out of Oakland California who came together in 2014. Nick Obando (sax), Eli Wallace (keys) and Aaron Levin (drums) are veteran players on the Bay Area circuit and recorded all eight tunes on their self-titled debut LP in one day. The early 1970's electric work of Miles Davis is a recognisable touchstone on 'A Clearing' and 'The Tides', though things do get a tad more free-form elsewhere. 'Entrance' is, fittingly, the first track on the album - a quirky, dubby opening salvo. Find out more about Sound Etiquette here.

Sound Etiquette - Entrance

All That Jazz #2 - Calvin Keys

In his long career, guitarist Calvin Keys has played with many of the greats - Bobby Hutcherson, Ray Charles, Ahmad Jamal and Pharoah Sanders among them. Released in 1974, 'Proceed with Caution!' is his second LP as leader of his own band - and it's a spiritually funky affair. Check out the groovy 'Aunt Lovey', which particularly showcases the talents of Henry 'Skipper' Franklin on bass, Leon 'Ndugu' Chancler on drums and the electric keys of Kirk Lightsey.

Today is Calvin Keys' 74th birthday - many happy returns of the day sir.

Calvin Keys - Aunt Lovey

All That Jazz #1 - Herbie Hancock

For a long time, a very long time, I've wanted to introduce a Jazz series to these pages. I'm keenly aware that this might prove less than popular in some quarters and I can respect that, but it's a musical genre that takes up a great deal of my listening hours, so please forgive an old man's indulgence. Fear not though, the series, much like its Reggae counterpart Red Gold & Green, will be an occasional one. The title, All That Jazz, is a nod to my Dad (himself a Jazz fan in the 1950's) who would often, apropos of nothing, conclude a sentence with the phrase '...and all that jazz'.

I'll kick things off with the nearest thing to a safe bet that I have at my disposal, 'Cantaloupe Island' by Herbie Hancock. The tune was recorded in 1964 for Hancock's fourth Blue Note LP 'Empyrean Isles', on which he is joined by three musicians who will definitely reappear in this series down the line somewhere - Freddie Hubbard on cornet, Ron Carter on bass and the great Tony Williams on drums. The tune achieved renewed recognition when it was heavily sampled to form the basis of 'Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia)', a hit single for Us3 in 1993.

Herbie Hancock - Cantaloupe Island

(Buy 'Empyrean Isles' by Herbie Hancock here)

Colin Stetson

If you think the music of saxophonist and multireedist Colin Stetson is a challenging listen, try watching him make it. Based in Canada, Stetson has played with Arcade Fire, Tom Waits, Bon Iver and Anthony Braxton among a host of others, but when he plays solo it's just him, all him. Listen to the extraordinary 'The Stars in His Head', try to work out what on Earth is going on, then watch a live performance of 'Judges' to find out.

Version City #37 - Ted Heath & His Music Play The Rolling Stones

'The Big Ones' by Ted Heath and His Music is an LP that I just couldn't leave behind when I spotted it lurking in a box at a car-boot sale last summer. I mean, come on. Look at the sleeve. It has 'Groovy' written all over it and was either going to be a complete stonker or an utter stinker. Fortunately it's the former. Pop hits of the day are given the big band treatment with pretty good results, though nowhere more successfully than this all-out assault on golden oldie (it was 4 years old at the time) '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction'. Dig it!

Gogo Penguin and Mammal Hands

Late last Wednesday, I was very pleased to learn that Gogo Penguin's second LP, 'V2.0', had been shortlisted for the Mercury Music Prize, a thoroughly deserved nod. The evening after the night before, Gogo Penguin played in Norwich, opening for local outfit Mammal Hands, who were launching their own debut LP 'Animalia'. Both bands played out of their skins. It was a night that none in attendance, on stage or in the packed audience, will forget in a hurry.

I featured Gogo Penguin a few months ago (here) and their music has remained on regular rotation round these parts ever since, but was unprepared for the sheer force of their live show. They groove, they swing and, yes, they even rock, Mick Blacka throwing occasional Keef-like shapes with his double bass. The band stretch and push the recorded versions of their repertoire into seemingly uncharted areas before bringing it all back home and finishing each tune on a dime, without any noticeable nods or winks between the three of them. The performance of 'One Percent' was worth the price of admission alone. Totally thrilling stuff. This isn't too shabby either.

Mammal Hands are another three piece, who, like Gogo Penguin, are blessed with an extraordinary keyboard player and drummer, unusually though, they have no bassist. The line-up is completed by Jordan Smart on saxophone who was also group announcer for the night (apparently they take it in turns). Smart is very quietly spoken and, in tunes like 'Mansions of Millions of Years', demonstrates similarly delicate phrasing on the soprano sax. His range is huge though. During an extended tenor sax workout in an untitled new piece later in the evening, he tore the place apart, prompting spontaneous outbursts of applause from the audience everytime he took it up another notch. This was my first encounter with Mammal Hands, but I bought the album after the show and I'll certainly be back for more. Here's a version of 'Kandaiki, recorded last year.

Mammal Hands recorded 'Animalia' back in December 2013 and are clearly already looking towards album number two, in much the same way as Gogo Penguin are pushing forward to album three. It was a memorable night and I'm excited to hear what comes next from these terrific bands.

Version City #29 - Zara McFarlane sings Junior Murvin

We're hitting the highway, heading down to our nation's capitol for a few days to hook up with the visiting New York contingent of the family. Normal service (whatever that is) should be resumed in the middle of next week. I'll leave you with a familiar tune in an unfamiliar musical setting, with a clip filmed a short hop from where we'll be staying.

GoGo Penguin

Richard Williams, over at The Blue Moment, recently penned an interesting piece on the current crop of piano led jazz trios and, as a consequence, I spent much of yesterday afternoon checking out his recommendations. Five combos, each with their own distinct approach to the form and all worthy of further investigation, Manchester's GoGo Penguin being my pick of the bunch at the moment. Try sitting still to the groovy 'Hopopono'.