Musical Ramblings

November 2006 Rambling Podcast : The Acoustic Show

I don't have access to exact download statistics, but judging by the way my available bandwidth shot through the roof two days after I released the October Rambling Podcast, I suspect there have been a few listeners! So here's the new show:   Rambling Podcast #2.

It's quite a large mp3 file, around 45Mo, si I'd strongly recommend downloading it rather than listening to it streaming as this can lead to glitches and doesn't allow you to skip forward or backwards easily. So, right click on the link, Save Target As... and be patient ! Depending on your available bandwidth, downloading the whole file may take from ten minutes to over half an hour, so do it while you're working on something else and then listen to it !

For more information on the philosophy behind the sources and legality thereof, I encourage you to read the general presentation of Rambling Podcasts here. As mentioned last month, a reminder that maintaining this blog actually costs quite a bit of money. I'm shifting to a new scheme during the month that should speed up download times and allow me to design a more readable page, but it's also more expensive. The only way for me to recoup it is through Amazon Affiliation, so a good way of supporting Harmonica Ramblings at no additional cost to you is to purchase records (or anything else, for that matter) on Amazon by clicking either on the album links in the text or on the banner visible on the right of this page. Once you do that, anything you purchase on that session from Amazon will earn Harmonica Ramblings a small % of the value of the products purchased.

The program this month focuses on acoustic instruments, hence The Acoustic Show. By the strict definition of the word acoustic, no live concert nowadays is acoustic, since the instruments are all amplified one way or another. However, I think we can all distinguish an acoustic sounding instrument from one that use amplification to alter the sound. This is the definition of acoustic used here. The detailed tracklist (which you can also download in text format) for The Acoustic Show is as follows :

Jean-Jacques Milteau - Ode to Billy Joe: This track is a slow instrumental from Jean-Jacques Milteau's live album Pacific Blue. Unfortunately, this live recording is not available online and only sold by JJ at concerts outside of France. If you like what you hear, JJ's recent albums all feature a similar approach: sparse playing, gorgeous sound, and sober instrumentations. I'd particularly recommend Blue 3rd and Fragile if you want to delve into his discography.

Bob Brozman - Down the Road: Probably my favourite Bob Brozman song, it's actually a cover a traditional trinidad song. This is from a 1997 live show featuring masters of slide guitar, and Bob is accompanied here by Shubashish Battacharya on tabla. Bob's original rendition of Down the Road can be found on Slide A Go-Go, an album that is unfortunately out of print. If you're interested in Bob's stuff, though, you could do worse than get hold of Truckload of Blues or Devil's Slide, fine albums that showcase his eccentric approach to traditional musical genres. If the world music side of things appeals to you more, Bob has released an album with Debashish Battacharya, Subashish's slide guitar playing brother entitled Mahima.

Ry Cooder and David Lindley - Jesus on the Mainline: This song comes from a 1995 show in Austria, part of the Family Tour. I haven't found any references to albums released under both their names, but Ry and David have been collaborating since the 70s, so chances are David is featured on several of Ry's albums. Ry Cooder is mostly known for Wim Wenders' movie soundtracks, in particular the haunting sounds of Paris, Texas. David Lindley has been a sideman and session musician behind many greats, from Bob Dylan to the Blind Boys of Alabama, but has also released many albums under his own name with band El Rayo-X.

Charlie Musselwhite - Christo Redentor: This chilling, intense and somber instrumental is actually a cover of a jazz pianist Duke Pearson composition. Charlie Musselwhite here is accompanied by none other than the famous Dr John, and this was recorded as part of a 1997 tour with Musselwhite, Dr John and Keb' Mo. Musselwhite first released Christo Redentor on his 1967 debut Stand Back! Here Comes Charley Musselwhite's Southside Band. A different version can be found on the 1969 album Tennesse Woman. The best officially released version however, at least to my taste, is to be found on a semi-obscure live record called Curtain Call Cocktails. The original Duke Pearson tune is pure blue-note sound, and a little less somber. It can be found on Donald Byrd's A New Perspective.

Ray Brown - Ellington Medley: The late Ray Brown is one of the milestones of jazz bass, having backed nearly everyone from the 60s onward. He accompanied Ella Fitzgerald on stage and in life, he was part of the celebrated Oscar Peterson Trio, and in the 80s he started touring under his own name in mostly trio format. This solo piece is part of a trio concert in Sweden in 2001 with guitarist Russel Malone and pianist Monty Alexander (you can hear them briefly at the end of the tune). A trio album was made and released in 2002, just around the time Ray passed away. Unsurprisingly, it's entitled Ray Brown/Monty Alexander/Russel Malone.

Bireli Lagrene - Hungaria: Bireli Lagrene is an authentic gipsy from Alsace who started playing guitar in the Django style but quickly strayed away from his origins and became a celebrated jazz-rock guitarist. He played with everyone who was someone in the late 70s and 80s, including, famously, Jaco Pastorius. Middle age carried him back to his roots, however, and his recent records include two Gipsy Swing releases : Gipsy Project and Gipsy Project and Friends. As good a place as any to get started if you want to delve into Gipsy Jazz. You can also start from the roots and get hold of one of the many Django Reinhardt compilations live The Best of Django Reinhardt or Quintette du Hot Club de France.

Bela Fleck & the Flecktones- Michelle: In the early 90s, Bela Fleck's band featured diatonic harmonica player Howard Levy, and this track comes from a concert performed for the Lonesome Pine Special radio show, available on the live music archive. Michelle was officially released on the 1991 album Flight of the Cosmic Hippo. There are two other albums of the same era with Howard Levy, namely Bela Fleck and the Flecktones and UFO TOFU.

And that's it for the Acoustic Show. I especially want to thank Jean-Jacques Milteau for allowing me to use Ode to Billy Joy from his commercial release Pacific Blue and to Bill Barrett for letting me to use the intro and outro from his amazing piece Corn on the Cob (Available on Brother Weasel's Swingin' & Groovin' that can cheaply be acquired here) as a jingle for the show.

Please, please, please, send me comments or post them here ! Artists you want to hear, bootleg shows you own and want to contribute, comments, questions, queries, I want to read it all!

When it rains it pours...

Blues diva Ruth Brown passed away last week. Today, we learn that blues legend Robert Lockwood Jr has also been taken by the grim reaper. The Blue Shoe Times has extensives bios of both artists. Time to dig out your early Little Walter records to listen to Robert Lockwood Jr's distinctive jazzy backing, and even if (like me) the lyrics of Boom, Boom, Out go the Lights, make you uneasy, you can focus on the guitar playing and admire the talent that was and is no longer.

Tidal wave of records

I know (or at least hope) you're waiting for Rambling Podcast #2, but in the meantime, here's a little something... I'll be running out of natural catastrophes at some point, so enjoy while it lasts !

I told you at length about the Wood Brothers' Ways not to Lose, which I still enjoy thoroughly and recommend heartily. Similarly acoustic, I was tempted by Amazon's recommendations to sample Xavier Rudd on the basis of my love for John Butler's music. I purchased his latest record Food in the Belly and after my first few listens I must confess to not having been entirely convinced. He's a good guitar player and singer, but the material was a little too laid back for my tastes. Where Butler's main background is folk, which he twists in his own way, Rudd's seems to be reggae, similarly twisted. Recently however, I managed to get hold of a bootleg recording of his which convinced me to give the CD another chance and I suspect it's growing on me... Still, the nest bits in my opinion are not those that sound reggae-ish but those where he uses aborigene instruments to liven up the songs. Mana , in particular, has this deep rumbling didgeridoo backing that sounds really exciting and evolves into a very modern , groove beat. Food in the Belly is one of those records that needs to be digested slowly, I guess, but I'm sufficiently intrigued to check out Rudd's previous releases if I manage to get hold of them.

While on the subject of pop artists who mix in traditional elements, and despite there being very little musical connexion between Rudd's album and the one I'm going to mention now : French singer and wannabe gipsy guitarist Sanseverino released his third album this week, entitled Exactement. Similar formula to the previous two with gipsy guitar being the main backing, but there are lots of swing era horns added to the mix for an overall excellent release. Sanseverino's hilarious lyrics and rocket-paced delivery fit the musical genre well. It's pop and doesn't pretend to be anything else, but it's also seriously cool music, with the best jazz guys backing him.  Content wise, Exactement is a little more political than the previous Sanseverino releases, probably a consequence of the proximity of major French elections. Still, even when he's political, Sanseverino manages to be funny and quirky... I don't normally mention French pop here, since you're missing something if you don't speak French, but in Sanseverino's case, the music is so cool you don't need to understand the lyrics to enjoy !

A lot of interesting pop releases these last few weeks, and one of the ones that I awaited the most was the new G Love and Special Sauce, always a thrill as far as I'm concerned. I was especially eager for this release since the previous one, The Hustle, was one of my favourite, with a dirty, groove-rock sound that I hadn't heard since their debut album. Lemonade is a lot quieter, and although there are a few really nice tracks on it, I can't help but feel that the proximity between G Love and Jack Johnson  is hurting G Love's identity a bit. For those not in the know, G more or less "discovered" Jack Johnson, who is now stupendously more famous than G himself. For the first time, listening to Lemonade, I get the feeling at times that G is trying to be Jack. Not good. It's not a horrible album, way better than The Electric Mile; it features  a few real gems, like the somber Breakin' Up, the seriously groovy Can't go Back to Jersey  (with catchy harmonica intro), or the dirty Missing my Baby, but it's quite far on the pop side, probably a bit too far for me. Let's hope it's just a temporary thing, and more importantly, let's hope that G Love and the Sauce finally release the raucous, live album we've all been waiting for...

At around the same time G's record was release, Gov't Mule launched their 7th studio album, High and Mighty, the second one with stable post guest bassist period. I wasn't that hot on the previous one, Dejà Voodoo, which I felt was a little too classic rock for my taste. High & Mighty is no different. It's a good rock album, but I can't help but feel that Gov't Mule has lost it's thing. The early mule used to have a particular approach to writing. Alongside songs that wouldn't have sounded at odds on 70s Led Zep albums, you'd always find those odd numbers that either had a weird groove (like Thorazine Shuffle or Blind Man in the Dark) or a more elaborate jazz influence (like Birth of the Mule), songs that, to me, made the Mule the Mule. I felt that carried through to the post Woody era, with tunes like Beautifully Broken or Sun Dance. But I don't hear it anymore. So what I'm left with is a good rock album that sounds like it was done in the 70s, but fails to grip me. Oh well...

It's starting to sound like the last few months have been nothing like sour grapes musically, but that's actually not the case. I have made a couple of interesting, if not downright thrilling discoveries in rock that are well worth mentioning. First is Wolfmother, an Australian power trio which also bows to classic 70s rock on their self-titled debut album. In fact, some may say that I'm being unfair to Gov't Mule since Wolfmother could be described as derivative as well, but I don't know... They really updated the sound, it feels modern, dirtyer, thicker. Sure, there's lots of Zeppelin and Black Sabbath in their approach, but I feel like they have the potential to express a more personal voice and already do, to some extent. Songs like Dimensions or Joker & the Thief have that little something that tingles my ear...

A much more exciting discovery, however, has been Spanish flamenco-prog band Elbicho. Okay, you'll ask, what the devil is flamenco-prog ? It's prog-rock with a heavy dose of flamenco guitar and vocals, a wonderful flute and a layer of Spanish horns on top. It's a surprising mix at first, but it really works. I first found their record Elbicho II after having read a review in a rock magazine, and really fell in love with its intricate construction, it's energy, it's palpable emotion (even when you don't understand the lyrics or the sleevenotes, which is my case). I've now acquired Elbicho and a live DVD thanks to spanish harp player Andrès, but I haven't had time to digest these yet.

On the blues-ier side, I finally put my hands on JJ Milteau's Pacific Blue, a self-produced live album that is only on sale at JJ's concerts outside of France due to legal reasons. What a shame ! It's fresh, the sound is beautiful, Manu Galvin's acoustic guitar playing is stunning, very reminiscent of Robben Ford's electro-acoustic sound and phrasing on Authorised Bootleg. Demi Evans' voice is stunningly gospel, shifting from velvety to growly in a blink. JJ's sound is the best I've heard of his live stuff, full-bodied, round, clear, and as sparse as can be dared live. It really is a very good sample of what a Milteau gig sounds like these days. The opening Ode to Billy Joe is my pick of the album, superb and moving. The tracks with Demi singing are mostly from Milteau's Blue 3rd; At Last on Time is particularly thrilling. There's even an uptempo version of Stormy Monday with that jazzy Allman Bros chord progression. Very cool. That means get it of you can, and if you do it means you've seen JJ live and probably would have bought the album anyway !

Another harmonica heavy album that arrived through the mail is the latest release of the late Junior Wells, Live at Theresa's, which Delmark kindly sent me for review. Why this record never saw the light of day despite being recorded in 1975, I have no idea and the liner notes aren't telling. It's not a live recording like any other, in particular because the in-between song jive that Junior was famous for hasn't been edited, so what you get is a complete night of music just like it was back then (expect it's built together from two dates with slightly different line-ups). Overall, it works, even if the concert never reaches the intensity of, say, Drinkin' TNT and Smokin' Dynamite. This feels more relaxed though, more like "An Evening with Junior Wells". It's better in my opinion than the Live at the Golden Bear. Junior's voice sounds way better. The band is pretty good although I much prefer the Sammy Lawhorn lineup in the second half than the Phil Guy lineup in the first half. And the banter... Well, it's intrusive, but it doesn't wreck the song themselves like it does on Last Time Around. The repertoire is classic Junior (Snatch it Back and Hold It, Love her with a Feeling, Come on in this House, Messing with the Kid,...) with a few classic blues tunes including a really cool version of Goin' Down Slow that I suspect has inspired the Derek Trucks Band for their own cover of that tune. Overall a good record, expecially recommended if you want to experience what a gig in Junior's heyday must have felt like...

Based on the recommendations of JP over at ICGS and simultaneous encouragements by my good friend Marcus from over the big pond (not to be confused with my good sprout-eating friend Marcus formerly from over the little pond) I finally acquired an album I'd heard of for a few years, the Charlie Hunter Quintet's Right Now Move, featuring Grégoire Maret on harmonica. I loved it from the get go and it's been seeing the inside of my CD player a lot laterly. Hunter's funky grooves are very cool, and his playing is quite stunning when you try to figure out what he's doing with his weird bassitar of his. He can move from sounding like Hendrix and a bassist to sounding like Kenny Burrell and Jimmy Smith, all by hisself. Stunning and musical. My only (mild) dissapointment is that Maret again fails to impress me. He's not bad or anything, he just sounds too tight, like he's in control all the time, never lets go... Still, I'll be getting more Charlie Hunter and there's a DVD of the Quintet I'm eyeing as well as records by his other band, Garage à Trois which sounds more experimental and loud!

And while we're on the subject of jazz, I've been on a great gipsy jazz kick lately. It started when I bought 2 double-CD compilations of modern gipsy jazz guitar and enjoyed them thoroughly. This infectious rhythm is just so hard to resist... Up to that point I'd only heard Django himself, but none of his disciples. I therefore discovered amazing musicians like Raphaël Faÿs, Tchavolo Shmitt, Romane, Stochelo Rosenberg and, of course Bireli Lagrene. Bireli in particular impressed me with his capacity to play within the formal constraints of the genre and yet sound like he's digested all that happened in Jazz after Django. So I went and purchased a double CD compilation of his Gipsy Project which included the original Gipsy Project album as well as Gipsy Project and Friends (and a few live bonus tracks). Stunning stuff. Amongst covers of Django originals or jazz standards the Hot Club Quintet loved to interpret, are manouche rewrites of Chanson Française tunes, and overall, the marvelous virtuosity of Lagrene's acoustic guitar and Florian Niculescu's furious violin backed by a rock solid pumping rhythm section. Listen to When Day is Gone if you get a chance, I bet you'll be hooked !

Well, that's about it for now. I still have a few records I should tell you about, but I feel I haven't listened to them enough to form an opinion. I'd love some feedback, as usual, and I especially encourage those who disagree with my subjective opinions to voice their disagreement (courteously) so that readers don't just have my view! I also remind you that all the amazon links above earn Harmonica Ramblings a little income to offset the hosting fees, so if you're interested in some of these records and intend to buy them through Amazon, please click here first !

Kevin Brown has a new CD out !

I just found out that British slide guitar player Kevin Brown had released an album earlier this year, which I missed. Kevin Brown is a stunningly intense slide player, with a crystalline sound like no other, and an excellent singer and songwriter to boot. His 2001 release Mojave Dust is still one of my favourite blues albums after repeated listens, and one I have purchased for many people to offer as a gift. Even my classical guitar nut dad has a copy and he loves it !

Anyway, I don't own Tin Church yet but I plan to get hold of it quick! Meanwhile, I will dig up that review I did of Mojave Dust all these years ago, translate it to English and post it in the coming days.

Harp news from Cheeseland

Lots of things moving on the French harp side !

Greg Szlapczynski recently announced the re-release of his four albums, three of which are out of print : Ternaire Madness, Gregtime, La Part du Diable and Varsovie will be remastered and rereleased with a new (and hopefully more stable) distributor, following Greg's current distributor going bust.

Meanwhile, jazz diatonicist Sébastien Charlier is working on concepts for new albums, one of them in a jazz rock approach. Sébastien is a huge Alan Holdsworth fan, so this could be interesting ! Let's just hope he doesn't push the synth-harp concept too far ! He's also thinking about a more electro-jazz thing. Meanwhile, he's been invited to guest on the recently released Six et Demi record Hommage à Claude Nougaro. Six et demi is a vocal group doing strange and wonderful arrangements of jazz standards.

Olivier Ker Ourio is also featured on a couple of recently released records, namely bassist Frédéric Monino's Around Jaco and guitarist Sylvain Luc's Joko. He's been touring with Sylvain Luc for a good while now, and they are due to enter the studio together for Olivier's new record in eraly December.

Finally, (not so) elder statesman of the French bluesharp JJ Milteau has just finished the mastering of a live record to be released in February. It features stuff recorded during his 2005 tours and apparently, it's very gritty !

Looks like Spring of 2007 will not be easy on my wallet...

Body Analogy

I've been thinking these last few days of an analogy to categorise music without resorting to limited genre boxes. The idea is to characterize music not by what it is but by what is does to you. One of the things that's pretty hard when writing reviews is expressing the effects that listening to music has on you. I'm not saying this is a revolutionary tool that will make my subjective opinions cristal-clear, but I'm willing to give it a try and, more importantly I'm interested in your opinions on the matter.

Here's the idea : I have so far identified four basic "effects" that music does on you. Graphically, having a fifth would be nice, but I'm not willing to invent one just for the sake of nice graphics. The four "effects" and their body analogies are :

• the head: the music stimulates your intellect. It requires a level of analysis and the appreciation is in the analysis more than in the other aspects of the music.
• the heart: the music generates a "romantic" emotion, an evocation of beauty, peace, calm and voluptuousness
• the guts: the music generates a raw empathy that is not pretty or esthetic but gut-churning and intense
• the legs: the music makes you want to tap your feet, shake your legs, wiggle your bum, etc.

Each of these would be mapped on a one to five scale. I've tried to map a few albums I enjoy in various genres to see how well the model works. Of course, you're more than welcome to comment, keeping in mind there's a part of subjective anyway. So here goes :

Muddy Waters - Hard Again: It's high-powered, its heavy, it's gritty. Muddy's voice is as powerful as ever, and the backing is generally as thick and loud as can be. It's a music that moves your guts, so the Guts rating is maximised at 5. Yet there are touches of subtelty and more emotion, so the Heart rating is 2. Many of the songs make you want to move, mark the beat, dance, so the Legs rating is 4. It's not intellectual and doesn't appeal to an analytical listening, so the Head rating is minimized to 1. The mapping would look kike the little vignette here on the right.

Oscar Peterson - Nigerian Marketplace: One of my favourite jazz records, it's a good experiment because, as many live recordings, it goes many places and is not just in one style or approach. It's jazz and while not as complex as jazz goes, it's still something that pleases the mind, so the Head rating would be 4. It's not as gutsy as the example above, obviously, but Peterson never forgets his blues roots, so there's a little  bit of Guts there, rated at 2. Many of the tunes are melodic and beautiful, so the Heart rating goes at 4. finally, NHOP's funky bass playing on tunes like the title track or Cakewalk is really driving and stimulating physically, so the Legs rating would be 3.

King Crimson - In the Court of the Crimson King: The seminal (and perhaps earliest genuine) prog rock album. Not easy to rate since the various tracks all evoke very different feels. Head has got to rate pretty high, this is quite complex music, but it probably doesn't warrant a 5, so let's rate it at 4. Overall, the album is pretty raucous, as showcased on 21st Century Schizoid Man, for example, but it's something that happens at times rather than all the way through, so let's say Guts is 4. The Heart rating is, overall, lower, but one song, I Talk to the Wind, is quite melancholy and touching. Let's put Heart at 3 just because of that song. Finally, it's not really an album that you groove to, so I'd put the Legs rating at 1.

One thing I should clarify : this is not meant to be a substitue to the review but rather a visual aid to it. A way of expressing what a record does to me based on my own subjective listening.

So there you have it. Useful or not ? I suspect it breaks down when it tries to encompass albums that are just collections of tunes rather that organic wholes, so it would obviously be more adapted to rating concept albums or involved jazz super sessions rather than underproduced live albums. I'm curious to know what you think, and feel free to use the comment section to debate on the topic. This is, after all, a blog !

He Got Started!

Faithful reader JP has just started a blog on chromatic harmonica in all its forms called I Can't Get Started. It's designed to give you pointers and practice tools to progress in your chromatic harmonica tuition. You will find reviews there, of course, but also and mostly (as I understand it), exercises and advice. Go give it a look, there's not much there yet, but I'm checking it out regularly already !

October Quizz Results

For the first time since I started the Quizz, the winner this month has not contributed all the correct answers. Only three correct answers out of four for Jimmy Chan, from Hong Kong, who is, nonetheless, the best contributor! Runner up Ludo Beckers also had three out of four answers but his estimate of the number of entries was further off ! Jimmy wins one of three CDs mentioned in the orginal post!

Anyway, here are the correct answers :

The first excerpt was Larry Adler, playing live in Australia. He was something like 82 at the time, and this record is amazing way of entering his world. Despite a few minor flaws in his playing (expecially on the fast tunes) that can easily be forgiven considering his age, Live in Australia is a shining illustration of Larry Adler's music and personality. The playing is interspersed with anecdotes from his life told with great humour. I'm not familiar with the rest of Larry Adler's discography, but I'm pretty sure you can find many collections that feature this particular tune, Genevieve, the theme track (composed and interpreted by Larry) to the movie Genevieve that was a huge success in 1953 !

The second excerpt was Charlie Musselwhite in his first recorded foray into South-American music. This was on the 1979 Harmonica According to Charlie Musselwhite an odd album halfway betweena masterclass and an album, featuring many instrumentals and several songs and really pushing the envelope in terms of technique and musical approach. I tend to shun Musselwhite albums because I'm not a big fan of his singing, but this one's a keeper. The song, Azul Para Amparo, prefigures Charlie's collaboration with Eliades Ochoa on Continental Drifter 20 years later.

Excerpt number three was of course the inimitable Stevie Wonder, and that's the one artist that most contributors to the quizz identified. Not surprising, really, Stevie's style is quite distinctive... The track here is For Once in my Life, from a Frank Sinatra "guest" album called Duets II. Sinatra and gospel singer Gladys Knight are paired on this song, with Stevie Wonder playing this wonderful intro. If you like Stevie's playing, you can also try and hunt down his Motown instrumental harmonica album Alfie, a wonder of romantic harmonica released under the name of Eivets Rednow.

And finally, excerpt number four that stumped absolutely everyone... No correct answer on this track! I agree it was tricky, but I thought blues buffs would be all over this and amaze me. Alas... This excerpt was the solo in Lord, Lord from Junior Well's Blues Hit Big Town! "But", I hear you protest, "it sounds just like Little Walter!" Well, sure it does! I did say it was tricky, didn't I? Blues Hit Big Town is one of Junior's mid 50s releases, and it's pretty obvious who his mentor was back then! It's still a great album, with Junior displaying his charactristic energy all over.

Well that's it for the October Quizz. Two lessons from that one : there's no point in me trying to make it easier, I get even fewer correct answers! Also, you don't have to have 4/4 to contribute and win !