A short break from my Harmonica Sur Cher write-ups. Yesterday I received an email from a musically (and harmonically) inclined friend that read:
<< I'm looking for some recommendations for some hot albums to buy. It
seems like an age since I bought a decent, let alone classic album.>>
Needless to say I was very flattered that he would turn to me, and my ego being what it is, I drafted a long response with numerous comments, links to videos or reviews, etc. This morning, I suddenly realised that I could share that with my readers too. If you have been reading Musical Ramblings faithfully, most of these might be familiar to you, but I think there's a certain value in it being all gathered in one place.
So here goes:
I'm gonna go on a limb here and assume that you know Son of Dave. If you don't, this should give you a good feel for it, and I recommend both 02 and 03.
I have very eclectic tastes, so I'll try to qualify the stuff that
really moved me recently so that you can sense whether it fits your
paradigm or not.
I've been on a Blue Note kick. I remember you
mentioning that you discovered a lot of the old jazz cats when you were
a young 'un, so none of this might be new to you, but the one guy who I
really dig and is a recent discovery for me is Leo Parker, a baritone player who cut two records for Blue Note and then had the stupid idea to die. His album Let Me Tell You 'bout It has really been a major discovery for me (and I'm now exploring more bari players as a consequence). There's a review I wrote here. Apart from that, Blue Note must-have records for me include Lee Morgan's Sidewinder and Art Blakey's Moanin' at the very least.
Two other jazz cats of the same era (but not on Blue Note) who I really find interesting are Mingus and Kirk. For Mingus, I would absolutely and unreservedly recommend Blues & Roots.
If you don't know it, go for it, you can't but love it (and there's
great bari there too!) It's harder to pick a favourite for Roland Kirk,
and his stuff is way weirder. This video is a good sample of what I love about him (and features great bari, again!). If I had to pick a favourite I'd say Volunteered Slavery which has some studio and some much wilder live stuff (you can see me doing the title track theme on harp here). You might however want to check out the Live in Copenhagen (aka Kirk in Copenhagen) which has a surprise appearance by none other than SBW2!
Let's keep it at that for the old jazz. As far as recent jazz go, I really like saxophonist Skerik and particularly his short lived project Skerik's Syncopated Taint Septet. Check out this video for a taste. This a track from their studio album Husky which I really love. Another avant-garde-ish band I really like is jazz trio The Bad Plus.
It's not for the faint of heart, but they're truly post rock. Probably
the most accessible of their CDs is the latest which features a singer
and is mostly covers of rock songs. This
is them doing Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb for a taste of their
approach. If you think it's a straight cover, you haven't listened long
enough. A more "classic" cover of theirs from a previous album is Smell like Teen Spirit. Still, I'd recommend For All I Care as a good start if their weirdness doesn't put you off.
Still in the jazz realm but a lot more accessible, is Avishai Cohen. I really fell for him listening to Continuo and Gently Disturbed. This
is a good sample of that era. Lyrical, blending the jazz tradition with
classical and oriental influences. On Cohen's recently released Aurora, he sings and the feeling is overall less jazz and more world, but I like it a lot nonetheless.
Finally, I've been digging into the modern New Orleans crowd lately. First of all, you need to check out Stanton Moore. He's the drummer from Galactic (see below) but also has a solo career that's more in the jazz vein. I dearly love his album III (reviewed here)
which has some very funky horn laden stuff and some deeper, darker trio
stuff with organ and guitar, including a really heart-rending version
of When the Levee Breaks. Can't find a decent video of his on Youtube,
so you'll have to trust me on that (and you can check the Galactic
section below for a feel of his playing).
Enough with jazz. I must confess not to be a big purchaser of blues
these days, and I haven't been for a good while. About the only guy
that excites me in that area is Ian Siegal, and I don't think I need to
introduce you to him ;-) Straying off a little bit from pure blues
though is a superb duet called the Wood Brothers which features Chris Wood (of Medeski Martin & Wood fame) on double bass and Oliver Wood on guitar and vocals. Luckiest Man is from their first album Ways not to Lose (reviewed here by yours truly). Lovin' Arms if from their second album Loaded. Both are well worth checking out. Don't get them for the harp playing though.
There's a Franco-American band that's worth checking out in the Americana realm as well. They're called Moriarty and feature great instrumentation and a female vocalist that simply has a voice to die for. Private Lily is an awesome song and incidentally, that's how they play live too (huddled around a microphone). The album is called Gee, but this is a lonesome town (here's my review of a concert) and I found it for a friend in New Zealand so you should be able to find it in Britain!
To end in the blues realm, I hesitate to recommend but will anyway an album by James Blood Ulmer called Birthright, solo on electric guitar. It sounds like John Lee Hooker on acid after taking jazz harmony lessons. This video is kind of representative although the album is a lot more disturbing than this suggests, IMO.
On to rockier shores. On the safe side, you could do worse than check out John Butler,
assuming you don't know him. He's like a cross between the rocky side
of Ben Harper, the groove of G Love and the laid-backness of Jack
Johnson but, in my opinion, superior to all three both musically and
artistically. My favourite album of his is Sunrise over Sea (see review) but the latest Grand National (reviewed here) is not half bad either. Here's Zebra from the former and Better Than from the latter.
While not exactly rock, Galactic is New Orleans funk rock and you might particularly appreciate their latest studio album From the corner to the block which has guest rappers on virtually every track. For a feef of their instrumental stuff, this is a cover of Hendrix's Manic Depression shot by yours truly earlier this year, and this is a great video of them with Boots Riley. Here is a review of their latest album.
I don't know how you stand on ethnic/world musics, so I won't go in
too much depth on that, but let's just name a few names: check out Amsterdam Klezmer Band if you're into raucous jewish music. Here's Opa D to give you a feel for it. If you dig it, try to find Limonchiki, and failing that, their latest CD Zaraza.
Also check out Lhasa de Sela if you don't know her. Her album Living Road is really good and mixes her Spanish, French and English influences (she sings in all three languages). This video
gives you a sense of it (the song in the first half really gives me
shivers every time I hear it.) She has a new album out but I haven't
heard it yet.
Also in a Spanish vein, another favourite of mine is flamenco-rock band El Bicho, particularly their album II. This is De Rodillas from that album.
I could go on, there's so much stuff I've discovered these last few
years, from Camel to Bojan Z, from Tool to Pedro Kouyaté. But there's
probably more than enough for now. Guess you got more out of that than
you expected!!! And since I spent the last two hours doing this, I want
some feedback on what you like and what you don't if you pick something
up from that long list!
