Because of the exploratory nature of jazz, there's often a misconception that a jazz album that doesn't push the boundaries is a failure. I'm as guilty as the next guy when I don't check myself and yet some of my favourite jazz players (Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, Gene Harris, Louie Prima...) were not experimentators. They were not the guys pushing the boundaries. Sometimes it's good to get off one's high horses and enjoy a record that doesn't necessarily have the ambition to revolutionise the genre. On This Day is such a record.
On This Day was recorded in one day, maybe not even intended for release originally. It features Clint Hoover on chromatic harmonica (and one cut on diatonic) backed by a double bass player and a pianist. The go through a repertoire of jazz standards in a loose way, and with acoustic freshness. Particular highlights are the opener Cheesecake, and the more somber Lament. While I find that the pieces stretch for a little too long overall, this is still a very pleasant and relaxing listen, and who cares if it doesn't reinvent jazz?
Marvin Pontiac is a famous unknown, one of those odd blues guys whose reputation is as much talent as it is mystique to the few who know of him. Pontiac was born in 1932, from a Malian father and an Amercian Jewish mother. His mother was institutionalised when he was two, and his father took him to Bamako. When he was fifteen, already a musician in Mali, Pontiac fled back to Chicago where he started the oddest of blues carreers, his music a blend of downhome blues and African rhythms and harmonies. Pontiac was a strange man: for example, he would never let anyone photograph him for fear it would rob him of his soul and was once arrested riding down a bicyle naked in Louisiana. He died in 1977, hit by a bus, and The Legendary Marvin Pontiac collects his musical legacy, from his 1952 hit I'm a Doggy to some of his early hits in Bamako like Pancakes.
In fact, Marvin Pontiac is a fictitious character designed by the addled brain of musician and performance artist John Lurie, but the fictitious thread contributes immensely to the enjoyment of this record. While Lurie didn't push versimilitude to the point of making I'm a Doggy sound like a 1952 recording (the sound quality is way too good for that) there's real enjoyment in linking the fake biography to the tunes and themes, increasingly crazy as the record moves on. Besides the opening title, which sounds like a dirty old blues full of meaningless innuendo, the genre really is a blend of blues and African music, with a little jazz and funky guitar here and there. Lurie's deep velvet voice is a real treat and the sparse afro-blues arrangements are clever and driving. Imagine Fela Kuti arrangements sung by Barrie White and you won't be too far off...
Check it out if you like musical experiences that are also artistic statements, or just for the fun of it!
For the last couple of weeks I've been groovin' to this bundle of Funk, Inc.'s first two albums, Funk Inc. & Chicken Lickin'. Funk Inc. is like the illegitimate child of Jack McDuff's original quartet (with Duke, Holloway and Benson) and The Meters. It's got that laid back groove that the Meters have, but it's a lot more jazz-oriented and exploratory. And it's simply awesome. Just listen to the intro of the first track, Kool is Back and you'll be captured by that guitar hook.
OK, so maybe some of the tracks drag on for a little too long, and the instrumental version of BB King's The Thrill is Gone is really missing the lyrics (and the point), but still, it's about the best groove this side of the Greyboys Allstars, and 25 years earlier too!
For reasons I will explain later - see Saturday Night ( Part II) - I found myself in Beauvais on saturday night at a venue called L'Ouvre-Boîte for a double-bill concert closing the Blues autour du Zinc festival. The opener that night was a band I'd never heard of called Moriarty. While the name surprised me a little, I nonetheless expected a local blues cover band as is usually the case in small festivals.
As the lights went down, the musicians entered. Double-Bass, drums, harmonica, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, and vocals (female). Sounds familiar? Well, it turns out you can do something very different from blues with that instrumentation. I don't know how these guys ended up programmed at a blues festival, but I don't mind one bit, quite the contrary. That night I discovered a superb band with a real personality and a world of their own.
Describing the soundscape of Moriarty is not easy. There's a large chunk of folk/americana, but it's infused with a dark romantic streak that's clearly a product of the rock era. At times, I was reminded strongly of 16 Horsepower, without the heavy edge. The sparseness of the instrumentation brought to mind an acoutic brand of Treat Her Right (their MySpace page says they have Bostonian roots, so who knows ?). The occasional, mild crazyness reminded me of Weill and Brecht. I don't know if any of these are conscious influences, but if you these references speak to you, you're likely to fall into Moriarty's world head first.
Clearly, nothing about this band is about instrumental prowess. And yet, they are all excellent musicians, capable of supporting their magnificent singer(s) in subtle yet very effective ways. I have been subjected to so much upfront harmonica in the last ten years that I'm always pleasantly surprised by bands that use harmonica for it's percussive or atmospheric sound rather than the in-your-face thing. And it made the one or two solo outings of the harp player all the more efficient (as on Motel). Similarly, the guitarists laid intricate, mostly picked, lines underneath the singing, with few discreet but exploratory solos on electric guitar or dobro.
The singer, Rosemary, has a very distinctive voice, powerful and high, very old fashioned, and it works perfectly with the dusty look of their stage props and the romantic, often melancholy lyrics. Listen to Private Lily below to see what I mean. Her delivery and stage presence were really great too. Moriarty know that they have a slightly wacky musical world, but they're amazing at drawing you in...
Another thing that impressed (and delighted) me was their mastery of the overall sound. Arrangements are not always as simple as they seem at first, and there's a lot happening in the background, but it's all well under control. Not unlike 16 Horsepower, they like to use odd instruments occasionally, such as a harmonium or a toy metallophone.
In fact, they did one thing which I have never seen live and wich I thought was superb: at one point in the concert they put a non-directional mic on a stand at the front of the stage, and the whole band huddled around it and played a few tunes "acoustically". The feeling was amazing, and it conveyed a proximity that was very beauitiful to experience.
I don't know if the audience came specifically for Moriarty, since they seem to be getting some traction in France right now, but regardless, the audience enjoyed the concert greatly and a ot of them seemed to know Moriarty's current single Jimmy, or at least learn the lyrics real fast. I for one enjoyed myself thoroughly, even more than usual as I was stumbling on a band I'd never heard and really dig...
So much was I impressed with them that I went to the local record store at lunch today and got hold of their recently released first CD Gee Whiz but this is a Lonesome Town. I'm listening to it as we speak and while the feeling is by necessity different and not as intense as the live thing, the music is just as wonderful.
There are quite a few videos of Moriarty on Youtube, if you want to get a feel for their sound. Here's Private Lily that sounds much like what I saw on Saturday night.
If you want to see my photos (inadequate as they are) of the show and the follow-up, they are available here.
I've always loved Olivier Ker Ourio's harmonica playing, and I consider him to be one of the most interesting jazz guys around, all instruments considered. What I particularly love about him is that he has strong roots in the Indian Ocean Isles (Reunion, to be precise) and has not shyed away from making that felt in his records. In the past, however, his projects have tended to be either strongly northern hemisphere (european jazz) or strongly southern hemisphere (world). My preference until now went to the more world projects, Oté l'Ancêtre and Sominnkér.
Oversea is his most accomplished record yet, and it's a marvelous blend of these two hemispheres. It's clearly a jazz project with strong island undercurrents. It's also a jazz album that manages to stay focused, with mostly short and sweet improvisation rather than the longer meanderings which, in my opinion, made Olivier's previous album with Ralph Towner(Siroko) not quite as succesful.
On Oversea, Olivier combines focus, fun and roots, he's clearly enjoying himself, and the music that is produced comes straight from the heart. In other words, this is a winner, and while I may still have a little trouble relinquishing Sominnkér as my favourite Ker Ourio record, I have to admit that this one is damn near perfect.
Another sign of the musical maturity Olivier has reached is that the album is filled with hugely talented guests to whom Olivier is not worried of handing over the spotlight. In fact, he has chosen them well, because they are all polite and talented enough not to show off, and they blend marvelously in his musical universe.
First and foremost is long-time collaborator Sylvain Luc who adds his particular brand of minimalist guitar playing to a little over half the album. He also contributes some strange percussive tracks played on crumpled newspaper or soda cans, to great (if discreet) effect. Olivier also invites Danyel Waro over for two vocal tracks in Creole, the romantic Mangé pou le coeur and the oddly poetic Le roi dans le bois. Waro's voice is as fine as ever and the traditional maloya rhythms and percussion blend in with the jazz arrangements at least as naturally as they did on Sominnkér.
The more jazzy guests include bassist Diego Imbert, drum giant André Ceccarelli, violin master Didier Lockwood (for a magnificant Santa Cruz, the sweetest unison-then-harmony theme you have ever heard) and renowned pianist Jean-Michel Pilc for Dimitile, a slow waltz that echoes of Satie. Oddball singer André Minvielle also collaborates his particular brand of non-verbalised vocals to 7 en Septembre.
Despite these numerous guests though, this is clearly Olivier's own world, from start to sweet finish. A good section of the pieces are self-penned, and even those that aren't are intrisically his. As a case in point is his cover of Stevie Wonder's Alfie. Covering wonder is no picnic at the best of times, but playing one of his harmonica masterpieces is even more daunting, so particular is his playing. And yet Olivier pulls it off with apparent ease, not echoing Stevie, but bringing his own rich and deep tone as well as his particular sense of harmony. Making it, in other words, his own.
As you've probably figured out by now, I love this record.
I'm just back from Galactic's first ever live concert in Paris and it was an absolute blast. Two hours of hard groove, with guests Boots Riley (of The Coup) and Chali 2na (of Jurassic 5) and another guy whose name I didn't catch.
First, the band was on with the groove, full-throttle. It was hard sounding funk through and through, dynamic, hard hitting, without excessive meanderings. The balance was a little rough at first (the guitarist, in particular, could not be heard) but it improved after a few tracks. The band played mostly with the guest singers, with occasional instrumentals between guests. It was a nice balance of songs with vocals and instrumentals overall.
My favourite bits were those with Boots Riley. It sounded meaner, sometimes even close to a funkier Rage Against the Machine. Plus I found his stage presence more interesting (although Chali 2na is seriously tall) Which is not to say that the bits with Chali 2na and his partner weren't good, they just weren't as good as far as I was concerned.
The instrumentals were mostly classic Galactic including a damn fine Crazyhorse Mongoose. I was hoping for a Led Zep cover and although I think the intro to the encore was Led Zep, they held it only for a minute or so waiting for the rappers to come back on stage.
Musically, Ellman was impressive. He's not the most harmonically inventive sax player out there, but then that's not what makes funk funk. And he can make that horn scream, it's just mindblowing. He played harp only on one tune (Think Back) but it was interesting background stuff using a delay.
And of course, I was as stunned as I expected to be by Stanton Moore. That guy is just out there. And modest as well. The whole band came down in the audience after the end of the concert, and I had a chance to chat a few seconds with Stanton and Ben. Such nice guys...
Anyway, it was a superb evening of funk, and I strongly recommend that you check these guys out whenever they're in your neighborhood! Oh, and I had my new camera with me so you can check out the photos too!
Last week in Boston I (somewhat unreasonably, don't tell my wife) splurged on a whole load of CDs when visiting Newbury Comics. One of these records is Galactic's latest album From the Corner to the Block. Having finally found the time to listen to it (don't you find it annoying that you can't load a CD on your iPod from a computer other than your primary? Guess I remember now why I'm not a big Steve "no-DRM" Jobs fan!), I wanted to share my first impressions with you.
I've talked about Galactic here in passing already, but I haven't reviewed any of their records (my favorite of which is and remains the awesome We Love 'em Tonight: Live at Tipitina's). In a way, From the Corner to the Block is both a result of the trend the band has been following lately and it's shift in audience, and a landmark release. Most of the songs feature singers from the hip-hop/urban scene, as opposed to the blues/soul vocals of resident vocalist Theryl 'Houseman' De Clouet. Since I don't know that scene, I can't tell you if these guys are famous or upstarts or considered good or bad. What I can tell you is that the combination of Galactic's legendary laid-back groove and hip hop vocals is a winner.
From the Corner to the Block rocks harder than previous Galactic releases I've heard, Stanton Moore's drumming is as sharp as ever, Ben Ellman's harmonica is a little more present than in previous releases (or maybe there's less of his sax playing) but overall, what makes this album is that marriage of groove and hip hop. One of the things I tend to dislike about most hip hop I've heard is the insistence on being backed by beatboxes and synths. Not only because I don't like them, but because they give the music a mechanical quality which is, to me, incompatible with groove. Hip hop artists backed by musicians (as opposed to machines) like Saul Williams, Abd al-Malik here in France, Nya with Erik Truffaz or the harmonica-laden Ironie du Son from Switzerland make for a much groovier combination in my opinion. And this is what works for me here too.
I haven't listened to it often enough to pinpoint preferred tracks or rappers. Suffice it to say that this is a good release that you should enjoy if you like groove music. Galactic are over here in Paris on March 7th, and I certainly hope to see them live.
I had already had nothing but praise for Lettuce's Live in Tokyo (which I reviewed here), but I was a little weary of whether they kept the energy in the studio. I found Outta Here in a cheap bin at a CD shop last week, so I got hold of it. I can now tell you that they do keep the energy in the studio and then some.
Outta Here has some overlap with Live in Tokyo (I'm guessing as the band seems to be a side project to a number of musicians - at least the Soulive guys - they don't have that much material. But you know what? I doesn't really matter. Like any good band used to the jam scene, the live and the studio sounds very different, and even the live bonus track version of Nyack on Outta Here sounds very different from both the studio version on the same record and the live version on Live in Tokyo (which remains my favourite of the three by a narrow margin.)
Outta Here opens straight on the title song, a killer groove with subtle horn touches, and gets you in the mood direct: great backbeat, a little of fuzz bass, a touch of organ, this is precision work, but the feeling isn't lost. It's just a natural groove that will appeal both to the funk animals and the jazz progressists. It's followed by The Dump, which kicks it up a notch. The groove is, again, straight out of the late 70s, but the horn line is really cool and inventive, pushes it in a jazzier direction. The album really finds its stride with the third track, Squadlive. It's acid, it's got all those really cool breaks that make funk lively, and the little mellower passage in the middle to remind you that soul's not far. Great stuff.
From there on, it's all good, with a special mention for the mean sounding The Flu and, of course, both versions of Nyack. There isn't much more to say about this: if you live your funk with a little jazz inside (as if there was any other kind?), if the 70s James Brown makes you shake your booty, if you loved the various Karl Denson pieces I featured in the podcast and the MMM, you must get yourself some Lettuce! Seriously, it's good for you! Get the Live in Tokyo first if you have to choose, but if not just get both.
Musicl lovers tend to know Robert Crumb's artwork through some of his seminal record covers, the most famous being Cheap Thrills (Big Brother & the Holding Company, Janis Joplin's original band), the rest being mostly old-timey music. In the 80s, Crumb produced three sets of collectible cards on early jazz, blues and country musicians that were sold by the Yazoo music label, specialised in pre-war recordings.
These sets have been huge collector's items and often fetch upwards of $50 on ebay. Fortunately for those of us who balk at the idea of spending so much, Abrams has released the three complete sets as a coffee table book, complete with biographies of each of the depicted musicians and a sampler of pre-war recordings of some of the featured musicians selected by Crumb lui-même.
I've always loved Crumb's artwork, even though his 70s comics were way to out there for the square guy I am. I own some of his more accessible work, including the cool collection R. Crumb Draws the Blues, featuring bios of early bluesmen and assorted blues-related artwork. R. Crumb's Heroes of Blues, Jazz & Country is a different experience though, since there's no narrative.
It's a very pleasant experience though. I pride myself on being somewhat knowledgeable in the field of blues and jazz, and yet I have never heard of at least two-thirds of the musicians presented here. Flipping through the pages and reading the bios feels a little bit like opening up that old box of photos you find in your granddad's attic. It carries you back in time.
The three sets use three very different drawing techniques. The Heroes of the Blues set features close up portraits, coarsely drawn but increadibly expressive, with vividly coloured backgrounds. The Early Jazz Greats are handpainted, with a much cleaner look and more nuances in colouring. The Pioneers of Country Music set is actually my favourite, it's both a subtler trait in the drawing and less closeups. Since all of the sets were painted from early photographs, they all have a static feel to them, yet Crumb captures an expression in the faces and looks that truly draws you in.
And watching the portraits while listening to the music makes for a truly multimedia experience. The 21 tracks selected by Crumb (7 for each series) are scratchy as 20s and 30s recordings are - but still very audible - invariably obscure, and reminiscent of a time where - in all three of these musical genres - virtuosity was secondary to expressivity. It's also very interesting to be listening to all three sets because it highlights the fluctuating frontiers between these musical styles. Where nowadays country is country and blues is blues, here you can hear the country twang in Cannon's Jug Stompers'Minglewood Blues or Frank Stoke's picking on I Got Mine. Then you jump to Hayes Shepherd's The Peddler and His Wife and you're hard pressed to hear it as radically different idiom. Burnett & Rutherford's All Night Long Blues sounds, well, very much like a country blues as we'd call it these days. And while the early jazz swings in a unique way, you can still hear that banjo twang or country-ish violin in King Creole's Sobbin' Blues or Parham-Pickett Apollo Syncopators' Mojo Strut.
It seems like I'm reviewing flawless stuff lately, but this truly is as flawless as it's priceless, and a great idea for a christmas present to your old-timey lovin' dad or blues/country/jazz (tick as necessary) afficionado husband. Or wife or grandma, of course!
I've been hunting down this boxed set for a while and no French record stores seemed to carry it, but finally on Thursday I grabbed it at the FNAC and it graced my return flight from Paris to Manchester on Friday. It's a pure gem and should be in the record collection of anyone who doesn't own a more extensive collection of the original records most of this Stax 50th Anniversary Celebration samples.
The phrase "Stax sound" is often used to describe a soulful record reminiscent of the heyday of the label, but never had it been so apparent to me how much of an in-house sound that represented until I listened to these 50 tracks in succession. There's a great variety of set-ups, singers, musicians, moods, but the unity of vision of the Stax production - a true outlook on what music should be - is evident.
For those who don't know, Stax was the recording studio and label that produced about half of the legendary tunes of 60s soul music (the other half being the produce of Motown). Stax is the label behind Green Onions, (Sittin' on) the Dock of the Bay, Soul Man, (Theme from) Shaft, RESPECT (the (superb) Otis original, not the (superb) Aretha cover), Knock on Wood, Do the Funky Chicken and many many more. Most of the names associated with soul to this day come from Stax (and, just so we're clear, we're not talking about the sanitised vocalisations to vague synth backdrops that pass for soul these days, but about the real gritty thing, complete with B3, greasy horns and genuine singers - Old Codger Note.) Otis Redding, Booker T and the MGs, Isaac Hayes (in his pre-Chef days), Carla Thomas, Eddie Floyd, Rufus Thomas, Sam & Dave...
It's just pure delight. A must have. I thought I knew about 10 tracks out of 50 looking at the track list, turns out I knew at least 20, like the infamous instrumental Last Night by the Mar-Keys, heard in dozens of movies, or Johnny Taylor's Who's Making Love. It's also a body of music that's been hugely influential. Right now I'm listening to Buddy Guy's Chess recordings, and you can totally hear where he gets the sound on Keep it to Myself, for example. Of course, if you're a fan of the Blues Brothers, then you've heard them cover a lot of that material as well. The original Blues Brother band featured 2/3 of Stax's MGs in the persons of bassist Duck Dunn and guitarist Steve Cropper...
And to top the amazing quality of this 2-CD boxed set, a lavish booklet tells the story of Stax, together with ample photographic evidence and anecdotes. It's not an in-depth read, but it puts things in context and it's great perusing it while you're listening to the material. Did I mention that Amazon sold the box set for $15? Yes, you read correctly. Buy it now!!!
I'm just back from Galactic's first ever live concert in Paris and it was an absolute blast. Two hours of hard groove, with guests Boots Riley (of 
The three sets use three very different drawing techniques. The Heroes of the Blues set features close up portraits, coarsely drawn but increadibly expressive, with vividly coloured backgrounds. The Early Jazz Greats are handpainted, with a much cleaner look and more nuances in colouring. The Pioneers of Country Music set is actually my favourite, it's both a subtler trait in the drawing and less closeups. Since all of the sets were painted from early photographs, they all have a static feel to them, yet Crumb captures an expression in the faces and looks that truly draws you in.
