Music Monday: Toshiko, Marion Brown, and Kamasi Washington

As the semester comes in for what I hope to be a gentle landing, I’m taking just a bit of extra time this morning to watch Australian Jason Moloney versus Yoshiki Takei and Naoya Inoue versus Luis Nery from Tokyo. In fact, the former is on in the background while I write this.

It seems reasonable, then, to start my music Monday with an album by Toshiko Akiyoshi. Better still, May 4th was Ron Carter’s 87th birthday making it all the more appropriate! Carter and on Toshiko At the Top of the Gate (1966) she is joined by Kenny Dorham, Lew Tabackin, and Mickey Roker. The album is pretty spendy on CD, so I purchased it as a (gasp) MP3. It’s a good album especially if you’re a Kenny Dorham fan (and honestly, who isn’t these days?) and is hardly deserving of the rather lukewarm reviews that it has received. Judge for yourself:

My other find over the past couple of weekends is a pair of early Marion Brown albums from 1966 and 1967. Readers of this blog know that I’m a big fan of Marion Brown especially his classic early-1970s albums. I hadn’t expected to be so charmed by these two early albums: Marion Brown Quartet (1966) and Juba-Lee (1967). I was enticed to listen to them because they featured trumpet player Alan Shorter whose work I didn’t really know well, but they also feature Brown and Shorter along with Bennie Maupin, and Ronny Boykins and Reggie Johnson (on bass). The Quartet date includes Rahied Ali on drums. Juba-Lee is a septet expanded with Graham Moncur III on trombone, Dave Burrell on piano, and Beaver Harris replacing Ali on drums. for Marion Brown Quartet was released on ESP’ Disk and despite that labels reputation for some pretty dense and challenging recordings, Brown’s date is pretty enjoyable. Juba-Lee is a bit tricky to find, but YouTube provides (and the Ezz-thetics label produced a single CD with two tracks from both Juba-Lee and The Marion Brown Quartet on it).  

You can, of course, find both on Youtube:

Finally, I am enjoying Kamasi Washington’s latest album: Fearless Momevement. I’m particularly loving the opening track “Lesanu” 

It came out just a week ago, so I’m not sure how much of it you’ll be able to hear on the YouTubes, but you can check out this playlist here:

Music Monday: Vampire Weekend, Charles Lloyd, and Ava Mendoza

I’ve had the latest Vampire Weekend album, Only God Was Above Us, on heavy rotation over the last few weeks. At first, I’ll admit that I didn’t get it. I found it too sonically confusing and even gratuitously distorted to appreciate, but I persisted. I’m not sure why I persisted other than out of a kind of lazy (and honestly distracted) commitment to the latest thing.

After about a half-dozen listens, something started to click for me and without spoiling the album for someone who hasn’t heard it (or enforcing my read on the album as normative), I’d encourage anyone who likes power pop (or catch alternative or whatever one wants to call it) to check it out. To my ears, I feel like it is paean to the Millennial experience (which is known to me primarily through my experience with college students). In some ways, it feels like a sequel to Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs which in some ways is a Gen X album. 

Check out two cuts from Side A:

Capricorn: 

https://youtu.be/8lCmyFCj580?si=35cIOQs-PlmMcolj

Too old for dying young, to young to live alone.

And, “Prep-School Gangster”:

For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, I was sucked into a strange Kool & The Gang vortex over the weekend. I caught the very end of an unfamiliar version of Charles Lloyd’s “Sombrero Sam” on the radio and discovered that it was, in fact, Kool & The Gang playing it in 1971 and releasing it on their album of the same year, Live at P.J.’s. 

Lloyd released what I consider to be the classic version of this song on his 1966 Quartet date Dream Weaver:

He has returned to this song from time to time, and I particularly enjoy his 2016 recording with the Marvels from I Long to See You.

Finally, I’ve been enjoying the newest from guitarist Ava Mendoza and saxophonist Dave Swenson album, Of It But Not Is It on Mahakala Music (whose releases almost always excite me)! It’s bluesy, dirty, improvised and edgy. It’s my kind of music (and features two William Parker songs). Mendoza’s guitar and Swenson’s sax are plenty to create rhythm and drive. 

Music Monday: The Past and the Future

This weekend I listened to a good bit of music. This was partly because I got a brand new gizmo (a Chord Mojo2 DAC/Headphone amp) and partly because I had a good bit of work to do and music makes everything better.

The Past

I listened to three older albums this weekend.

First, I listened to Leo Parker’s Let Me Tell You ‘Bout It from 1961. Parker is a rather obscure baritone sax player whose drug problems kept him from recording much, but his 1961 album is a fine early-1960s hard bop and well worth appreciating. I very much appreciated his warm and expansive sound:

In keeping with my mood to appreciate less well-known saxophone players, I put on a Kenny Dorham able featuring Ernie Henry from 1957. Ernie Henry is an alto player who died young, but could really play. It fascinates me to realize that Henry and Coltrane were both born in September of 1926 and to listen to his playing here and wonder what he would have sounded like in 1967:

Finally, I’ve been enjoying the first V.S.O.P. Quintet album which Ron Carter’s Facebook page reminded me was released in April of 1977. It’s a live album recorded the previous year with Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Tony Williams on drums, Wayne Shorter on sax, Ron Carter on bass, and, of course, Herbie Hancock on keys.

The Future

It’s pretty rare that I pre-order an album, but as of today, I have THREE albums on pre-order. 

The first is Tom Skinner’s new album Voices of Bishara album Live at ‘mu’. As an avowed pseudoarchaeologist, how could I resist an album recorded live at ‘mu’ (which apparently is a club in London). Anyway, the one track they have released is their take on Abdul Wadud’s piece “Oasis” and I liked it so I’ve preordered the digital album. 

Keeping with my theme of jazz cello, I also preordered the new Tomeka Reid album 3+3. I also features Mary Halvorson on guitar whose work I’ve recently come to admire. The first track from the album “Sauntering With Mr. Brown” was enough to get me hooked. 

Finally, I’ve preordered Kamasi Washington’s new album, Fearless Movement. I will admit to being a little less confident about this one, but I enjoyed Heaven and Earth (2018) and like Washington’s “fearlessness” (heh) and the scale at which he works. More than that, I feel like Washington is a key voice both in pushing jazz as a medium into the public consciousness while making old (white) “improvised music guys” like me more attuned to the world of contemporary sound. 

Music Monday: Kenny, Dave, and Chet

The last few weeks saw a flood of good new music coming out and some of it is destined to be in my summer listening rotation.

This past weekend, I thoroughly enjoyed Kenny Garrett’s new collaborative album with the beatsmith Svoy titled Who Killed AI? Most of the tracks feature a compelling range of beats over which Garrett solos. The most exciting track on the album is “Divergence Tu-Dah” where Garrett’s highly processed alto solos brilliantly across Svoy’s beats. His processed saxophone sounds almost like a guitar at times, but his solos also reveal where we breathes reminding us that even the most digital of performances still reveals signs of human life. 

I’m also enjoying a few early tracks from Dave Douglas’s next album, Gifts, with the recently prolific (and exciting) James Brandon Lewis on sax, Rafiq Bhatia on guitar, and Ian Chang on drums.

The album was due out May 3, but dropped this past weekend. I have been particularly enjoying their version of Billy Stayhorn and Duke Ellington’s classic “Take the A-Train”:

Finally, one my drive home on Thursday evening I heard a cut from an album that I missed when it came last year, Chet Baker’s Blue Room: The 1979 Vara Studio Sessions in Holland. I can hear some of my buddies groaning in disappointment, but I simply love Baker’s version of Miles Davis’s “Down”:

I’ve also been enjoying Shabaka Hutchings’ latest album, Perceive its Beauty, Acknowledge its Grace, Mechelle Ndegeochello’s Red Hot and Ra: The Magic City, Noah Haidu’s Standards II, and the new Vampire Weekend album. More on those next week! 

Music Monday: New Music and a Bonus Track

There’s been some great new music out this year and while I tend not to feature it here on the ole blog (who has time for the new when there’s so much old music to enjoy), it seems silly not to mention some new albums that are destined for my 2024 rotation.

What’s more shocking to anyone who knows my tastes is that two of the albums are out from Blue Note which is a label that has released some of the most tepid (and frankly overhyped) albums of the last decade (in my humble opinion as the kids say). 

First, there’s the new Charles Lloyd album, The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow, and on first listen I was a bit disappointed, but since I like Charles Lloyd and there was a good bit of positive buzz around the album in the popular media, I gave it a few more spins.

It’s good and it’s more than just solid. Like most recent Lloyd releases is less about the totality of the album and more about providing a canvass for Lloyd’s moments throughout. It is worth waiting for these moments and savoring the album.

Blue Note appears to be on a roll this spring with the release of Mellisa Aldana’s new album Echoes of the Inner Prophet. Upon first listen, I had to immediately check whether this was really a Blue Note album. The opening tracks are incisive, and the overall sound of the album is probing and the edge of experimental. There isn’t any pabulum or banality to endure. It just goes. Check it out wherever Blue Note albums are streamed or sold!

Here’s Aldana performing live from the album:

Finally, I’m a big fan of Matthew Shipp for both Wilmington, Delaware related reasons and his continued commitment to the “Black mystery school” of jazz and improvised piano players (although at times, I think he invokes the tradition of Cecil Taylor). Shipp’s newest trio release is his usually vibrant and dynamic stuff with perhaps a hint of his growing interest in lyricism. 

You should be able to listen to select tracks on the album’s Bandcamp page here. 

Bonus Album

Last week would have been Charlie Rouse’s 100th birthday. He was best known as Thelonious Monk’s saxophone player, but he also released a number of well regarded albums in his own name. With springtime finally coming to the Northern Plains, I put on Rouse’s Bossa Nova Bacchanal from 1963. It’s fun and lively and features Rouse in good form playing tunes imbued with the bossa nova crazy of the early 1960s. 

Is this vital listening? No. Is it fun and good? Also yes!

Music Monday: Ascension at Easter

While mostly I post on Music Monday about albums that I like, sometimes I will post about albums that I love. On Easter, I try to set aside time to listen to John Coltrane’s Ascension (1966) which is my favorite Coltrane album. 

I’ll post it here with a minimum of explanation partly because there’s so much written about it and partly because the album really doesn’t need much context.

~

Recently, I’ve come to think of Ascension as the sonic—and in some way physical— manifestation of Coltrane’s evolving spirituality. In this regard, his understanding of Ascension resonates with the Christian concept of the incarnation.

At the same time, one wonders whether the division between the spiritual and the lived or performed (the sonic, the hearing, the experienced, and so on) represents a valid dichotomy in this case. If we understand Coltrane’s spirituality primarily though his music, is it necessary for us to assume that it exists outside of its musical manifestation?  Some days when I listen to this I feel like Coltrane’s music represents the kind of tangible spirituality that the world needs right now.  

Pseudoarchaeology and Music

Among scholars interested in pseudoarchaeology, there is a longstanding concern that popular pseudoarchaeological programs (e.g. “Ancient Aliens”) are a gateway that draws unsuspecting victims into the world of right wing politics and racism.

For others, however, an interest in pseudoarchaeological is a gateway to Black musical traditions and to that end, I spent some time this weekend reading Michael Gallope’s new book: The Musician as Philosopher: New York’s Vernacular Avant-Garde, 1958–1978 (2024). The book explores music of the New York avant-garde over “the long 1960s” (as the title suggests) with chapters on pianist David Tudor (and John Cage), Ornette Coleman, the Velvet Underground, Alice Coltrane, and Patti Smith and Richard Hell. In other words, chapters on some of my favorite musicians who not only have shaped my journey into the world of pseudoarchaeology, but also, earlier, punk archaeology. 

Gallope’s work does not touch on pseudoarchaeology specifically, but offers a view of the vernacular avant garde in New York that provided a medium through which pseudoarchaeological ideas traveled often alongside esoteric, theosophic, mystical, and other forms of broadly “exotic” thinking. Gallope observes the appearance of these influences occurs when artists appeal to “second order modernisms” which manifest in hyperfractures. He defines hyperfractures as “atmospheres” where abundance and excess (characteristic traits of the modern world, if there ever were any) occlude our understanding of the “virtuosic object” (which is, I suppose, the object of most artistic efforts). The other characteristic trait of second order modernisms is “alchemies” which draw on modern sound production techniques—especially electronic tools—to create “hallucinatory” and “transformative” levels of intensity. In other words, the technology and economy of “late modernity” and mid-century capitalism made possible the distinctive expressions of what Gallope viewed as New York’s vernacular avant garde. 

This move—from the esoteric and exotic to the material and technological—is a key one for understanding the contours of mid-century Black vernacular thinking about their past. This way of understanding a materialist modernism has echos in the more esoteric attitudes toward, say, “ancient aliens”—in, say, the Nation of Islam and in Sun Ra’s musings—that see these beings as both spiritual and historical predecessors to contemporary Blacks. While Gallope doesn’t make this connection, specifically, he notes, obliquely, the parallels with Du Bois concept of double-consciousness. I wonder whether it fits better Paul Gilroy’s concept of double consciousness which locates the denizens of the Black Atlantic between the world of white, modern Europeans and the experience of being Black.

More salient to my research is how Gallope recognizes in Ornette Coleman and Alice Coltrane, in particular, deeper, vernacular currents that manifest in their work, but have ambiguous roots that aren’t easily susceptible to the modern scholar’s gaze. In other words, their music, while largely consumed by a white, middle class audience, has roots in a different level of experience that goes far beyond the bourgeois escapism offered by this music on a superficial or even technical level. Instead, through hyperfractures and alchemies, those who understand and know can experience this music as a gateway to some of the same ecstatic, esoteric, and exotic texts (and knowledge) that has influenced the development of pseudoarchaeology over time.

Scholars, then, concerned with pseudoarchaeology can be content to explore the well-trod surfaces on which pseudoarchaeological travel. There is, however, this deeper level where the ideas manifest in pseudoarchaeology converge with those manifest in contemporary improvised music. Both in archaeology (pseudo and otherwise) and in contemporary improvised music, technology and materiality play key roles in the shaping the medium through which individuals communicate the critiques intrinsic to modernism. We can obviously argue that pseudoarchaeology and the kinds of music that Gallope studies in his book are not morally (or ethically or even aesthetically) equivalent, but they nevertheless draw from some of the same traditions. This suggests, much like this clever watch from IFL Watches, that pseudoarchaeology offers a gateways to many different kingdoms.

Music Monday: Alice Coltrane, Joe Henderson, and James Brandon Lewis

Some good new, old recordings were released and re-released over the past couple weeks and a new, new recording as well.

First, if you didn’t listen to Alice Coltrane’s The Carnegie Hall Concert released on Friday, but originally recorded in 1971, go and listen to it now. I’ll wait. You might also want to check out some programs and other memorabilia from not only the 1971 concert, but also concerts in 1968 and 1984.

It’s brilliant. Dear lord, is it good. 

Here’s “Africa”:

And here’s “Journey In Satchidananda”:

The other album that dropped over the past couple of weeks is James Brandon Lewis and the Messthetics. The Messthetics are the rhythm section from Fugazi (Joe Lally on bass and Brendan Canty on drums) joined by Anthony Pirog on guitar and James Brandon Lewis on sax.

It’s good. It has a fusion feel to it without being full on fusion and a jazz-rock vibe to it without devolving into “horns playing instead of rockers singing” kind of melodic lyricism. Lewis’s playing remains some of my favorite in contemporary jazz and improvised music. He seems deeply committed to doing something new which means acknowledging both traditions of hard bop, modal jazz and fusions as well as free forms of post-Coltrane ecstatic improvisation. He charts his own path and I admire that. Maybe you’ll find it enjoyable as well:

Finally, something older that was re-released this year. Joe Henderson’s Power to the People recorded in 1969 and released the same year with Herbie Hancock on keyboards, Ron Carter on electric bass, and Jack DeJohnette on drums on Milestone. It’s a very nice album with just enough electric to anticipate the sound that comes to exert such a significant influence over jazz (as well as R&B) in the mid-1970s. 

As a bonus, we should all take a moment to celebrate George Benson’s birthday, if for no other reason than it gives us an excuse to listen to this CTI gem from 1971, Beyond the Blue Horizon with Carter and DeJohnette along with the otherwise obscure Clarence Palmer on keyboards. Benson’s version of “So What” is really pretty great:

Music Monday: Blue Mitchell

I listened to some old and new stuff this past week for my Music Monday post, but I think I’m going to feature some older stuff for now and circle back to some of the more recent releases next Monday. 

Last week, we celebrated what would have been Blue Mitchell’s 94th birthday. I really like Blue Mitchell. In fact, I’d count Blue Mitchell’s Blue Soul (1959) one of my favorite hard bop albums from the 1950s. The opening track, “Minor Vamp” is just fantastic and “‘Nica’s Dream” closing the album is fantastic as well.  I particularly appreciate the sound of the this album and how the spaciousness of the studio situates the musicians so vividly. It is not a Rudy Van Gelder album (who becomes famous for his work with Blue Note) and sounds different in both style and sonics. Check it out:   

I hadn’t realized that Blue Mitchell played on five tracks on Elmo Hope album Homecoming! which is an overlooked gem from 1961. Mitchell sounds good on it too:

Of course, Mitchell becomes better known for his work with Blue Note in the 1960s where he contributed to the labels shift from hard bop to “soul jazz.” I’m particularly fond of his 1965 album Down With It! which not only shows that Blue Mitchell can play, but also gives a window into his political side with a track called “March on Selma” (so much for soul jazz being blandly commercial!).  

Released the next year is Mitchell’s bluesy Bring It Home To Me (1966).

Finally, from the end of Mitchell’s stay at Blue Note, check out his 1969 album Bantu Village with blues guitarist Freddie Robinson (who famously jumped into Howlin’ Wolf’s band alongside Hubert Sumlin). There’s a lot of blues and funk in his album, and it’s well worth a summer afternoon listen.

Music Monday: Ornette Coleman

Last Friday would have been Ornette Coleman’s 94th birthday and it seems fair and reasonable to start today’s music Monday with a bit of his work. Readers of this blog undoubtedly know Coleman’s most famous late 1950s and early 1960s output. In fact, one of my favorite collections of Coleman’s music is Beauty is a Rare Thing which assembles all the recordings that produced The Shape of Jazz to Come (October 1959), Change of the Century (June 1960), This Is Our Music (February 1961), Free Jazz (September 1961), Ornette! (February 1962), and Ornette on Tenor (December 1962) in order. Think of it as Ornette Coleman’s version of Coltrane’s contemporary recordings at Atlantic (which have their own mid-1990s box set).

Instead, I spent a good bit of time listening to Coleman’s 1970s output with Columbia. Starting with Science Fiction (1971) where he plays with Don Cherry, Dewey Redman, and Charlie Haden as well as some others. The Complete Science Fiction Sessions release from Columbia in 2000 includes the tracks that would appear in their 1982 release Broken Shadows.

Check out Science Fiction here: 

Another, perhaps somewhat quirky release that embraces some of the 1970s spirit of globalizing jazz (perhaps best embodied in cats like Randy Weston) is Coleman’s 1977 album Dancing in Your Head. Two guitars (Bern Nix and Charlie Ellerbee), Jamaaladeen Tacuma (bass), drummers, Moroccan musicians, and Ornette Coleman’s distinctive and piercing alto. Flavors of blues, free funk, and of course Ornette Coleman’s improvisation. It feels like spring.

Finally, I don’t really know what “harmolodic funk” is, but if that’s what Ornette Coleman says he’s doing with Ellerbee, Nix, and Jamaaladeen Tacuma and his son Denardo Coleman, then I like it. Check out Of Human Feelings (1982):

If you still find yourself want more Ornette Coleman, check out this 1997 interview with Jacques Derrida.