Music – Page 38 – Rock Salted

Little Feat – Feats Don’t Fail Me Now

Little Feat – Feats Don’t Fail Me Now Warner Bros. K56030 (1974)

Something definitely changed for Little Feat with Feats Don’t Fail Me Now. The reasons are quite apparent. Lowell George was no longer the dominant guitarist and songwriter for the group. His contributions were increasingly of a more ordinary and secondary nature. Paul Barrere and Bill Payne were taking on more of a role in place of Lowell. And so, the music focused more consistently on feel-good groove rock. There really weren’t any quirky, off-beat lyrics anymore, and the music as a whole was more steady and tame. That isn’t to say the Feat sounded bad. In fact, this is a pretty fun record. It just doesn’t sparkle with quite the charisma that the group’s earlier records had. You can still count this (along with the first three albums) as essential Little Feat though.

Sonic Youth med Mats Gustafsson og Merzbow – SYR 8: Andre sider af Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth med Mats Gustafsson og Merzbow – SYR 8: Andre sider af Sonic Youth SYR 8 (2008)

Gets interesting once Thurston Moore‘s soloing ends and Mats Gustafsson and Merzbow start to take over.

John Coltrane – Transition

John Coltrane – Transition GRP GRD-124 (1970; 1993 reissue)

If this album was from anyone other than Coltrane, I might be tempted to praise it more. The performances here are all superb, and Coltrane is in his prime. Musically, it’s very similar to A Love Supreme, though without the same intense focus and unity of vision. At times, the performances here hint at what the group accomplished on Meditations. Perhaps the main drawback of the album is the fact that the second track “Welcome” is pretty weak by Coltrane standards and that totally disrupts the flow. But also Transition is an archival release that was tampered with on at least one reissue, which further hampers the allure of the album due to the fact that the added tracks had been previously released on another album (one of those being “Welcome”) and one of the original tracks (“Dear Lord”) has been omitted. Then again, those are petty concerns. In all, this is still a worthy and thoroughly enjoyable album, but I must admit that in terms of importance to both 1960s jazz and Coltrane’s discography it falls just shy of being essential.

John Coltrane – Meditations

John Coltrane – Meditations Impulse! AS-9110 (1966)

Meditations features one of the unusual line-ups of Coltrane’s post-Ascension recordings. Coltrane plays exclusively on the left channel with the talented Rashied Ali, a fiery and highly abstract drummer. The right channel features a young Pharoah Sanders blasting his aggressive and abrasive-but-warm saxophone, along with veteran Elvin Jones on drums. McCoy Tyner on piano and Jimmy Garrison on bass then bring balance to both channels.

John Coltrane had the most fully formed and beautiful tone of just about any saxophonist. His technical perfection was only surpassed by his unfathomable improvisational style. Coltrane could effortlessly assimilate any influence. More than simple imitation, Coltrane drew the very essences of these influences and developed them into new forms. Here, the abstract rhythms of Rashied Ali and the rough texture of Pharoah Sanders combine in this journey away from conventional structure. John Coltrane is generally the last word on anything he has attempted. Listening to him play reveals the all the joy and beauty of the universe. The limitless possibilities of a loving, peaceful existence unfold with the clarity of prophets. Here, he explores the most basic elements of humanity; however, he connects living elements to divine pursuit of Truths (yes, with a capital “T”), as explicated through his music.

“The Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost” sounds forced into unnecessary structure. The solos, particularly Coltrane’s, at times seem to lose sight of their original goals, and yet, the passion and faith never waiver. Coltrane had a gift for shrewd commentary. A serious and deeply spiritual person, he could reaffirm his faith while simultaneously criticizing the church (he believed in all religions).

“Love” begins the last three movements. The dissonance of Coltrane’s melodic line resolves to a three-note consonant line. Jimmy Garrison begins the song with a moving solo. Coltrane broke jazz conventions as he dove completely into free jazz. The first two songs are continuous performances, as are the last three. Songs begin with solos, only revealing a defined statement much later. On “Consequences,” the two saxophonists blur the beginnings and ends of their solos beyond identification.

Traditionalists generally jump ship after A Love Supreme (more precisely, before Ascension) and ignore all late-period Coltrane. Yet, the most rewarding material comes from his final years. Meditations features John Coltrane at his most intense (at his most passionate, Coltrane is not casual listening). It is a foolish thing indeed to attempt to explain what Coltrane achieved with this album.

Bob Dylan – Slow Train Coming

Bob Dylan – Slow Train Coming Columbia FC 36120 (1979)

I’ve developed a theory that Dyan’s “christian” phase that began with Slow Train Coming was less about him converting to a particularly dogmatic strain of pentecostal christianity and more about him implicitly moving into the same camp as French academic charlatan Michel Foucault (maybe the “new philosophers” like André Glucksmann could be thrown into the conversation here too). The reasons some people are skeptical of this part of Dylan’s career are the same reasons some people are skeptical of Foucault’s neoliberal historicist/”identity politics” theories, which are complete bullshit and evidenced a questionable kind of pandering and opportunism (not to mention a huge over-reliance on revenge fantasies). But, anyway, this album was recorded in Muscle Shoals, and it has a smooth disco R&B/soul sound, like a mellower, less emotional counterpart to Bowie‘s Young Americans or even a more intellectual counterpart to the lily-white blues rock of Eric Clapton. It’s a little too easy listening for its own good, but it still manages to be decent with a few good new songs. The album benefits tremendously by having Dylan actually trying throughout, and having active involvement of producers other than Dylan.

John Coltrane – Stellar Regions

John Coltrane – Stellar Regions Impulse! IMPD-169 (1995)

Stellar Regions was recorded on February 15, 1967. The recording masters were kept by Alice Coltrane for decades before release. What makes Stellar Regions an essential ‘Trane disc (it is phenomenal, perhaps the better of even A Love Supreme) is the dramatic changes evident in his music. His vibrato shifts from the wide style of John Gilmore and Albert Ayler to a quicker, gushy style resembling Ben Webster. He jumps from a rumbling low register to a smooth, clear higher one, like the vocals of Rev. Claude Jeter. Of course, tempos of the songs are much slower than as heard on Interstellar Space, recorded slightly earlier. In a sense, it is clear on hearing these recordings that Coltrane was dying. But this is without sadness. Coltrane’s music is completely at peace. While in his music he perhaps sees in the distance some great horizon yet uncrossed, there is also a total acceptance of what is within his reach. Jimmy Garrison is at his peak on “Jimmy’s Mode” with a solo tender but hip, questioning but aware, fluid but crisp. His solo finds where a delicate swing fits into Coltrane’s vision. As an artist, Coltrane was still in motion. As his battle alternated from confidence to uncertainty he added new perspective. He used every defilement to see clearly, and from there collected his many views and assembled, regrouped for further toils. This is the start of a new life. It is complete rebirth. Such a thing seems possible here. Stellar Regions is like a musical accompaniment to Arthur Rimbaud’s Les Illuminations [The Illuminations]. It is a spiritual recognition of the vast possibility beyond that grasped in the present. Yes, Stellar Regions communicates about all that needed be said before Coltrane went silent upon his July 17, 1967 death. This album is, along with Interstellar Space, Music. By that I mean this is the culmination of everything music — and Coltrane — was and is. What a wonderful thing.

Prince and The Revolution – Purple Rain

Prince and The Revolution – Purple Rain Warner Bros. 25110-1 (1984)

In the All Music Guide, Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote that David Bowie‘s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars had a “grand sense of staged drama” and that “Bowie succeeds not in spite of his pretensions but because of them . . . .” The same could very well be said about Prince’s most acclaimed and best-selling album (over 20 millions copies), Purple Rain. This was the soundtrack to a movie of the same name, which some say was inspired by Samuel R. Delany’s novel Dhalgren. Some of the songs were recorded live (“I Would Die 4 U”, “Baby I’m a Star” and “Purple Rain”), with later overdubs.

Purple Rain just appeals to so many people. There is something for the freaks, something for the squares (aside from the prudes). That wide appeal should not come as a surprise. This is basically a perfect album. Sure, it might be hard to find anyone picking “The Beautiful Ones” as his or her favorite, on an album that also boasts “Let’s Go Crazy” (a rock-gospel party anthem), “When Doves Cry” (an abstract, minimalist pop stunner without a bass line), and “Purple Rain” (a monster ballad to end monster ballads). Not only is there is no filler here, every song is great. It certainly helped that Prince was a prolific songwriter. He had about 100 songs lined up for the film, according to director Albert Magnoli, who had to cull that down to what worked best. The photographer Robert Mapplethorpe once mentioned in a 1977 interview, “It takes me a good week really to decide what negatives and that’s half of taking pictures, is the selection. *** And the framing is very important.” These are analogues to song selection and album sequencing for music. These things do put in perspective what it takes to make something like Purple Rain. A handful of decent songs is simply not enough.

Prince wasn’t exactly an unknown before this album and the movie — from 1979 to 1983 he had even appeared on television a few times — but they were what made him a worldwide superstar. His band The Revolution also played a significant role, with Wendy & Lisa noted for making key contributions. Prince became something of an egomaniac as a result of his fame. Mapplethorpe also said in that interview that all artists he knew were egotistical. This perhaps says something about what it takes to want to put one’s self in the spotlight.

There isn’t much to say about the music itself that hasn’t already been said so many times over. But this album still holds up decades later.

Albert Ayler – New Grass

Albert Ayler – New Grass Impulse! A-9175 (1968)

A divisive album from a figure who seemed divisive in other ways from the start. Ayler rose to some level of renown among jazz heads as a pioneer of free jazz. But he got his start in R&B bands, and New Grass is an early attempt, of sorts, at jazz/R&B fusion. The album opens with typical Ayler free jazz wailing, then a brief spoken introduction, in which he states with radical earnestness that he hopes listeners like the album, and then it is on to the real surprise: R&B tunes laced through with solos far more skronky than any sort of King Curtis or The 5th Dimension mainstream R&B/soul track. The real problem with the album is how it gets going. “Message From Albert/New Grass” implies the album is something other that what it turns out to be — some kind of misguided attempt to ease listeners expecting “conventional” free jazz into the album. But “New Generation” and “Sun Watcher” really do get the album going, with great grooves, shimmering keyboards (on the latter), and what are actually smoking performances on sax by Ayler. Everything finishes strong with the sublime rave-up “Free at Last” too. But it is hard not to think that the album would have been much improved by dropping the first track and squeezing in the outtake “Thank God for Women” (posthumously released on the Holy Ghost box set). Anyway, while the album sequencing is too awkward to be entirely successful, this album deserves much credit for its radical concept alone. Jazz, and free jazz especially, was generally a pretty elitist musical form by the late 1960s, while lite R&B/soul was on the complete opposite side of the spectrum, with more plebeian appeal. Ayler throws them together without any regard for the social distinctions erected between those highbrow/lowbrow genres. While Miles Davis gets more credit for his approach to jazz/rock fusion, it is worth keeping in mind the way Miles leaned on esoteric and elitist forms of rock (not to mention the work of avant garde European composers). So, while some people saw this album as Ayler selling out to commercial tastes, a different, perhaps better, way to look at it is as an attempt to transcend the social confinement represented by narrow genre categories. And Ayler approaches that challenge with his usual open-hearted, emotive, and guileless version of what everybody typically expects to be purely cerebral, technically and conceptually challenging virtuoso performance. Contrary to its reputation, New Grass is slowly gaining more currency as a pretty decent album. It isn’t Ayler’s best. Yet it works. Anyone who does dig this should also check out Archie Shepp‘s similar effort For Losers.

Prince – Come

Prince – Come Warner Bros. 9 45700-2 (1994)

A misfire according to critics, but still a moderate commercial success, Come was disregarded by Prince himself in favor of the contemporaneously recorded The Gold Experience. Come was created at the beginning of Prince’s notorious feud with his record label Warner Bros., when he changed his name to the unpronounceable “love symbol” which looked something like “O(+->” and he was referenced as “the Artist Formerly Known as Prince.” Stripping away all the hoopla and critical perspectives of the day, in hindsight this isn’t a bad album at all. It is not particularly ambitious, and there aren’t any obvious hits here, the album nonetheless is consistent from beginning to end. There is a “Poem” cut up into interludes between songs throughout the album that should have been dropped (especially the closing “Orgasm”). But the title track, “Papa,” “Dark” (check those horn charts! and guitar solo!), and “Letitgo” are all solid performances in the smooth soul style that Prince has toyed with going back to songs like “Slow Love” and “Adore” on Sign “O” the Times. Venturing a guess, critics probably disliked Come because of its refusal to cater to the fads of the day (like the hip-hop/R&B melange of “new jack swing,” etc.), thereby suggesting that the music industry (which included the critics) was promoting inferior music. Hindsight suggests Prince was right. While this won’t be anyone’s favorite Prince album, it is a decent one that has surely held up better than, say, Batman, and even Diamonds and Pearls.

Matana Roberts – Coin Coin Chapter One: Gens de couleur libres

Matana Roberts – Coin Coin Chapter One: Gens de couleur libres Constellation CST079-2 (2011)

Well, this might well be the epitome of how identity politics represents a dead end. Coin Coin Chapter One is a concept album that develops a stigmatizing identity of the oppressed that (here’s the rub) polarizes others into either racist oppressors or friendly consumers of exotic otherness made possible by an enriching sense of difference (though primarily directed to the latter as an audience). It shuts the door to universality. It also pines for a false authenticity. Rather than working to create a kind of genuine, material emancipation in the present, this music dwells on the loss of the past and the wounds of history. Set aside slavery, and weren’t white women routinely oppressed in the antebellum era too? Aside from the obviously horrible brutality of human bondage, the problem of slavery was not the denial of the rights on the basis of skin color but the vacuousness of the “free” people who accepted (or even tolerated) oppression and considered themselves society’s “betters” under such circumstances. And does this all overlook how the cultures destroyed by chattel slavery (as much as any others) were meaningless, arbitrary human constructs? And isn’t condemning slavery kind of an easy thing in modern times? Even if it does still exist today in the dark corners, who really openly argues for it? Today the more appropriate question is to ask why more resources are not devoted to completely eradicating such an acknowledged evil — or why consensual activity is conflated with “human trafficking” to artificially inflate the numbers. More broadly, the task is to struggle to make concrete the freedoms everyone acknowledges as essential but are hypocritically denied in fact in so many ways. Short of those specifics, even looking to the “free your mind and your ass will follow” approach, what is needed, as Alejandro Jodorowsky once wrote, is “to undergo a mental cataclysm that causes our worldview, our psychic stance, and any sort of self-concept to crumble, precipitating us into the void — a void that engenders us, enabling us to be reborn freer than before and, for the first time, to be in the world as it is instead of as we have learned it is.” This is not accomplished by Coin Coin Chapter One. In fact, it pursues something quite the opposite — isn’t at some level this commercially released album a way of profiting off (the history of) slavery and oppression? Is the past not being called up to reinforce a feeling of victimhood status as the essential element of a lasting identity? Give that some thought.

Anyway, the album itself is part free jazz part hard bop jazz, part singing and part spoken word, all rendered in a dramatic way. In fact, a useful reference point would be the “audiodramas” of Julius Hemphill (Roi Boyé & the Gotham Minstrels, etc.) — to a lesser extent also the jazz operas of Fred Ho. The thing is, those things have been done, and, even including her specific performance styles that look to other influences, Roberts is merely approximating styles of her forebears. So in spite of the generally excellent execution, this album is a giant, smug pat on the back to the friendly consumers of exotic otherness who pride themselves on endorsing freedom and such feel-good principles — the same approach taken by groups like Sweet Honey in the Rock, The Carolina Chocolate Drops, etc. Coin Coin Chapter One isn’t a failure, entirely or exactly, but it is appropriately a compromised, self-contradictory mess, and in many ways presents a seductive trap of suggesting that all that is possible is to feel sorry about the wrongs of the past (from a rather insular and singular perspective) to eliminate only the very worst atrocities, quietly shutting the door to opportunities to provide and expand more general emancipation today (in the sense of Fanon). This has a Foucault-ian, historicist, fundamentalist, neoliberal, “there is no alternative” kind of vibe lurking just outside its own frame. So, strangely, this is an album that feels like it wins every battle, song by song and note by note, yet loses the war — because it fights the wrong war, one that is totally inadequate.