Anthony Braxton – Saxophone Improvisations Series F

Saxophone Improvisations Series F

Anthony Braxton – Saxophone Improvisations Series F America Records 30 AM 011-012 (1972)

Anthony Braxton is a guy where either you appreciate his drive to create unique music with little or no commercial appeal, or you don’t.  You either admire his efforts to zig when everyone is expected to zag, or you don’t.  Another analogy: the question of coloring within the lines or not.  Braxton (hypothetically) colors in the lines sometimes, and sometimes not, but he’s also written two dozen new coloring books in the meantime, some of which have no lines whatsoever to color within or without, but he still says they are coloring books.

This album is similar in many ways to Dona Lee [Donna Lee], which was recorded just a week prior.  Though here there are only original compositions, no standards.  Also, rather than group material, this album is played entirely solo.  So comparisons to For Alto are sure to abound, though already Braxton’s sound had opened up a bit from that earlier recording, adding more lyrical elements to his abrupt, cold attack.  This album features compositions from his “Kelvin” series.  While those who seek out unique and uncompromising jazz will surely admire this, there is a sinking sensation that Braxton is trying to be self-consciously “different” and that holds it back just slightly.  His real breakthroughs as a performer and composer were still in the future, swiftly approaching.  This one is perhaps most appealing in how it demonstrates “how he got there.”  Choice tracks: “NR-12-C (33 M)” and “JMK-80 CFN-7.”

Anthony Braxton – Dona Lee

Dona Lee

Anthony Braxton – Dona Lee America Records 30 AM 6122 (1975)

An album documenting Anthony Braxton really coming into his own, with his best work just around the corner.  His own playing is more assured than before.  The tendency with Braxton’s early recordings is for the willful complexity of his compositions to be alienating.  Incorporating some standards into his recording repertoire evidences how he softened that alienating effect and strengthened his playing across the board by expanding his palette.  The band here is good, though not as nimble and imaginative as some of the great bands Braxton would lead in later years.  While the rhythm section here is certainly competent, like some early Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman albums one gets the feeling the rhythm section isn’t quite ready to go to all the same places as Braxton.  Just a week after recording the material here Braxton recorded the solo performances on Saxophone Improvisations Series F and the next month recorded his first Creative Music Orchestra piece RBN—-3° K12 at the Festival of Chatellerault in France.  And a few months later Braxton was back in the United States and presented a spring concert in New York City, portions of which were later released as Town Hall 1972, which bears similarities and features some arguably superior performances, although the song selections on that live album put less weight on Braxton’s growing use of standards juxtaposed with new music than Dona Lee.

Suicide – Suicide

Suicide

Suicide – Suicide Red Star RS 1 (1977)

Displaying a very technical glee, inanimate synthesizers churn out their obvious products while hands and mouths force the onslaught. Suicide could provoke almost any audience to drop all the piss they sloshed in with. A Suicide show likely and intentionally would cause a riot (one documented on the flexidisc 23 Minutes Over Brussels). Hearing them live used involve real mortal danger. Lester Bangs once quoted Alan Vega shouting back at the audience, “What’re you all fuckin’ booin’ for? You’re all gonna die.” The grand mess this suggests wasn’t one Suicide created but one they were cleaning up. Like the poet Arthur Rimbaud suggested, Suicide used pain to become voyants.

This was Suicide’s first album (as opposed to their second album of the same title), recorded in three hours plus mixing time. They had already been performing occasionally over the years in New York. Around ’77 they were fixtures at Max’s Kansas City and the Mercer Arts Center, with some appearances at the “highbrow” CBGB’s. Their influence reached countless bands. Knockoffs may have been more popular, but Suicide was always by far the best.

Martin Rev and Alan Vega, together known as the band/performance art outfit Suicide, had an aggressive, uncompromising attitude. The synthetic sounds mapped personal detours from free jazz and visual arts. Purified angst dribbled out of their few musical machines, collectively dubbed “instrument”. No guitars.

This minimalist approach can evoke a rockabilly snarl in a pristine conceptual stasis with each outbust from Vega. Every delicate melodic statement has a force its own. The power becomes obvious early with “Ghost Rider” and “Rocket USA.” The songs put Rev and Vega’s elegant violence provocatively up front. “Cheree” and “Girl” have Vega’s moaning tuned to a frequency probably outlawed in most states.

Rev and Vega were linked to the streets. That put them on the level of New Yorkers like Thelonious Monk. While committed entirely to sophisticated pursuits, the proximity of the hunger and cold kept their music visceral.

“Frankie Teardrop” was the duo’s signature tune. A song more frightening than a dry read of Hubert Selby, Jr. This contrasts with distracting sideshow tactics. Suicide weren’t con men since they did not lie. They held an essence. Attuning ears to that essence beautifully reveals the solid values driving them. The clarity of their music was necessary to keep it true. Intricacy remained, undiluted.

Suicide anticipate a primitive future more glorious the convoluted one still known today. They make sure “punk” is always associated with confrontation. Suicide clears enough space to remember the forgotten innate beauties relegated to rediscovery among fetid piles of documents, glass, and flesh. Suicide seemed to enter a trance state to convey this from their end. A little bloodshed on the other end is inevitable. They teach fearless listening. It is incalculably more dangerous not to listen.

Suicide is as freaky as it has to be. It is also very cool and surprisingly easy to like. Apparently venom never spoils.

Dolly Parton – Coat of Many Colors

Coat of Many Colors

Dolly Parton – Coat of Many Colors RCA Victor LSP 4603 (1971)

Dolly’s big breakthrough as a solo act was Coat of Many Colors, with the opening three songs each becoming hits.  However, the album as a whole, while often regarded as finding her at an artistic peak, is deeply contradicted.  Her former duet partner Porter Wagoner wrote three of the songs, and they are largely the worst things here, from the creepy swingers song “If I Lose My Mind” to the drab religious tune “The Mystery of the Mystery” they have no heart and simply scrape around for anything that will appeal to a target demographic.  The big surprise, though, is Dolly’s songwriting.  “My Blue Tears” and “Here I Am” are pretty compelling, with clear lineage to Nashville country music of old but also warm, modern electric instrumentation that slides gracefully into the then-burgeoning singer-songwriter movement on the U.S. West Coast. There aren’t any great surprises in the performances, but they all easily make use of the best contemporary trends with an open mind.

With the title track, it is worth contrasting Dolly to another big country star of the day: Loretta Lynn.  Lynn was a bold songwriter, who had a hit in 1970 with “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” an autobiographical song about growing up in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky.  Dolly’s song is about compensating for the shame and deprivation of poverty with family ties, while Lynn’s is more about the dignity of subsistence labor.  The perspective in Dolly’s song is of a clash of different value systems, one based on monetary wealth (that would buy a new, professionally made coat) and self-improvised utility (making a coat from rags, for lack of alternatives).  But while she sings about not understanding why others don’t recognize the “love” that went into making the homemade “coat of many colors,” there is a conceit in pleading for the listener to place what she had above what she lacked, by tacitly accepting the value system of the kids who laughed at the poverty her homemade clothing symbolized.  She sings, “One is only poor only if you choose to be,” the classic trope that everything in the world is purely a matter of individual choice rather than choice positioned in a context of constraints that might not be subject to an individual’s control.  Lynn’s song envisions something beyond a value system that denigrates the work of a Kentucky coal miner to support a family, and grapples with the concrete ways her family addressed the hardships of poverty.  “Coal Miner’s Daughter” looks back on the past, and finds meaning (truth) in what survived (in memories) and lead to where she ended up.  “Coat of Many Colors” likewise looks back on the past, but as a sentimental episode confined to the past.  Its only relationship to the present seems to that of a distancing effect, by placing deprivation in a bygone era that was somehow overcome (in ways never explained or implied by the song).  To put it more simply, Dolly’s song competes within a system that strives to place winners above losers and claims a victory in that terrain, while Lynn’s song calmly rebels against such a system by entertaining the possibility of every humble person living a good life on her own terms without distinguishing between winners and losers.  So, even from just the microcosm of these two songs, it is no surprise that Lynn’s persona was that of a feminist icon, with a sassy, “independent woman” demeanor that was at odds with the normally conservative politics behind commercial Nashville music of the day, while Dolly’s was that of a woman succeeding within the confines of a social structure that assigned her to a subordinate status by playing the “Backwoods Barbie Doll” role.  Dolly later starred in Hollywood movies, at most in roles in which her character seeks accommodation and satisfaction in unjust scenarios, while a “New Hollywood” movie based on Lynn’s life boldly had non-musician actresses sing — convincingly — songs associated with talented country stars.

Eric Dolphy – ‘Out to Lunch!’

'Out to Lunch!'

Eric Dolphy – ‘Out to Lunch!’ Blue Note BLP 4163 (1964)

For a long time, my favorite album.  I know it so well. These days, I rarely ever listen to it.  I carry it with me, in my head, always. So, little need for stereos.  Except, the vibrations are good.  So every once and a while, I take the time to play it, just to feel it.

It is hard to find words to describe this album.  One can only claim to shed some light on its context.  Sometimes hailed the greatest jazz recording of the 20th Century, it is certainly a key step through any legitimate jazz listening education.

Eric Dolphy was a star amidst the early “free jazz” movement of the sixties, if there was such title to bestow.  He played with most of the key players at one point or another (even La Monte Young in junior high!).  A California symphony denied him a seat, likely based on his race. His friend Richard Davis describes Dolphy as “an angel” and said if you heard something from Eric, it was true.  His music reflected his personality. It was always reaching, but peaceful and wise.

This music arrives independently at chordal improvisation. It’s not that it begins with a structure. Rather, Dolphy rethinks his entire musical universe and then constructs his own version of what it could be. The result just happens — by chance — to sound like it employs traditional values. New concepts emerge. As much as it touches on traditional values the previous standards fail to address the full scope of this album. The textures and melodic/harmonic interplay create something beyond the music, beyond its context, leading the listener into some shining palace where each moment lingers infinitely as it unfolds its wisdom. The entire point is that it’s not quantifiable. Dolphy seems to say that music should break down limitations. The destination would be unreachable by limited, traditional means (like you can’t get through the gates dragging a set of preconceived notions). All too often there is a disbelief that this album reaches the level it does.

Dolphy’s solos used dramatic intervals and a host of quite unique sounds: honking, buzzing, and anything else that suited the music. A remarkable improviser, Dolphy could give anyone a run for their money (like John Coltrane during their 1961 stand at the Village Vanguard). He was an accomplished multi-instrumentalist. ‘Out to Lunch!’ displays his three primary tools: the bass clarinet, alto saxophone, and flute. His style was remarkably vocal. Evocative and intelligent, Dolphy was an immaculate composer, stylist, instrumentalist, and bandleader.

The group is entirely comprised of superstars, though some were just getting started at the time. Bobby Hutcherson on vibes, Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Tony Williams on drums, and Richard Davis on bass provide limitless raw talent while still cooperating from beginning to end. They keep pace with the breakneck rhythms (like 5/4 or 9/4 time) and Dolphy’s explosive solos.

Freddie Hubbard employs his flashy style in full contrast to the more subdued performances by Hutcherson, Davis, and Williams. Richard Davis pulls everything into new territory with his subtle explorations and refusal to hand in a standard performance. Tony Williams, just 18 years old, is loose and explorative. Bobby Hutcherson at times shows his lyrical side, but his brightest moments come through improvisational responses — bangs, clangs, and dribbles all land perfectly.

The songs are each remarkable in many ways. “Hat and Beard,” a homage to Thelonious Monk, portrays the man’s genius and his quirks. “Something Sweet, Something Tender” is exciting and difficult to categorize. “Gazzelloni” (a nod to the flautist) stretches stylistically, while “Out to Lunch” wanders innocently. “Straight Up and Down” is the most comical.

Before Blue Note released this album, Eric Dolphy was dead. Not appreciated in America, he moved to Europe after recording ‘Out to Lunch!’. He died from his diabetes, a condition he never knew he had. This wasn’t the only great album he created.  Dolphy contributed as a sideman to countless classics and released many amazing recordings during his lifetime. The posthumous Last Date captures some of his ever-expanding visions of his final weeks in Europe a few months after recording this album. ‘Out to Lunch!’ has beautiful compositions and dazzling performances. It is a document of just what people are capable of. There may be records with seemingly less structure (“freer”) but none with more passion. Dolphy’s flair for life suspends time briefly. For a few minutes, everything that could be, everything that should be, is.

Ultramagnetic MC’s – Critical Beatdown

Critical Beatdown

Ultramagnetic MC’s – Critical Beatdown Next Plateau PL-1013 (1988)

The Ultramagnetic MC’s somehow got lost in the shuffle. While a steady following of fans and critics have sung praise since the beginning, they never quite had the album sales they deserved. Not your typical hip-hop album, Critical Beatdown remains an essential album, one of the best debut albums by a group in any genre.

Hip-hop always was underground, but by 1988 there also was stuff above ground too. Some groups like the Ultramagnetic MC’s stayed underground and laid the groundwork for a movement in the 1990s. Their lyrics were smart, and mixed with complex new beats. After fifteen years hip-hop had a whole new vocabulary, made possible largely through new technology like the sampler. The rhymes are faster more intense. Also, the focus is decidedly urban. The lyrics go beyond the simple themes so common a few years earlier. “Travelling [sic] at the Speed of Thought,” “Kool Keith Housing Things,” and “Give the Drummer Some” are showcases for master genius of rap Kool Keith. He comes in with his “usual” style; he delivers a vocal rhythm that no other MC can duplicate or even match. While his lyrics look simple on paper, his delivery flows backwards. The substance and form is different, but Kool Keith has the same command of words as the beat poets.  On “Feelin’ It” it’s easy to miss the line: “but I guess I’m white/ while others are wrong.” All Keith’s lyrics are biting and intelligent. He disses everybody.  But why not?  With a record like this, the Ultramagnetics were the top game around.

The group’s urban flavor is never bleak. The lyrics simply accept circumstances and pump out great tunes. A subtle shift from merely rhyming about lyrical superiority, the Ultramagnetic MC’s turned that tradition sideways. They explained why their rapping superiority mattered.  Hip-hop moved to a higher order of complexity. More than just a necessary mode of oral history, new hip-hop chose to go to the farthest reaches of pure technique. An album like Critical Beatdown just gets better over time.

“Critical Beatdown,” “Ease Back” and “Ego Trippin’” feature the combined assault of all the MC’s, trading rhymes at breakneck speeds. They work together, never letting individual talents work against each other.

What set this record apart in its time was use of the sampler. The sound was fresh, and subsequently overused as a gimmick by lesser groups. Critical Beatdown may have been a continuing experiment with new techniques, but it still works today. These guys even mix in a Mark Hamill line from Star Wars (advising to “go in full-throttle”).  Such eccentric samples would be fluff in any other hands. The Ultramagnetics flex their rapping muscle just enough to give us a taste — true masters.

This album is a classic, and never received its due. Hopefully, revisionist history will be kind to the Ultramagnetic MC’s who never got the fame they deserved.

Andrew Hill – Lift Every Voice

Lift Every Voice

Andrew Hill – Lift Every Voice Blue Note BST 84330 (1970)

Andrew Hill is known for his chameleon-like style on piano (like Jaki Byard).  Paradoxically, Lift Every Voice is an unusual album because it doesn’t sound unusual.  With a great band in tow, Hill is joined by a vocal choir arranged by Marshall Brown (the mastermind behind Pee-Wee Russell‘s late career comeback).  The vocals take this very much into the territory of commercial-sounding late-Sixties music — reminiscent of Oliver Nelson‘s output for Hollywood or even the likes of Leonard Feather Presents the Sound of Feeling and the Sound of Oliver Nelson.  It is well played, but not particularly moving by Hill’s high standards.  The bluesy “Ghetto Lights” is probably the best offering.  A 2001 CD reissue adds a number of unreleased songs from the sessions that prove to be more interesting than the originally released material; the bonus material is interesting because it diverges from dated Sixties harmonies far more than what was included on the original album and features a bit less of the vocal choir.

Julius Hemphill – Roi Boyé & the Gotham Minstrels

Roi Boyé & the Gotham Minstrels

Julius Hemphill – Roi Boyé & the Gotham Minstrels Sackville 3014/15 (1977)

A one-of-a-kind sound.  Supposedly Hemphill’s own Blue Boyé is similar, but I haven’t heard that to compare.  The closest music to this I can think of is that of Anthony Braxton, but this is less cerebral and more down-to-Earth.  Roi Boyé & the Gotham Minstrels is billed as an “audiodrama”.  That’s a good term for it.  The music melds a flamboyant dramatic sense from musical theater and vaudeville with the techniques and improvisational choices of free jazz, tinged just slightly with blues and R&B influences.  The only performer is Julius Hemphill himself, overdubbed, on saxophone and flute, with some occasional spoken word vocals.  The theatrical aspects of this help hold it together, despite a few moments perhaps where meandering “double album syndrome” threatens.