Musical Voodoo
Right at this moment I'm listening to one of my all time favorite jazz piano performances: Tommy Flanagan playing Billy Strayhorn's "Chelsea Bridge." You can find it on Tommy Flanagan Trio in Stockholm 1957. Featuring Wilbur Little on bass and Elvin Jones on drums. A super swinging set that gives Flanagan a chance to stretch out in his bop/post-bop fashion. Am I hearing some Bud Powell in his playing here? Dig him on Charlie Parker's "Relaxin' at Camarillo" (and also dig Elvin using the brushes on a lot of songs--sounds like it, anyway) and check out his fiercly poetic side (a display of both sensitivity and heat) on "Willow Weep for Me." Is this recording available on CD? I dunno. But it's been a vinyl treasure of mine for some time. I bought it in the heat of a big crush on Tommy Flanagan's playing. It's one of those records I wish I could play for my dear old departed piano-playing dad. So, here's to ya, dad.
Another T. F. record for pops to enjoy in the piano bar in heaven or hell: The Cats--a 1957 date featuring sheets-of-sound era John Coltrane on tenor, Idrees Sulieman on trumpet, and surprisingly enjoyably for me because I don't always enjoy jazz guitar, Kenny Burrell. I think Kenny gets off the best solos on this one. T.F. kinda lays back, except on the quieter trio number, "How Long Has This Been Going On"--a nice tune to cook dinner to. Overall, not nearly as stimulating as the live Stockholm set, maybe 'cause the head tunes are sort of run of the mill hard bop blowing session themes. Something for all the horns to do, I guess.
On the less poetic front, I spent an enjoyable hour or so yesterday listening to two Flamin' Groovies records that have been sitting, under-appreciated, in my collection lo these past two decades. At least I had the good sense not to sell them off during my Stalinesque Bluegrass Purge (see earlier regret-filled entries from early April). The two records in question: Still Shakin'--a sort of hodgepodge of album cuts and lost sessions, and their Mach 1 masterpiece, Teenage Head. Still Shakin' is fun. Mostly covers. Funny to think of them playing "Louie Louie" for the flowerpower kids.
Teenage Head is a fantastic mingling of The Stooges, Sticky Fingers/Exile on Main Street Stones, and crazed Memphis rockabilly (due perhaps to the presence of Memphisian character Jim Dickinson on the piano). A proto punk classic. Vocalist Roy Loney sounds like a combo of Iggy, Captain Beefheart and any rockabilly madman you care to mention. Guitarist Cyril Jordan gets both punky and bluesy. The Cramps had to have studied this record, especially the brutal title track, the demented echo-laden "Evil Hearted Ada" ( dig the nicked guitar riff from "Mystery Train") and the Memphisly-maddened "Dr. Boogie." The S.F. hippies just didn't get it. This is what the early Creem magazine would defined as the essence of "Boy Howdy!"
Over on the CD front, I was making a sort of Pan-African-American connection with the music of D'Angelo and Olu Dara. D'Angelo, what happened? Two records in ten years, and nothing else in sight, as far as I know. If you're into the stuff, you know how Brown Sugar kicked off the Neo-Soul trend--a genre that doesn't excite me as much as I'd initially hoped. Maybe I'm saying this out of ignorance, but a lot of it sounds like rehashed Stevie Wonder to me. Not D'Angelo. He's more of a Prince man, if not quite the tunesmith that the Purple One is. Anyway, I love that title track to Brown Sugar, the revenge tale, "Shit, Damn, Motherfucker" and the brilliance of covering Smokey Robinson's "Cruisin'."
More exciting to me, and, yes, harder to get into is D's 2000 release, Voodoo. Some, like me, loved it, and others found it boring and self-indulgent--a record lacking hooks and discernable jams (or is that the same thing?). Maybe. I think it's jamming on a deeper level. Almost like an r&b record in dub. An ambitious work that attempts to connect Prince, Marvin Gaye, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Jimi Hendrix and Fela Kuti. Created in collaboration with Ahmir Thompson from The Roots, this is the r&b record for your subconscious and your lower chakras.
In spirit and ambition, I connect Voodoo to Olu Dara's 1998 record, In the World. A criminally under-appreciated record (CD), in my opinion. Many know Olu Dara as rapper Nas's father, but he was playing the cornet and guitar on the far out New York jazz scene long before Nas got behind the mike. You can't quite pin him down as a jazzman or a bluesman. And who cares, anyway? In the World is a kind of mythical-folkloric autobiographical journey from Natchez to New York (as the recording is subtitled). A pleasant singer, a competent guitarist, a stabbing horn player, a man with great imagination, Olu Dara is the sort of figure that Ralph Ellison and Bob Dylan would get instantly. You can't pigeon hole him in any particular genre, and thus he's out on the margins of recogition, but on the lower levels speaking for you (D'Angelo, too).
Another T. F. record for pops to enjoy in the piano bar in heaven or hell: The Cats--a 1957 date featuring sheets-of-sound era John Coltrane on tenor, Idrees Sulieman on trumpet, and surprisingly enjoyably for me because I don't always enjoy jazz guitar, Kenny Burrell. I think Kenny gets off the best solos on this one. T.F. kinda lays back, except on the quieter trio number, "How Long Has This Been Going On"--a nice tune to cook dinner to. Overall, not nearly as stimulating as the live Stockholm set, maybe 'cause the head tunes are sort of run of the mill hard bop blowing session themes. Something for all the horns to do, I guess.
On the less poetic front, I spent an enjoyable hour or so yesterday listening to two Flamin' Groovies records that have been sitting, under-appreciated, in my collection lo these past two decades. At least I had the good sense not to sell them off during my Stalinesque Bluegrass Purge (see earlier regret-filled entries from early April). The two records in question: Still Shakin'--a sort of hodgepodge of album cuts and lost sessions, and their Mach 1 masterpiece, Teenage Head. Still Shakin' is fun. Mostly covers. Funny to think of them playing "Louie Louie" for the flowerpower kids.
Teenage Head is a fantastic mingling of The Stooges, Sticky Fingers/Exile on Main Street Stones, and crazed Memphis rockabilly (due perhaps to the presence of Memphisian character Jim Dickinson on the piano). A proto punk classic. Vocalist Roy Loney sounds like a combo of Iggy, Captain Beefheart and any rockabilly madman you care to mention. Guitarist Cyril Jordan gets both punky and bluesy. The Cramps had to have studied this record, especially the brutal title track, the demented echo-laden "Evil Hearted Ada" ( dig the nicked guitar riff from "Mystery Train") and the Memphisly-maddened "Dr. Boogie." The S.F. hippies just didn't get it. This is what the early Creem magazine would defined as the essence of "Boy Howdy!"
Over on the CD front, I was making a sort of Pan-African-American connection with the music of D'Angelo and Olu Dara. D'Angelo, what happened? Two records in ten years, and nothing else in sight, as far as I know. If you're into the stuff, you know how Brown Sugar kicked off the Neo-Soul trend--a genre that doesn't excite me as much as I'd initially hoped. Maybe I'm saying this out of ignorance, but a lot of it sounds like rehashed Stevie Wonder to me. Not D'Angelo. He's more of a Prince man, if not quite the tunesmith that the Purple One is. Anyway, I love that title track to Brown Sugar, the revenge tale, "Shit, Damn, Motherfucker" and the brilliance of covering Smokey Robinson's "Cruisin'."
More exciting to me, and, yes, harder to get into is D's 2000 release, Voodoo. Some, like me, loved it, and others found it boring and self-indulgent--a record lacking hooks and discernable jams (or is that the same thing?). Maybe. I think it's jamming on a deeper level. Almost like an r&b record in dub. An ambitious work that attempts to connect Prince, Marvin Gaye, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Jimi Hendrix and Fela Kuti. Created in collaboration with Ahmir Thompson from The Roots, this is the r&b record for your subconscious and your lower chakras.
In spirit and ambition, I connect Voodoo to Olu Dara's 1998 record, In the World. A criminally under-appreciated record (CD), in my opinion. Many know Olu Dara as rapper Nas's father, but he was playing the cornet and guitar on the far out New York jazz scene long before Nas got behind the mike. You can't quite pin him down as a jazzman or a bluesman. And who cares, anyway? In the World is a kind of mythical-folkloric autobiographical journey from Natchez to New York (as the recording is subtitled). A pleasant singer, a competent guitarist, a stabbing horn player, a man with great imagination, Olu Dara is the sort of figure that Ralph Ellison and Bob Dylan would get instantly. You can't pigeon hole him in any particular genre, and thus he's out on the margins of recogition, but on the lower levels speaking for you (D'Angelo, too).
posted by ken at 8:18 PM
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