The Best of John Fahey, 1959-1977

There are always musicians that we hear about as worth discovering but that step isn't taken for whatever reasons, often because there are others being followed or because there is only so much time or, more likely, money to spend on this habit/passion.  It may also be that some of these performers are in genres (generally defined arbitrarily) that are unfamiliar or that might be though alien to current tastes.  But, as we evolve, the opportunities may arise for reconsideration or reorientation and those names, brought up long ago, recur and the thought is that maybe it's long past time to give them a listen.

This was certainly the case recently with John Fahey.  It may have been reading an interview with another musician, say, Jimmy Page, or a long-ago album or concert review.  Whatever the dimly recalled source, it was remembered that Fahey was considered an incredible guitarist and composer who never sold a great many records, but was highly respected by fellow musicians.  So, at long last, The Best of John Fahey, 1959-1977, was purchased and, as is so often the case, this led to the question, "why did this take so long?"

The album was released in 1977 on Fahey's Takoma label (named for his Maryland hometown) with 15 tracks selected by him as best representative of his nearly two-decade recording career, though this 2002 CD reissue added two long pieces and a shorter blues, to fill out to the near maximum of the medium.  What a powerful and incredibly entertaining experience this has been and listened to many times since its acquisition.

With "Sunflower River Blues," one can easily hear why Page was so taken by Fahey's mastery (it is obvious in the Led Zeppelin guitarist's acoustic pieces like "Bron-Yr-Aur" from Physical Graffiti, for example).  Moreover, another great guitar player and songwriter who was finally listened to at this time, Leo Kottke, was given his first recording opportunity by Fahey and the kinship obviously shows.  Another like example is John Prine.  This album is full of amazing recordings, so that there really aren't any highlights, just a consistently brilliant set of tunes, all beautifully played, complex and immersive as Fahey called his approach "Bartok with syncopation."

This listener did find the longer-form pieces particularly striking, these being "America" and "Fare Forward Voyages," but the truth is that this nearly 80-minute recording goes by so quickly that picking favorites is just not feasible.  While Fahey long dealt with alcoholism, financial problems, divorces and worsening health in his later years, there was a resurgence near the end of his life as his music was reappraised by so many other musicians.  In the late 90s, he co-founded Revenant Records which issued many remarkable recordings including Nefertiti, the Beautiful One Has Come, Cecil Taylor's famous 1962 Copenhagen concert and the astounding box set, Holy Ghost, of Albert Ayler's music, both of which have been featured here.

It may have taken far too long to get to the point of finally hearing John Fahey's music, but what a revelation this anthology has been and it inspired the belated discovery of Kottke and Prine, both of whom will be highlighted in future posts here.

Abraham Adzinyah/Anthony Braxton: Duo (Wesleyan) 1994

In Anthony Braxton's vast catalog of recordings dating back almost 60 years, he has worked in so many different environments from large orchestras to quartets as well as solo, but much of his oeuvre has thrived on duo recordings, live and in the studio.  None of his collaborations, however, are quite like this one, released by Leo Records in 1995, with the Ghanian percussionist, ethnomusicologist and instructor, Abraham Adzinyah.  For nearly a half-century, from 1969 to 2016, Adzinyah taught at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, where Braxton was a colleague from 1990 to 2013.

The meeting of these musical masters is remarkable because Adzinyah is, of course, not a jazz drummer or percussionist, but this actually provides a palette that presents Braxton with a different way to improvise.  This is hardly an issue, as it might be for others, because Braxton is uniquely situated in jazz because of his omnivorous openness in musical expression to develop his playing in sync with his playing partners.  Adzinyah creates rhythms and colors in his performance that support his fellow musician while also demonstrating his keen understanding of using percussion in a way that makes Braxton's music sound less formal and forbidding than it often is.

This is also a live recording at Wesleyan, so there is the nature of working in that environment, though there isn't audience reaction included.  There aren't any, to this listener's untrained ears, any real structure in terms of a melodic theme or rhythmic development; it sounds as if the two simply walked on the stage and began playing—whether any rehearsals were undertaken is an interesting question.  With Adzinyah providing accompaniment, with occasional solo performance, Braxton utilized his usual broad array of reed instruments, exploring a wide dynamic range.

Braxton's duets with drummers, like the incomparable Max Roach, usually yield power and heaviness, while his work with guitarists, bassists, keyboardists and others provide other avenues for his expression of all kinds.  Perhaps a somewhat relatable example of difference, as with Adzinyah, are Braxton's recordings with Richard Teitelbaum, in which the accompaniment is strikingly unusual, but also highly stimulating.  This album really stands out amid Braxton's incredibly prolific and distinctive oeuvre and was certainly a pleasure to discover!

African Rhythms and Instruments, Vol. 1

The Lyrichord label has long released music from all over the world that help us better have access and exposure to recordings, live and in the studio, that enrich the experience of what constitutes music when we're born and trained to listen in a certain way to specific forms and means of performance.  Much of what Lyrichord does is also historical in helping to preserve traditional musics that face uncertain futures for a variety of reasons, economic, political/military or social.

African Rhythms and Instruments, Volume 1 was recorded at the first Pan-African Cultural Festival, with the liner notes remarking that "the primary scope of these recording is to document the highlights of one of the most important cultural events in the history of contemporary Africa," which was held from 26 July to 1 August 1969 in Algiers, Algeria.  It features performances by percussionists and others from a half-dozen nations: Ghana, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso).

The liners add that the event was "an immense, exciting political and cultural manifestation" as some 5,000 persons from throughout Africa attended an "enormous stage for music, dance, cinema and theater."  Of course, it continued, the recordings could not capture the experience, but they were asserted to be "attempts of the African nations to develop their own modes of expression and communication . . . as a foundation for their emancipation from colonialism," which took place since World War II.

Also of note was that "these recording were made under very difficult circumstances" with regard to these happening in a large stadium as well as in city squares, so the sound quality varied significantly because microphones were placed in the best position possible given the environment.  The idea, ultimately, was to "preserve the atmosphere of enthusiasm and participation in which these performances took place."

So, this is not a "high quality" recording, but it is a fascinating document, albeit "low fi," of dances and performances of highly complex and compelling music in a large section of a continent undergoing tremendous transformation.  Among this listener's favorites are the fast-paced and hypnotic Ghanian singers and percussionists, the Malians with excellent xylophone playing along with female vocalists and drummers, the Nigerian Tiv performance with the reedy undulating sound of the oboe, and, especially, the intense and joyous playing by musicians, utilizing rattles, whistles, xylophone and singing from Upper Volta.

Listening to this album is an uplifting and moving experience, as well as a musical journey back almost six decades when enthusiasm and hope for post-colonial Africa was in full display, even if much of what transpired afterward belied the aims and ambitions of much of what was expressed.  In these days of much turmoil there, here and elsewhere, music like this is a needed tonic.

Pauline Oliveros: Lion's Eye/Lion's Tale

From the mid-1960s, composer Pauline Oliveros employed a variety of means to develop her concept of Deep Listening, including innovative uses of electronics, works based on gamelan music from Southeast Asia, drawing from atmospheres in unusual recording locations and much more.  In the last half of the 1980s, she created music from gamelan influences, including the two pieces for this recording released in 2006.

This blogger's first experience with gamelan was about 35 years ago through one of the many amazing recordings from the Nonesuch Explorer series and the effect on hearing this amazing music was powerful and immediate.  The hypnotic effects of percussion, chanting and singing and the instruments was just phenomenal and it was great to later see how classical composers like Lou Harrison and King Crimson guitarist and songwriter Robert Fripp adapted it to their work.

Oliveros, in the liners for this excellent recording, observed that "in Gamelan music the interlocking elements of traditional forms create a colorful, shimmering global sound.  The color shifts in beautiful and subtle ways with many instruments playing the same melody, but with a variety of ornamentation and punctuation peculiar to each instrument."

The 46-minute "Lion's Eye for Gamelan," dating to the mid-1980s and recorded with The Berkeley Gamelan Ensemble, finds Oliveros writing the orchestration so that the instruments are clearly heard, which distinguishes it from traditional performance.  Another notable element is that while higher pitched instruments are played faster or lower ones slower in gamlan, Oliveros used a computer-controlled sampler to sustain notes for up to a minute or longer, as well as having some at speeds as fast as 1,800 beats per minute.  The intent was to create an environment in which those rhythms might sound like waves.

Oliveros added that the piece could be played with a gamelan ensemble or with a sampler and music programming language called HMSL (Hierarchical Music Specification Language), which creates changing patterns every 30-beat measure, with the tempo going as fast as 72 beats per measure.  For the album, Carter Scholz of the Berkeley Gamelan wrote and performed the sampled portion.  "Lion's Tale for Sampler" was created four years later and involves speeds of up to 1,800 bpm with intricate patterning of polymetrics and polyrhythms and Oliveros added that it could be reprogrammed in new versions, as well as one in the MIDI format for keyboardists.

While computers and electronics are utilized heavily on this record, they work beautifully with the gamelan style and structure, enhancing its deeply immersive and spiritual character and truly reflecting Oliveros' concept of Deep Listening.

The Mars Volta: The Bedlam in Goliath

This post was begun just about three months ago, on 27 November 2025 and it was mentioned that, having seen The Mars Volta at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium two nights prior, it was going to take some time to process what the show did to this listener.  It shouldn't have taken this long!  Part of the issue was what seemed like a muffled sound and a mix that submerged the distinctive and impressive vocals of Cedric Bixler-Zavala, while it was also often the case that there were passages of sheer walls of sound that, for the group, was characteristic in intensity and power and definitely pushed the needle close to overwhelming, while totally thrilling.

Bixler-Zavala's harmonizing with Teri Gender Bender, partner of guitarist and instrumental mastermind Omar Rodriguez-López, was every effective, while the Cameroonian-German drummer Linda-Philoméne-Tsoungui was astounding in her playing, bassist Eva Gardner was deep and dependable in the pocket and other contributors offered stellar support.  The playing was superb, even as there were some points, especially early on, in which the band seems uncertain where to go in extending a piece.  This is understandable when a group has the ambition and audacity to push limits, though TMV has been oft-criticized for indulging in wild musical excess.

Speaking of which, the featured album here is 2008's The Bedlam in Goliath, the fourth TMV collection and, from start to finish, it is a roller coaster ride of experimentation, intensity, mystery and power.  Some of that mysterious element is from a backstory concerning the purchase in Jerusalem of a Ouija board and its purported effects on the band, crew and recording process.  Whatever the situation with that, the word "bedlam" is definitely a key one for much of this recording.  

Two tunes, "Wax Simulacra" and "Tourniquet Man," while hardly pop tunes, clock in at not much over 2:30 each, and do provide something of a break from the sheer heaviness of the rest of the album.  But, it does feel like The Bedlam in Goliath is more consistent and moves more smoothly (not quietly!) from song to song.  There is also a determined funkiness to much of the record that sets it apart from its predecessors while some of the more powerful moments, including on the last three minutes of "Goliath," most of the last 1:30 of "Agadez," and much of the closer "Conjugal Burns," for example.  "Soothsayer," the name given to the board has an eerie Middle Eastern vibe concluding with found sounds of group singing that adds to that sense of mystery, if not dread.

Rodriguez-López is a remarkable sonic architect, keeping the sound interesting and schizophrenic befitting the story of the Ouija board and what is was said to have done to everyone involved in the making of the album and the sound is heavily driven by the awesome guitar playing of John Frusciante, a consistent guest on these recordings, as well as the staggeringly propulsive and prodding percussion of Thomas Pridgen.  The late keyboardist Isaiah Ikey Owens, bassist Juan Alderete, Rodriguez-López' brother Marcel on keyboards and percussion, Adrián Terrazas-González on horns, winds and percussion and sound manipulating by Paul Hinojos all make vital contributions to this strong, unsettling and sometimes bewildering record—which seemed like the obvious choice to highlight after that concert!