Fred Frith: Guitar Solos

The last thing anyone should expect in listening to this remarkable and fascinating compilation are "guitar solos" in any popular sense.  Fred Frith has spent decades exploring the sonic range and textures of the instrument using fingers, picks and a great many other devices and tools, so that a "prepared guitar" is commonly utilized, not to mention sounds made by his breath and feet.

Moreover, improvisation is core to these eighteen pieces, the first eight of which were recorded in 1974 over four days with remainder recorded in 1976, 1978 and 1988 and the compilation made in 1991 by the Swiss label Rec Rec Genossenschaft.  Beyond this, it helped this listener to dispense with the idea that there are songs, though some titles like "Glass c/w Steel," "Out of Their Heads (On Locoweed)," "Alienated Industrial Seagulls," and "Insomnia," are evocative what is heard in the pieces.

This is also not background music and dedicated attention, either through headphones or the volume turned up is most cases, is the best way to approach these challenging works.  Though there is some harshness, including the "Alienated Industrial Seagulls" and its intense string-stretching and other elements, much of this could be heard as ambient.

The goal is not the representation of traditional technique in terms of riffs, the rapid recitation of notes in soloing and so on, but, it seems, the exploration of tone, color and the evocation of environment.  In this, Guitar Solos is a decided success, especially if one allows for the music to envelope the listener as an engrossing atmospheric experience.

Mary Halvorson Octet: Away With You

This remarkable composer and guitarist, who'd played her instrument since she was 11 years old, was studying biology at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, when she took a class taught by the great multi-instrumentalist and composer Anthony Braxton (oft-featured here, though not as often as wished) and decided to change her career course.

Like her mentor, Halvorson writes and plays in a dizzying array of styles even if she, like Braxton, is generally considered a jazz musician.  She has a clear tone, a clean sound and is a masterful soloist and sensitive accompanist to the wide variety of players with which she associates, but she can also unleash wild and unorthodox solos that are dazzling.

As importantly, she is a very interesting writer with wide latitude for the improvisation that makes jazz such a great musical form, though she brings rock, flamenco and other genres into her mind-bending works.  Notably, Halvorson recently commented that she had a tendency in the past to overwrite in her compositions, but 2016's Away With You, released on Firehouse 12 Records, which has featured Braxton and many other great musicians (Tyshawn Sorey, Myra Melford, and co-founder Taylor Ho Bynum) on its roster.

With four horns (alto and tenor sax, trumpet and trombone), a pedal steel guitar and bass and drums, Halvorson creates a diverse palette of sound in the eight pieces on the recording.  Like Braxton and another great composer/musician Henry Threadgill, she deftly orchestrates for the several instruments in ways that are richly creative, sometimes spiky, often contemplative and always interesting with an unerring eye for experiment.

Sonny Sharrock: Guitar

Can't say why it's taken almost four years to post a Sonny Sharrock album here, following his masterpiece Ask the Ages, but, in any case, his pure solo album, Guitar, is not far behind on the list of favorite Sharrock records.

Released on Enemy Records in 1986, not long after Sharrock was tracked down by bassist/producer Bill Laswell and convinced to make a comeback in music, this Sharrock/Laswell production was a perfect way to showcase the unbelievable talent that the guitarist possessed.

This is true with his well-known and well-honed slide guitar technique, in which Sharrock ranged and raged up and down the frets like a madman, but it is also true with his affinity for the blues and his knack for melody.  It is all these facets and more that made him the master that he was.

So, yes, there is plenty of rapid-fire playing with the slide and without, but there are also some very beautiful sections with plaintive melodies, soaring soloing and a playful humor that goes far beyond the pyrotechnics.

"Blind Willie" has a memorable melodic statement with a drone-like background as well as soloing that demonstrates what Sharrock could be inventive not just fast, though there's some of that, too.  "Devil's Doll Baby" has a background howling using that slide, while he solos impressively on top to create a wild effect that maybe explains the the title.

"Broken Toys" starts off in a kind of ambient mode with a pretty theme and then solos over that mellower playing, but in a way that is perfectly complementary even as it has contrasting colors.  "Black Bottom" has an old-school rock rhythm motif with a strange, otherwordly background before the soloing takes on a blues direction and includes some of the finest on the record.  "Kula Mae" has another excellent example of a rhythm that supports the often-breathtaking soloing that Sharrock was known for.in the first 1:15, and then the tune changes gear completely into another rock rhythm and some blistering fret work.

But it is the "Princess Sonata" in four parts over thirteen minutes that is the centerpiece of this album, taking all those elements of Sharrock's playing mentioned above and crystallizing them into a fully realized piece of music.  The "Princess and the Magician" section shows Sharrock blazing away, while "Like Voices of Sleeping Birds" takes him into some "out there" slide work.  "Flowers Laugh" has a playful backing, while the guitarists works the frets in a short showcase.  "They Enter the Dream" has a pretty backing statement over which the solo soars majestically and shreds in equal measure, providing a great way to end a remarkable album.

Guitar is a perfectly understated title for this showcase of one of the greatest and most underappreciated guitarists in all of music.  While Sharrock is generally thought of as a free jazz guitarist, he developed a style that was all-encompassing, taking in rock, blues and other forms, as well as jazz, to the point where, to this blogger, there is no label that applies.

Instead, Sonny Sharrock blazed his own musical path from the mid-80s until his untimely passing in 1994.  This album is one of the best ways to appreciate Sharrock in his pure, undiluted artistry, though Ask the Ages is, to this listener, his best work.

Luiz Bonfa: Solo in Rio, 1959

This is a sterling recording of the Brazilian guitarist and vocalist issued by the Smithsonian Folkways label and consisting of thirty-one mostly short pieces, the first seventeen of which constituted the original recording and the rest being unreleased tracks, showcasing Bonfá's technically brilliant playing and his earnest and warm vocals.

There are pieces that use samba, calypso, bolero, bossa nova and other "Latin" styles, but Bonfá was very much influenced by classical and jazz musics, as well, naming one of the pieces on the record after the pianist George Shearing (and the tune definitely swings) and another after Chopin.  Much of what makes this album so enjoyable is that Bonfá had such versatility in his playing and composing.

As Anthony Weller, who wrote the very helpful and informative liners, noted, Bonfá was a virtuoso, but didn't feel the need to overtly display his talents unless it was in the service of the piece and there are so many examples, including the opening "Pernambuco," the cover of the Cole Porter chestnut, "Night and Day," and the strangely-titled "Murder," being just a few examples.

The highlight for this listener, however, is the first of the unreleased pieces, the amazing "A Brazilian in New York."  On this lengthy piece, he starts with a fine classical-like melody and then adds a "Don't Walk-Walk" refrain to refer to the contradictory nature of city life's pacing and his playing is just beautiful.  When it's time to cross the street, he launches into an amazing representation of trying to make his way through the busy thoroughfare.  Uttering the word "homesick," he offers an interpretation of that feeling, with rapid runs and complex rhythms.  What follows are representations of Brazilian dances, a piano and orchestra, a samba, and then a return to the unfamiliar chaos of New York and the "Don't Walk-Walk" refrain.   This is a masterpiece of playing and storytelling.

Another highlight of the unreleased pieces is Bonfá's "Samba de Orfeu," a short (1:16) piece that marks the only time he recorded the work solo, though he made ten other versions with a band during his career.  Otherwise, there are alternate takes of album pieces that show how easily the guitarist could alter a piece by changing tempo, rhythms and feeling.

The music was recorded by Emory Cook for his own label and the remastering and editing provides for a very crystalline sound that doesn't, though, remove any of the warmth and intimacy that is a critical part of the recording's great charm, especially because Bonfá evidently did not record solo very much.

Solo in Rio, 1959 is an album that proves to provide renewed interest with each listen because of its diversity in styles and the fact that Bonfá's virtuosity is such that it meshes so well with the stylistic, melodic and rhythmic components that can be the focal point of repeated listenings.  Just listening tonight after having heard the recording a couple of weeks ago, there are different elements that come through by shifting that focus.  That's the hallmark of a master and a masterpiece.