Cabaret Voltaire: The Crackdown

Once Cabaret Voltaire became a duo of Stephen Mallinder and Richard H. Kirk, after Chris Watson's 1981 departure, a notable change in the group's sound was undertaken.  While still experimental, the music also became more accessible, a development first highlighted on the half of the 1982 release, 2x45, highlighted here before.

Then, when CV, which was under contract to Some Bizarre Records, signed a distribution deal with Virgin Records, and the group headed into the studio with noted producer and engineer Flood, who became qiuckly known in the late 1970s and early 1980s for his engineering talents, working on the debut records of New Order and Ministry, for example.  Later, he became well-known for his work with U2, Depeche Mode, Nine Inch Nails, The Smashing Pumpkins, PJ Harvey, The Killers and many others.

The result was 1983's The Crackdown, a great record, recorded at the end of the previous year, that retained that edge while moving a little closer to the mainstream (but, fortunately, just a little.)  To this listener, it isn't just that the sound is cleaner, but that the layering of sounds is better put together and Mallinder's whispered vocals are largely left unprocessed and more immediately compelling.  Kirk's use of guitar, horns, and a wide array of electronic instrumentation is also more effective with Flood's obvious input--yet, the distinctiveness of CV not just remains, but is greatly enhanced.

"24-24" opens the album very effectively, with its electronic hand-claps, washes of keyboards, steady electronic drum beat, sampled voices, and other layered synthesized sounds very cleverly combined with Mallinder's menacing vocalizations.

"In the Shadows" opens with something akin to a fog horn (via Kirk's use of the Japanese shakuhachi) to establish an ambiance, but the big twist is the ethnic percussive touches, and a compelling two-note element to complement the percussion.  Mallinder's simple and repetitive three-note bassline, embellished with some variations, holds down the tune nicely.  This song is one of several that amply shows the growth in the band.

"Talking Time" opens with an echoed voice calling out "5 minutes" and there is another great mix of sounds and a steady drum pattern to keep things moving smoothly while Mallinder delivers an impressionistic lyric quite effectively, with the mantra "It's just a dream to hold you down" almost meaning something specific, but not quite.

"Animation" moves into dance territory, though in CV's own idiosyncratic way and thanks to an assist from Soft Cell's Dave Ball.  Kirk's guitar establishes a simple melodic pattern along with keyboards and that steady drum beat, while Mallinder offers another well-delivered chanted vocal and another simple, but solid, bassline.

"Over and Over" had previously been released, but this reworking is leaner, cleaner and more efficient.  Mallinder's vocal is far clearer and comes out better, as well.  That background of Kirk's distinctive melodic element on guitar is enhanced by some nice percussive touches, as well.

"Just Fascination" was the first single and it has an interesting ambiance coming out of the gate, with a kind of "spreading" synth line and a four-note repetitive keyboard pattern to define the tune.  Mallinder's lyrics are interesting and deals with closed door sexual fantasizing in a detached, clinical way--with a bit of a startling line in "If they knew, you'd shoot yourself" to highlight the shame that results in being found out.  Not the kind of lyric to indicate a hit single necessarily!

Then follows a satirical, cynical and off-beat "Why Kill Time (When You Can Kill Yourself)?", though, again, it's hard to discern a literal meaning in Mallinder's chanted lyrics.  Musically, Kirk has another strong melodic line and there is a dominant repetituve drum pattern, as well.

Ambiance takes over on the compelling "Haiti," which also appears to include more of the found voices found on 2x45.  Discordant horns, echoed keyboards, splashes of piano, and a background wash of electronic sounds create a mood that makes this piece stand out from the others on the album.

The title piece is one of the more effective on the record, with another simple bass line working well with the array of percussion elements, dub like rhythm guitar, and keyboard effects (Ball is on this song, as well) to accompany Mallinder's low-key, but menacing vocals.  Towards the end, the tension building through the piece to the distinctive melodic line on the keyboard and then rises up to an intense finish and abrasive keyboard washes ending a remarkable album.

It should be noted that Alan Fish, who toured and recorded with Cabaret Voltaire a good deal in this period, had a hand in much of the percussive effectiveness of the album.

From the first CD release back in the early days of the medium in 1984 onward, The Crackdown was augmented by four pieces that were released in other formats and all of which show the hallmarks of the earlier Cabaret Voltaire sound.

"Diskono" has a strong percussive beat, almost foreshadowing, perhaps, the coming techno and house movement, but with its strange echoed effects, Kirk's simple melodic guitar line doubled by Mallinder's bass and the latter's very processed vocals like that found in previous work.  This is a very effective tune, pre-Flood.

"Theme from Doublevision" is a haunting statement, made for the group's own video and record label, Doublevision, which was one of the first such entities for a "rock" group--the cover photo of Kirk and Mallinder with early and bulky video equipment reflects their interest in mixing their distinctive music with video presentations in a "cut up" aesthetic influenced by William S. Burroughs and others.

"Moscow" is another ambient excursion--very dark and unnerving, especially heard through headphones.  A variety of processed and found sounds, distant percussive elements, disembodied voices, cymbal washes and other effects are strangely appealing.  The influence of avant-garde music is especially obvious in tracks like these last few add-ons.

Which leads to "Badge of Evil"--this last piece sounds like it might have come out of some of the earliest Cabaret Voltaire experiments from the mid-to-late 70s.  Kirk's eerie horn lines, another basic Mallinder bass lines, a subtle five-note rhythmic line, what sounds like struck bells from time to time, and a remarkable Mallinder vocal which sounds like it was recorded in a deep, dry well, make for one of the darker ambient tunes in the band's catalog.  But, for this listener, it is a highly compelling piece.

The next album, 1984's Micro-Phonies would prove to be the "most popular" album in the lengthy and diverse CV catalog, but The Crackdown might be more complex, varied and diverse, if not as accessible and danceable.  In any case, Kirk and Mallinder's controversial (to fans of the Rough Trade era) decision to recalibrate their sound was artistically as well as (somewhat) commercially successful--something that would be much harder to try to do in the EMI years later in the 80s.

Max Roach and Cecil Taylor: Historic Concerts

Lee Jeske's liner notes to this album are titled "Percussive Pianist Meets Melodic Drummer" and it's certainly a notable way to decribe this amazing 2-disc recording from the McMillin Theatre at Columbia University in New York from December 1979 and released on the Italian label Soul Note.

After a strange, halting introduction from an unknown announcer, Max Roach comes right out and shows why he wasn't just a powerful, fast and precise drummer, but one who used all of the resources of his kit to play in unfailingly complex rhythms and, yes, strong melodic strains.  In the nearly 5-minute intro, though, he was really just warming up.

For nearly the same amount of time, just under 5 minutes, Cecil Taylor turned in a solo performance that came out highly melodic and relaxed, as if he intended to show the audience that it wasn't all about the key pounding, astounding fast runs, and complex chords for him.  It is absent of the pounding, manic playing that is so intoxicating for fans--it anticipates, perhaps, the idea that playing with Roach would be a different experience for him and the listener.  This performance, too, sounds like a warm up.

The forty-minute duet that follows is encapsulated by Roach's view that he and Taylor "co-existed" during the concert, finding, in an entirely improvised performance, where they could come to a meeting of the minds (and hands and feet).  What the drummer excelled at, especially, is his uncanny way of working within Taylor's iconoclastic style, playing with and not against the pianist's uncompromising way of performing, which may have been at its peak in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

A particularly interesting element in Roach's playing comes at about the 30 minute mark when he plays for a couple minutes on a snare tuned to make a strange high-pitched sound, almost like you might hear in some forms of Chinese drumming.  A few minutes later, a "sliding" type of cymbal work distinguishes Roach's way of accompanying Taylor.

The second duet, just a couple of minutes shorter than the first, finds Roach playing a variety of percusion instruments beyond his standard kit as Taylor works on a more melodic, richer sounding, and not quite as rapid a manner.  Here, Roach's use of a wide array of sounds isn't just a novelty, it's another way of working with Taylor's orchestral and percussive approach.  Things are relatively mellow and low-key until about eight minutes in when the playing gets incredibly dense and intense.

After some intense playing for some 25 minutes, Taylor turns things over to Roach for another solo and the drummer goes initially for melodic approaches initially, than to the display of virtuosity and percussive pyrotechnics.  It's a brief interlude and Taylor reenters somewhat quietly and more muted--well, for him--and Roach responds accordingly, executing some excellent rolls and fills along the way.  But, as the piece nears its end, the two go off in the stratosphere again, with thrilling effects.  The crowd's enthusiastic response shows the appreciation they felt for the amazing performance.

No greater contrast, probably, can be found in the way Roach works with Taylor than comparing this concert with the intriguing, but strange, 1977 show Taylor did with Mary Lou Williams and her highly orthodox rhythm section, including drummer Mickey Roker, who later said that the music was confusing, not fun, and that he simply tried to forget even playing that show.

Roach, though, took the challenge of playing with Taylor and made it work, which is just one of any number of reasons why he was one of the great drummers of all time.  He did what Roker wouldn't or couldn't do--found ways to play within and without Taylor's immense power, speed and dazzling technique.  Roach is, in a word, spectacular precisely because he knew what to do to "co-exist."

The last 17 minutes of disc 2 is comprised of a radio show, featuring interviews with the two masters, interspersed with excerpts from the concert.  There is much of interest in these segments as the two discuss how the concern came to be, their admiration for each other, the lack of a need to rehearse for the show because of their mutual understanding, and their place in modern jazz.

Roach, in particular, has some notable things to say about playing with Taylor, noting that it was work, a combination of ego and love, an intense experience that radiates to the audience as they see how the players react to each others.

These interviews are a nice way to end one of the great duet recordings of experimental and explorative music.

Music of Bali: Gamelan Semar Pegulingan

This excellent Lyrichord release, from field recordings made in the Balinese village of Ketewel at a Hindu temple, presents five tracks of gamelan music.

This blogger first encountered gamelan in the early Nineties and was immediately captivated by its otherworldly sounds, stately, gently hypnotic and highly rhythmic.

The liner notes by Wayne Vitale, who recorded the music, observe that there are some 20 variants of gamelan on Bali, with some of the oldest elements of the form played by an ensemble representing the Gamelan Semar Pegulingan, basing its work on the Balinese god of love, Semara.

Twenty-five musicians comprise the ensemble with families of instruments grouped together and the music utilized paired tuning, in which the tone of one instrument has a partner in another, tuned just higher or lower, for a mesmerizing effect through the use of tremolo, which gives that distinctive shimmering sound for which gamelan is so noted.

There are several metallophones, tuned at different octaves; tuned gongs; drums and cymbals, and flutes which accompany the main metallophone (the gender tetulas).

This music was performed for royalty for the purposes of relaxation, so it has the elements of manis (sweet) and halus (refined) sounds dedicated to that end, but in the village of Ketewel, the music takes on a religious dimension for rituals and celebrations at the temple.  The structure and the instruments used in the recording are said to date back more than 400 years.

The instruments are considered sacred and can only be used after offerings and rituals have been made and carried out to provide the proper spiritual environment for the making of the music and the ritualized masked dancing that accompanies some of it.

It is believed that this type of gamelan has healing powers and there are many people throughout the world who say that music does just that--has a restorative power for the health of the listener.  Westerners may tend to be skeptical of the medicinal effects of music, but there is no question that this music, once a listener accounts for the type of tuning and scales used and the melodic bent entailed in it, is strikingly beautiful and relaxing.  Why couldn't this be conducive to an improved mental, if not physical, well-being?

Al Green: Greatest Hits

For several years in the early to mid 1970s, the combination of great songwriting, the amazing vocal gymnastics of Al Green and the rock-solid production of Willie Mitchell, produced some of the greatest music of the era.

Released on Mitchell's Hi Records out of Memphis, the singles and albums that this duo churned out from 1971 to 1977 were a perfect melding of Green's superior singing with the excellent performances of mainly unheralded musicians, and Mitchell's steady hand at the mixing desk.

In 1975, at the peak of Green's career, a greatest hits album was released, picking the ten best-known of the songs and twenty years' later, five more selections, taken from a second album of greatest hits, were added.  The result is a stellar album, especially with those first ten tracks and particularly when "Love and Happiness" replaced "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?," though the last five songs have their great moments, as well.

Greatest Hits is filled with songs that match Green's peerless singing with instrumental accompaniment that works in the service of the singer and the song, all supervised and assembled by a producer who knew how to make the most of the material and the personnel.

To this listener, the album builds with great tracks like "Tired of Being Alone" and "Here I Am (Come and Take Me)" to the pinnacles of the groove-laden "Love and Happiness" and the vocal masterpiece, "Let's Stay Together" before gradually winding down through "I Can't Get Next to You" and "You Oughta Be With Me."

Even if the last five tracks don't quite measure up to the sheer greatness of the earlier tunes, there are still plenty of memorable moments in "Look What You Done For Me", "Sha-La-La", "L-O-V-E" and "Full of Fire."  Green's vocal pyrotechnics on "Belle" are a great way to close the album, though he was then, in 1977, at the end of his peak years.

Earlier this week, George Martin's death was a reminder of the importance of a great producer for a great band of performer.  Willie Mitchell's work as the architect of the sound behind the unmatched singing of Al Green is, to this listener, much the same as that of Martin to The Beatles.

Something has to be said, too, about the great musicians on Greatest Hits including the three Hodges brothers, known as The Impalas, who formed the core of the studio band on most of these songs, including guitarist Teenie, bassist Leroy, and organist/pianist Charles, the remarkable drummer Al Jackson, Jr. whose expansive snare and shimmering cymbal work is understated but always steady, and the horn section and backing vocalists who supplemented the excellence of these recordings.

After a 1978 record that didn't do well among changing times, mainly the peak of the disco era, Green turned to religious music for many years, though recently he has been mixing secular and sacred concerns in his work.  But, Greatest Hits captured Al Green at his peak, working with Willie Mitchell and great musicians to make dynamic music on a plane unmatched for their time and any time.

Milton Babbitt: An Elizabethan Sextette/Solo Piano Works/Groupwise/Vision and Prayer

Milton Babbitt has often been criticized for being cold, mechanical, and overly intellectual, with his interests in electronics and twelve-tone composition lacking human elements.  However, a recent read of his Words About Music, a compilation of lectures he gave about his views on Schoenberg's system and other aspects of music, while often very technical and beyond this amateur's understanding, revealed someone who had a quick sense of humor, a way of lecturing to students and others and, more importantly, a total passion for his calling.

It's one thing not to like someone's work because it just doesn't reach you, but it's quite another to dismiss it because of perceptions about a composer's qualities.

This recording, then, is an excellent example of showing Babbitt in a variety of settings, including some beautiful vocal works that amply demonstrate a very human approach to composition.  "An Elizabethan Sextette" is, of course, a series of a half-dozen love poems from the Elizabethan era, including one by the famed queen.  The singing is in six parts, so this sense of polyphony adds to the lushness and captivating nature of the works.

Alan Feinberg's piano work on five pieces, four of which are under 2 1/2 minutes with the last, "About Time" running over twelve, is recorded with great clarity, his performance precise, and the composition compelling.  The piano is inherently an evocative instrument and, whatever views there are about twelve-tone composition, the range of sounds generated in these pieces show, to this untutored listener, a certain warmth, as well as of virtuosity and the interesting combinations and recombinations of twelve-tone technique utilized.

"Groupwise," is a concerto for flute, alto flute and piccolo with a piano and string trio accompaniment.  The flute is almost constantly soloing, but the range of sounds generated by the other instruments in conjunction with the main one is striking and alluring.  The piano has its own sort of sound world, while the string trio has its, as well and then there are duos of violin and cello and what appears to be a viola and cello.  Exploring low and high registers, using pizzicato techniques, and unusual arrays of long and short notes are just a few examples of what this untrained ear can pick out as far as notable sound elements.  Simply put, what's attractive about this is the way the various instrument combinations "speak" to one another within the recombinations of the twelve tone set.

Dylan Thomas's poem "Vision and Prayer" is rendered into a striking piece with Babbitt's use of electronic tape from the classic Mark II RCA Synthesizer at the pioneering Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center (another recently-read book, Electronic Sound, discussed this instrument and center at some length by author and composer, Joel Chadabe) and the now-90 year old Bethanie Beardslee's utterly amazing soprano vocals from a recording many years earlier than the late 1980s ones on the rest of this album. Here is a way for the electronics to mesh with the human voice so it isn't overly harsh or forbidding--unless you just don't like electronic sound to begin with.

Takini: Music and Chants of the Lakota Sioux

This is a fascinating recording from the French Le Chante du Monde label of twenty songs recorded at the Pine Ridge Reservation of the Lakota Sioux Indians in 1994 by the Takini Dance Group, an ensemble of  professional dancers from various reservations.  Hearing the chants, flute music and other songs performed by modern Sioux is as close as we can get to a snapshot of the time-honored musical traditions of their ancestors.

It is easy to overly romanticize native peoples and understandable to a significant degree because of the brutality to which they were subjected in the relentless move across the continent by Euro-Americans during the 19th-century and then the poor treatment of them by the government afterward.

Still, listening to these songs representing a variety of aspects of everyday life, from dance music, to the celebration of animals, a victory song, an honor song--some of which are traditional, others modern compositions in the spirit of ancient traditions--there is a strong sense of dignity, respect for the natural environment in which the Sioux have lived, pride, and communal understanding.

Most importantly, perhaps, these songs are a vibrant reminder that, for all that has been done to them, the Sioux have survived by holding fast to the kinds of traditional lifeways and practices emboided in this music, as well as in other ways.

The brief, but informative, liner notes give historical context to the music and then an explanation of what the songs are generally about and that the music is based on the pentatonic scale and the use of higher registers for vocalizing along with percussion for keeping time and reflecting the heartbeat during dances at pow-wows.

Interestingly, the continuing interest in warrior songs from times that are becoming more and more remote is their identification with modern warriors, Lakota Sioux that have and are fighting in the American military.  The social songs are a way for today's Sioux to have a deeper, spiritual connection to their ancestors, the land, and the ways of life which their people have  maintained, even in crisis, for centuries.

A remarkable photo is reproduced in the liners of an Omaha Dance from the summer of 1891, the year after the horrific Wounded Knee Massacre.  It, like this album, is a testament to native resilience and determination in the face of grave threats to a worldview and a way of life.

PainKiller: The Prophecy

This mindblowing release appears to be something of a cousin to another recent Tzadik (John Zorn's label) release, Massacre's Love Me Tender (2013).

Love Me Tender, featuring Charles Heyward on drums, Bill Laswell on bass and Fred Frith on guitar, was a pastiche of live recordings in Europe edited by Frith and which shows the improvising power trio in a wide variety of aural settings, though dominated by Frith's remarkable fret work.

Similarly, The Prophecy, which came out in 2013, as well, is also a compilation of European live performances by a power trio, with Laswell joined by drummer Yoshida Tatsuya, best known from the Japanese band Ruins, in support of Zorn's wailing, screaming and probing alto sax.  As with Frith on the other recording, Zorn is the primary figure here and for fans, he delivers all of the great playing expected of the master.

But, although he is the front man, as Frith was for Massacre, the value of rhythm section should not be understated.  Laswell is not just a phenomenal bass player who can keep the bottom held down in support of soloists as well as anyone, but he can instantly switch with an array of pedals to a fuzztone, move into heavy and deep dub playing, morph into something like an electric guitarist, and throw in the riff from Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" seamlessly into the mix.

As for Tatusya, he is the third drummer to work with Zorn and Laswell as part of the PainKiller project.  Founding member Mick Harris, formerly of Napalm Death, was the (or one of the) creators of the "blast beat," and his playing was largely limited to the range of percussion he worked with in the grindcore world.  In fact, it has been said his sense of inadequacy when playing with the likes of Zorn and Laswell led him to forego drumming to move into electronics.

The great Hamid Drake, who mainly has played in the jazz realm, turned in an excellent performance in 2003's live recording for Zorn's 50th birthday celebrations.  His training gave a flexibility, variety and fluidity that notably transformed the sound.

With Tatsuya, there is something of a combination.  More or less a rock drummer, but with a wider range than Harris, if not as nimble and elastic as Drake, he turns in a very solid performance and meshes well with Laswell, while providing a solid foundation behind Zorn.  Tatsuya is given several minutes to solo and turns in a fine one.

The brief note on the OBI strip doesn't suggest this, but reviews indicate that The Prophecy might be viewed as a summary statement on the PainKiller project.  It is true that the last gig of the band was in Paris in 2008, when Harris surprisingly turned up to play drums and longtime Zorn collaborator Mike Patton contributed the screaming vocals Harris used to deliver in the early days.

Whether this album is the final word from PainKiller or not, it is another fantastic improvisational journey with Zorn and Laswell, with Tatsuya doing an excellent job.  A word has to be said about the crystalline engineering job by Oz Fritz, who has done a great deal of work with Laswell over the years, and makes the sound as good as can be obtained from a live gig.  Finally, Heung-Heung Chin's gorgeous artwork, a trademark of Zorn's Tazdik label, is worthy of noting, including the use of the photographic subjects of bones, teeth and the like, which are typically PainKiller-like.

John Coltrane: Giant Steps

This is the album, recorded in May and December 1959 and released on Atlantic Records, that fully established John Coltrane as a masterful player, composer and bandleader, when it was released in January 1960.  On the heels of Miles Davis's Kind oi Blue, on which Coltrane was a stellar contributor, and out the same year as Ornette Coleman's revolutionary Free Jazz, Giant Steps was one of the indicators of where jazz was heading in the new decade.

The paths (there are almost always several) would not be easy to trod, as old-school critics howled in derision and anger about what the so-called "avant garde" was doing, while clinging to the old verities of bop, hard bop and the preexistng styles that were being challenged.

Coltrane, universally known as a kind, gentle, spiritual man not given to contentious arguments about anything, became the object of vitriol and scorn totally unfair to both the man and musician.  More than a half-century later, it seems quaint and laughable to imagine Coltrane's "giant steps" towards a different way of playing jazz being a threat to anyone.

The damnations were enough, evidently, so that a series of albums through 1964 showed Trane moving more frequently into more melodic and traditional territory, through "My Favorite Things", albums with Duke Ellington and Johnny Hartman, the recording of classic standards, and right up to the solemn and gorgeous Crescent.

But, it was first Giant Steps, then elements of the remarkable Africa/Brass, and especially the staggering Live at the Village Vanguard (its complete package gives the fan three additional discs of glorious playing at that December 1961 engagement) that invited the withering scrutiny of critics, most of whom couldn't play an instrument, compose or do anything that gave them the mantle and aura of authority they assumed.

So, the music.  The original seven-track album has classic after classic. The mind-blowing speed, precision and technical mastery of the title track is legendary and it has been a challenge for sax players ever since to take the tune on and do what they can with it.  "Cousin Mary," named for Coltrane's relation and keeper of the flame when it came to his Philadelphia home being a historic site, was long a standard in Trane's repertoire.

"Syeeda's Song Flute," named after Trane's adopted daughter by his first wife, is another joyous piece.  "Mr. P.C.," a tribute to longtime Davis and Coltrane bassist Paul Chambers, is one of the more recognizable melodies in Trane's discography and a live favorite for years.

Finally, there's "Naima," in honor of the composer's first wife, and simply one of the finest ballads, not only of Coltrane's work, but of anyone's.  Like "My Favorite Things," it was a standard piece even when the music went totally free and to hear a version of the song from, say, the second Village Vanguard album in 1966, compared to the earlier one from Giant Steps is an interesting way to hear just how much Coltrane's sound developed over those five years.

Trane was still about a year away from solidifying his band with the "classic quartet" of McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones.  He had Chambers as his anchor at the bass, Art Taylor on drums and Tommy Flanagan at the piano.  For "Naima," drummer Jimmy Cobb and pianist Wynton Kelly, both from the Davis band and Kind of Blue, brought their soft, sensitive touches to the classic.  Then, for "Giant Steps," Lex Humphries was at the kit and Cedar Walton played piano.  All of these musicians were excellent at their instruments, though there has been much said especially about the struggles some had with the speed and complexity of some of the tunes, particularly the title track.

But, Coltrane kept trying other musicians on subsequent records until he first secured Tyner, then Jones and, finally, Garrison and the "classic quartet" went on that momentous four-year run that culminated with A Love Supreme in 1965.  Still, even if Trane's greatest work was in that 1961-65 period with that quartet, Giant Steps, following from the great start of 1957's Blue Train, was the album that put Coltrane in the front ranks of jazz's greatest players, writers and leaders.

Ludwig von Beethoven: String Quartets, Vol. 1 (Op. 18, Nos. 1 and 2)

Reading John Cage's remarkable book Silence currently, it becomes very obvious that the famed experimental composer had a particular dislike for Ludwig von Beethoven.

Much of this may have been particularly musical, but a good deal seems also to have been because of the arch conservatism in the classical world that kept the fires burning for the standard composers from Bach to Mozart to Beethoven to Brahms to Wagner and so forth.

It is understandable that innovative modern composers, such as Cage and Harry Partch, were concerned that there was not enough opportunity given to those looking to move beyond traditional composing methods.  This listener is fascinated with the music of both of these amazing figures, along with other modernists whose work has been highlighted here.

At the same time, there is admiration for the stunning work of the earlier masters, as well, and there is no reason that Beethoven and other giants of the pre-modern world cannot be enjoyed just as much as later-day experimenters.

Anyway, this Naxos recording from the early 1990s presents the first two of Beethoven's string quartets.  Composed between 1798 and 1800, while Beethoven in his late twenties, as he was straining to move beyond the teachings and influence of his tutor, the great Franz Josef Haydn, these works show a composer who was already creating rich, complex and beautiful music that showed the way beyond Haydn and Mozart as a new century dawned.

The theme in the first movement of the first quartet, in F major, is a well-known one and it takes the listener into a very lively, dramatic and bright environment.  The second movement is subdued, slower and achingly beautiful and was said by the composer to have the famed burial vault scene in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet as inspiration.  The short third movement has another famed theme and has a notable rhythmic component to it, as well as a series of memorable melodic statements.  The concluding allegro movement is an amazing technical exercise that bursts with all kinds of remarkable interplay among the instruments and is a stunning finale to a remarkable first quartet by the master.

The second quartet, in G major, sounds simpler and was named "Complimentary Quartet" after its resemblance to the late works of Haydn because of its light and graceful touch.  This blogger is a great admirer of Haydn, so it is easy to enjoy this work, which abounds in gorgeous melodic statements and sprightly rhythms.  The economical presentation of this piece, at about 23 minutes, compared to the roughly half-hour length of the first quartet, is also worth noting, as it moves along with effortless pacing between the faster and slower movements and the fine formalistic interplay among the instruments.  The beauty of slower second movement is also something to behold--more gorgeous melodic work and harmony here.

To this untutored ear, the Kodaly Quartet from Hungary perform this music with great sensitivity, passion and telepathnic interplay and the recording quality is very good.  This is another stellar release from Naxos, though a  recent purchase of Beethoven's complete string quartets, spanning eight discs from the British Nimbus label, is being listened to now and it also presents this amazing music beautifully.

Peking Opera/Dalian Troupe: The Forest on Fire/The Princess Hundred Flowers

This 1994 release from the French label, Musique du Monde, presents two pieces of Peking Opera, a form of music and theater that began in the late 18th-century, including "The Forest on Fire," a 28 1/2 minute work, and "The Princess Hundred Flowers," which spans some 46 minutes.  This excellent performance was recorded at Dalian Opera in Liaoning province in March by Francois Picard, who also provided the informative liner notes.

As with any type of performance that marries music with visual theatrics, including acrobatics as well as speech, singing and instrumental work, recordings can only provide some approximation of the experience, but the music is remarkable and striking.

Percussion is a major element, unlike in much of European opera, with drums, clappers (guban), various-sized gongs, and cymbals employed to vivid effect.  Strings include the jinghu, a Peking fiddle, the erhu, another fiddle, and a few types of lute-like instruments.  Wind instruments include mouth organs (sheng), the dizi, a flute, and the suona, a flared shawm, a distinctively high-pitched dual reed horn.

The vocalizing is. of course, just one element of the amazing work done by elaborately dressed and masked characters, being Zhang Dingbian in "The Forest on Fire" and the title character of Princess Hundred Flowers.  Volume, tonal control, and the emphasis on dramatic phrasing are key to the purely musical aspects of the performance, because the acting, including facial expressiveness, very precise gesturing and body movement are key.

In fact, to some ears, much of this music, both instrumental playing and singing, can be jarringly  shrill, tonally and harmonically foreign, and melodically off-putting.  It does take some time and effort to reorienting the Western ear to the sounds of this amazing music, just as it does for other forms of "world music," whether this be the Indian raga, African tribal music, gamelan, sufi music, Turkish mevlana, and many others.

Repeated listenings bring out the complexity, dynamic range, expression and variety of sounds that make Peking Opera a truly enriching experience and the virtuosity of the musicians and performers is stunning.

Performances of this art form are still offered, though there have been changes in recent years after outright bans during the cultural revolutions under Mao Tse Tung, but opportunities in America to see authentic operas are rare.  Perhaps some day, this blogger will get the chance to attend a performance and move from the detached musical appreciation to the immersion of a fuller experience.

Son House: Delta Blues

One of the masters of the acoustic blues tradition from the Deep South, Son House was born outside of Clarkdale, Mississippi (fans of Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page and Robert Plant will recognize that reference) in 1902 and then spent much of his early years in Louisiana.  He was a Baptist preacher as a teen and didn't start playing guitar until his later twenties, working with Willie Brown, who is heard on some of these recordings.

Quickly, House became a name in the blues world and had an influence on such legends as Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters. It is said that Johnson's remarkable transformation as a guitar player was due, in no small measure, to his keen and close observation of House's technique.  Another master bluesman, Charley Patton, made a connection for House with Paramount Records, which recorded eight tracks with House in early 1930.

It was more than a decade, though, before House got another session, this time with Alan Lomax, who found him in Mississippi in summer 1941.  Getting together with his old partner, Brown, House recorded the first five songs on this 2003 Biograph disc with assistance from Fiddlin' Joe martin and Leroy Williams on four of the pieces.

Lomax came back the following year with a partnership with the all-black Fisk University of Nashville, and recorded more of House's performances, including the nine that close out the album.  Unlike the first session, the 1942 dates find House working solo and, it being wartime America, he even added a new tune, "American Defense" to the selections, all of which were attributed to him.

With the 1930 and 1941-42 sessions constituting the body of his recorded work, House moved to Rochester, New York, where he lived after 1943, but it was another twenty years before he got back into a recording studio.  As the folk revival exploded in the late 1950s and early 1960s, a rediscovery of blues artists, including those who played acoustic, took place.  In 1965, Columbia Records recorded an older and more wizened House in a series of sessions that are captured in a two-disc complete box that will be featured here some day.

With his career brought back to life, House kept busy for several years until health problems slowed him down, though he lived on until fall 1988 when he died of complications from throat cancer at the age of 86.

This "Delta Blues" compilation of what is now referred to as "The Original Library of Congress Sessions from Field Recordings" from 1941-42 are full of fleet guitar performances, House's powerful county blues vocalizing, and on those early pieces, some fine accompaniment on guitar and harmonica.  Though the conditions were far more primitive-sounding than what he put down on tape in the mid-Sixties, the passion and soulfulness of these fourteen gems are among the greatest of blues recordings.

David Holland Quartet: Conference of the Birds

Master bassist Dave Holland has had a remarkable career, starting in England and flowering when he was recruited to play with Miles Davis in 1969.  His speed, power, flexibility and tremendous sense of time made him one of the greatest bass players of his era.

He has had, however, relatively few dates as a leader, but his 1973 (recorded late 1972) ECM album Conference of the Birds is an exceptional recording and a true classic of experimental jazz that has the rare virtue of employing two of the giants of modern saxophone: Anthony Braxton and Sam Rivers.  Any fan of these two knows this was the sole recorded meeting of these venerable figures and they make the most of it, thanks to the stellar rhythmic support of Holland and drummer Barry Altschul.

Holland very simply explains that the title came about because of a regular "conference" of birds singing in his apartment's garden early in the mornings and the spirit of these performances were to be shared with other musicians and people broadly.

The opening tracks "Four Winds" has a nice, memorable melody and then the quartet takes off with a tight and telepathic performance that features an angular and elliptical solo by Rivers, whose sense of timing in working with the deep grooves established by Holland and the precise timekeeping of Altschul is really something to behold.

Rivers may have been seen as "far out" in the "free jazz" sense, but he also was masterful in working with rhythm sections in his playing, as aptly demonstrated here.  Braxton joins in toward the end, the two rephrase the theme, and then Braxton works his way with some melodic expression before taking off into the stratosphere, taking Holland and Altschul with him in some very powerful moments.

Braxton's playing has been depicted as cold, intellectual, and forbidding, but with Holland and Altschul hewing to a steady groove, his playing meshes well, just in a very different way than that of Rivers.  Towards the end, Rivers jumps back in for some spirited back-and-forth with Braxton and the theme is restated to close out a staggering display of performance.

After that blazing opening, "Q & A" starts off more quietly, but with a particularly inspired choice in having Altschul demonstrate a broad tonal range of percussion.  He's been accused of being too busy and showy, but this is an excellent example of how a great drummer utilizes the full resources of a kit.  The horns enter with Rivers on flute and Braxton on clarinet and the combination works really well in the context of the call-and-response format the title indicates.  Holland goes arco in some of his playing, as well, moving the piece into more of an atmospheric evocation of sound, but the piece never meanders unnecessarily, partially because that rhythm section keeps the proceedings well grounded.

Holland takes a solo turn on the title track and, invariably, many people shudder at the thought of listening through another interminable bass solo.  Holland, however, keeps it short and then gets into a nice strumming groove with the melodic statements offered by Braxton and Rivers on clarinet and flute.  Altschul mainly keeps things simple on cymbals for color.   The overall effect is a beautiful and classic piece.

"Interception" moves things back into speedy territory, much like "Four Winds" and Rivers takes the first solo, followed by Holland's strong and nimble solo.  After a restatement of the theme, in comes Braxton for his distinctive voice as he utilizes a variety of resources, including overblowing, long sinuous runs and voice-like statements in his amazing work before the ensemble returns to the theme and closes out with an Altschul solo.

"Now Here (Nowhere)" begins with a subdued intro and interplay between the horns and bass with some percussive effects and is another example of emotion, economy and interplay that shows that "free jazz" can also be highly melodic, atmospheric and imaginative.

The closer is "See Saw" and Rivers begins again, with his solo another example of how well he integrates with the bass and drums--just a gorgeously executed performance from a greatly-underappreciated master.  A brief evocation of the theme then leads to Braxton and it is another broad expression and a roaring solo at that.  When Rivers joins back for the end, there's a sense that this remarkable recording, being the only meeting between these two giants and supported and promoted by a sterling rhythm section, is a truly rare example of how experimental jazz is at its most successful.

Holland may also be somewhat underappreciated, if not for his playing, then at least for his ability to compose excellent material and then recruit some of the finest musicians in jazz to execute a stellar album.  Conference of the Birds is a summit of selfless musicians at their best and ECM, a new label at the time primarily formed to record Keith Jarrett deserves all praise for recording it.

Iannis Xenakis: Phlegra/Jalons/Keren/Nomos Alpha/Thalleïn

This selection is not only because Iannis Xenakis, a Greek born in Romania and long based in France, was such a compelling and fascinating composer exploring the boundaries of music, but becaise one of these compositions, "Jalons," was dedicated in part to the conductor of the piece, performed by the Ensemble InterContemporain--this being Pierre Boulez, the great composer and conductor, who died last week at 90.

Xenakis began his work, in the early 1950s, as Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen and other composers were working to change so-called "classical music" from its orthodoxy in harmony, melody, time and other aspects to what has often been referred to as "avant-garde music."  His training as an engineer and architect led him to develop a mechanism for adopting mathematics into his composition, including some of the earliest uses of computer programming for scores.

As a trained engineer and architect, however, Xenakis did not utilize the formal training of even some of the most modern of composers, such as Boulez, who was critical of Xenakis' lack of technical knowledge and expertise, and it was about a decade before the latter conducted a work of the former that he commissioned.

Xenakis once said that his musical outlook was directly related to the horrible experiences of his days in Greece during World War II and the revolutionary aftermath in that country, during which he lost an eye fighting during the civil war.  Much of his output, to this untrained listener, is atonal, dissonant, dark and riven with tension, though it was assumed this was more about the intellectual and aesthetic aspects of the boundary-pushing efforts the composer pursued.

This 1992 release of material recorded by the Ensemble Intercontemporain and soloists from two years prior has a fine sound, complementing challenging and rewarding material from Xenakis and tremendous performances from the group and its soloists.

"Phlegra", written in 1976, is fascinating with its shifting harmonies among eleven instuments in a chamber orchestral setting, reflecting a sort of abrasive order among chaos.  There is a fascinating, undulating beauty, though, in the crests and descents of the score and energetic use of polyphony and the musicians of the Ensemble Intercontemporain do a fantastic job with this complex, layered and mesmerizing work, which has to do with fighting between the Titans and the gods of Olympus from Greek mythology.

"Jalons" was commissioned in 1986 and whatever conflicts had existed between Boulez and Xenakis seemed to have dissipated somewhat by then.  The complexity of "Phlegra" is very much present, but there is a richer, broader sound to this untutored ear, due probably to the larger ensemble size of fifteen musicians.  Shifting masses of sound distributed throughout the instruments of this "mini orchestra" are always interesting and, like in "Phlegra" there is no soloing--this is all about the wonders of ensemble interplay.

By contrast, "Keren" (Hebew for "horn") is dedicated to a solo for one of the instrumnets that so rarely is spotlighted in that format: the trombone.  Last June's post on Luciano Berio's Sequenza series brings to mind that one of the fourteen works in that set was also for trombone.  Benny Sluchin does a superlative job of demonstrating the range of what the instrument can do as conceived by Xenakis, including guttural  sounds, glissando and all kinds of expressive dynamics, as well as melodic lines.  After the intensity of the first two pieces, "Keren" is a nice break, even though it is characteristically experimental and searching in its development.

1965's "Nomos Alpha" moves into another solo spotlight, this being for Pierre Strauch's wonderful cello, as worked out in mathematical formulas that take the cello beyond its typical use into stunning displays of dynamics, including a "doubling" effect that is really something to behold.  Like the trombone, the cello is not usually thought of as having a wide range of application in sound, though it is a foundation of string quartets.  In the hands of Xenakis and Strauch's enormous efforts, the cello becomes as expressive an instrument as any.

In 1984, Xenakis wrote "Thalleïn" ("to burgeon" in Greek) and here is another exercise in employing masses of sound, complex displays of polyphony, but with the difference from other pieces in this set in using some percussion, such as a gong early on and then maracas later along with more standard percussive elements.  There is also piano throughout, though the work really is about the dense intreplay of woodwind and brass instruments.  The variety of tonal, rhythmic, harmonic and melodic resources do, in fact, give a sense of "burgeoning" as the title notes.  The Ensemble Intercontemporain again is extraordinary in this piece, as in the others.

Pierre Boulez's reputation now is mainly as a conductor, but his earliest work especially is part of the important development of music in the post-World War II era.  While he was critical of Xenakis' lack of formal training in music, the latter became more renowned in the composing side.  Boulez eventually worked with Xenakis' compositions on occasion as part of his rich legacy of conducting and "Jalons" is a great example of this.

Musicians of the National Dance Company of Cambodia: Homrong

All praise to Peter Gabriel for founding Real World Records and putting out a slew of great recordings from musicians from around the world.  An example picked up on cassette by this blogger in the early 90s was the excellent and timely Homrong by the Musicians of the National Dance Company of Cambodia.

Years passed and the recording was forgotten until very recently when a conversation with a hairstylist from Cambodia stirred memories of having this great album nearly a quarter-century before.  So, a CD version was acquired recently and it was fantastic getting to rediscover this gem.

Gabriel and his cohorts released this album to not only spotlight Cambodian music, but to heighten awareness of the tragedies wrought upon its people by the phenomenally brutal regime of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.  This adds a degee of poignancy to the recording, which is full of wonderful and beautiful music, encompassing orchestral, special event and folk stylings.

Some of the folk tunes almost have a bluesy feel to them, especially the opening track "Breu Peyney" and "Nor Khor Reach," both anchored by excellent lute-like playing and a particularly-enthralling vocalizing by a female singer on the former and a male on the latter.

Also a standout is the excellent "Luok Phsar", featuring a keening wind instrument, percussion, and a nicely-harmonized vocal ensemble working with a beautiful melody.  Similar is "Leng Suan" which has another distinctive vocal and melodic concept.  The title track is a religious piece with a fine male vocal, a pair of wind instruments, one in reedy higher register than the one that is more in the background at a lower register.

"Tep Monorom Dance" is carried along by its wind instruments, percussion and, especially, the stately vibraphone, which also feature in "Preah Chinnavong."  Speaking of stately, that aptly describes the gorgeous "Tropangpeay," which moves along at a leisurely pace and has fine melodic statements by its dual wind instruments.

Percussion is a dominant instrument along with a single wind instrument in "Bohrapha," which also has a great male lead vocal with group backing--this is another highlight on the record, especially the ululating-like trills offered in the piece.

A delicate and emotive lullaby sung by a woman is a gorgeous and apt way to conclude this remarkable recording, showing so much of a cultural revival that started in the 1980s and was still underway when the album was released.

Trojan Dub Box Set, Volume One

Anyone with more than a casual interest in dub, the effects-laden form of reggae music that puts the emphasis on the instrumental portion as a "version" of a track, has to have some experience with the amazing catalog of the form put out by Trojan Records.

The label was an imprint of Chris Blackwell's Island Records back in the late Sixties, founded by an associate of Blackwell named Lee Gopthal, and produced recordings of some major reggae figures, like its namesake "Duke" Reid, who was often called "Trojan" early in his career, as well as the Upsetters, Jimmy Cliff, and Desmond Dekker, among many others.

The association with Island ended after a few years, but Trojan soldiered on, though it struggled for years until the early 80s ska revival gave a brief resurgence to the label.  In 1985, an accountant and fan named Colin Newman (not the singer of the great British band, Wire) bought Trojan and put a focus on its voluminous and rich back catalog.

The major label, Sanctuary, paid a pretty price for Trojan in 1990, and it was under that owner that a series of budget, three-disc box sets mining the catalog were issued.  The first of the dub sets came out in 1998, with a second following two years later.  In 2007, Sanctuary was acquired by Universal Music Group and then the Trojan label went to BMG, where it now resides.

The first volume is packed with 50 prime dub tracks from such figures as legendary drummer Sly Dunbar and The Revoluntaries; the Aggrovators, the Upsetters, Gregory Isaacs, Scientist, King Tubby, Roots Radics, the Observers, and more.

All the hallmarks of great dub are here--the prominence of largely deep-grooving bass as the melodic centerpiece, the particularly distinctive use of drums and other percussion to ornament the bass with remarkable rhythms, and the heavily distorted remixing of these instruments and guitars, horns and others with often otherworldly vocal samples.

The version of the box owned by this blogger is a demo one, so there was no cover art, just cards for each disc that provided part of an overall story of Trojan's history.  It's very brief and general and could be useful for those coming to dub for the first time or with limited experience.

Dub is one of the few forms of music for this listener that can accompany so many different activities--at work, driving, doing work out in the yard or in the house, exercising, or whatever.  When it comes to some of the choicest examples of the genre available at a great price and providing such a great overview, it's hard to imagine something topping the Trojan Dub Box Set series.

Eric Dolphy: Out There

Recorded in August 1960 with a stellar band including the unheralded bassist George Duvivier, the great Ron Carter on cello (instead of his usual bass), and the incomparable drummer Roy Haynes, who is still with us and approaching 91, Out There is a standout recording in the short, but exceptional career of the amazing Eric Dolphy.

There are four originals and three covers on this amazing album, the second under his leadership through the New Jazz imprint from the Prestige label, including a work by Dolphy's frequent employer, Charles Mingus, and another by the excellent pianist/composer Randy Weston (whom this blogger saw at a great concert at Cal State Los Angeles back in the early to mid 90s).  Dolphy's pieces include a tribute to his mentor, Mingus, who styled himself as "Baron" (in comparison to "Duke" Ellington, "Count" Basie and other jazz royalty), the stunning title track, the gorgeous "Serene" and the flute-driven "17 West," referencing a place where Dolphy lived in Manhattan.

In addition to the always-stellar work of Haynes behind the kit, the pairing of Duvivier, who was a steady and reliable bassist, with Carter's cello provides a striking use of tonal and timbral diversity that makes this record really stand out.  Of course, Dolphy is just staggering in his inventiveness, variety of approaches, power, speed, and ability to play up-tempo and ballad pieces with great sensitivity and conviction.  It's sad that he was so reviled by critics stuck in the past and not willing to see beyond the tired conventions of bebop and post-bop orthodoxy that was still prevalent as the next, exciting and often chaotic Sixties ensued.

There also has to be something said about the very cool cover art done by Prophet. the moniker of artist Richard Jennings, who also did the Outward Bound cover and who was memorialized in one of Dolphy's greatest compositions, "The Prophet," highlighted on the great Live at the Five Spot album that will be featured here some day.

The original liner notes include a very interesting discussion about a common, but generally badly utilized, habit some people have of readily comparing one musician to another; in this case Dolphy to the great and recently-departed Ornette Coleman.  Rightfully expressing his dislike of this tendency, Dolphy made the point that Beethoven "was supposed to be a terrible person, and the writers of his time only talked about that.  But he created something, and what he created was beauty, and it's still alive today."

Now, whether it matters if the statement that all writers of Beethoven's time focused only on his personality, isn't the point.  What Dolphy was highlighting is the question of dwelling on a musician's persona when it is the music that counts and whether that body of work created will last.

In the case of this immensely talented multi-instrumentalist, recordings like Out There, Outward Bound, and especially the classic Out to Lunch! (the latter covered here before), as well as his contributions as members of the bands of Mingus and John Coltrane, should warrant that his posterity is recognized by being "still alive today."

Georg Friedrich Handel: The Messiah

Of course, this being the Christmas season, it seems natural to focus on Handel's great oratorio, The Messiah, because of its association with the holiday.  And, this is an undeniable masterpiece by one of the giants of the Baroque period.

Filled with gorgeous overtures, including the phenomenal "Pastoral Symphony" and a rich array of solo and ensemble choral works, such as the beautiful "O Thou That Tellest Good Tidings" and, of course, the famed "Hallelujah Chorus," the work is a high-water mark of Handel's illustrious career and of Baroque music generally.

Notably, the German-born composer struggled to find an audience and decent financial support in his homeland, but his arrival in England signaled a stunning change in fortune.  In fact, his career there was such that he is today thought of as a British composer.

The liner notes to this 1979 recording as reissued in 2002 suggest that Handel was "known universally for his generosity and charity for those who suffered" even when he was experiencing financial problems.  Moreover, the remarks continued, "he was a relentless optimist whose faith in God sustained him through every difficulty."

An Irish charitable organization commissioned the composer for a piece that they could use at a benefit concern and The Mesiah was the remarkable result.   Not only was the concert a success, raising over 400 pounds used to free almost 150 men from debtor's prison (this exactly a century before such prisons were the focal point of Dickens' A Christmas Carol), but the work became a lasting holiday musical tradition, whether a person is religious or not.

Handel went on to conduct nearly three dozen performances of the work, including some for the benefit of London's Foundling Hospital, and the use of the piece for charitable purposes led Patrick Kavanaugh, a biographer of the composer, to note that it was so used "more than any other single musical production in this [Britain] or any other country."

The version released by Sparrow Records in the late Seventies was specifically orchestrated under the baton of conductor John Alldis with The London Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir to be more accesible to modern audiences.  It is an excellent recording and the four soloists, soprano Felicity Lott, contralto Alfreda Hodgson, tenor Philip Langridge and bassist Ulrik Cold deserve kudos for their excellent work, as well.

Persian Love Songs & Mystic Chants

Some years ago, this blogger recalls reading a front page article in the Calendar section of the Los Angeles Times reviewing a sold-out concert, possibly at the Forum in Inglewood, by Persian singer Shusha.  Among the recollections was the adulation showered upon the singer by the crowd, many of whom were undoubtedly emigres who fled the late 1970s takeover of Iran by Islamic fundamentalists and who were basking in a shared memory and enjoyment of part of the remarkable musical culture that has come from that country over the centuries.

This 1971 recording, issued in the U.S. by Lyrichord, featured Shusha's second album of Persian songs, although she had a long-standing background in France and England of performing material more tied to those places.  Born the same year as this blogger's father-in-law, 1935, in Tehran as Shamsi Assar, she was the daughter of a Shia grand ayatollah who was a philosophy professor at the University of Tehran.

At 17, Shusha, as she became known, was sent to Paris to study and her training as a singer was utilized when she began performing folk music, but also recorded an album of traditional Persian songs in 1957.  In 1961 she married an Englishman, Nicholas Guppy, and moved to London where she had her two sons, but continued to work with music, as well as acting and writing.  In fact, she became quite well known for a memoir of her childhood in Iran, which she wrote in the late 1980s.  This album was made with Tangent Records and featured Duncan Lamont on flute and Behboudi on zarb (a hand drum.)  Lamont has had a long, successful career in the British jazz scene, playing tenor sax and gaining recognition as a composer.

Her voice is gorgeous, rich and full, and she easily negotiates the difficult technical requirements of vocalizing in the Persian manner.  The accompaniment is very good, but this record is all Shusha and her entrancing singing through the sixteen brief tracks (the last is the longest at just under four minutes, but most are around two minutes.)

It is hard to pick out any particular tunes as highlights, because the entirety of this record is excellent and there are times when the focus on her voice is notable, while other songs are welcomed for the fine flute playing as well as the rhythmic accompaniment of the zarb.  At about 35 minutes, the recording moves quickly and is a stellar example of Persian folk music, representing different areas of Iran, as well as sublime vocalizing from the amazing Shusha,

Massacre: Love Me Tender

After the remarkable guitarist Fred Frith left the British group Henry Cow in the late Seventies, he moved to New York and became acquainted with the rhythm section of Material, featuring drummer Fred Maher and bassist Bill Laswell.

Calling themselves Massacre, the trio released a 1981 studio album, Killing Time, and completed a slate of live performances before Maher quit the short-lived group.  Although Frith and Laswell formed another trio with Golden Palominos drummer Anton Fier and performed some Massacre tunes later in the decade, it was not until 1998 that the band was resurrected, this time with British drummer Charles Hayward of This Heat.

Signed to John Zorn's Tzadik label, the group recorded a studio album and two live recordings, one of which, Lonely Heart, was featured here in 2013, before Frith culled the archives of festival performances in Germany and Switzerland in 1999 and a performance in June 2008 in Italy to assemble Love Me Tender, released in 2012.

Because Massacre's music was improvised, it doesn't, to this listener, much matter whether the edited performances come across as "songs," despite the sequencing and titling, the latter drawn from poet Lyn Hjinian's mid-1970s collection Writing is an Aid to Memory.

What makes this album compelling is the wide array of sounds coaxed by Frith from his electric guitar, parallelled in many ways by Laswell's similarly experimental approach to playing the bass.  Hayward plays a bit of melodica and provides some wobbly vocalizations in addition to his steady and reliable drumming, providing a bedrock for his compatriots to build from.

It is difficult generally to point out highlights in terms of the "songs" listed on this recording, but there is one bright exception, which is the staggering "Shadow When Omitted."  Whatever one makes of Hayward's vocals, the performances on this nearly six-minute masterpiece of improvisation by Frith and Laswell are mindblowing.

Laswell spends the first part of the track playing with color and imbre on his playing, using devices common to his work, but as Frith develops a series of virtuoso solos employing his typical wide range of techniques and sounds, Laswell hits a couple of extended sequences of monstrous grooves that are just spectacular.

This, in turn, amplifies Frith's staggering playing, which, as much as he likes to experiment and use different techniques of picking and strumming, including the use of objects, there are solos that show him to be as fast and blistering, or more so, than any more popularly-known "guitar god." Of course, what sets Frith apart is his continuous spirit of experimentation, which is amply demonstrated on the rest of this album.

It is fair to characterize this album as a Frith showcase, though perhaps that has always been the case with Massacre's live and studio work.  This is not meant to downplay the work of Laswell, who is a maestro on an instrument not usually associated as a front-line one, or Hayward, who is an excellent drummer.  But, Frith is the centerpiece of this amazing ensemble and Love Me Tender, more than any of the trio's other releases, confirms this.

And, again, "Shadow When Omitted" is a stunning representation of what this great outfit can do and hopefully with continue to.

AIR: Air Song

The jazz genre was said to be in decline and decay from the about the late Sixties onward and, in terms of sales and popular attention, there was probably some reason for this assertion, as rock, R&B, funk, soul and other forms of music sapped audiences away from jazz, which had a peak of popularity in the late 50s and early 60s.

Yet, there was phenomenal music being made just as the form was said to be dying on the vine and much of the finest work came out of Chicago, this blogger's hometown, where the AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians) was blazing trails through the work of Muhal Richard Abrams, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Anthony Braxton, and many more, including the trio that made up AIR (Artists in Residence.)

Bassist Fred Hopkins, drummer Steve McCall, and multi-instrumentalist Henry Threadgill made some of the most exciting jazz in the Seventies, starting with Air Song, a 1975 recording, and continuing with a slew of studio and live recordings over the next several years.

The project actually began in 1971 when Threadgill was asked by Chicago's Columbia College to develop a program based on the music of ragtime master Scott Joplin.  While Joplin was known for his piano compositions, the trio was challenged by making music on other instruments that took its inspiration from the keyboard instrument.  In fact, Threadgill has frequently used ragtime as a basis for his music ever since.

The opening track (all four titles were written by Threadgill) of Air Song is simply called "Untitled Song" and opens with McCall's powerful drumming before the trio moves into forms of interplay that aptly demonstrate why this was such a remarkable group.  Later in the piece, Hopkins gets an extended solo that is simply awesome.  Threadgill is typically lyrical, playful, offbeat and challenging on alto, playing that instrument in a way that is totally his own.

Threadgill has a knack for fanciful and, perhaps, nonsensical song titles, maybe because, particularly in freer forms of jazz, descriptive titles are hard to justify.  In any case, "Great Body of the Riddle or Where Were the Dodge Boys When My Clay Started to Slide" is another amazing piece, anchored by Hopkins' rich bass work, McCall's inventive percussion, and a highly earthy and creative solo by Threadgill on the baritone sax, an instrument not generally heard often in jazz and certainly not by Threadgill.

"Dance of the Beast" is another superlative effort by the rhythm section as McCall and Hopkins shapeshift frequently and keep the piece humming along with invention and precision, while Threadgill overblows, honks, sputters and wails his way around the piece--evidently providing much of the impetus for the title, although his compatriots certainly comprise a "beast" of a rhythm section, as well.

Threadgill begins the title track with a somber flute solo, punctuated by a splash of cymbals by McCall and arco bass by Hopkins, who sympathetically and brilliantly accompanies Threadgill's playing, with the occasional cymbal crashing and triangle playing by the drummer.  In addition to Threadgill's staggering soloing, Hopkins's masterful bass and McCall's restraint are key to the success of this low-key, but highly impressive performance.

In fact, this is what made AIR's debut so remarkable--the trio performed as a totally integrated, synchronized unit, putting the collaborative above the showy and the plurality above the individual.  Air Song is a brilliant work by a superlative group of jazz musicians.

Joan Tower: Made in America

This Naxos recording features the remarkable "Made in America," as well as "Tambor" and the two-part "Concerto for Orchestra" by one of America's finest composers.

The title piece was commissioned by the Ford Motor Company Fund and the National Endowment for the Arts and was organized through the American Symphony Orchestra League and Meet The Composer.  What Tower did was to develop something of a "fantasy on the theme," as Gail Wein's helpful notes suggest, based on a classic piece of musican Americana.  Tower stated:

When I started composing this piece, the song America the Beautiful kept coming into my consciousness and eventually became the main theme for the work . . . this theme is challenged by other more aggressive and dissonant ideas that keep interrupting, interjecting, unsettling it . .  a musical struggle is heard throughout the work.  Perhaps it was my unconscious reaction to the challenge of how do we keep America beautiful, dignified and free.

Not only is the piece full of richness, powerful dynamics, daring harmonics and dignity, but Tower wrote it to be performed in all fifty states, which took place through 65 smaller American orchestras between October 2005 and June 2007.

"Tambor" is Spanish for "drum" and there is an undeniably powerful rhythmic emphasis in this piece that puts percussion front and center.  Tower noted that the percussion section of the orchestra was "to influence the behavior of the rest of the orchestra to the point that the other instruments began to act more and more like a percussion section themselves."  The work, which premiered in 1998, begins with an explosion of percussive elements during the orchestra introduction and the tremendous performance by various types of percussion is underscored by an intense and colorful performance by the orchestra.

The "Concerto for Orchestra" takes its cue from the masterful 1940s composition by the great Béla Bartók, which was featured here on this blog in February 2014.  As with Bartók, Tower utilized soloists, duettists and and sections to develop a powerful and striking piece that is challenging and virtuosic.  To write a piece that is so directly linked to a modern masterpiece is an indication both of respect for the earlier work and a personal statement by Tower about how the form can be utilized in a highly personal way even while influenced by the other.

This disc won three Grammy Awards in 1998 for Best Classical Album, Best Classical Contemporary Composition, and Best Orchestral Performance.  This last award is testament to the astounding work of the Nashville Symphony and its conductor Leonard Slatkin, the latter of which has won several Grammys and been nominated for dozens and has worked for the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra among others.

This album is a perfect example of great composition enhanced by the highest form of excellence in performance by the orchestra.  Naxos deserves great credit for realizing a project of the highest order.

Sounds of West Africa: The Kora & The Xylophone

This is a beautiful and compelling album of music from the nations of Ghana, Gambia and Senegal featuring the gorgeous, lush sounds of the lute-like kora and the hypnotic and highly rhythmic xylophone or balophon, and released by the Lyrichord label.

The latter is the specialty of the Lobi and Dagarti peoples of northern Ghana, who, as the informative liner notes by Richard Hill indicate, preserved their music despite pressures from Muslim and European influences.

Conversely, the kora is an instrument that came from Islamic sources in north Africa, even if the rhythms generated by it are reflective of sub-Saharan antecedents.

The recording features sixteen mainly short (3 minutes and under) pieces with a few longer works in the 4-5 minute range--the effect is to get a notable variety of musical elements that reflect the rich diversity found in the three countries.

Works performed at festivals, work songs, wedding pieces, and songs reflecting the importance of the griot in preserving oral tradition are found on the album.  For this listener, the xylophone is a fascinating instrument with a strong sense of timbre, as well as rhythm, while the kora pieces impress grearly with the complexity, virtuosity and agility of the performers accompanied by interesting vocalizations.

The tenth track, Nabaya, and the trio of tunes at the end of the record include Foday Musa Suso, whose music has been featured previously on this blog (along with another excellent kora master, Alhaji Bai Konte.)

Someone coming to west African music for the first time will benefit from hearing the range of songs and instrumentation featured on this album, but those who have some experience with this amazing music will enjoy the selections, too, as representative of a remarkable tradition.

The Jam: Live Jam

Sentimentally, Dig The New Breed would be the live album to focus on first for this blogger, as it was one of the first The Jam records bought back in 1983, just after the remarkable compilation Snap! (which was profiled here back in early 2012).

Live Jam, however, which was released in 1993, includes much more of this great band at its best onstage.  Whereas Dig has fourteen tracks, albeit great ones, Live Jam packs in twenty-four and, to the great credit of the compiled Dennis Munday, none of the tunes overlap with the earlier album.

Recordings span from December 1979 to the final show in December 1982, showcasing the trio's tight interplay, passion and fire, and the tunesmithing, mainly by leader Paul Weller with a couple of contributions by bassist Bruce Foxton, that made The Jam the top band in England before Weller pulled the plug at their peak.

There're so many great tunes here, it is really asking too much to pick out any highlights.  Munday, however, obviously felt very particular about shows recorded at the legendary Rainbow in London, as he chose eight tracks from one gig on 3 December 1979 and another from the previous evening. Another half-dozen tracks were culled from performances over two evenings in December 1981 at the Palais in London.  Other performances from Brighton in December 1979, Newcastle in December 1980, Galsgow in April 1982 and Wembley, where the band's final shows were performed in December 1982 round out the album--was there something about December that brought out the best in The Jam?

While Munday in his "Researchers Note" indicated that a trio of tracks were remixed, the remainder come out sounding great and the track selection is nicely sequenced among songs from the band's several recordings, as well as the closing cover, a favorite of The Jam, being "Heatwave."

Another nice touch is the inclusion of reminscences from ten fans--this was a lot more fun and enlightening than hearing from critics and the general consensus is that the band and its live shows were nothing short of transformative for the mostly teenage and young adult fans who were a highly-devoted base.

As pointed out by one fan, the most concise way to describe how devotees felt about the group was when Weller's father and the band's manager would amble out on stage to introduce the band thusly:

And now, put your hands together for the best fucking band in the world: The Jam!

The Jelly Roll Morton Centennial: His Complete Victor Recordings

Jelly Roll Morton was a supreme self-promoter, claiming he was the inventor of jazz at the age of 14 in 1904 and evincing a unyielding swagger about his piano playing abilities.  This three-disc set of recordings he made from 1926 to 1939, though, affirms the reality that he was one of the great musicians of any stamp of his era.

Whether it was high-flying uptempo blowers or the deeply soulful blues, Morton and his very talented bands created a body of work that may have been second only to Louis Armstrong in 1920s jazz, especially in those peak years in 1926-27 when he and his Red Hot Peppers were on a major roll (pardon the pun.)

With some of Armstrong's sidemen, like banjoist Johnny St. Cyr, trombonist Kid Ory, clarinetist Johnny Dodds and his brother, drummer Baby Dodds, Morton could hardly have anything but success.  There are a lot of lesser names in the Hot Peppers lineups, but they were all excellent musicians who made the most of their opportunity to be in a great band.  But, Morton clearly had a firm hand as leader, because these bands were highly disciplined, tight and possessed great talent.

Then, there was Morton on the piano, playing with great assurance, skill, rhythm, power and passion, but also recognizing that the greatness of his bands meant he didn't have to dominate with his playing, but could use ensemble strength to take the music to a higher level.  When he plays, though, it is a wonder.

There are, for this listener, two real treats beyond the great ensemble work.  One is the recording of two takes of "Wolverine Blues" and one of "Mr. Jelly Lord" in a trio with the Dodds brothers from June 1927.  The other is his late work, after nine years away from the recording studio, with his New Orleans Jazzmen in September 1939, just as the Second World War was beginning.  On these works, he had the amazing Sidney Bechet on soprano sax, his longtime drummer Zutty Singleton, and the fine clarinet player Albert Nicholas along with others.  Morton remained in excellent form, as well, though he was less than two years away from dying.

There are some amusing novelties with comedic spoken introductions like "Sidewalk Blues" and "Dead Man Blues," as well as classics like "Black Bottom Stomp." "Dr. Jazz," "The Chant," "Grandpa's Spells," "Original Jelly Roll Blues," the amazing, "The Pearls," and many more.  The ensemble interplay, short but choice soloing, and Morton's compositional and arranging skills are really something to behold.

Witold Lutoslawski: Concerto for Orchestra/Three Poems/Mi-Parti

This excellent Naxos disc featuring the work of Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski (1913-1994) comprises his majestic, folk-tinged "Concerto for Orchestra" and the serial-based "Mi-Parti" performed by the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Antoni Wit, and "Three Poems," another twelve-tone type work by the Camerata Silesia, directed by Anna Szostak.

It is readily acknowledged that the "Concerto for Orchestra" from 1954 reflects a "neo-classical" bent with leanings towards the work of the great Bela Bartok.  It also has much of the grandeur of Romantic-era symphonic works with modern takes on rhythm and harmony.  The remarkable third movement, over twice as long as the preceding two, is a wonderful ride through a sweeping array of themes and emotional content, admirably perfomed by the orchestra.

There is an interesting and notable contrast with the 22-minute "Three Poems by Henri Michaux," which premiered in 1963, obviously beginning with the use of a chorale.  But, it is also the use of poetry from a French surrealist that marks a shift in Lutoslawski's sonic palette.  The composer is quoted in the liners as stating that Michaux's work allowed the composer "to remain absolutely natural as a musician, while following the form of his poetry, because of its formal and rhythmic variety."  It was also noted in the liners that Lutoslawski "set out to find verses that in some way would be near" the form of the composition he already had in mind.  To the composer, "the word is united with the music, that they form a fusion" and that "music adds to the word."

The poetry is from three works, "Thoughts," which is rooted in doubt and uncertainty (thoughts wonderfully swimming / who glide in us, between us, far from us / far from enlightening us, far from understanding); "The Great Contest," with its visceral language, (He seizes him and throws him down on the ground / He drags him and assaults him / He pracks him and mauls him and makes him squeal / He trashes him and mashes him) and consonant sonic barrage and harshly articulated vocalizing; and "Rest in Misfortune," which looks inward as the poet implores Misfortune to "sit down, rest, let us rest a little, you and I, rest, you find me, you try me, you prove me it.  I am your downfall."

The work of such composers as Stockhausen and Xenakis come to mind when hearing much of "Three Poems" though only in the broadest sense and with "The Great Contest" especially.  "Rest in Misfortune" is calm, contemplative and a world away from its predecessor.

"Mi-Parti" from 1976 is a single movement orchestral piece based on Lutoslawski's finding a definition of the title as "composed of two equal but unlike parts," though the "partition" is not binary, but involves several "threads" in which "each of them develops while interfering one with the other and represent an action."  Each starts slowly and builts to a heightened state of activity, with the composer highlighting "color rather in spite of myself" as he used that ambiguous word to try to depict what happens acoustically in the music with respect to "warm" and "cold" elements that swirl in a polyphony of symphonic sound.  The building of activity, dynamic tempo changes and interesting instrumentation to create those "colors" make this a compelling and exciting work.

The "Overture for Strings" is a short 5-minute piece from 1949 that also has shades of Bartok and the writer of the notes, Andrzej Chlopecki, uses the interesting phrase that "the composer wanted to create a super-complete symphonic aphorism" in which only those elements needed are used and that the aphoristic concept is marked by "extreme economy" but without being "ascetic."  With a trio of themes that are very different in technical approach, this overture says a great deal, but no more than necessary, in a relatively short period of time.

One of the most interesting of "modern" composers, Lutoslawski's work is experimental, but highly accessible and this disc shows a range of pieces that distinctly represents his striking output.