Lily Yuan: The Ancient Art Music of China

This is another great Lyrichord world music release, featuring the masterful Lily Yuan on the yangqin, a hammered dulcimer or zither.  The liner notes explain that what distinguishes the instrument from similar ones in other parts of the world is the use of bamboo hammers or beaters that provide a much different range of timbre and dynamics.

The word yangqin means "foreign stringed instrument," and it is likely, the notes continue, that it migrated from Persia, where it is known as the santur (other posts on this blog have highlighted Persian recordings including that instrument.)  Interestingly, the yangqin has only in recent decades been utilized as a solo instrument, as on this album, because it has traditionally been used to accompany other instruments in ensemble or vocalists.

Yuan was raised in Shanghai and was a child prodigy performing frequently on television and radio and, at 11, entered a major music conservatory in Beijing and performed for such dignataries as President Carter, among many others.  She studied in Shanghai and joined the faculty of the music conservatory there.  She later received a master's degree in music from the University of Toronto and began performing widely in North America.  For years, she worked and taught on the East Coast of the U.S., but is now based in Irvine, California, teaching the yangqin and piano.

The nine pieces on this amazing recording feature Yuan's remarkable abilities, not just technically (although her abilities here are stunning), but also in evoking emotional range. The performances reflect the very long historical traditions of classical Chinese music and the resonant tones on the yangqin provide a depth and shimmering quality that brings the pieces beautifully to life.

Unknown Instructors: The Way Things Work

It was really great to find that Mike Watt and George Hurley, the propulsive and creative rhythm section of the great 80s band Minutemen and then the underrated and excellent Firehose, reteamed for a new project in 2003 called Unknown Instructors.

The duo wer teamed with guitarist Joe Baiza, another veteran of the South Bay punk scene, and poet Dan McGuire, who spearheaded the project on his own dime after a long friendship with Watt, along with guest Jack Brewer, Baiza's bandmate in Saccharine Trust. The band recorded The Way Things Work in a single marathon session at a San Pedro studio in August 2003 with Baiza and McGwire producing the album for Chicago-based Smog Veil Records, which released the album a little over two years later.

McGuire's poetry is very evocative, providing fascinating vignettes of gritty street life (he's from Toledo, an old industrial city), unusual and puzzling situations, and a delivery that is filled with irony and a world-weary tone.  Behind him, Baiza plays trebly meandering lines and riffs and McGuire has said he put together the band and recruited Watt and Hurley so the guitarist could burst out with high energy playing, which didn't really happen on the record, but it was, after all, a one-day improvisational experiment.

Watt, a master at accompaniment, lays down solid grooves and interpolations in his distinctive fashion, and Hurley keeps things moving briskly by ranging through his kit with strength and a tasty range of color and texture on the traps, cymbals and bass drums.  On his tracks, Brewer's voice projects a trembly fragility and, interestingly, a sense of lightness even with the dark matter of the poetry.

Even as a first-take experiment melding poetry and improvised music that was channeled in a different and more effective way on the band's second album, The Master's Voice (look for it in a future post), The Way Things Work does work pretty well, embodying what Baiza has referred to as the "sentiment and the spirit" of the exploration of punk rock, even as it sounds very different from common expectations of what that should be.

Miles at the Fillmore: Miles Davis 1970: The Bootleg Series Vol. 3

The "Bootleg Series" of live recordings by Miles Davis and various ensembles, now comprising six volumes, released by Sony Music ranging from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s, can be viewed, on one hand, as an attempt to mine the vaults for further product and trade off the legacy of the legendary trumpeter, bandleader, and mercurial figure. 

Conversely, fans see these, variably, as valuable additions to his discography in which concert performances, much of which was previously unreleased (or, if so, were heavily edited) demonstrate the remarkable interplay and sonic power of the Dark Magus' groups over a radically changing period.  After all, no figure in jazz morphed musically (and sartorially) so memorably without compromising his integrity as Davis.

This third volume of performances at the Fillmore East in New York, with some additions of parts of gigs at the companion venue, the Fillmore West, in San Francisco, is amazing, not just for the often-blistering, pounding, and soaring work done by a stunning band, but, because of the context. 

Davis agreed to play shows at the historic rock venues, owned by impresario Bill Graham, as a vehicle to get his music out to younger people.  This was a very shrewd move, given the massive decline of interest by those folks in jazz from the mid-Sixties onward, but it also exposed him to often cockeyed criticism that he was selling out (yes, that 26-minute version of "Bitches Brew" on the album of the same name was the easiest way to crack the Top Ten.)

It is strange to note that Davis opened (yes, OPENED) for Laura Nyro, Steve Miller, and Neil Young and Crazy Horse, at some of these shows.  From a purely commercial perspective, it was obviously necessary (at least to Graham), but artistically, it was clear that, good as all of those performers were, Miles and his band were masters (including technically and in innovation in sound) way above the levels of the headliners.

In any case, here are staggering performances of classics of the Bitches Brew era, with the title track, "It's About That Time," and "Spanish Key" complemented by "Directions," standout from the mid-Sixties quintet, and other tunes from earlier incarnations (including strange truncated verions of "I Fall in Love Too Easily," added, perhaps, as brief quiet interludes to the bubbling cauldron of intense electric sound otherwise served piping hot to the mostly white, young audiences.)

There was a two-LP (or CD) album released by Columbia at the time, but it was heavily and interestingly edited by producer Teo Macero.  The full pieces are restored in this edition, handled by noted producer Michael Cuscuna and Richard Seidel (whose detailed liners with great photos are also great to have.)  The San Francisco performances, from April, included young sax player Steve Grossman, Chick Corea on electric piano, Airto Moreira on a variety of percussion instruments (cool additions of texture and color), Dave Holland on bass, and Jack DeJohnette on drums. 

This was a great band, though Grossman, who was 19, was criticized for overabundance in his playing.  But, then, for the June shows in New York, Keith Jarrett was brought in on electric organ (heard through the right channel, where Corea was in the left) and his prodigious talents added to those of the remarkable Corea (the great ensemble Circle morphed from this pairing) to really enhance the sound of this unbeatable ensemble.

Miles' electric period is the favorite of this blogger, though all periods are valued for various reasons, and this 4-CD deep digging into live performance of an astounding group is really a revelation.

Mustafa al Sunni: Songs of the Sudan

This fantastic Nimbus Records release features the music of Sudanese oud master and singer Mustafa al Sunni.  Accompanied by percussionist Abd al Haziz Karar, whose work is sensitive and subtle, but highly effective, al Sunni plays his instrument with great skill and variety, while his keening vocals are beautifully done.

The liner notes do a great job of providing historical context for the music of this nation that has been rent apart by factional fighting for so many years, an irony given the many references in the essay to the wide-ranging influences in the music from many parts of northern and central Africa and beyond.  The narrowed focus of political factions has so little to do with the long tradition of musical elements that are imported and absorbed into existing local ones.

Also noteworthy are the lyrics and the emphasis on poetry, whether the songs are traditional turath, or those passed down through generations, praise songs called savra that talk about the bravery of warriors, or hagiba, classical pieces with the most intent poetic lyrics.  The intensity of these can be read in the translations provided in the notes.

Hearing the nimble playing of the oud, the excellent percussive accompaniment and the yearning singing and then thinking of the horrors that have emerged from the Sudan over recent decades, this recording is a reminder of how the music of Mustafa al Sunni represents a part of his nation's heritage and traditions that hopefully will survive the terror and turmoil.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: The Magic Flute

It never gets old listening to the remarkable music of Mozart, especially because of the great variety of his output, the brilliance of his compositions, and the range of emotional, humorous and series content that can be found in his work.  Whether it involves string quartets, symphonies, operas or whatever other form, Mozart's music is uniformly mindboggling.

The Magic Flute was the master's last opera and was still running in performance at Vienna when Mozart died in 1791 at age 35.  The popularity of German magic operas was at a peak at the time and the composer worked with a theater manager and director to mount the story.

It involved a Queen of the Night enlisting a prince to rescue her daughter from a high priest, though it turned out that the priest was actually leading a respectable and honorable order and the queen was evil and trying to regain control of her daughter.  A simple man accompanying the prince fails in a series of trials during the quest but is compensated with the love of a woman.

Mozart's masterful melding of instrumentation, massing and use of harmony and melody, with the voices is, even for this amateur, something to behold.  Yet, the opera is well-known for its extraordinary difficulty for vocalists because of the challenging ranges required.  From the outset, The Magic Flute was a resounding success and the composer attending many performances, registering his pride in the reception, though his death soon followed.

This recording, made in June 1993 in Budapest by the Failoni Orcehstra, conducted by Michael Halász, and the Hungarian Festival Chorus, is beautifully recorded and performed and the Naxos Records release is a pleasure to listen to.

Sandoz: Dark Continent

After the dissolution of Cabaret Voltaire in 1994, after twenty years of some of the most adventurous and compelling electronic music around, Richard H. Kirk threw himself into a prodigious period of work, releasing many recordings under a panoply of nom de plumes.

One that he'd started in CV's last phase of work and then expanded on afterward was Sandoz, launched in 1992 and named for the Swiss pharmaceutical laboratory where LSD was developed in the late 1930s.  There have been several Sandoz releases over the years and Dark Continent, which came out in 1996 on tJon Wonzencroft's great Touch label, is a particular favorite.  The album is culled from two sessions, starting with a six-song extended play that appeared in 1993 and then another quartet of pieces recorded three years later for the CD release.

Sandoz has strong elements of African rhythm and percussion, as well as reggae and dub touches (a Sandoz album, the excellent Chant to Jah, was devoted to the latter) layered in with often lush electronic sounds.  Dark Continent is a very consistent recording in terms of the quality of the pieces which always manage to provide distinctive aural touches among the steady repetition of rhythms and beats.

In late 2016, Mute Records issued a box set of Sandoz recordings from 1992-1994 including a remastered version of Dark Continent, the original of which has long been out of print and can be hard to find.  That set and a larger collection of Kirk solo work issued at the same time provide a great overview of the work of a prolific and diverse artist using electronic musical resources to always compelling effect.

Marilyn Crispell: Live in San Francisco

With John Coltrane's A Love Supreme as the spiritual inspiration and Cecil Taylor as a aesthetic catalyst, among other influences, Marilyn Crispell took her supremely gifted playing from the formalism of her training at the New England Conservatory to the improvisatory heart and soul of the pinnacle of jazz piano.

This Music and Arts Programs of America release is largely from a concert in San Francisco in October 1989 and demonstrated Crispell's talent for creative explorations of the instrument through her originals, as well as a highly personal interpretation of classic standards.  As a great bonus, excerpts from Crispell's duet performance with the great Anthony Braxton, with whom she played for several years, at a live performance at Vancouver, and a Knitting Factory in New York concert with Reggie Workman (featuring a young Don Byron on clarinet) are also included.

The first two numbers, "Penumbra" and "Zipporah" are excellent examples of how Crispell plays with spiritual and rhythmic emphasis in her original pieces.  She is not just a clone of Taylor, though the influence is very clear.  Crispell speed, intensity and precision are also tied in to a heightened sense of off-kilter melodic feeling with a nod to Thelonious Monk, whose "Ruby, My Dear" is covered beautifully and distinctively, as is a great rendition of Coltrane's "Dear Lord."  In the notes, Crispell pays homage to Braxton and his ideas of "using space and silence as much as sound, and using different textures."  Her take of the old chestnut, "When I Fall in Love" is breathtaking as she adds so much to the standard with her sense of rhythm and juxtaposition of complex chordal voicings.

And, the additional 15 or so minutes of her work with Braxton and Workman show just how sensitive and distinctiveness an accompanist she can be, whether in the duet form with the former or the sextet, including the remarkable vocalist Jeanne Lee (check her on Archie Shepp's Blase album from 1969 on BYG Actuel).  Live in San Francisco is a tremendous showcase of Crispell's artistry in all of its multidimensional aspects.

Morton Subotnick: The Key to Songs/Return

A native of Los Angeles, Morton Subotnick is a remarkable composer who works with electronics in highly compelling and very interesting ways.  Subotnick is best known for his 1968 work, Silver Apples of the Moon, which was celebrated in Los Angeles recently on the 50th anniversary of the landmark piece.  While attention is rightly being given to Silver Apples as a seminal piece of electronic music, this post looks at  Subotnick's mid-1980s works, The Key to Songs and Return —A Triumph of Reason, which are amazing works, released on New Albion Records, which has released so much great modern music, utilizing YCAMS, the Yamaha Computer Assisted Music System, with the latter completely generated through that means, while the former utilizes that with acoustic instrumentation.

The Key to Songs comprises, the liners recount, "music for an imaginary ballet" based on a pictorial collage novel by surrealist painter Max Ernst, with one of the chapters labeled "The Key to Songs."
Subotnick uses two pianos, marimba, xylophone, vibraphone, viola and cello along with YCAMS to generate a dramatic and often frenetic score that mimics Ernst's collages, which are said to be dramatic, often erotic and playing with the line between reality and fantasy.  Based solely on listening to the music, the latter point is notable in that telling acoustic from electronic instrumentation can be somewhat challenging.  The composer even wrote instructions for the musicians to exaggerate their movements so audiences could tell the difference.  The piece is dynamic and hypnotic.

Return was a commission to mark the appearance of Halley's Comet in February 1986 (it had last been seen in April 1910 and is predicted to return in July 2061).  Comets were believed in ancient days to the harbinger of ruin and destruction on one hand and the auspicious indicator of great benefit on the other.  Edmund Halley, in 1705, determined that a comet seen twenty-three years before would return about every 75 years.  Subotnick's score "depicts the comet's passage through time" and the first part reflecting the era to 1758 when the comet's return was given Halley's name and the second for the period after that and to the future.  The computer-generated music reflects music heard in the mid-1700s, specifically the work of Baroque composer Domenico Scarlatti and then quiet, contemplative passages alternate with the dymanic, intense bursts of sound marking the onset of the comet and "the triumph of reason" in Halley's work.  In the second part, he evokes 18th and 19th century music (Mozart and Liszt), then ragtime for 1910, and electronic sounds for the current and future periods.

Computer and electronic music is often denounced for being cold and emotionless, but here are two fascinating recordings that show how these types can be skillfully blended with acoustic instruments to provide richness or depth or, on its own, created to bring a richness and diversity that belies that criticism.  This recording is an ear-opening exploration into the possibillites of electronic music as evocative in ways it is accused of not being.

Paco Peña & Eduardo Falú: Encuentro

This 1989 Nimbus Records  release features the stellar talents of Argentinian guitarist and singer Eduardo Falú and Spanish flamenco guitarist Paco Peña, whose work has been highlighted here before.

Encuentro is a fine encounter between two maestros from different countries and generations, but whose artistry with the Spanish guitar is brought together beautifully.  The fourteen tracks on the album feature four with Falú as sole or part composer and three that feature his rich, evocative vocalizations.  These latter seemed clearly sequenced to provide breaks amid the instrumental pieces and they do that job quite well.

There are times when liner notes provide great background information on the performers, pieces, instruments and musical traditions and there are others in which they are well-intended, but not particularly informative and can be paeans to the performers that lay it on a bit a too thick.

That is the case with Félix Grande's tribute to Falú and Peña--the words "mankind" and "arts" are capitalized; musical instruments "affirm human and divine truths"; and we are entreated to listen to the music "as if it were the mysterious turns of the wheels of our destiny."  There's much more, but the examples give plenty of an indication of Grande's expansive (get it?) essay's thrust.

Falú who had a distinguished career spanning some sixty years died in Buenos Aires five years ago at age 90, while Peña, now in his mid-seventies, released his last album four years ago but is still active with upcoming shows in London, Hong Kong and Pudong, China.  Encuentro is a gorgeous album, melding approaches from a common background with signature personal touches.

Dave Van Ronk: The Folkways Years, 1959-1961

This amazing album documents a short period of time, 1959 to 1961, when Dave Van Ronk recorded for Moses Asch's Folkways label, and there's a great deal of remarkable guitar playing and singing by a man who insisted he was not a folk singer, but a jazz singer.

Undoubtedly, Van Ronk was heavily indebted to black musicians, including blues, jazz and gospel artists including Jelly Roll Morton, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Bessie Smith, and the Reverend Gary Davis, and it is great to have his recollections about those years generally and the songs on the record specifically.  He writes with great humor and irony, as well as affection for his influences and confederates.

He also was quite honest, noting that, with "River, She Come Down," the tune was "the only song I ever wrote that made me any money, and I hate it."  He considered the piece "as a guitar exercise" with lyrics consisting of "nonsensical doggerel."  But when Peter, Paul and Mary covered the tune, renamed "Bamboo," for their debut album, it "sold seven trillion copies."  Still, Van Ronk concluded, "I shared the royalties (and the chagrin)" with Dick Weissman, who came up with the chorus.

While Van Ronk also offered that he should have waited a year or two before recording the pieces and thought of the work "as a journeyman's progress report" who "starting to get the hang of it," the album is filled with some excellent fret work, distinctive singing, and potent mixtures of humor and activism.  It wasn't more than a few years before folk was passed by in favor of rock (note Van Ronk's friend Bob Dylan's decision to go electric in 1965) and Van Ronk became something of a forgotten figure, though he remained active until his death in 2002 at age 65.

This album, though, is a potent reminder of what an immensely talented musician Dave Van Ronk was and it's great that the Smithsonian put this together after its absorption of the Folkways inventory.

The Original James P. Johnson, 1942-1945: Piano Solos

Here's a stellar Smithsonian Folkways release of solo piano recordings from the mid-1940s of the breathtaking James P. Johnson (well, except, according to an AllMusic review by Scott Yanow, for two tunes by Cliff Jackson, who went uncredited.)  That still leaves plenty of classic stride piano playing by a man whose life bridged ragtime and jazz.

Recorded for Moses Asch and his Folkways Records label during the war years of 1942-1945, the album is filled with great melodicism, the left hand "striding" between the bass region and chordal playing, gorgeous fills and other elements.  Stride piano playing is known to be technically challenging, but Johnson make it sound so easy with his smooth precision.

There are so many stunning moments on this album that it's hard to highlight particular songs and the range of pieces, from Joplin to Gershwin to W. C. Handy and Johnson's own compositions, is pertty impressive and spans a range of decades.

Probably the most interesting is the marathon 12-minute "Yamekraw: A Negro Rhapsody," which finds Johnson using the most of his considerable resources to play an extended meditation drawing from the blues, ragtime, classical and other elements to create a masterpiece of variety unlike anything else on the album.

Kudos to Smithsonian Folkways for transferring the material from the original sources and remastering it for excellent sound, given that the recordings are seventy-five years or so old.  The liner notes also have great information on Johnson and the recordings.  As a historical document and for fantastic entertainment, it's hard to beat "The Original James P. Johnson."

New York's Ensemble for Early Music: Istanpitta

This blogger's first hint at early music was listening to a Dead Can Dance album in the early 90s, but it wasn't until some years later that a recording of medieval music played on original instruments was purchased, one of several in the collection.

Of these, one of the finest is this 1995 release on Lyrichord's Early Music Series, highlighting the excellent work of New York's Ensemble for Early Music, led by Frederick Renz and featuring guest artist, percussionist Glen Velez.  Playing period instruments, including familiar ones like lutes, bagpipes, and dulcimers, but also some obscure examples such as the ciaramella, vielle, rebec, gemshorn, and organistrum, the ensemble described itself as "A Medieval Dance Band."  That being the case, they play on this album as if they're partying like it's 1299!

Styles of performance include the estampie (or, in Italian, "istanpitta") for five of the tracks, four saltarellos and two sets of dance pairs.  As the liner notes from a University of Toronto music professor, Timothy McGee, indicate, even with the information for about 50 total works and fragments and descriptions of instruments from the era, "poetic/artistic license is always present to varying degrees" even in period literature describing the music.

Renz, in his notes, wrote that, based on what is known, he "has invented accompanying parts in two and three voices for the estampies" outside of the established melodic line.  He added that "the arrangements heard on this recording are this writer's realizations with improvisations by the members of the Ensemble for Early Music."  This, he observed, is "in the spirit of extemporization practiced by dance musicians from the middle ages to the present" and "will be interpreted anew in performances to come."

With the added support of the masterful Velez, the group's work on Istanpitta is very impressive, espcially with the clarity of the recording and the acoustics provided at the St. James Chapel at St. John the Divine Cathedral in New York, where the taping was done in November 1994.  Anyone curious about or interested in early music should enjoy this wonderful work.

Pamir: Songs and Music from the Roof of the World

This sensational recording from the French label Musique du Monde features the captivating music of the Pamir mountain area of the Badakhshan region of the Central Asia country of Tajikistan, which borders Afghanistan, China and other republics of the former Soviet Union.

The Pamir range is not as well known as the Himalayas, but has peaks that go as high as 24,000 feet and it is a rugged but beautiful area where the famed Silk Road between China and Europe passes and Marco Polo passed through Badakhshan in 1270 to get to China.

While the music of the region dates back many centuries, study of it is relatively recent and recordings were few.  These performances were captured at community events and structures, including at weddings, funerals and dance performances.  Lutes of five and six strings, a fiddle, and a variety of percussion instruments for the basis of the music.  Eight musicians are the performers, including singers as well as instrumentalists with the eldest being in his mid-80s.

In addition to the very information and detailed liner notes, there are some great photographs of musicians and dancers in portrait and performance forms.  The sounds have a lot of influence from Persia and the Shia Ismaili Muslims who live there take a lot of their vocal stylings and lyrical content from spiritual and devotional traditions dating back centuries to poets like Rumi, Hafiz and others.

The isolation of the peoples of the region are reflected in these remarkable recordings which were made in 1991 and 1992 just after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the also show the fascinating meeting point of societies from Central Asia in a part of the world too few of us (this blogger included) in America know enough (if anything) about.

FAX Compilation 1

My introduction to the remarkable electronic sound world of Pete Namlook (real name Peter Kuhlmann—check the surname backwards) came through his many collaborations with one of my favorite musicians, Bill Laswell, in the multi-volume Psychonavigation and Outland series of recordings for Namlook's FAX label.  I have most of the entries in both series and have enjoyed them immensely.

It is always admirable when a musician working in a very uncommercial environment can create their own sustainable label and the FAX label is a good example of this.  Until his untimely death in 2012, just before his 52nd birthday, the prolific German artist released a major catalog of his own recordings and of many others through the label.

This compilation is one of several released by FAX over the years and appeared in 1994.  In addition to Namlook's work under the nom de plumes of The Putney, Air and 4Voice, there are collaborations with Richie Hawtin and Tetsu Inoue and contributions from Inoue, Atom Heart, longtime Laswell collaborator Robert Musso, and others.

This two-disc set is filled with excellent ambient pieces and works particularly well with headphones and concentrated attention.  This is also the easiest to find of the several FAX compilations, because it had outside distribution, so, for those who like ambient electronics (and this was the heyday of it), the album is well worth seeking out.

Anthony Braxton Live

With only fourteen posts last year and none so far this year, due mainly to less available time, the format here is switching to fewer words, but still promoting and highlighting inspiring music that others may enjoy.  So, we'll see how this goes.

This live recording from a 1970s stint on Bluebird Records, an imprint of the major Arista label, and produced by Michael Cuscuna with Steve Backer as executive producer, is a phenomenal effort.

It hightlights some of Braxton's finest early compositions, including combinations (Braxton often does this--mingles elements of compositions) of numbers 6, 23 and 40, performed by his quartet at the Montreux Jazz Festival in July 1975 and at the Berlin Jazz Days festival in September 1976.  The tour de force rhythm section at both concerts are the formidable Dave Holland on bass and Barry Altschul on drums.  Trumpeter Kenny Wheeler is the other horn player at Montreux with trombonist George Lewis at Berlin.  Braxton wields his alto, as well as soprano, clarinet and contrabass clarinet at both shows and the flute at the latter.

As Cuscuna observed in his brief liners, Braxton, Holland and Altschul were part of the brilliant, though short-lived group Circle, led by Chick Corea, and then Wheeler joined with the other three for some recordings in 1971 and future dates over the following years.  Montreux was a highlight of the band before it disbanded because, Cuscuna says, Braxton was looking for a change.

For his amazing Creative Orchestra Music from 1976, Braxton brought in Lewis and resulting performances constituted, for Cuscuna, pure magic including the last piece on this disc, which the producer reckoned  as "one of the pinnacles of collective jazz playing."

This disc is full of fantastic ensemble and solo work, as well as some of Braxton's most interesting compositions.  He's had a long career filled with many highlights, but these live performances are among the greatest this admirer has heard.