Burning Spear: Man in the Hills/Dry and Heavy

This reissue of a pair of classic prime-era reggae albums by Winston Rodney's Burning Spear project on Island Records takes us back to 1976-1977, after the phenomenal Marcus Garvey and its dub version, Garvey's Ghost, which have been featured here before.  With Bob Marley and the Wailers justifiably achieving international renown, many great bands and individuals were given the opportunity to demonstrate their talent, including the awesome Burning Spear.  

Not as hard-hitting as Marcus Garvey, 1976' Man in the Hills is a reflection of Rodney's youth growing up in the same area (St. Anne's Bay) as Marley, as well as political and spiritual concerns.  Moreover, you can't miss with his band mates, Delroy Hines and Rupert Willington, the Riddim Twins of Robbie Shakespeare (bass) and Sly Dunbar (drums), not to mention Marley's great Wailers drummer, Aston "Family Man" Barrett and other great musicians like Earl "Chinna" Smith, Tyrone Downie, Earl "Wire" Lindo and horn players like Bobby Ellis, Vincent "Trommie" Gordon, Richard "Dirty Harry" Hall and Herman Marquis.

With Dry and Heavy, from 1977, Rodney mined his earlier recordings for the famed Studio One and re-recording the material with Shakespeare, Barrett, drummer Leroy "Horsemouth" Wallace, percussionist Uziah "Sticky" Thompson and many of the others who appeared on Man in the Hills.  This album was more of Rodney-directed project, with producer Jack Ruby dismissed, as were Hines and Willington, though there are backing vocals, and most reviewers view it as less successful as its predecessor.  For this listener, however, Dry and Heavy is a strong record, if mellower than Man in the Hills.

Burning Spear went to make Social Living, released in 1980, and we'll look to feature that in a future post here.  Meanwhile, interested readers might try and find this two-fer, as well as the two Garvey albums, and really delve into some of the finest music made during the essential reggae period of the last half of the Seventies, when there was far more to the music than Marley and the Wailers.

Bob Dylan: Highway 61 Revisited

Before the film, A Complete Unknown, was known to this blogger, an interest in revisiting the music of Bob Dylan surfaced last year after close to four decades of not hearing much of his remarkable work.  After acquiring John Wesley Harding, which had not been heard before, a spate of other albums were purchased, including such classics as Blood on the Tracks, Bringing It All Back Home, Blonde on Blonde and, more recently, Before the Flood, the great live album with The Band.

A favorite of the Dylan recordings that have been rediscovered is Highway 61 Revisited, released at the end of August 1965 (when this blogger was a day shy of two months old) and appearing just four months after Bringing It All Back Home.  It's hard to argue that, with Blonde on Blonde being 22 months away, Dylan was at his creative zenith, churning out amazing songs with startling frequency on albums that redefined much of popular music.

Obviously, his move from acoustic folk to electric rock was controversial to the ardent fans of the former —and the fourth volume of the Bootleg Series comprising two discs of the notorious Royal Albert Hall concert in London in May 1966 during which an outraged Luddite yelled "Judas," to which Dylan sardonically replied, "I don't believe you"—is a fantastic document of that move.

Highway 61 Revisited is a staggering record from the opening "Like A Rolling Stone" to the rollicking "Tombstone Blues" to the "Ballad of a Thin Man" and ending with the epic "Desolation Row."  With musicians like Mike Bloomfield and his impressive guitar work and Al Kooper's iconic organ on that first tune and elsewhere, not to mention Bobby Gregg's drums and Charley McCoy's guitar, accompanying Dylan's impressionistic and immersive lyrics, the album is a masterpiece from start to finish.  

Listeners expecting to get some enlightenment from Dylan's liner notes can be amused by the wordplay and seemingly stream of consciousness expressions including his remark that "the songs on this specific record are not so much songs but rather exercises in tonal breath control" while the lyrics about "beautiful strangers, Vivaldi's green jacket & the holy slow train."  Dylan often commented that the content meant various things to different people and it may be better to enjoy his way with language and the performances of the musicians rather than to try and interpret the so-called "voice of his generation."

Music of Polynesia II: Tuamotu, Austral Islands

This excellent release from the JVC World Sounds series from Japan includes 20 pieces, all but three from the Tuamotu Islands and the remainder from the Austral Islands, both in the broad archipelago of French Polynesia and collectively comprising fewer than 16,000 residents.  These people are increasingly affected by climate change in terms of such threats as ocean warming and acidification and sea level rise and who knows what will happen to them and their culture as conditions continue to worsen.

This makes recordings like this all the more valuable as documentation of the rich and fascinating musical heritage of the Tuamotu and Austral societies.  Recorded between 1977 and 1990, these pieces reflect a wide range of songs pertaining to aspects of everyday life and are a potent reminder of how music in much of the world is not professionalized and distanced from those practices and rituals.

The core of this music is the beautiful harmonies and melodies of small choral groups, often sung a capella and otherwise accompanied by hand claps and some instruments, including guitars and like ones, while dancing is an important component to the performances of many of the tunes.  As a part-Hawaiian, this listener readily hears comparisons to music from that part of Polynesia, taking in commonalities and appreciating the differences.

Fundamentally, there is a gorgeous expression of the musical cultures of these remote Pacific Ocean societies and the songs here actually serve, especially at this moment, as a soothing tonic in the face of so much tension and turmoil in the world.  Anyone seeking a similar treatment and is open to the experience is well-advised to seek this or other recordings of Polynesian music and will not be disappointed.

Anthony Braxton/Kyle Brenders: Toronto (duets) 2007

One of the many amazing attributes of Anthony Braxton's music is that he shines in duet performances, as this listener personally witnessed at a concert performed with harpist Jacqueline Kerrod and held in the lobby of The Broad contemporary art museum in Los Angeles in 2019, and that he supported and encouraged students in recordings with him during his nearly quarter-century tenure teaching at Wesleyan University in Connecticut.

The featured album for this post is just such an example of both aspects, a double-disc recording with Kyle Brenders in a session in Toronto that comprises two of Braxton's Ghost Trance Music, which he noted was influenced by his taking classes at Wesleyan on Native American music, including those dealing with the Ghost Dance rituals.  The box set 9 Compositions (Iridium), which may someday be featured in this blog, included a quote from the composer about the influence that the music from these spiritual practices had on him as "various tribes came together and compiled whatever information they had left" before most of their culture was decimated—this included the perspective of tying our reality to communication with the spirit of ancestors.

As is often the case in Braxton's complex music, the performance of these numerically-assigned compositions, in this case, 199 and 356, allow for the transposition of elements from other pieces within the GTM system that could also involve the varying of tones, tempo and other aspects.  Not surprisingly, his philosophy and systems can be very complicated and challenging for non-specialists (like this blogger) to comprehend.

What stands out in this recording is the use of themes that sound like military music and repeat before the players move into other melodic and tonal territory, some of it quite beautiful and reflective amid frequent use of repetition.  Braxton, playing alto, soprano and sopranino saxophones, meshes so well with Brenders, on clarinet, soprano and tenor, that their playing almost seems telepathic, though this is clearly the result of the two of them fully utilizing the resources of the GTM model.  Brief notes by Scott Thomson observe that the use of "dialogue" means a reference to "language," which is how Braxton often speaks of his approach to musical composition and Thomson rightfully calls this recording an expression of "a beautifully original dialect" spoken by the players.  

PainKiller: Samsara

Samsara (the cycle of death and rebirth in our material world in Indian philosophy) is a welcome return to recording by PainKiller, the trio formed in 1991 comprising saxophonist John Zorn, bassist Bill Laswell, and Mick Harris, whose lightning fast drumming is replaced by beats and electronics, and which quickly recorded two albums in 1991-1992, followed by a 1993 live album and 1994's Execution Ground, which reflected a gradual move into more ambient and dub territory.  A second live recording, made in 1994, was issued eight years later, followed by a couple more live recordings with other drummers.

In 2008, Harris joined Zorn and Laswell for a one-off performance in Paris, accompanied by vocalist Mike Patton and Fred Frith, whose Guitar Solos was the last post here.  It seemed like that was going to be the last time we'd hear from PainKiller, until the surprising news that Samsara was to be released last November.

The most striking difference from earlier recordings is Harris' use of electronic percussion, which he has focused on in myriad ways for the last three decades, and, to this listener, it takes the PainKiller sound in an interesting and welcome direction.  Zorn, who played to Harris' recorded material sent to New York City from Birmingham, England, shows all of the incredible technique and power he's had for a half-century, and, as always, is very impressive.

Laswell has had serious health and financial issues and Zorn has worked frequently with his old friend in recent years to help him deal with both and, if for no other reason, this is a fundamental reason for PainKiller to reunite.  Laswell has great difficulty in playing the bass and so relied on some technical assistance while resorting to playing that is far more basic and simple, but still very effective in holding the bottom along with Harris' contributions so that Zorn can explore the dynamic range of his sax.

A new album, The Equinox, is due to be released this month and, apparently, an ambient recording is also in the works sometime this year, so there will likely be more PainKiller posts in the offing relatively soon.

Fred Frith: Guitar Solos

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

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

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

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

Music of the Nubians, Northern Sudan

The northeastern portion of Africa known as the Sudan is an area that has endured terrible warfare and suffering in recent decades with a horrific humanitarian crisis taking place now amid famine and violence.  Moreover, the gutting of USAID makes the situation much worse and the need for the people there even more acute and urgent.

The history and culture of the Sudan is incredibly ancient and rich, including its music, and this post features a two-disc set, released in 1998 on compact disc and 1980 on vinyl, by the Staatlische Museen zu Berlin, an institution under the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, celebrating the music of the Nubian people of Northern Sudan.

The recordings date to 1973 and 1974 with the kisir (lyre) being the dominant musical instrument along with a frame drum called the taar.  Clapping and the stamping of feet are also used to accompany singing, whether soloists, small ensembles and large groups and the 33 songs are representative of such themes as religion, patriotism, work in the fields, lullabies for children, weddings and many others.

There is a great booklet with thirteen photographs and detailed text by Artur Simon discussing Sudanese history, culture and specifics about the music, instrumentation and the varied pieces.  A second booklet includes musical transcriptions and the lyrics.  These are valuable enhancements to a fascinating listening experience, especially as Simon observes that a lack of instrumentation, compared to Western nations, is hardly a lack of musical expression, which is abundant on this memorable recording.