Camarão Plays Forró: Dance Music From Northeastern Brazil

This is fabulous music from northeastern Brazil with emphasis on virtuoso accordion playing by Reginaldo Alves Ferreira, known as Camarão (shrimp in Poruguese because of a sunburn he once sported in the studio), who gets billing and a few pieces by Arlindo Dos Oito Baixos, whose work with the eight-bass button accordion is featured on four pieces.

Released in 1998 on the great British label Nimbus, which has issued so many remarkable recordings of world music, this album's music employs several styles including forró, baião, xote, arrastapé and chachado, which are basically unknown to most foreign listeners who identify Brazilian music with the samba and bossa nova.

This is also more country music, though migrants seeking work and better opportunities have brought the music of the northeast to the large cities of the south.  Accompanying the accordions on these pieces are light percussion on the triangle, cow bells and bass drum, while some guitar and vocals are interspersed, giving the tunes additional variety.

Camarão was quoted in the liner notes about the importance of not "modernizing too much" and keeping tradition in a way that was "essentially simple and direct," while he strives to "play music that smells of the land" in his native Pernambuco town of Caruarú.

In America, we think of dance music as often very beat heavy, whereas this music is light and airy, with the mastery of the accordion sensitively complemented by the other instruments and the vocals also treading softly but with much melodic emphasis.  This is a gorgeous recording not often heard here and a welcome addition to the fine collection of world music offered by Nimbus.

Mick Harris: Hednod Sessions

This two-disc set released in 2004 on Hidden Art Recordings were culled from sessions created by the former Napalm Death drummer who turned to dark, slow tempo electronics in all kinds of guises including Scorn, Lull, Quoit and in many collaborations, but who has largely been silent for a number of years.

Harris' forte consists forbidding washes and undercurrents of processed sound over steady, heavy beats, or, as often was the case with Lull, pulses.  Variability is often subtle and slowly evolving and the simplicity can be deceiving when he introduces change in ways that are disarming.  While Scorn was generally very heavy on the beats and Lull increasingly mitigated them with a glacial pace of change in pulse, the Hednod Sessions strike something of an (un)happy medium.

These thirty tracks were created in 1999 in Harris' minuscule home studio, a converted bathroom labeled "The Box."  They were initially issued as a quartet of 12" singles on the hushhush label with additional tracks provided to subscribers of a series comprising the four sessions and five bonus pieces added later.

As befits the location where these works were created, there is often a claustrophobic, or, if preferred, intimate sense in hearing these pieces.  Some of this is the muted percussion, but a great deal of the effect comes from the eerie employment of sound sources.  There is something compellingly immersive about listening to these recordings, especially with headphones.

In instances like this, Harris can be at his most appealing and interesting when he creates that atmosphere and environment in music that essentially consumes the full attention of a dedicated listener.  Again, the results tend to be best appreciated by focusing attention on the subtleties of the sound as it works through and around the steady application of rhythm.

When this set was purchased new some fifteen years ago, the shock was that it was acquired extremely cheaply—literally a few dollars on eBay—for reasons that remain a mystery.  This is hardly a "you get what you pay for" statement, but it did seem like a stroke of great fortune in getting such a bargain for such utterly absorbing sound worlds.

John Zorn/George Lewis/Bill Frisell: News for Lulu

For all his reputation as a musical enfant terrible in the late 1980s, master saxophonist and composer John Zorn could create some pretty accessible and impressive recordings.  His 1988 album News for Lulu with compatriots George Lewis and Bill Frisell and released on the Swiss Hat Hut label is perhaps the best example of this.

Just as importantly, this amazing album is a heartfelt and deeply respectful tribute to some of the most talented, but not as well known jazz composers of so-called post-bop period of the 1950s.  Zorn, a master saxophonist with an impeccable pedigree in jazz (best epitomized by his staggering Masada quartet) built News for Lulu on compositions from Kenny Dorham, Hank Mobley, Sonny Clark and Freddie Redd.

These are not the familiar names of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins and other notables, but here Zorn gives them and their work their full due. As Peter Watrous points out in his liner notes essay, the musicians employ "hard bop as a base from which to build their own ideas on improvisation, arrangements, melodies."

Additionally, by eschewing a rhythm section of bass, drums and piano, Zorn and his partners "expose the way the tunes work, making them even more intense, and taking the project out of the constrains of the jazz tradition."  Art Lange, in his remarks, observed that the trio could play these tunes largely as conceived "or break free into contrapuntal abandon, energized every step of the way by bebop's enthusiastic buoyancy and an added jolt of 80s adventurism."

Zorn added his own reflections, emphasizing the telepathic interplay he shared with trombonist Lewis and Frisell, whose wider exposure as a guitarist was yet to come.  He highlighted the former's "beautiful sense of harmony and counterpoint," while the latter "kills you with one of his tasty country funk lines" and his "tonal blend."

As challenging as Zorn's music could be in these early years, News for Lulu is a paramount example of how he could experiment and yet provide a clear listenable experience.

Franz Schubert: Piano Trios D.929 and D.897

The tragically short-lived composer Franz Schubert left behind a remarkable body of work in so compressed a span, including eight symphonies and the amazing unfinished ninth, lieder or songs of significant number and import, and a great many works for small ensembles.

This Naxos release from the late 1980s is a masterful recording by the Stuttgart Piano Trio, comprised of violinist Rainer Kusmaul, cellist Claus Kannglesser, and pianist Monika Leonhard, of two of the master's piano trios, the E-flat and the Nocturne.

The former is a stunning evocation of the form, spanning over 45 minutes through four movements.  It displays beautiful melodicism, exquisite harmonies, powerful dynamics and superb playing.  Composed in late 1827 for a friend's engagement and performed early the next year and then publicly in March, the trio is one of the few works the composer heard played during his brief life.

One observer notes that second movement of this piece was used in Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon and that the auteur noted that the trio "has just the right restrained balance between the tragic and the romantic.  This could be said probably of much of Schubert's music as he bridged the eras of, say, Beethoven and Liszt.

The Nocturne was evidently a discarded draft of the andante second movement that Kubrick used and, even as an outtake of sorts, it is still a gorgeous piece of music.  There is much dramatic interplay, quiet passages of deep emotion, virtuosic flutterings of notes on the piano that are noteworthy, and an overall synchronicity of the three instruments that make this single movement a fascinating complement to the massive and memorable E Flat Major trio.

Ustad Mohammad Omar: Virtuoso From Afghanistan

This 2002 release from the Smithsonian Folkways label was very timely in a political and cultural sense.  The Taliban regime's retreat from Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9-11 and the American-led military mission there allowed for the return of music, which was made illegal by the Taliban.

Reference was made in the liner notes to a conference in Holland at which ethnomusicologists spoke about the effects of this edict on the musicians of that oft-suffering nation.  There are also statements about in Islamic societies, music is a question of controversy, with religious conservatives condemning it as promoting undesirable behavior, while it was also pointed out that some of the most remarkable music from the Muslim world has been very spiritual.

Mohammad Omar (Ustad is a title referring to musical mastery) was the director of the National Orchestra of Afghanistan for many years and a virtuoso on the rabab, considered to be an ancestor of the Indian sarod (Ali Akbar Khan, for example, has been highlighted on this blog).

In November 1974, Omar performed live at the University of Washington and was accompanied by a young and not-well-known tabla player, Zakir Hussain.  The two first met the morning of the concert and though they did not share a spoken language, their fluency in music easily compensated.  They simply rehearsed and then put on a spectacular show.  Omar died in 1980, so this was his sole recorded performance in America.

Fortunately, though it took nearly three decades, this stunning concert was remastered and issued by the storied label and it provides a rare opportunity to listen to classical Afghan music with accompaniment by Hussein, who is now widely recognized as a master of the tabla.  The liner notes, as is typical for a Smithsonian Folkways release, provides helpful information on Afghan music, Omar and his instrument, the concert program, and Hussain.

Macro Dub Infection, Volume One

This is a fascinating two-disc set issued in 1995 on Virgin Records with American distribution by Caroline Records that is an absorbing fusion of dub and electronica.  Among the familiar names to this listener are Automaton (a Bill Laswell project), Coil, Laika, The Golden Palominos (Anton Fier and company), Tricky, Scorn (Mick Harris), and Mad Professor.

Some of this music is far more directly tied to dub, while others are more of an electronica vein, though the use of studio experimentation with the manipulation of sound, so maybe trying to parse out what is "dub" is a pointless exercise.  Moreover, that doesn't make any of these pieces intrinsically better than others or a better work because it has a dub connotation.

Still, the quality of these 23 tracks is uniformly high and intriguing, Also interesting are the liner notes bearing the heading of "Scientist Meets the Ghost Captain," and which are comprised of dated comments, though not in chronological order, from 1955-1995.

Put together by the album's compiler, K. Martin, these notes include quotes from famed reggae and dub figures like Lee "Scratch" Perry and Augustus Pablo, avant-garde literary figures such as William S. Burroughs and Marshall McLuhan, and musical experimenters including George Russell and John Zorn.  Martin's text about dub and other experimental forms of musical experimentation and broad cultural statements are striking, if disjointed.  That, though, might be the point, a la Burroughs' "cut-up" approach.

In any case, Macro Dub Infection, Volume One is a mind-bending and enjoyable excursion into the many intersections of electronic music and dub and well worth the effort to locate.  A second volume, not as strong as the first, was issued in 1996, but is still very enjoyable.

Peter Brötzmann/Die Like a Dog Quartet: Little Birds Have Fast Hearts, Nos 1-2

Though it appears neither was aware of the other's work at the time, the parallels between the "free jazz" saxophonists American Albert Ayler and German Peter Brötzmann, are striking.  Both gloried in the sheer joy of expression in ecstatic sound when they emerged in the mid-1960s as "free jazz" exploded.  Not that their music sounded exactly the same and Ayler definitely had a heavily spiritual motivation that Brötzmann did not seem to have, but the unbridled energy that blared from their instruments definitely had some sort of kinship in the exploration of pure sound.

Ayler blazed trails and infuriated purists during his brief, but bracing peak blasts of powerful live and studio recordings from 1964 to 1967 before ill-advised attempts to reach a more popular audience through albums on Impulse Records failed badly.  There was a late attempt to regain his footing with some recorded live performances in Europe in summer 1970.  Then, in November, the great saxophonist disappeared after an argument with his girlfriend and his body was found floating in the East River near a pier in Brooklyn.  His drowning death remains a mystery and adds to the legend of the man called "Little Bird," in homage to his skills and comparisons to Charlie Parker.

Brötzmann, when he learned of Ayler's music became a devoted fan, and nearly thirty years after Ayler's death, formed a quartet called Die Like a Dog, an apparent reference to Ayler's passing.  A series of performances in November 1997 at a festival in Berlin yielded two volumes of stunning improvised music released first by FMP (Free Music Productions) and then by Jazzwerkstatt in a Die Like a Dog box set as Little Birds Have Fast Hearts, an encomium to Ayler.

From his ragged, wild and utterly intense early recordings like Machine Gun, For Adolphe Sax, and Nipples, among others, Brötzmann's career is still defined by his refusal to record much in the studio and his preference for the total spontaneity and freedom of live performance, though some of that sheer power has morphed into some reflective and introspective music.

Little Birds Have Fast Hearts has plenty of wild, careening and bracing moments over its 126 minutes in six parts, but there are also lots of moments where the music slows and thoughtful passages break up the intensity.  Fortunately, Brötzmann assembled an ensemble that could provide him the sensitive and near-telepathic accompaniment that make these recording so spectacular.

Toshinori Kondo is a perfect complement and foil, being known for his electronic treatments of his trimpet as well as his medium and slower tempo ruminations on this most emotive of wind instruments.  Kondo, a frequent collaborator like Brötzmann of Bill Laswell, makes the most of his style here, tempering the intensity of Brötamann's tenor, clairnet, and taogato with a consistent flow of bubbling and moderated energy.

The rhythm section is vital, because bassist William Parker and drummer Hamid Drake, know how to hold down the bottom and yet work fluidly and with lightning quick reactions to the playing of the lead horns.  Their superb accompaniment never seeks to take the forefront, but keeps everything together perfectly, so that Brötzmann and Kondo can give flight to their fancies.  This makes Little Birds Have Fast Hearts a classic of free improvisation and worth repeated listenings, guaranteed to reveal more depth, nuance and excitement each time.

Iannis Xenakis: Persepolis + Remixes Edition 1

The context for Persepolis is, by any standard, strange, but fascinating.  The Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, decided, in 1971, to celebrate the 2,500th anniversary of the founding of Persia by Cyrus the Great by holding an event that also was intended to justify the Shah's place in Persian history, though eight years later he was deposed by a conservative religious revolution.

As part of the festivities, the Shah commissioned composer Iannis Xenakis to create a piece of music and the result is the astounding Persepolis, named for the city built by Cyrus and the ruins of which are in the deserts of the south part of the country.  As a symbol of the ancient power and might of the Persian Empire, Persepolis became the basis for an extraordinary piece of music as extreme sound that seems totally alien to that society and for that matter most modern ears!

This listener finds the nearly hour-long work on eight-channel tape, with this 2002 version on Asphodel Records based on the original tapes with consultation of Xenakis, to be compelling as a gradual build-up of sound that may not conjure up anything specific about ancient Persia or Persepolis.  There is a haunting and desolate feel that does not remotely sound celebratory.

Xenakis, however, latched on to a crucial concept in Zoroastrianism, the religion of the ancient Persians, involving the binary conflict of darkness and light.  The piece, blared through nearly 60 loudspeakers, also emphasized light, through torches and bonfires (ancient light) and lasers and bright electrical light (modern forms).  It is hard to imagine that attendees were anything but stunned and confused by the spectacle.

The composer said that Persepolis was reflective of "history's noises" and the mechanical sounds, high-pitched percussion sounding like dragged objects, echoed hisses and howls seem to indicate a primeval passage through the turmoil of history.  It is disconcerting, but also hypnotic when concentrated attention is placed, especially in the last ten minutes, which is incredibly intense.

A second disc of remixes by electronic artists from Japan, Spain, Poland, Germany and the United States are varied and often bear little over resemblance to Xenakis' piece, but, as is often the case, take basic inspiration as a means to express general affinity and kinship about the nature of extreme sound.

To this listener, hearing Persepolis is somewhat akin to hearing Lou Reed's confounding, but remarkable, Metal Machine Music, including its stunning notated reproduction by Zeitkratzer.  What could seem like a joke or complete self-indulgence takes on an aura of inspired explorations of the outer limits of music, espcially considering the strange relationship of Xenakis, a modernist, avant- garde musical revolutionary and the autocratic Shah not long removed from an ignominious end.

Safarini In Transit: Music of African Immigrants

Here is another stellar Smithsonian Folkways release, issued in 2000 and presenting the vibrant music of African immigrants who'd settled in Seattle and Portland and maintained their musical traditions while living in a new society worlds away from their homelands.

The music here is uniformly entertaining and a lot of fun to listen to, with some performers having recorded frequently, like Obo Addy, and others appearing on an album for the first time, but they are all excellent in presenting their diverse contributions.  Addy is the best-known, having released a number of albums on his own and appearing on the Kronos Quartet's Pieces of Africa.

Lora Chiorah-Dye, Kofi Anang, Frank Ulwenya, Wawali Bonane and Yoka Nzenze are among the featured artists and they represent the musical traditions of such disparate parts of the African continent as Zimbabwe, Ghana, Kenya and the Congo.  There is a great blending here of traditional instruments, rhythms and vocalizing with Western instrumentation, like drum kits, guitar, bass and horns, showing the fusion of music and instruments at its best.

Also very useful (and a main reason why CDs are worth having) are the liner notes, featuring short essays by Diana N'Diaye on African immigrants in America and Jon Kertzer on African musicians in the Pacific Northwest.  These are interesting and informative, along with the detailed discussion of the pieces and the performers that follows.

It is also significant that this recording was put together in collaboration with strong community organizations in Seattle, including Rakumi Arts International, which promotes education about Africa broadly including music, and Jack Straw Productions, an audio arts center founded in the early 1960s and its Artist Support Program was key to the development of Safarini.

Wire: Change Becomes Us

Having recently read Wilson Neate's very detailed biography of Wire, one of the main themes of the book was the struggle between creating experimental art music and also having enough pop sensibilities to sell some records and keep the project viable.  The book makes clear that the push-and-pull was largely between Bruce Gilbert, who was dedicated completely to the former, and Colin Newman, who liked to experiment (especially on his solo albums) but also pushed to have enough accessibility to make sure the band could survive in the marketplace.

The 2004 album Send, a bracing, remarkable record that seems to strike a balance and which was, according to the book, Newman and Gilbert working closely together to reconcile their varying tendencies, proved to be the end of the band's original lineup.  Gilbert left soon after and has not been particularly active on recordings, though he has worked on other projects more to his liking.

A previous owner of the disc put a sticker that could not be removed on the front cover, which is why only this much is shown!

As for Wire, they kept on, working with other guitarists before having Matthew Simms, a much younger musician, join the band as an official member.  Neate's book points out that the group has become much more of what Newman had always intended and, whatever the success of that might be, Wire very much remains an active and intriguing band.  Not as experimental as it once was, but for gents of a certain age and given how few bands of the late Seventies are still making original and viable music, the group consistently delivers great music. 

In 2013, Wire put out Change Becomes Us, in which the quartet revisited and retooled a group of songs from more than thirty years prior, many of which were to be on an album following their first trio of classics: Pink Flag, Chairs Missing, and 154.  The band imploded before that record could be made and the strange, though fascinating, Document and Eyewitness, featured live "performance art" renditions of many of these tunes, while others appeared in various iterations elsewhere.

So, as a consolation prize . . .

Change Becomes Us is an intriguing project, taking songs that in most cases successfully blend accessbility with experimentation and presenting them in the "modern" Wire format, honed since Gilbert's departure.  Robert Grey's steady precision continues to be essential, Graham Lewis' bass also anchors the tunes with fluidity and solidity and his lyrics are always interesting and arresting and Simms helps flesh out the sound in understated, but important, ways.

For those of us who only got the barest of glimpses into the possibility of what Document and Eyewitness and other sources hinted at, Change Becomes Us is a realization that shows that the ideas were largely sound and that the recent development of the band provides a maturity and craftsmanship that shows that Wire has so much to offer more than four decades after it first made a splash in the punk era.

Henry Threadgill Zooid: In for a Penny, In for a Pound

It was great to see a few years back the great composer and multi-instrumentalist Henry Threadgill receive the Pulitzer Prize in music for the double-disc In for a Penny, In for a Pound, released on Liberty Ellman's Pi Records, an honor very rarely bestowed on a jazz musician.

Ever since I walked into a record store (remember those?) just over twenty-five years ago and heard the amazing Too Much Sugar for a Dime and bought the store's playing copy because they didn't have any in stock, I've been a great admirer of this remarkable creative force.

Threadgill's concept for Zooid can be discerned in this dictionary definition of that term: any organic body or cell capable of spontaneous movement and of an existence more or less apart from or independent of the parent organism. So this looks to mean that spontaneous movement translates into improvisation and elements of an ensemble, soloists, rhythm section, etc. can operate "more or less apart" while staying within the group during a performance.

As he puts it in his notes, the album was conceived as "a stream of phases" for one long "epic" piece where the group "could revisit and find a new perspective and arrangement with each performance."  Moreover, the each of the four pieces in quintets "focuses on a different instrument," though a listener would take in all of the pieces "to get the complete picture of any one instrument in the mix."

What's remarkable is how the ensemble works organically, while allowing for free expression within the long work and its component parts.  The mix of winds through the work of Threadgill's alto sax and flutes and José Davila's tuba (in lieu of bass) and trombone are complemented by the strings in Christopher Hoffman's violoncello and Ellman's guitar.  Keeping everything moving along is Elliot Humberto Kavee's drums and percussion.

It can't be said that In for a Penny, In for a Pound, being a Pulitzer Prize-winning album, is better than any other Threadgill work, but it is a fantastic excursion into how music can be structured and played with both exquisite care for the arrangement of instruments, component groups and parts, and the development of sound structures that are both challenging and, in their own way, accessible with open ears and minds.

Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 5

What a remarkable story with Anton Bruckner, who may be one of the best classical composers you've never heard of.  Bruckner (1824-1896) wrote eight symphonies and an unfinished one that are some of the most powerful, creative of the genre, massive works that, like those of Mahler and the operatic works of Bruckner's idol, Wagner, were the epitome of the monumental orchestral piece.

Bruckner came from northern Austria and, when he went to Vienna, the epicenter of so-called "serious music," he was ridiculed for his country appearance and manners.  Moreover, the gentle and sensitive composer was convinced by friends that he needed to be more like Wagner and urged him to revise his works to the detriment of the originals.

This was especially true for the first four of his symphonies, though Georg Tintner, the conductor who recorded all the symphonies with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra for Naxos, observed that, with the fourth, the revisions helped, whereas, with the first, these degraded the original, which was much superior. 

In his informative liner notes, Tintner observes that "the Fifth Symphony, the most intellectual of all Bruckner's works, is furthest removed from the seductive world of Wagner's harmony and orchestration."  The conductor also wonders why this and the Sixth Symphony were not subjected to endless revisions as was true for the others.  Yet, when it finally premiered just before Bruckner's death and nearly twenty years after it was composed, it was in a "discredited, reorchestrated and cut version."

Tintner's mission with his recording of all the Bruckner symphonies was to present them, as much as possible, as the composer intended.  This untutored ear takes in the very soft openings to some of the movements, such as the first, and then either sudden dramatic passages or build-ups to great intensity and passion, with powerful dynamics driving the music to heights that are among the finest symphonic statements encountered (albeit with limited knowledge).  Tintner does suggest that the phenomenal finale "is certainly one of the greatest" in the "symphonic literature."

These massive, intense symphonic works can go on for lengthy periods—this one stretching over 75 minutes—so they take a level of concentration and endurance from a listener and this one needs to be in the right mood to take these (including works like those of Mahler and Wagner) on, but they can be highly rewarding experiences.  Bruckner's Fifth, with some of the best known of his majestic melodies, delivers when that mood is there.

Hoggar: Music of the Tuareg

This fascinating recording is about as far removed from the recent spectacle of the Grammy Awards as you can possibly get and is a reminder to me of why becoming familiar with so-called "world music," especially indigenous music, nearly thirty years ago was such a life-changing transformation in my music listening experience.

The term "Tuareg" is used in broad brush for peoples from five distinct confederations in the region encompassed by the African nations of Mali, Libya, Burkina Faso, Niger and Algeria with a focus on this recording on the Hoggar who live in the mountains of that name in Algeria.

This 1994 release is from the French label Chant du Monde and this is particularly striking in that Algeria was a French colony and only gained its independence in 1962 after a particularly brutal war of liberation.  During this time, the Hoggar were grievously affected by the strife and, as the informative liners, note "the camel-drivers' songs, the flute and the fiddle are disappearing," a phenomenon that is sadly too common throughout the world.

Among the really impressive elements of this are the hypnotic hand-claps that accompany polyphonal singing and chanting in large group ensembles—the vocals can be haunting and otherwordly.  The solo work of flutes and fiddles is also very interesting to hear, along with the teherdent, a lute-like instrument with great resonance that gives what seems like a blues feel to the performances.

Recordings like this really gives a different perspective on what music means as an everyday practice for people who are not professionals in the Western sense and it seems to this listener to get to the very marrow of what music is.  Sometimes, a return to the essence is a way to recalibrate, whether it is in the written word, the visual arts, or, in this case, organized sound as music.

George Russell Sextet: Ezz-Thetics

George Russell is better known to jazz musicians through his highly influential treatise on modal approaches to jazz, the fearsomely titled The Lydian Chromiatic Concept of Tonal Organization and published in 1953.  Russell, for example, had a significant impact on the approaches of Miles Davis and John Coltrane, among many others,

A pianist, Russell, made many records over his career, but never had the sales or critical recognition of the big names in jazz, though he made some really great records.  Ezz-thetics, released in 1961 on Riverside Records, run by critic Orrin Keepnews, is especially great with Russell and band performing three originals, a contribution by band member, trombonist Dave Baker, and covers of Davis's "Nardis" and the classic "'Round Midnight" by Thelonious Monk.

As with many Russell pieces and recordings, the rhythm section really hews to keeping the bottom line and time moving crisply, often without a great deal of variation from Russell, bassist Stephen Swallow or drummer Joe Hunt, though all perform with great precision and Hunt's fills in the call-and-response section of the title piece are impressive.

The soloists include Baker, who does a particularly fine job on the brilliant title track, trumpeter Don Ellis, who plays with a crystalline and agile sound, and the always stunning Eric Dolphy.  As beautfully as Baker and Ellis play, when Dolphy launches in, as is so often the case, it's like he was from years in the future (much as like Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Coltrane, or Cecil Taylor could make that kind of impact.)

In fact, Dolphy's fearless flights of improvised innovation is a perfect foil for the rest of the band given Russell's creative approaches to modal composition, and he does seem to inspire the other soloists with his staggering work.  But, Ezz-thetics is a tremendous ensemble work, guided by the sure hand of a vastly underappreciated master in George Russell.

Cocteau Twins: Head Over Heels

Can it be 33 years since I first heard the Cocteau Twins on their remarkable compilation and first American release, The Pink Opaque (that was a great record buying day paired with my first listen to another favorite, Cabaret Voltaire, through their EP Drinking Gasoline) and was immediately drawn in to their utterly unique and compelling sound?

Last week, I listened to Heaven or Las Vegas, highlighted here previously, and marking my first listen to any CT music for several years and now I find myself listening to more of their music, buying the new 4-CD boxset Treasure Hiding: The Fontana Years (focusing on their last few years) and purchasing the hefty Facing the Other Way, a history of 4AD, the Cocteaus label for most of their career.

Several of the tracks from the stellar Pink Opaque came from the band's second full-length, Head Over Heels released on 4AD, on Halloween 1983.  At the point, the group consisted of vocalist Elizabeth Fraser and Robin Guthrie, who handled guitars, bass and drum programming, developing a fascinating soundscape for Fraser's stunning vocals, with bassist Will Heggie leaving the band earlier in the year and Simon Raymonde not joining until several months later.

While the debut album, 1982's Garlands was often written-off as a derivative of Siouxsie and the Banshees and a couple of EPs were issued that marked slight changes in sound, Head Over Heels retained some of guitar textures from the debut, but greatly expanded the sonic landscape, while Fraser moved more into a wider palette of vocalizing that was further developed by 1984's Treasure.  The diversity involved making her voice more of a focal point, while Guthrie introduced some acoustic guitar and, on one track, a saxophone, to flesh out the instrumentals.

For many, Treasure and the EPs that came before and after crystallized a classic Cocteaus sound, but Head Over Heels was a giant leap forward from Garlands and tracks like "Sugar Hiccup," "Five Ten Fiftyfold," "The Tinderbox (Of a Heart)," and "Musette and Drums" set the stage for further developments for the group, espcially when Raymonde brought his bass and ideas to complement what Guthrie and Fraser were doing.

Kronos Quartet: Caravan

Just about the time that I got into the amazing Kronos Quartet in 1990, the group was beginning to branch out into collborations with composers and performers from around the world and expanding their horizons beyond the so-called Classical world.  Similarly, at that period, I was moving beyond a concentration on alternative rock to listening to more jazz, classical and world music.  So, the circumstances worked well for my hearing where Kronos was going as I was heading that general direction, too!

The first of these endeavors was 1991's Pieces of Africa and subsequent recordings like 1994's Night Prayers. 2002's Nuevo and 2009's Floodplain continued to show their furthered interest and deep engagement with music from around the world.  In fact, these four albums and today's highlighted disc, Caravan, released in 2000, were packaged by Nonesuch Records under the title of Kronos Explorer Series, a nod to the label's Nonesuch Explorer catalog of amazing world music recordings.

Caravan is an excellent musical travelogue across the planet, with commissions from composers from the former Yugoslavia, Portugal, India, Lebanon, Iran, Mexico and elsewhere with a very diverse program of pieces.  They also demonstrate a tremendous range of approaches to how a string quartet works in environments outside "serious music."

This includes working with those who write or play music that isn't Western classical music, such as the fantastic Ali Jihad Racy, who demonstrated his expertise on the ney on his phenomenal "Ecstasy," the Bollywood piece "Aaj Ki Raat," which benefits tremendously from the unparalleled tabla player Zakir Hussain, the fascinating Misirou Twist from Nicholas Roubanis but which was best known from a version from surf guitar legend Dick Dale (who is Lebanese from his father and Polish and Belorussian through his mother) and which has drums by Martyn Jones, and the really cool,Turceasca, with Gypsy musicians.

Caravan is one of those great examples of how fusing Western music, in this case string quartet, with other musics from around the world can do justice to both and provide an exciting hybrid that plays on the strengths of each.

Madjid Khaladj: Iran, The Art of the Tombak

The tombak, also known as the zarb, is the centerpiece of Iranian classical music percussion and the drum, made of mulberry wood or walnut and covered with goat skin, is often to the music what the tabla is for Indian classical music.

One of the more amazing elements of playing the instrument is the variety of sounds and ways of playing involved, as the use of all the fingers and palms at the edges and centers of the drum head provides an astonishing range of dynamics.

This recording from the venerable French label Musique du Monde presents the talents of Madjid Khaladj, who moved to Paris to work as a teacher and performer in Iranian classical percussion.  The album presents a range of pieces demonstrating his mastery of the tombak.  Much of the brilliance of the musical form and the particular use of percussion is the improvisational techniques utilized (again, much as with Indian music).

The pieces on the album are from a variety of rhythms, including 6/8, 7/16, 12/8 and 12/16 types, as well as those based on the number of beats, ranging from 2,4, 5 or 6, with these performances usually accompanying such traditional Iranian pieces as sung poems, music for classical dances and others.

Madjid Khaladj began studying the tombak at age 7 and learned another traditional instruments, as well.  In his early twenties, during the mid-1980s, he went to Paris to teach and remains in that city, though he also instructs in Switzerland and remains a very active performer and teacher, having worked with Lisa Gerrard (formerly of Dead Can Dance) and Ry Cooder.

Again, this album might not be of great interest to those who aren't into percussion, because of its total focus on the tombak, but for those who are, it can be a fascinating excursion into an art of longstanding in a part of the world that often has negative associations because of religion and politics.

The Durutti Column: Without Mercy Box Set

When I first got into The Durutti Column, the amazing and little-known project built around the mercurial and remarkable guitarist Vini Reilly, in 1986 because they were one of the two opening acts (along with The Fall) for the mega-popular New Order, one of my favorite albums was Without Mercy, released in 1984.

Reilly was pushed to make the album by Factory label impresario Anthony Wilson, who was a dedicated supporter of his first signee to the famed label, but who wanted him to take a different direction from the first three (and all excellent) albums, The Return of the Durutti Column, LC and Another Setting.  Wilson was especially interested in something more classical and expansive and suggested a work based on a poem of John Keats, La Belle Dame Sans Merci, and Reilly, while not happy with the idea, dug in and came up with a recording of two side-long suites.  The album's packaging, the first ever done by the great 8vo design firm, befitted the music with delicate and undulating lettering and a reproduction of a painting by Henri Matisse.

Playing much of the work on his first instrument, piano, as well as guitar, Reilly came up with a simple, but beautiful theme, and then built something around twelve stanzas of the poem for the first side and a "Without Mercy 2" for the second side, that incorporate drum machines, electronics, a greater emphasis on his gorgeous guitar and, interestingly, funk-based beats and horns to really turn things inside out.  Reilly's accompanists, including long-time percussionist and manager, Bruce Mitchell; violinist and violist Blaine Reininger; trumpeter Tim Kellet; and viola player John Metcalfe (the latter toured with Reilly for quite some time, including when I saw DC in 1986); and others do a tremendous job.

Last year, Factory Benelux issued a 4-disc Without Mercy box that put the original album with other recorded material from the time, both studio and live.  Having not heard this music for close to thirty years, I was happy to find that the intense admiration for the music was still there. So, in addition to the original album,  the Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say EP from 1985 and including the haunting "The Room" and "A Little Mercy" and four live tracks of the "Mercy Theme," "A Little Mercy" and related pieces make up Disc 2.  Then, the third and fourth discs are complete live performances from London (1984) and Oslo (1986) that include "The Mercy Theme," "A Little Mercy," and "Mercy Dance," the latter bringing in those funk-infused elements, along with other LC standards like "Tomorrow," "Blind Elevator Girl," "The Missing Boy," "Pauline" and others.

With the original album holding up beautifully after 35 years and all the fantastic extras with the additional three discs, this set has been listened to a lot and demonstrates some of Reilly's most interesting work as The Durutti Column, even if he has been less than enthusiastic about the results, calling it "a learning process" and shrugging it off saying "it doesn't really work."  In the liners for the box, though he allowed that having "very, very excellent musicians" meant that, "in retrospect it ended up being a very good move to do Without Mercy."

Bud Powell: The Complete Blue Note and Roost Recordings

His is a name I'd frequently come across when it came to reading about the most influential musicians in the so-called "Bop" era of jazz, from the mid-Forties into the mid-Fifties, give or take, but Bud Powell is not nearly as well known as Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie and others who came out of the remarkable period and its revolutionary sounds.

So, when it was time to find some of his music, it seemed like a pretty obvious choice was the four-disc Complete Blue Note and Roost Recordings issued on Blue Note in 1994.  The material here ranges from 1947 to 1963, though, because of severe mental issues, evidently at least partially due to a beating on the head from New York police officers in 1945, Powell's recording output was relatively limited and unevenness of execution and a lack of inspiration are often cited as problematic with the troubled pianist's recorded output.

Still, the set includes some remarkable performances, including the pianist's often stunning playing, the work of some of the finest musicians of the time, and generous samplings of Powell's compositional prowess.  This is especially true of the first two discs, where his lightning fast runs and powerful left hand comping were most consistent and thrilling and where his best original pieces shine through, including "Bouncing With Bud;" "Un Poco Loco;" and the remarkable "Glass Enclosure."  There are plenty of great moments on discs three and four, though, such as "Frantic Fancies;" "Bud on Bach;" and "Cleopatra's Dream."

Powell also had many great supporting musicians on these recordings, including Max Roach, Fats Navarro, Sonny Rollins, Roy Haynes, Curly Russell, Art Taylor, Paul Chambers, Philly Joe Jones and Sam Jones, with most sessions being with trios.  He may not be considered as crucial a bebop figure as Parker, Mink and Gillespie, but this set provides plenty of evidence why Bud Powell was a giant as a pianist and composer.

Ludwig von Beethoven: Early Years Through The Eroica

Sometimes it's necessary to tune out from a world that can be a little too much with its turmoils and traumas.  It seemed that way for a bit last week with the government shutdown, the battles between political figures, and, even though we needed it and I usually don't mind it in relatively small doses, a few gray rainy days.

So, listening to the six-disc Early Years Through the Eroica box set issued as part the Smithsonian Collection of Recordings in 1988 (when the Iran-Contra scandal was going on and now seems remote and quaint in comparison to the shenanigans now), was a real pleasure and a way to briefly escape today's scrapes.

Most interestingly, the recordings were made using original instruments. The three discs comprising the first six of Beethoven's seventeen string quartets are beautifully rendered by The Smithson String Quartet, with the two violins, viola and violoncello played on instruments ranging in construction from 1665 to 1748   Two sonatas for violoncello and fortepiano are rendered on a 1708 version of the former and an 1800 edition of the latter.  The Smithson Chamber Orchestra uses instruments for the first three of the master's symphonies, including the famed Third (the Eroica), that go back as far as the 17th century with some modern but based on historic instruments.

The instrument in which the differences between the older and newer versions most are noticeable is the fortepiano.  It has five octaves, rather than seven and one half, lighter, narrower keys and thinner hammers, and weighs under 200 pounds compared to nearly 1,000 for a modern grand.  So, the sound is lighter and thinner.  Some argue that's why advances were made with later pianos to improve the dynamics and range and are reason not to go back.  But, as with recordings made on harpsichords, what's interestng about hearing this set is you do get a fascinating glimpse into what audiences would have heard when these pieces were first performed.

Anthology of World Music: The Music of Laos

This is another stellar Rounder Records release, from 1999, of the fantastic series of fifty world music recordings overseen by Alain Danielou and produced by the International Institute for Traditional Music between 1968 and 1987.

The recordings are from Radio Vientiane, the Vientiane School of Music, the Palace Orchestra at Luang Prabhang and a village recording.  The mouth organ, percussive instruments of various types (gongs, kettledrums, and others), and vocals evoke the rich history of music in the land-locked nation between Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and China.

Danielou's notes give a good general background of musical traditions in the nation and explains the connection of indgenous developments with influences from China and India.  The variation in large ensemble pieces (including an excellent one drawing on the Hindu masterpiece, the Ramayana) and solo and smaller group works is notable, as well.

Rounder deserves much praise for reissuing the Danielou records on disc and having about a dozen or so of these from various parts of the world, I'm looking forward to getting as close to completing the set as possible.

Richard H. Kirk: Dasein

Released at the end of June 2017 through his Intone Productions label, Dasein is a great Richard H. Kirk album in many ways.  Recorded at intervals over a three-year period from late 2012 to late 2015, while Kirk worked on other projects, it reintroduces voice (albeit heavily treated samples of his vocalizing) and, especially, guitar, which has not been heard on any of his recordings for a long time.  These add a level of depth and richness to the music and are welcome reintroductions to his work..

The pieces are uniformly excellent, filled with the dub-influenced electronic melange that Kirk has mastered over many decades.  The titles hint at some of his usual concerns, including "Nuclear Cloud," "Radioactive Water," "Invasion Pretext," and "Sub/Antarctic/H2O," the latter appearing to have some reference to climate change (maybe).

This is a strong release from someone whose electronic music has been challenging and invigorating this listener for over thirty years and is an indication that the creative spirit is far from diminishing in Kirk's monumental body of work. 

As a sidenote, just having finished the often-difficult reading of an anthology of German philosopher Martin Heidegger, a core concern of his was the nature of dasein, or being.  So, it seemed quite a coincidence that I bought the CD last year and then followed up, unintentionally, with the purchase of the Heidegger anthology.

Winged Serpents: Six Encomiums for Cecil Taylor

I was on vacation on the central California coast, blissfully tuned out from the news that, these last couple of years, have been invariably draining and maddening.  So, it was surprising and saddening to find out a while after returning that the peerless Cecil Taylor, one of my favorite musicians of all, died on 5 April, not long after his 89th birthday.

There are dozens of Taylor recordings that could be highlighted here, but the striking tribute album (and these are not always what they're intended to be) quickly assembled, produced, and released by the unfathomably productive John Zorn for his Tzadik label is an outstanding one.  As the OBI strip notes, "Cecil Taylor was a powerful and unforgettable musical force—a fearless visionary and one of the greatest musicians of the past century.  His visceral and intense performances influenced generations of musicians, artists, poets, filmmakers, and creative minds of every description."

The pieces here are definitely influenced by, but not imitative of, this astounding pianist, whose music will always be a regular part of the playlist.  They reflect respect for Taylor while expressing the "heartfelt tributes" Zorn intended for the musicians to develop.  Craig Taborn, Sylvie Courvoisier, Brian Marsella, Kris Davis, Aruán Ortiz and Anthony Coleman all bring remarkable works, beautifully played and recorded with crystalline fidelity, that are really a pleasure to listen to.

A poem, also in a Taylor influenced style, by Charles Bernstein and Zorn's impressionistic album art in ink, gold and, yes, blood are also tributes.  The poem and a portion of the artwork are shown here as indications of how carefully and creatively Zorn and the others expressed their debt to the magic produced by a musician (magus?) rightly described as "this legendary genius who created a new music that transcended all genius."

Elliott Carter: 16 Compositions (2002-2009)

I finished recently a book on the music of the astounding Elliott Carter, whose work continues to amaze because of its complexity, richness, and wide range of expression.  The book was often a tough slog when it came to intricate and rigorous technical explanations of the construction of pieces and the often intimidating terminologies employed in musicology.  Still, what did come through for a total amateur was Carter's innovations in harmony, time and other structural elements, and most especially in his use of rhythm.

The book definitely made listening to Carter's work more worthwhile in trying to pick out where the composer employed his creativity and innovation.  An example of this is with 16 Compositions (2002-2009), another excellent issue in a series by Bridge Records, which produces great recordings by modern composers.  The 2010 double-disc surveys a wide range of symphonic, ensemble, solo and choral works in a period in which the composer was in his mid-90s to early 100s.

That's one of the many remarkable aspects about Carter in that he was very active making amazing music at a very advanced stage in life and doing so with all the exploratory creativity he displayed throughout his career.  In fact, he finished his last piece just three months before he died in late 2012, a few weeks shy of his 104th birthday.  So, this survey has a lot to enjoy, often in brief pieces, and featuring typically unusual instrumentation, like solo works for marimba and bassoon, along with more standard large and small group and solo types.

Reboot with G.S. Sachdev: Live in Concert

This stunning live performance by the amazing bansuri player, G.S. Sachdev, is particularly noteworthy, given that Sachdev died this past June in San Rafael, north of San Francisco.  Issued by Lyrichord, a producer of many fine "world music" recordings, the album is 78 minutes of five performances, ranging from seven to thirty-one minutes of the master, accompanied by Swapan Chaudhuri on tabla and Elb Sounders on tambura (which provides a steady drone), displaying his remarkable talent.  Unfortunately, it is not stated when and where the album was recorded.

As Sachdev wrote in the liner notes, ragas are traditionally performed at a set time of day to evoke the feelings and atmosphere of that part of the day, though he also noted "when we close our eyes, we lose our sense of time," so that an early morning raga can be performed in the late evening.

This is a more introspective and quieter concert of ragas than would be associated with, say, Ali Akbar Khan on the sarod and Ravi Shankar with his sitar, where the slow buildup to an extraordinarily fast and powerful finish was standard.  Sachdev's music is, as the notes indicate, created "to develop the raga in a calm and methodical way" and he observed that "the artist needs a sympathetic approach from the listeners" because "music starts with the artist but is completed by the audience" and "there is no separation between the two."  Listening to this great album with these thoughts in mind helps make the experience even more meaningful and entertaining.