Ted Heath & His Music - Big Band Percussion, Big Band Bash, Satin Saxes & Bouncing Brass (3 albums on 2 CDs, 1961-63)

To go into the new year with, it's party time with Ted Heath.  Not the classical music-loving UK Prime Minister of the early 70s, but the big band leader who lived from 1920 to 1969 and received a late-career boost from his association with Decca's Phase 4 Stereo imprint.  Ted Heath & His Music were officially formed in 1944, with Heath taking inspiration from wartime big bands such as Glenn Miller's.

By the early 60s, Ted Heath & His Music were hugely successful UK household names, and Decca-London Records had launched their new imprint to maximise on the emerging stereo technology, recording through a then cutting-edge ten (later twenty) channel console onto four-track tape.

Big Band Percussion was the first Ted Heath & His Music album to be released on Phase 4, taking full advantage of the stereo mix (check out the percussion solos on Drum Crazy) and featuring a neat selection of jazz standards and other well known and other big band and more exotic selections.  On this 1988 CD reissue, tracks 13-18 are taken from Side 2 of a later LP, Satin Saxes & Bouncing Brass.  But before that LP came out in 1963, there was Big Band Bash....

Big Band Percussion
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Big Band Bash is probably my favourite Ted Heath album, with tight, punchy performances throughout, a great tracklisting, and superb arrangements.  Check out the mellow I Don't Know Why and a cool Harlem Nocture for starters, enjoy a pleasingly bonkers take on Khatchaturian's Sabre Dance and much more.  I used to have a vinyl rip of Big Band Bash from an old easy listening blog - wish I could find those files now, it blew this CD master out the water.  But the CD does have Side 1 of Satin Saxes & Bouncing Brass as the bonus tracks (12-17).

Big Band Bash
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Anyway, that's enough of that terrible late-80s cover art from the CD reissues: below are the original LP covers of the three albums, in all their Phase 4 Stereo glory.  Any Nurse With Wound fans (specifically, fans of NWW vinyl EPs circa 2008) recognise the picture on Big Band Bash?

 

Michael Jones/David Darling - Amber (1987)

Pure mellow relaxation from Canadian pianist Michael Jones, with enough of an interesting edge from legendary ECM cellist David Darling to keep things from ever ending up dull.  Darling's overdubbed cello lines sometimes create rhythmic propulsion, as on the album opener Rainfall (where he's also the pianist), create Indian-sounding drones on Wu Wei (ditto), and generally flesh out the picture in engaging ways over Jones' spare, crystalline pianism. 

Darling plays ordinary cello and 4 and 8 string electric cello, as well as piano on the above two tracks and the lengthy Dreamlight (the haunting high point of the album for me), and occasional Fender Rhodes, hammered dulcimer and kalimba.  At this point you might wonder why Darling wasn't credited as the principal album artist with guest piano from Jones!  Perhaps Jones was the bigger draw to those who'd be interested in the record, having been with the new age label Narada Lotus for a few years already.

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David Darling previously posted at SGTG: The Sea, with Bjørnstad/Rypdal/Christensen

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you all an enjoyable and occasionally restful day.

If you fancy listening to something a bit odd (even odder than that Klaus Wunderlich album?), try the link below.  It's a charity shop find from a few months back - a self-released EP of some guy who plays wine glasses.  Half classical, half Christmassy tunes.

Sergey Karamyshev - Air
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Klaus Wunderlich - Jingle Bells (1987)

Well, I did say on Friday that George Winston's December wasn't just some scholcky record for the holiday season... couldn't resist some nice festive schlock today though.  It's the best kind of festive schlock though, that comes in an almost fully segued suite of Wersi digital organs and synthesizers, in the capable hands of organ-botherer Klaus Wunderlich (1931-1997).

It's hard to explain the appeal that this album has to me; think it must just be the sound of the keyboards.  There's something beyond just mere cheese, something woozy and uncanny, almost a hallucinatory quality.  Like having the cold for Christmas and drinking too much cough syrup, and the Christmas tree dolls on the album cover start to come to life. Enjoy the ever-so-slightly-uneasy listening oddness.

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George Winston - December (1982)

Moving to something more appropriately festive for this post and the next couple, here's Montana-born pianist George Winston's third album, which was the followup to his breakthrough record Autumn.  The title of 'December' is a deft move that announces that this won't just be some schlocky record for the holiday season, with a dozen or so Christmas carols rendered on piano - Winston arranged a much more understated and satisfying suite of music than that.

When he does interpret carols, Winston goes for only two obvious ones - Carol Of The Bells, and The Holly And The Ivy.  Elsewhere his choices range from Jesus Rest Your Head, from 19th century Appalachia, to Alfred S. Burt's Some Children See Him, from 1951.  Winston's winterscape is then fleshed out by the rest of the programme, stretching from his own compositions Thanksgiving and Peace that bookend the album, to rearranged bits of classical music including Pachelbel's Canon.  Together it all works beautifully, adding up to the perfect 40-minute oasis of calm amongst the bustle of Christmas preparation.

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Thomas Tallis - The Lamentations Of Jeremiah (The Hilliard Ensemble, 1987)

Thought this would make a good follow-up to Current 93 - a nice wintry blast of renaissance polyphony, from the pen of Tallis (1505-1585), and sung in this September 1986 recording by the peerless Hilliard Ensemble.  The austere brilliance of the pure vocal blend reverberating around All Hallows Church, London, is of course perfectly captured by this ECM New Series recording, and the four voices nail each and every nuance of the interlocking lines.  Despite the album title, Tallis' Mass For Four Voices is arguably the highlight here, showing how deftly the composer could move with the times and the changing demands of the crown and the church, making utterly timeless music.

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Hilliard Ensemble previously posted at SGTG: Codex Speciálnik

Current 93 - Halo (2004)

A quintessential live album that does all the things it ought to: a great-sounding memento for fans, with a judicious setlist; and an accessible, stripped-down best-of for the curious.  Halo was my first Current 93 purchase, after a few years of absorbing Nurse With Wound albums - Thunder Perfect Mind in particular, which of course had a C93 'sister album' of the same name - where David Tibet's presence at the margins made me wonder what his own group were like.

Current 93's studio albums admittedly can take a bit of effort to love.  Tibet's voice does take a bit of getting used to, and his dreamlike, Hermetic lyrics can sometimes feel impenetrable.  For this London concert from October 2003, though, the highlights of the very best Current 93 records (arguably their 1992-1998 run) were well chosen and beautifully rendered.  It was released the following year as Halo, with the album cover a tribute to the Moody Blues' Every Good Boy Deserves Favour as painted by Tibet.

For most of the concert, the pared-back instrumentation, based around piano, guitar, cello and woodwinds, and the clarity of Tibet's voice offer a more welcoming path into songs that sometimes get obscured in the originals by the production.  The more natural acoustic sound works well, and nudges them closer to the Incredible String Band than on any prior efforts.  The scaling back of the title track from Sleep Has His House from a 20-minute harmonium drone to three minutes of piano and voice makes Tibet's tribute to his late father heartbreakingly effective - just one example of how well C93 work in a simplified live setting.  Then, for the closing songs, they dig the farthest back into their catalogue and add in more electronic effects for a truly memorable and harrowing ending.  If you own one Current 93 album, make it this one.

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Ólafur Arnalds - ...And They Have Escaped The Weight Of Darkness (2010)

Looking forward to my favourite albums from the Erased Tapes label living their best life over the coming winter months, so here's something from Ólafur Arnalds, in his second album.  Still in his early twenties when this album was put together, the former thrash metal drummer and Sigur Ros touring musician solidified his modern classical thumbprint here.

Mostly based around piano and strings, a lot of this will immediately appeal to fans of the late Jóhann Jóhannsson, although with subtler use of electronics here (check Gleypa Okkur for about the only incidence); Arnalds at this point was more interested in simple melodies and understated scoring.  It never becomes too sacchrine or dull though, and does have moments when you can tell this is someone with a rock background, as on the aforementioned track or in the drums on Tunglið (which reminds me of sometime labelmate Ben Lukas Boysen a bit).  Gorgeous Icelandic chilliness all round.

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Previously posted at SGTG: Collaborative Works with Nils Frahm

Intersystems - Peachy (1967)

Just over half an hour of gleefully morbid insanity from Canadian avant-gardist John Mills-Cockell and his Intersystems compatriots.  This was their second of three albums, and showed a growing influence of musique concrete and Cageian absurdity.  Over a backdrop of tape-manipulated percussive noises, electronics and occasional gloomy organ, performance poet Blake Parker narrates increasingly bizarre versions of a story about two men finding a cave full of guns.

A striking and pioneering record (it really feels like it belongs in the mid-70s, contemporaneous with prime Residents, but this was '67), Peachy sounds like it would've made Intersystems a shoo-in for the Nurse With Wound List.  In fact, just checked and I was surprised they weren't there.  Perhaps no copies of their original LPs found their way to the UK; had any turned up in a 70s London record shop, surely Stapleton would've sniffed them out like a bloodhound.

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Ahmad Jamal Trio - The Awakening (1970)

Lovely little trio date from a great pianist who's still around today.  Ahmad Jamal had been active for two decades when this album was recorded in February 1970, and had never quite got the level of critical acclaim that more famous pianists received, despite being championed by no less a figure than Miles Davis.  He surely deserved it though, and in the decades that followed The Awakening would grow in stature and become a staple for hip hop sampling.

Seven tracks here, with Jamal ably backed by bassist Jamil Nasser and drummer Frank Gant.  Lots to love, not least the gorgeous title track penned by Jamal.  His understated, languid style might make this album sound like a laidback club date on a casual glance, but just under the surface there's a formidable talent able to pull off tricksier runs without disturbing the groove.  And the album closes with covers of the lead tracks from two of my absolute favourite jazz records of all time - Stolen Moments and Wave - what's not to love?

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Paul Dresher - This Same Temple (1996 compi, rec. 1981-85)

Great overview of some of Paul Dresher's earliest works, as compiled by Lovely Music.  Like Dark Blue Circumstance and Casa Vecchia, Dresher's take on Fripp/Pinhas/Gottsching guitartronics is represented, this time by Liquid And Stellar Music.  This stunning 20-minute track, which opens proceedings here, evolves from ambient drift to echo-delay tour de force, and was originally released on Dresher's debut cassette release in 1981.

Next up is Destiny, a brief dance commission from 1983.  Dresher on guitar is accompanied by a drummer, and it's a very nice polyrhythmic oddity that sounds closer to Talking Heads or even the then-new King Crimson sound than anything else I've heard Dresher do so far.  Water Dreams, an electroacoustic/radiophonic piece from 1985 follows, constructed from rain sounds and other field recordings in a similar way to Other Fire from the Casa Vecchia disc.  Lastly, This Same Temple is one of Dresher's first ever compositions from 1977, a piano duet that he admits had a significant Steve Reich influence.  A different version of it originally appeared on the aforementioned cassette release in 1981.

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Pat Metheny Group - Offramp (1982)

The album that took the Pat Metheny Group to stardom was a new-sound album in more than one way.  Nana Vasconcelos, introduced on As Falls Wichita (see links below), returned to fill out the percussion sound with its Brazilian influence that would become more central to the PMG sound in the coming years.  Longtime bassist Steve Rodby also made his debut here, as did Pat's guitar synth.

That legendary Roland GR-300 sound makes its first appearance right from the start, in the brief opening track Baracole, over a nice thumping pulse from Vasconcelos.  Then it's straight into one of the most gorgeous mellow classics of this era, Are You Going With Me.  First led by Lyle Mays on a synth-harmonica sound, then by Pat on guitar synth, it's one of his sunny-day trips across the Midwest for the ages.  The Brazilian influence becomes even more explicit on Au Lait that closes out the album's first half, adding Vasconcelos' voice to the mix as Pat returns to clean guitar.

Side Two introduces more PMG classics to what is perhaps their quintessential album.  The upbeat Latin rhythm of Eighteen drives one of the most simply joyful pieces of music they ever recorded, and for maximum contrast the knottiest free jazz of the album comes next in the title track, devised as a tribute to Ornette Coleman.  Another tribute follows, this time a sweetly melodic one for James Taylor, before the album closes with the calm melancholy of The Bat Pt. II.  An utterly essential jazz fusion masterpiece from start to finish.

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Previously posted at SGTG:
First Circle
The Way Up
Pat Metheny at SGTG:
Watercolors
New Chautauqua 
As Falls Wichita (with Lyle Mays)
Song X (with Ornette Coleman)
and featuring Pat:
Dreams So Real
Shadows And Light
The Sound Of Summer Running

Costin Miereanu - Luna Cinese (1975)

Two wonderful, mindwarping slabs of avant-garde electronics and dark ambience from the Italian Cramps label (see also Tempo Furioso by Martin Davorin Jagodic).  Costin Miereanu was born in Bucharest in 1943, and has lived in France since the 70s, where as well as composing he's had a distinguished professorial career with students including Ana-Maria Avram.

Luna Cinese was his first album release, with the original LP sides titled 'Lato x opp. y' and 'Lato y opp. x' and the tracks themselves named Parte Prima (Seconda) and Parte Seconda (Prima).  The first track is a stunningly disorienting stew of electronic whines and bleeps overlaid with fragments of speech in different languages - and yep, Miereanu's on the Nurse With Wound List.  The deadpan delivery of what sounds like scientific experiments also brings to mind for me the very early films of David Cronenberg, and that font used by Cramps on their records also helps, very Stereo.

The second track is purely instrumental, with bits of flute and vibraphone floating around in the queasy-ambient smog as well as more electronics and some field recordings.  This one has a slight edge for me over the first track due to the sustained eerie atmosphere, but the whole album is essential if you like this sort of thing.

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