Miles Davis - Live-Evil (1971)

First in a three-Friday look at some of the many double-live albums released by Miles Davis in the 1970s (already posted: Agharta, see list below).  This one does actually include short tracks of studio material, three of them by Brazilian composer Hermeto Pascoal and recorded in June 1970; Pascoal also contributes vocals, percussion and electric piano to those pieces.  All the rest are live recordings from The Cellar Door in Washington DC, 19 December 1970.  Joining Miles on stage were Gary Bartz, John McLaughlin (a quick end-of-residency addition), a rare electrified Keith Jarrett before he swore off amplified keyboards, and a cracking rhythm section of Michael Henderson, Jack DeJohnette and Aitro Moreira.

The album title, and a couple of the track titles, come from the mirror-text effect on the vinyl gatefold: MILES DAVIS LIVE = SELIM SIVAD EVIL.  Sivad is the first lengthy live jam - might that be Jarrett's (in)famous vocalising halfway through? Could be Airto.  What I Say turns up the tempo for an even funkier exploration - Jarrett sounds like he's about to play LA Woman in the intro there.  The brief studio tracks by Pascoal are mellow, drifting drones, and completing Record 1/CD1 is a studio take of Gemini/Double Image by Davis/Zawinul, which actually dates back to February 1970.  That last one adds Khalil Balakrishna on electric sitar, and all the studio material adds Chick & Herbie to the keyboard section.

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Over on Disc 2, Selim provides a quick overture in the form of a Pascoal piece sounding similar to the other two, then it's Live Evil all the way in the two remaining long tracks.  Funky Tonk does what it says on the tin, with plenty of Jarrett grooves, McLaughlin solos and storming percussion.  To close, Inamorata is a great straight-ahead funk jam, with the "Narration By Conrad Roberts" being a brief voice-over poem near the end by the titular actor, for reasons I've never quite seen explained.

Disc 1 link

Disc 2 link

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Miles Davis at SGTG:
Conception
Walkin'
Blue Moods
Bags' Groove
Miles Ahead (with Gil Evans)
Sketches Of Spain (with Gil Evans)
Quiet Nights (with Gil Evans) 

A Tribute To Jack Johnson
On The Corner

Big Fun
Agharta

Brian Eno - Before And After Science (1977)

For his last in a run of art-rock-based albums in the 1970s, Eno assembled the cream of the musicians he'd worked with thus far (including members of Roxy Music, Brand X and Cluster - I ran out of space in the tags to list every name), and recorded over a hundred possible tracks over two years.  This was whittled down to ten that were a summation of the quirky avant-pop/rock sound he'd established, and also looked forward to his increasingly ambient interests.

Overlapping in part with the time Eno spent with Bowie in Berlin, Before And After Science plays well against Low & Heroes, not least on King's Lead Hat (also anagrammatic of future collaborators), and has several krautrock touch points too.  The lyrics on opener No One Receiving look forwards to The Belldog on After The Heat, and Moebius & Roedelius themselves appear on By This River, giving definitive Cluster & Eno overlap.  Another krautrock guest appearance comes in the form of Jaki Liebezeit's drumming on Backwater.

Energy Fools The Magician aside, the original LP's two sides divide neatly into an uptempo, jagged art-rock side and a sublime pastoral side.  As good as the former is, the latter takes the crown for me in Eno's 70s output: the lovely Here He Comes; the bucolic-melancholic Julie With; the aforementioned Cluster co-write; an ambient instrumental aptly dedicated to Harold Budd, and the gorgeous closer Spider & I (thought by some to be about Bowie).  Outside of his purely ambient work, Eno really doesn't get better than this.

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Previously posted at SGTG:
Another Green World
Cluster & Eno 

After The Heat
Ambient 2: The Plateaux Of Mirror (with Harold Budd)

Ambient 4: On Land
Apollo - Atmospheres & Soundtracks (with Daniel Lanois & Roger Eno)
The Pearl (with Harold Budd & Daniel Lanois)

Lula Côrtes / Zé Ramalho - Paêbirú (1975)

Of all the 1970s Brazilian albums I've heard so far, this double concept album collaboration between Lula Côrtes & Zé Ramalho is one of the most experimental and psychedelic.  Containing numerous moments that could almost be Amon Düül, Agitation Free, Between or a less refined Popol Vuh, it's like Brazilian krautrock.  Needless to say, Paêbirú has become a cult classic, both as a great acid-folk brain-melter, and as a once-ultra-rare obscurity: before various reissues brought it back into availability, most of the small original pressing was lost in a warehouse accident.  Fittingly for the 'four elements' concept, this was either by fire or flood, depending on which story is correct.

So as above, to structure their double-LP about Brazilian mythology, Côrtes & Ramalho titled the four album sides elementally: Earth, Air, Fire & Water, or in Portuguese: Terra, Ar, Fogo, Água.  Vocals are minimal and often basic chants, so the language barrier is a non-issue in getting immersed in the incredible sound.  The Terra side starts as it means to go on, with acoustic guitars, flute and tribal percussion.  After a minute of this comes the first of many moments of wow, that bassline is incredible - seriously, crank the bass up for this whole album as high as you can.  After a short track of incredible percussion and acid-drenched fuzz guitar, the Terra side ends on a calm flute, piano and acoustic guitar piece.

Ar begins in much the same territory, against a backdrop of melodic acoustic guitar scales, before this album side delves into darker, more ritualistic jams with a sax adding a jazzier element.  The brief Fogo side has appropriately firey guitars and sitar, skull-splitting garage-psych Farfisa and scorching grooves.  For the final stretch, Água commences by invoking the sea-goddess Iemanja (see also here), then takes in more guitar duelling and great percussion, two lovely short tracks evocative of Jorma Kaukonen/Hot Tuna, and one more great acoustic/percussion jam.  Hugely recommended masterpiece.

Original 2-LP gatefold with Ramalho (L) and Côrtes (R)

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Frank Zappa - You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore Vol. 2: The Helsinki Concert (rec. 1974, rel. 1988)

Huge thanks to the commenter who hipped me to this one.  It's an incredible document of a Zappa concert (well, tracks from a couple of concerts edited together, but it works in giving the flow of a full show across two hours of music) from Helsinki in September 1974.  

 

In this second volume of Zappa's YCDTOSA live archive series, a reduced version of the Roxy band (oh, and check out that link for an added download - I tracked down the original-mix CD) blitz through most of the material from that album, and more besides.  Inca Roads, which hadn't been released at the time of the concert, is an early highlight: part of Zappa's guitar solo here was in fact worked into the album version in 1975 (must post OSFA sometime).  Other songs unreleased at time of performing are A Token Of My Extreme, RDNZL, Approximate and Dupree's Paradise, the latter topping 20 minutes with lengthy solos from George Duke and Chester Thompson.

Short appearances of older material from the original Mothers era also fill out the set, as does a brief Big Swifty theme to close.  Then there's the core songs from Roxy & Elsewhere, well and truly road-hardened after a year of performance, and mostly (except a long, slow Pygmy Twylyte) taken at a lightning-streak clip.  Your mileage may vary as to how they compare against the Roxy versions - I prefer the slower Village Of The Sun on Roxy, but the others are incredible here.  Plenty of the usual comedic antics throughout, as the band crack in-jokes about staying in European hotels, perform a famous Finnish tango (sight-reading from scratch!), and have fun with an audience shout-out for the Allman Brothers' Whipping Post.

Disc 1 link

Disc 2 link

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Previously posted at SGTG:

Lumpy Gravy

Waka/Jawaka

The Grand Wazoo

Roxy & Elsewhere

The Perfect Stranger (live 2018)

Teddy Stauffer Und Sein Orchester - Holiday In Acapulco (1964)

Returning briefly to the 'authentic Latin' vs 'ersatz Latin' contrasts of previous weeks, here's an interesting example.  Teddy Stauffer (1909-1991) was a Swiss-born bandleader who enjoyed success in 1930s Germany until the Reichsmusikkammer's crackdown on 'degenerate' swing music.  After unsuccessfully trying to secure a visa in the US, he wound up in Mexico and spent most of the rest of his life based in Acapulco.  So in Stauffer's case, the "Holiday" of this album's title ended up lasting more than four decades.

Holiday In Acapulco was originally released on Telefunken in West Germany, having been recorded in London.  In strictest terms, sure, it's faux-Mexicana - but at least under the direction of an artist who'd rebuilt his life and career "south of the border".  These fourteen beguines, sambas and rumbas all burst into life with the genuine verve of a bandleader immersed in the music of his "spiritual home", with great arrangements underpinned by lively percussion.  As per previous Dutton Vocalion CDs posted here, the remaster is a top-notch job.  Cover art above from CD is a bit washed-out looking (best I could get), so here's a decent-res image of the original LP cover.

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Michel Magne - Musique Tachiste (1959)

Pleasingly oddball half-hour of music by Michel Magne (1930-1984), who was best known as a French soundtrack composer, and for converting the Château d'Hérouville into a famed recording studio - its financial collapse in the mid 80s was a likely factor in Magne's suicide.  This album from the late 50s, charmingly illustrated by cartoonist Sempé, is now regarded as an early concept album: "part radical manifesto, part pantomime".

Drawing on jazz, modernist classical music and musique concrete, Magne took the album's title from the tachisme (spotism) movement in modern art, intending to create its musical analogue in "harmonies of colours".  Divided into six short pieces on the LP's first side, and a three-part concerto of sorts on side two, the former is more focused on odd sounds: echoing cymbalom, eerie voices and the vintage swoosh of ondes Martenot make up the opening track.  From there, orchestral sections and skittery piano parts are puncuated by more strange noises, prepared percussion and voices.  My personal favourite from these six tracks comes at the end, as the wordless vocal of Larmes Et Sol Pleurer soars upwards to become an ondes Martenot melody.  

 

The much jazzier Concertino Triple takes up the rest of the album and has a really neat vibraphone part, along with some Gunter Schuller-like orchestral jazz writing, a nice piano solo and occasional braying laughter and distant chatter in the mix. A really fun listen, and a real pioneering feast for the ears all round.

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Bob James - One, Two, Three & BJ4: The Legendary Albums (2003 compi of LPs rel. 1974-77)

Handy collection of the first four albums by jazz funk musician/arranger and one-man sampling goldmine Bob James.  Tunes from these "Legendary Albums" have been a summer staple for me for decades thanks to friends' mixes and such, so it's fantastic to have them all in one place.

After beginning his career as a jazz pianist (discovered by Quincy Jones in 1962), Robert McElhiney James was hired by Creed Taylor in 1973 to be an arranger for CTI, contributing to several funky fusion LPs put out by the label.  Taylor first gave James the chance to release his own album the following year, and One is an ambitious mix of themes from classical music (Pachelbel, Ravel and Mussorgsky), slick playing and incredible grooves, not least in the future classic Nautlius that closes the album.

Released in 1975, Two is the album that opens with the hip-hop sampling staple Take Me To The Mardi Gras, in James' eternally joyous arrangement of the Paul Simon song.  This album is smoother in some places, like the Patti Austin-sung I Feel A Song In My Heart, but still finds time for knotty fusion in The Golden Apple.  Bizet's Farandole gets the funked-up classical treatment.  On to 1976, and Three opens with a smoking take on One Mint Julep, and includes James' classic tune Westchester Lady.  His CTI era then drew to a close with BJ4 from 1977, the one with the funky earworm Tappan Zee among other delights.

Disc 1 link

Disc 2 link

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Vangelis - La Fête Sauvage (1976)

More Vangelis music for a Frédéric Rossif wildlife documentary, this one seemingly focused on big cats judging by the various album cover pictures used over the years.  When originally released, the soundtrack album's LP sides were simply titled La Fête Sauvage Part 1 and Part 2; this has transferred to CD (at least on this Polydor one, some other reissues differ) as a single 38 minute track.

It's great Vangelis music, rooted in his mid-70s sound and very much looking ahead to the late-70s lushness of Opera Sauvage in its second half.  First though, we get what I presume maps to Side 1 of the LP, in just over 18 minutes that takes in an uptempo theme, three short sections of percussion, voices and flute (performed by guest musicians) and lastly a more laidback electronics and percussion theme.  That last section leads in nicely to the long Vangelis-only piece that takes up the rest of the album.  With reverbed electric piano and lush synthesisers, it shows Vangelis honing in on the gorgeous sound of his late-70s work.  It's effectively a theme and variations, returning to the main melody right at the end, and has lately become one of my absolute favourite pieces of Vangelis' music.

link

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Previously posted at SGTG:
L'apocalypse Des Animaux

Opera Sauvage

Antarctica
Soil Festivities
Invisible Connections

Iannis Xenakis - Palimpsest, Épéi, Dikhtas, Akanthos (rec. 1986, rel. 1990)

Neat collection of three of Xenakis' ensemble works, plus a piano-violin duo, all composed in the mid-late 1970s.  First up is the typically energetic blast of Xenakis writing something of a piano concerto gone haywire, with patterns of scales overwritten with new non-repeating patterns in the manner of an ancient palimpsest.  The thundering percussion keeps up the tension until the end.  Next up, the queasily microtonal Épéi ("since") is led by trumpet and clarinet to make the major changes, as the more static backdrop gradually slithers around.

Dikhthas ("dual") pitches the glissando agility of a violin against the static notes of a piano to great effect.  Then to close, we get Akanthos for soprano and ensemble.  Named for the acanthus plant used for decoration on Corinthian columns, it's a great writhing mass of intricate lines that eventually comes together in strident single notes.  An absolute blast to listen to.

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pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:

Pour La Paix/Voyage Absolu

Nuits

Rebonds B

Akrata

Atrées, Morsima-Amorsima etc
Evryali/Herma
Phlegra, Jalons etc
Oresteïa
Synaphaï
Persephassa
Ata, Jonchaies etc
Pléiades/Psappha
Bohor etc
Kraanerg
Terretektorh/Nomos Gamma
La Légende D'Eer
Persepolis

Astrud Gilberto - The Astrud Gilberto Album (1965)

Last week we had the album that introduced Astrud Gilberto to the world; now, here's her debut solo album from the following year.  The Astrud Gilberto Album has an even bigger Jobim presence, which is always a huge plus point for me: he's featured on guitar throughout, on vocals duetting with Gilberto on the classic Água De Beber, and the tracklist is heavy on his songwriting.  At the heart of this short and sweet record though is Gilberto's voice, still establishing herself as a singer but already imbued with a melancholic, wistful quality that shines on all these songs, whether in English or Portuguese.  Filling out the arrangements is the skilful touch of Marty Paich and Creed Taylor's production, making for a classic of Brazilian jazz-pop, always evocative of summers gone by.

link

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Previously posted at SGTG:

Getz/Gilberto

Look To The Rainbow

I Haven't Got Anything Better To Do

Gilberto With Turrentine (scroll past main post)

Plastikman - Sheet One (1993)

An hour of minimal techno, nice and acidy sounding (and famously including artwork made to look like a blotter sheet) from Richie Hawtin in the album that launched his Plastikman alias.  This hypnotically static music is at its best over extended tracks, and Plasticity is first to set off on a long, winding trip.  Glob and Plasticine are my favourites here for the same reason, and in between there are plenty of shorter ventures into creating near-ambient atmospheres, with the same evergreen bleeps and splodges of classic acid bass.  Eternally durable journeys for the mind and body.

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Chaquito - The Great Chaquito Revolution (1970) / Latin Colours (1972) (2010 compilation)

Couldn't resist posting some more 'ersatz Latin' from John Gregory aka Chaqutio, mainly because this twofer reissue from Vocalion just sounds so good.  All the superbly arranged brass and organ, funky percussion & bass guitar and odd vocal effects make for a particularly satisfying pair of top-flight fauxotica LPs from the early 70s.

By this time, as in the wider easy listening industry, the pop and rock hits of the day had started to appear in an effort to maintain wide appeal.  So here we have a stab at Light My Fire, not quite up there with Jose Feliciano's original (kidding, I'm just not a big Doors fan), and a great rendering of Aquarius from Hair.  The Great Chaquito Revolution also includes a couple of trips to the movies, in an ear-bendingly bizarre version of The Good, The Bad & The Ugly and a nicely produced take on The Big Country with its trippy-sounding brass introduction. (anyone else always expect Chris Squire to come thundering in after they hear that theme?)  Latin Colours is a similar mix of classic tunes and more contemporary covers, all superbly arranged and great fun to listen to.

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Previously posted at SGTG: Latin Classics Vol. 1

Stan Getz-João Gilberto - Getz/Gilberto (1964)

Something definitely authentically Latin today (Stan Getz gets a free pass at inclusion here given his role in popularising Brazilian music in jazz).  For this classic album, perhaps the definitive start of the bossanova craze in the US (following earlier introductions by Getz and Charlie Byrd), Getz collaborated with João Gilberto on guitar & vocals.  The rest of the lineup was none other than Antônio Carlos Jobim on piano, plus Sebastião Neto on bass and Milton Banana on percussion.

Getz/Gilberto also introduced another up and coming Brazilian star on vocals for two tracks, thanks to Getz's coaxing - Astrud Gilberto (João's then-wife, shortly to begin an affair with Getz) sings the English lyrics of the evergreen Girl From Ipanema and Corcovado/Quiet Nights Of Quiet Stars.  João Gilberto's guitar accompaniment is perfectly languid throughout, and Getz's cool, accesible tones and the gorgeous tunes all contributed to the breakthrough popularity and lasting brilliance of this great record.

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