George Russell - Vertical Event VI (rec. 1977, rel. 1981)

Funky fusion with the customary George Russell twist of his unique compositional style, here extending to the title of this work.  Vertical Event VI was another commission for Swedish Radio, composed in 1976 and recorded live at the Södertälje Estrad in March of the following year.  Numbering the works he'd composed in Scandinavia thus far, in the liner notes Russell says he considers the Othello Ballet Suite to be Vertical Form II, Souls Loved By Nature as Vertical Form III (links below), and so on, with Vertical Form VI "represent[ing] the full crystalisation of the vertical form style of notation".

 

Being a bit of a rudimentary music theorist, I'm no closer to understanding 'vertical form' in laymans' terms than when I started reading all these liner notes on Russell's albums, but the end result is just as enjoyable to blast out.  The original first side of the 1981 vinyl contained Event I, nine minutes of the large-group forces gradually gathering steam, and Event II, a fifteen-minute groove monster.  The other three respectively highlight the grungy organ, a banjo-style detuned guitar with more funky minimalist basslines, and finally a recapitulation of the work's main themes.  Probably the most accessible of Russell's big-band 'vertical forms' that I've heard so far, and certainly tons of fun.

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:

Electronic Sonata For Souls Loved By Nature

Othello Ballet Suite

Tangerine Dream - Thief (1981)

Think this is the only bit of Tangerine Dream's Virgin years that I haven't yet posted.  Thief was the soundtrack album for Michael Mann's feature debut, so can double as a tribute to James Caan.  As a TD album (and regarded as such in the series of 'Definitive Edition' remasters), sure it has bits of repetition and recycling, but that's par for the course in a soundtrack, and it creates a dark, dramatic atmosphere with ease.  Recorded in 1980 (other than a remixed portion of Through Metamorphic Rocks from Force Majeure, retitled Igneous), and so sitting between Tangram and Exit, the music is a solid addition to the 'proper albums' discography of Froese-Frank-Schmoelling.  Atmosphere, rhythm, melody and shorter tracks all point the way forward for this lineup.

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:

Electronic Meditation

Alpha Centauri  

Zeit

Atem 

Phaedra (scroll past main post)

Rubycon & Richochet

Stratosfear
Encore

Cyclone
Force Majeure
Tangram

Pergamon

Exit

White Eagle 
Logos: Live At The Dominion
Hyperborea

Poland

Le Parc

Jaco Pastorius - s/t (1976)

This album came up in the comments recently on the last Weather Report post, so here it is.  Just over 40 minutes of smoking grooves, deft arrangements and a stellar cast of guests, all wrapped around the elastic basslines of a 25-year-old virtuoso who would cast jazz fusion in his image for years to come.

Announcing itself with bass up front, and no accompaniment but Don Alias' congas on the opening version of the standard Donna Lee, Pastorius' self-titled album features only one other tune he hadn't written or co-written, a medley setting of Herbie Hancock's Speak Like A Child.  Hancock himself is heavily featured on keys throughout the album, which is heavily percussive in places, has sumptuous arrangements in others, and gives guest spotlights to everyone from Hubert Laws to Sam & Dave.  Essential summer listening.

link

pw: sgtg

Jaco Pastorius at SGTG:

Weather Report - Black Market

Joni Mitchell - Mingus

Joni Mitchell - Shadows And Light

BBC Singers: Joby Talbot & Joanna Marsh (2022)

Two 21st century choral works made up this programme from Milton Court Concert Hall, London on 20th May.  The BBC Singers were first enhanced by the live electronic manipulations of Glen Scott, who was the original collaborator with the composer Joanna Marsh.  British-born Marsh (1970-) composed SEEN for the BBC Singers, and this is the work's world premiere with Glen Scott performing the extensive electronic tweaks on stage with them.  After the interval is Path Of Miracles, composed in 2005 by another British composer, Joby Talbot (1971-).  In four parts, marking the main posts on the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage trail, the hour-long work takes texts from several languages and across history to craft an engaging epic immersion in vocal sound.

link

pw: sgtg

programme with libretto

Tangerine Dream - Atem (1973)

Tangerine Dream in the early 70s were making great strides with each album, and now settled into their trio lineup, with this fourth album edged closer to their breakthrough sound.  The grand sweep of mellotron that opens the 20 minute title track was key to this - although Franke's thundering drums still looked back to the sound of Alpha Centauri, Froese's mellotron had established itself in the TD armoury, and Phaedra was only a year away.

Then after five and a half minutes of this dramatic introduction, Atem changes gear into becalmed ambience for the rest of its runtime - another harbringer of the near future.  Three pieces make up the second side of the original LP, starting with the humid junglescape of Fauni-Gena, looking forwards in this case to Froese's second solo album.  Circulation Of Events has the most proto-Phaedra eerie ambience of the whole album - towards the end of the mellotron/organ-dominated piece, a synth pulse gives a foretaste of the epic Berlin-school sequences just around the corner.  TD end the album with one more nod back to their more avant-garde beginnings with the vocal intro to Wahn.  After this they'd become electronic legends.

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:

Electronic Meditation

Alpha Centauri  

Zeit

Phaedra (scroll past main post)

Rubycon & Richochet

Stratosfear
Encore

Cyclone
Force Majeure
Tangram

Pergamon

Exit

White Eagle 
Logos: Live At The Dominion
Hyperborea

Poland

Le Parc

George Russell - Othello Ballet Suite / Electronic Organ Sonata No.1 (1970)

Some more George Russell from his Scandinavian period, with Jan Garbarek making the album cover as featured soloist.  The "Othello Ballet Suite" was commissioned by Norwegian television, and this recording made by Radio Sweden in November 1967.  Othello offers just under half an hour of Russell's intricate 'vertical form' compositional style and funky arrangements.  It occasionally suggests a sort of long-form Mingus composition to my ears - complete with what sounds like little teases of Better Git It In Your Soul as a recurring theme.  All great players, including some nice skronky spots for Garbarek to cut loose, and Russell's sextet are backed by the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra.

The album, originally released in 1970 by Flying Dutchman, is filled out by a solo organ piece improvised by Russell on an Oslo church organ in October 1968.  This basic recording was then manipulated at the electronic music studio of Radio Sweden, giving it much more avant-garde textures and making for a fascinating closer on the album.

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG: Electronic Sonata For Souls Loved By Nature

Franco Degrassi & Gianni Lenoci - Franco Degrassi Gianni Lenoci (1998)

Earliest of a handful of collaborations between avant-garde composer and improviser Franco Degrassi (b. 1958, Bari) and fellow Italian Gianni Lenoci (1963-2019), a jazz pianist and composer from Monopoli.  The eight untitled tracks on this album credit both artists with "piano, computer, environmental sounds and acoustical instrument sounds", and after initial tracks focused on piano then concrete sounds, progress to various amalgamations of both.  The piano textures and sounds of the room can be loud and grating, or richly textured and meditative, adding up to just under an hour of closely-observed possibilities in improvised sound.

link

pw: sgtg

Frank Zappa - Orchestral Favourites (1979)

First LP dedicated to Zappa's orchestral music, taken from concerts held at UCLA's Royce Hall in September 1975.  An early attempt was made at pitching an album from the concerts to Columbia Masterworks in 1976, but when this fell through the music was lost in the shuffle of Zappa's contractual woes and finally emerged as one of the "ugly covers" trio (I mean, I like the cover of Sleep Dirt, but definitely not this one) in 1979.

Orchestral Favorites combines then-new material with reworkings of previous pieces, and starts with the melodic grandeur of Strictly Genteel, which in its original form closed the 200 Motels film.  Some tricksier music is next in Pedro's Dowry, one of Zappa's typically lurid seduction stories, and the brief Naval Aviation In Art? (which would later be re-done under Boulez on The Perfect Stranger) closes out the LP's first side.  Rather than being arrangements solely for classical orchestra, the Royce Hall recordings combined orchestral players with Zappa band regulars, and the Duke Of Prunes revival here is the most 'rocked-up orchestra'-style piece, complete with a later overdubbed guitar solo.  The rest of the album is then given over to Bogus Pomp, a suite of reworked themes from 200 Motels and even farther back.

link

pw: sgtg

Frank Zappa at SGTG:

Lumpy Gravy

Waka/Jawaka

The Grand Wazoo

Roxy & Elsewhere

One Size Fits All

Sleep Dirt

Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar

Boulez Conducts Zappa - The Perfect Stranger  

Jazz From Hell

You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore, Vol. 2: The Helsinki Concert

The Perfect Stranger (live 2018)

 

Bonus post: Macca at Glasto

Got hold of Paul McCartney's Glastonbury set from a week ago (the radio broadcast), primarily just for myself after reading reviews.  Then thought I may as well share it here for anyone who wants to pick it up.  I mean, the guy's just turned 80, and zips through almost three hours of a headline festival show drawing on one of the most legendary back catalogues around.  Blasts out Helter Skelter, turns in a gorgeous Blackbird, takes the audience through a living history lesson that spans six decades, is reasonably judicious with the most recent material, and brings out Dave Grohl and Bruce Springsteen as guests.  Lovely stuff.

link

pw: sgtg

Tangerine Dream - Zeit (1972)

On to the third of four albums making up Tangerine Dream's 'pink years' on the Ohr label, and we land on their first double album, and possibly the most audacious experiment of their career: a "Largo in four movements", each one taking up a side of vinyl.  The classic trio lineup of Froese, Franke and Baumann is now in place, but the Berlin School sequences are still a couple of years away.  Far from being ambient music that floats pleasantly in space, this is dark, heavy sound with enough gravitational pull to suck in planets (I thought for ages that album art was meant to represent a black hole, before figuring out it's just an eclipse, but it still looks great for the sounds within).

Joining the core lineup for Zeit were Steve Schroyder, making his final appearance on organ, and Popol Vuh's Florian Fricke, bringing his giant modular Moog as he was one of only a couple of German owners of the beast of an instrument at the time.  Fricke is featured on all tracks except the second movement.  Four cellists were also invited along, creating the memorable drone that introduces the album.  The resulting double-LP wasn't particularly well received, Ohr unsure how to market such a behemoth - but the right people were listening, including John Peel in England, who would become an even more important figure with the release of Zeit's follow-up.

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:

Electronic Meditation

Alpha Centauri 

Phaedra (scroll past main post)

Rubycon & Richochet

Stratosfear
Encore

Cyclone
Force Majeure
Tangram

Pergamon

Exit

White Eagle 
Logos: Live At The Dominion
Hyperborea

Poland

Le Parc