Spending some "Time" with Dave Brubeck, to end the year (1959, 1961, 1966)

And yep, it's SGTG breaktime once again. Thanks for all your comments, and for enjoying all the music.  As to where this blog goes from here, I think it'll definitely just be occasional posts, when there's an interesting radio concert to share, or the results of a quirky charity shop haul.  The whole 'sharing a massive CD collection and writing about it just because I wanted to' thing that sparked this off is pretty much done & dusted now, and has been hugely satisfying.  Thanks everyone for being part of it.

To leave things for now, here's a triple header by an artist I took far too long to give some serious time to, starting in the annus mirabilis of album jazz: 1959.  The Dave Brubeck Quartet had made a name for themselves in West Coast cool jazz over the course of the decade, and were becoming influenced by folk forms experienced on a tour of Eurasia, as evidenced by a 1958 album.

Their smash hit album a year later took the 'quirky time signatures' USP and just ran with it, creating indelible instant classics like Blue Rondo A La Turk and Paul Desmond's Take Five.  Beyond these standouts, the Time Out album contains absolute loveliness like Strange Meadow Lark and Kathy's Waltz, and my personal favourite, the effortlessly cool elegance of Three To Get Ready.

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The success of Time Out led to a handful of sequels, so here's a couple of them.  First up, from 1961, is Time Further Out - subtitled Miro Reflections as a nod to the cover art.  The album's running order is structured so as to progressively add more beats to the bar, starting off with a pair of waltzes and featuring another couple of pieces in 5/4, as well as the 7/4 of its best-known track Unsquare Dance.  Brubeck's dexterous pianism and the rhythm section's ability to play absolutely in-the-pocket regardless of the meter continue to be absolute joys, as is the breezy melodic sensibility of this coolest of quartets.

 

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The 'time' albums then concluded five years later with Time In, credited to Brubeck only on the cover but still featuring the classic quartet within.  This gorgeous record makes more sparing use of quirky time signatures, and after the full-tilt Lost Waltz that opens the album tends towards breezier mid-tempo tunes that hone in on the quartet's effortless interplay.  Not sure if it's because Time In was the least familiar to me of these three albums (that were found together in a box set), but I've been returning to it the most for sheer enjoyment.  And that feels like as good a place as any to leave SGTG for the moment.  Happy new year when it comes, everyone!

 

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Al Wilson - Searching For The Dolphins (expanded edition 2008; orig. rel. 1969)

Sticking with the charity shop finds for the second post this week.  Picked this one up on the assumption it was based around a take on Fred Neil's evergreen song that I find weirdly moving whoever's doing it, and it does indeed kick off with a very nice Dolphins, Mississippi-born Al Wilson (1939-2008) in fine voice.  This is followed by a solid By The Time I Get To Phoenix - okay, so it's a late-60s pop-soul album, and a pretty good one.  

 

The original LP, on the Liberty-distributed Soul City label, came with a hot Wrecking Crew backing band - Hal Blaine, Jim Gordon, Larry Knechtel, James Burton et al - and a great Southern soul vocalist out front.  Wilson released a handful of non-album singles at the turn of the 70s, which are captured here as worthwhile bonus tracks (check out CCR's Lodi).  Then there's The Snake, sitting at the halfway point of the LP, which instantly brought back great memories of nights out for me.

In the late 90s/early 00s, Edinburgh College of Art's indie disco night on Saturdays was never complete without the DJ, who must've been a bit of an old Northern Soul boy, dropping in The Snake to bring it to the attention of a new generation of hip young kids in their skinny jeans.  So that was nice to hear again after 20 years, and it's still a belter.  Even better to hear it in the context of an album-plus, to get a broader view on Wilson's incredible voice and the classic production with those top-drawer musicians.

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Jacques Loussier - Play Bach (rec. circa 1965 - I think - this compilation dated 1987)

Charity shop acquisition that caught my eye a couple of weeks ago, that cheap 'n cheesy cover art instantly bringing to mind the hilariously badly-adorned 80s reissues of Tangerine Dream's first four albums.  This album is no more 80s-sounding, electronic or retro-futuristic in any way - it's a collection of jazz piano trio recordings.

Angers-born pianist Jacques Loussier (1934-2019) and his trio of bassist Pierre Michelot (who was also part of Miles Davis' Ascenseur Pour L'échafaud lineup) and drummer Christian Garros occasionally varied their repertoire, but are largely notable for one thing.  It's in the title of this CD, and in the titles of dozens of LPs released from 1959 onwards (why not run a good pun into the ground?) - yep, the Loussier Trio's USP was to arrange the music of J. S. Bach for jazz trio.  They did it a lot (including updated recordings of the same pieces), and they did it very well.

This made the random find of a 1987-compiled CD on the Accord label - with no recording dates or any other source information - a bit baffling at first.  Eventually I narrowed down, with reasonable certainty, to this collection being sourced from live recordings originally released in 1965 as a double LP titled Play Bach Aux Champs-Élysées.  The 20-minute Partita In Se Bémol matched an Aux Champs version on YouTube, and the rest kind of fell into place from there.  Oh, and one other head-scratcher with that particular track: it briefly pauses for applause just before the eight-minute mark; the disc plays a track split here, but the Partita is listed as one continuous track on the back and inners (the disc thus knocking the rest of the track numbers out of sync with the tracklist).  I've edited the Partita back together here to match the original release, and because Accord's 80s compiling standards were starting to give me a migraine.

A fun-ish week of detective work aside, this stuff sounds really nice, and works.  Loussier (or Michelot) more often than not plays a few bars straight, then the melody gets jazzed up a bit, then the performance spins out into genuine piano trio interplay.  That's about it.  The fact that these are live recordings probably helps focus the extemporisations into something next-level and highly enjoyable.  And there's undeniably something quite "purest source" about using Bach as a springboard for the melodic, harmonic etc improvisations of jazz.  Wouldn't mind exploring more Loussier in future.

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Astrud Gilberto / Walter Wanderley - A Certain Smile, A Certain Sadness (1966)

Light and uplifting bossanova pop from the genre's legendary vocalist, backed on this occasion by organist/pianist Walter Wanderley's trio.  The two title tracks are up first, with A Certain Smile serving as a brief overture, and A Certain Sadness featuring an uncredited guitarist who may or may not have been João Gilberto.  From there, a breezy twenty-odd minutes goes by in lovely, classy style, staying true to the album's concept-of-sorts in contrasting downbeat ballads and frothy poppy numbers, with the emphasis on the latter.  Instant musical refreshment.

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Previously posted at SGTG:

Getz/Gilberto

The Astrud Gilberto Album

Look To The Rainbow

I Haven't Got Anything Better To Do

Gilberto With Turrentine (scroll past main post)

The Gil Evans Orchestra - Out Of The Cool (1961)

Here's something that sounds particularly good in a sweltering summer.  Coming hot on the heels of Gil Evans' Sketches Of Spain collaboration with Miles Davis, Out Of The Cool was one of the first batch of LPs released on the new Impulse! label.  

 

Trading some of the tightly-written arrangements that were Evans' stock in trade for a slightly looser, more rhythmic groove, the album hits cooking temperature right away with the 15-minute La Nevada, the insistent rhythm an ideal base for soloing.  A pair of refreshed standards follow, with a lovely trombone-led Where Flamingos Fly then a languid Bilbao Song.  An extended take on George Russell's Stratusphunk highlights more great solos over a walking strut, and the album closes on a pensive note with another Evans composition, Sunken Treasure.

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Arrangements by Gil Evans at SGTG:

Miles Davis: Miles Ahead, Sketches Of Spain, Quiet Nights

Astrud Gilberto: Look To The Rainbow

George Russell - Electronic Sonata For Souls Loved By Nature (three recordings)

Electronic Sonata For Souls Loved By Nature is the signature work by jazz composer, theorist and pianist George Russell (1923-2009), presented today in no less than three different recordings.  Got hold of these in a Black Saint/Soul Note reissues box, so more Russell to come.  First up, The Essence Of George Russell, which may or may not contain the earliest recording of the Sonata: it's unfortunately the only thing lacking a recording year in the original double LP's notes.

First a drummer, George Russell's key contribution to jazz was as a music theorist championing the Lydian mode, which influenced everyone from Miles Davis and Gil Evans to the young Scandinavian musicians he'd work with on moving there in the 60s, many of whom would become ECM heavyweights.  Listening back to Terje Rypdal's Odyssey box set after hearing Russell is quite enlightening, for example, and it's Rypdal who is the guitarist on the "Essence" recording of Electronic Sonata For Souls Loved By Nature, the lineup also including Jan Garbarek, Arild Andersen and Jon Christensen (you can probably guess by now what drew me to the Russell box).  On the original "Essence" double LP there were two additional pieces making up side four - only one of these, the enjoyably wild Now And Then (recorded 1966), is included on the CD due to time restrictions.

Electronic Sonata For Souls Loved By Nature, then, is structured in 14 segued 'Events': some where propulsive basslines and funky drums drive it forward, and others where the rhythms fall away and Stockhausen-like taped sounds come to the fore, as well as African field recordings.  The writing for horns can be both tight and melodic and much freer, particularly when Garbarek takes the spotlight (Jan's credited as having a hand in composing some themes, presumably these spotlights).  Taken all together, it's a rich and rewarding immersion in early fusion, avant-garde but accessible jazz composition and judicious electronic/tape music integration.

This next recording, originally released on the Flying Dutchman label in 1971, is perhaps the best known.  Soul Note's later reissue added the "1968" to the album cover - I'm not certain why, as Russell's original liner notes state the recording was made at a concert near Oslo in April 1969.  Perhaps "1968" refers to composer revisions that year, e.g. the reduction to sextet -  the larger group of musicians is slimmed down to just the core lineup, who are the same other than Red Mitchell now playing bass rather than Andersen.  This version also ups the tempo in places compared to the "Essence" recording, the whole thing running under an hour compared to just over the hour mark on Essence. 

Russell revisited the Sonata for this 1980 version, recorded in an Italian studio in June of that year with mostly American musicians.  It's recognisably the same work, two continuous sides with seven Events apiece, so hasn't undergone any major compositional reworking.  The turn-of-the-80s studio fidelity does make the ingenuity of the writing and musicians' interplay come across clearer, so it's a worthwhile contrast to the other two recordings.

 

19?? recording (The Essence Of George Russell)

1968 recording

1980 recording

pw for all: sgtg

Bill Evans - Alone (1968)

Entirely solo date from late 1968, most likely released in early 1970, with Bill Evans' piano genius laid bare on a set of five standards.  After a solo track here and there on previous albums, and a pair of records featuring overdubbed pianos, this was his first full-length with no backing at all.  Alone works well in Evans letting himself stretch out, not least on the fourteen-minute Never Let Me Go that took up all of the original second side.  This expanded reissue includes 40 minutes of additional music: two unreleased numbers and alternate takes of the full album, for maximum immersion in Evans Alone.

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Bill Evans at SGTG:

East Coasting
Everybody Digs Bill Evans
The Blues And The Abstract Truth

Sunday At The Village Vanguard
Waltz For Debby
Undercurrent
I Will Say Goodbye

Stan Getz / Eddie Sauter - Focus (1962)

One more Stan Getz post, in a sublime orchestrated album of pieces by composer/arranger Eddie Sauter.  On the surface, this might seem like a Miles Davis/Gil Evans-style collaboration, but the circumstances and sound are quite different.  Focus was a more straightfoward commission from Getz, whereby Sauter wrote the music and scored it without a lead melody line, into which space Getz would improvise.  His sax is overdubbed on some tracks, played live against the orchestra on others - the session details are unclear on which was which.

Sauter decided to write largely without a rhythm section, so the opening Alice In Wonderland evocation I'm Late, I'm Late is the only piece with a substantive drum track, provided by Roy Haynes.  After this uptempo start, much of the music is lush and languid, like the gorgeous Her and I Remember When; only Pan and Night Rider quicken the pace again, using the strings to provide the rhythmic pulse.  Getz's playing is at its absolute best throughout, flitting over the orchestra like a butterfly, all the way to the beautiful midtempo closer A Summer Afternoon.

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Previously posted at SGTG:

Conception

Getz/Gilberto

Sweet Rain

Gary Burton Quartet With Orchestra - A Genuine Tong Funeral (composed by Carla Bley) (1968)

Some classic Carla Bley this Friday and next, starting with "A dark opera without words... based on emotions towards death - from the most irreverent to those of deepest loss", as she described it.  Written between 1964 and 1967, Bley expanded the work with sections specifically for vibraphone quartet when Gary Burton expressed an interest in it.  Thus the final version came together as this enjoyably strange record, with members of the Jazz Composer's Orchestra supporting Burton's quartet.

With 15 tracks, several under a minute long, A Genuine Tong Funeral is a great insight into Bley's versatility as a composer as far back as the mid-60s.  The dirge-like themes that might be expected for such a weighty concept are just as likely to be sitting alongside jaunty, upbeat passages, or the occasional full-on blast of free jazz skronk towards the end.  Burton proves to be the ideal musician to front the project, giving its spindly complexity an accessible cool.  ECM's Dreams So Real from the following decade might be the deserved classic of 'Burton Plays Bley', but this ambitious little oddity is just as worthy of recommendation in its own right.

 

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Gary Burton plays Carla Bley at SGTG:

Dreams So Real

Gary Burton at SGTG:

Gary Burton & Keith Jarrett

Fluid Rustle (Eberhard Weber)

Lyric Suite For Sextet (with Chick Corea) 

Carla Bley at SGTG:

The Jazz Composer's Orchestra

Fleur Carnivore

Appearing Nightly

Trios 

Stan Getz - Sweet Rain (1967)

Second Ron Carter post in a row, and another Stan Getz one following the recent Getz-Gilberto (link below).  The lineup on this breezy, nimble session from March 1967 is completed by Chick Corea on piano, whose compositions also bookend the album, and Grady Tate on drums.  

 

Right from the lengthy Litha, it's gorgeous late-summer bliss that shows Getz not so much in thrall to bossanova any more as having fully internalised Latin rhythms and influences.  A lovely mid-tempo take on O Grande Amor by Jobim/de Moraes does keep the Brazilian flame alive, and the album's first side closes out on the melancholy title track by Mike Gibbs.  Two lengthy explorations in Latin-inflected rhythms complete the album, lifted throughout by Corea's lightness of touch and the distinctive warmth of Getz's tone.

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Stan Getz at SGTG:

Conception

Getz/Gilberto

Luciano Berio / Bruno Maderna - Electronic Works (1992 compilation of pieces created 1958-62)

Great collection of early electronic/ electroacoustic/ tape music by Luciano Berio (1925-2003) and Bruno Maderna (1920-1973), in the years following their joint founding of the Studio Di Fonologia Musicale Di Radio Milano.  After WDR Köln and GRM Paris, this was intended as a third resource in Europe for producing new music with innovative electronics and tape manipulation.

Over an hour of engrossing sounds on this BV Haast CD effectively gives us a short album's worth from each composer, starting with Berio and the jittering sounds of Momenti (1960).  The avant-garde classical singer Cathy Berberian (who was married to Berio at the time) is heavily featured on the rest of the material, with cut-up fragments of James Joyce (1958) and then in a lengthy exploration of more primal vocal sounds on Visage (1961).

From Maderna we get two sixteen-minute pieces, starting with Le Rire (1962).  It's a great immersion in electronic sound and fragments of laughter and chatter that might be my pick of the disc.  Lastly, Invenzione Su Una Voce aka Dimenzione II (1960) features Cathy Berberian performing vocal phonemes prepared by the German poet Hans G Helm.  All incredible stuff to listen to, especially if you liked previous Luigi Nono posts.

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Berio/Maderna at SGTG:

The New Music, Vol. 2 (scroll past big list)

Berio at SGTG:

Coro

Sequenza IXb

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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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.

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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)

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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The Great Chaquito Big Band - Latin Classics Vol. 1 (1990 compilation)

From the late 1950s to mid '70s, a series of budget LPs appeared first on the Fontana label then on Philips, marketed as "the authentic sound of Latin America" and credited to bandleader Chaquito.  What wasn't widely known outside the easy listening industry (and I didn't know this until about 20 years ago, having grown up with this stuff around the house as long as I can remember) was that "Chaquito" was actually the London-born John Gregory (1924-2020), and the players responsible for this "authentic" Latin sound were all British session musicians.

Regardless of lack of authenticity, this music has stuck with me all my life as it's so much fun to listen to, and really well played and arranged.  Picked up this compilation because it included the Chaquito version of Guantanamera, one of my earliest musical memories from a various artists tape.  It's a great arrangement of the tune, really atmospheric in the intro and coda and in the way it builds then falls away again.  Other Latin classics given the "Great Chaquito Big Band" treatment are Brazil, One Note Samba, Desafinado, Frenesi and lots lots more.  All have superb playing and arrangements, with intricate percussion and occasional fun little vocalisations.  More next week.

 

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Luc Ferrari - Interrupteur / Tautologos 3 (1970)

Two pieces of avant-garde minimalism & free jazz/rock hybrid oddness, courtesy of French composer Luc Ferrari (1929-2005).  Ferrari was one of the founders of Groupe de Recherches Musicales along with Pierres Schaeffer and Henry, and worked extensively with tape music, electroacoustic sound, and also musical melanges like Interrupteur & Tautologos 3.  Those two pieces made up this classic 1970 LP - reissued in 1999 with the cover art above.

Interrupteur/Tautologos 3 was released on LP by EMI La Voix De Son Maître/Pathé Marconi as part of the Perspectives Musicales series - see also these entries by Xenakis; EIDMC Paris cond. Simonovich again supply the ensemble parts.  In both pieces, Ferrari was trying out a form of musical stasis that would self-evolve with a series of random events.  Interrupteur runs for 19 minutes (on CD, both works are split into possibly arbitrary track divisions) against the backdrop of an ongoing drone, with a kind of avant-garde classical meets free-jazz style overlay.  Tautlogos 3 is more random and jagged in nature, but a chugging guitar gets it into gear at points, as does an imitation of an ambulance siren that develops with more instruments adding to it.  Both are fanastic pieces of musical experimentation, well worth headphone immersion.

Original LP cover, 1970

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Pierre Henry - Variations Pour Une Porte Et Un Soupir - Voile D'Orphee (1987 compilation)

 

Couple of ear-bending slabs of early tape music today, courtesy of French musique concrète pioneer Pierre Henry (1927-2017).  Taking up most of this 80s CD is the 48 minute Variations Pour Une Porte Et Un Soupir - it's in 25 sections but all runs as one track, so can be a bit daunting to approach, but it's well worth getting immersed in.  The 'variations for a door and a sigh', with a musical saw in there too, were assembled in 1963 from Henry using this small group of basic sounds, manipulating them on tape and with various effects, to turn a squeaky attic door into a veritable orchestra of different tonal qualities.

Skipping back a decade for the second track on the disc, Voile D'Orphee (Veil of Orpheus) is one of the primordial pieces of tape music that still sounds extraordinary today - it's like a proto-Nurse With Wound track, but dates back to a time when Steven Stapleton was only four years old.  Voices, orchestration and a harpsichord are twisted out of shape over 15 minutes of stunning, groundbreaking sound-shifting, to evoke the epic tragedy of the Greek myth that gives the piece its title.

 

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Luigi Nono - La Fabbrica Illuminata / Ha Venido... / Ricorda Cosa Ti... (1968)

Early 90s reissue of a classic Luigi Nono LP on Wergo, which was the first to be fully devoted to the iconoclastic Italian composer.  This disc came with a promising 20 pages of liner notes, but like Shigeaki Saegusa a few weeks ago, only in one language - in this case German.  So it's off to Google I go, in search of background on these two haunting pieces of tape music, with a choral piece in between.

Ricorda Cosa Ti Hanno Fatto In Auschwitz (Remember what they did to you in Auschwitz) (1965) has actually appeared on SGTG before - see the Complete Works For Solo Tape link below - so information is available there on how this eerie Holocaust memorial work was edited down from a larger project, Die Ermittlung.  The Wergo CD benefits from a somewhat clearer mix, all the better to get immersed in the ghostly horror that Nono evoked in the wake of the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials.

That leaves Ha Venido, Canciones Para Silvia (1960), a short atmospheric acapella choral work composed by Nono on the occasion of his daughter's first birthday (might as well work in reverse order of tracklist), and La Fabbrica Illuminata (1964).  Dedicated to the steelworkers of Italsider in Genoa, 'The illuminated factory' uses voices and sounds recorded at the steelworks, other synthesised studio sounds and improvisations by a soprano voice.  Nono conceived of the work as a "scenic action" that would expose the "lives in danger of fetishisation by technology", and it's a superb piece of tape music that's utterly engrossing on headphones.

Original LP cover with "Jlluminata" typo, 1968

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Previously posted at SGTG:

Complete Works For Solo Tape

La Lontananza.../Hay Que Caminar

Como Una Ola De Fuerza Y Luz

Y Su Sangre Ya Viene Cantando

Terry Durham - Crystal Telephone (1969)

Final edit: solved the mystery of this disappearing post.  Blogger pulled it as they wanted to check the YouTube link for viruses or something, and have now okayed it.  So here's the original back!

 

Sole solo album release (he also formed part of a folk band, Storyteller, in the early 70s) by abstract/figurative artist and poet Terry Durham (1936-2013).  This record was originally released on the Deram label, with by music by composer/arranger John Coleman.  Very much a product of its era, Crystal Telephone has become something of a cult item in recent years, positing Durham as "Yorkshire's answer to Serge Gainsbourg".  Have a listen to the clip from BBC Radio 6 Music in the YouTube insert below for a very funny broadcast of one of the album's tracks - for anyone confused about the announcer's references to "tabs", in this context it's a Northern English colloquialism for cigarettes.

With a crack team of British session musicians and jazz artists behind him, the album features Durham reciting his poetry (and occasionally singing) over a backing that's sometimes groovy and bluesy, sometimes sweetly orchestrated, on one occasion furious free jazz (check out the end of Branwell's Corner!), and always listenable and enjoyable.  Some tracks are amusing in a kind of cod-beat poetry way, others have aged better and are more affecting - Fryston Main is a poignant look at the decline of the British mining industry over a brass band playing Abide With Me, which works incredibly well.  One of these sweet little obscurities that's well worth discovering.

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Grachan Moncur III - Evolution (1964)

Blue Note session recorded 57 years and a couple of days ago, at a time when the label's most ambitious players and composers were reaching beyond hard bop for something spacier and more cerebral, but still hugely enjoyable and durable over the years.  This was the first album as leader for trombonist Grachan Moncur III (b. 1937, NYC); he wouldn't record many more with his name at the top, which is a shame, as this is a great record.

Four lengthy tracks allow everyone to stretch out on these imaginative pieces all penned by Moncur, who is supported by Lee Morgan on trumpet, Jackie McLean on alto sax, Bobby Hutcherson on vibes, Bob Crenshaw on bass and Tony Williams on drums.  Album opener Air Raid is a multi-section mid-tempo tune where Hutcherson is particularly good at supplying the atmospherics, then the title track is an eerie, pedal-point dronepiece.  The album's second half contains the more upbeat selections: the aptly named The Coaster has twists and turns aplenty around a great melodic theme, then Monk In Wonderland is a fun tribute to the jerky rhythms favoured by its titular figure.

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