Frank Zappa - Petit Wazoo (live 1972, rel. 2006 & 2016)

Following on from the "Wazoo" big band, Zappa spent October and November 1972 taking a slimmed-down version of his jazz ensemble on the road.  This became known as the "Petit Wazoo" band, and in Zappa's late life and after his death an official document of this group became one of the most sought-after releases by fans.

Well, he had been working on one.  When the keepers of The Vault looked for Petit Wazoo tapes in the mid-00s to compile into an album, they found tapes cut, sequenced and mixed by Zappa periodically between 1972 and 1977.  This was released in 2006 as Imaginary Diseases, and has the unmistakable stamp of being Zappa's own concept.  A couple of short pieces lead into a lengthy minor-key blues, and the album's just warming up.  A belter of a Farther O'Blivion follows, including a great drum solo by Jim Gordon, then another slinky groove-improv.  The highlights keep coming in the form of the title track and the final piece, a jam from Montreal, capping off an extremely satisfying album of great arrangements and top-notch guitar playing.

link

pw: sgtg

Plans for the 'vault release' of Petit Wazoo music were then shelved - for no less than a decade, for whatever reason (no less than 30 albums separate the two releases, so possibly the Zappa Family Trust just like to keep things varied, and certainly can't be viewed as stingy to fans, as new archive releases continue unabated to this very month).  In any case, Little Dots came out in 2016 as a vault-selected companion piece to Imaginary Diseases, and contained a couple of non-instrumentals this time: a fine but no great revelation Cosmik Debris, and a full-length (literal) shaggy-dog story Rollo.  

 

Added to this are more jam-based pieces from Kansas City and Columbia, and the two-part composition that gives the album its title.  All great to hear, and the players interact brilliantly once again, but I think the Zappa-conceived sequence of Imaginary Diseases just edges it slightly as an overall album experience.  Great to have both to listen to side by side though, as a two-hour insight into this all-too short-lived ensemble.

 

link

pw: sgtg

Frank Zappa at SGTG:

Lumpy Gravy

Waka/Jawaka

The Grand Wazoo

Wazoo (Live 1972) 

Road Tapes Venue #2 (Live 1973)

Roxy & Elsewhere

One Size Fits All

Orchestral Favourites

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)

Total Immersion at The Barbican, London (live 2022)

George Russell - Listen To The Silence (rec. 1971, orig. rel. 1973)

Back to George Russell with another commissioned work, this time for the 1971 Kongsberg Jazz Festival, and recorded at its live premiere performance (with some studio effects added later) on 21st June 1971, Kongsberg Church, Norway.  Taking some lines from Rainer Maria Rilke, Maurice Nicoll, Dee Brown and snippets from Newsweek and the New York Times for its libretto, Listen To The Silence is a choral work calling for two choirs as well as jazz ensemble.  

 

The chanting voices get things underway before Russell, Garbarek & co enter to drive the music forward, and the work continues in this manner with the church acoustics giving the stentorian vocal delivery a definite atmospheric boost.  The instrumental sections are frequently more minimal and stripped-down compared to Russell's other work of the era, but this works in favour of the overall stark mood, and makes the Garbarek-Rypdal section at the start of Event IV all the more outstanding.  Subtitled "A Mass For Our Time", Listen To The Silence might be a bit 'of its time' in subject matter, but it remains a captivating listening experience to this day.

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:

Electronic Sonata For Souls Loved By Nature

Trip To Prillarguri

Othello Ballet Suite

Vertical Event VI

Weather Report - Tale Spinnin' (1975)

Percussive fireworks and melodic fusion from Weather Report at the top of their game.  In his only appearance with WR, Leon 'Ngudu' Chancler of Herbie Hancock/Santana/many others fame is the drummer, with Alyrio Lima handling percussion and the core trio of Zawinul, Shorter and Johnson carried over from the previous album.  Tale Spinnin' gets off to a flying start with one of Weather Report's most memorable album openers, Man In The Green Shirt, and grooves onwards with a sublime Shorter composition and another lengthy Zawinul piece.  It's not all funky fusion - the highly atmospheric Badia is a definite standout, with Zawinul's eerie electronics continuing the band's early experimental strand.

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:

s/t debut

I Sing The Body Electric

Mysterious Traveller 

Black Market

George Russell Sextet feat. Jan Garbarek - Trip To Prillarguri (rec. 1970, rel. 1982)

More live recordings from George Russell and co taped at the Södertälje Estrad, this time back in March 1970 (although not released until 1982, when Soul Note took over their chunk of Russell's material).  This one's a belter - it may as well be Jan Garbarek's Esoteric Circle quartet from 1969 performing live with the addition of Russell on piano and Stanton Davis Jr on trumpet.  Three of the pieces here are Garbarek-penned, including two that appeared on the Esoteric Circle LP.  From Russell's catalogue we get themes from Souls Loved By Nature and the earlier classic Stratusphunk, plus a closing rendition of Ornette Coleman's Man On The Moon.  Electrifying stuff throughout, and a definite highlight in both Russell and Garbarek's discographies.

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:

Electronic Sonata For Souls Loved By Nature

Othello Ballet Suite

Vertical Event VI

Frank Zappa - Road Tapes, Venue #2: Finlandia Hall, Helsinki (rec. 1973, rel. 2013)

From the music of Finland to someone who certainly enjoyed playing there - here's an archive recording that came out of the Zappa vault nine years ago to provide an interesting contrast to the better-known Helsinki tapes.  Road Tapes Venue #2 comes from a visit to the Finnish capital just over a year earlier, and musically provides a fascinating snapshot of the embryonic Roxy band.  Jean-Luc Ponty is on board at this point, giving a nice jazzy-prog shading, and tempos are more considered on material that would flash by in road-hardened form a year later.

After a maybe-hear-twice introduction (sounds like there hadn't been time for an in-depth soundcheck pre-show), the opening medley is a good grab-bag starter - it also jumps between shows, as does the whole release, to get the best out of a less-than-perfect collection of tapes.  Following Montana are around 40 minutes of looser improvisations and audience participation, then to open Disc 2 we get some early-stages Roxy material.  The very mellow Village Of The Sun is particularly nice to hear, including its unusual intro passage (George Duke, jeez... the guy could've made Chopsticks sound sublime).  Big Swifty, a thunderous Farther Obilvion and a Brown Shoes revival round out a really nice package, especially if you love this Zappa era as much as I do.

Disc 1 link

Disc 2 link

pw: sgtg

Frank Zappa at SGTG:

Lumpy Gravy

Waka/Jawaka

The Grand Wazoo

Wazoo (Live 1972) 

Roxy & Elsewhere

One Size Fits All

Orchestral Favourites

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)

Frank Zappa - Wazoo (recorded Sept. 1972, released 2007)

One from the vault, in the concert that wound up a still-recuperating Zappa's brief tour with the 'Grand Wazoo' big band, recorded in Boston Music Hall on 24 September 1972.  Band introductions come first, along with an unfortunate tale of squashed instruments under a falling speaker cabinet.  The beginning of this appears to not have been captured by the soundboard tape: apparently the missing words are "Well, here we are in Boston, ladies and gentlemen. Just to fill you in on some of the zaniness that took place earlier this afternoon."

 

That out of the way, we first get an extended blast of The Grand Wazoo title track.  If you love that album as much as I do, this is a treat to hear, as is Big Swifty from Waka/Jawaka.  In between is Zappa's improvisational vehicle from the era, Approximate.  Apparently there's a bit of shifting around in the running order to get a good fit for double-CD, so Disc 2 centres on an early version of The Adventures Of Greggery Peccary, without vocals but with specially-arranged sections for more improvisation (no mean feat with so many musicians).  A couple of short encores close proceedings: it's particularly interesting to hear an embryonic Regyptian Strut, here titled Variant I Processional March.  So much great stuff here from the Zappa albums I love best - the sound might be spotty in places but this is a wonderful concert to have.

 

Disc 1 link

Disc 2 link

pw: sgtg 

Frank Zappa at SGTG:

Lumpy Gravy

Waka/Jawaka

The Grand Wazoo

Roxy & Elsewhere

One Size Fits All

Orchestral Favourites

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

Road Tapes, Venue #2: Finlandia Hall, Helsinki 1973

The Perfect Stranger (live 2018)

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

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

Weather Report - Black Market (1976)

Been listening to this one a lot lately, so here comes another spotlight on the ever-shifting landscape of 1970s Weather Report.  Percussion-heavy, with plenty of groove to spare, the album kicks off with the bright melodic title track, bass handled by Alphonso Johnson as is the case for most of the album.  Not so for the track that follows, though - here comes the first entry of one of the group's most auspicious arrivals, with the slippery basslines of a 24-year old Floridian who had introduced himself to Zawinul as "the greatest bass player in the world".

There's only one other Pastorious performance on this transitional (even by their standards) Weather Report album, the strutting Barbary Coast from his own pen.  Otherwise, Zawinul and Shorter turn in an increasingly slick set of funky numbers influenced by Latin and African rhythms, some more atmospheric pieces and generally set the stage for Weather Report's commercial superstardom that would follow within a year.

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:

s/t debut

I Sing The Body Electric

Mysterious Traveller

Terje Rypdal - Odyssey In Studio & In Concert (2012 compi, rec. 1975-6)

Double-album (and much more) that may just be Terje Rypdal's crowning achievement.  The Odyssey band was put together at a time when the Norwegian guitarist's playing, writing and arranging had become increasingly adventurous, synthesisng influences from George Russell and György Ligeti to come up with something truly unique.

With a quintet lineup that included trombone, organ, synth and soprano sax (the last two played by Rypdal), Odyssey the album bears only a glancing similarity to the general jazz fusion strains of the 70s.  For the most part, its 87 minutes are spent in a weightless, floating atmosphere, Rydal's guitar lines gliding over the top of glowing organ, synth and accompanied at times by the trombone and sax.  Only on a couple of occasions does it actually take definite rhythmic shape and pulse with forward momentum, most notably on the 23-minute epic Rolling Stone that ends the album.  And due to the album's length, for a long time the single-disc CD that was reissued didn't even include this closing track.

Eventually, in 2012 ECM gave Odyssey the 'Old & New Masters' box set treatment, with the original double album complete across Discs 1 & 2.  But that's not all - Disc 3 contains over an hour of previously unreleased music in the Unfinished Highballs suite.  Commissioned for Swedish Radio, and featuring the Odyssey band in collaboration with the 15-piece Swedish Radio Jazz Group, this is incredible music that does owe more to regular jazz, but still has Rypdal's unconventional signatures all over it.  One piece from the suite would be reworked by Rypdal for a subsequent album: Dine And Dance To The Music Of The Waves became simply Waves (see link below for that album).  The rest of the music went unheard until 2012, and now stands as another high point in Rypdal's output, not least the wondrous groove of Dawn, one of four central tracks to top the 10 minute mark.  Very highly recommended.

Original double-LP cover, 1975

Disc 1 link

Disc 2 link

Disc 3 link

pw for all: sgtg

 

Previously posted at SGTG:

Waves

Terje Rypdal featured on:

Afric Pepperbird

Popofoni

Satu

Nordic Quartet

The Sea

Miles Davis - We Want Miles (1982)

Cautiously dipping a toe into 80s Miles Davis now (although I vaguely remember liking Tutu when I heard it years ago, but that's as far as I previously got).  This double-live set, the second album overall and first live release from Davis' comeback period, seems to have retained a good critical standing and was readily available as a cheap CD, so here goes.

The six tracks in 76 minutes that comprise We Want Miles were taken from recordings on US and Japanese tours in 1981 (I love how Recorded "Live" gets those air quotes on the album, so possibly brushed up in the studio, but that's all fine and commonplace).  The first LP of the original set is bookended by long and short versions of Jean-Pierre, a really nice earwormy take on what is apparently a French nursery rhyme, with just enough of a discordant rendering to give it an idiosyncratic edge.  In between, Miles' 1981 band turns up the heat for a couple of more firey jams, with Mike Stern sounding like a particularly spicy rock-jazz guitarist, and the presence of Al Foster providing a link back to the mid-70s fusion era.

Sides three and four of the original release, each containing a single track, are even better.  First we get a 20-minute callback all the way to Porgy & Bess in My Man's Gone Now, but of course with the sound unmistakably rooted in the early 80s.  It's a fantastic, slowly unfolding exploration of the classic tune and a definite high point of the album.  Lastly, a lengthy improv named for its venue (the Kix club in Boston) takes in old-style walking blues, a slight reggae lilt and brings it all bang up to date (for '81).  All in all, a really good album that showed Miles revitalised for having taken time off in the back half of the 70s.

link

pw: sgtg

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

Live-Evil
On The Corner

In Concert

Big Fun
Agharta

Dark Magus

Frank Zappa - Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar (1981)

Definitely wound up with a fresh appreciation of Zappa's considerable guitar talents this year, so an hour and a half of guitar solos sounded like a worthwhile acquisition.  Originally a set of three individual mail-order records: Shut Up, Some More & Return Of The Son Of, then a 3-LP box set, then 2 CDs, this entirely instrumental patchwork was mostly recorded live between 1977 and 1980.  

 

Sometimes excerpted from known songs (eg the three title tracks come from Inca Roads performances), sometimes on-the-fly improvisations, Zappa deftly edited these solo highlights into an order that aimed to vary the textures and tempi.  He also "grouted" it all with little snippets of chatter which "just served as punctuation", "to hear another texture and then set you up for the next thing".

The results, which might have come across like the ultimate overindulgence in lesser hands, form a durable, enjoyable portrait of a guitarist who was really maturing as an individual stylist in this era.  Even when there's not much beyond a basic vamp going on behind him (Treacherous Cretins, Soup 'N Old Clothes), Zappa's playing is never less than scintillating.  The sequencing works really well too: rather than front-load all the best cuts, the three-volume album actually gets better as it goes on, so my personal highlights Pink Napkins and Stucco Homes sit on Disc 2 here.  Then, to finish with something completely different (or perhaps he didn't have quite enough material selected for six sides), Zappa lets the album play out on a violin/electric bouzouki duet with Jean-Luc Ponty from 1972.

Disc 1 link

Disc 2 link

pw: sgtg

For Zappa-CD-variation trainspotters: source is Japanese Ryko 2-CD from the 80s ("grouts" sit at the beginning of tracks rather than end of track prior).

Previously posted at SGTG:

Lumpy Gravy

Waka/Jawaka

The Grand Wazoo

Roxy & Elsewhere

One Size Fits All

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

The Perfect Stranger (live 2018)

Frank Zappa - Sleep Dirt (1979)

Found this lovely little sleeper (sorry, couldn't resist) album lurking in the midst of Zappa's late 70s legal debacle with Warner Brothers.  Sleep Dirt is part of a group of contract-fulfilling albums which Zappa tried at one point to compile into a 4-LP set, eventually posthumously released as such on triple-CD.  Anyway, the seven instrumental tracks here were recorded in '74 and '76, meaning that my holy trinity of Zappa musicians (George, Chester & Ruth) make appearances.  Sounds promising already - as does the fact that Zappa had wanted to call this album Hot Rats III.

 

After an atmospheric, almost King Crimson-like guitar-based opener, a fantastic jazzy sequence of tracks spotlight my three faves named above; the Grand Wazoo-era composition Regyptian Strut is particularly enjoyable.  From the original side two, the title track is a very nice, almost proto-Windham Hill acoustic guitar duet, then the final track is simply magnificent.  After a fun catchy intro, The Ocean Is The Ultimate Solution builds into a multi-tangent guitar-bass-drums jam (edited down from over 40 minutes to 13), with Zappa on uniquely-tuned Fender 12-string.  More FZ-shredding next week!

Come the 80s, with Zappa having regained control of his catalogue, he set about tweaking Sleep Dirt into how he'd always wanted it to sound.  By the time the album debuted on CD, there were drum overdubs, editing and remixing in places, and most drastically three tracks had gained a female lead vocal (performed by Thana Harris).  With lyrics from an unfinished theatrical project about an evil queen and a giant spider, these songs now suggested the monster-flick equivalent of classic Bond themes gone insane, and are loads of fun.  So which version of the album wins overall?  Only way to decide is to try both...

Original instrumental album (restored by 2012 CD)

Vocal/remix album (from 1995 CD)

pw for both: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:

Lumpy Gravy

Waka/Jawaka

The Grand Wazoo

Roxy & Elsewhere

One Size Fits All

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

The Perfect Stranger (live 2018)

Hermeto Pascoal - Slaves Mass (1977)

Wanted to give Hermeto Pascoal's music a try after that post of Live-Evil, so here's a jazz fusion classic with plenty of authentic Brazilian flavour thanks to the array of great guest musicians.  Recording in Los Angeles, Pascoal jammed with Weather Reporters Alphonso Johnson and Chester Thompson for one aspect of the album - lengthy fusion improvs led by Pascoal's electric piano.  Only one of these sessions made the album - the stunning opener Mixing Pot (Tacho) - but this CD reissue captures two more as bonus tracks, and at around fifteen minutes apiece both are welcome additions here.

The other lineup on the album centred around Flora Purim and Airto Moreira, married at that time and having shared history with Pascoal in the group Quarteto Novo.  They are joined by Ron Carter on bass and first introduced on the ritualistic, experimental title track - Airto is credited with "live pigs" here, which must've been an interesting recording session.  Side one of the album is filled out by the sunny, melodic Little Cry For Him (Chorinho Pra Ele), which reminded me of Egberto Gismonti circa Circense, and a composition in tribute to Cannonball Adderley that features flute, percussion and varispeed voices.

In another Gismonti similarity, this time to Dança Das Cabeças, Side two of Slaves' Mass starts out with solo piano, in the dazzling runs of Just Listen (Escuta Meu Piano).  The lovely and languid That Waltz (Aquela Valsa), with interplay between Pascoal's soprano sax and Raul De Souza's trombone, gives a bit of a breather before the final track.  The twelve minutes of Cherry Jam (Geleia De Cereja) are a straight trio performance between Pascoal, Carter and Moeira, and run through plenty of electric piano, sax and percussion solos to give a fantastic close to a highly recommended album.  As mentioned earlier, the three bonus outtakes are all worth hearing - a short track that features Pascoal on accordion and vocals, then two lengthy Johnson/Thompson workouts.

link

pw: sgtg

Miles Davis - Dark Magus (rel. 1977, rec. 1974)

One more Electric Miles Friday post for now, and probably the most ferocious-sounding live document of his career, besting even Agharta for sheer sonic assault.  With most of the band in place who would travel to Japan the following year for Miles' pre-retirement period concerts, the music on Dark Magus was recorded in March 1974 at Carnegie Hall, NYC.  The recordings wouldn't be released for another three years - or 23 years, for the world outside of Japan.

In his liner notes for the eventual 2-CD reissue, saxophonist Dave Liebman recalls being inducted into Miles' band with only the barest of preparation for what they were going to play - a fragmentary vamp here, a listen to the densely layered grooves of a Sly Stone record there - and the rest would just be led by Miles on stage.  A full-throttle thrash of drums introduces Moja Part 1 - the original four LP sides were simply named after the numbers one to four in Swahili.  Miles is in full wah-pedal trumpet and smears of Yamaha organ mode, and new guitarist Dominique Gaumont burns through Hendrix-style solos.  This calms down just a little in Moja Part 2, which eventually fades into a spacious atmosphere of reved-up drum machine from James Mtume.

 

Things get funkier for Wili Parts 1 & 2, then Disc 2 kicks off in similar fashion to Agharta with another storming jam, before again petering out via drum machine into the organ riff from Calypso Frelimo.  Drum machine weirdness skitters all over the slowburning start to Nne Part 1, which is nominally sub-titled Ife, but as on Live-Evil, only resembles that piece occasionally, and is a dark, atmospheric slow exploration.  The final stretch of Nne is another belter, to close out one of Miles Davis' most uncompromising, thrilling releases.  Dark Magus is sometimes described as "jazz metal" in latterday appraisals, and why not.

Disc 1 link

Disc 2 link

pw: sgtg

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

Live-Evil
On The Corner

In Concert

Big Fun
Agharta

Frank Zappa / Mothers Of Invention - One Size Fits All (1975)

This album is about as far as I go with 'songwriter Zappa' - after 1975, it's pretty much just his increasingly ambitious instrumental music and ever-better lead guitar noodlings that tickle my fancy, so more of that in the coming months.  For now, here's the wonderful OSFA (that anagram of 'sofa' not escaping anyone's notice), which kicks off with one of Zappa's most satisfyingly oddball song masterpieces.

We actually heard Inca Roads a couple of weeks back in its Helsinki performance from the previous year, and here it is in studio-polished form with parts of the Helsinki guitar solo expertly grafted in, and of course the closing shout-out to Ruth Underwood's sterling performance.  Purportedly mocking the pretentiousness of progressive rock lyrics, the UFO narrative sung by George Duke gets progressively sillier, with his high-pitched vocal inadvertently bringing Jon Anderson to mind - especially when Yes duly obliged the exact stereotype with Arriving UFO a few years later.

Can't Afford No Shoes is next - as a mid-70s economic malaise lament with "can you spare a dime" references, it's like Stephen Stills' Buyin' Time a year early, only way better/wittier.  Other highlights include two versions of part of the 'Sofa' suite from earlier in the 70s, one instrumental and the other with partly German vocals; the lengthy guitar solo in Po-Jama People, and the always entertaining San Ber'dino with Beefheart harmonica cameo.  Source for this classic album is another 2012 remaster, so everything sounds exactly as it originally did - a shout out here is definitely due by now to this fantastic resource for keeping me right.

 

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:

Lumpy Gravy

Waka/Jawaka

The Grand Wazoo

Roxy & Elsewhere

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

The Perfect Stranger (live 2018)

Miles Davis - In Concert (1973)

For this double-live helping of electric Miles, we're in the dark, dense funk of the On The Corner era. Just under 90 minutes of smoking-hot dankness was drawn from a concert in New York City on 29 September 1972, and packaged in another eye-catching Corky McCoy cover drawing.  When originally released on vinyl, the four sides had no track titles, although the two records were sometimes known as "Slickaphonics" and "Foot Fooler" from the illustration captions on the inner sleeves.

Transferring to digital does give us individual track divisions and titles, but doesn't really clean up the album's notoriously murky sound - arguably though, the fuggy mix sort of works in favour of Miles' music at this point in time rather than against it.  A full-steam Rated X gets Disc 1 into gear, before Honky Tonk highlights Reggie Lucas' guitar and the noisy smears of Miles' wahed-trumpet.  On the old second side of the LP, the Theme From Jack Johnson kicks up a gear again, with plenty of solos for Miles and Carlos Garnett, then the groove changes abruptly to Black Satin from On The Corner.

Most of Disc 2 is taken up by a lengthy Ife jam, although the identifying bassline from Big Fun doesn't make an appearance until halfway through.  It's a nice long midtempo stretch for everyone in this future-funk band to pile on solos and effects pedals, and probably the highlight of the album for me.  Right Off/Sanctuary takes us to the end, in another fast and furious free-for-all.

Disc 1 link

Disc 2 link

pw: sgtg

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

Live-Evil
On The Corner

Big Fun
Agharta

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.

.

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

pw: sgtg

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

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

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:

Lumpy Gravy

Waka/Jawaka

The Grand Wazoo

Roxy & Elsewhere

The Perfect Stranger (live 2018)

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

pw: sgtg