Joseph's Picks Of The Week 12/2/11 - John Zorn and Blind Willie Johnson

While by no means allergic to its charms, I have to fess up to being no big fan of Christmas music. I certainly understand the appeal and am okay with the inevitability that I’ll hear “Little Saint Nick” every time I go to the supermarket between Thanksgiving and Dec. 24th, but must admit that in my humble digs, other than A CHRISTMAS GIFT FOR YOU FROM PHILLES RECORDS (the Phil Spector girl-group record, my personal favorite Christmas album ever) and a few one-shots like “Merry Christmas Baby” by Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers or “Silent Night” by Low, the stuff is simply unlikely to get much play. Don’t think me a Grinch, for the holidays bring me a substantial amount of cheer. It’s just that in my experience most Xmas tunes are very high on sentiment (by design, yes) but generally wanting in the properties that constitute great, or often even just plain good music, a situation I find extremely hard to ignore. So ignore it I don’t. Instead, I’m perfectly happy to groove on zydeco, post-punk or Krautrock while roasting chestnuts on the open fire.  However, it looks like I might need to rethink this somewhat hard-line stance, at least just a little bit, for John Zorn’s freshly released A DREAMER’S CHRISTMAS appears to be more than just another entry into the yearly tidal-wave of contemporary holiday-themed musical diversions, instead feeling something very much like a true keeper. Listeners knowledgeable with Mr. Zorn’s vast output know that he’s a prime instigator of challenging musical environments that can gleefully hurdle headlong into pure sonic mayhem. His group Naked City alone has put large dents in many a dainty constitution, and that’s just one in a formidable hydra head of projects. But the man also has a soft side, so those thinking he’s concocted some sort of anti-Christmas LP need not be worried (or hopeful). Releases like 2001’s exotica-laden THE GIFT, 2008’s somewhat surfy (think Ventures) THE DREAMERS and 2009’s mediation on smooth jazz (think Ramsey Lewis, not Kenny G) ALHAMBRA LOVE SONGS all present valuable insights into an aspect of the musician/composer that’s always been key to his work if not always in plain sight, specifically that numerous inside traditions are integral to his personal aesthetic. A DREAMER’S CHRISTMAS presents nine tracks that initially feel like a hybrid of light exotica and inside jazz at its most professionally polished. But along the way all kinds of other stuff sneaks in. The Dreamers band, a crackerjack group of Zorn mainstays (in addition to this album and the ’08 disc that gave them their name they also appear as a group on ‘09’s O’O and last year’s IPOS: BOOK OF ANGELS VOLUME 14) tackle the material with the skill and panache of true session vets, lightly seasoning the whole with atypical but non-disruptive bits of left-field imagination. Opener “Winter Wonderland” is a showcase for Kenny Wolleson’s vibes, Jamie Saft’s electric piano and Marc Ribot’s slinky surf guitar licks, and along with the dead-solid rhythm work of bassist Trevor Dunn, percussionist Cyro Baptista and drummer Joey Baron they conjure something comparable to a bunch of anonymous workaday cats reeling off tunes in an airport cocktail lounge on a snowy Christmas Eve as travelers knock back drinks en route to their (or hopefully someone’s) homes by morning, the whole band kicking up an inexplicable head of swingin’ steam and for the duration everyone in the room is hanging on the brink of collective seasonal bliss. Maybe. Or perhaps it’s just a well-established idea transformed by wise inspiration and casual flash. Either way it’s a pip. “Snowfall” is more atmospheric, sounding a bit like the sounds flowing from the loudspeakers in an upscale department store while folks wait listlessly in line for gift wrapping services. Except something’s not quite right. Methinks the culprit is Ribot’s interloping guitar, adding the perfect amount of spice to the dreamy proceedings. The looming, loving presence of Vince Guaraldi is an obvious influence all over A DREAMER’S CHRISTMAS, so it only makes sense that they should tackle the man’s signature tune “Christmas Time is Here”, and it should come as no surprise that Saft shines on piano, though Dunn’s tough bass almost steals the show. Speaking of show stealing, Zorn’s original “Santa’s Workshop” is an unexpected treat of sincere conceptual invention (it sounds twenty years old on first listen) and one of the prettiest confections I’ve heard in quite a while, largely in part to Wolleson’s vibes. Cyro Baptista’s lithe but tough bongo slapping is nothing to sneeze at, either. “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” is played so straight that it’d likely get the seal of approval from the eternally smiling mug of Lionel Hampton. And in this case, that’s very cool. Not my favorite track on the album, but it should work real nice for some extended make out under the mistletoe. “Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!” starts off innocuously enough but before long turns into a real zesty frolic for Ribot, with Saft’s keyboard percolating underneath like Big John Patton with a case of the hiccups. Sneet! “Santa Claus is Coming To Town” is bookended by a tribute to the great Bahaman guitarist Joseph Spence, whose gorgeously weird-meat version of the tune was captured by Alan Lomax on a 1958 field trip. But the meat in “Santa Claus”’s sandwich is a high-flying jazz excursion and showcase for Saft’s pianistic skills, and thankfully he avoids succumbing to the sort of flying-finger keyboard mode that tunes of this tempo often inspire. Instead, he’s more in league with Ahmad Jamal or later Bill Evans, and that’s just dandy. As an added plus, Baron gets to break lose a bit on drums, always a welcome development. Zorn’s other original “Magical Sleigh Ride” is nearly up the level of “Santa’s Workshop”, plus the song allows for some collective weirding-out and an opportunity for Ribot and Saft to really burn. The set closes with the well worn Mel Torme standard “The Christmas Song”, featuring a guest vocal by Mike Patton in unabashed crooner mode, and it goes down as smooth as a big mug of homemade nog. Yum.  But maybe the best thing about A DREAMER’S CHRISMAS is how it ultimately feels obvious that everyone involved enjoyed the hell out of making it. As stated at the top of this text, normally that’s not enough for me (Xmas tunes or no), but when all the participants involved have chops to burn and ideas to spare, the whole project takes on a very appealing harmony. This will never be one of my favorite albums, but I can safely predict that for a month or so out of the year I’ll be quite happy it’s around.



When back in the beginning of the ‘90s Columbia Records unveiled their Roots N’ Blues series, music obsessives the globe over threw their hats into the air and let out a collective whoop. Here was a rare move by a corporation that actually possessed something analogous to real human dimension, reissuing a wealth of early American music, much of it rare, in well-ordered collections and under a promotional banner intended to lure and educate curious newcomers to its enduring qualities. True, vital and admirable smaller labels like Arhoolie and Yazoo had already been long engaged in this very activity, and sure, profit motive definitely lurked in Columbia’s intentions, but in an endeavor like this one a word like “motive” feels sorta inappropriate. Instead, it seems correct to describe Roots N’ Blues as an example of Capitalism at its best; offering insight, enrichment and a bounty of rewards at a fair price instead of amassing stockpiles of boodle by fleecing people for necessities and proffering an endless cavalcade of distractions. Needless to say, as a young prole with high appetites for art and knowledge I absorbed the impressive stream of Roots N’ Blues releases with extreme gusto, a move that’s still paying big dividends to this day. Probably the biggest personal discovery gleaned from the whole dang experience was the work of Blind Willie Johnson, his complete recordings collected over two compact discs, a mass of songs that opened my ears and throttled my consciousness with the sheer depth and uncompromising, at times unnerving intensity of its fascinating, mysterious creator. Blind Willie Johnson was in no way a standard issue bluesman, and it’s important to explain that he’s in large part not accurately a blues musician at all, unless the discussion is one where form completely trumps content, for Johnson was a devoutly religious man, his music being among the deepest expressions of pure gospel feeling ever recorded. At the time of his long posthumous Roots N’ Blues collection (Johnson died of malaria in 1945) the term used to categorize the music’s raw sanctified power was Gospel Blues, and this descriptor still works just fine. But an even better way to encapsulate his legacy is to bestow him with the title of Guitar Evangelist, placing Johnson in a small group of African-American roots musicians that combined the rich and intense characteristics of the blues form with the uncommon fervor of sincere Christian belief. Though there are other worthy exponents of Guitar Evangelism, particularly the intriguingly monochromatic Rev. Edward W. Clayborn (from whom the term derives) or the marvelous Blind Mamie Forehand (it’s a signifier that many Guitar Evangelists are deprived of sight), it is plainly acknowledged that Blind Willie Johnson sits at the forefront of the style. Succinctly, his music is amongst the most honest and affecting ever recorded. That venerable Portland, Oregon institution Mississippi Records has just released a fresh limited repressing of its mammoth 2LP set titled DARK WAS THE NIGHT COLD WAS THE GROUND, the contents collecting twenty-six of the man’s thirty extant tunes, all recorded between the years 1927-30, and it’s a severe understatement to call it a thrilling, essential document. While many of the standout legends in the early country blues chronology excelled at doing one or a few things extremely well, Johnson was strikingly varied, all while imbuing his music with very specific characteristics. The first of these is his rough, insistent voice. It’s undoubtedly true that Johnson, a poor black man stricken blind in a racist land, turned to music as a buffer to his need for charity. But the unpolished intensity of his singing makes it immediately clear that he was brutally committed to the cause of his music. It’s not just his sandpapery tones but the blunt force of the delivery; unlike more commercially minded, secular artists, he wasn’t trying to seduce the lobes of the listener with smoothness and finesse, but attempting instead to infiltrate the very core of their souls to shake them. And yet he was far from limited as a singer, shifting from his booming, gravelly gutbucket strains to a more relaxed mode as the material demanded, and he was even capable of transformative, arresting moans in the service of song. Johnson could also sing in uncommonly supple duets with female accompanists, a large portion of his discography devoted to just this practice, the best vocal foil on record likely belonging to his first wife Willie B. Harris.  And as the fact that he recorded his oeuvre over five different sessions for the same label makes plain, Johnson was a quite popular figure in his brief time in front of a microphone, even initially outselling fellow Columbia recording artist Bessie Smith, though it points to the institutional marginalization of the African-American populace that by the early ‘50s his name was essentially forgotten. Another aspect of Johnson’s art that shows off his versatility is his alternation between a cutting, haunting bottleneck slide style and a nimble finger-picking mastery. An extremely accomplished player, the warmth and complexity of the whole movement of American Primitive Guitar can be laid at his feet, for it was the epiphany of a young John Fahey hearing “Praise God I’m Satisfied” that kick-started the whole movement. Along with this fact, credit should also be paid to Johnson for his influence on Ry Cooder’s amazing soundtrack to Wim Wenders’ PARIS TEXAS. When Roots N’ Blues collected these tracks, they were sensibly and scholarly presented in chronological order across two CDs. Mississippi Records takes a different tack, presenting them non-sequentially over four vinyl sides with the intention for maximum emotional effect. It’s a wise move, allowing the locomotive-like momentum of “If I Had My Way I’d Tear the Building Down” to contrast brilliantly with the slow-burn ache of “The Rain Don’t Fall On Me”, and it sheds fresh context on the more lauded tunes like “Praise God I’m Satisfied” and “John the Revelator” by placing them directly beside less celebrated but equally central tracks from his well of eternal inspiration. But even when some numbers appear in the sequence of their original recording, they are given fresh illumination by appearing later in the song order. Side three finds the infectious melodiousness of “Let Your Light Shine On Me” sandwiched betwixt “Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning” and “God Don’t Ever Change”, all from his second session, and Mississippi’s selective processing really places new emphasis on “Let Your Light…”, which I once considered a perfectly fine but somewhat minor song. Unlike some undeniably essential players from any era who excel in hard musical styles, Blind Willie Johnson’s range allows his work to be absorbed in one big gulp, but DARK WAS THE NIGHT’s double album format still allows the listener the opportunity for pause if necessary. To illustrate, Johnson’s most famous tune closes side one. “Dark Was the Night Cold Was the Ground” was inducted in 2010 into The National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress, and was included by NASA on the Music From Earth portion of Voyager’s Golden Record, a sort of space time capsule intended to document the better nature of human life on this planet. In the words of the great Samuel Charters, it is “one of the unique masterpieces of American Music”. A deeply personal version of an old church hymn relating to the crucifixion of Christ, Johnson transforms a song previously employed as a solemn call and response by a preacher and congregation into a meditative, wordless dialogue between his transcendent slide and the maddeningly sublime hum and moan of his vocals. Its three and a half minutes are simply breathtaking, and I’ll never forget the first time I heard it. It was included as track four on the Roots N’ Blues compilation THE SLIDE GUITAR: BOTTLES, KNIVES AND STEEL, and after experiencing the song, I repeated it five or six times before shutting off the stereo and leaving the house, taking a long walk to gather my bearings (How do you follow an immersion into incomparable beauty? Answer: you don’t). The song captivatingly eludes the properties of language to span across all boundaries of human experience, hitting the listener instead on a more profound emotional level. This is why Italian film director Pier Paolo Pasolini included the song, along with music seemingly as divergent as Bach and Odetta, on the soundtrack to his 1964 biblical masterwork THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW. While placing anachronistic music in a period drama would seem to be a certain tempting of folly, it instead enriched the film’s themes to startling effect. Since that first hearing the song has always remained close to me, but it still has the potential to sneak up and hit my being with incredible force. One rainy Saturday night roughly a decade ago while driving home from a movie on Rt. 9 in West Virginia I was listening to Dick Spottswood’s excellent radio show on WAMU out of Washington DC. He was playing a bunch of fine old-timey stuff as is his wont, and then out of nowhere came the strains of “Dark Was the Night…”. I was in a rather melancholy mood that evening, driving somewhat listlessly as the wipers beat a steady rhythm upon the windshield. But as the song played I was taken all over again by its undiluted brilliance. Seeing a shopping center parking lot ahead, I quickly pulled off and idled, absorbing the regenerative nature of the sounds until they reached their denouement. To be blunt, it all just snuck up on me. What Sam Phillips reportedly said after hearing Howlin’ Wolf: “This is where the soul of man never dies”. The same is true of Blind Willie Johnson. Please infer no overstatement when I say that people, this is it.

Joseph's Picks Of The Week 12/25/11 - Mark Sultan and Miles Davis

For many, the name Mark Sultan is basically synonymous with the moniker BBQ, the deliciously raw and rocking one man band that comprised half of the sadly defunct demolition duo The King Khan & BBQ Show. The pair’s self titled debut was one of the biggest surprises of the aughties, coming out of left field to impress this writer as something quite different then what I expected, which to be candid was something approximating a garage friendly incarnation of Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper. Boy was I off the mark and good thing, too. The duo instead were a thrilling improbability, a combination of sincere but thankfully non-Sha-Na-Na-ist doo wop worship, gleefully impolite rockabilly moves and non-reverent Crampsian punk grit. The wondrousness of that sentence’s properties gives me tingles just typing it. Weee! But with the release of 2007’s THE SULTANIC VERSES Sultan dropped the BBQ pseudonym for his solo releases and began doing it under his own good name. That record and 2010’s gnarly and excellent follow up $ solidly defined Sultan’s gush as being deliriously out of time while casually yet defiantly of the true cutting edge. In some ways he’s underestimated in the alt-music media as the grumpy dude that once flanked Khan’s unpredictable and eccentric personality, but thankfully that hasn’t slowed him down one bit. Instead, he’s seemed to use that inaccurate assessment as fuel, for the guy has two new records out, WHATEVER I WANT and WHENEVER I WANT, and the contents are a wicked plunge into the spicy broth of a twisted, rabid mind. While on the surface the ingredients in Sultan’s stew might seem somewhat rote, closer listening reveals his range to be impressively catholic; he’s managed flashes of stripped down non-angst-laden Velvet’s mining, served up moments of J. Richman as a young lad more obsessed with Sun Records than Reed and Co, peddled some loose and raucous Buddy Holly inspired action, crafted some hazy and gloriously doofus teen psyche, and even kicked out hot chunks that almost feel like rugged demos for some unreleased 45 on Bomp Records. Yow. Well, WHENEVER I WANT finds him not only continuing to swim in these strong waters but stepping out even further.  Opener “Keep Em Satisfied, Part 1” immediately ups the ante with swamp blues simplicity and some hints of rural gospel influence. Good gravy. “In Future Worlds” sounds a little bit like if Zager and Evans were hit over the head with a brick by Del Shannon back in ’68 and then coerced into recording a one off 45 with him for ESP Disk. “Pancakes” is just what its title promises, a song about the wholesome goodness of flapjacks, but it’s also about remembrance and yearning for a simpler time of life (aka that tricky bugaboo nostalgia) and it’s fitting that Sultan uses the exalted strains of street corner harmony to carry his somewhat universal message across. I mean, even vegan’s love pancakes, right? “Party Crasher” could’ve been a song from the soundtrack of a lost grade-Z teensploitation drive-in epic where a lovingly knuckleheaded rock group is accidentally shot into outer space and forced to do battle with Martian cavemen. Paging Ray Dennis Steckler! “Not Another Day” is the prettiest shuffle of an anti-work tune that I’ve heard in a long time, and “See Them Wave Goodbye” features some rogue banjo and guitar so fuzzed out that it could’ve been lifted from one of Tim Warren’s BACK FROM THE GRAVE volumes. Side the second opens with “Keep Em Satisfied, Part Two”, a perfectly conceived slow-burn stripped-down garage-soul rave-up that’s like the essence of a Jack White wet-dream concentrated and alchemized into a 4:30 slab of stompin’ shoutin’ testifyin’ aural mania. Hyperbole? Best back up, buster. “Let Me Freeze” is a strong huff of Killed By Death fumes, and “Apophis to the Slaughter” is pure garage goofing, sorta like a cross between the Hombres and prime Seeds. But it’s “For Those Who Don’t Exist” that really hits Saturn’s outer rings. Starting out as some whistle, crunch and strum that’s innocuous enough in a folk-psyche sorta way, after some stun guitar tribalism it slowly builds into a full on free jazz skronk fest. What’s impressive is that it actually sounds like it could’ve been grafted onto WHENEVER I WANT’s second side from some lost Center of the World Records acetate or something. Does Sultan know Alan Silva? Jeepers Creepers. This sort of screwy genre negation is just the kind of thing to drive garage rock purists totally nutzoid. This is cool. Even cooler is that shallow feebs constantly on the trail of the next thing won’t be around to foul up the air. Mark Sultan is a prickly cat, seemingly always in motion and wearing his mouth on his sleeve, unafraid to air unpopular opinions in public. The contents of the WHATEVER and WHENEVER LPs have been cherry picked for CD release, and if you’re merely curious that might be the way to proceed. But his records are a big gangly mess of lovely ideas, and listeners tuned to his frequency (low wattage, static laden, and as far to the left of the dial as it’ll turn) are gonna wanna hear it all. WHENEVER I WANT is a fine half, so jump on in.



Like many a kid, I went through a period where I was heavily into comic books. For a few years on weekly family trips to the supermarket I’d spend the entire duration eagerly rotating and scanning the contents stuffed into the spindly comics rack, absorbing as much info as I could before being forced by time constraints to decide upon which issue to buy with the meager pieces of my own stray silver, or if hard up for coin (which was often) hopefully procured through the benevolent auspices of my Mother’s purse strings. As someone unable to buy more than one title every week or two, I was a stone sucker for those very occasional issues with covers that advertised a surfeit of heroes and villains coming together under one banner to engage in all sorts of collective creative mayhem. An imagination-addled preteen might describe it as more bang for the buck. In retrospect, some of those issues were cool, but just as many featured a jumble of bluster and lack of cohesiveness that could leave a young mind feeling simultaneously overstimulated and underfed. As an adult, I encountered a similar situation while in the throes of jazz consumption. Ogling the personnel on the backs of record jackets and CD covers and taking home copies of releases with the most star-studded rosters was revealed with due quickness as a not particularly savvy way of getting to the big crux of the improvisational matter. For every JAZZ AT MASSEY HALL or BLUES AND THE ABSTRACT TRUTH there accumulated a stack of records chock full of major names, that while in no way shameful or even average, simply had to take a back seat to certain releases with one clear star (or none) and a bunch of lesser known names giving amazing performances. Part of this is what I like to call “personal canon-building”, that process of sifting through the small avalanche of established classics to get at what feels individually resonant, and the other part is gaining the invaluable insight that star hierarchy in jazz can be as faulty as it is in pop music or in Hollywood. To put it another way; in my personal estimation the smaller outputs of pianists like Dodo Marmarosa, Elmo Hope or Carl Perkins individually outweigh the mammoth discography of an overrated figure like Oscar Peterson. It’s with all this in mind that I grew leery of the rep of certain star-studded albums, BAG’S GROOVE by Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants in particular. Featuring a list of players that’s loaded top to bottom with established jazz masters, I felt it was impossible for the record to live up to its potential, as if stacking these names on top of each other was somehow supposed to translate into a skyscraper of greatness. Plus, I’d already heard a bit about the problems Davis and Monk had while recording together, the leader asking the pianist to not play (to “lay out” in jazz-speak) during his solos, and having already been exposed to the recorded incompatibility between another inside trumpeter (Kenny Dorham) and outside pianist (Cecil Taylor) on STEREO DRIVE aka COLTRANE TIME, this worried me even further. But upon finally sitting down with BAG’S GROOVE all preconceived notions quickly fell by the wayside, with the only thing that ultimately mattered being the vast quality of the music. Simply put, this LP, compiled and released three years after the initial sessions, is as essential as anything produced in the jazz genre during the 1950s. Now for some back-story: BAG’S GROOVE compiles work from two separate ’54 recording dates by a pair of somewhat different lineups. The first session was taped on the 29th of June, and while it makes up the record’s second side, it warrants being discussed first. Featuring Miles with Sonny Rollins on tenor, Horace Silver on piano, Percy Heath on bass and Kenny “Klook” Clarke on drums, it’s something of a clinic in post-bop affairs; consisting of three Rollins’ originals and two takes of a Gershwin standard, the five tracks find all the contributors in essentially flawless form, and the music really sits at a vibrant midway point between the still fresh progressions of the original bebop impulse and the vast sea of the soon to be entrenched post-bop and/or hard-bop sensibility that dominated the East Coast jazz scene in the second half of the ‘50s. For instance, the rhythm team of Heath and Clarke were both members of the still young Modern Jazz Quartet, but more importantly they’d each served under the formidable jowls of John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie. While tangibly more flowing, relaxed and crisp than the wilder rhythmic expression of early bop, the bass and drums on BAG’S side 2 still feel closely connected to the root of Modern Jazz, particularly in Clarke’s bass drum. On the other side of the equation, Horace Silver was not only the co-founder of the Jazz Messengers, perhaps the quintessential hard-bop group, but also the leader on a slew of classic Blue Note albums that helped define the qualitative brilliance of mainstream jazz in its heyday, the ’55-’65 period. Between these two polls sits Davis and Rollins. While Miles is the leader, Sonny in some ways steals his thunder. As mentioned, three tunes belong to Rollins’ penmanship and the choice of Gershwin fits the tenor’s modus operandi like a ballerina slipper on a lean and muscular foot (though to be fair it’s also right up Davis’s old chestnut loving alley). But also, Rollins’ playing, while not quite at the levels of largeness to be found on ‘56’s TENOR MADNESS (for just one example), is still quite booming (if lithe) for the period, though also detectably in the thrall of twin tenor titans Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young. BAG’S GROOVE can accurately be described as a landmark recording in the career of Sonny Rollins, and for that reason alone ranks as an indispensible jazz acquisition. And yet there is Miles, his playing simply superb, if not quite at the recognizable crossroads of sound and phrasing that defines his later ‘50s work. Not quite; “Oleo” shines as the first recorded example of Davis’s use of the Norman mute, an event of huge significance in the landscape of 20th century music. But BAG’S GROOVE has so much more to recommend it. Like Silver’s rich, soulful playing, equal parts grease and intellect. Or Heath’s massive bass line on “Oleo”. Or how the whole group navigates the shifty buoyancy of “Doxy”, a tune with a shrewdly casual head that in the wrong hands could easily be maimed into sounding like a bad sit-com theme from around 1960, this crew making it sound instead like a truly fabulous sit-com theme from around 1960, with typically grand solos from Davis, Rollins and Silver, all displaying the deceptive no-big-deal-ness that perfectly suits this sort of sophisticatedly funky material shining from between the intro and the play out. Side 2’s five tracks would justify the purchase of BAG’S GROOVE all by their collective lonesome, but the two takes of the title tune excerpted from the now legendary Christmas Eve ’54 date on side 1 help this LP rise to the level of an abundantly revelatory document. Fittingly, the lineup shifts. Rollins exits and vibraphonist and fellow Modern Jazz Quartet member Milt Jackson turns up in unsurprisingly fine fettle. Silver the approachable synthesist is replaced by Monk the idiosyncratic master, and this is initially where the action is; specifically, Miles’ difficulty in playing along with Monk’s stridently non-traditional execution can in some ways appear like an early incarnation of the trumpeter’s now legendary flare-ups of close-mindedness, mean-spiritedness or downright intolerance. But actually, no: what it illustrates in this case is that Davis was indeed really listening to his fellow contributors and that Monk’s unusual conception unfortunately hindered the trumpeter’s ability to create in the moment. The rest of this session has been long available on MILES DAVIS AND THE MODERN JAZZ GIANTS, and those tracks make a few things quite clear. First, Monk was apparently asked to refrain on “Bag’s Groove” only. Second, the pianist, obviously stung by hurt feelings, contrarily instigates difficulties to the studio atmosphere, with the evidence plainly revealed through the false start of “The Man I Love”’s first take. But if this difference of musical temperament persists as part of BAG’S GROOVE’s alluring lore, it’s far from the main reason for its lasting import. Here’s another; earlier, I described Monk’s playing as stridently non-traditional, and it surely is, but it’s not always easy in century 21 to ingest or relate that fact. Monk’s work has become such an integral part of the jazz discourse that in many ways he no longer sounds “weird” or at odds with any prevailing norm; he instead just sounds like Monk. And this is cool, since the true appeal of the pianist’s oeuvre lies not in its strangeness but instead in its inexhaustible depth and rare, thorny beauty. But for some valuable insight into just how unique Monk actually was at the time of his marginalization, “Bag’s Groove”, particularly take 1, is a superb study. Milt Jackson’s composition begins with the expected grace, all the players sans Monk contributing to stating the theme before Davis turns out a solo of striking magnificence, with strides made in just a six month period immediately palpable, his playing really sounding like the Miles of the insanely fertile ’57-’67 period. Then it’s Jackson’s time to solo, and it’s a turn of eloquent blues feeling. It’s here that Monk first appears, and Ira Gitler is spot on in the LP notes, describing the pianist as “comp[ing] timidly”. If this was the extent of Monk’s contribution it would surely be an underwhelming experience. But the solo to follow audaciously announces a change of direction. Gitler’s assessment of it as Monk “toss[ing] rhythmic figures around like someone bouncing a rubber ball off a wall” can’t help but smack of the writer taking a jab at the pianist, possibly on Davis’s behalf (it is his album after all), but it also points to the hesitancy of appreciation that was still dogging Monk circa ’57.  But in actually hearing that solo, it becomes easy to understand (though I ultimately don’t agree with) the backhanded nature of Gitler’s evaluation. To call Monk’s playing angular in “Bag’s…” is a bit like calling Marilyn Monroe pretty or Magic Johnson agile for a big man. It’s accurate but doesn’t really suffice, dig? Compared to the (soon to be classique) straight ahead sensibility of the rest of the group, Thelonious arrives as if from some other planet. For a small taste of what it was like to be a jazz fan in the ‘50s, nonchalantly confronted with the crossroads of hipster elegance and square limitations, well look no further. But Monk ultimately and rather easily transcends attitudes of mere coolness. He was, in the sage words of Ray Davies, not like everybody else. Hey, thanks Miles, for being such an astute pain in the ass.

Joseph's Picks Of The Week 11/18/11 - Thee Oh Sees and The Grateful Dead

While these days it’s relatively easy to hear or read them described in basically garage-band terms, it is very much worth noting that San Francisco’s Thee Oh Sees began operation as a far weirder amalgamation of influences. Formed by John Dwyer, ex of such impressive noise-rock outfits as Coachwhips and Pink and Brown, Thee Oh Sees explored avenues of less raucous but intensely attractive outsider headspace. Their first LP THE COOL DEATH OF ISLAND RAIDERS for instance, drew upon such disparate if simpatico angles and influences as The Shaggs, loner-psyche, freak-folk, post-Krautrock drones and even hints of The Paisley Underground at its least collegian. A big part of the band’s appeal comes via vocalist/keyboardist Brigid Dawson, her voice at times conjuring up the bruised eeriness that makes underground UK psyche-folk such a continually appealing proposition. But as tilting an ear toward the very necessary corral of short-players SINGLES VOL. 1 + 2 or the outstanding full-length CASTLEMANIA from earlier this year shows, Thee Oh Sees also have a predilection for rock. And even though I haven’t managed to absorb every bit of their sizable discography I feel confident in proclaiming that the freshly released CARRION CRAWLER /THE DREAM LP finds them at the very top of their game. It shows an expert hand at combining the aesthetic and sense of scale that continues to define the garage genre with welcome gusts of legit psyche action all without the slightest bit of dissonance in presentation, which is really worth noting since the stripped down grunt of basic garage-rocking often suffers when mixed with more outbound tendencies. The appeal of “I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night” or “Incense and Peppermints” stems from gestures less sincere and far more trend-conscious, but the tone turning serious frankly resulted in scads of mere curiosities and outright missteps, and anyway it’s 2011 and Thee Oh Sees are markedly not in a post-NUGGETS mold; frankly they’re just too intrinsically weird for that designation. John Dwyer is a byproduct of the fertile ‘90s underground, a scene where it wasn’t a bit unusual to find folks drawing influence from such varied sources as garage odd-meats Thirteenth Floor Elevators, Krautrock kingpins Can, UK free-folksters Comus, and avant-drone monster Charlemagne Palestine. And CARRION CRAWLER wastes no time in showing off Dwyer and Co’s far-reaching scope, though the sprawl is generally rock taggable; the opener “Carrion Crawler” hits upon an exquisite run of extended riff-worship that’s like PIPER-era Floyd if they recorded for International Artists, but with just a hint of outbound distorto soloing that recalls Wayne Rogers of much missed ‘80s New England psychsters Crystallized Movements.  “Contraption/Soul Desert” utilizes finely tuned passages of stun guitar to come up with something that’s not far from early Airplane if they’d been routinely shoot-up in the left butt-check with primo ‘roids by some rogue manager. But it’s the instrumental “Chem-Farmer” that provides CARRION CRAWLER with its standout track, locking into a brawny, vaguely Kraut-like rhythmic groove and then just riding it until they actually start inspiring visions of a mythical garage-punk version of early Stereolab. If Thee Oh Sees don’t manage to attain the heights of “Chem-Farmer” on the second side, they don’t miss by much, and I’m quite pleased with the development of their motion. “The Dream”’s sound actually registers as completely contemporary and very hard for me to draw comparisons with any other band currently working, though I’m sure I could come up with something if I sat here and contemplated it for a while. Maybe the label switch to In The Red has something to do with it (or maybe I’m just imagining things) but The Oh Sees are fine-tuning their sound, becoming heavier, more muscular while reining back the weirdness and not sacrificing a thing in depth or quality. CARRION CRAWLER/THE DREAM’s second side presents a well focused band upping the forcefulness of their attack to fine result, and I’m quite psyched to hear Thee Oh Sees’ future developments. No pun intended.



I’m on record as considering the first three albums by The Grateful Dead to be something like the apex of San Francisco psyche as rendered in the studio environment, and prizing LIVE/DEAD as one of the greatest of all live rock albums. That trio of studio-bound Dead discs essentially present a blues-based band not particularly far from the standard Stones/Yardbirds template (the debut THE GRATEFUL DEAD) subsequently undertaking considerable levels of experimentation (ANTHEM OF THE SUN) and then combining that spirit of exploration with maturing songwriting skill and instrumental prowess (AOXOMOXOA). And as great as those three records continue to be, LIVE/DEAD, when considered along with the concert captured on Quicksilver Messenger Service’s HAPPY TRAILS and the half live/all awesome stature of Big Brother and the Holding Company’s CHEAP THRILLS basically sums up San Fran psyche as a true 'performance based' music. Indeed, the constant touring of the Dead and the ritualistic grandeur of their shows springs from just this very idea. Even though I think their first three records get a bad rap from certain quarters, I can’t deny that when it comes to the Dead, live is where it’s at. And after catching lightning in a bottle and waxing it on four sides of vinyl, just where does this particular band go from there? Back into the studio where they recorded WORKINGMAN’S DEAD, frankly a record it took me years to warm up to. Full disclosure: as a mid-‘80s Johnny-come-lately suburban punk I found The Grateful Dead to be something distinctly other than my bag, dig me? Of course I grew up and out of that shortsightedness, and LIVE/DEAD was the major part of my maturation. Sure, I also grabbed a handle on that early studio stuff, mainly because I’d grown curious over the storied nature of the San Fran scene in general, looking into names big (Quicksilver, Santana, Sly, Steve Miller, Airplane, Country Joe, Big Brother, Moby Grape, It’s a Beautiful Day) and small (Mad River, Frumious Bandersnatch, Mojo Men, The Mystery Trend, Kak, Fifty Foot Hose). But LIVE/DEAD hit me like a ton of Tex Avery’s cartoon bricks, and back then in my estimation the unabashed studio-based acoustic country-folkishness of WORKINGMAN’S DEAD just didn’t compare. Well, it still doesn’t, but I’ve come to consider LIVE/DEAD and WORKINGMAN’S to be something like apples and oranges harvested from the same funky orchard. The first of two Dead albums released in 1970, WORKINGMAN’S opens and closes with two by now ubiquitous tunes from the band, the somewhat Crosby Stills and Nash-like “Uncle John’s Band” and the country-rock cornerstone “Casey Jones”. I’ve heard these classic rock radio staples more times than I can shake a rucksack made from 100% hemp at, but what’s interesting is how they can transcend being overplayed and still work in the context of the LP that spawned them. In addition, WORKINGMAN’S also includes a few deep cuts/concert staples in “High Time”, the distinctively bluesy “New Speedway Boogie”, the rollicking “Cumberland Blues” and the fabulous “Black Peter”. What I’ve come to accept over the years is just how strongly conceived and well delivered these songs are. What I’ve come to acknowledge over the years is just how prescient their sound was; this album and AMERICAN BEAUTY are basically Americana in a nutshell (check out “Dire Wolf” if you don’t believe me). And what I’ve come to understand over the years is that some stereotypes are really nothing more than collective faulty opinions. That is, for a band often derided for excessiveness and self-indulgence, WORKINGMAN’S DEAD is lean in construction and direct in execution. As the record’s most psychedelic track, “Easy Wind” is notable in this context, heading outward but retaining the relative brevity of the album’s other seven songs. By this late date The Grateful Dead are not only deeply ensconced as major players in non-crap rock lore but also continue to be relevant in a contemporary sense, influencing scads of bands including Wilco, The Decemberists and Animal Collective. They were also the true survivors of the San Fran scene, releasing quality albums deep into the ‘70s when their contemporaries had succumbed to shilling out sub-par product or far worse. WORKINGMAN’S DEAD might pale in comparison to one of the band's top-notch live shows or even next to the intense studio weirdness of ANTHEM OF THE SUN, but it’s still a jewel in its own right. If you don’t know it, please proceed. And if you’re undecided? Well, it can never hurt to reconsider.