These are songs that I like

The music of Chris Schlarb and Jeremiah Cymerman sound nothing alike, and yet there’s a bird of the same feather quality about their creative directions that makes this crossing of paths a natural conclusion as if to some undocumented, obscure experiment.  Both guitarist Schlarb and clarinetist Cymerman transcend genres by borrowing judiciously from a wide array of influences while simultaneously defying their conventions.  The use of technology both in performance and post-production is to be expected… at least, as much as one feels safe making assumptions on what the next note might bring from either composer.

Schlarb’s music often presents a soothing, ambient demeanor, and when it goes for something more akin to pop music characteristics, that friendly disposition often hints at the kind of contemplation that doesn’t necessarily lead to smiles.  Cymerman, on the other hand, adopts a fighting stance with his creations, and the rules of engagement require a level of comfort with shifting environments of sharp dissonance and an ominous serenity.

Much to my delight, Cymerman performed a solo clarinet rendition of the Schlarb composition “The Starry King Hears Laughter,” which appears on the guitarist’s excellent recording, Psychic Temple II.

Here’s the Cymerman rendition…

And here’s the original version of “The Starry King Heart Laughter,” from Schlarb’s Psychic Temple II…

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Explore the music of Chris Schlarb on his Bandcamp page. Also, check out my interview with Schlarb, which covers a whole bunch of his music.

Explore the music of Jeremiah Cymerman on his Bandcamp page.

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A special Thanksgiving edition of These Are Songs I Like!

Two very blog-y entries, featuring songs by Bill Frisell and Billy Mitchell.

In the short time my site has been around, I’ve always tried to make long, blog-y posts on both Thanksgiving and Christmas days, full of music and memories and album information and recommendations… things of interest that celebrate the best things about music.  But also to give those of you who aren’t able to spend the holidays with family and friends something extra to read and listen to… a little something more.  I know what it’s like to not have anywhere to go on those two days, when it seems like the rest of the world does.  And, coincidentally, after ten wonderful years of having a place to go, I’m back to where I used to be.  So, I suppose, today’s column is directed at myself, too.  It’s nice to have distractions on a day like today.

In any event, alone or not, I want all of you to have a great Thanksgiving holiday.

Let’s begin…

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Bill Frisell – “Egg Radio”

I was living in Denver, Colorado this particular Thanksgiving.  I was in a strange place at the time, though, honestly, I could pretty much preface most of my anecdotes with that phrase.  Anyways, I was kind of floating free at this point, having lost touch with many of my friends and acquaintances.  I had broken pretty much all of my routines, and so I wasn’t going to the same places and seeing the same faces whose names I could never recall.  I was getting to know a new part of Denver, one that was situated in the same spots as the Denver I was more familiar with, but the kind that stays invisible to a cursory glance when you’re not really paying attention.  I had quit my job a few months earlier.  I had saved up a nice bit of savings from it (which, back then, it was very easy to do; Denver had a very low cost of living).  I was going to spend that savings to finish up my first novel.  I had enough in the bank account to buy about six months of this lifestyle before I’d have to go get a new job.  By the end of the second month, I was working on an entirely different novel than the one I’d intended to complete and most of that budget was shot.  On the other hand, the local bars and liquor stores were having an unexpected uptick on their sales reports.

I had begun frequenting this seedy bar on 15th Street.  I can remember what it was called, and a part of me isn’t entirely sure it was on 15th Street and not 20th Street.  Doesn’t matter.  It was on the edge of downtown on one of those two-block stretches that looks completely out of touch with the rest of what was happening around it.  The kind of block where downtown shoppers would turn the corner and think they had suddenly walked into an entirely different part of the city, feeling vulnerable and nervous and immediately retracing their steps to safer territory.  That’s the kind of block I’ve always adored.  It was no surprise I drank there.  I can’t remember what the bar was called, and don’t even care enough to google it up.  It later became a pretty hip place for touring bands to play.  It may or may not still be there.  I’m positive it’s no longer the bar I grew to love.

A friend of mine at the time introduced me to that bar.  He was a grad student in economics at UCD and a great chess player and, like me, a person who probably drank way more than was healthy.  He was a good guy.  Anyways, he’d told me earlier in the week that this bar was open on Thanksgiving and would be carving up a turkey and offering a free dinner to its customers.  It was sort of a day labor crowd and assorted neighborhood burnouts, so these were regulars who, one, probably didn’t have anywhere to go on Thanksgiving and, two, could appreciate a good meal.  I wasn’t too far away from that point myself.  And I definitely didn’t have anywhere else to be.

It’s a weird thing having nowhere to go on a holiday that is commonly spent with family and friends.  There’s a collegial ambiance to the day, one that carries strongly on the breeze, sits in the air all about you, and when you’ve got nowhere to go, it’s not always easy breathing that oxygen in.  It always comes back out a little jagged on the exhale, too.  I thought I’d just spend the day writing and simply lose myself in a creative fugue.  I’d hoped that the day would be over before I even knew it, and, perhaps, be a good 8-15 pages closer to the finish line.  That hope was shot before noon.  I was just staring out my windows at the Rocky Mountains and the downtown skyline, hoping that a certain word or phrase or sentence would pop into my head, a bit of unexpected character dialog, and I’d get pulled right back into the novel.  It wasn’t happening.  I also didn’t want to go to that bar, even though I knew it was probably the only way I was going to break through.  I just didn’t want to go outside and have to breathe that holiday air.

Much like now, Bill Frisell’s Quartet was a big deal for me.  Something about the music on that album affected me so profoundly that it could shift massive emotions like kicking up sand at the beach.  I put the album in, just to see if it would kickstart me.  It did.  When the song “Egg Radio” was underway, I went and grabbed my boots and was out the door as soon as the song ended.  I was calm and I was feeling better about my particular place in the world at that moment.  All music has the potential to affect me that way, and some songs, some albums achieve that potential to a remarkable degree.  I walked from my Capitol Hill apartment to that bar, with “Egg Radio” in my head the entire way.  I hummed the melody to myself, happily remaining in the moment of when the song first came on.

It was a great night.  My buddy was there.  That turkey was awesome, as was all the fixings.  I sat at the bar and ate that great meal, appreciating it possibly more than any other Thanksgiving meal I’d ever had.  I was surrounded by others, like me, who had nowhere else to go and just seemed so happy to be where they were at.  The air had become much easier to breathe.

I spent the evening shooting the breeze with the other regulars, enjoying buck-fifty draws of Bud Light, and listening to their (really good) jukebox.  In the theme of this column, a quick shout-out to the Smashing Pumpkins and their song “Hummer” (from Siamese Dream).  I distinctly remember a huge surge of happiness hit me that evening while that song was playing on the jukebox, and now it’s forever associated with this memory right there along with Frisell’s “Egg Radio.”

I got home late that evening and cranked out four pages of solid writing.  And I wound up finishing that novel a few days short of six months.

Bill Frisell’s site –> LINK

Bill Frisell’s Quartet on Amazon –> CD/MP3

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Billy Mitchell – “J&B”

I wasn’t familiar with Billy Mitchell at the time I scooped this album up.  The Detroit-based saxophonist had appeared on a couple albums I owned previously, notably The Magnificent Thad Jones, a classic Blue Note release.  But Mitchell’s wasn’t a name that was entrenched in my memory.

I only purchased his 1962 recording This Is Billy Mitchell because the sticker on the CD told me to.  It said (something like), “You need to have this CD.”  I was back living in Chicago and browsing the shelves at this nifty little music store down the street from my regular neighborhood bar (L&L Tavern), where I worked a bar stool as both a regular drinker and employee.  The music store, located on Belmont (and hopefully still there), was called Groovin’ High, named after a Dizzy Gillespie song.  The owner looked like he had been a beat poet back in the day, and he definitely knew his stuff about old-school jazz.  He was the kind of guy you could shoot the breeze with and learn the name of a cool album or musician or just what was going on in the neighborhood.

Anyways, I took that CD up to the counter and asked him if he’d put that sticker on it.  He said “yes.”  I promptly paid for it and took it home for a first listen.  I rarely purchased blind like that, but this was one of those people you could trust.  I wasn’t sure if I’d like the CD or not, but I knew it would be good, and I don’t mind having albums like that sitting on my shelf.  “Like” changes from moment to moment, but “good” is always good and if I don’t like it now, I’ll probably come around on it at some point.  There’s a special kind of happiness at discovering that your new favorite album has been sitting on your shelf all along just waiting for you.

The whole album is great, but the first track “J&B” was the clincher.  Those opening moments of bass humming resonantly, the gentle tap of cymbals and then Mitchell entering with delicate phrases that gripped the melody strong… In under sixty seconds, I knew that sticker had told the truth- I did need to own this CD.

I listened to the album all the way through twice.  Then, full of the kind of energy and excitement that a great new album can elicit in a person’s heart, I headed out the door.  I was living on Chicago’s north side, in a little neighborhood called Buena Park, located near Montrose Harbor.  I had found the last cheap apartment building in a neighborhood that had gone completely condo, except for the houses marked with historical designations.  It was a tiny tiny apartment, smaller than most dorm rooms, but it was cheap to live there and I was a block from the lakefront.  I crossed under Lake Shore Drive via the pedway tunnel off of Peace Garden, then headed over to Montrose Harbor.  That was my starting point for a long walk down the lakeshore park system, the downtown Chicago skyline off in the distance, getting closer the longer I walked, that song “J&B” playing in my head the entire time.

I did the same thing not long after on Thanksgiving of that same year.  I was out the door before noon, already cheered up by Billy Mitchell’s excellent album, no longer caring that I was spending the day alone.  Besides, I had just come out the other side of a very tough stretch and was feeling positive about things, hopeful that life and me were gonna do some wonderful stuff together.  As it turned out, I was right.  But on that day, all I needed was this song and this album and the Chicago lakefront.  It was a great day.

Here’s a Wikipedia page on Billy Mitchell –> LINK

Billy Mitchell’s This Is Billy Mitchell on Amazon –> CD/MP3

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That’s it for today’s column.  I had planned to write about a few more songs and anecdotes, but didn’t intend to crank out nearly 2,000 words on just the first two.  I’ll save the others for next year.

Have a great day, everyone!

Cheers.

Jazzman Records just released the fifth volume in their Spiritual Jazz series, this one entitled Spiritual Jazz 5: The World.  I’ve mentioned this series previously, both on this site and Wondering Sound, but for my new readers, the deal with it is this:  Jazzman Records digs through the old crates of vinyl looking for the under-the-radar and forgotten gems of music… pretty similar to what I do with new jazz releases (though Jazzman doesn’t limit their searches to just Jazz).  They dig those sonic gems up, they get them legally licensed, tracking down the artists and copyright holders, and they reissue the music under their own label, either as an album or, as in the case of their Spiritual Jazz series, in the form of compilations.

John Coltrane is the immediate reference for spiritual jazz, and his brilliant 1965 recording A Love Supreme.  This particular jazz subset had qualities of spiritual philosophy, of African music approaches and instrumentation, and an inclination toward freer expressions and avant-garde idealism.  Over the years, others have expressed their own forms of spiritual jazz through their own specific religion and ethnicity’s folk musics and instruments.  The first four volumes of the Jazzman Records Spiritual Jazz series focused on music that sourced from Africa, the United States and Europe.  Volume number five has them expanding their reach to everywhere else.  One particular album track is from the Chilean quintet Aquila, performing the Pharoah Sanders composition “Hum-Allah-Hum-Allah-Hum-Allah.”

Saxophonist Pharoah Sanders was one of my early favorites when I first started making Jazz a full-time preoccupation.  Due to his close association with John Coltrane and the heavily avant-garde label Impulse Records, it was easy to happen upon Sanders’ music.  I liked how his music was free and untamed yet possessed an unmistakable lyricism.  I liked how he shifted from passages of wild ferocity to those of melodic introspection and then back again.  It appealed to me much in the same way as the music of Sonic Youth… that washing machine hypnotism of chaos-peace-chaos-peace.  I liked his use of African instruments and how the folk music of Africa blended with a post-hard bop sound.  And I really liked how his furious music seemed focused on a message of peace and openness.

His 1969 release Karma was my first Sanders recording, and it represents all those qualities I mention just above.  Not long after, I picked up his 1969 recording Jewels of Thought.  Comprised of two long tracks, the opening notes of track one, “Hum-Allah-Hum-Allah-Hum-Allah” grabbed me right away, and now, twenty years after I first heard those opening notes, the song still sends chills up my spine and joy bursting from my heart.  So many things I love about this song:

• The opening with the gentle crash of shakers and percussion, and Lonnie Liston Smith adding a dovish intro on piano for Sanders to join on tenor sax with his typical mix of lyricism and hint of fire… a delicate presence that intimates an inherent combustibility.
• The voice of Leon Thomas a thing of resonance, his beautiful message of peace commingling with cries of saxophone… a powerful sense of honesty in everything being communicated in words and notes.
• The way mbira pokes its head up every now and then, adding more rhythmic texture to an album swimming in it.
• The way in which Sanders builds up the intensity yet maintains a delicate touch, and how he steps aside for Smith’s piano solo.
• That amazing Smith piano solo and how it goes from a contemplative intensity to a harmonic glittering sea of diamonds and then into a catchy little groove, and all the while the drums and percussion of Roy Haynes and Idris Muhammad explode like fireworks in the background.
• And that is a powerful element on this recording.  Haynes, Muhammad and bassist Cecil McBee surge up like waves, never subsuming the song but evincing a raw power that is awesome to hear in the context of solos and melody.  The way in which their seemingly unrelated rhythms suddenly come together with a formidable unity.
• The crash of cymbals and then Sanders stepping up for a ferocious solo that seems like it’s never going to end, sounding like an honest cry for peace.  And then the way it suddenly drops back off to a return to that peaceful swaying motion, and how it trails off plaintively with a lovely curl of melody.
• The way Sanders ends his solo by handing off the baton to Thomas, but for a time running side by side, sax and voice, and how that winds down to a peaceful conclusion.
• And all the other stuff I didn’t mention.

Here’s what I’m talking about…

Your song personnel: Pharoah Sanders (tenor sax, reeds, kalimba, percussion), Cecil McBee (bass, percussion), Roy Haynes (drums), Idris Muhammad (drums, percussion), Leon Thomas (vocals, percussion), Lonnie Liston Smith (piano, kalimba, percussion),

(Jewels of Thought released on Impulse Records, 1969)

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So, I was pretty thrilled when I discovered that there was a rendition of this song on the new Spiritual Jazz compilation.

As far as I can tell, as an ensemble, Aquila only recorded this one album, self-titled on Alba Records.  They use the title “Um Allah” on the track listing, which may either be a typo or perhaps the band recognizing the source material while respecting their own take on it.  I think it’s pretty damn cool.  They get a nice little groove going and then let the enthusiasm spring up from it.

There’s not much else out there in the way of other renditions of the song.  There was the Toni Esposito fusion-y version (a little bit Latin, a little bit Afrobeat) from the 1978 release La Banda Del Sole (Phillips Records), but other than that, nobody else seems to have covered it.  Well, two exceptions: a band called Emanative seems to have an unreleased version floating around out there, but after several failed attempts to find it on-line to give it a listen, I stopped wasting my time, and, also, there’s the pop music version by Eugene Chadbourne & Camper van Beethoven, which is so exceedingly bad that it’s insulting (real gutsy move not even using the word “Allah” in the song, assholes).

But none of that really matters, because we still have the Pharoah Sanders original and now we also have this enjoyable rendition by Aquila…

Your song personnel:  Guillermo Rifo (vibes), William Miño (electric bass), Sergio Meli (drums), Sandro Salvati (alto sax), and Guillermo Olivares (keyboards).

There’s more information on Aquila on the Listen Recovery Crew site.

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Spiritual Jazz 5: The World:

Available at:  Bandcamp | eMusic | Amazon CD/MP3/Vinyl

Pharoah Sanders Jewels of Thought:

Available at:  eMusic | Amazon CD/MP3/Vinyl

I came upon the music of indie-pop band Efterklang, I dunno, maybe seven years ago.  The Danish ensemble had this lovely approach to pop music, adding ambient post-rock and orchestral theatrics with aplomb, and creating music that was mesmerizing, dramatic, and full of personality.  I began buying all their music up, and was never disappointed.

Composer Tobias Hellkvist sticks to the ambient side of things.  His music is peaceful, quite melodic even when unstructured, and often quite pretty.  It’s the kind of serene music that NPR will often use as interludes between shows or as background music for a voice-over.  It would not surprise me if, in fact, NPR has used Hellkvist’s music in this capacity.

Anyways, he did a cover of an Efterklang song that always stuck in my head.  I think I originally discovered it streaming on the Efterklang site or maybe I heard it on Hellkvist’s MySpace page, back in the day when I’d still go on MySpace, which I don’t do anymore because, y’know, it’s awful and can be virus-y.  The song Hellkvist covered is called “Step Aside,” which originally appeared on Efterklang’s 2004 release Tripper.  I hadn’t heard that song for years, and I don’t believe that it’s ever been available for sale.  However, I discovered a video stream of it on YouTube today, and so I decided to share it in today’s post, even though it’s really not relevant to my site’s raison d’etre of modern jazz.

Here’s the Tobias Hellkvist version…

And here’s the Efterklang original, which they are generously offering as a free download…

Hit the “Download” button to take them up on their offer.

Discover more of Tobias Hellkvist’s music on his Bandcamp page.  The album I seem to return to the most is Kaskelot, though I recall enjoying pretty much everything he’s put out.

Discover more of Efterklang’s music on their Bandcamp page.  The albums I most recommend of there’s are Parades and Performing Parades.  The latter is a live performance of the former, and it’s pretty spectacular.  A toss-up of which of those two to get.  I suggest both.

I link to both artist sites above back in the intro paragraphs.  Clicking on their name will take you to their respective sites.

Have a great Sunday!

Cheers.