Sun Ra and the Arkestra - Cosmo Sun Connection

What is there to say that hasn't already been said?
I doubt he would have paid much attention to earthly follies like birthdays or centennials, but for what its worth, Sun Ra would have been 100 years old today.  He has left us with a legacy that very few others in the entire history of recorded music could match. Our world, our universe in fact, is infinitely richer for his existence.

This is a live recording from 1984, released by Recommended Records in 1985.  I bought my copy in 1990 and the version of Fate in a Pleasant Mood  remains one of my very favourite pieces of music by anyone, ever.  A very special magic occurred on this evening.

If you are unfamiliar with Sun Ra, his music and his philosophy, then you could start off with these two brilliant documentaries:





Tracklist:

01 Fate In A Pleasant Mood
02 Cosmo Journey Blues
03 Cosmo Sun Connection
04 Cosmonaut Astronaut Rendezvous
05 As Space Ships Approach
06 Pharoah's Den

Get it HERE.

The Ganelin Trio - New Wine (1982)

It feels like a while since the last post, but here we are, back with a real treat.  This live album from Russian free jazz ensemble, The Ganelin Trio, was a real find at the local bootsale a couple of weeks ago, and it comes out fighting right from the beginning. Its hard to believe that three people can make such a range of aberrant noises.

 You can read a bit about the group, who were regarded as one of the best free jazz acts of the '70s and '80s (if that means anything to you), over here and here.

Tracklist:

01 26th June 1982 Part 1
02 26th June 1982 Part 2

Get it HERE.

An Evening with Snap Crackle & Pop Volume 1

It's strange how elastic time has become, or maybe has always been. I've been posting here at Snap, Crackle and Pop for just over three years now so I thought it was HIGH TIME for a little mix - around my musical world in 75 minutes or so.





Here is the tracklist, and you'll find that clicking on the artist's name will take you to the original post. Handy eh?

Tracklist:

01 Nico Pourvu & His Romanian Orchestra - Doina de la Titu (Romania)
02 Manitas de Plata - Maure Eglise (Spain)
03 Unknown Artist - Mahjoula (Morocco)
04 Sabah - Dakhlak Tell ou Hakina (Lebanon)
05 Archie Shepp - Blase (USA)
06 Stock, Hausen & Walkman - Gruel (UK)
07 Erkin Koray - Cemalim (Turkey)
08 Simon Jurad - Ambiance Nous (Martinique)
09 R.D. Burman - Dum Maro Dum (India)
10 M'Pongo Love - Ede (Democratic Republic of the Congo)
11 Tabu Ley - Dialogue (Democratic Republic of the Congo)
12 Ann Peebles - Do I Need You? (USA)
13 The Peddlers - On a Clear Day (UK)
14 King Sunny Ade - Akura Nile (Nigeria)
15 Tony Tuff - Jah Almighty (Jamaica)
16 Marehemu George Mukabi - Bibi Mama Ngani Mzuri (Kenya)
17 Los Guaraguao - Juventud Adelante (Mexico)
18 Conjunto Sol Del Peru - Paras Shayan (Peru)
19 Bongwater - One So Black (USA)
20 Maalem El Mansoum - Uled Bambara (Morocco)

Get it HERE.

Slim Gaillard - Cement Mixer Put-ti Put-ti (Folklyric Records 1984)

Slim Gaillard was a real oddball character from the classic age of American jazz, as anyone who ever saw the BBC's documentary, The World of Slim Gaillard can attest. This album collects some of his most popular tunes from the mid to late forties on one lovely chunk of vinyl. Here's a short biography of the oroonie man:

One of the most eccentric vocalists ever to hit the jazz scene, Slim Gaillard became a legendary cult figure thanks to his own privately invented jive dialect “vout," a variation on hipster slang composed of imaginary nonsense words (“oreenie" and “oroonie" being two other examples). Gaillard's comic performances, laid-back cool, and supremely silly songs made him a popular entertainer from the late ‘30s to the early ‘50s, especially on the West Coast, and several of his compositions became genuine hits, including "Flat Foot Floogie" and "Cement Mixer." Versatility was not Gaillard's stock in trade, but he was highly effective at what he did, and his musical ability as a singer, Charlie Christian-style guitarist, and boogie-woogie pianist was perhaps a bit overlooked in comparison to the novelty value of his music.

Slim was born Bulee Gaillard, most likely on January 4, 1916 in Detroit, MI.; some sources list his birthdate as January 1, and Gaillard sometimes claimed to have been born in Santa Clara, Cuba instead of Detroit. His father worked as a steward on a cruise liner, and sometimes brought young Slim along, once accidentally leaving him behind on the island of Crete. Gaillard was mostly raised in Detroit, though, where he tried his hand at professional boxing, worked as a mortician, and ran bootleg rum for the Purple Gang during the ‘30s. He also developed an act in which he played guitar and tap danced simultaneously, and eventually moved to New York to work the vaudeville circuit. In 1936, he teamed up with bassist Slam Stewart as Slim & Slam, and two years later they scored a substantial hit with "Flat Foot Floogie," which was quickly covered by the likes of Benny Goodman and Fats Waller in the wake of the original recording's success. Gaillard and Stewart kept cutting songs in a similar vein, including "Tutti Frutti" and "Laughin' in Rhythm," and eventually took their act to Hollywood, where they appeared in the 1941 film Hellzapoppin. Their partnership continued on through 1942, when World War II interrupted; both served in the military, Gaillard in the Air Force.

Upon exiting the service in 1944, Gaillard settled in Los Angeles and took up residency at Billy Berg's Hollywood Boulevard club, a hot spot for stars of the era. Now in tandem with bassist Bam Brown, Gaillard became a top draw and a hip name to drop; his 1945 hit "Cement Mixer" returned him to national prominence, and he recorded frequently that year, often with a quartet featuring Brown, pianist Dodo Marmarosa, and drummer Zutty Singleton. He also cut a session with bop greats Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie in late 1945, the most notable result of which was "Slim's Jam." The latter half of the ‘40s saw Gaillard's popularity at its peak; he appeared in several films and recorded for Verve up through 1951. He had further hits with 1948's "Down by the Station," which became a popular children's nursery rhyme, and 1951's "Yep Roc Heresay," a recitation of the menu from a Middle Eastern restaurant that one radio station banned for its "suggestiveness." He performed in New York frequently from 1951-53, and also participated in Norman Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic in 1953; a few years later, he was name-checked in Jack Kerouac's On the Road.

By the mid-‘50s, Gaillard's popularity was on the wane. He spent much of the latter part of the decade on the road with Stan Kenton, and recorded for Dot in 1958. He took a hiatus from music in the ‘60s; he managed a motel in San Diego for a time, and bought an orchard near Tacoma, Washington. He also played clubs and spent time in Los Angeles, where he drifted into acting toward the end of the decade, appearing on TV shows like Marcus Welby, M.D., Charlie's Angels, Mission Impossible, Medical Center, and Along Came Bronson. He reunited with Slam Stewart at the 1970 Monterey Jazz Festival, and in 1979 he appeared in the miniseries Roots: The Next Generation. In 1982, Dizzy Gillespie talked Gaillard into returning to music. He traveled to the U.K. and made his first recordings since 1958 for Hep, which issued them as the album Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere; he also hit the festival circuit and toured Europe extensively, making London his new home base in 1983. He appeared in the cult film Absolute Beginners in 1986, and was the subject of a multi-part BBC special called The World of Slim Gaillard in 1989. Gaillard passed away on February 26, 1991 after a bout with cancer. — Steve Huey

Check out this piano man:



Tracklist:

01 Jam Man
02 Scotchin' With The soda
03 Cement Mixer
04 Cuban Rumbarini
05 Drei Six Cents
06 Three Handed Boogie
07 Groove Juice Jive
08 Laguna Oroonee
09 Tip Light
10 Arabian Boogie
11 The Hogan Song
12 Money Money Money
13 Organ Oreenee
14 Little Red Riding Wood
15 When Banana Skins Are Falling
16 Bongo Cito

Get it HERE.

The Indo-British Ensemble - Curried Jazz (1969)

This was a great charity shop find as its provided me plenty of enjoyment over the years. Cool jazz sounds from swinging London that would go down great at any hippy smoke-out or love-in:

Tracklist:

01. Yaman (The Colonel's Lady)

02. Lalit (Meeting Of The Twain)

03. Bhimpalazi (Looking Eastward To The Blues)

04. Pahari (University Raga)

Get it HERE.

Archie Shepp - Blase (1970)

This is a great album from jazz maverick (not Howard Moon), Archie Shepp. The title track is a slow burning killer, and the addition of two harmonica players on the first two songs gives the album a whole different feel. Here's a bit of the liner notes:

"This LP was recorded in Paris in late 1969, during a flurry if activity created by the simultaneous presence in that city of a good proportion of America's finest young improvisers. Under the aegis of the BYG organisation they found their way into the recording studio in a variety of combinations; not the least impressive result was a series of three BYG albums by the much-recorded Archie Shepp, of which 'Blase' is one.
By the time of this date, Shepp was one of the better-known standard bearers of the avant-garde. He had been a member of the short-lived but influential New York Contemporary Five (with Don Cherry, John Tchichai and Sunny Murray), he had published several anti-Establishment broadsides in the widely read American Jazz magazine Downbeat (one, in which he compared the function of his saxophone to that of the machineguns of the Viet Cong, brought down the wrath of half the publication's subscribers), and he had enjoyed the patronage of John Coltrane, who had not only made Shepp a part of his important 'Ascension' recording, but had secured the tenorist a recording contract with his own label, leading to brilliant LPs like 'Four for Trane', 'On This Night', and 'Fire Music'".

Lester Bowie: Trumpet
Dave Burrell: Piano
Philly Joe Jones: Drums
Julio Finn: Harp
Chicago Beau: Harp
Jeanne Lee: Voice
Archie Shepp: Tenor Saxophone

If you're impressed by Dave Burrell's beautiful piano playing throughout this album, then make sure you check out his free-jazz reinterpretation of Puccini's 'La Vie de Boheme', which I posed about a year ago.

Tracklist:

01. MY ANGEL
02. BLASE
03. THERE IS A BALM IN GILEAD
04. SOPHISTICATED LADY
05. TOUAREG

Get it HERE.

The Peddlers - Three in a Cell (1968)

Excellent bit of Hammond driven jazz-pop-lounge sounds from this band of Manchester hipsters. Here's some great footage of the band in action in the early '70s. Check the drummer!:

Tracklist:

01		Comin' Home Baby
02		On A Clear Day You Can See Forever
03		Basin Street Blue
04		Nobody Likes Me
05		I'm A Boy In Love
06		People
01		In The Still Of The Night
02		Ebb Tide
03		Just A Pretty Song
04		Lost Continent
05		Prime Of My Life

Get it HERE.

New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival 1976 - Various Artists

This was a real surprise find at last sunday's boot sale. Great live recordings of some classic New Orleans artists, including a whole side from Allen Toussaint. My favourite stuff on the album is the storming performance from Irma Thomas and the grand old blues of Lightnin' Hopkins who introduces Slow and Easy by telling us that "...it takes an old man to sing this song, cos the young folks can't sing it to save they lives". Getting old obviously has its perks then.

Track List:

01 High Life /Sweet Touch of Love / Play Something Sweet / Shoorah Shoorah / Freedom for the Stallion (Recorded April 9 1976). ALLEN TOUSSAINT

02 Working in a Coal Mine / Holy Cow (September 11 1976) LEE DORSEY

03 Ain't It the Truth / Mother-in-Law (April 11th 1976) ERNIE K-DOE

04 Barefootin / Country Side of Life (September 26 1976) ROBERT PARKER

05 You Can Have My Husband But Please Don't Mess With My Man / Cry On / I Done My Part (April 11 1976) IRMA THOMAS

06 Mama & Papa / Trick Bag (September 11 1976) EARL KING

07 Mojo Hand / Baby Please Don't Go / All Night Long (Slow & Easy) (April 11 1976) LIGHTNIN' HOPKINS

08 Tipitina / Mardi Gras in New Orleans (April 11 1976) PROFESSOR LONGHAIR

Get the funky goodness HERE.

Dave Burrell - La Vie de Boheme (Actuel 1969)

Great free improv reinterpretation of Puccini's opera from Dave Burrell that was a real surprise find at a local boot sale. This man played with some of the great artists of the '60s free jazz scene including Pharoah Saunders, Sonny Sharrock and Elvin Jones and tha album was released on the legendary French jazz label BYG Records. If you're at all free jazz inclined then check it out.

Tracklist:

01 First Act
02 Second Act (1st Part)
03 Second Act (2nd Part)
04 Third Act
05 Fourth Act

Get it HERE.

Sun Ra & His Arkestra - Out There A Minute (Blast First 1989)

I thought it was a bit of a tease to mention Sun Ra in the last post without including some of his music, so here is the compilation of unreleased recordings that was released on the infamous noise label, Blast First, back in 1989. These tunes were all recorded in some New York loft apartment sometime in the late '60s, yet this is a strangely accessible and coherent album, its various styles and textures being held together by the murky lo-fi quality of the recordings. If you've never heard Sun Ra, then this album is a really good springboard into his amazing soundworlds.

In the Kool Keith post I touched upon some stuff about Kool Keith's use of alter egos, something also important in Sun Ra's artistic and spiritual life. While many people often think of Sun Ra as a jazz crackpot with a thing about Saturn, in 'reality' he was something of a mystic, a deeply knowledgeable trickster who constantly tried to bring heaven and earth closer together and who attempted to marry knowledge of ancient African spirituality with space age rhetoric in order to promote the kind of human understanding that could free humanity from its home-made chains. Here's an excerpt from John F. Szwed's excellent biography, Space is the Place: The Life and Times of Sun Ra, in which Sun Ra discusses his change of name from Herman 'Sonny' Blount, and his reemergence as an Egyptian god:

""Sun Ra is not a person, it's a business name...it's a certificate which was gotten in New York City; they didn't notice that I didn't have down there what my business was. They stamped it, notarized it, and they filed it. So therefore, it's a business name, and my business is changing the planet. If Jesus had done that, gone and gotten himself a business certificate, he'd have had the right and he wouldn't have had to go up there on the cross"

...So Sun Ra was a stage name, in the tradition of jazz royalty, but no one, not even the most desperately ambitious entertainer, had ever assumed the name of a god, and defied mortality.

He was well aware of the implications of his choice, and the African-American tradition of naming which lay behind it. Once, while speculating on why black people were treated as property in the United States...he saw that they were considered as goods, a word he in turn traced to the Middle English "god". And as gods (as with kings and queens) they had no last names. When these names bacame necessary they were given or took those of their white owners.

"That's why I don't use no name except Ra because I saw that, and I'm not going to go and take somebody else's name, I'm not going to do that. I got my name, the Creator gave me my name.""

John F. Szwed (1997) Space is the Place
Edinburgh: Payback Press

Here is Bill Sebastian's incredible film for 'Calling Planet Earth' which is the source of the cover images on 'Out There A Minute':


Tracklist:

1. Love in Outer Space

2. Somewhere in Space

3. Dark Clouds With Silver Linings

4. Jazz and Romantic Sounds

5. When Angels Speak of Love

6. Cosmo Enticement

7. Song of Tree and Forest

8. Other Worlds

9. Journey Outward

10. Lights on a Satellite

11. Starships and Solar Boats

12. Out There a Minute Get this great album HERE.

The Last Poets - Chastisment (1972)

A couple of weeks ago I was chatting with a friend and we got to complaining about the state of the current music scene, like a pair of old men or something. Maybe its just me, and maybe I'm not looking in the right places, but it seems that we're missing some radicalism in the contemporary music scene. Where is the revolutionary fire that has informed much of the best modern musics from the Fugs to Public Enemy, from Crass to Throbbing Gristle, Black Flag to The Minutemen. Are contemporary radicals just a bit more subtle with their messages, or does today's music reflect a wider apathy or confusion? I don't know. Like I said, I might be missing some hugely important and politically scandalous underground musical movement, one that purposefully shuns the attention of has beens like myself...

Todays album is from 1972, a radical message from a group of proto-rappers from the ravaged Harlem ghetto:
All Music Guide has this to say about this fantastic group:

...with their politically charged raps, taut rhythms and dedication to raising African American consciousness, The Last Poets almost single handedly laid the groundwork for the emergence of hip hop. The group arose out of the prison experiences of Jalal Mansur Nuriddin, a US Army paratrooper who chose jail as an alternative to fighting in Vietnam; while incarcerated he converted to Islam, learnt to 'spiel' (an early form of rapping), and befriended fellow inmates Omar Ben Hassan and Abiodun Oyewoie.

The group's uncompromising stance and hardcore black nationalism landed them under CIA counter intelligence surveillance. And for all of this, Chastisment still sounds hugely funky and is well worth hearing.

Tracklist:

• 1.Tribute to Obabi (Ogun)
• 2.Jazzoetry
• 3.Black Soldier
• 4.E Pluribus Unum
• 5.Hands Off
• 6.Before the White Man Came
• 7.Bird's Word

The zip is available over here.

Albert Ayler (with Don Cherry) - Ghosts (1964)

Great free-jazz from 1964 that oscillates between expansive, cosmic sounds and that kind of nervous, skittery free improv that comes on something like a teeth chattering amphetamine comedown. The small band on these European sessions consisted of Albert Ayler (alto sax), Don Cherry (trumpet), Gary Peacock (double bass) and Sunny Murray (all over that drumkit).

Ayler had this to say about his approach to life and music at the time:

My music is the thing that keeps me alive now. I must play music that is beyond this world. If I can just hum my tunes and live like, say, [Thelonious] Monk does, live a complete life like that, just humming tunes, writing tunes and being away from everything-if I could do this, it would just carry me back to where I came from. That's all I'm asking for in life and I don't think you can ask for more than just to be alone and create from what God gives you. Because, you know, I'm getting my lessons from God. I've been through all the other things and so I'm trying to find more and more peace all the time.

Track List:

1.Ghosts (short version)

2.Children

3.Holy Spirits

4.Ghosts (long version)

5.Vibrations

6.Mothers

You can get it here.

Flaming Demonics

Hey ho, let's go...today's musical offering is my favourite album from the demented, sax wielding standard bearer of New York's No Wave scene. James Chance was a founder member of Teenage Jesus & The Jerks along with Lydia Lunch, before going on to front a number of great bands who came to more or less define the confrontational and nihilistic attitude of much of the art coming out of the city in the period:

"If somebody comes to see me, they have to pay. And not just in money… New York people are such assholes - so cool and blase. They think they can sit and listen to anything and it won't affect them. So I decided I just had to go beyond music, and physically assault them… The first time I actually did it, really hurt people, was in Soho. I really fucking hate Soho. It was a benefit for this artsy magazine, and all these artsy-fartsy people were sitting around on the floor - and if there's one thing I can't stand it's people sitting on the floor. See, there was all this room, and no tables, and I figured everybody was going to dance. But they just sat there on the floor… I guess it just sorta went on from there."

James Chance

James Chance's music differs from the noisy avant-punk sounds of the period. After his first album with The Contortions, Chance started to blend the no wave sound with elements of funk, disco and free jazz. By the time we get to the early '80s, Chance's albums are owing as much to Ornette Coleman and Michael Jackson as they are to The Stooges or The Electric Eels. Today's post, James White's Flaming Demonics, is for me, the best example of Chance's high energy, spastic punk-funk, featuring some mindbending scratchy guitar interplay and lots of high pitched free jazz skronk. You also get the narcotic voodoo of I Danced with a Zombie, which is worth 10 minutes of anyone's listening time. I think this album really churns up all the major musical currents that were flowing through New York at the time, and seems to capture the bohemian spirit of places like the Danceteria or the Mudd Club, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

Tracklisting:

A1		The Devil Made Me Do It (8:13)
A2		Boulevard Of Broken Dreams (7:12)
A3		Rantin' And Ravin' (8:53)
B1		The Natives Are Restless (7:39)
B2		Caravan / It Don't Mean A Thing / Melt Yourself Down (8:44)
B3		I Danced With A Zombie (9:54)

You can get the zip here.