This is a Recording

On the back cover of Memphis Underground is a remarkable photograph taken in the American Sound Studio (in Memphis) during the making of the album. From an elevated vantage-point we see Mann himself, shirtless & hirsute in tight white jeans playing his flute; along with five other musicians and one other man, who I think may be recording engineer extraodinaire Tom Dowd. Mann is separated from the others by padded room dividers to help isolate his contribution, the larger of those dividers with a window in it seemingly punctured by four bullet-holes, above which is written - possibly in lipstick - "BONNIE AND CLYDE WAS HERE". It's a very good album of soul jazz, or perhaps jazz-meets-r'n'b. While I admire and enjoy Mann's flute-playing lead, for me the chief interest comes from the wonderful grooves laid down by the "Memphis Boys", i.e. the studio's excellent house band, aided by an additional trio of visiting musicians, among them Roy Ayers....

'Concrete and Clay' by Unit 4 + 2 was among the singles my mother bought when she was a teenager, that she later misguidedly gave to me and my sister. The other singles from her collection I can specifically recall ran a gamut between the cool ('Mr. Tambourine Man' by The Byrds; Lee Dorsey's 'Working in the Coal Mine') and the uncool ('Deck of Cards' by Wink Martindale) by way of the likes of The Springfields' 'Island of Dreams' and 'Glad All Over' by The Dave Clark Five. She would have probably owned some Beatles 45s too, had her big sister not already acquired them. Unit 4 + 2 came by their name by virtue of having been a quartet that became a sextet. 'Concrete and Clay' was their sole big hit, reaching the heights of Number 1 in the UK Singles Chart for a single week in April 1965. It's a protestation of undying love clad in a rather lovely Latin-influenced arrangement. There's a promotional film-clip of the ba...

No more than dimly aware of his music, I hadn't known of Chet Baker's outings as a vocalist until about four or five years ago. Then, in a classic case of the so-called Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, I suddenly seemed to hear and read about it from multiple sources within the space of a few months. Having much enjoyed some of the tracks from Chet Baker Sings , I obtained it on CD, as part of a four-disc set of Eight Classic Albums which also included two other records with some of Chet's crooning on them: Grey December and Embraceable You . Then, last year, I happened to find a vinyl copy in the wild - specifically a mid-'80s Spanish re-issue in excellent condition that, according to Discogs, is worth rather more than the few pounds I paid for it. The record brings together the contents of a 10" album recorded and released in 1954 (the original Chet Baker Sings ) with a further half dozen numbers recorded in 1956 for the initial 12" issue. The music is mellow, a...

Frederick Youens' sleeve-notes on this UK release of Louis (or Ludwig) Spohr's Nonet in F, op. 31 , say of the composer that "he never attained profound depths or a wide range, but his undoubted gift for melody made him a much-loved composer during his lifetime" (rated ahead of Beethoven by some contemporaries). Such seems to be Spohr's legacy: to be half-damned by lukewarm praise. Youens reckons the Nonet "has much of the charm of the Schubert Octet" - when, to my mind, Spohr's is the more enjoyable piece of the two.  Though not a musical revolutionary in the same vein as Beethoven, Spohr was also an innovator in his own way - credited with inventing the violin chin-rest, and of being the first to conduct an orchestra with a baton. And in his compositions, Spohr not infrequently "experimented with unusual combinations of instruments" (Youens again) with the Nonet a case in point. Similar instrumental groupings had been used in late-18th-Ce...

For the almost-completely out-of-touch, end-of-year best-of lists can be useful and instructive. Having stuck my head in the musical sand in the Spring of 2020, I'd missed the advent of Sault's two Untitled albums until I saw enthusiastic praise for them that December. After trying on a few tracks for size, I ordered CD copies of them both (from Juno, as I recall) in January last year, It hadn't been long since I'd first seen the name "Inflo": in the credits for Michael Kiwanuka's eponymous 2019 album. Impressive as that record was, it's as captain of the good ship SAULT that his vision & talent have truly come into their own. Untitled (Rise) can seem an uplifting carnivalesque counterpart to the oftener mournful & angry Untitled (Black Is) - but that's an oversimplification, as they're meanwhile cut from different parts of the same cloth. Even a dance music ignoramus like me can appreciate some of the strands skilfully interwoven he...

Stanley Brinks, formerly known as André Herman Düne, is a half Swedish, half Moroccan, Paris-born, Berlin-resident singer-songwriter. The Wave Pictures are a three-piece band from Leicestershire fronted by singer/guitarist David Tattersall. Both they and Brinks have recorded prolifically. Jointly they have released at least three albums and as many singles, with 'Orange Juice', issued in 2014, being the first of the latter. It was released as a bright orange 7" on the Fika Recordings label. A week ago I wrote "very often I need to hear an unfamiliar song several times before its charms or its annoyances become fully apparent": 'Orange Juice' is a counter-example, a case where it was love at first hearing. In a nasal tenor, Brinks laments the state of the weather, his own decrepitude, the music he hears on the radio, the dirty streets, and, lastly, the apparent futility of existence. Against all that, a more optimistic chorus rejoins "but I'll get...

Having fallen for the late, lamented Jaimie Branch's wonderful album Fly or Die II , I wondered if there might be anything else on the same label - International Anthem - that I'd also enjoy. Via YouTube I began listening to Irreversible Entanglements, and, while the music was a little freer than I typically take my jazz, I was hooked by the video for the track 'No Más', and had soon acquired the Who Sent You? album on CD. Irreversible Entanglements are a quintet with four instrumentalists (Keir Neuringer - saxophone; Aquiles Navarro - trumpet; Luke Stewart - bass; Tcheser Holmes - drums) and a vocalist (Camae Ayewa, aka Moor Mother). Ayewa recites rather than sings her words, yet the rhythmic quality of her delivery enhances the music as well as providing the message. Who Sent You? released in 2020, is their second album. There are five tracks over the disc's forty-three minutes. The first half of the second number, which gives the album its name, is another hig...

For someone who was a curious neophyte, getting a six-CD box-set of The Meters' "Complete Josie/Reprise & Warner Recordings 1968-1977" was excessive. In retrospect, Here Comes the Meter Man , a less extensive compliation collecting the first three albums over two CDs may have been a better choice, but some reviews had complained of the sound quality on the latter, and this one wasn't all that much more expensive. The six discs contain eight full albums and a wealth of singles and other bonus tracks. Also in the box is a forty-page booklet with many photos and extensive notes by Charles Waring, plus a very thorough breakdown of the discs' contents. After playing through all the discs a couple of times apiece, my preference is firmly for the impeccable instrumental numbers, mostly drawn from The Meters and Look-Ka Py Py that fill Disc #1. For me, it's the perfect music for driving to. That's not to say that there aren't treasures elsewhere too, suc...

Here's a 7" on bright yellow vinyl from toward the end of my phase of buying new singles of individual songs that I'd heard on the radio & taken a shine to. It was released in 2018, and was the third single from The Lovely Eggs' fourth LP This is Eggland . The Lovely Eggs are a Lancaster-based punk duo with a DIY ethos whose music all comes from "one vintage guitar amp, one Big Muff distortion pedal, a guitar and a drum kit." I'd become aware of them a few years beforehand, around the time of their album This is Our Nowhere .  'Wiggy Giggy' is an infectiously catchy number based in part on a children's story about a space traveller who discovers great treasure but finds he has no way to spend it & no-one to share it with. The B-side, 'My Dad', is a more leaden affair - in which singer/guitarist Holly Ross describes a dream wherein she saw her late father.

Intrigued by Tyondai Braxton's debut album and by his work with Battles, when searching for more of his music I found the excellent 'Pulse March' that he'd written for the Asphalt Orchestra. Record-buying funds weren't freely available at that point, so it wasn't until a good ten years later that I eventually acquired the Orchestra's self-titled album on CD. "Created by the founders of the 'relentlessly inventive' new music presenter Bang on a Can, Asphalt Orchestra unleashes innovative music from concert halls, rock clubs and jazz basements and takes it to the streets and beyond." So goes the blurb - they're a marching band with the usual brass and percussion-heavy instrumentation that implies, albeit with virtuoso players and a determinedly wide-ranging, artsy repertoire. As well as Braxton's piece, there are arrangements of pieces by the likes of Frank Zappa, Charles Mingus and Björk, which translate to the brass-band medium with...

The cover says 'I Love Rock-n-Roll', the label 'I Love Rock 'N Roll, while the Wikipedia page about the song is headed 'I Love Rock 'n' Roll'. Confusion reigns. Whatever the ultimate truth may be, I bought a dusty copy of the UK version of the single in a picture sleeve, along with some other classics of its era, about six months ago. I don't recall hearing The Arrows' original version of the track in 1975. The remake certainly has some of that mid-'70s platform-soled glam stomp still in it. The line "I knew she/he must a been about seventeen" hasn't aged too well - the song's writer Alan Merrill was twenty-four when it was first released, at a time when Jett herself was about seventeen and just getting started with The Runaways. The B-side is a Jett original 'Love is Pain', an undistinguished number which is nevertheless delivered with conviction by Joan & her Blackhearts.

At the local charity shop one Saturday about five years ago I spotted something with the distinctive orange-&-black Impulse! Records spine. I hadn't heard of Gary McFarland, but felt it was worth the few pounds' asking price to give Profiles a listen. The cover provides a good deal of information up-front: "RECORDED LIVE / Sunday, February 6, 1966-8PM / Norman Schwartz presents / Gary McFarland: / Profiles / A unique concert of original compositions reflecting the special qualities of today's most accomplished jazzmen..." Inside the gatefold, Nat Hentoff stresses the occasion having been a sit-down concert performance of (chiefly) through-composed music. This was evidently a major showcase for McFarland, who had made a name for himself through the early '60s as a composer and arranger, having worked with the likes of Anita O'Day and Gerry Mulligan . The 20-piece band recruited for the performance did McFarland proud: among their number the likes of Cl...

Very often I need to hear an unfamiliar song several times before its charms or its annoyances become fully apparent to me, which is partly why radio has been such a crucial medium in forming and changing my musical tastes. If a DJ whose taste or knowledge I respect plays a track repeatedly and it doesn't appeal to me at first hearing, then I'll be open to a second, third, or subsequent encounter to change my mind about it. When exploring music on-line, there's much less likelihood of my giving a song a second chance it I don't care for it the first time. Jen Cloher is a case in point. Her song 'Analysis Paralysis' had slipped past me a couple of times before it stuck its hooks in me. It sounded even better when I heard her band play it in a live radio session: soon after that, I ordered a CD copy. It isn't, for me, a perfect album - I love about half of it. Having said that, the first twenty-two minutes or so taken up by its opening four tracks is excellent...

Having found this 1965 LP at the local charity shop I was pleased to find a commenter at Discogs had written: "If you can only have one Jr Walker, this is it, because no collection but this contains all these essentials: 'Roadrunner', 'Shotgun', 'Cleo's Mood' and 'Cleo's Back'". It's a terrific album, - the All Stars' first - and it has been too long since I put it on (I'll remedy that later). I was already acquainted with the title track, and with 'Roadrunner', but the rest was all new to me. The opener, 'Cleo's Mood', is a slinky instrumental. 'Do the Boomerang' raises the tempo and introduces some vocals, which provide instruction & encouragement for those doing the titular dance. Then comes the knockout combination of 'Shotgun' and 'Road Runner', and so on. The LP's only flaw, which isn't really much of a weakness, is that it feels more like a set of singles than a ...

On belatedly catching up with Twin Peaks: The Return a few years ago, in the middle of its very striking eighth episode where a slow-motion monochrome nuclear explosion is accompanied by the sound of harshly screeching strings, I recognised the music right away as Krzysztof Penderecki's 'Threnody For The Victims Of Hiroshima'. The 'Threnody' is among the pieces on this CD that I'd picked up in an anodyne small-town shopping-mall about twenty years ago. I'd been curious to hear it having previously read some reference to it (possibly by Lester Bangs) as an exemplary slice of horrible noise. I expected it to sound abrasive and discordant, but its expressive power caught me off-guard. It apparently took its composer by surprise too: beginning life as a something of an abstract piece, it was only when he first heard it performed that its "emotional charge" became apparent to him. The main part of this disc is devoted to Penderecki's 3rd Symphony,...

"A stunning introduction to music's freshest new voice!" boasts the hype sticker on my copy of Janelle Monáe's Metropolis: The Chase Suite EP: a bold claim, but not, in my opinion, too much of an overstatement. This "Special Edition" of Metropolis came out in 2010 around the time her major label debut album The Archandroid was hitting the shelves. Its original release (as Metropolis, Suite I Of IV: The Chase ) had been in 2007, with two further tracks included here. The scene is set by the opening number 'The March Of The Wolfmasters', where pseudo-orchestral music underpins a spoken introduction to the fictional world of the tracks that follow. The fun really begins with the uptempo 'Violet Stars Happy Hunting!!!', a thrilling rollercoaster ride through that world. Almost as good is 'Many Moons', where real world imagery overlays Monáe's imaginary city. 'Cybertronic Purgatory' is a short, ethereal interlude. Another hi...

Time Further Out (Miró Reflections) was my first Dave Brubeck Quartet LP. It was initially released in 1961, with my copy having the look of a later-'60s repress. Within a year of finding it, I'd also picked up a copy of its more famous prequel, Time Out . A couple of the Quartet's other albums have only rested briefly on my shelves, but one further LP of theirs I enjoy and will be keeping is Anything Goes! (The Dave Brubeck Quartet Plays Cole Porter) . As on Time Out there are a variety of unconventional time signatures included here. The tracks are arranged in ascending order of beats-to-the-bar, starting with 'It's a Raggy Waltz' and 'Bluette' in 3/4, by way of 'Unsquare Dance' in 7/8 (the record's big hit, and the only one of its pieces I knew before buying it), and ending with 'Blue Shadows in the Street' in 9/8.  According to Brubeck, the album is also a musical interpretation of the Joan Miró painting shown on its cover, and ...

Another of the albums I've re-acquired on vinyl that I formerly owned on cassette is this compilation of some of Sweet Honey in the Rock's best tracks as of 1987. I feel fairly sure I bought it relatively soon after its release. Theirs was among the several kinds of music that Andy Kershaw would play on his Radio 1 show - there's a fair chance I heard of them from him. They're an a capella vocal quintet with a sixth member who provides sign-language interpretations of their songs. At Discogs this is categorised as "Gospel/Soul". There's more here of the socially-conscious, political & inspirational than the outright religious: they're preaching a kind of semi-secular gospel on this record, though their singing must surely derive much of its quality and heft from devotional roots. My favourite tracks here include the rousingly righteous 'Ella's Song' & 'Study War No More', and softer-edged numbers like the title track and ...

While resident in the US in 1919, Rebecca Clarke entered her Viola Sonata in a composition competition sponsored by patron of the arts Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge. Out of a field of 72 entrants, Clarke's piece was adjudged the joint winner, unluckily losing out via Coolidge's casting vote to Ernest Bloch's Suite for Viola and Piano, a similarly excellent piece. Something must have been in the water that year, as it also saw the publication of Paul Hindemith's wonderful Op. 11 No.4 Viola Sonata. Might her career have flourished more fruitfully had she won? Perhaps, but the obstacles in her way were formidable: entrenched sexism; the demands of family life; persistent depression. Most of her major compositions date from the latter 1910's and the early '20s, with only sporadic creative episodes thereafter. I can't recall if I read about her work before hearing it or vice versa, but it was after listening to a movement from her Viola Sonata on BBC Radio 3 that I ...

Another CD I picked up from the seemingly now-defunct Kriminal Records in Newport is this 2010 2-disc issue on the "Not Now" label. Disc 1 contains the 1958 album Moanin' , while disc 2 has Orgy in Rhythm , originally released on two LPs in 1963. The Jazz Messengers only appear on the former, with the latter the fruits of a separate project where Blakey played with no fewer than three other drummers; along with a quartet of percussionists plus bass, piano and flute. Interesting & unusual as they are, I haven't yet taken a shine to the Orgy in Rhythm tracks. Moanin' , on the other hand, is a firm favourite. From the opening piano notes of the title track, one feels in safe hands, and the quality barely dips though the whole record. The Jazz Messengers on this occasion were Benny Golson on tenor sax; Lee Morgan on trumpet, Bobby Timmons on piano and Jymie Merritt on bass. For me, the most memorable instrumental moments on the record come from Morgan, such the s...

I have barely listened to this three-track 7-inch EP since aquiring it the year before last. It was issued alongside CCR's Chronicle compilation LP in 1977. Chronicle was one of my Dad's very favourite records, meaning I heard these songs a great many times at a formative age and feel like I could replay them on demand in my head. They are all excellent - I still enjoy them when I hear them: it's just that they're so well-embedded in my memory the need for a reminder and refresher hasn't really arisen. Dad also had the Cosmo's Factory and Pendulum LPs, but not, for whatever reason, the earlier ones. I'm pretty sure he has since obtained them - on CD at least. As a nine or ten year old, the merits of 'Bad Moon Rising' and 'Proud Mary' were obvious to me (I liked 'Up Around the Bend' even better). It wasn't until years later though, that I came to enjoy 'Green River' as much. Now it may even be my favourite of these thre...

The P-Funk section of my record collection begins and ends with this '76 single on the Casablanca label. Obviously it's better than nothing, if not by much. I did once also own a copy of Funkadelic's Maggot Brain on CD, but that got lost somewhere along the way. It's a shorter version of a track from their '75 album Mothership Connection . where it went by the reversed title 'Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucker)', as it likewise did on some other releases of the 7". I learn from an annotation on genius.com that "If you listen to 'Give up the Funk' as a single, outside the context of Mothership Connection , it’s just a good funk dance track with lyrics that seem to serve no purpose beyond rallying you to the dance floor. In the Mothership Connection story, though, this is the climax of an alien invasion..." Having not heard the album, I was unaware of that subtlety. Even so, it does work remarkably well as just a good fun...

Under the heading of "two great sounds that sound great together" comes this meeting of minds & musics. Catrin Finch is classically-trained harpist well-acquainted with the Welsh folk tradition; while Seckou Keita is a kora virtuoso originally from Senegal but now based in the UK. This is the first of three collaborative albums they've made to date: it came out in 2013. I'd heard a piece or two from Clychau Dibon around the time of its release, and caught some footage of the duo performing together on YouTube. Only last year, however, did I obtain a CD copy of the album. Browsing Ebay I found one that had been signed by both artists that cost about as much as it would have been new & unmarked, so I bought that one. It's a very well put-together package with a 36-page booklet including numerous photographs of Finch and Keita and an essay about the project by Andy Morgan given in English and Welsh. The music, some of it derived from traditional sources var...

Kiran Leonard was no more than eighteen when this double A-side 7" was released in 2013. It was his first commercially-issued recording, but had been preceded by other, self-released material. An album, Bowler Hat Soup , followed soon after, with both these songs included. Both records came out on Mary Epworth's (sister of famed producer Paul) "Hand of Glory" label. I gather there were 300 copies of the single pressed, of which 50, including mine, have picture sleeves. In all likelihood, I would have obtained it from Piccadilly Records in Manchester. Marc Riley had been playing both tracks on his 6 Music radio show, oftener 'Port-Ainé'. After a few listens I was intrigued enough to order a physical copy.   'Dear Lincoln' begins in abrupt & staccato fashion, going on to pack a surprising amount into its 112-second duration. 'Port-Ainé' is slower & moodier at the outset, before building to an impressive climax. Leonard's later releas...

In the mid '00s The Word was my favourite music magazine and I would buy it most months, provided issues made their way to the corner of Sweden where I then lived. They had an unoriginal recurring feature where a music-related personality would be invited to recommend some of their favourite media of the moment. In one of those the subject in question (I forget who it was) enthused about Teresa Cristina and about this album specifically. I don't know if I'd have had any way then of trying it before buying, so my order may have been a blindly speculative one. It worked out well: I like it very much. These are old-fashioned, acoustic samba singalongs in which Teresa Cristina is the lead vocalist and the obvious star of the show. My copy seems to be a Spanish issue on a Brazilian label. The songs are all in Portuguese (as are the booklet and cover text). While I understand very few of the words, it's clear that TC has a beautifully expressive & soulful voice, one that...

Isao Tomita made his name, following the example set by Wendy Carlos' Switched-on Bach , with a succession of albums through the '70s featuring works from the Western Classical canon adapted and arranged for the analogue sythesizers of the day. For example, his first record in this vein - Snowflakes are Dancing (1973) - was based on works by Claude Debussy. The basis for much of Tomita's fifth such offering, The Bermuda Triangle (1979), comes from pieces composed by Sergei Prokofiev, but this time some of the adaptations are looser, and, as the title suggests, there's more going on than just that. Nowadays we're told that the Bermuda Triangle is no more (or less) inexplicable than any other expanse of deep ocean, but in the late '70s and early '80s it was having its mysterious moment in the moonlight, as exemplified by such productions as the Bermuda Triangle board game (1976); the TV series The Fantastic Journey (1977) and of course Barry Manilow's ...

Of the couple of hundred albums I bought on cassette between the ages of 18 and 21, some I've been glad to re-acquire on vinyl and others I've been content not to revisit. In the latter category are the likes of Licensed to Ill , The Best Of The Doors and Lou Reed's Berlin ; in the former, Purple Rain , Fisherman's Blues and In My Tribe by 10,000 Maniacs. It's a record that, if it were made today, might be characterized as "woke" (in the UK of the late '80s, "right-on" would perhaps have been the equivalent designation). It includes socially-conscious songs touching on child abuse ('What's The Matter Here'); illiteracy ('Cherry Tree'); alcohol abuse ('Don't Talk'); militarism ('Gun Shy'); and environmentalism ('A Campfire Song'). And Natalie Merchant was ahead of her time in taking an acutely critical look at "The Beat Generation" authors in 'Hey Jack Kerouac' - in those day...

Down among the least valuable albums I own is this 2010 CD of Corinne Bailey Rae's second full-length release The Sea . At Discogs the median price for it is currently £1.88, a penny more than the LP of orchestral music by Leos Janáček I wrote about in January, and a penny less than a CD copy of The Very Best Of Prince . In general, soul albums from the latter part of the CD era are cheap as chips: now is a great time to be buying them. In any case, it's another illustration, if any were needed, of the lack of correlation between monetary and artistic value. My late wife was binge-watching episodes of the show Medium one evening, ca. 2007, while I was busy with something or other at the computer in the next room. During one particlar episode (S3E12: 'The One Behind The Wheel') a brief musical refrain was played very frequently throughout: often enough that it caught my attention. My wife asked me to look up the song in question, which turned out to be CBR's 'L...

I can't recall hearing anything about Nick Drake until the early '90s, and the release of the Way to Blue compilation. If I'd caught any of his songs on the radio before that, they had failed to register. Previous re-issues and compilations of his music had passed me by. In the late '70s and '80s, his sister Gabrielle 's name was undoubtedly better-known than his, owing to her work as a TV actor. Over the last twenty-odd years his posthumous fame has seemed only to spread ever more widely, and was long-established before I belatedly acquired any of his records. The first one I picked up was Pink Moon . On a rare visit to the HMV shop at the Cribbs Causeway mall a few years ago they had copies of the 2013 re-release on offer, and I thought "why not?" The pandemic was in full swing before it was joined by Five Leaves Left . A copy of Bryter Later - again, from the 2013 release - completed the set last summer. Unlike the other two albums, this one doesn...

Nala Sinephro's debut album Space 1.8 could have been among my favourite records of 2021, if it weren't for its initial issue being vinyl-only. Having heard a few tracks from it on-line, it seemed to me like music that could easily sound a little better on CD (and it would be cheaper too). So I waited - and my patience was rewarded when a re-issue early this year brought forth CD copies as well as more vinyl ones. In that way it has become one of my favourite records of 2022. I've listened to it many times and feel very far from exhausting its delights. At Discogs, the album has been categorised as "Contemporary Jazz, Ambient" which seems about right. There are saxophones and double basses and drums involved, and a few tracks are unquestionably jazzy - but there are also other textures too, courtesy of Sinephro's mastery of two highly unalike instruments: the harp and the modular synthesizer, which both excel at laying on soothing ambience. All eight tracks a...