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Monthly Archives: May 2012

Charlie Byrd

26 Saturday May 2012

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Blues Sonata, Buddy Deppenschmidt, Charlie Byrd, Felix Grant, So Long Old Shoe

So here we are in Flamenco Land.  Charlie on an acoustic steel string, descending figure, ascending figure, descend, ascend, and then what are those blues riffs doing in there?  And it loosens up and drifts away into impossible improvisations, and how could any fingers ever put those chords together, and then here we are back at the zingaro campfire.   It sounds like Buddy Deppenschmidt begins playing the drums with his hands, compounding the gypsy feeling, and then sparse insistent rapid taps and quiet clinks around the drumset.  And Keter Betts’ bass isn’t walking those blues – it’s swinging and strutting and twirling and sashaying and pattering that soft shoe and leaping in big arches.

The great D.C. jazz DJ, Felix Grant, used to sign off the radio with the words, “So Long Old Shoe.”  This song is called “Scherzo for an Old Shoe,” a tribute to a great friend of Charlie’s, and every other jazz musician.  It is the third and last movement of Charlie’s “Blues Sonata.”  It closes with a return to a phrase from the slightly off kilter polonaise of the first movement, and ends with a very courtly A major chord.

Charlie Byrd, Blues Sonata, Offbeat Reacords, OLP 3009 (1961).  Album design – Ken Deardoff; Photography – Ken Deardoff, Steve Schapiro.

Hapsash and the Coloured Coat

20 Sunday May 2012

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Hapsash and the Coloured Coat, Michael English, Mike Batt, Nigel Waymouth, psychedelic, Spooky Tooth, T. S. McPhee

What the hell is this?  Thumping screeching jamming with drums and guitars and piano, like we’ve all done late at night bombed out of our nuts in a living room.  Except these wackos released it on vinyl.  They sound like a bunch of rich kids who could hardly play any instruments got into a studio did a bunch of drugs and banged and strummed and whooped.  They hoot “H-O-P-P Why?”

I don’t know if Michael English and Nigel Waymouth were rich but the rest of my presumptions hold.  They were actually founders of a design company called  Hapsash and the Coloured Coat that created spectacular iconic psychedelic posters for many British groups like Pink Floyd, Soft Machine, and Spooky Tooth.  They put out what has become one of the most collectible albums from the psychedelic era:  Hapsash and the Coloured Coat Featuring The Human Host and The Heavy Metal Kids.  The Heavy Metal Kids were the musicians who went on to form Spooky Tooth.

Waymouth continued as Hapsash and recorded a second album called Western Flyer which was produced by the brilliant and sophisticated Mike Batt.  It also has become a consummate collector’s item.  It was at least as wacky and sloppy as the first Hapsash album.  The great slide guitarist, T. S. McPhee (later the leader of the Groundhogs) noodles away on his strings, clearly saying with each note, “Well, at least I’ll get paid (I hope).”

Guy Stevens, Nigel Waymouth, Michael English, “H-O-P-P Why?,” (BMI) (No date).  From Hapsash and the Coloured Coat, Hapsash and the Coloured Coat Featuring The Human Host and The Heavy Metal Kids, Imperial Records, LP-12377 (No date).  Art Direction – Woody Woodward; Album design – Gabor Halmos; Photography – Ekim Adis.

Osei Tutu

19 Saturday May 2012

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Ghana, highlife, Osei Tutu

Osei Tutu is one of the leading modern proponents of highlife music.  He is named after the legendary 18th century warrior king of the West African Empire of Ashaniti, and he is a member of the modern Ashanti Tribe in Ghana.  The present day King of the Ashanti shares the same name – Otumfuo Osei Tutu II – but I have not found anything to suggest the two are related, except through the love of music.

Highlife is a musical mutt.  It began in Ghana in the early 1900’s as a mingling of rhythms and percussion of West Africa, the blasting horns of European military brass-band music, and happy melodies of Pacific islands.  Into its musical mashup, highlife has, through the decades, accreted calypso, son cubano, American swing, rock and roll, Western pop, reggae, R&B, gospel, hiphop, and any other genre that caught the ears of its devotees.  All the while, it has been rooted in the wild dancing party beats that keep its fans jumping until the sun rises.

Osei Tutu’s voice is almost conversational, the melodies are sweet and simple, and every syllable is discernable, which contrasts beautifully with the frantic insistent syncopated rhythms on a multitude of percussions.  Even a romantic duet with Hannah Lee is underdriven by dynamic patterns on the drums.

This album is a collaboration between Osei and Claude Di Bongué, the noted Cameroonian guitarist, who arranged the tunes and also plays keyboards and  percussion.  The album was recorded in Paris, where the two met.  Take this beautiful song, “Enyimema.”  Perhaps he is singing in the Twi language, but the words are translated:

Do not leave me
My love
Don’t you think
We deserve
A second chance?

In the middle of the instrumental, Léandro Acouncha on piano suddenly spins off into a Keith Jarrett-like jazzy interlude.  The trumpet and sax blow out blazing accents.  Underlying the simple ballad sung by Osei is some of the most amazing drumming I have ever heard.  Hubert (The Groove Man) Colau on a trap set and Patrick Gorce on percussions create a completely unexpected rhythm track, finding the beats between the beats and poising pauses of unanticipated brevity, all the while driving a rhythm that requires joyous jumping, sultry swinging, and temerous twirling.

Claude Di Bongué and Osei Tutu, “Enyimema,” No publisher (No date).  From:  Osei Tutu, Awakening, Tinder Records, 42854832 (No date).  Album design – Christine Lemeur and Shaun James; Photography – Emmanuelle Margarita.

New Grass Revival

12 Saturday May 2012

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Courtney Johnson, Curtis Burch, Jimmy Webb, John Cowan, New Grass Revival, newgrass, Progressive bluegrass, Sam Bush

New Grass Revival is at the top of any list of practitioners of progressive bluegrass music, or Newgrass as it is often called.  In fact, the term “Newgrass” was likely appropriated by admirers of this group.

Progressive bluegrass departs from the rather rigid conventions of traditional bluegrass which is characterized by specific roster of all-acoustic instruments – usually banjo, mandolin, fiddle, guitar, double bass, and vocals; its repertory of traditional folk songs; and its constrained musical structure – a limited range of key and time signatures, three or four chords in any given song, and tightly structured instrumental breaks.

Newgrass takes these conventions and blows them to smithereens.  In Newgrass you will find, infused into the bluegrass sound, electric instruments, drums, keyboards, and any other musical apparatus the world has to offer.  The repertory includes grassy versions of pop, rock, jazz, world, and classical songs, and the compositions draw from every musical genre.  Upon the traditional forms, are imposed uncomfortable key signatures, asymmetrical times and tempos, complex harmonic structures, and long improvised instrumental jams.

Any way you want to categorize it, the romping music of New Grass Revival is spectacular.  And this song, a live version of “Fly Through the Country,” epitomizes the Newgrass genre.

The signature vamp sliding around in a minor mode on the strings of the electrified mandolin tells you right out of the box that this ain’t gonna be like your mama’s Foggy Mountain Boys.  This song was written by Jimmy Webb, one of the greatest songwriters of all time, and I doubt even he could have anticipated where NGR would take his song.

The words are about suffering from a congested Modern World state of mind – “my eyes are red, my head feels like an unmade bed” – which can only be cured by an escape to the country.

Gonna fly through the country
Hangin’ on the trees
Pickin’ berries in the underbrush
Crawlin’ on my knees

After the verses and choruses the song jumps into a long wonderful jam.  As arranged by NGR, this is a mandolin song, centering on the legendary Sam Bush (who, golldarnit, is also a spectacular fiddler).  He flails out the solo and elides the notes as if his fingers were made of glass and then settles down in kinda smooth and sneaky so that guitarist Curtis Burch can dive in picking out swarms of notes punctuated by elaborate chords, until the mandolin brings on another round of singing, and then the mandolin, distorted by a gurgling flange, carries on a protracted conversation with Courtney Johnson’s intricate syncopated banjo.  Toward the end, when you hear John Cowan howl the word “Fly” over nine bars, you have been beguiled so deep and whooped so high, you know it doesn’t get any better than this.

Jimmy Webb, “Fly Through the Country,” Barren County Music (BMI) (No date).  From:  New Grass Revival, Too Late to Turn Back Now, Flying Fish Records, Flying Fish 050 (1977).  Album design – Penny Case; Cover design and illustration – Rance L. Barela.

Thor

05 Saturday May 2012

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heavy metal, humor, Keep the Dogs Away, Military Matters, Thor

One look at the album art and you know that, either this guy has a great sense of humor or else he is one of the most self deluded egomaniacs of all time.  Humor wins!  This is because he really is one of those bigger-than-life people, and has the self confidence and self awareness to make fun of himself.  On the cover he holds a group of snarling dobermans.  But his body!  Herculean proportions, oaken limbs, puissant visage, he looks like an assemblage of over-inflated condoms tied together to approximate the form of a human being.  It turns out that Thor is really a successful professional bodybuilder.  Among his accomplishments were the titles of Mr. Canada in the 1973 International Federation of Bodybuilders competition and Mr. USA in the 1973 American Amateur Bodybuilding Association competition.

All the songs are boastful and cartoonish.  This one, “Military Matters,” begins with nimble descending and ascending scales on the lead guitar.  A military beat introduces the singers, declaiming in unison:

I think we’re heading for the rising storm
Show you sights you‘ve never seen before
They’re getting ready for the Third World War
As they ride ride ride ride ri-ide
On the wings of the Valkyrie

Thor orates in stentorian voice:

There’s talk of military matters
I can hear that in the wind
It’s much too hot to handle
As the rumble starts again

This song does not awaken in me the Third-World-War terrors that kept me awake at night in third grade.  Rather, it is out of the pages of the comics from that time, like DC’s Sgt. Rock and Marvel’s Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos, and, of course, Marvel’s The Mighty Thor.  Thor issues forth like a real life comic book hero.

Willi Morrison, John Shand, Ian Guenther, “Military Matters,” Pondfield Music, Inc./Ample Parking Publishing (ASCAP) (1978).  From Thor, Keep the Dogs Away, Midsong Records, Manufactured and Distributed by MCA, MCA 2337 (1978).  Album Design – John Williamson, Leslie Smart & Associates; Photography – Normands Berzins.

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