etnobofin

the cult of lewis taylor

2006-10-20T06:21:00.000+13:00

the cult of lewis taylor
Originally uploaded by wacky doodler.

etnobofin has moved!

2006-02-12T12:26:00.000+13:00

etnobofin has moved to a new site:

The amazing adventure continues at www.etnobofin.com !

Please update your links. Thanks to everyone who has visited and contributed to the etnobofin Blogger site over the past 17 months, and I hope you will enjoy the new site.

Scènes Européenes: Letter to America Part 2

2006-02-07T19:08:00.000+13:00

Continued from Part 1...

Apart from the children, who were generally great fun, the main reason I headed to Basel was for the Herbstmäss- the autumn market which is one of the traditions of Basel. E-D is friends with the President of the Basel Church History society, (or something like that), and so he was able to get us into the opening ceremony of the Herbstmäss-,which takes place at the top of the belltower of the Martinkirche (St Martin’s Church) in the old town.

The bells of the Martinkirche are rung at midday on the first day of the Herbstmäss and at the end of the market at the end of the week. A local Basel citizen is chosen to be the bell-ringer, and as payment for his duty, he gets a pair of black gloves. BUT. But. He receives one after ringing the opening bells, and then the second one to complete the pair when he rings the bells at the end of the market. He also gets to wear a little horn-shaped trumpet around his neck for the duration of the market.

So there we were, climbing the rickety mediaeval staircase of the Martinkirche, and at the top we joined a group of guests crowded into the bell-ringer’s room at the top of the tower. (The bell-ringer used to live up here, and had the best view in the city. It’s still the best view in Basel and nobody is allowed up there normally.)

At five minutes to twelve, the bellringer was presented with one black glove. He then went over to the window and leant out, waving his glove and blowing his little trumpet to show the crowd below that he had received the first half of his salary. Then at 12:00 exactly (and remember that this IS Switzerland, so you can be sure that it was exactly the right time), the bellringer begins to ring his bells, for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, everyone in the tower looks out the window and waves at the people in the street below and looking at the view- it was a perfect day, and we could see the three mountain ranges that surround the valley of Basel and the Rhine: the Black Forest to the North-East in Germany, the Jura to the South in Switzerland and the Vosges to the North-West in Alsace.

This was the 531st time that the bells of the Martinkirche have been rung to mark the beginning of the Herbstmäss- which means that the first time it was done was in 1469- before Columbus arrived in America, before Basel was part of Switzerland, and even before Michael Jackson recorded Thriller. That, believe me, is a very long time ago.

The Herbstmäss involves lots of fairground rides in the little squares around the Old Town, and the town was full of neatly-dressed Swiss families (3-year olds in Fubu and Armani being pushed around in Audi baby buggies, that sort of thing) all earnestly munching on candyfloss (Zückerwatte/ barbe de papa) and making their way between the various attractions. There are sausage and chocolate stands everywhere, and the main market, where you can buy all sorts of things at Swiss prices. One stall just sold Advent Calendars, and they even had these really small ones, perfect for putting in envelopes (one of them is in this letter, if I remember to put it in).

Apart from exploring the Herbstmäss, I helped E-D buy materials to build a new garden fence. A Swiss DIY shop is something to be experienced, I tell you. Everything is just so NEAT and TIDY. The power drills look so shiny that you could perform brain surgery with them, the timber is neatly stacked out and there are special hydraulic-suspension trolleys on which to to carry your timber to the checkout with. At which point you must part with an amount of money which you could use as a deposit on a house in New Zealand.

However, I shouldn’t be too harsh on Switzerland- I really enjoyed the change from the dogpoo and baguettes and Peugeots that you find in my town. AND the drivers in Switzerland are polite and STOP for pedestrians. Everything works, there are no strikes (Switzerland has 1% unemplyment, and those are just the cuckoos for whom a clock has not yet been built), and the place is CLEAN. H dropped a piece of chocolate on the pavement, K picked it up straight away and H ate it without question. In France, a piece of chocolate that was dropped would probably fall into something else that is brown.

Not that I hate France at all, it’s just such an unreliable country, with funny public holidays that interrupt your travel plans and fonctionnaires who move as fast as glaciers and train companies where the drivers are constantly on strike to demand compensation for nocturnal frog attacks (or something like that). But it’s all good, really. Challenging sometimes, frustrating to the point that you want to stab administrators with a baguette, but really good. My town is so completely French and Alsatian at the same time, and even when I’m completely fed up with the place, the boulangeries suddenly sparkle in the morning sun or I find some beret-wearing old Alsatian men playing pétanque by the river or a poodle relieving itself on a postman’s bicycle and I realise how lucky I am to be here. I’m beginning to understand how the French have managed to con the whole world into thinking thay they are the absolute best at making wine, cooking and living with complete joie de vivre.

I’ve just about run out of things to say for the moment, so until I hear from you, keep safe and have fun whatever you’re doing!

Grosses Bises comme toujours

Isaac Hayes – Never Gonna Give You Up
From Black Moses: Stax SCD24 8509-2 [Buy]

Scènes Européenes: Letter to America Part 1

2006-02-04T12:25:00.001+13:00

mercredi, le 1 novembre 2000

Dear J

«Curiouser and curiouser» said Alice as she went further down the rabbit hole. I was leaving the apartment for a few days (staying in Mulhouse and Basel, from which I have just returned), and I found a letter from NZ in my letterbox: a letter from the family, some newspaper articles and YOUR CARD were enclosed. Thus you can probably imagine the circuitous route your letter took to get to me: in a plane for over 12 hours to get to NZ from America, only to be sent onwards for another 24 hours in a plane from Auckland to Europe (at least it had some clippings from The New Zealand Herald to talk to during the journey). Then it went through the slippery and unreliable hands of «La Poste» before arriving in a far-flung corner of Alsace for me to read with delight. AND I have your new address. I also notice that it was an Anne Geddes card (was this deliberate or not?). And also thankyou for the photo, which I can add to my special people display I have constructed on top of my bookcase/ laundry cupboard/ resource storage unit. (It’s a very large series of cupboards and drawers in my dining room and there seems to be all sorts of things in it.)

You say in your card, and I quote «aujourd’hui alors la France est dans ma tête». France on the brain, is it? Consider yourself lucky: how do you think I feel? (Given that I’m actually HERE right now).

I am imagining that you will have received the letter that I sent care of your parents by now. If you haven’t, then ask whether something from France has arrived for you in C.P. scribbled by a confused kiwi. It explains sort of how I ended up here and a little bit about what I have been up to. The first month has raced by SO fast. I’m still getting used to the idea of teaching kids and still have a couple of things to do to complete all my arrival duties (apparently I have a Social Security number now, but the school hasn’t told me what it is.) No major problems and everyone continues to be very friendly and I have eaten far too much choucroute and raclette. I haven’t been able to weigh myself, but I am convinced that I have put on weight (if you can imagine that...).

I have spent a few days «on holiday» in Basel because it’s les vacances de Toussaint this week.... it was really good to get out of T. for a little while: it’s a small place and there is not a terrible lot to do here when you have holidays. I spent Friday night in Mulhouse with the host family of my NZ friend S, whom I visited in 1999 after my stay in Grenoble... That night I went out with J (S's host sister, who has spent a year in NZ) and her boyfriend and some of their friends to a concert in central Mulhouse: the main band was Strasbourgeois, a group called «Weeper’s Circus»- a mix of medieaval, celtic styles, Brel/Brassens-influenced chanson and little «coups de théâtre» which were very funny. Lyrics went way over my head but it was lots of fun anyway.

Also great to go out with some people roughly my own age (rather than 30something French profs, who are very cool too, but not the same) and learn some slang- however even then they were very much an undergrad (first and second year) student bunch, and it’s amazing what a year outside the undergrad environment plus a JOB can do to your attitude. They would talk about what their friends are up to, I would talk about the pupils in my English classes. It wasn’t the language that made me feel slightly out of place, rather the age difference between them and me (they’re 20 and I’m 22. Or am I just old before my time?)

On Saturday morning I took the train to Basel to spend some time with Mum's old boss, E-D and his wife A. My visit coincided with the visit of their daughter K and her two daughters, H and Kl (5 and 3 respectively), the ones who live in Lille. The linguistic combinations were quite frightening sometimes. The dinner table is a mixture of German and English (mostly English when I am there). BUT K and H and Kl speak French with one another (although 5 year-old H a can understand German and speak it a little). E-D and A cannot speak French, so they speak German with the grandchildren, and the grandchildren reply in French (which either I or K translated into English when appropriate). I spoke English with E-D and A, (of course) and a mixture of French and English with K and French with the children. One night I read them a story in German, which H and Kl did not understand, but we talked about the pictures in French.

Conversation between H, future employee of the Spanish Inquisition, and Myself. (to understand this conversation, you must understand that H’s family have a holiday house in a tiny village in Burgundy called Lagette):

H: As-tu des enfants?
M: Non, je n’en ai pas.
H: Pourquoi?
M: Parce que je suis pas marié
H: Tu habites donc avec ta maman?
M: Non, j’habite tout seul dans un apartement
H: T’aimes habiter tout seul?
M: Pas vraiment, mais ça va pour l’instant.
H: Tu habites à Lille?
M: Non, j’habite en Alsace. Mais moi, je viens de la Nouvelle-Zélande.
H: La, la, la Nou... la Noubelle-Zéladaire, c’est près de Lille?
M: Non, c’est l’autre bout du monde de Lille. Ecoute, si tu creusais un trou dans ton jardin chez toi et tu continuais à creuser pour des jours et des jours, on arrivera en Nouvelle-Zélande. Donc c’est très très très loin de Lille.
H: Quand nous avons les vacances à Lagette, nous roulons pendant CINQ HEURES dans la bagnole de Papa. La Noubi Zilée, c’est près de Lagette?
M: (tout à fait lessivé par la logique circulaire de l’Inspecteur H) Oui, la Nouvelle-Zélande est près de Lagette. Mais maintenant c’est l’heure de dodo, quoi?

To be continued

Weepers Circus – Le Pas de Renard – En Suivant le Renard
From L'Ombre et la Demoiselle [Buy]

Scènes Européenes: Bullet Holes

2006-02-02T21:19:00.000+13:00

Travel is back on the mind again. I've recently found a file of writing (letters to friends, odd essays and emails) from the time I was living in France five years ago, and thought it would be interesting to post some of them here. For each piece, I'll choose a piece of music that either reflects the theme of the writing, or relates to a particular time or place of significance during my time travelling.

The author of these passages was a little younger than he is now, and you can detect a few wishful stereotypes in some of the descriptions of Europe and its inhabitants! But I hope that his wide-eyed enthusiasm for foreign places is still apparent. If this project seems self-indulgent and uninteresting, I apologise in advance. Please come back again when I'm finished.

Bullet Holes
February 2001

There are bullet holes in the church down the road from my apartment. While the damage seems innocuous to the casual glance, my curiosity moved me to ask a friend who is a native of this small Alsatian town, and, Beh ouais, the inch-wide craters were indeed caused during fighting in late 1944.

Before I arrived here, Alsace for me was synonymous with War. In school history lessons back in New Zealand, Alsace and Lorraine were names to be conjugated alongside such terms as Versailles, Lebensraum and reparations. Somewhere I had also picked up a few ideas about Riesling, half-timbered houses and choucroute. But I still expected evidence of occupation, resistance and collaboration to be writ large across the Alsatian landscape, a clear message for posterity.

Alsace is a region whose history has been shaped in the fulcrum of fires from outside. Squeezed between the Rhine and the undulating bulk of the Vosges, Alsace is conveniently stretched like a ragged band-aid over the centre of Western Europe- a strip 80 kilometres wide between the rival ambitions of Germany and France.

Following the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871, this French territory was ceded to Germany. The protracted massacre of the First World War resulted in the return of French sovereignty, before Alsace was reoccupied by Hitler, and integrated into the Third Reich. Alsace has often been no more than a geopolitical symbol strident political ideologies of Paris and Berlin.

The evidence of war is certainly there, but when I set out in search of Alsace’s past, it did not reveal itself easily.

Understandably, Alsatians seem to want to put their violent heritage behind them. For instance, there is no institution devoted to displaying relics of wartime Alsace. In other parts of France, perhaps in regions less directly involved in the fighting, there are thoughful and generally honest war museums (inevitably dubbed Musées de la Résistance), of which those in Grenoble and Besançon are both worth visits.

The evidence of violence, suppression and deportation is instead spread thinly across the province. There are war memorials which, while ubiquitous, make only a modest claim for your attention. In bookshops and libraries I have flicked through diaries, memoires and history books which recount the experience of war from the point of ordinary Alsatians. Near Saverne, the remains of Le Struthof concentration camp are reminders of the only Nazi death camp built on French soil. Dirty plaques on railway stations remind the commuters rushing through the rain of the embarkation points for uncounted thousands who never returned.

It's a Summer Feeling

2006-01-30T10:57:00.000+13:00

A long hot weekend... two gigs in one day, starting at Browns Bay beach, then a dash across town for a twlight gig to 4,000 people at the Zoo. This is what being a musician in Auckland is all about...

Browns Bay (more people swimming than dancing...)

At the Zoo

Katchafire at the Zoo

In My Father's Den

2006-01-29T09:24:00.000+13:00

I have finally seen In My Father's Den, and it was a shame that I waited until the DVD release, rather than seeing it in the cinema. I think it is a completely stunning film, and does full justice to the novel by Maurice Gee.

The intrigue of the film reveals itself in a slow and measured way. What starts as a story about the return of a (prodigal?) son to his hometown after years overseas prompted by his father's death, becomes a rumination on the pain of confronting our past. The mystery deepens when a key character disappears, and it is only at the end of the film that we find out just how close together all the protagonists are bound.

For New Zealanders, it is easy to view this as an archtypal kiwi film. There are certainly aspects of this work that will resonate strongly with a native audience: the need to escape our islands, the sense of landscape, the particular characters in the community, and the accents of the actors. For kiwis of a certain age, there is even a "Dougal Stevenson" moment.

Director Brad McGann (currently battling cancer again) has done a great job capturing the landscape of inland Otago, and reflecting the culture of a small town in New Zealand's South Island. But this is a film that anyone, anywhere will enjoy. Beautiful to look at, and genuinely moving.

I know there are many non-NZ readers of this blog. If your experience of NZ cinema begins and ends with Peter Jackson, this film is well worth seeking out.

Crowded House - She Goes On
From Woodface: Capitol 793559 [Buy]

I'm Feeling Lucky...

2006-01-27T18:15:00.000+13:00

"We'll completely destroy Liu Shaoqi-Deng Xiaoping anti-revolution line."- Chinese poster, 1967

This has been all over everyone else's blogs, but it's worth trying if you haven't done it yet.

1. Search for Tiananmen Square on Google USA
2. Search for Tiananmen Square on Google China

Art Ensemble of Chicago: Tradition

2006-01-26T19:34:00.000+13:00

Art Ensemble of Chicago - Charlie M
From Full Force: ECM 1187 [Buy]
Art Ensemble of Chicago - Promenade: Cote Bamako II
From Urban Bushmen: ECM 1211/1212 [Buy]

The operating statement of Art Ensemble of Chicago is "Great Black Music: Ancient To the Future". And homage the traditions of this music can be heard throughout the AEC's long recorded career. From New Orleans polyphony to seat-of-the-pants funk, from bebop to the blues, it's all in there, filtered by the AEC's skills as composers and improvisers.

These two examples pay respect to the black musical heritage that spans the centuries and the Atlantic Ocean. Charlie M is, of course, a reference to Charles Mingus, and AEC appropriates the loose-limbed swing and combustible jazz mastered by Mingus' mid-sized groups in the late 1950s. This version was recorded in New York in 1980, just a year after Mingus' death.

Promenade: Cote Bamako channels a musical spirit that runs more ancient still. With the entire ensemble doubling on percussion and "little instruments", we are placed in the midst of some un-named ritual on the West Coast of Africa. An evocation of musical tradition that transcends any particular named culture, a tradition of which the Art Ensemble are the present-day griots.

Cote Bamako was recorded in May 1980 at the Amerika Haus in Munich, a live show released as the double ECM set Urban Bushmen, and considered by many to be AEC's finest live album.

Roscoe Mitchell and his bass saxophone. (Photo Credits: Jacky LePage)

Art Ensemble of Chicago: Collectivity

2006-01-22T15:19:00.000+13:00

Art Ensemble of Chicago - Oh Strange, Part 2 (Excerpt)
From Live in Paris: Actuel/Fuel 2000 302 061 383 1 [Buy]
Art Ensemble of Chicago - Tnoona
From Fanfare for the Warriors: Koch Jazz 8501 [Buy]

The Art Ensemble of Chicago (AEC) are probably the single most influential improvising band ever. The Ensemble consists of individually brilliant musicians who submit their voices to a collective process, to create a collective sound. AEC has never been a band of soloists.

This concept of "collectivity" has been a guiding theme throughout the 40 year history of the AEC, but is particularly apparent in early live recordings, such as this extract from Oh Strange, recorded in Paris in October 1969. The personnel are Lester Bowie, Roscoe Mitchell, Malachi Favors and Joseph Jarman. (Drummer Famadou Don Moye joined AEC the following year).

AEC, 1975: Clockwise from bottom left: Favors, Mitchell, Moye, Bowie, Jarman

The ethos of collectivity extended to their stage presentation. Joseph Jarman explained in an interview in 1999:

"Lester would wear a doctor's coat, the scientist, the experimenter. Roscoe was the businessman, the gentleman. I was sort of the shamanistic image coming from various cultures, so was Malachi and Moye. You know, face painting in non-Western cultures is a sign of collectivism, is a sign of one representing the community, it's not unique at all. But in our society, it's something unique. So what we were doing with that face painting was representing everyone throughout the universe, and that was expressed in the music as well."

Joseph Jarman (Photo Credit: Jacky LePage)

Perhaps the exigencies of recording studio albums encouraged the Ensemble towards more structured work. On Tnoona, a composition of Roscoe Mitchell, we hear the AEC's collective approach to improvisation, but focused towards a compositional goal. Individual voices can be distiguished, but are subsumed into the creation of a unified soundscape.

AEC on DVD?
If you've never seen the Art Ensemble play live, I can highly recommend the Live at the Jazz Showcase DVD, filmed in Chicago in 1981. AEC on stage are highly visual, and this documentary is valuable representation of their approach to perfomance. It's available through Disconforme.com.

Chocolate City Breakdown

2006-01-18T18:52:00.000+13:00

[In today's exciting episode, we watch in horror as a little white boy from the vanilla suburbs of New Zealand wades into something he knows nothing about!]

There were obviously many ways to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr's birthday on Monday... A Considerable Speck recalled a passage from one of MLK's sermons, reflecting on our calling in life. O-Dub posted a historic piece of music. And New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin did a Pat Robertson, describing Hurricane Katrina as punishment from God.

In another brain explosion from the same speech, Nagin also promised that New Orleans would be rebuilt as a "Chocolate City": "it’s the way God wants it to be. ..You can't have New Orleans no other way."

Chocolate City. Kenneth Caroll defines Chocolate City as the rise of black consciousness and solidarity in Washington DC in the 1970s... And thirty years later, "right-wing-but-social-liberal" Andrew Sullivan sees the perpetuation of the Chocolate City attitude as reverse racism. In South Auckland, it's a nightclub run by kiwi hip-hop label Dawn Raid.

For George Clinton and Parliament, Chocolate City was a story of black assertiveness in the wake of the civil rights movement, A synth-laced, jive-ass space jazz funk poem. It could only have come out of 1975, and even today, the song is a cultural and political reference point par excellence.

Parliament - Chocolate City
From Parliament's Greatest Hits: Mercury 822 637-2 [Buy]

And when they come to march on ya
Tell 'em to make sure they got their James Brown pass
And don't be surprised if Ali is in the White House
Reverend Ike, Secretary of the Treasure
Richard Pryor, Minister of Education
Stevie Wonder, Secretary of FINE arts
And Miss Aretha Franklin, the First Lady
Are you out there, CC?
A chocolate city is no dream
It's my piece of the rock and I dig you, CC

Amen Brother!

2006-01-16T18:20:00.000+13:00

The possibilities are endless. Make your own church sign at www.churchsigngenerator.com

Pardon My Rags

2006-01-15T14:45:00.001+13:00

An unexpected summertime pleasure has been Alexander Peskanov performing Scott Joplin piano rags. The CD was given to me for Christmas by a thoughtful family member. It's one of those albums that I'd never think to buy myself, and yet is full of interest and new discoveries.

Discovery, principally, of the work of Joplin beyond the classic "Maple Leaf Rag"/"The Entertainer"/"The Easy Winners", (tunes from which almost all life has been drained through endless hours spent with that middle-aged lady piano teacher with the horn-rimmed spectacles who inhabits so many of our childhoods).

There is the ghost of a habanera rhythm lurking deep in Solace. One thinks even of the late Rubén González and the Buena Vista Social Club... and I'm sure Heliotrope Bouquet sends me spam every week trying to sell me Cialis and rolex watches at unbelievable prices.

Time, therefore for some 1907 Scott Joplin that moves at a more measured, less frenetic pace than his most familiar work.

Alexander Peskanov - Heliotrope Bouquet: 'A Slow Drag Two-Step'
Alexander Peskanov - Solace: 'A Mexican Serenade'
From Scott Joplin Piano Rags: Naxos 8.559114 [Buy]

(Another Summer Pleasure - Campari Vine Tomatos - Yum!)

Mashup Challenge 2006: The Results

2006-01-11T19:22:00.000+13:00

The House-Elves have returned from their conclave. Nobody is quite sure what happened during their three days locked away inside their rusty postbox, but they came up with a result, and we're able to reveal the Top Ten Impossible Mashups for 2006:

Derek Bailey vs. Jessica Simpson: A nice tribute to the late Derek Bailey. Jessica Simpson wouldn't even know what she was doing.
Yma Sumac vs Celine Dion & Mariah Carey: Yma Sumac will sing a high note. Mariah will sulk. Celine will ignore it all and take a holiday in her mansion on St Barts.
Sex Pistols vs. Enja: Enja deserves everything she gets. This mash needs to be executed with extreme prejudice.
The White Stripes vs The Carpenters: A celebrity deathmatch between two great musical sibling duos - I like it.
Serge Gainsbourg vs. Whitesnake: Come on, Gainsbourg records were made to be mashed.
Pizzicato 5 vs Accept: P5 sound like a mashup all by themselves. this messy tryst with German Speed Metal could be like flattening a poodle with a steam roller. But Accept were big in Japan, so perhaps this could work...?
Funkadelic ("One Nation Under a Groove") vs. Kate Smith ("God Bless America"): There's a twisted patriotism here that could explain a lot, matt.
Bootsy Collins vs. Frank Sinatra: Dunno how the House-elves let this one through. Wingardium Leviosa indeed.
Klaus Nomi vs Sam Cooke: Classic black masculinity meet high camp East Village theatre? Ouch. You people are sick.
Public Enemy's "Fight the Power" to the music of "Sweet Home Alabama": Another commentary on patriotism and civic duty? Possibly?

And to keep the music flowing...

Greyboy* vs Melle Mel - It's Got to be a Love/The Message

Thanks to DJ Godzilla for this particular mash. Simple but effective. For those of you who don't live in Auckland, DJ Godzilla plays Walter Matthau to DJ Shagpile's Jack Lemmon as the awesomest funk DJ duo in town, The Natural Disasters (4-6pm Sundays on Base FM). Muchos Respectos.

Derek Bailey is Dobby's favourite, favourite guitarist, sir!

Podcast Heaven

2006-01-11T18:55:00.000+13:00

If you haven't heard Ricky Gervais' new podcast yet, I recommend you check it out. Three guys talk about absolutely nothing for half an hour, and there's a new show every week. I'm not sure I like the way they treat Karl, but it is pretty darn funny.

Also, Radio France now has most of their weekly shows available on podcast! (Note, that's "le podcast", not "la baladodiffusion" as they're trying to enourage in Quebec.)

France Culture and France Inter on demand is something close to pure podcast heaven if, like me, you're trying to retain your French language. Now I can listen to what I want, when I want, and don't have to put up with a streaming live version of Le Fou du Roi at 11 o'clock at night. Like Lionel Dersot in Tokyo, I am grateful for this new small pleasure.

Battista Lena's Soviet Space Oddity

2006-01-08T12:19:00.000+13:00

Italian guitarist and composer Battista Lena has put together a couple of rather astounding records for the French Label Bleu in the past few years. One of them, (Banda Sonora), remains on my wish-list. The other is an orchestral eurojazz space opera that describes the fictional voyage of 3 Russian cosmonauts, with a dual libretto in Italian and French.

I Cosmonauti Russi is a curious musical confection that teeters between some rambunctious Slavic wedding feast and the pompous soundtrack to a Soviet May Day parade. The record comes as a 2 CD set, with the same music on each disc, but with French lyrics on one and Italian on the other.

The narrative itself follows a similar arc to David Bowie's Space Oddity: the cosmonauts launch into orbit, they express wonder at the beauty of outer space, there are references to what the papers (Pravda) are saying back home, thoughts of women and families left back on earth, and finally the cosmonauts are lost in space.

Here are a couple of selections, one from each of the French and Italian versions, performed by the Banda et Coro Bonaventura Somma di Chianciano Terme. Solos are by Enrico Rava (tp) and Gabriele Mirabassi (cl).

Battista Lena - La Jupe Bleue de Tatiana/Le Hublot
(Tatiana's Blue Dress/The Porthole)
Battista Lena - Dimitri, Yvan e Alioscia Erano i Nostro Nomi
(Dimitri, Ivan and Aliocha were Our Names)
From I Cosmonauti Russi: Label Bleu LBLC 6641/42 [Buy]

Battista Lena

Mashup Challenge 2006: Update
Thanks for all the suggestions so far: we are still accepting late contributions. Our team of subservient house-elves will begin their deliberations tonight, and (barring hanging chads and ongoing issues with our dodgy IBM voting machines), we should have a Top 10 posted in the next few days!

By the Way...
Dave Douglas has a blog.

etnobofin's Mashup Challenge 2006

2006-01-05T16:23:00.000+13:00

"Mash! We demand to be mashed!"

Kelis vs Nirvana - Milk Shake Like Teen Spirit

Crowded House vs Pharrell - The Weather Episode

matt mentioned John Zorn in a comment here last night, reminding me of an idea that I had half-baked and abandoned. The idea is still half-baked, but I'm dragging it out of the fridge serving it up anyway. It's the stoopidest concept ever, with ther possible exception of Sudoku.

The Mashup Challenge 2006
The aim of this game is to come up with a list of the 10 most impossible artist mashups ever, the sort of mashups that would come with a health warning.

You don't have to nominate specific songs/tracks. Just the artists. Bonus points may be awarded for the most surreal and silly.

Like Mornington Crescent, The Mashup Challenge 2006 is purely an intellectual exercise, and I don't expect anyone to actually attempt to produce any of these in their bedroom studio. If anyone actually bothers, well, we'll give them lots of respect. Or block our ears.

To kick it off, here are three that I thought of:

Madonna vs John Zorn
Serge Gainsbourg vs Whitesnake
mid-80s Prince vs Kenny Rogers

So... post your mashup ideas in the comments section below, and we'll pull together the best ones for a Top 10!

(matt/Taxi Driver, this is why I don't get linked by o-dub. Because I do dumb stuff like this.)

Of Edmund and Alexander

2006-01-03T20:55:00.000+13:00

To be honest, I was not expecting to enjoy The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe quite so much. It is a film for kids, and Andrew Adamson has done a workmanlike, if not spectacular, job of bringing the C.S. Lewis book to the screen. But what made the film enjoyable for me was noticing the way I respond to the characters as an adult, compared to my memories as a child of 7 or 8, when reading the book for the first time.

When I read the book as a child, Edmund really annoyed me. I couldn't understand what made him want to ride off with the White Witch and betray his brother and sisters. The Witch was so obviously evil - why did Edmund want to hang out with her? I wanted to get on with the big exciting battle between Aslan and the Witch.

But with a few more years under my belt, I now recognise that Edmund reflects some of the venality and selfishness that lies in all of us. (And of course Edmund's fall and redemption is really the central drama of the story). By contrast, this time around it was Peter, Susan and Lucy that really annoyed me, appearing as little more than Enid Blyton cardboard cutouts, all eager for lashings of ginger beer. No wonder Edmund wanted to run away from them.

The other thing that struck me was that the Edmund in the film was the dead spitting image of Alexander Ekdahl, the titular character in Ingmar Bergman's 1982 film Fanny and Alexander.

Edmund Pevensie (Skandar Keynes), 2005

Alexander Ekdahl (Bertil Guve), 1982

Despite the resemblance on celluloid, of course, Edmund and Alexander are far from parallel characters. Edmund ultimately casts aside his "childishness" through Aslan's act of atonement (e~mergent kiwi offers a wider theological exploration of Aslan's sacrifice). Alexander's childishness (he's gifted with a precocious imagination) is both a weakness and a source of great strength, but ultimately in F & A, Alexander's stubborn belief in the imaginative act is vindicated.

I imagine that C.S. Lewis would not have approved of Alexander Ekdahl and his liberal humanist, Swedish bourgeois extended family. But at the same time, the Ekdahls are infinitely forgiving of the weaknesses among their whanau - an unconditional philosophy of acceptance that would put cantakerous old C.S. Lewis to shame.

Salmonella Summer

2005-12-30T10:48:00.000+13:00

If there is one form of popular music that could be called "indigenous" to New Zealand, it would be reggae and dub. It links closely to to our landscape and has played a strong role in the expression of (particularly Maori) political views over the past three decades.

For many of us, a kiwi summer wouldn't be complete without a road trip to a music festival, somewhere by a beach, with entertainment provided by any number of local reggae and dub acts. Sun, skank and shared substance.

Based in Kaikoura in the South Island, Salmonella Dub is one of our longer-serving dub outfits, riding the line between singalong reggae, electro dub and dance electronica. They've been remixed by Mad Professor and Adrian Sherwood. They are also possibly the loudest band I have ever heard, with basslines that are positively bowel-loosening.

Salmonella Dub - For the Love of It
From Killervision: Virgin 847608 [Buy]

Salmonella Dub - Longtime
From one drop east: Virgin 592471 [Buy]

Derek Bailey In Memoriam
I must also note the passing on Christmas Day of Derek Bailey, a key pioneer of improvised music in Europe, and one of the greatest innovators on guitar, ever. David Fenech offers a short appreciation, there's an excellent personal reaction on Rod's wordsandmusic blog, and John Fordham also writes an obituary in the Guardian.

Almost Christmas: Part II

2005-12-23T17:35:00.000+13:00

Benjamin Britten's Ceremony of Carols was written during an uncomfortable 1942 voyage in a cargo convoy from New York to Liverpool, at the height of the Battle of the Atlantic. Britten had been living in the United States since 1939, prior to the outbreak of hostilities, and the convoy was his only option to return to England in wartime.

Many of the texts used for the carols were taken from a collection of medieaval texts Britten found while his ship was docked in a port in Nova Scotia. The music, written for harp and a choir of boy sopranos, possesses a calm light and joy that defies the fog of war that loomed at the time of its creation.

This particular version of Ceremony is sung by the Choir of King's College Cambridge, directed by Sir David Willcocks and recorded in July 1972. Two of my favourite movements.

Choir of King's College Cambridge - There is No Rose (Op.28, III)
Choir of King's College Cambridge - Spring Carol (Op. 28, IX)
From Britten Choral Works: EMI 62797 [Buy]

Posting activity for the next week or so will be limited. I am going to be enjoying time with family, time on the beach, and time on the water. I wish everyone reading this a happy and peaceful Christmas, wherever and whoever you are.

Almost Christmas: Part I

2005-12-21T18:16:00.000+13:00

It's that time of year, and given that the annual "Christmas-is-too-commercialised" debate is being thrashed out elsewhere, I thought I'd share some Christmas music that's guaranteed not to be heard on high rotate in your neighbourhood Starbucks.

Lester Bowie - Almost Christmas
From All the Magic!: ECM 1246/47 [Buy]

The Goons - I'm Walking Backwards for Christmas
Available on The Goon Show Vol.3 [Buy]

Gorillas, Demystified

2005-12-19T18:16:00.000+13:00

There was no shortage of self-interest in hurrying to see Peter Jackson's King Kong last night. Sure, there was a modicum of national duty, for this is a kiwi movie (OK, apart from minor factors like big-name American actors and Universal Studios finance and distribution).

But the main reason I was eager to see this film was because I am in it. Briefly and insignificantly. In the New York theatre where Kong is displayed as a captured trophy before a dumbfounded audience, there is an orchestra. There's a trumpet player (one of several) flinching in the side of a wide shot as Kong roars and threatens to break his shackles. Yes, that's me. 3 pixels of Hollywood immortality. The Central Warhol Agency will now have to deduct several milliseconds off my 15 minutes.

So what did I think of the film? Well, it's a big, dumb, monster flick. At heart Peter Jackson is a horror fan. Give him a threadbare plot like Kong, and Mr Jackson will fill it with gratuitous dinosaurs, giant bats, spiders, carnivorous worms and giant cave wetas (yes that's wetas, not "vampire crickets" as the New York Times put it. Come to NZ sometime and see some.)

If you haven't seen the film yet, I'm not spoiling it by saying that by the end you'll be cheering for the gorilla. The magnificent metaphor of the beast atop the skyscraper, defiance amidst the concrete jungle, is all the more poignant for the fact that the most human character in this movie is the ape himself.

And one day, I'll be able to tell my grandkids (or somebody's grandkids) that once, I got paid by Universal Pictures to dress up in a tuxedo, pretend to play my instrument, and then run away terrified from a big digital monkey.

John Surman

2005-12-17T17:11:00.000+13:00

Inspired in part by tunes posted by molo on gunter likes french fries...

John Surman is often thought of as a "superstar" of contemporary European jazz, and is notable as one of the few musicians to choose bass clarinet and baritone saxophone as his primary weapons. (Surman is also frequently heard on soprano saxophone, but the classic image of Surman is his gruff bearded frame bent over one of his larger, less wieldy horns.)

Born in Tavistock in Devon in 1944, Surman has made a career of reflecting his English heritage through the prism of jazz and improvised music - a theme that started with his work in the Mike Westbrook Concert Band in the 1960s, and continued on albums such as Westering Home (Future Music Records FMRCD 16) and The Amazing Adventures of Simon Simon (ECM 1193).

Two contrasting selections today: Alignment is a solo improvisation recorded in Oslo in September 1991. No Twilight features Surman with John Taylor on organ and the Salisbury Festival Chorus, and was recorded live at Salisbury Cathedral in June 1996. The text is a reference to the Old Testament book of Job.

John Surman - Alignment
From In the Evenings Out There: ECM 1488 [Buy]

John Surman - No Twilight
From Proverbs and Songs: ECM 1639 [Buy]

Let the stars of the twilight be dark
Let it look for light but find none
Neither let it see the eyelids of the morning
(The Book of Job, Chapter 3)

The Loneliness of Command

2005-12-15T22:05:00.000+13:00

Beck - He's a Mighty Good Leader
From One Foot in the Grave: K Records KLP 28 [Buy]

I don't often blog about stuff that happens at work, but some recent experiences have meant I've been confronting the importance of leadership in the past few weeks and months.

Earlier this year, I was promoted into a position of some fairly decent responsibility, including being the leader of a team of people for the first time. Now everyone I've talked to says that I've done a good job so far in leading my team - making sure that people are kept busy and interested, making sure that people hit their deadlines and that the people in my team are valued. (I know, this all sounds very touchy-feely and managerial, but it's all true. If you treat your team with arrogance or disrespect, you wont be able to do your job either).

However, after assuming this new position as a "manager", I lost a lot of the support I used to get when someone else was supervising me! So I did my own job, but I actually missed having oversight, having someone take an interest in what I was doing. I didn't know whether I was doing a good job, because nobody was really telling me if I was doing a good job or not... A friend of mine calls this experience "the loneliness of command".

But things have changed just in the past few weeks, since the team has restructured. I still do the same job, but I now have a more immediate uber-supervisor, who is checking on me to make sure that things get done, and kicking me in the butt (in the nicest possible way) to make sure I keep stuff happening. So now I am busier than ever, but enjoying work a lot more because I have a leader, and the experience of command has lost its loneliness.

So I guess what I'm learning is that leadership works both ways. Even the leaders need leadership. I think often in the capitalist West, we are encouraged in the ideal of individuality and independence, and there is the expectation that everyone must always live up to some crazy ideal of infallibility. I think sometimes we get so caught up in trying to emulate some concept of icy perfection and total competence, that we forget that it is OK to be a follower, too. And no matter how much "responsibility" you have, no matter how many other people you're in charge of, there is comfort in knowing that someone else watching over what you're doing.

Donald Byrd II: The Birth of Disco?

2005-12-11T17:10:00.000+13:00

Soul-Sides had a great post last week touching on the Mizell Brothers and their contribution to the birth of disco. Starting in the early 1970s, the Mizells' crystal-clean multitracked productions set a standard and a sound palette that many disco producers looked to emulate later in the decade.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and contend that the birth of disco occurs during 8 bars in the middle of Fight Time the first track on Donald Byrd's 1972 Mizell-produced album Black Byrd. If you don't believe me, skip through to 5'17. Remember this is April 1972! Flight Time is a complete production number, including the sample of the Boeing 707 that opens the track. Cheesy? Quite possibly, but it didn't stop Black Byrd going on to become Blue Note's best-selling record ever.

On Love's So Far Away, the nascence of disco is even more apparent - check out David T. Walker's killer rhythm guitar work. The band on Black Byrd includes Joe Sample (elp and synth), Wilton Felder (b) and the funkmonster himself, Harvey Mason (d).

Donald Byrd - Flight Time
Donald Byrd - Love's So Far Away
From Black Byrd: Blue NOte 84466 [Buy]

I'll also mention in passing how good it is to have the international cricket season underway again - especially when New Zealand sets a new world record for a 2nd innings run chase (332) to beat Australia. OK, Australia won the series 2-1, but the kiwis went out there last night in the final match in Christchurch and beat the best team in the world. They looked good doing it, and it was super, super-sweet.

Notes to Self

2005-12-11T03:35:00.000+13:00

1. Never take cellphone with camera on Nick's stag night. (Nick gets married next weekend, bonne chance, mon vieux - that's Nick T, not Nick H, to avoid confusion)
2. Never, ever, leave laptop switched on and connected to internet so you can post photos when you get home at 3.30am
3. Never expect anyone who reads this blog to be at all interested.
4. Or is this citizen journalism at its most raw and noble?
5. Music. Yes. Music will return in soon when I have had a sleep.

Donald Byrd I

2005-12-10T11:34:00.000+13:00

The Blue Note label in the late 1950s and early 1960s was the proving ground for a generation of talented young trumpeters who surged into view in the aftermath of Clifford Brown's untimely death. These new players had chops for Africa (often literally and spiritually), were alumni of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and were deeply imbued with the gospel and blues that would inform hard bop in the first half of the 1960s. Among this cohort of young lions were Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard, Dizzy Reece and Donald Byrd.

I've chosen just one Donald Byrd track to share today, because it stands out for its power and sheer funk. Frank Foster's The Loud Minority was recorded on December 4th, 1970 in New York. These sessions, along with some December 1969 recordings, lay dormant in Blue Note's vaults for 25 years until they were finally released in 1995 under the title Kofi, an album that provides a superb insight into Donald Byrd's explorations in West African and Brazilian musics and funk. I highly recommend the entire album for those interested in groove and early fusion.

What I particularly love about this track is its balls-to-the-wall horn statement and the great rhythm section that underpins it. Drummer Mickey Roker rides the line between boogaloo and a loose, open-sticked clave on snare. Ron Carter (b) keeps things loose-knit. The other percussionists are some guys called, oh, Airto and Dom um Ramao. Frank Foster's tenor sax is flippin' tesifyin', brother. Donald Byrd hits those high notes and makes it sound like he means something (go back to school, Maynard). And Duke Pearson (rhodes) and Wally Richardson (gt) round out a great sounding band. Gotta love it.

Donald Byrd - The Loud Minority
From Kofi: Blue Note 31875 [Buy]

Byron's Bugs

2005-12-06T17:39:00.001+13:00

Don Byron, clarinetist and composer. His 1996 album Bug Music carried the ambitous subtitle Music Of The Raymond Scott Quintette, John Kirby & His Orchestra, And The Duke Ellington Orchestra. And yet what is most surprising about this piece of painstaking musical archaeology is how modern it sounds.

It's a dynamite band, too, featuring Uri Caine (pn), Pheeroan akLaff, Billy Hart and Joey Baron (d) and David Gilmore (g).

I've chosen a couple of compositions from the album that were either written or arranged by Raymond Scott (1908-1994). Scott is among "the-most-widely-heard-composers-of-the-20th-Century" thanks to his work becoming the background for multiple Warner Brothers cartoons, from classic 1930s Loonie Tunes through to Pinky and the Brain.

Don Byron - Powerhouse
Don Byron - The Quintet Play Carmen
From Bug Music: Nonesuch 79438 [Buy]

If you'd like to know more about Don Byron, his website is very good. And Fred Jung's Conversation with Don Byron is well worth reading.

The Beauty of Optimism

2005-12-04T10:52:00.000+13:00

Graeme Allwright and band
Saturday, 3rd December 2005, University of Auckland School of Music

Graeme Allwright's concert last night demonstrated how this French star remains a virtual unknown in his country of birth. I imagine a passport check at the door would have revealed as many French citizens in the audience as New Zealanders. And I was very possibly the youngest person at the event!

Folk music is not my regular predeliction. However Allwright's performance affirmed that this music should be more widely appreciated and heard. Storytelling and collective memory play such strong roles here, and this is the common thread that links the work of Woody Guthrie and Willy Nelson to Charles Trenet, George Brassens and Jacques Brel. Allwright's choice of material for the evening highlighted these hidden transatlantic links.

Too often today our popular music is characterised by lyrics that are self-centred and cynical. Allwright's music evokes a kind of simplicity and optimism (or hippy naïvité?) that is so often lacking in songwriters of more recent times. Listen to this, recorded by Allwright in 1978:

Graeme Allwright - Petite Fleur Fanée

From The Best of Graeme Allwright: Mercury Universal 077 090-2 [Buy]

Allwright's kiwi band were great, although at times overpowering the nonchalant delivery of Allwright himself - his vocals could have been higher in the mix for the whole evening, with perhaps some of the mids dropped out. It was refreshing to hear Jonathan Crayford and Lucian Johnson in a frankly non-jazz setting (although Crayford got to play to his strengths, and Allwright got to play at Charles Aznavour in a swinging rendition of "It had to Be You/Il fallait que ça soit toi".)

Allwright's music is one of great lightness and beauty, and I hope that I am as sprightly and commanding on stage at the age of 78 as was Monsieur Allwright last night. C'était vraiment très bien.

Allwright, Everybody!

2005-11-30T20:12:00.000+13:00

I thought I'd preview a concert on Saturday night that I'm really looking forward to: partly because it is a rare event involving the intersection of 3 of my particular worlds - New Zealand, Music and France.

Graeme Allwright's life story is quite remarkable. He was born in Wellington, New Zealand in 1926 (same year as Miles Davis). After gaining a scholarship to a drama school in London, he followed his heart to France in 1948, where he settled with his first wife.

Working daytime in the various odd jobs that are often the fate of long-term anglo-saxons in France, he started exploring the music of 1960s singer-songwriters - notably adaptations into French of Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan. In 1966, at the age of 40, he got a record deal (there's still hope!), and his first disc was a hit in France. Allwright's music successfully bridged the worlds of Woodstock and the heated days of the événements in France in 1968. Further hit songs followed, and he became a star throughout the francophone world. For an anglophone from the far side of the world, to gain recognition in the tight circle of chanson française was a significant achievement.

Of course, nobody knows who he is in his native land, and Graeme's tour to New Zealand in 2005 (aged 78) is effectively the first time he has performed in this country as a recognised artist. He's assembled a great kiwi band for the tour, including pianist Jonathan Crayford and the very original saxophonist Lucien Johnson.

Graeme Allwright - Suzanne
From Le Jour de clarté: Polygram 536 163-2 [Buy]

Graeme Allwright - La Marseillaise
[zipfile including lyrics and mp3]

The songs here give you a good idea of his style. Suzanne (by Leonard Cohen) is one of his great hits. And this cheeky kiwi has even dared to play with La Marseillaise, re-working the lyrics to aspire to more than blood and guts. Perhaps these represent new valeurs républicaines for the 21st Century...?

Pour tous les enfants de la terre
Chantons amour et liberté.
Contre toutes les haines et les guerres
L'étendard d'espoir est levé
L'étendard de justice et de paix.
Rassemblons nos forces, notre courage
Pour vaincre la misère et la peur.
Que règnent au fond de nos coeurs
L'amitié la joie et le partage.
La flamme qui nous éclaire,
Traverse les frontières
Partons, partons, amis, solidaires
Marchons vers la lumière.

© 2005, Graeme Allwright - Sylvie Dien

The Best Laid Plans of Mice

2005-11-30T19:07:00.000+13:00

Righto, I'm back with some more regular posts. I said earlier on that I was taking some time to focus on some projects. The results of actually focusing on these projects were:

1. One of the projects got moved forward a little bit.
2. I decided that one of the projects wasn't actually what I wanted to do, and gave it up.
3. I spent a whole lot of unplanned time re-connecting with friends, (and making some new ones), which in fact I realise now, was what I actually needed to do.

I guess the lesson here is that I should stop being so self-important and let things drift a bit more. Then I might actually achieve something.

Mt Eden, early summer 2005

Weekend Distraction

2005-11-26T10:24:00.001+13:00

I was in a rather erudite mood after attending last night's 25th Anniversary concert by the Auckland Philharmonia (Beethoven's 8th, violinist Eugene Fodor playing Ravel's Tzigane and Poème by Chausson, some exciting Mexican stuff and NZ composer Ross Harris' hilarious orchestral mashup entitled Cento).

I'd also just splurged at Borders on the Berlin Philharmoniker under Claudio Abbado playing Mahler's 5th, (thanks to a recommendation by Nick), AEOC's Fanfare for the Warriors and some Benjamin Britten choral work sung by the Choir of King's College Cambridge. I was well ready for some serious listening on Saturday and Sunday.

But then I found this video, I lost my attention span, and my brain turned to mush. Yes, it's an ad for Microsoft, but I thought it was so silly that it deserved to be posted.

Curse this modern world and its adolescent diversions.

Nuclear Weapons are Morally Indefensible

2005-11-18T21:37:00.000+13:00

A break in the silence for a short while...

A few months ago we in NZ mourned the loss of David Lange. As I mentioned at the time, probably the most memorable moment of David Lange's time as Prime Minister was his speech to the Oxford Union in 1985, arguing for the motion that Nuclear Weapons are Morally Indefensible.

Now you can download an mp3 format file of that speech, made available under a Creative Commons license at Public Address:

David Lange - Nuclear Weapons are Morally Indefensible

This recording is remarkable because in a sense, this is an audio recording of a nation "coming of age". It captures the very moment that New Zealand stood up for itself for the first time in the world, becoming a rare voice of dissent in the Reagan-era Cold War.

I was barely out of kindergarten at the time, but even at seven years old, I remember how the anti-nuclear movement in New Zealand was something very palpable, even at a community level, as suburbs, cities and boroughs around the nation declared themselves independently "nuclear free".

The music placed behind the speech is by Andrew B. White.

David Lange at the Oxford Union, 1985

Radio Silence

2005-11-09T12:10:00.001+13:00

If posts on etnobofin become more infrequent over the next few weeks, it is because I've taken the decision to focus my energy and time on a few other (non-online) projects and plans for a little while.

I will still be online occasionally and will be reading other blogs when I get time, just don't expect much new stuff to be posted here in the next month or so. I hope to be "back in action" before Christmas!

In the meantime, feel free to visit some of the other blogs that are linked down the right hand side of the page. They are there because I think they are all worth visiting.

Thanks for visiting and commenting and making etnobofin a worthwhile exercise. I'll see you all soon!

Peace/ A très bientôt

Dave Douglas

2005-11-06T18:19:00.000+13:00

A report from Vienna of a gig by Dave Douglas' new Keystone band prompted a session of Sunday morning listening to some of Dave Douglas' older stuff. Probably the highest profile American trumpet player in jazz today, (apart from Wynton), Dave Douglas' music silences any doubters who contend that jazz died as a creative, forward-looking music decades ago.

I've selected a couple of Douglas tunes for the usual "compare and contrast" exercise that we encourage here on this blog. The Persistence of Memory comes from Douglas' early years as a leader in the mid-90s. The band includes Uri Caine (pn), Chris Speed (ts/cl), Josh Roseman (tb)m James Genus (b) and Jeoy Baron (d). Dave's solo is the sort of happy fusion of grace and innovation that make the rest of us trumpet players realise that we are just kids in the sandpit.

The Great Schism is from the album Freak In, one of Dave's many explorations of the territory bordering jazz and electronics. Ostinato city!

Dave Douglas - The Persistence of Memory
From In Our Lifetime: New World/Countercurrents 80471-2 [Buy]

Dave Douglas - The Great Schism
From Freak In: Bluebird/RCA 09026-64008-2 [Buy]

In Other News
Gunter likes french fries is back on deck this weekend. molo's french fast food outlet is highly recommended for freeze-dried dumplings of musical genius selected by Monsieur Molo himself, one of the most consistent arbiters of jazz taste in the blogosphere.

R.I.P. Rod Donald, 1957-2005: co-leader of the NZ Green Party. In the 1990s, the architect of the campaign to reform our electoral system. An honest politician taken before his time.

Dave Douglas

Dope Beatz Straight Outta South Central (Auckland)

2005-11-03T19:23:00.000+13:00

Thought it was time to do a post about hip hop in Aotearoa. This is not my area of expertise, so I'll stick to some stuff that I quite like.

NZ is just as swamped by American product as every other country in the world, and this situation certainly makes itself felt in the music created locally. What does make NZ hip hop unique however is our large Pasifika and Maori population (Auckland is the largest Polynesian city in the world), and these Polynesian cultural roots are heard strongly in urban music of Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.

Beatrootz are a teenage Wellington group who bust onto the national stage this year with this song, No DJz, which reached Number 17 on the NZ charts. I find this tune difficult to remove from my head. Telling you "this is how we do it in Welly", its simple synth hook and melodic chorus is typical of a Polynesian hip hop/R'n'B style that has gained a following far wider than the regular youth market. And when the shout-out to the suburbs runs to "Strathmore, Berhampore, Newtown, Island Bay, P-Town, the Hutt, Lyall Bay, Kilbirnie..." you know you ain't rolling in Brooklyn or Watts no more, Toto.

Beatrootz - No DJz
From Supafresh II - Beatz Hot off the Grill: King SF102CD [Buy]

Beatrootz

Representing the "old school" of NZ Hip Hop, The Feelstyle is an MC with a track record as long as his arm (he was a contestant in the very first MC battle held in this country in the 80s). However it was only last year that he released his first full-length solo album Break it to Pieces. The album received critical rave reviews locally and overseas (including Straight No Chaser magazine in the UK), thanks in part to Feelstyle's unique bilingual (Samoan/English) rapping and great production by Auckland DJ Submariner (aka Andy Morton).

The track I've chosen is a tale about a NZ Samoan returning to his "homeland" in Samoa, and features a clavinet loop played by Mark de Clive-Lowe. As one might say, su'amalie (sweet!).

The Feelstyle - Going Home
From Break it to Pieces: Can't Stop Music 338132 [Buy]

The Feelstyle

24 Hours in Wellington

2005-11-01T19:57:00.000+13:00

It's amazing what 600km in a southerly direction can do to the weather. Arriving in Wellington for the jazz festival on Sunday was like stepping back into winter - 12 degrees C, wind, drizzle and dark clouds looming over Mount Victoria. We visitors from subtropical Auckland were barely prepared for this!

Frank Kitts Park in Wellington

But what Welly lacks in climate, it makes up for in talent and enthusiasm. Despite threatening clouds overhead all afternoon, the outdoor gig at Frank Kitts Park remained dry and fairly hip. Musical highlights included Rosie Langabeer's Zirkus Big Band, exploring profitable territory in between Mingus and Carla Bley, (you would not find a swinging unit playing original material like this in Auckland!) Candela (possibly a pun on Wellington suburb Khandallah) pulled out some more than-competent Afro-Cuban stuff, including a very creditable cover of Eddie Palmieri's Cuidate Compay.

Eddie Palmieri - Cuidate Compay
From Azucar Pa Ti: Fania [Buy]

Cosmic moment of the trip happened when I got talking to a backpacker in the crowd from Holland. His trip to New Zealand was his present to himself after finishing at university. He asked me if I had read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. And in fact, I had bought the book the previous day in Auckland.... since I believe most things don't happen by accident, I'll take this to be a sign. I start reading The Alchemist tonight!

Parliament buildings in our nation's capital

The evening's events occured at Happy, (Wellington always has at least one venue that's always open and always putting on interesting music).

Rose Wedde (mother of Conrad, keyboardist in The Phoenix Foundation another post in itself), opened proceedings with a short "solo" show consisting of a piano recital of Debussy, Schumann and Rachmaninoff, a puppet show, and a son et lumiere involving a slide show of black and white photos New Zealand in the colonial period and a Chopin piano nocturne, played expertly by Rose. I was crying by the end. Afterwards she served the audience wine biscuits and tea, making Rose's show the undoubted and unexpected highlight of my 24 hours in Wellington.

Image from Alexander Turnbull Library, Ranfurly Collection.

Chopin - Opus 9 No. 2 Nocturne in Eb Major
Performed by Erik Edwards. More mp3s available a www.pianosociety.com

The Dominion Centenary Concert Band were the headline act for the evening, and demolished the audience with their hard hitting combination of rapcore punk and straightedge goth metal. I caught some of the gig on Minidisc, and here is an excerpt. The composed passages include the Second Movement of Haydn's Symphony No. 104 in D major and the traditional American fife and drum tune York Fusiliers.

Dominion Centenary Concert Band - Performance #3 [excerpt, 9:21]
Recorded live at Happy, Wellington, October 30th, 2005

Wellington Jazz Festival tomorrow!

2005-10-29T21:47:00.000+13:00

Flying to Welly tomorrow for gigs and madness at the final day of their Jazz Festival. Damage report after I'm back.

The Death of Music Marketing?

2005-10-27T22:13:00.000+13:00

The NZ Herald today finally caught up on the story that has been whispering around the NZ music industry for months... Wellington roots/hip-hop/jazz/dub reggae outfit Fat Freddy's Drop managed to top the local charts and continue to make waves in Europe off the back of one of the most inspired marketing plans ever - don't do any.

To describe their approach as "no marketing" is a little disingenuous, since FFD has been on the road, around the country and around the world since 2001, playing legendary shows, building an incredibly loyal (and large) live audience, putting out limited releases on vinyl, and cultivating an uber-hip image that has unshakable credibility here at home and abroad (their album and vinyl artwork contain many nods to kiwi pop culture that are likely impenetrable to their overseas buyers).

Friends tell friends tell friends tell friends. When their album finally dropped in NZ in May 2005, so much pressure and demand had built up that it went off like a booby-trapped concrete truck in Baghdad's green zone. Shot to #1, stayed there for weeks. Fat Freddy's success is virtually an MBA case study in viral marketing.

Given the cost and time involved in classic music marketing techniques such as TV ads, poster campaigns, endless press interviews, (yawn), is the Freddy's Method the way for future musical talent to promote themselves? Essentially guys, get out there and play heaps of gigs and play good music... sounds too easy, right?

And everyone likes a good online quiz, right? And everyone posts their results on their blog? The answer to both those questions is YES.

You fit in with:
Spiritualism

Your ideals are mostly spiritual, but in an individualistic way. While spirituality is very important in your life, organized religion itself may not be for you. It is best for you to seek these things on your own terms.

60% spiritual.
60% reason-oriented.

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

Leila Adu

2005-10-26T19:33:00.000+13:00

London-born and New Zealand-raised of Ghanaian heritage, Leila Adu is one of the most unique musical voices to emerge in the New Zealand scene in the past few years.

Leila's 2003 debut album Dig a Hole is worth checking out, even though it sneaked in below the radar of most listeners even in this country. The university-trained songwriter and composer is now an established player around Wellington, and it is with colleagues from the windy city that she recorded her second album Cherry Pie: saxophonist Jeff Henderson, drummer Riki Gooch (ex Trinity Roots), bassist Tom Callwood and guitarist David Long.

Cherry Pie is certainly one of the most underrated and undersung releases out of NZ this year, and it's unlikely that you've heard anything quite like this. If there is ever a CD that could be described as a "grower" this is it!

Leila Adu - Bokoo
Leila Adu - Train
From Cherry Pie: Independent HEN 712 [Buy]

In radio news, our public broadcaster Radio New Zealand has been dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st Century with streaming and on-demand audio in .wma and .mp3 - unfortunate that none of RNZ's kiwi music programmes are available online yet !

And Abdel Bari Atwan sounds a cautionary note about the BBC's plans for an Arabic language TV channel. Lets hope that the Beeb doesn't become yet another conduit for propaganda....

Paul Bley

2005-10-24T16:48:00.000+13:00

Inspired by this post by Taxi Driver...

One of the more consistent and individual pianists in jazz/improvised music, Paul Bley has been hitting ivories in new ways since the age of seven, according to his biography.

What I particularly appreciate about Bley is the way that his improvisations never lose sight of melody. Even in the most tenous moments of Bley's music, there is the sense of song. Here are two great examples: Fair Share is a duet with Gary Peacock recorded in Oslo in September 1991, and Noosphere is performed with Gary Peacock and Paul Motian, from an excellent trio date recorded in New York in 1999 for ECM. Touching base with tranquility indeed...

Paul Bley - Fair Share
From In the Evenings Out There: ECM 1488 [Buy]

Paul Bley - Noosphere
From Not Two, Not One: ECM 1670 [Buy]

Oh, and I got sunburnt yesterday. Summer must be just around the corner...

Photo Copyright Jimmy Katz

Pause in the madness

2005-10-20T12:10:00.000+13:00

Thanks to visitors from Oxford and Long Beach and government agencies, this week is crumbling into dust before my eyes. Hopefully I'll get a chance to focus on the music again shortly.

In the meantime, this upcoming exhibition by Auckland photographer Lindy Hickman should be interesting. Lindy's spent the last year photographing most of the current players in New Zealand's pop, rock and hip-hop scenes. In years to come, this show could prove a true historic document. It promises to comprehensively capture a period in NZ's musical development where we've finally realised that WE ROCK.

"The Talent Invasion" runs from November 2nd - 22nd at the Aotea Centre, Auckland. Funds raised by the exhibition go to The Starship Children's Hospital.

I couldn't resist...

2005-10-17T18:39:00.000+13:00

1. Posting this article in which an Australian actually expresses admiration for New Zealand. (It's a fairly rose-tinted view, but we'll take the compliments - I wonder if my blog "exudes a confident, intelligent feminism"?)

2. Laughing at the "news" that Australia is destined to become the hip-hop capital of the Southern Hemisphere

3. Downloading The Brady Bunch Kids singing "Drummerman". (That guitar is WAY too funky for a Brady song). Thanks to soul-sides.com

4. Posting this photo of Ahmed Zaoui singing at the New Zealand Music Awards a few weeks back. I wish we treated all our asylum seekers like this all the time :-)

Free Ahmed Zaoui

DnB2:Roni Size Remixed

2005-10-16T16:29:00.000+13:00

When the Roni Size/Reprazent album New Forms came out in 1997, the future of music had arrived, or so it seemed. Here was music that sounded like the approaching Millenium. It offered aggressiveness, certainty and intensity to match the times: peace was breaking out everywhere, the Internet bubble was inflating, and we still had four years of innocence up our sleeves before that clear blue September morning over Manhattan. New Forms stormed the pop charts and won Britain's Mercury Prize. The media gushed about an "instant classic".

Today, New Forms sounds like a time capsule, a reference to a zeitgeist long past. A Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack for the late 1990s. Alongside Goldie's Timeless, New Forms was the drum and bass album that everyone bought, even if they weren't into drum and bass.

For my money, some of the best music spawned from New Forms were the remixes. I've chosen a couple of my favourite examples. NuYorican Soul bring a live salsa rhythm section into the studio and throw away the original track completely at around the 5 minute mark. The Kitachi Remix of Heroes centres around a big dumb orchestral synth hook and the Funky Drummer break.

Trust me, you will definitely want to hear the NuYorican Soul track at least...all 13'56 of it :-)

Roni Size - Watching Windows (Roni Size meets Nuyorican Soul) [Buy]
Roni Size - Heroes (Kitachi Remix) [Buy]

Peace on the West Coast

2005-10-15T17:56:00.000+13:00

Sometimes some alone time is a good thing.

Today I drove out to Te Henga (Bethells Beach), on Auckland's west coast. The road steamed with recent rain. I parked up and walked south along the beach. A dog followed me. The Tasman Sea roared in my right ear. A monk in Tibetan robes was sitting on a rock, looking out at the ocean. At the far end of the beach, volcanic cliffs rise up and lump southwards, riddled with caves. A boisterous family was wading knee-deep in the surf, collecting shellfish from under the sand, slinging their dinner into a large paint bucket. I turned around to head north. The Tasman Sea roared in my left ear. Steel grey clouds towered over the hills, but the rain held off. Another dog came up and sniffed me. I brushed the black sand off my shoes and drove home.

Stan Getz - With the Wind and the Rain
Stan Getz - Ballad
From Highlights: Verve 847 430-2 [Buy Stan Getz albums]

DnB1: Megashira

2005-10-13T18:20:00.000+13:00

If you, like me, were in your late teens or twenties and living in an OECD economy in the middle of 1990s, you probably had some kind of experience with "drum and bass". Or "jungle", whatever. It may have been a flirtation, an annoyance, or in my case, a short-term relationship. For a few years, this underground dance genre became disconcertingly mainstream, before submerging again to continue development in the darker alleys of 21st Century club culture.

I can accurately locate the start of my relationship with drum and bass to a time and date, and a single track: the evening of March 25th, 1997, on Stinky Jim's radio show on 95 bFM. Visiting UK DJ A-Sides dropped Mental Strength by Megashira. 4 minutes and 56 second of Miles-inspired trumpet hook rising over a clattering tech break. Industrial jazz. It was compelling.

Megashira - Mental Strength
From Zero Hour: INFRACom! IC 026-2 [Buy]

Megashira was a German production duo, consisting of DJ Kabuki and Mainframe. Their 1997 album Zero Hour had the distinction of being the first full-length drum and bass album produced in Germany, and bore the sonic influence of DJ Kabuki's time working in Tokyo. Megashira released a follow-up in 2001 called At Last, (I haven't heard it), which has a couple of kiwi connections in the form of keyboardist Mark de Clive-Lowe and drummer Nick Gaffaney.

Megashira: German, apparently

Il est temps de faire un Zapping!

2005-10-11T19:22:00.000+13:00

In response to some excellent recent posts on Freeman and Taxi Driver, here is a brief channel-surf (un zapping en français) across some of the many aspects of the work of Frank Zappa. Not comprehensive, not expert opinions, just some channel surfing.

It surprises me how often Frank Zappa is still dismissed as some kind of novelty minstrel, despite an unaparalelled recorded output (60 albums?) that spanned rock, doo-wop, jazz and contemporary classical compositions. Zappa's orchestral work stands up to scrutiny against any modern ensemble writing from the last 60 years, and proves robust when reinterpreted in a variety of formats. Check out this snippet of The Black Page #2, arranged for "drums percussion and interactive system" by Canadian composer Bruce Pennycook.

Blair McKay, Julien Gregoire - The Black Page #2
Recorded live in Montreal in 1995 by Radio-Canada

It is also worth listening (in glorious streaming mp3 stereo) to composer Nicolas Slonimsky discuss his relationship and work with Frank Zappa - it is clear that Slonimsky regarded Zappa as a musician and composer of the first degree.

If you want to be thoroughly confused by an overly obsessed and possibly misguided Zappologist, don't miss The Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play by Ben Watson. In this 700 page book, Watson deconstructs Zappa's lyrics almost to the point of parody. Overlong and overblown, it is still entertaining, and may be the Gregory Peccary of Zappa fan-books.

And finally, if anyone still needs further proof of greatness, here's Zappa live 1975 in El Paso, Texas. Yes, it's a bootleg taken off the sound desk. Musicians include Frank Zappa (gt), Captain Beefheart (stuff), George Duke (keyb), Terry Bozzio (d), Tom Fowler (b), Bruce Fowler (tb) and Napoleon Murphy Brock (sax).

Frank Zappa - A Pound for a Brown on the Bus Medley
Frank Zappa - Strange Thing
From Bongo Fury in El Paso [Bootleg] Recorded May 23rd, 1975, El Paso, TX

Check out also Djdurutti's post on Architecture in Helsinki. Naturally, they're from Australia, but with a band name like that, you KNOW they're going to be good.

Blogging and Music Shopping

2005-10-08T16:23:00.000+13:00

I am very lucky to live in New Zealand. It's a beautiful, peaceful place. However, there are some disadvantages living in a thinly populated string of islands a long way from the rest of the world. One of these disadvantages is lack of access to comprehensive record shops. One of the highlights of travelling in Europe, the USA and Japan has been buying music that you can't get back home. (Of course, we have some great music stores in New Zealand. But my point is that we are a long way from the distribution channels of North America, Asia and Europe, so the variety and depth of stock is often poor.)

So online shopping has opened up a whole new world of music consumption for us kiwis! We can now buy from shops all over the world, while avoiding the need to spend $2000 on an airfare. Last week my latest CD order arrived from Amazon, and I realised that the every single disc I bought was the result of discovering it through audioblogs, or through my own blogging activities. Here's my shopping list, and the reason why I bought the album:

Mark Hollis - Mark Hollis. His solo album from 1998. Discovered via david fenech's blog.
Charles Mingus - The Great Concert of Charles Mingus. Discovered while researching Mingus for my recent series on Mingus' orchestral work
Jacques Coursil - Way Ahead. Discovered via PODvains
Art Ensemble of Chicago - Live in Paris. I came across this while putting together a post on Lester Bowie which still awaits the light of day...
Cuong Vu - Bound. Cuong Vu's first album. I was blown away when I heard this record on Xanax Taxi.

I would not have found any of this music without the aid of the Internet - it is not played on the radio, it is not advertised in magazines. Some of the recordings are 40 years old. Audioblogs seem to provide a great opportunity to breed a more informed and more sophisticated community of music consumers. I can only thing that this must be good for music as an industry in the long term, and more importantly, this must be good for music and musicians.

Mark Hollis- The Gift
From Mark Hollis: Polydor 537 688-2 [Buy]

Uri Caine's Mahler Circus

2005-10-07T19:05:00.000+13:00

We music geeks all seem to carry around in our heads a mental list of our "Top 10 Albums ever". Every so often, you discover a new piece of art that is a serious contender to knock one of those well-loved records into 11th position. When I first heard pianist Uri Caine's urlicht/primal light a few weeks ago, I was completely blown away. It is awesome.

urlicht/primal light features recordings of Uri Caine's (re)arrangements of the music of Mahler, played by a solid crew of Downtown New York musicians - Dave Douglas (tp), Don Byron (cl), Michael Formanek (b), Mark Feldman (vl), among others. Under Caine's guidance, Mahler's music rediscovers much of its frankly Jewish roots, (as a composer/conductor in fin-de-siècle Austria-Hungary, Mahler had to renounce his Jewish faith in order to find employment). The overall effect is stunning.

Since the release of this album in 1997, Uri Caine has gone on to mess with the sacred rubiks cubes of several other European classical composers - Bach, Schumann and Wagner among them. I'm going to have to seek out these discs too...

If you thought the jazz artist's capacity for reinventing European classical music ended with Jacques Loussier's Play Bach series, go out and buy this album today.

Uri Caine - Symphony no.5, Funeral March
From urlicht/primal light: Winter and Winter 910 004-2 [Buy]

Uri Caine

In other news, ECM founder Manfred Eicher is interviewed in Le Monde (in French), blogs take over the world, the new episodes of Family Guy start on TV in New Zealand tomorrow night, and Rushan has arrived safely in Exeter, NH.

Funny Kiwis

2005-10-03T18:14:00.000+13:00

Sometimes you just have to show a bit of pride in your fellow countrymen. Flight of the Conchords is a musical comedy duo from Wellington. They rightly claim the title of New Zealand's 4th most popular folk parody act, and here they are blowing up all over the world. An HBO special, sell-out shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and now, they've even been on Conan O'Brien.

They are not only very funny, they are also very fine musicians. Their David Bowie "song" is one of the best things I've ever heard live on stage. And Brett McKenzie played/plays in The Black Seeds, who are world famous in New Zealand.

I seriously recommend you download/watch their Conan appearance [.avi file, 22MB]

And make these guys superstars, please. We need more entertainment heroes in this country beyond Peter Jackson and Chris Knox.

Kiwi kids are Weet-Bix kids.

I am officially old.

2005-10-03T18:06:00.000+13:00

My awareness of youth music is receding as fast as my hairline.

Driving back from attending the Dianova piano recital on Saturday night, I see thousands of kids lined up on Queen Street outside Auckland's St James Theatre. It must be the Black Eyed Peas show, I assume (after all, that's what the kids are into these days, right? Hell, I even played support for the BEP's Auckland gig years ago, before their Elephunk superstardom. Yeah, I know what's going down.)

It turns out that the queue of thousands is for a gig by a Canadian punk band called Simple Plan. I have never heard of them. Until I read about the gig in the paper on Monday.

And then the first part of my order of CDs from Amazon arrives - Mingus and Art Ensemble of Chicago, both live recordings from the 1960s. It is all over. I am out of touch.

Jeff Stinco from Simple Plan. I am so past it.

Islands of Fire

2005-10-02T13:18:00.000+13:00

Tzenka Dianova - XX Century Piano Music
Saturday, 1st October, University of Auckland School of Music

There are limited opportunities in Auckland to hear 20th Century "classical" music. So Tzenka Dianova's piano recital last night was an event to be leapt at. Dianova specialises in the avant garde end of 20th Century composition for piano, and the ambitious program was a satisfying survey of this particular musical vein, spanning music from 1905 to 1986.

Charles Ive's Three Page Sonata was the only piece with which I was familiar, and Dianova played the bustling third movement far more rhythmically than does Peter Lawson on his excellent American Piano Sonatas recording. There was even a hint of ragtime in Dianova's playing...

Peter Lawson - Three Page Sonata (Ives)
From American Piano Sonatas: Virgin Classics 61928 [Buy]

The real highlight of the concert was John Cage's Daughters of the Lonesome Isle for prepared piano. Oh to have a spare Steinway grand that you can fill with nuts, bolts, screws and bits of rubber! I couldn't help being reminded of Javanese gamelan on hearing this piece.

Tzenka Dianova, preparing her piano for a John Cage composition

The remainder of the concert was rounded out by the resonant harmonics of I.Phases II.Reseaux by Canadian Gilles Tremblay; the austere and minimal Intermission 5 by Morton Feldman; Galina Utsvol'skaya's Piano Sonata #5 (who would have thought that middle Db could become a theatrical character?). Dianova closed the concert with Olivier Messaien's brief and savage Ile de Feu I, played without sheet music, giving the impression that this forceful piece of modernism is one of Dianova's "party pieces"

Bill Shoemaker on improvised music

2005-09-30T22:13:00.000+12:00

"For many, improvised music is the final frontier, the last large blank space on the musical map. In a word, discovery is the deep-seated need that is fulfilled for many by improvised music. Often, it is a need previously met by other forms of music, before they became, after sufficient exposure, familiar, then predictable, and, ultimately, product. The irony is that improvised music is not completely immune from the expectations and fickleness of consumers. People come back and again to improvised music because they have developed a taste for it. They know in general terms what to expect, and their evaluation of the music depends on how those expectations are met, or are supplanted by something truly unexpected and startling. The saving grace of improvised music is it is fated to remain on the fringe. The idea of having improvised music out there, way out there in the unmarketable wild, also fulfills a deep-seated need of many improvised music fans."
- Bill Shoemaker, June 2005 in Point of Departure

Vitamin S - First Trio, Part C Excerpt, 20th August 2004 [2'12]

Finnish Spirit

2005-09-30T19:12:00.000+12:00

Nuspirit Helsinki are a collective of DJs, producers and live musicians, based, not surprisingly, in the Finnish capital city. Since the release of their debut album in 2003, they have been fairly quiet on the recording front, but they are the force behind an annual summer music festival in Helsinki. And the musicians (such as the very fine trumpeter Jukka Eskola) and the DJ crew seem to pop up in clubs all over the world.

The collective's musical influences range across virtually every kind of black music (jazz/soul/funk) as well as Latin and African musics. What impresses me most about this group is how they mix frankly DJ-oriented production/composition methods with some very intelligent live instrumental arrangements.

Nuspirit Helsinki - Afro-Cuban Sunshine
From Mundial Muzique (Various Artists): Guidance Recordings [Buy]

Nuspirit Helsinki featuring Nicole Willis - Honest
From Nuspirit Helsinki: Guidance Recordings [Buy]

Holy Crap It's etnobofin's First Birthday
I've just realised that I've been doing this for a year now. OK, it didn't really start out as a music blog, but as etnobofin moved through its 6 month adolescent crisis, this blog's destiny became clear... here's to a second year of free parking! Thank you to everyone who continnue to visit and have faith in this little corner of Internetworld. And happy birthday to Benn loxo du taccu, the best blog on African music on the web.

And for all of us who stepped out of the spaceship at a young age to travel the world alone, Nick's post on exchange students is great. It is all so true. It's not the places you go, or how much you drink. It is always the people that make the journey memorable.

Nuspirit Helsinki

Jose Roberto Bertrami

2005-09-26T19:26:00.000+12:00

Brazilian keyboardist Jose Roberto Bertrami is the founder of the epochal band Azymuth, the trio who masterfully meld jazz, bossa, electric fusion and samba. Some would go so far as to call Bertrami and Azymuth smooth jazz artists. Yet Bertrami and colleagues seem to avoid the cheese, and produce something that is truly satisfying and successful. The melodies are always taught, and the rhythm is alway impeccable, thanks in no small part to drummer/percussionist Ivan "Mamao" Conti and bass player Alex Malheiros.

I've chosen two selections from Bertrami's solo albums to illustrate his approach, recorded 18 years apart. Blue Wave was recorded in 1983, and Things are Different in 2001. Spot the difference.

Jose Roberto Bertrami - Partido Alto
From Blue Wave: Milestone M 9117 [Buy]

Jose Roberto Bertrami - Partido Alto 3
From Things are Different: Farout Recordings 053LP [Buy]

Jose Roberto Bertrami (front) with Ivan Conti and Alex Malheiros

Dominion Centenary Concert Band

2005-09-22T18:07:00.001+12:00

Today's post is about a new musical project in Auckland - the Dominion Centenary Concert Band. The DCCB is a 7-piece ensemble of improvising musicians involved in the Vitamin S collective. (And yes, I play in it.)

DCCB's instrumentation, stage appearance and repertoire is largely a tribute to New Zealand's brass band tradition, and particularly the amateur community bands (Salvation Army, Women's Temperance Union, Maori and Ratana bands) that abounded during New Zealand's colonial period. The DCCB has specifically been established to mark the approaching centenary of New Zealand becoming a Dominion of the British Empire in 1907.

The format of DCCB performances revolves around "islands" of orchestrated composed pieces (drawn from multiple sources) connected by passages of free improvisation.

The 17 minute performance posted here was recorded at our inaugural concert, on June 16th 2005 at St Kevin's Arcade on Karangahape Road, one of Auckland's few remaining orginal shopping arcades. The composed fragments heard here are Hala Vuna, a traditional Tongan folk song; Ennio Morricone's movie theme from My Name is Nobody [Update: I am reliably informed that this theme is in fact High Plains Drifter, by Dee Barton, not Morricone's spaghetti western melody] ; and Bonnisseau, a brass theme of French origin.

Dominion Centenary Concert Band - Performance #1 , June 16th 2005

The personnel on the recording are: John Bell (concert master, glockenspiel, tenor horn, whistles and percussion); Paul Winstanley (marching bass drum, percussion and guitar); Bruce Morley (drums and percussion); Jaekyung Kelly Choi (clarinet, recorder, fife, hojuk and bass clarinet); Richard Cotman (trumpet, flugelhorn, bugle and shofar); and Tim Sutton (bass trombone).

Our next gig is in Wellington on October 30th as part of the Wellington International Jazz Festival. I hope you enjoy the music, and I'd be interested in comments, whether positive, negative or bemused!

John Bell

Carlo Actis Dato...

2005-09-20T19:27:00.000+12:00

Italian baritone saxophonist Carlo Actis Dato is deluded. He either thinks he's leading a Balkan travelling circus orchestra, or he thinks he's Gerry Mulligan living in a cartoon world of pre-war Algiers. Either way, his music is darn fine, especially live (you can read my post on his quartet's gig in Auckland in October last year here). Dato has repeatedly been named as one of the top baritone players in the world by Downbeat magazine, and his bands have chops to burn.

Evidence for above statements follow:

Carlos Actis Dato Quartet - Ababa
Carlos Actis Dato Quartet - Tarfaya
From Swingin' Hanoi: Splasc(H) CDH907.2 [Buy]

Oh, and if you think space stuff is cool, check out NASA's new spaceship.

He's deluded, I tell you.
(And yes, I know, that's not a baritone sax. It's a bass clarinet. As I said, deluded.)

Soul Power 2005 !

2005-09-18T11:56:00.000+12:00

Thanks to everyone who has been reading and leaving comments on etnobofin over the past little while. It is almost miraculous how little virtual communities of people can form around particular tiny specks of HTML in this ocean of almost limitless information. I hope we all can provide each other with a little bit of clear signal among all the static.

Anyway, it's been a fairly eventful 24 hours here in little ol' New Zealand. It looks like we've retained a Labour-led social democrat government, by the skin of our teeth. 23,000 votes separated the two major parties nationwide. It was very close.

And more bizarrely, somebody tried to fly a stolen aeroplane into Auckland's Sky Tower last night, in the middle of the election. This sort of thing doesn't happen very often in New Zealand. It was certainly a little scary and confusing when the news started filtering through to the gig I was playing last night.

To lighten the mood, here's Maceo Parker (as), Fred Wesley (tb), Pee Wee Ellis (ts), Rodney Jones (gt), Larry Goldings (org), Kenwood Dennard (d), Candy Dulfer (as) and Kym Mazelle (vox), performing in Köln in March 1992.

Maceo Parker - Soul Power '92 (14'13)
From Life on Planet Groove: Verve 214 517 197-2 [Buy]

And in other positive news, Ubuweb is back up and running ! And Hubert de Lartigue shows us how to make X-Wings out of Paris metro tickets (the photos are cool, and there are instructions in English and en français).

Blow that horn, Maceo!

Little Things

2005-09-16T19:50:00.000+12:00

Great blog posts combined with internet access in the office can make for a dangerous mix. After reading Rushan’s post today, I had to rapidly dry my eyes (really) and pull myself together again before heading into a meeting! Perhaps luckily (or not?) nobody spotted the brief lowering of my at-the-office mask and I was soon back talking about the importance of consistent branding and recommending a programme of ongoing background media outreach.

Rushan is exploring the unpredictable and sometimes massive implications of even our tiniest actions on the lives of others. If you think too long about this, you can freak out. I’m sure for most people looking back at their lives so far, the “what if” scenarios are endless and sometimes frightening. I guess we need to learn to be more conscious of the way we treat others and ourselves, for even the most insignificant act can have far-reaching effects on others. The butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil…

In no particular order, here are some thoughts that kind of all link back to this theme.

Go to Finland
It was early in 2001. An endless European winter and the pressure of finishing my Honours dissertation 12,000km from my university conspired to get me a bit depressed. I was thinking about heading home immediately at the end of my employment contract in France. Mum phones me. She convinces me to stay a while longer, tells me that I should go and visit some friends of hers in Finland. The trip to Vaasa later that spring turns into 3 wonderful weeks on trains and ferries around Nordic Europe. I cross the Arctic Circle, see the Midnight Sun. I come home to New Zealand a month later than planned, just in time to fall into a temporary job opening that convinces me that I shouldn’t go to Journalism School. The temporary job becomes very, very permanent. I learn about the importance of consistent branding, and a random guy gets hold of me at work one day and asks if I’d like to join a funk band.

When Mum called me long distance in 2001 to kick me out of my rut, she would have no idea that her conversation would mean that I wouldn’t become a journalist, that it would lead me to local funk scene stardom (haha), or that it would cause me to sit in a meeting today making a business case for an ongoing programme of media outreach. In fact, she still doesn’t know how that conversation shifted my life sideways. Maybe I should tell her sometime.

Little Things
Yes, there is some music today. The boys from Trinity Roots keep coming through for me, and I thought that this song was particularly appropriate.

Trinity Roots – Little Things
From True: Independent/TR_02 [Buy]

Please please please check in mine eyes
For I and I have nothing to hide
As I wipe the slate clean, share this with you
Take on my own, the pain of your soul

It’s the little things
That really matter

These fine fine lines, make for trying times
And trying times, make you strong
You take your strength, pass it around
Pass it around and then move on

It’s the little things
That really matter

© 2002 Trinity Roots

Making a Difference
Tomorrow is polling day in New Zealand’s General Election. I’ll be doing my bit by voting against what I see as fear, ignorance and greed. I know people who have chosen not to vote tomorrow, thinking that it won’t make a difference. I hope they’ll change their mind tomorrow morning and turn out cause their own tiny ripple in the grand scheme…

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead, anthropologist

Sunset over Tysfjord, Norway

Mood Piece

2005-09-14T19:01:00.000+12:00

I was sent this movie yesterday by a friend - it's a video of images taken by the NASA Messenger probe as it flew by Earth in August, on its gravity-assisted path to Mercury.

Seeing Earth as viewed by a passing spacecraft put me in a strange mood. It was almost like stepping out of ourselves, and getting a glimpse what a visitor from elsewhere might see. Our planet is so small... we are so insignificant. This thought has struck me previously in a different form.

My initial thoughts for a soundtrack to this short movie was Sting's Fragile, but in the end I selected a song by Beck. Charlie Haden plays bass on this track, in case anyone cares...

Beck - Ramshackle
From Odelay: Geffen 24926 [Buy]

Let's Give Wynton Marsalis a Break...

2005-09-13T18:53:00.000+12:00

The guy sure can play. So, without taking sides in the politics of American jazz, here are two recordings of a young Wynton, cementing his place in the history of the music. With Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams in Japan in 1981, and with his own band (Kenny Kirkland, Jeff "Tain" Watts, Phil Bowler) in New York in 1983.

Herbie Hancock Quartet - Clear Ways
From Quartet: Columbia CGK 38275 [Buy]

Wynton Marsalis Quartet - My Ideal
From Think of One: Columbia CK 38641 [Buy]

Mingus Orchestras Part IV

2005-09-11T16:27:00.000+12:00

To complete this series on Charles Mingus and his work with large ensembles, I'm going to post a couple of favourite tunes, both of which illustrate the range of influences that Mingus brought to bear on his orchestral writing - Monk, Ellington, 20th Century classical composers, Bird, Fats Waller - it's all in there somewhere.

Rambunctious and confident, E.S.P. was recorded at the 1972 Philharmonic Hall concert. We hear solos from Lee Konitz (as), Lonnie Hillyer (tp), Gerry Mulligan (bs) and Charles McPherson (as). The back-announcement is by Bill Cosby, who was M.C. for the evening.

I like to think that Please Don't Come Back from the Moon is Mingus' acerbic response to the bouncy optimism of Bart Howard's Fly Me to the Moon. Solos are by Richard Williams (tp), Jaki Byard (pn), Zoot Sims (ts) and Charlie Mariano (as). The tune was the final "planned" tune recorded at the 1962 Town Hall concert, and ends suddenly during Mariano's solo as Mingus was given a signal to wrap the gig up before union overtime kicked in at midnight...

Charles Mingus Orchestra - E.S.P.
From Charles Mingus and Friends in Concert : Columbia C2K 64975 [Buy]

Charles Mingus Orchestra - Please Don't Come Back from the Moon
From The Complete Town Hall Concert : Blue Note 28353 2 5 [Buy]

Charles Mingus. Image Copyright Karlheinz Kluter

Paradise

2005-09-09T19:16:00.000+12:00

Here, in unexpurgated glory, is the complete, original story of the Journey to Paradise. Thanks to Rushan for spurring me on to dig this up! I wrote this short story in mid 2002. It is inspired by an actual journey taken in that year by a certain special group of people , to a place that is marked on maps of New Zealand as "Paradise". Yes, it is a real place, although I am still not sure to this day where it actually is.

The Journey to Paradise
(As posted on Rushan's blog)

Until yesterday, I hadn't read this story for almost 3 years, and it prompted a lot of memories about a key time in my life. I'm not quite sure if I am the narrator or not, he/she certainly sounds a lot more authoritative about the expedition than I recall feeling at the time. Although the text was only read once in public at at youth service at St Paul's Remuera, it strikes me that it could have made a great short voice play for radio... ah, another project for a rainy day.

The story is best read accompanied with a large pinch of salt or some of your favourite music. I suggest the following, the opening track on Trinity Root's album "True", which I was discovering for the first time during those short, cold days surrounded by the Southern Alps.

Trinity Roots - True
From True: Independent TR_02 [Buy]

Enjoy, and comments are very welcome.

Mingus Orchestras Part III: Salvage

2005-09-08T19:29:00.000+12:00

The attempts by Charles Mingus to work with supersized bands in his own lifetime were plagued by logistical, musical and personal obstacles. A combination of inadequate rehearsals, changes forced by promoters and record companies, the ambitious nature of Mingus' orchestral vision, (and in no small part Mingus' own famously explosive temper) conspired to make appearances by a Mingus Orchestra rare and frustrating for all concerned.

In fact some of the highlights of these concerts came not from the planned and arranged tunes, but from spontaneous music that was created in some ways to cover up for the often abysmal playing and sightreading!

The October 1962 New York "Town Hall Concert" was the first attempt by Mingus to record his Epitaph suite, and became one of the most famously bungled gigs in the history of jazz. The entire, almost unbelievable saga is recounted by Gene Santoro in the Village Voice (thanks to be.jazz for posting this recently!). As midnight approached and the concert slowly dissolved into chaos, trumpeter Clark Terry started the opening riff from Ellington's "In a Mellow Tone". The band quickly caught on, and the performance is exciting because it is completely unrehearsed, and born out of total frustration. We hear solos by Pepper Adams (bs), Clark Terry (tp) and Britt Woodman (tb).

Mingus' New York "comeback" concert in February 1972 was perhaps less eventful, but again the juggernaut barely kept itself on the rails. At the end of a less-than-satisfactory first half, Mingus tried to reignite the evening by launching into a funky, dirty blues. Gene Ammons (ts) followed his lead, and the resulting jam (named "Mingus Blues") is one of my favourite Mingus recordings.

Charles Mingus Orchestra - In a Mellow Tone
From The Complete Town Hall Concert: Blue Note 28353 2 5 [Buy]

Charles Mingus Orchestra - Mingus Blues
From Charles Mingus and Friends in Concert: Columbia C2K 64975 [Buy]

Kea @ The Remarkables, Queenstown, NZ, August 22nd 2005

I am .pdf. Oh Dear.

Which File Extension are You?

Interdependence Day

2005-09-07T18:23:00.000+12:00

Some of the conversations I've been reading in the non-musical blogosphere over the past few days have given me pause for thought. So I'm going to digress momentarily from my normal line of writing. (There is an mp3 at the end, so you can skip to that if you want...)

Rushan and friends have been exploring ways that we come closer to being who we truly are, not only by dropping the masks we use so often in our daily interactions, but by acknowledging that we, as individuals, are not complete without a community around us. A quote from M. Scott Peck:

"...we can never be completely whole in and of ourselves. We cannot be all things to ourselves and to others. We cannot be perfect. ... So we are called to wholeness and simultaneously to recognition of our incompleteness; called to power and to acknowledge our weakness; called to both individuation and interdependence."

As something of an rugged individual myself, it's often hard to recognize that I am very dependent on others to become more like who I am - whether within my family, at work, at church or in music. For example, I'm very fortunate to have discovered such strong musical colleagues in one million dollars, the Brassouls and Vitamin S to help focus my musical ramblings. My family supports me and forgives my faults unconditionally. (Dunno why). And if I value them enough, friends far and near will always be there along the journey.

The same gratitude applies in the little blue and green blogosphere in which etnobofin floats. This blog would be of limited value without the readers and fellow bloggers who visit every so often, and who hopefully discover some new things. It is very reassuring that there are so many people out there who share some of my enthusiasms.

So this post is for all of you, wherever you are. In this world where our relationships with others seem often defined by which XML feeds we subscribe to, let's celebrate the communities that really bind us together and make us whole. Peace, and kia kaha.

Sly and the Family Stone - Family Affair
From There's a Riot Going On: Sony 467063 [Buy]

Lake Tekapo, July 2002

Missing New Orleans

2005-09-05T19:14:00.000+12:00

I've been away travelling for the past few days, so have been somewhat insulated from news reports describing the unimaginable events in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast of the USA. As with other recent disasters of massive proportions, our thoughts, prayers and support go to all those affected and to those who are working to clean up and repair the lives of millions of people.

But of course, New Orleans is also the town of Buddy Bolden, Jelly Roll Morton, Freddie Keppard, Louis Armstrong, the Marsalis family, Fats Domino, the Neville Brothers, Dr John and Nicholas Payton (to name but a few natives). The Village Voice is already contemplating the potential loss of musical history, while David Freedman of WWOZ-FM worries whether the current NOLA music scene will ever regain its vitality.

In hope of a rapid return to normal transmissions in the cradle of so much music we love, here's the city's most famous son, recorded live at Carnegie Hall in 1947. He is joined by Billie Holiday on vocals.

Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra - Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans
From Satchmo in the 40s: ASV Living Era AJA 5402 [Buy]

Mingus Orchestras Part II

2005-08-31T19:24:00.000+12:00

As a composer and student, Mingus' interests stretched well beyond what we might term his jazz influences. We know for example that Mingus spent his early years studying the work of Bartok, Stravinsky, Ravel and Debussy. It is probably in his writing for large groups that Mingus "classical" influences are most strongly felt.

When I first heard Mingus' Self Portrait/Chill of Death, (part of the Epitaph suite), I immediately thought of Charles Ives. And not because both composers share a first name!

Chill of Death features an almost endless string of interlocking solos - during the 11 minute duration of the piece, just about every orchestra member gets to solo, sometimes playing over the top of each other in "clashing" chord progressions. The overall effect reminded me of Charles Ives symphonic compositions, in which different sections of the orchestra would often be given different tunes to play - simultaneously!

In the climax of "The Fourth of July" (1911-13), Ives splits the orchestra into four in an orgy of patriotic chaos- the brass scream out Columbia, Gem of the Ocean, a solo cornet tries to burst through with Battle Hymn of the Republic, while piano and xylophone are hammering away at Yankee Doodle. And the rest of the orchestra? Well, by this stage who cares what they are are doing...

So, here is Chill of Death and The Fourth of July placed alongside each other, for comparison and contrast. For optimum effect, play both mp3s at once...

Epitaph Orchestra - Self Portrait/Chill of Death
From Charles Mingus Epitaph: Columbia 466631 [Buy]

Leonard Bernstein/New York Philharmonic Orchestra - The Fourth of July
From Leonard Bernstein - Ives Symphonies Nos. 2&3 etc: Sony Classical 516023 [Buy]

Charles Ives

Mingus Orchestras Part I

2005-08-28T11:32:00.000+12:00

The next few posts will briefly explore Charles Mingus and his writing for large ensembles. An iconoclast in all things, Mingus often worked with (and wrote for) ensembles that were larger and more diverse than the standard acoustic jazz quartet/quintet format: great examples of this are the octet format heard on Mingus Ah Um and the 11-piece outfit that performed The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady. And arrangements of Mingus for big band are performed and recorded today by the very illustrious Mingus Big Band.

But Charles Mingus had compositional concepts that extended beyond even mid-sized and standard big-band formats, with pieces that were written and arranged for large bands of 20 to 30 musicians, often including instruments that still remain exotic in the jazz context - bassoon, french horn, timpani.

So to kick off, here are two of my favourites from Mingus' sprawling Epitaph suite for 30 piece orchestra, assembled and performed for the first time in 1989, a decade after the composer's death. Moods in Mambo is entirely through-composed, without solos, and features a largely atonal composition overlaid on a mambo percussion section - sort of Schoenberg meets Eddie Palmieri. Wolverine Blues is a swaggering orchestral arrangement of Jelly Roll Morton's tune, and the undoubted highlight is Michael Rabinowitz blues solo on... bassoon ! Not to be missed.

Epitaph Orchestra - Moods in Mambo
Epitaph Orchestra - Wolverine Blues
From Charles Mingus Epitaph: Columbia 466631 [Buy]

Impish Orchestrations

2005-08-24T19:18:00.000+12:00

The great thing about skiing holidays is that it's almost never the skiing that is the most memorable event. So the undoubted highlight of my short break in the South Island this winter were the keas.

The kea is the world's only alpine parrot, and apart from being some of the most intelligent birds on the planet, they also are among the most fearless, playful and impish. They will rip apart the upholstery on your snowmobile, steal french fries off your picnic table from under your nose, and then flap off noisily up the mountain to look at you sideways from the safety of a rocky outcrop.

So, in a twisted tribute to these impish inhabitants of our Southern Alps, I've dug up some of the most impish music I could find. The London Improvisers' Orchestra, recorded live at the Freedom of the City Festival on May 5th 2002. Phone In is an improvisation for orchestra and mobile phones, while Fanfare for LIO is an improvised duet for orchestra and audience.

Keaaaaaa!

London Improvisers' Orchestra - Phone In
London Improvisers' Orchestra - Fanfare for LIO
From Freedom of the City 2002: Emanem 4090 [Buy]

Kea, Improvising

Everybody has a winter holiday

2005-08-17T18:36:00.000+12:00

I'm off down south for a few days to get my annual snow fix, so there won't be any posts for the next week or so...

In the meantime, I've sourced some early Kenny Wheeler solos ! In 1966, British drummers Ronnie Stephenson and Kenny Clare recorded the Drum Spectacular album in London. (Rare on vinyl and not yet available on CD). The big band playing behind the drummers is all British guys - among them Kenny Baker (tp), Kenny Wheeler (tp), Tubby Hayes (ts) and Ronnie Scott (ts). And on South Rampart Street Parade and Topsy, the 8 bar trumpet solos are by none other than... Kenny Wheeler !

They're pretty nice big band charts too, in a Buddy Rich sort of way. Righto, I'm off to clean my goggles and buy sunscreen.

Kenny Clare & Ronnie Stephenson Big Band - South Rampart Street Parade
Kenny Clare & Ronnie Stephenson Big Band - Dual Carriageway
Kenny Clare & Ronnie Stephenson Big Band - Topsy
From Drum Spectacular: Columbia-EMI [OOP]

Two New Zealanders awaiting snowfall

R.I.P. David Lange

2005-08-14T12:36:00.000+12:00

Former New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange (PM 1984-89) died last night at Middlemore Hospital in Auckland, at the age of 63. While the controversies of his Fourth Labour government will be endlessly documented and debated for years to come, there is no doubt that he will be most widely remembered internationally as the head of state to make New Zealand a nuclear-free country.

Lange's policy involved the banning of US nuclear-powered warships from New Zealand's ports, and the effective withdrawal of New Zealand from the ANZUS defence alliance. A high point of his term as Prime Minister was his eloquent speech at the Oxford Union in 1985, arguing that nuclear weapons are morally indefensible. The transcript of his speech is online here.

Well loved by New Zealanders, David Lange will be missed.

Charles Mingus - Oh Lord Don't Let Them Drop That Atomic Bomb on Me
From Oh Yeah: Atlantic 90667 [Buy]

Lonely Hill

2005-08-12T19:13:00.000+12:00

Andrew Hill was one of the unsung stalwarts of the Blue Note label in the 1960s, appearing as a sideman on recordings by Bobby Hutcherson, Joe Henderson and Sam Rivers. But Hill's work as a leader deserves far more attention. Despite a fairly prolific output in the 1960s, Chicago-born Hill struggled to be heard in the 1970s and 1980s, until he returned to Blue Note in 1989. In 1995, a Blue Note box set was released, and today at the age of nearly 70, Andrew Hill is finally getting some of the respect and attention he has always deserved. Check his website for some free solo mp3s!

Hill's 1960s recordings ride a distinctive line between hard bop and complete freedom, where blues licks meld into atonality at a moment's notice.

New Monastery is performed by the rather extraordinary sextet of Kenny Dorham (tp), Eric Dolphy (as, fl, Blc), Joe Henderson (ts), Andrew Hill (pn), Richard Davis (b) and Tony Williams (d). The Day After features a "two-bass quartet" of Hill, Roy Haynes, (d) with Richard Davis and Eddie Kahn on bass.

Andrew Hill Sextet - New Monastery
From Point of Departure: Blue Note 84167 [Buy]

Andrew Hill Quartet - The Day After
From Smoke Stack: Blue Note 32097 [Buy]

Andrew Hill

In 1996, Andrew Hill visited New Zealand, playing one show at Manifesto on Queen St in Auckland. Hill played a solo set, followed by a lengthy set with local musicans (from memory, Cameron Undy, Nick McBride, Jason Jones and Kim Paterson).

I actually got to meet Mr Hill personally, and as an impressionable and somewhat starry-eyed teenager, this was a memorable moment. I told him how much I enjoyed his gig, and he said, smiling, "Well, bless your heart!" And to this day, these are the only four words a Blue Note recording artist has ever said to me.

First Podcast from Space

2005-08-08T19:08:00.000+12:00

As I write this, the space shuttle Discovery is about 30 minutes from its deorbit burn, as it prepares to return to Earth. Possibly a good time to note the recording of the first podcast from space, made yesterday by astronaut Steve Robinson (below). There's no music, but it's from space, and that makes it cool.

Steve Robinson - The First Podcast from Space
From Nasa.gov

I was going to write an entry on the passing of Ibrahim Ferrer, but Taxi Driver and Pete have both posted already, so I'll point to their blog entries and just say resto en paz.

"Planet Earth is blue, and there's nothing I can do....." Photo:NASA

Hommage à Alain Gerber

2005-08-07T15:51:00.000+12:00

One of the more remarkable critics and writers on jazz who I’ve come across is the French novelist and broadcaster Alain Gerber. He presents the radio show Le jazz est un roman (“Jazz is a novel”) which features each weeknight on France Musiques. The show’s format allows M. Gerber to spend months at a time exploring the life and work of a single artist. Most of the spoken material is based closely on his ongoing series of biographies of great jazz musicians (Bird, Armstrong, Chet, among others…), and framed by an extensive selection from the musician’s discography.

A natural storyteller, Gerber has found a way to weave details of the (often tragic) lives of his chosen subject into a radio show that remains steadfastly about the music, without deification of the players. Under Gerber’s guidance, the careers of some of the music’s greatest lights become epic sagas on 52nd Street for which the soundtrack is their own recorded output.

When I was living in France a few years ago, Alain Gerber’s radio show became a welcome part of my daily routine. Here are a couple of tracks which will for me always link themselves back to winter evenings in my apartment in a small town huddled against the foothills of the Vosges...

Bill Evans - Displacement
From New Jazz Conceptions: Riverside OJC20 025-2 [Buy]

Keith Jarrett Trio - Poinciana
From Whisper Not: ECM 1724/25 [Buy]

Alain Gerber

Music for Hot August Nights

2005-08-04T19:18:00.000+12:00

Burn baby burn.... how about an instrument that works using flames and heat to create sound? How about a pyrophone? It'd look great on your back lawn, would get rid of your neighbours, and most likely would eliminate the need to mow the grass after a performance. In summary, the perfect tool for complete sonic satisfaction.

The Large Hot Pipe Organ is the world's only MIDI controlled, propane powered explosion organ. Forget a plasma screen TV. I want one of these.

Large Hot Pipe Organ - Pyro Tango
mp3s hosted on IUMA.com

Julie Driscoll, Otis Redding and Loose Ends

2005-07-31T15:08:00.000+12:00

One of the people talking more sense than most about "the digital music revolution" is Gerd Leonhard. His book The Future of Music is fairly well-written and offers a well- considered model of how the music biz is going work in the digital environment, and how artists, labels and multimedia conglomerates (Universal, SonyBMG etc...) can all make a living. Worth checking out...

Also worth checking out is the new Vitamin S website, the online home of improvised music in Auckland. Photos, gig guides, mailing lists and even our own theme song!

And for those who don't know, the mp3 blog the naughahyde life is now operating under the moniker "a bigger splash", so update your links brothers and sisters.

Julie Driscoll and the Brian Auger Trinity - Tramp
From A Kind of Love in 1967-1971: Raven RVCD189 [Buy]

Otis Redding - Tramp
From The Dock of the Bay The Definitive Collection: Atlantic 9548-31709-2 [Buy]

Julie Driscoll, definition of a retrobabe. She could sing too.

PS. Thanks to MKD for the Julie Driscoll/Brian Auger vinyl (the best dog-eared birthday present I got this year), and to Auntie Susan in the UK for the Otis Redding CD, (from many birthdays ago) which I am only now beginning to truly appreciate! Good things take time.

Electric deJohnette

2005-07-27T19:07:00.000+12:00

It's 1985. It's a video documentary about zebras by Japanese photographer Tadayuki Naito. The soundtrack is performed by one of the great living drummers - Jack deJohnette - playing a SIEL DK600 synthesizer. The great living drummer calls in an old mate of his from Chicago to play on the recording, some trumpet player called Lester Bowie. They play together. The tapes roll and record it all.

Unique electro-afro-ambient thingummywhatsits. Fela Kuti meets Jean Michel Jarre.

Jack deJohnette - Ntoro I
Jack deJohnette - Jongo
From Zebra: MCA Records MCAD- 42160 [Buy]

Jack deJohnette, not playing synthesizer

molo posted a track from this album a few months ago. But these are different tracks, and deserve to be heard.

Jeff Henderson: Darn Bureaucrats

2005-07-24T16:10:00.000+12:00

New Zealand may seem like a couple of tiny, inauspicious islands to find interesting and inspiring improvised music, but there are lively enclaves of madness, bloody-mindedness and sheer tenacity in Wellington and Auckland. And if you play the "Six Degrees of Separation" game with the players in both cities, just about everything leads back to Wellington saxophonist Jeff Henderson.

Although Jeff's main WMD is an atomic-powered baritone sax, he is also heard on alto sax, bells, whistles and, increasingly, hilarious polylingual vocalisations. Jeff has been a member of comet-busting groups such as the Ortiz Funeral Directors, Syzygy and Birchville Cat Motel, and is the creative force behind progressive "freak magnet" performance venues in Wellington. Jeff has made an enormous contribution in the past decade to expanding free improv in NZ to the point where it is arguably a far more vital, populous and interesting scene than anything happening with our straightahead jazz community.

Jeff's solo performances are shock-and-awe projections of force into hostile territory. Fans of Peter Brötzmann will find a lot to like in these selections. All three mp3s are available for download under a Creative Commons license from Postmoderncore.

Jeff Henderson - fuck you you bureauratic fucks (parts 1 and 2)
Jeff Henderson - A

Don't mess with Mr Henderson

Kriss Kross in the House

2005-07-20T19:12:00.000+12:00

Everybody in the late 90's had a house music period, right?....right?.....well, OK maybe not. But for some of us, there was something about clubs with purple carpet on the walls and cheap Heinekens on Thursdays that gave some of these tunes at least temporary appeal. But the appeal never lasted long.

So, in the spirit of archaemusicology, here's Kriss Kross from 1992, remixed by Jason Nevins in 1999. And a clubbed-out version of Return of the Space Cowboy, perhaps most noteworthy for the sax solo at the end which revives all those Miami Vice memories....

Kriss Kross vs Jason Nevins - Jump
From Uni-Vs-Al: Epic/Sony 491968 [Buy]

Jamiroquai - Return of the Space Cowboy (Classic Dub Remix)
From Stillness in Time Single: Sony 6620256 [Buy on Vinyl]

Kriss Kross - they even had a game on Sega

Hung Up in Tokyo...again

2005-07-17T10:27:00.000+12:00

Among Herbie Hancock's Japan-only releases from the 1970s, Directstep seems to be the hardest to get your hands on, even in Japan. I can't find it for sale online at all (Amazon says it's "currently unavailable"). I stumbled on my CD copy in Fnac Mulhouse (France) about four years ago, which proves that you never know where rarities will turn up.

Directstep was recorded in October 1978 at CBS/Sony Studios in Tokyo. Personnel are Herbie Hancock (keyboards), Webster Lewis (organ), Alphonse Mouzon (dr), Paul Jackson (b), Ray Obiedo (gt), Bennie Maupin (ts), Bill Summers (perc). And despite the fact it was 1978, the album is surprisingly listenable...

Herbie Hancock - Shiftless Shuffle
From Directstep: Sony Records SCRCS 9503 [OOP]

Alphonse Mouzon

Hung Up in Tokyo

2005-07-14T17:49:00.000+12:00

In June 1975, Herbie Hancock and the Headhunters travelled to Japan. Their concerts at Shibuya Konkaido and Nakano Sun Plaza were recorded by Columbia Japan, and subsequently released as the twin-vinyl Japan-only live LP Flood:Live in Japan.

Just one track today, because it’s nearly 20 minutes long, and comes with a 100% “This Will Funk Your World” Guarantee. Herbie Hancock (keyboards), Bennie Maupin (soprano sax), Blackbyrd McKnight (gt), Paul Jackson (b), Mike Clark (d), Bill Summers (perc).

Herbie Hancock – Hang Up Your Hang Ups (Live) – 19’54
From 洪水 Live In Japan: Columbia SCRS 9341 [Buy]

SHOUT-OUTS TO FRIENDS WORLDWIDE
Merci à Dom chez PODvains pour son review de mon blog, meme si ma contribution au blogosphere n'est que modeste et flambante anglosaxonne - " le néo-zélandais de la bande qui cause français" Haha, c’est trop gentil..

And hello to Siggidóri at Skonrokk, who linked to etnobofin in Icelandic, and describes the contents as “Óhætt að mæla með þeirri eðal músík”. Skonrokk on ice is well worth a visit for some surprising music from Iceland – Reyjavik is very definitely in the house!

The Don Ellis Treatment

2005-07-10T13:26:00.000+12:00

molo (gunter likes frenchfries) posted a Dave Douglas tune in his recent Night Blend compilation which inspired thoughts of other trumpet players who pushed the envelope, and I dug out my vinyl copy (a Quadrophonic recording, no less!) of the Don Ellis Orchestra album Tears of Joy.

Recorded in San Francisco in May 1971, this particular incarnation of the Ellis band welded a "conventional" big band lineup to a string quartet and a woodwind quartet, and played a set often inspired Don Ellis' interest in non-"Western" musics and non-standard time signatures.

The piano solo on Blues in Elf (11/8) is by the band's Bulgarian pianist Milcho Leviev. Samba Bajada is a Hank Levy composition, and is described by Ellis as a "samba in 9".

Don Ellis Orchestra - Blues in Elf
Don Ellis Orchestra - Samba Bajada
From Tears of Joy: Columbia GQ 30927 [Buy]

Regarding last week's tragic events in London, there is very little I can add that hasn't been said already. Che Tibby provides a useful perspective from New Zealand, and I am ashamed to note that mosques in my own country were vandalised overnight. It is clear that our common enemy is irrational and indiscriminate hatred, regardless of the perpetrators and the victims.

Keith Jarrett: American Quartet Part IV

2005-07-06T19:10:00.000+12:00

In the spring of 1976, the quartet toured Europe, and recorded the extraordinary The Survivors' Suite in Ludwigsburg in April. (Believe me, you need this disc in your life.)

Travelling south to Austria in May, the quartet's gig at the Theater am Kornmarkt in Bregenz was recorded and released in 1979 as Eyes of the Heart. The 3-part encore from that show sums up many different facets of the band, and serves as a fitting coda to this series.

Keith Jarrett described what it was like to play in this band in the liner notes to the record:

"Music is at its best when it carries you along at a level deeper than the music itself and forces you to live in its spaces as well as its notes.

"Improvisation is at its best when everyone involved in the music is aware of an intect greater then his own; therefore more his own."

Keith Jarrett - Encore (a-b-c) - 18mins
From Eyes of the Heart: ECM 1150 [Buy]

Despite the strength of the music, it was clear by 1976 that differences in lifestyle and philosophy were driving the band apart. Following a final 3 day recording session New York in October of the same year, Keith Jarrett's American Quartet ceased to be.

Keith Jarrett

Keith Jarrett: American Quartet Part III

2005-07-04T18:04:00.000+12:00

One of the most remarkable aspects of Jarrett's American Quartet was the obvious breadth of their influences and capabilities. And while free jazz was a strong suit in their arsenal, there were other moments when this band was downright FUNKY.

Rhythm and blues, rock and gospel run wild across many of the Quartet's recordings, as exemplified by this pair of tunes. Guitarist Sam Brown plays on Take Me Back, as part of the quartet's only release on Columbia.

Keith Jarrett - Take Me Back*
From Expectations: Columbia KG 31580 [Buy]

Keith Jarrett - Le Mistral
From The Impulse Years 1973-1974: Impulse! IMPD5-237 [Buy]

Paul Motian

Worth a Visit: a comprehensive review of Bill Evan's versions of Stella by Starlight over at Xanax Taxi.

*Take Me Back is converted from an original copy on vinyl. I apologise for any moments substandard sound.

Changing Bandwagons

2005-07-01T20:51:00.000+12:00

Well, changing blog templates, anyway. There's nothing like a new lick of paint to lift the spirits. I've also played around with the structure of my links.

And to celebrate, here's Beck from 1994 with his timeless critique of media culture...enjoy your weekends.

Beck - MTV Makes Me Want to Smoke Crack
From Loser CD Single UK Edition - Geffen GFSTD 67 [Buy US Edition Here]

The Keith Jarrett American Quartet series will continue soon.

Keith Jarrett: American Quartet Part II

2005-06-29T18:13:00.000+12:00

FREEDOM ! Or something close to it. Here are a couple of examples of the American Quartet heading towards their most liberal interpretations of melody and rhythm.

Piece for Ornette is an overt appropriation of Ornette Coleman's compositional style from the early 1960s. It is surely no coincidence that this band contains former Coleman sidemen Dewey Redman and Charlie Haden. We hear Keith Jarrett on soprano saxophone, with nary a piano within earshot.

Beaming in from somewhere else entirely is Redman's composition Pyramids Moving. It was recorded on the final day that the quartet worked together - October 16th, 1976, and released on the Impulse! album Bop-Be. Mr Redman plays chinese musette (illustrated below) instead of saxophone.

Keith Jarrett - Piece for Ornette (Long Version)
From El Juicio (The Judgement): Collectables COL-CD 6254 [Buy]

Keith Jarrett - Pyramids Moving
From Mysteries: The Impulse Years 1975-76: Impulse IMPD-4-189 [Buy]

Dewey Redman. Image Copyright Tony Rodgers

Keith Jarrett: American Quartet Part I

2005-06-26T11:15:00.000+12:00

A new series starts today, highlighting the work of Keith Jarrett's American Quartet.

"From 1971 to 1976, Jarrett led the American "Quartet", along with drummer Paul Motian, reedman Dewey Redman and bass player Charlie Haden. The group was often supplemented by one or two percussionists and recorded about a dozen albums for Atlantic Records, Columbia Records, Impulse! and ECM.... Jarrett's compositions and the strong musical identities of the group members gave this group a very distinct sound. The group's music was an interesting and exciting amalgam of free jazz, straight-ahead post-bop, gospel music, and exotic Middle-Eastern-sounding improvisations."
- from Wikipedia

And here are two tunes to accompany the small warmth provided by the winter sun over Auckland today. Birth dates from 1972, Everything that Lives Laments is from 1975: both tunes were recorded in New York.

Keith Jarrett Quartet - Birth
From Birth: Wounded Bird Records WOU 1612 [Buy]

Keith Jarrett Quartet - Everything that Lives Laments (Take 6) - 15mins
From Mysteries: The Impulse Years 1975-76: Impulse IMPD-4-189 [Buy]

Charlie Haden

one million dollars: energy state

2005-06-20T18:57:00.000+12:00

one million dollars - City Getting Down
Demo Recorded in Auckland, NZ, first half of 2001.

This blog normally being dedicated to music of great beauty and significance, I try to avoid mentioning my own modest activities. However, I'm in a band, and today our album Energy State is released in Europe. For an obscure eleven piece funksouljazzwhatever band from New Zealand, this event is significant. So I will permit myself to briefly note the occasion here on etnobofin.

ATTENTION LIECHTENSTEIN: Look for this album cover in your shops

To celebrate I thought I'd share City Getting Down, an old lo-fi demo of a $1MD favourite from the early days of the band. In fact it's the only recording I could find that isn't licensed to some record label or other. It's so old I'm not even playing on it (I joined a few months after this recording). The lovely brothers responsible are Richie Setford (vox, gat), Amos Clarke (b), Martin Schreck (tp) and Jono Goss (d).

We don't play this song live any more, but it reminds me of those naive early days of the band, before we learnt about groupies and all-night video shoots and cramming 10 people into a van for that infamous 12 hour drive to Wellington.

Apparently the CD is going to be available most places - Virgin Megastores, soulseduction.com, and citydisc in Switzerland should have it shortly, depending on the speed of distribution. soulseduction.com even has some good quality audio samples of all the tracks.

Righto. Here endeth the self promotion. Next time, some real music.

Disposable Heroes of Acid Jazz Part III

2005-06-17T18:51:00.000+12:00

Ronny Jordan - See the New
Ronny Jordan - So What
From The Antidote: Island 510883-2 [Buy]

This was the first "jazz" album I ever bought (and the second CD I ever bought after Beck's Mellow Gold, but that's another story). I don't listen to The Antidote much now, but I'm told it's a classic of its genre, at least according to Italian website thevibes.net:

"Sono trascorsi ormai molti anni da quando ascoltammo il primo album di Ronny Jordan, e soprattutto la sua straordinaria cover di "So What" di Miles Davis.

Da allora Ronny Jordan, londinese con genitori giamaicani, tra l'altro nominato per i Grammy Awards nella categoria chitarristi jazz, e' stato considerato come uno dei fondatori del genere acid jazz soprattutto per la sua abilita' nel mescolare jazz, funk ed hip hop. Nel corso della sua attivita' rimangono celeberrime le sue collaborazioni con Guru e Dj Krush con i quali ha contribuito a creare sonorita' personalissime."

Ronny Jordan plays guitar and bunch of other stuff. Longsy D provides production an drum programming, and London rapper I.G. Culture raps on See the New.

Disposable Heroes of Acid Jazz Part II

2005-06-15T19:09:00.000+12:00

Brooklyn Funk Essentials - Brooklyn Recycles
Brooklyn Funk Essentials - Stickman Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge
From Cool and Steady and Easy: Dorado DOR 022 CD [Buy]

BFE, one of the definitive American hip-hop-jazz crossover artists. Here's the collective from their debut long player from 1995. Featuring Joshua Roseman (tb), Paul Shapiro (sax), Bob Rockmann, (tp) Lati Kronlund (bass and drum programming) among others.

In 1995, their version of Pharoah Sanders' The Creator Has a Master Plan was an underground hit. In 2005, they're still going.

And while I'm here, a welcome to freeman as a new occasional audioblogger and constant provider of thought-food. Also check out iwasdoingalright, an ongoing and evolving account of the trials and joys of learning to play jazz trumpet. I can tell you that this site is very accurate. Ah, memories....

Disposable Heroes of Acid Jazz Part I

2005-06-13T18:50:00.000+12:00

Courtney Pine - Oneness of Mind
From Underground: Antilles 537 745-2 [Buy]

Courtney Pine - Don't X'Plain (Roni Size Remix)
From Another Story: Antilles 536 928-2 [Buy]

In the 1990s, the term "Acid Jazz" was used to justify a multitude of sins, and took the sheen off many triumphant musical moments. Now we're in the 21st Century, perhaps we can bypass the hype.

Perhaps we can look back and pick out some of the great music to emerge from this grand meeting of dancehall head-nodders, rappers, Coltrane worshippers and Horace Silver tribute bands.

British saxophonist Courtney Pine probably needs little introduction. His albums, many featuring the cream of the crop of current straightahead players from the US, have sold remarkably well. Young, black and sharply dressed, Pine's debut disc, Journey to the Urge Within, went Top 40 in the UK in 1987. And Mr Pine has not looked back since.

So try out these two contrasting tracks. Mr Pine (ts) is joined by Nicholas Payton (tp), Jeff "Tain" Watts (d), Reginald Veal (b), Cyrus Chestnut (p) and DJ Pogo (turntables) on Oneness of Mind.

And then Roni Size messes with Mr Pine's version of Billie Holiday song Don't Explain, sung by Cassandra Wilson.

Grasping at Albert Ayler

2005-06-11T11:25:00.000+12:00

Albert Ayler - Angels
Albert Ayler - Spiritual Rebirth
From Live in Greenwich Village - The Complete Impulse Recordings: Impulse! IMP 22732 [Buy]

I don't understand Albert Ayler. Listening to his music is like walking across Antarctica - no reference points to aid navigation. But every listen reveals more layers, more depth. The initial incomprehension disappears into the clarity of individual voices. Logic, structure and beauty begin to emerge.

Maybe I understand more than I think. Or maybe there is nothing to understand.

Albert Ayler and Michael Samson, 1967. Copyright Bill Smith

Angels was recorded at the Village Vanguard on December 18, 1966. Albert Ayler on alto sax, and probably Call Cobbs Jr on piano.

Spiritual Rebirth was recorded at the Village Theatre on February 26, 1967, and features the complete Ayler unit of that period - Albert Ayler (ts), Don Ayler (tp), Michael Samson (vl), Joel Freedman (cello), Bill Folwell and Alan Silva (b) and Beaver Harris (d).

Jarrett Break

2005-06-08T18:11:00.000+12:00

Keith Jarrett Quartet - Gypsy Moth
From El Juicio (The Judgement): Collectables COL-CD 6254 [Buy]

It's rapidly turning into another one of those weeks, so while I have a moment of calm, a track from Mr Jarrett's extraordinary American Quartet from the early 1970s - Charlie Haden (b), Dewey Redman (ts) and Paul Motian (d).

Right, now back to the chaos.

Deep Funk for Deep Throat

2005-06-03T20:31:00.000+12:00

The J.B.s - You Can Have Watergate Just Gimme Some Bucks and I'll Be Straight
From Funky Good Time: The Anthology: Polydor 527 094-2 [Buy]

W. Mark Felt ("Deep Throat")

Klaus Doldinger: Die Blues auf Deutsch

2005-06-03T19:09:00.000+12:00

NDR Jazz Workshop Band - Waltz of the Jive Cats
Etta James and Friends - Stormy Monday Blues
From Doldinger's Best: ACT9224-2 [Buy]

Born in Berlin, German musician Klaus Doldinger is probably best known for his "fusion" (what a yucky term) band Passport, which has been operating since 1971, and for his film scores for Das Boot and The Neverending Story/Die Unendliche Geschichte. Perhaps he is the polar opposite of his fellow countryman and reedman Peter Brötzmann?

Here he is blowing his way to a frenzy on his instrument of choice - firstly on his own composition Waltz of the Jive Cats with a German radio band featuring Johnny Griffin, Donald Byrd and the late Nils Henning Øersted-Pedersen (among others...) in 1964.

And then a live recording from the 1977 Montreux Jazz Festival, with Etta James, David Newman (ss), Herbie Mann (fl), Brian Ray (g), Jeff Berlin (b), Richard Tee (p) and Steve Jordan (d).

Lee Morgan: Live at the Lighthouse, 1970

2005-06-01T18:20:00.000+12:00

Lee Morgan Quintet - The Sidewinder
Lee Morgan Quintet - I Remember Britt
From Lee Morgan Live at The Lighthouse: Blue Note CDP 7243 8 35228 2 8 [Buy]

One of trumpeter Lee Morgan's classic bands caught in full flight at The Lighthouse, Hermosa Beach, California, in July 1970. Unrepentant, hard-blowing hard bop at a time when the winds of change were sweeping through the music. 18 months later, Lee Morgan was shot dead by his wife in New York, aged 33.

This is the BEST version of The Sidewinder available (in my opinion) - check Bennie Maupin's solo ! And the Harold Mabern tune I Remember Britt is a nod towards a style of soul-jazz that would dominate the coming decade.

The Spanish Bootleg Cover

The band is Lee Morgan (tp/flh), Bennie Maupin (ts/fl), Harold Mabern (p), Jymie Merritt (b), Mickey Roker (d). These recordings were unavailable for many years except as bootlegs, until Blue Note did a fine job assembling a 3-disc box set in 1995.

And congrats to Brother B. on his exciting new job.

Flipside

2005-05-29T15:39:00.000+12:00

Flipside - Elder Days
Flipside - The Magic Beans
From Flipside: Naxos Jazz 86013-2 [Buy]

Characterised by airy and open post-bop compositions, Flipside was a young quartet made up of New Zealanders Matt Penman (b) and Greg Tuohey (g), Irish drummer Darren Beckett and French saxophonist Jerome Sabbagh. They met in New York and worked together for several years in the late 1990s, recording one album together as a band.

The guys have moved on now to other projects - Darren Beckett has played with Kenny Wheeler. Greg Tuohey has a pop-rock band called Tennis. Sabbagh works on both sides of the Atlantic and leads his own quartet in New York. Matt Penman (featured on my recent Mark de Clive-Lowe post) has recently performed as part of the 2005 San Francisco Jazz Collective with Bobby Hutcherson, Nicholas Payton and Joshua Redman.

The Moomins - nothing to do with Flipside

Few thing are more beautiful than a genuine musical discovery

2005-05-27T23:28:00.000+12:00

I don't normally blog a blog, but check out this post on Cuong Vu on Xanax Taxi. I've known a little about this guy for a little while, but I didn't quite know he was this interesting... electric trumpet - played Hendrix-like in an improvising trio setting with bass and drums.

Cuong Vu and Stomu Takeishi

And if the audio tracks aren't enough there are some links to two videos from a gig at a club in Belgium (where else?) from 2002 - Again and again and Vinas Lullaby. 30Mb each, but well worth the download.

Darn. This stuff is inspiring. Could I enthuse any more?

Eddie Palmieri !

2005-05-27T19:00:00.000+12:00

Eddie Palmieri - Justicia
From The Best of Eddie Palmieri: Declic/Globe B10032 [Buy]

Eddie Palmieri - Bouncer
From Palmas: Elektra Nonesuch 7559-61649-2 [Buy]

Pianist and composer Eddie Palmieri. The classic Justicia, and Bouncer from the insrumental album Palmas, featuring inter alia Brian Lynch (tp), Donald Harrison (as) and Conrad Herwig (tb).

Can I say .... Arrrrribaaa!

Don Cherry and John Coltrane

2005-05-24T19:22:00.000+12:00

Don Cherry and John Coltrage - Cherryco
Don Cherry and John Coltrane - Bemsha Swing
From The Avant-Garde: Rhino/Atlantic 812279822 [Buy]

Few introductions are required here... John Coltrane and Don Cherry, recorded in New York in 1960. Ed Blackwell on drums, and Charlie Haden (Cherryco) and the late Percy Heath (Bemsha Swing) on bass. Compositions by Don Cherry and Thelonius Monk, respectively (and respectfully).