Month: December 2011

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Roy Ayers Ubiquity – He's Coming (1972) Verve 2009

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Roy Ayers Ubiquity
HE’S COMING
Released 1972 (Polydor PD 5022)
This REISSUE, DATE UNKNOWN

1 He’s A Superstar 5:35
2 He Ain’t Heavy He’s My Brother 4:04
3 Ain’t Got Time 2:53
4 I Don’t Know How To Love Him 4:02
5 He’s Coming 6:20
6 We Live In Brooklyn Baby 3:43
7 Sweet Butterfly Of Love / Sweet Tears 5:20
9 Fire Weaver 3:40

Arranged By – Harry Whitaker, Roy Ayers
Backing Vocals – Carol Smiley, Gloria Jones, Victoria Hospedale
Bass – John Williams (8) (tracks: 1 to 5, 7 to 9), Ron Carter (tracks: 6)
Congas – Jumma Santos
Drums – David Lee, Jr.
Drums, Percussion – Billy Cobham
Electric Piano, Organ, Vocals – Harry Whitaker
Guitar – Bob Fusco (tracks: 6), Sam Brown (2) (tracks: 1 to 5, 7 to 9)
Soprano Saxophone, Flute – Sonny Fortune
Strings – Selwart Clarke
Vibraphone, Organ, Vocals – Roy Ayers

Producer – Ed Kolis (tracks: 6), Myrnaleah Williams
Engineer – Rudy Van Gelder
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This is probably the least ubiquitous of the Roy Ayers Ubiquity albums. Much raw than later efforts, and pretty trippy with a Jesus-freak vibe saturating a lot of the tunes It’s not really a concept album, though, but almost. It includes a cover of a tune from Jesus Christ Superstar (“I Don’t Know How To Love Him”) and the famous Hollies tune “He’s Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother,” which has been covered by seemingly everyone since it was first recorded, including Cher the year before Ayers. But Donny Hathaway also recorded in 1971, and I’d like to think Roy and Co. were listening to Donny and not Cher when they thought of this arrangement. Keyboardist Harry Whitaker also arranges two songs, including his own “We Live In Brooklyn Baby” which is the strongest, leanest, and song on the album.

And oh yeah, Billy Cobham is pounding the skins on this album. He is playing in stealth mode, however, almost hard to believe he had just joined up with the bombastic Mahavishnu Orchestra or that his own over-the-top ‘Spectrum’ was in the works. Here, he behaves himself. The whole records alternating frantic-mellow dynamic is a welcome holiday-season elixir, and the title track features dueling-keyboard work from Whitaker and Ayers that is undelicately precious.



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Sam Rivers – Dimensions & Extensions (1967)

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SAM RIVERS
Dimension & Extensions

Recorded on March 17, 1967 at the Van Gelder Recording Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
First issued in 1976 on Blue Note BNLA 453 as part of the double album “Involution” (the second half of which is an Andrew Hill session).
Issued as an individual album with the original cover for the first time in 1986 (BST 84261)
CD Reissue is 1998 Blue Note RVG Remaster

1 Precis 5:18
2 Paean 5:23
3 Effusive Melange 5:49
4 Involution 7:12
5 Afflatus 6:25
6 Helix 5:31

Alto Saxophone, Flute – James Spaulding
Bass – Cecil McBee
Drums – Steve Ellington
Tenor Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone, Flute – Sam Rivers
Trombone – Julian Priester
Trumpet – Donald Byrd

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Producer – Alfred Lion
Recorded By, Remastered By – Rudy Van Gelder
Reissue Producer – Michael Cuscuna

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The Earth lost another musical giant when Sam Rivers passed away this week (Dec 26) at the age of 88 years. The man had a long career in which he put out a ton of music of a very high caliber. I lament that I never saw him perform live, particularly as I had the chance once and somehow missed it — I can’t remember what my reason was, but it better have been a good one. Fortunately I’ve been a fan of his records for a long time, and he sure left us a lot of those.

The first music I heard from him were the albums he recorded for Impulse (in particular, ‘Hues’) which were done right at the time when he was a key figure in the loft music scene happening in New York. But he put out so much and on so many labels (Black Saint, ECM, Mosaic, and quite a few smaller labels) it’s sometimes difficult to know where to start. He had the unlucky fortune of getting on the Blue Note roster right before the label was sold to Liberty, and as the release history listed above should make clear (and the liner notes from Robert Palmer and Bob Blumenthal make much clearer), this particular album had a very odd legacy indeed. It was recorded in 67, assigned a catalog number, and had classic Blue Note album cover artwork done for it — only to sit on the shelves for a decade before ever seeing the light of day. When it finally did, it was issued as part of a double album that also featured Rivers playing with Andrew Hill’s group. It was finally issued under the original title “Dimensiosn & Extensions” in the 1980s.

This is exhilarating stuff and it’s hard to see how it stayed under the radar for so long. Driving bass work from Cecil McBee (a frequent sideman for Rivers) under-girds what is at times a wall of brass and reeds (courtesy of Julian Priester, Donald Byrd, and James Spaulding). Rivers is unique for a lot of reasons, one of them being that for someone associated with ‘free jazz’ he probably owes as much or more to Charlie Parker than to Coltrane. There is both intimacy and a certain swing in most everything he touched, and one line Palmer wrote about this album pretty much nails it: “Never has atonality in jazz writing sounded this warm.” He was equally at ease in small trio settings as he was playing in or leading big ensembles. He recent four albums recorded as Sam Rivers and the Rivbea Orchestra are all excellent and leave it very clear that the man was still in full possession of his creative powers and abilities in writing, arranging and performing top-notch stuff well into his 80s.

Rest easy, Mr. Rivers. You will be missed.

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Candeia – Candeia (1970)

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Candeia (1970)
1970 Equipe (EQ-865)

Reissued (poorly) in 2011, Discobertas (DB-079)

1 Samba da antiga
(Candeia)
2 Sorriso antigo
(Aldecy, Candeia)
3 Viver
(Candeia)
4 O pagode
(Candeia)
5 Prece ao sol
(Candeia)
6 A volta
(Candeia)
7 Paixão segundo eu
(Candeia)
8 Dia de graça
(Candeia)
9 Outro recado
(Otto Enrique Trepte, Candeia)
10 Chorei, chorei
(Candeia)
11 Coisas banais
(Candeia, Paulinho da Viola)
12 Ilusão perdida
(Otto Enrique Trepte, Candeia)

*note: Otto Enrique Trepte is otherwise-known as Casquinha de Portela

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A classic, wonderful, and rare album from Candeia that has unfortunately been nearly ruined by that awful, truly godawful sound of the Discobertas record label. They should be ashamed of themselves. On one hand, one could say that we should just be thankful that this music is being reissued; in fact, the existence of this reissue probably means that nobody else will bother reissuing this material again for another decade or longer — meaning that the end result is that we are stuck with this subpar representation. I know I have said this before about Discobertas and I hate sounding like a broken record, but it is a point worth emphasizing. The shoddy quality of their releases would make a person think they operate like the old Radioactive records (i.e. only a semi-legitimate but essentially bootleg label), but instead these guys seem to have a publicity department. All of their Candeia reissues were sourced from mediocre vinyl copies and seemingly played back on a cheap turntable with a twenty year-old stylus (maybe they were going for a needle / agulha as vintage as the records themselves, so perhaps 30 years old)…

Well on to the music (if you can hear it over the noise). As far as I know this is Candeia’s first actual album, and marks his coming out of self-imposed seclusion after a shooting left him paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair. (This happened while Candeia worked as a police officer, and according to legend followed closely on the heels of a night when Candeia had a curse put upon him by a prostitute who he apparently had beaten up while on the job.) Although he had written some of the Portela samba school’s most famous compositions, leading them to victory in the Carnaval competitions several times, he withdrew from the bohemian life after his accident and had to be nudged back into writing and performing by friends like Martinho da Vila and Paulinho da Viola. And thank the stars that he had such persistent friends. Because Cartola may have only recorded a handful of records as a leader or member of a group during his brief decade of the 1970s (he passed away in 1978), but all of them are essential. This one is particularly strong, better than his second album (Seguinte: Raiz). Leading off with the self-reflexive “Samba da antiga” and just taking off from there on all cylinders. There is the infectious refrains of the samba da roda, “O Pagode”, with Candeia holding court between the chorus of “não se pode ficar sem entrar no pagode”, to beautiful samba-canção like “A volta.” One of the wonderful flourishes of this record is the trombone playing credited only to Raulzinho. If the sound wasn’t so terrible on this reissue, we could hear the interplay between the trombone, the lead and group vocals, the surdo, the agogô on divine “Outro recado”, co-written with Casquinha and easily one of the highlights of this consistently high-caliber record. But in the condition the audio is in, it all sort of gets lost in a wash of white noise that will leave you with tinnitus if you play it too loudly. This is sandwiched by two other sambas that ought to be canonical, ‘Dia de graça’ and ‘Chorei, chorei’. Hard to fathom that he wrote so many fantastic tunes without partners, which makes his infrequent partnerships all the more special, especially when they are with people like Casquinha or Paulinho da Viola — “Coisas banais” has Paulinho’s both lyrically and melodically pretty heavy on it, but Candeia adds his charismatic ebullience to it. The record is short, and it is so good that you want to play it over again immediately when it finishes.. Except that Discobertas put out a product that sounds like shit.

If you are wondering what to get me for Christmas, you can track down a copy of the Equipe vinyl and mail it to me. Thanks in advance.

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Grifters – One Sock Missing (1993)

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GRIFTERS
One Sock Missing
Released 1993
Shangri-La Records 004

1 Bummer 2:53
2 She Blows Blasts of Static 4:04
3 Shark 4:16
4 Teenage Jesus 3:02
5 ‘Side 2:50
6 #1 1:16
7 Tupelo Moan 5:06
8 Wonder 1:20
9 Corolla Hoist 4:02
10 Encrusted 2:19
11 The Casual Years 3:19
12 Sain 2:28
13 Just Passing Out 3:21
14 I Arise 4:35

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So here is something you don’t see everyday on this blog. I’m too tired to write much lately and so this is sort of a cop-out post. Pulled this off the shelf the other day and was surprised how much it still tickles my eardrum. Did the Grifters have vibe? You bet. Could their music melt the faces off of any current-day skinny-pants ‘indie’ band? Hells yeah. These guy were ‘lo-fi’ when that term did not signify an affected, contrived aesthetic choice, but an economic one where musicians creatively pushed the limits of whatever recording gear they could get their hands on in the days before every schmuck with a computer had a studio at home. Plus they were from Memphis, where ‘vibe’ is included with your zipcode. These guys could lurch vertiginous from dirty, scuzzy, noisy rock to moments of undelicate beauty, sometimes in the same tune. One of my favorite musically bipolar choices of the era. While the band’s songwriting would develop and sophisticate itself rather quickly and pleasingly in the albums to come, this one boasts the spontaneity and messiness that they would lose somewhat around the time they got picked up by Sub Pop and then had their career crash and burn. You know, like all those other bands. Along with ‘The Eureka EP’ this is one of their better hidden pleasures. Partially recorded in a flower shop, partially at Easley Studio, it sounds the way it ought to.

Oh, I had actually prepared this to share elsewhere but a CRC-mismatching error on the fourth track made it ineligible there, so that’s another reason why I am breaking form a bit and featuring it here. What the hell, it’s the holidays. Just an FYI for those of you who crave 100% error free audio extraction, this isn’t one of those..


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Doug Carn – Infant Eyes (1971)

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Doug Carn
“Infant Eyes”
Released 1971 on Black Jazz Records (BJ/3)

Welcome 1:15
Little B’s Poem 3:50
Moon Child 7:56
Infant Eyes 9:50
Passion Dance 5:58
Acknowledgement 8:45
Peace 4:30

Doug Carn – piano, electric Piano, organ
Jean Carn – vocals
Bob Frazier – flugelhorn, trumpet
George Harper – flute, tenor, saxophone
Al Hall Jr. – trombone, trombone
Henry Franklin – bass
Michael Carvin – drums

Produced by Gene Russell

Although he recorded a 1969 album in a trio setting for Savoy (which I’ve never heard), Doug Carn is of course most famous for his relationship with the independent Black Jazz label. His albums on that imprint may be single-handedly responsible for the label’s canonical status in Afrocentric spiritual jazz. They are remarkable for many reasons, not least of which is the presence of innovative lyrics sung by his then-wife Jean Carn, who not unlike Abbey Lincoln used her voice as part of the ensemble arrangements rather than as a vocalist with a backup band. The communal family vibe is accentuated by the beautiful album cover photography and the opening tune Little B’s Poem; together with the cover photo, I feel like I knew their daughter and wonder where she is now and how she feels about all the musical attention today. While the following albums from the Doug and Jean Carn would push further with original material, this first album is noteworthy for it’s reworking of compositions by jazz heavyweights that they admired – Bobby Hutcherson, Horace Silver, Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, and Wayne Shorter. In particular, adding lyrics to that material and making the compositions into something else is the big achievement here.

I have a repress vinyl of this that sounds pretty good and began to mess around with a digital rip of it, but am unsure whether or not to keep working on it. This CD pressing from 1997 sounds okay but the second side (of the original LP) suffers from nasty wow and flutter from whatever source tape they used. This was the first appearance of this album on CD and I am not sure if there has been any other remastered versions since, but I kind of doubt it. In fact last year somebody claiming to have a set of Black Jazz master tapes was selling the whole bundle on Craig’s List for a hefty sum; the auction was dubious as they were comprised of 1/2″ reels, which even for a studio on a budget in the early 70s would have been a substandard format, and claimed to come with full reproduction rights. Most likely the reels were production copies or just plain counterfeit, the listing was not online long before it was either met with an offer or taken down. Hopefully that doesn’t mean that we’ll be seeing a new series of reissues mastered from 1/2-inch tape.. Unfortunately a few of the other extant Doug Carn reissues have the same wow-and-flutter problem. Badly stored tapes, damaged playback equipment, sloppy transferring, or all of the above, it doesn’t really matter – the end result is that this precious, important music hasn’t received the treatment that it merits. But the most important thing is that it is still available and people can hear it. Since the reissued vinyls were most certainly just the CD master with an R$AA equalization curve applied, there isn’t much point in having both versions except for purely fetishistic reasons. Unless I can manage to get my hands on original vinyl pressings, they are however all we’ve got..

The liner notes by Doug Carn are a treasure. Written just for the reissue, they have a remarkable amount of detailed recollections for being composed more than thirty years after the recordings, showing just what a special time this was for everyone involved. While this is not my favorite of the Carn albums on Black Jazz, it is unique and on its own it is a great record. The title cut, which according to the notes was the first fruits of Doug’s experience with writing lyrics to other peoples’ music, stands out as the most fully realized work here.

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