7 x 6

In The Long Form
Friday, November 28, 2008

No.#4 in a series

1.) Doctor Honoris Causa/Joe Zawinul
with Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Earl Turbinton,
Woody Shaw, Miroslav Vitous, and Billy Hart
Taken from 'Zawinul'/Atlantic Records

Largely an electronic soundscape recording, but with more than a bit of musicality. The sound here was essentially the blueprint for Zawinul's Weather Report which would soon follow. Dig the atmosphere.

2.) I Only Have Eyes For You/Lester Bowie's Brass Fantasy
with Malachi Thompson, Bob Stewart, Graig Harris, Vincent Chancey,
Stanton Davis Jr., Bruce Purse and Phillip Wilson
Taken from 'I Only Have Eyes For You'/ECM Records


One of my favorite songs originally recorded by The Flamingos, perfect for late night listening. Bowie stretches out nicely on this arrangement, and it's equally as dreamy the original, but in a different sort of way. This rip contains just the right amount of vinyl pop and crackle to keep us from drifting too far into the ether, reminding us that it still is an R&B song after all.

3.) Iris Unveiled To Reveal Vibrations/Spirit Free
Personnel Unknown
Taken from 'Spirit Free'/Unknown (Private Pressing)

Don't know much about this recording, as I no longer own the original copy. I was introduced to this years ago by a friend, via a 2nd or 3rd generation cassette copy. Liking it, I eventually tracked down a used vinyl copy, transferred it to CD, and gave the LP to my friend as a thank you gift. We've since lost touch and now the details of the date remain a mystery. This track is actually two combined, thereby breaking my own self imposed rules for 'In The Long Form.' Considering this, we then have a total of 7 songs by 6 artists rather than the perceived 6 x 6. So kill me.

4.) The Land Of Spirit And Light, Pts. 1-3/Michael White
with Prince Lasha, Ed Kelley, Bob King, Cecil McBee and Kenneth Nash
Taken From 'The Land Of Spirit And Light'/Impulse Records

White recorded a handful of spiritual jazz records for the Impulse! label in the 1970's. He, along with band members Ed Kelly and Kenneth Nash (all having been Bay Area residents) were always welcomed guests at the KRE studios in Berkeley during that period. I'm bending the guidelines again with this one, as it's technically a suite comprised of three segments, although it's considered as one composition.

5.) There Are Other Worlds (They Have Not Told You Of)/Sun Ra
with the Sun Ra Arkestra
Taken from 'Lanquidity'/Evidence Records

The recording's title perfectly describes the sound and fell of this recording; a word play on languid and liquid, forming 'Lanquidity.' A reissue of a previously rare date that found Ra and his band nearly making slow groove dance music with guitar contributions by the mysterious Disco Kid. Of course Ra was an original, and anything filtered through his musical vision became uniquely his own. This track adheres more closely to the form that we've all
come to know and expect from him. Dancing in your head.

6.) First Light/Freddie Hubbard
with Herbie Hancock, Richard Wyands, George Benson,
Eric Gale, Ron Carter, Hubert Laws, Jack DeJohnette, Airto
and string arrangements by Don Sebesky
Taken from 'First Light'/CTI Records

Ending on a more upbeat note, this was Freddie's first foray into electric instrumentaton with startling and magical results. Of course the great band helped too. And there you are...

7 x 6 (In The Long Form)

The All Seeing Eye

Wayne Shorter As Composer
Friday, November 21, 2008

Over the last half century, saxophonist, Wayne Shorter has penned an impressive body of work that has established him as one the most preeminent composers within the jazz idiom. His evocative songwriting employs drama, atmosphere, and a surprising use of space and harmonic innovation, and within those songs, his expressive, probing solos carry with them a simple elegance and sense of economy that make his music at once sensuous, cerebral and extremely compelling.

With 'The All Seeing Eye,' I intend to showcase what I believe are some of Shorter's finest compositions dating from 1964 to the present day. The selections however will focus exclusively on his solo recordings, excluding material which was written for the likes of Art Blakey, Miles Davis and Weather Report, ensembles in which he participated either as a sideman (Blakey, Davis), or a co-leader (Weather Report). Some may take issue with this decision, as Shorter contributed many outstanding pieces to the repertoire of the aforementioned units, but he has revisited some of those songs within his own recordings, and a few (i.e.: 'Footprints,' 'Water Babies' and 'Orbits') are included here. Perhaps adding insult to injury, I have additionally chosen not to include any of Shorter's fully electric ensembles, effectively discounting several decades of his work, primarily his recordings from the 1980's and 90's (his 70's output with Weather Report notwithstanding). So how can this be considered a comprehensive overview? Well quite honestly it's not, but then comprehensiveness is not my objective.

Shorter served notice as a rare genius with composition early on in his career, and his songwriting has remained consistently superb throughout the years. What has varied more so is his playing, with a shift from tenor to soprano, and the development of a more economical style that often flirts with the melody rather than fully embracing it. Shorter's songwriting chops are evident enough no matter where one looks, so it then stands to reason that if you like what you hear in his solo work, you'll no doubt find equally satisfying examples within his contributions for others. It's my hope that this mix will encourage you to further explore his cannon (solo or otherwise) in your own self-guided quest for discovery.

Along with his harmonic sophistication, what makes Shorter's compositions so absorbing is how modal and free improvisation merge over a rhythmic looseness that never seems to lose its inherent sense of swing. Miles Davis once said of Shorter, “Wayne brought in a kind of curiosity about working with musical rules. If they didn’t work, then he broke them, but with a musical sense. He understood that freedom in music was the ability to know the rules in order to bend them to your satisfaction and taste. Wayne was always out there on his own plane, orbiting around his own planet. Everybody else in the band was walking down here on earth.”

An interesting example of Shorter's use of harmony occurs in 'Twelve More Bars To Go,' wherein he injects a harmony that sounds like a backward progression within the standard 12 bar form, thereby breaking the form and comically depicting an individual who is slightly shit-faced, staggering along three sheets to the wind, taking two steps back for every five steps forward. Melody also plays an important role in Shorter's compositions, as does the importance of space, but again, it's the harmonic finesse of his arrangements that often work to make his small groups sound like much larger ensembles.

In the late sixties, as a result of his involvement with Miles Davis' move toward electric instrumentation, Shorter switched from tenor to soprano sax, an instrument he found better suited to the electronic timbre of the bands sound. However in doing so, he also found a startling new voice for himself, expressiveness with economy; an approach no doubt gleaned from his years of sharing the stage with Davis who always managed to say 'more with less.’ Shorter then dropped the tenor entirely for several decades, effectively distancing himself from the 'Coltrane' comparisons that had previously dogged him once and for all. In recent years however, his music has moved back into the acoustic arena. Now having mastered both instruments, he utilizes the two seamlessly in his new material.

The last element of Shorter's songwriting that deserves mention is its spiritual quality. As a practicing Buddhist, Shorter possesses a unique inquisitiveness and focus, traits that obviously trickle down through his music. Even before embracing Buddhism, Shorter expressed himself saying, "You can't divorce music from life. I have a need to relate my music to the way in which I respond to life around me. I look forward to a day when we will come to a period of total enlightenment, a time in which we'll discover who we are and why we're here." In his 1965 recording, 'The All Seeing Eye,' Shorter moved into the mystic with a suite of music putting forth the contemplation of God pondering his creation, melding the mystical with the metaphysical, and taking Coltrane's meditative concepts almost into the realm of theological questioning. Shorter expounds further stating, "Life is so mysterious to me. I can't stop at any one thing and say, 'Oh, this is what it is.' It's always evolving, always becoming. That's the adventure, and imagination is a part of that adventure." For my money, so is the music of Wayne Shorter.

The All Seeing Eye (Set #1)

1) Night Dreamer
2) Dance Cadaverous
3) Speak No Evil
4) Wild Flower
5) Footprints
6) Yes And No
7) Twelve More Bars To Go
8) Lost
9) Go
10) Angola
11) The Big Push

The All Seeing Eye (Set #2)

1) The All Seeing Eye
2) Penelope
3) Toy Tune
4) Wind
5) Storm
6) Water Babies
7) De Pois Do Amor, O Vazio (After Love, Emptiness)
8) Moto Grosso Feio
9) Capricorn II


The source material for 'The All Seeing Eye' comes from the following recordings:
Night Dreamer (1964)/JuJu (1964)/Speak No Evil (1965)/The Soothsayer (1965)
Etcetera (1965)/The All Seeing Eye (1965)/Adam's Apple (1966)
Schizophrenia (1967)/Super Nova (1969)/Moto Grosso Feio (1970)
Odyssey of Iska (1970) and Alegria (2005)

Wayne Shorter plays tenor and soprano saxophone

Pachyderms On Matchstick Legs

The Tough And Tender Music Of Jack Bruce
Friday, November 14, 2008

Although powerful, I don't consider Jack Bruce to be among my most favorite of bass players, but I do hold him in esteem as one of the more distinguished vocalists and songwriters of his generation. Having cut his teeth with a host of pre-British Invasion acts including Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated, The Graham Bond Organization, John Mayall’s Blues Breaker’s, and Manfred Mann, Bruce eventually broke into the mainstream in a big way with the wildly successful power trio, Cream, a story that needs not be further expounded upon here. Suffice to say, the former associations alone would be enough for many as a career resume highlight, but his affiliation with Clapton and Baker relegated him to unprecedented heights and squarely secured his place in the pantheon rock royalty with a legacy on which he could have easily retired. Yet the ever restless Bruce would continue to explore new avenues of possibility in the years that followed, all commendable, and many memorable.

After the meteoric rise (and demise) of the super group Cream, Bruce assembled a one-off collaboration with drummer, Mitch Mitchell and guitarist, Larry Coryell, while simultaneously striking out on solo projects in the few short years that followed which included his extraordinary recordings, 'Songs For A Tailor' and 'Harmony Row.' A surprisingly left of center jazz excursion also came within that time in the form of 'Things We Like,' an LP that paired him with John McLaughlin, Dick Heckstall-Smith and Jon Hiseman, showcasing his admiration for (and the influence of) bassist, Charles Mingus. In short order, his alliance with McLaughlin led to his joining Lifetime, a quartet of jazz musicians assembled by drummer, Tony Williams, McLaughlin, and organist, Larry Taylor which became one of the leading experimental jazz/rock fusion units of the day. I recall seeing that band in an early gig as an opening act for the Faces at Detroit’s Grande Ballroom, and while Lifetime certainly had the chops, their bombast was overwhelming and a bit tedious as I remember it, easily allowing Rod Stewart’s Faces to walk away with the more powerful, entertaining, and satisfying set of the night. Regardless, I’m glad to have witnessed the assembly of raw talent that graced the stage in that never to be repeated line-up.

Solo projects aside, power trios and guest appearances have played an ongoing role in Bruce's pursuits as he continued to embark on multiple band projects and collaborations. West, Bruce and Laing debuted with guitarist, Leslie West and drummer, Corky Laing, as did B.L.T., a unit with a clever, but unfortunate moniker comprised of Bruce, the aforementioned Laing and monster guitarist, Robin Trower. As a whole, I find the subsequent recordings by these ensembles to be largely unsatisfying, but then trios of any sort rarely have the amount of depth that I find necessary to sound full and complete. Perhaps they’re just not my cup of tea. Far more interesting were Bruce’s guest appearances with Frank Zappa ('Apostrophe'), Carla Bley ('Escalator Over The Hill'), Michael Mantler ('No Answer,' 'Many Have No Speech,' and others), Ellen McIllwaine ('Everybody Needs It'), and most especially with Kip Hanrahan ('Desire Develops An Edge,' 'Vertical’s Currency,' and many more). Other beneficiaries of his prowess include work with Donovan, Martha Velez, Charlie Watts, Alan Holdsworth, Cozy Powell, Charlie Mariano, and retro group, Rocket 88. Add to the list, Lou Reed, Soft Machine, Mose Allison, Aynsley Dunbar, Mick Taylor, The Golden Palominos, and more recently, Gov’t Mule. If that’s not enough, he’s additionally contributed to projects by poet, Paul Haines, composer, John Cage, and many others to numerous to mention. That said, there’s one more power group to speak of. After briefly reuniting with McLaughlin in his Mahavishnu Orchestra, Bruce hooked up with drummer, Billy Cobham and keyboardist, David Sancious for yet another jazz/rock fusion outing. Are you starting to get the picture? Not one to rest on his laurels, Bruce is a busy man; a multi-instrumentalist with broad ranging, divergent interests, and a talent that’s in demand by musicians from all paths of creation.

Other than his long lasting collaboration with lyricist, Pete Brown, Bruce’s participation with Kip Hanrahan has been among his most enduring and rewarding. He began simply as a contributor in the percussionists rotating cast of players, but the results proved so enriching for both men that they continued on as collaborators, resulting in some of the most impressive music of Bruce's career. In fact, many of those pieces are among the highlights in the music set offered below.

Bruce’s command of the bass, in combination with his characteristic voice and penchant for minor keys with jazz flourishes, makes the timbre of his songs sound outwardly heavy. However, his compositions are actually built over delicate foundations that belie the perceived weight of their impact, the element that makes his material so compelling. His association with Hanrahan helped bring that delicacy to the forefront, exposing the softer, more vulnerable side of his song craft --- the inner workings, if you will --- embellished by the sensuous, polyrhythmic undercurrent that Hanrahan supplied.

The material included in ‘Pachyderms On Matchstick Legs’ comes primarily from select solo recordings in Bruce’s discography, as well as a few of his lower profile contributions to Cream, and of course a bevy from the aforementioned works with Kip Hanrahan. If you like what you hear, I might also suggest seeking out ‘Monkjack,’ a stripped down duet recording featuring himself on piano and Bernie Worrell at the organ. Like Thelonious Monk was prone to do, Bruce periodically revisits his material to breath new life into them, utilizing variables in the arrangements, making old warhorses sound almost new again.

The centerpiece of this set revolves around three of Jack’s songs, ‘Without A Word,’ ‘Progress,’ and ‘Directions Home.’ Each on their own is intensely passionate, but when placed in the order in which you’ll hear them, they become staggeringly epic in their majesty and power. This trilogy encapsulates all of Bruce's strengths in one fell swoop --- his facility as a multi-instrumentalist, his mastery of the bass, the unique quality of his voice, and of course the superb songcraft --- additionally providing a demonstration of it's range and emotional depth. Certainly, it might be easily said that I simply relate to the subject matter and am therefore too close to be objective, but honestly, I believe that these three songs showcase more than any other the true beauty and command of Bruce's writing.

Pachyderms On Matchstick Legs (Set #1)

1) Never Tell Your Mother She's Out Of Tune
2) Deserted Cities Of The Heart
(w/Cream)
3) Theme For An Imaginary Western
4) Rope Ladder To The Moon
5) A Small Map Of Heaven
(w/Kip Hanrahan)
6) Smiles And Grins
(w/Kip Hanrahan)
7) Two Heartedly, To The Other Side
(w/Kip Hanrahan)
8) Chances Are Good (Baden's Distance)
(w/Kip Hanrahan)
9) Doin' That Scrapyard Thing
(w/Cream)
10) Without A Word
11) Progress
12) Directions Home
(w/Kip Hanrahan)

Pachyderms On Matchstick Legs (Set #2)

1) Dancing On Air
(w/Kip Hanrahan)
2) Swlabr
(w/Cream)
3) Boston Ball Game 1967
4) The Consul At Sunset
5) Make Love 2
(w/Kip Hanrahan)
6) Victoria Sage
7) Born To Be Blue
8) Can You Follow
9) He The Richmond
10) Weird Of Hermiston
11) As You Said
(w/Cream)
12) Folk Song
13) Uh Oh

The source material for 'Pachyderms On Matchstick Legs' comes from the following recordings:

Songs For A Tailor (1969)/Things We Like (1970)
Harmony Row (1971)/Vertical's Currency (1985)/Willpower (1989)
The Very Best Of Cream (1995)/Shadows On The Air (2001)
More Jack Than God (2003)
Jack Bruce plays bass guitar, double bass, cello, piano, organ, and harmonica.

The Time Of No Reply

The Bittersweet Romance Of Nick Drake

Friday, November 07, 2008

What more can possibly be said about Nick Drake's short life that hasn’t already been stated a thousand times over? By most measurements, Drake was considered a well-kept secret during the last 3 decades of the 1900s, yet today with a quick Google search, one can find an astonishing 5,000,000 entries devoted to the man, a remarkable testament to the romance of his legacy. Yet if you divide that figure by 500, you’ll arrive roughly at the number of people who were aware of Drake and his ethereal music during his lifetime. Pondering this as I have many times before, I arrive at the same emotional crossroad that has stymied me time and again --- although gratified that his music has finally taken its rightful place in history, bestowing it the regard it has always warranted --- in my heart of hearts I can’t help but feel sad for the Nick whose mortal soul longed so dearly for that recognition and acceptance.

I first came to hear Nick’s music through a sampler offered by Island Records years ago that I found for a whopping 99p pound sterling. Most of the material featured on the recording was pleasant, some forgettable, but in Drake’s magnificent ‘Northern Sky,’ I was instantly struck by the song’s haunting beauty, a sound that burned itself deep into my psyche. It came of course from the velvet sensuality of his voice, the delicate fingerpicking of his playing and the unexpected tunings of his guitar. But most especially, it lay in the heavy-hearted ache of his words. The whole of his art possessed me for days on end until I finally tracked down a copy of ‘Five Leaves Left,' his debut recording. Once in my possession, the LP rarely left my turntable. I listened to it repeatedly in rapt attention, hypnotized by the exquisite fragility of his songwriting. The loneliness of Nick’s songs contained an ephemeral quality that made them all that much sadder and bittersweet, and how could the source of such vulnerable beauty have long to live for this world? Sadly, it was a facet that became more pronounced with his subsequent recordings, and one that sorrowfully came eventually to pass.

 

At the time, little was known of Drake here in the States. Radio was completely indifferent to him, his delicate music overshadowed by the harder edged rock that ruled the times. A chance encounter with someone who had perhaps heard of his name was remarkable in and of itself, but meeting someone who had actually heard his songs was like meeting a member of a secret society, an astonishing serendipity that immediately placed both parties on equal footing. Then like today, hearing his music was at once a bewitching and consequential experience. In those years, it often seemed that the timbre of Drake’s song craft was so precious, so fragile and so holy, they could never stand a chance for survival under the heavy-handed scrutiny of mass consumption. Like a finely aged wine, ‘Fives Leaves Left,’ ‘Bryter Lyter,' and ‘Pink Moon’ held a uniquely rich, spiritual characteristic that was best reserved for sharing only with those cultivated enough to fully appreciate it’s transcendent magic. I was a member of that society as elitist as it sounds, and although I gladly introduced his music to those with which I felt a kinship, admittedly I doled it out in measured portions. But Nick’s songs are like that, so personal and tender in their elocution that it's like being privy to confidential diary entries. Sacred they seemed to us, and how could one then so blithely bandy them about as though they were mere yard sale flyer's? Compounding that feeling was the veil of mystery that surrounded the the reclusive artist, begging one to wonder whether the sad author of these confessions could have actually been of this mortal coil.

When thinking about Nick, I sometimes arrive at another crossroad, one that I find equally perplexing, if not even downright troubling. Could that so hallowed of reverence that we held for Drake’s music have actually served to work against him? If we had simply spread the gospel of his artistry to all rather than treating it as beyond price, might Nick still be here among us today? In my most dispirited times I think yes, possibly so. But when I truly consider Nick’s disposition, I believe the answer is decidedly no. Drake was a tortured soul, a man out of time, highly sensitive and prone to depression and heartache. His anima was not designed for the cruelty of our world. Some people are simply born with a deep-rooted loneliness that can never be squelched and I believe that Nick was one of them. Like the rare ephemeral flower that can only exist for a few brief glorious moments, Nick too could not have had long to live for this world. Obviously, others recognized this as well. Just look at how so many photos of Nick portray him as the brooding loner, the busy, fast paced world speeding by as he stands apart, alone in his solitude. Drake's songs themselves abound in references to the fleeting nature of life, and even more so, to his own. "Safe in the womb of an everlasting night, you find the darkness can give the brightest light/safe in your place deep in the earth, that’s when they’ll know what you’re really worth” are chilling words, penned by Drake in his sadly prophetic 'Fruit Tree.' Of course, I’ll never really know the answer, and one might suggest that I stand accused, but I contend there is a major difference between the values of yesterday and today, and therein lays the crux. Then, contemporary music in particular was the currency of a generation and Drake’s contribution was that of precious metal and rare gems. Today, contemporary music is omni-present, legal tender in any arena from blogs like this one to online podcasts. It's available to us through all manner of acquisition from instant gratification downloads to the purchase of magazines and cups of coffee. It's carried with us via laptops, cell phones and portable mp3 players. And it's utilized in corporate presentations, presidential campaign rallies, and yes, even television commercials like the one where many were first were exposed to Nick Drake. The value of music becomes deflated through this saturation, and was this the exchange rate that something as stirring and emotive as ‘River Man’ deserved?

This time of year as the autumn sun casts long shadows, I instinctively turn to Drake’s music as his songs have always evoked this season of transformation. The last days of October are washed with a golden light that filters through the trees, their vibrant leaves rustling in a last dying gasp of splendor. Slowly, the branches, along with the waning warmth of the sun surrender to the chill winds and bleak, somber skies of the long winter months to come. This is the music of Nick Drake --- his essence --- the embodiment of that melancholy transition from the promise of summer to the cold, dark, windswept landscape of winter. Apply this as a metaphor for the internal workings of ‘a man out of time,’ and you’ve come to the singular most striking richness of Drake’s song, as well as an informed understanding of his psyche.

Of course today, most anyone who appreciates quality music is not only familiar with Nick’s name, but also with his music, and I’ve come to believe that his newfound popularity is not such a bad thing after all. The years between then and now have proven in fact that at least his music could stand the harshness of time and exposure to the light. The only thing shattered by his wide recognition is that previously mentioned secret society, and now Drake belongs to the world, taking his rightful place in history as the creator of some of the most exquisite beauty in our lifetime. I still lament that Nick never lived to bask in the glow of his belated adoration, but his timeless music remains behind for us all to appreciate in spellbound reverence. Through it, Nick does live on in a way he could have never imagined in his lifetime and I wish that he could know this. But somehow, someway, I hope that his beautiful soul has finally found the blessed release for which it had always longed, and if my contentions regarding his mortality are wrong, I hope too that he will be forgiving.

 The Time Of No Reply

 

1) Time Of No Reply
2) Black-Eyed Dog
3) Three Hours (Alternate)
4) Clothes Of Sand
5) Voice From The Mountain
6) Magic (Alternate)
7) River Man
8) Way To Blue
9) Introduction
10) Hazey Jane II
11) At The Chime Of A City Clock
12) Northern Sky
13) Pink Moon
14) Place To Be
15) Horn
16) Things Behind The Sun
17) The Thoughts Of Mary Jane
18) One Of These Things First
19) Hazey Jane I
20) Cello Song
21) Saturday Sun
22) Ghost (Early Morning)
23) Bryter Layter

An Open Letter To Nick From Gabrielle Drake

The source material for 'The Time Of No Reply' comes from the following recordings:
 Five Leaves Left (1969)/Bryter Layter (1970)/Pink Moon (1972)
Time Of No Reply (1986)/Made To Love Magic (2004)
and Second Grace (Unknown)
'An Open Letter To Nick'
comes courtesy of Bryter Music, the official website for the estate of Nick Drake