I was listening to the show Give The Drummer Some on WFMU this morning and heard a cut from Joe Harriott and Amancio D'Silva's sublime Hum-Dono album. Unfortunately I don't own it so I can't post it, but I can offer an equally awesome album until someone gets me a copy.
This is Joe Harriott's Quintet playing Indian Ragas with John Mayer's Quartet (plus a flutist; hence the double quintet moniker). These aren't your average Raga's though. Yeah, you have a Sitar droning the tonic and tablas playing their groups of 2's and 3's, but you also have free form drums, piano and bass pounding out a 4 beat along with it. It's really something special. At times it sounds a little derivative but you have to keep in mind that this is where it was all figured out. This isn't what's derivative, it's where everything is derived from.
Today is the anniversary of Eric Dolphy's death in 1964. I didn't get to have an Eric Dolphy Memorial BBQ this year, so this post will have to do.
If you aren't familiar with Dolphy and you care at all about jazz or avant-garde music, you really should school yourself. His name get over looked on the surface of jazz because he gets lumped in with 'that weird noisy jazz'. Yes, he did play on Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz album, but he is so much more than that. It's easy to dismiss his melodies and lines as free-form but he really has some great melodies happening. Maybe they are atonal, but they are still melodies. I really feel his brand of jazz is steeped in tradition. He may not be creating conventional jazz, but deep down it's coming from the same place. He wasn't trying to break down what jazz should be, just play around with it a little bit. His tempos and chord changes are too structured to accurately be called free-jazz.
He definitely came out of the school of hard-bop. Playing with Mingus in the early 60s and The Coltrane on his legendary Africa/Brass sessions in '61 made him a household name. While his releases as bandleader for Prestige Records are easily overlooked, It's his 1964 Blue Note album, Out To Lunch!, that really seals the deal with jazz fans all over (myself included).
If you've never heard this album and you are into Coltrane, Davis, Mingus, Coleman or any hard-bop, post-bop, third stream or just modal music in general, go get it. Plus, It was recorded in New Jersey! It's always in print and usually very cheap. Blue Note will never let this go out of print because it's widely accepted as one of their best releases. So go buy it. If nothing else, buy it for the beautiful Reid Miles cover design.
But in the mean time download this little rarity. The record is a little beat up, but Dolphy is on fire! It seem that the band, other than bassist Chuck Israels, is a Danish house band but they sound like they have been playing together for a while. Maybe this was part of a whole European tour they were doing together. I don't know.
One last thing before I go drop the needle on my copy of Out To Lunch! I feel the story surrounding Dolphy's death needs to be told. In 1964, right after releasing his most acclaimed album, again Out To Lunch!, he embarked on a successful European tour with Charles Mingus' monster sextet (an amazing CD came out on Blue Note a few years ago featuring this band) and then settled in with his ballet-producer wife in Paris to live the good life. One night he was playing in (or just visiting, according to different accounts) Berlin when he suddenly collapsed. He was a long time diabetic and had gone into insulin shock. It was the 60s and the hospital he was taken to knew he was a jazz musician so the doctors assumed he was on some sort of drug and just left him alone to let the drugs run their course. He was dead by morning. It's such a shame that he could have easily been helped and continue recording. Who know what he would have done next.....
Well, I'm back. I got my record player hooked up to my computer, again. There's nothing like a girl in a record store to motivate me to get off my ass and do something.
I was at Academy Records a few weeks ago browsing to David Bowie's Lodger record, which I seriously need to listen to again, when all of the sudden some funky-ass shit starts playing. Academy has a little 'Now Playing' display and a Herbie Mann record was sitting in that spot. I thought "Ain't no way. That's the soft, fluffy, jazz flutist." I almost instantly recognized the vibe playing as Roy Ayers and figured it was most likely one of his records. I finished up my shopping over the course of the record and as I was checking out, I asked the cashier if that really was the Herbie Mann. He confirmed it and I made up my mind to walk out with the record. Fortunately, I grabbed it before the chick in line behind me, who was also eying it up. Nah nah nah nah nah nah!
So here it is. Herbie Mann. Actually being good. I want to credit a lot of the awesomeness of this record to the Muscle Shoals backing band. Eddie Hinton, Barry Beckett, David Hood (who never should have had children) and Roger Hawkins could play on a Bjork record and it would be funky. Add Roy Ayers to the mix and God Damn!!!
I've heard good things about this late 60s/early 70s Mann stuff, mostly from that dude at central NJ record shows who defaces Kylie Minogue 45s for me to hang in my kitchen, but never really picked any of it up. I'm sure gonna start now. I might even pick up that creepy Push Push album. Well, that might be pushing it. Ha! Get it?!?!?
Alright. Sorry. A great band, great tunes and a killer Beatles cover. Just click download. You'll enjoy it.
Track listing:
Side A: 1. Muscle Shoals Nitty Gritty 2. Claudia Pie 3. Can You Dig It
Side B: 1. Blind Willy 2. Come Together 3. Panama Red's Panama Hat
Link removed at the request of some money-grubbing soulless prick.
Below is a guest post courtesy of Mr. Von Grimm of I'll Stop My Drinking When You Stop Being A Bitch. Head on over and check out his posts. I highly recommend the 'Letters To The Dead' segments. The man is weaving a tapestry of characters. No really I think he might be keeping people in his basement with the intent to create some sort of clothing out of them. If you don't believe me read the post below. Or just go to his blog and laugh your ass off....
mephiskapheles was a ska band from the early 1990's. as their name suggests, their lyrics had a lot to do with the dark lord of the pit, Satan. yes, ska music. you know, chick a chick a, chick a chick a,hup-hup-hup. you did that dance that looked like you were picking loose change off the floor. man, just shut your mouth and stop judging me. yeah, i wore a suit and went to bosstones shows. you think you're better than me? i will break your ankle, punk. HA, see how i worked that in there!? ahhhhhhhHHHHHHHH, you don't care.
Mephiskapheles put out three albums and did a cover of celtic frost's necromantical screams. i decided to review the middle of the three albums, maximum perversion. their first album, God Bless Satan, was a full out great ska album and awesome to describe to your mom when she was going through your things in your room. Maximum Perversion was a hybrid album. it still had elements of ska but heavily mixed in was a solid jazz influence. The band was always horns heavy, and that's not a bad thing. Devil trombones and satanic saxophones permeate the album and fully describe to you the essence of sound the band was vying for. going through the track listing, i remember thinking it hilarious putting on demon weed, then smoking pot for the first time in my room with my friend, while playing street fighter two. he was chun li and i was vega, then my mom bust into the room and i sold her on the lie that we were burning incense. HAHAHAHAHHA, shit, i can't believe i though i would win with vega! g-o-d-d-o-g! the highlight of the album is sate. turn it up. as far as it can go. it is two minutes and three seconds of fury. when we went to shows there was always some asshole in sweatpants and flip flops who do the 'adrenalin rush' part way too early. and not just once, he realized he got it early, then said it again, then the band would play it, and you hoped that while you were dancing, he wasn't in the darkness sweating watching you move. there were eight people in the band at the time of making this album. it was recorded on Moon Ska records who also released albums by the pietasters, the toasters, and mustard plug. you know dude, you really need to stop. i will mash your face into a jelly. hey, i see an ace of base cd in your bookshelf, how about we discuss why you like to tuck your sack back behind your legs then do the buffalo bill dance in front of the mirror. i'd fuck me. no? ok then.
the band broke up shortly after their release of might-ay white-ay in 1999. they played with the blue meanies,the slackers, inspector 7, edna's goldfish, etc. if you saw these guys live then you know how good they were. please enjoy this album and seek out their others. hail satan.
First off, welcome to Vinyl Dump. A way to revitalize some forgotten records. This site will only post digital copies of records that never had an official pressing on CD and also some hard to find, out of print albums. If a link is no longer active please email me and I will repost it unless it has been permanently taken down. If you are the rightful owner of a recording I am linking to and have a problem with the music being shared please let me know and I will remove the link. If anyone has a specific album that they would like to mail me to rip and post please let me know. I'd be more than happy to do it. As long as it doesn't suck.
I was listening to the show Give The Drummer Some on WFMU this morning and heard a cut from Joe Harriott and Amancio D'Silva's sublime Hum-Dono album. Unfortunately I don't own it so I can't post it, but I can offer an equally awesome album until someone gets me a copy.
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