A Bit of a Rant, and More in the Series: Guilty Pleasures (or Skeletons in the Closet)

First of all, I'm back! My stereo speakers died; according to my son, they were old and about to die anyway. Me, I'm thinking "Maybe it was the Slipnot turned up to INFINITY that sent them to their grave?" But technically, they didn't die, just needed a transplant. I'm still not sure if they're up to their original awesomeness, but give me a week or two, and I'll be happy to pass along the audio doctor who kept them alive.
Trapped without tunes in the car or at home, I was stuck with whatever I could find on the radio dial. A grateful 'thank you' to KSER, KPLU and KING-FM, especially KSER for the variety of programming. But then there's..."Classic Rock". Umm, I enjoy listening to Alice Cooper talk around his dental work, but jeez... "Free Ride @ 5", call us with your requests!" "Dude, can you play "Hotel California" by the Eagles?"
Really? Really?? You have access to the station's entire CD library and you ask for something they played 4 times in the last 2 hours?!? And you have to add "by the Eagles" because we wouldn't have known what song you wanted otherwise?? (Final librarian tight-ass note: they call themselves "Eagles". Not "The Eagles". Check Steve Martin's book "Born Standing Up" for the story.)
Well, I guess I should address the main point of this blog post, which is -- yes, I love Seals & Crofts. Not just the Summer Breeze-y stuff, but the stuff before they were famous, AND the stuff when they were kicked to the curb! Stuff that came out during the punk era, Ground Zero for destroying anything, well, like Seals & Crofts.
Earlier, they seemed unorthodox -- mandolins! Weird chords! Mysterious Eastern melodic patterns! Nasal bluegrass harmonies in a rock-ish context! And later -- well, I listened to "Stars", the opening song on their kiss-off album "The Longest Road" and thought, "Wow, that guy on piano is pretty good." -- and then read in the liner notes that he was Chick Corea (with Stanley Clarke on bass!)
So... I love "Down Home" and "Year of Sunday", enjoy the "Summer Breeze" and "Diamond Girl" albums, and even listen avidly to "Get Closer", which even on release felt like leftovers.
So, if I had to compile a Seals & Crofts boxed CD set, based on my favorites...I could probably pull it of with 2 CDs, but...probably 3. Take that, Eagles!

Let Us Now Praise ... Gillian Welch!

I was late to discover Gillian Welch, maybe because she always looked like someone in those old Dust Bowl photos. very severe. One day I was driving around and heard part of an NPR broadcast with two people singing such close harmonies, I thought "Damn if the Judds haven't gone No Depression/Americana on us -- good for them!" Well of course it wasn't the Judds but Gillian Welch and David Rawlings performing songs from their album "Time (The Revelator)", and I was totally captivated.

There are certain albums I put on when I'm in a special mood, but there's only a handful that I can listen to in whatever mood I'm in and it'll take me to the emotional place the album occupies. "Kind of Blue" is one, Robert Wyatt's "Rock Bottom" another -- albums that exist out of normal time and space for me, and allow me to enter a separate world. "Time (The Revelator)" is one; spare, simple, ancient and modern at the same time, acoustic and hypnotic. The songs are almost always s-l-o-w but never boring. The last track "I Dream A Highway" is almost 15 minutes long, and it truly casts a spell. I was talking to someone 20 years younger a while back, and when I mentioned Gillian Welch, she said "Oh, I heard that at a party once -- that's got that great long long song, right?"

The DVD was from their Revelator tour, and it too is powerfully hypnotic, plus you get the bonus of songs not on the CD, and their great stage presence -- and surprise, Gillian has a great laugh, Dust Bowl regardless!

Blaxploitation!

What a great CD series! These are British imports, so sometimes their perspective on what exactly constitutes "blaxploitation" differs from ours, but put any of these on and suddenly you're cruising the mean streets in your low rider (or so I imagine, says the pink guy.) "Volume 3: The Payback" features Curtis Mayfield ("Move On Up"), William DeVaughn ("Be Thankful for What You Got"), War ("The World is a Ghetto") --- and these are the full-length album versions, not the single edits. Volume 1 has more of what you'd expect ("Pusherman", "Superfly", "Theme from Shaft") but in both volumes, there are other, more surprising choices ("Also Sprach Zarathustra"? "Summer in the City" -- by Quincy Jones ??) Still, it all hangs together very well.
"Blue Funk" isn't part of the Blaxploitation series, but's it is very similar, raiding the Blue Note vaults to feature Grant Green, Jack McDuff, Lou Donaldson and Bobby Hutcherson -- fine, fine stuff indeed.

John Renbuorn

Like Bert Jansch (from an earlier post), John Renbourn was part of the British folk-baroque revival, and of course, John and Bert played in Pentangle. John's solo work featured 'early music' transcribed for guitar, and later albums explored American acoustic blues and Celtic music. While Bert Jansch and Davy Graham were probably more influential due to their eclectic styles, John Renbourn was more of an accomplished traditionalist than groudbreaking artiste. That being said, the album "The Lady and the Unicorn" was one of the first popular guitar albums to feature music of Dowland, Gervaise and Bach in guitar transcriptions. "Sir John Alot of Merrie Englades Musyk Thyng & Ye Grene Knyghte" included jazzier pieces along with trad folk, and "The Nine Maidens" was a collection of 'original' pieces (mostly further arrangements of olde tunes ala "Lady & the Unicorn"). Of the 3, "Sir John Alot" is my favorite; the flute playing is a nice touch, though I could use a little less bongo/hand-drum.

Jon Hassell: Lava Lamp Music

Jon Hassell plays trumpet, and if you've heard him, you know just how inadequate that simple statement is. Jon studied Indian vocal ragas, and that's probably the most obvious influence you'll hear. But he plays 'world music' in the best sense of the term, before it came to mean "adding a bagpipe player to a group from Africa". His earlier albums (including "Earthquake Island") sound like they could have spun off a Weather Report album, but soon he was electronically processing his horn sounds even further (with the help of Brian Eno on "Fourth World, Volume 1: Possible Musics"). Sometimes there's a high whining vocal effect, sometimes it sounded like he was blowing through a vacuum cleaner hose. Drum sounds were distant and murky. It was like Les Baxter & "Quiet Village" exotica all spiffed up and unearthly. Later albums grew even murkier, with the trumpet barely rising to the surface of the primordial sludge. For his ECM release "Power Spot", there were a few spots brightened by flute flurries.
Start with "Fourth World", which is basically the template for most of his later albums. "Aka/Darbari/Java" adds some choppy electronic trumpet manipulations and a gamelan sound, "Dream Theory in Malaya" features a Malayan water-splash rhythm and frog sounds, but both have long stretches where not a lot happens (which I totally get into). "Power Spot" has a little more instrumental variety, and the more recent "Last Night the Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes in the Street", also on ECM, adds violin. The 'live' album "The Surgeon of the Nightsky Restores Dead Things by the Power of Sound" I find hypnotic, with a feeling you are on a train headed on a dark and mysterious journey. The 'live' is I suppose technically correct, but in this and also "Last Night the Moon...", original live recordings are used as a framework to hang studio enhancements.

Married to the Music

I was thinking this weekend about jazz artists who are married to other jazz artists, some even performing together in the same band. Cleo Laine and John Dankworth, Ella Fitzgerald and Ray Brown (briefly), Toshiko Akiyoshi and Lew Tabackin (there's a great crossword puzzle solution for you) -- but beginning in the '70s, Flora Purim and Airto was the couple that seemed to be everywhere. Flora worked with Chick Corea in various formats, and Airto was the go-to percussionist for just about everybody. Flora's album "Butterfly Dreams" is certainly of its era (the synthesizer doesn't wear well to my ears), and Airto's is kinda all over the map, stylistically. Still, both introduced a new way of hearing Brazilian music, and for my money, Flora's version of "Dindi" is definitive.

Ack, It's the Radio

I loved the radio growing up; I usually had my transistor radio permanently attached to my ear. Later, during the glory days of cool free-form FM radio, I still listened to the radio by the hour, even though I'd begun to develop a pretty sizable record collection. So you'd think that after the tape player in my car died (I know, I know -- my car came equipped with the very last cassette deck ever made), I'd still be able to enjoy spending time with my old friend, the radio. Uhh, no. I realize it's because I'm old and cranky (you kids get off my lawn!), but other than KING and KPLU, I'm hard pressed to find anything decent out there. CBC? Their format change pretty much leaves me cold. I'm lucky to be able to pick up KSER and KSVR when the wind blows just right.
But with all my carping, sometimes I do hear something I really enjoy. Latest is the 2010 album by Laura Veirs called "July Flame". Laura divides her time between Seattle and Portland, and she's got a great, 'unschooled' voice, quirky enjoyable songs, and a sympathetic partner in producer Tucker Martime. The song "Summer Is the Champion" really stood out amongst the radio dreck, so I guess there's still hope!