Joseph Jarman - 'Song For' (Delmark)

There really must have been something in the water in Chicago then, because the music that came out of the late 1960s AACM scene is so unlike anything of its own time or any other. This first Jarman solo record is another piece in the puzzle that became the Art Ensemble, and thus fits in alongside the early Roscoe Mitchell recordings and the other pre-Art Ensemble experiments, which converge on that amazing 5 CD 1967/68 box set (if only it could get a vinyl release!). Jar's band at this time contained Christopher Gaddy and Charles Clark, both of whom were dead within a year (according to the liner notes of this 1970s reissue); dual tragedies, of course, all the more because this core trio had a contemplative understanding of space and time that was a really different flavour to the playfulness of the Art Ensemble. As a quartet with Thurman Barker, they're stripped down on 'Non-Cognitive Aspects of the City', a jaw-dropping excursion into outer-limits impressionism, with Jarman's poetic recitation at the centre. This celebration of urban mysticism explicitly references Dada a few times and casts Chicago's skyline as a shifting tapestry of possible worlds, a chaos that pulsates and gives. Gaddy's piano lines are especially elegant, with a mood closer to Paul Bley than fellow AACMer Muhal Richard Abrams. The larger band, found on the other three tracks, contains Fred Anderson on tenor, Steve McCall on drums and William Brimfield on Trumpet, and both sides start with cohesive, melodic compositions. 'Little Fox Run' is waxy, even a bit brittle, and a strange juxtaposition against 'Non-Cognitive'. It punches through the air and announces their arrival, but is too one-dimensional to showcase Jarman's talents. Side B starts with 'Adam's Rib', a modal, evolving progression that creaks towards silence, opening up for the longer form improvisation of the title track, which is segues into. 'Song For' starts by building percussive elements in space before erupting into a push/pull that is free, but never chaotic. Brimfield's trumpet rips over everything and the presence of two drummers makes it kinda choppy, but the band knows when to hold 'em and knows when to fold 'em, and the comedowns and murmurs are some of the piece's most invigorating moments. At times Jarman's alto and Anderson's tenor don't even seem to be in the same room, but then they come together to make great waves of sound. All around, in the corners, you can hear slide whistles, shouting, and marimba; also Charles Clark moseying around and tiny finger cymbals and bells. This flavours the music with sounds not often heard on ESP releases of the time (Don Garrett's work excepted); it's an approach radical and visionary, but quietly so, which can be the most rewarding.

Julius Hemphill - ''Coon Bid'ness' (Arista/Freedom)

I'm still kicking myself for missing out on the Dogon A.D. reissue last year, but at least I have this LP to enjoy whenever I'd like. I get uncomfortable saying the title but it makes sense, cause with this record, Hemphill attempts to musically interrogate the question of blackness head-on, particularly with side 1, the first half of which is fairly avant-classical in nature. The presence of a white drummer (Barry Altschul) doesn't matter, as this record opens around the slow, melodic rumblings of the altos against Abdul Wadud's cello and Hamiett Bluiett's baritone. Both 'Reflections' and 'Lyric' are careful, somber, and rather beautiful, with sonorities akin to Messiaen in places. They never stay 100% calm, though, with flutters in the corners to reveal the inherent and potential freedom of it all, perhaps described as a benevolent instability. I'm reminded a bit of Ornette Coleman's 'Sadness', but maybe that's a simplistic comparison, because these two pieces have an awareness that situates them in the mid-70s Bohemian/artistic milieu, much more than mere throwbacks to either Coleman's work or third stream jazz. 'Skin' parts 1 and 2 is where the rhythms start to kick in, with Wadud's cello sawed at like a rock guitar. It's genuinely riffy, a bit like those late 70s Ornette Coleman records only really more strident & driving than funk-leaning, and could be mistaken for a 'black' analogy to Rhys Chatham, Branca, or the minimal rock chops to come in the early 80s. The three saxophones share the soundstage and while it freqently revs into some really punchy sequences, there's enough space for everyone to explore their themes. I love the cello and Altschul is such a great player that he's able to set a pace without dominating, just like on all the stuff he did with Chick Corea. It's the B-side, 'The Hard Blues', that lets everyone stretch out the most. It feels more improvised after the tightly composed (in parts) first half, though it's not anything close to a free-for-all. Blues it is, but not in a 12-bar way (thank god), and I continue to hear rock tendencies in the way Wadud saws at his strings, and maybe the lower baritone sax contributes as well. Over 20 minutes the group comes together, comes apart, and comes back together, and they embrace dissonance wholeheartedly, and you can feel Hemphill's vision not just as a composer, but as a bandleader. There are moments in 'The Hard Blues' that recall Captain Beefheart circa Trout Mask, not necessarily as whacked-out or surreal, but in the sense of otherness, except here using blues as a crossing point for jazz instead of rock. 

Company Flow - 'Funcrusher Plus' (Rawkus)

Earlier in these annals I revisited the first Anti-Pop Consortium album, and looked at the overall concept of "experimental hip-hop", concluding:

I guess I must accept the reality: I just don't like hip-hop; if I want experimental + language I'll go to Robert Ashley or Henri Chopin. The instrumentals are probably my favorite part, which, I know, says more about me than about the music itself. Maybe I'm being too hard on them, but I don't think time has been too kind to this; there's a few 'interesting' elements, but interesting in a Logan's Run kind of way. Maybe they're talking about slingshotting into the sun and walls turning inside out, but it still has that rap diction. That masculine affect is a turn-off; it makes me think that the real radicals are the white kids doing sound poetry in the basements of Columbus, OH and other such dens of weirdness.

Oh, to quote myself on these same pages - but 2009 feels like so long ago. Anyway, I think upon revisiting Funcrusher Plus, which I really have not listened in over a decade, I better revise the above statement. I do actually like hip-hop, at least a little bit. For some reason the "rap diction" of these guys doesn't bother me, and I actually love the music here. The production on this is spacious and minimal, yet actually packed with wonderful wonderful details - a truly psychedelic experience, as cheesy at that may sound. Side one has the definitive Company Flow song, '8 Steps to Perfection', which is all bending strings and horror-film vibes, yet without having any trace of that horror-rap shit. And this isn't completely removed from black urban music - 'Silence' has a raw 1970's soul feel yet is repetitious and infectious while the voice sounds tense and stretched. This album is really cobbled together from singles and various recordings, so it's not a meticulously-plotted masterpiece. But maybe that's what makes it so compelling - it really is a unique and brilliant approach to music, very much of its genre but innovative and masterful at the same time. 'The Fire In Which You Burn' has sharp, pinging strings that attenuate the song towards psychic madness, and I think one of the reasons I've taken so long to write about this is that the more time I wait between listens, the more enjoyable it is. The double-LP format might be a bit too much, and the physical record feels crammed too, with the non-gatefold sleeve and the busy, ugly hip-hop design sensibility. I could probably just stick with this and Dr. Octagon and be content with this one period in art/rap hybrids, because with the frequency that I will actually go to Funcrusher Plus, it could last a lifetime.

Don Cherry (Horizon)

This is the tenth Don Cherry record discussed here, and sadly the last to feature in these pages. I list it as self-titled but it's been reissued as Brown Rice, so I tend to think of it as such myself. 'Brown Rice' is the opening track, a composition for three electric pianos, acoustic bass, drums, electric bongos, vocals and tenor sax. It's also one of the most singularly unique compositions heard thus far in this project. The graphic score is printed in the sleeve, which a fairly symmetrical structured pattern - pianos start, other instruments come in and disappear, and even Frank Lowe's washed out sax blasts are indicated. The melodies are very similar to the structures we've heard on the last five or so records, particularly where Cherry is on the piano. But here, it's made ecstatic with electricity, and a nice 70's cop-show waka-chika underneath it all. The whispered/chanted vocals are just over your shoulder, peering into your soul, and it's unsettling yet inviting. It's a piece that explodes with colour; an all-time classic for sure, it embraces of psychedelic electric fusion while distinguishing itself. 'Malkauns' is actually my favourite track on the record, a slow dirgy tune that begins with Charlie Haden playing bass over a tambura drone. Shades of 'Song for Che' of course, as there's the same thoughtful pauses, but it builds into a pitter-patter jam with Cherry-streaked trumpet lines over everything. This record feels like a very conscious return to the sound of the pocket trumpet from those original Ornette Coleman releases, but transmogrified through Cherry's own musical journey from the preceding decade (this is the mid 70s, after all). On the flipside, 'Chenrezig' evokes dark African clouds (Hakim Jamil's bass style is striking different than Haden's, which is a contributing factor; Cherry's vocals are growly and gruff). But there's also moments that glide along like a taxi in the streets of New York in the late 70's, calmly rooted in a sort of magical squalor. Ricky Cherry's acoustic piano is recorded in a way that makes it sound like an electric piano; by the end he's just pulsing on chords while Lowe and Don Cherry are ripping things up. 'Degi-Degi' takes things to a close, getting back to the electric boogie-whisper of 'Brown Rice'. Haden's bass sounds like it's been put through a loop pedal (except I don't think such things existed back then); the non-stop circular base has more electric pianos shattering glass around it. Cherry's voice and Lowe's sax mostly trade off roles, emulating a sort of verse-chorus-verse structure, but like a great Can track, the magic is all between the pulses. And with this, it fades away, though it connects to 'Brown Rice' and forms a Moebius strip of a record. We can read a bit into the cover photo - Cherry is in front of the Watts towers, yet adorned in some sort of traditional dress and slightly blurry, as if in motion. There is a definitively more 'urban' feel to this record than the last few, though it's still seeped in a mysterious atmosphere, a bit magical.

Neil Campbell - 'These Premises Are No Longer Bugged' (Giardia/Fusetron)

One's gotta think that this must count as 'early' N. Campbell by now, with these recordings made almost 15 years ago. Though maybe 'early mid-period' is more accurate, for Vibracathedral Orchestra was just an embryonic idea then, though we hear a preview of N. Campbell's interest in layers and tonal harmonic convergence here that would later soar majestically through said Orchestra. And his post-VCO career has been noteworthy as well, but what else can you expect from such a one-man musical force? 'Change login zeds' opens up These Premises Are No Longer Bugged with a mess of dissonant tones and bowing, with far too much surface noise on my copy to hear any bits of beauty. It's midway between the A-Band clang and the ur-drone he will later purvey, but the aesthetic is clear enough. And like all of the best Leedsian ecstatic drone slices, it begins after it's already started, or at least what we hear - a tape splice is the gateway. We're spliced into the significantly darker 'Clump' which has some murmuring gongs underneath a scratchy violin interplay, a far more malevolent track than we heard before. It's long, and it doesn't so much settle down as take it's intensity to a realm that redefines normal. By the end, the moaning seaship drones and feedback feel comforting, and the anarchic top layer becomes irrelevant flostam underneath the warmth and clatter. 'Guitar trio 5/4/97' is the most aggressive barrage of guitar noise that I've ever heard from N. Campbell, though it's brief and soon followed by Side 1's sunset 'Monument Irvine'. The nutty thing about this record is the vocal-driven Phil Spector tune, 'Why Don't They Let Us Fall in Love?' at the beginning of the flipside. It's hard to tell how earnest the singing is, as there's something a tad tossed-off about the 'yeah yeah yeah yeah' , but the melody is sweet, and the atonal scratching strings work well with cheap keyboards and bells - it's a pretty piece of fractured psychedelia in Neil's hands, and definitely a hidden gem in his catalogue. The tune extends out into a long bit of minimal repetition not unlike early Richard Youngs solo pieces (Advent and especially Festival come to mind). The rest of the album is the title track. This is another searing slice of horizontal sound, brash with energy and metallic in texture. The volume is significantly louder, enough to bury the surface noise on this lousy pressing, and there's a few currents that tease my ears more than others. A sense of motion never ends, and it's again an immense maelstrom to come out of just one soul. There's overdubs galore on this album, cause this is a true solo effort, though he fakes it well, as it really feels like a group of like-minded tranceheads. I'd like to make some grand analogy about the rise of Tony Blair and New Labour, and these being the sound of changing Britain led by a star in the North. But the reality is, I hear none of that here - like most of the greatest work of these Northern no-goodniks, it's timeless and universal.

Art Ensemble of Chicago - 'Fanfare for the Warriors' (Atlantic Jazzlore)

There's something a little bit different about this album and I think it might have to do with move to Atlantic records, a proper major label. Yes, this is the "big studio" record, I guess, even though most of their other albums were recorded in a studio. There is something very classy and shiny at play here but it works well, almost too perfectly. Fanfare for the Warriors opens with Malachi Favors' 'Illistrum', an abstract bit of atonal 20th century art-pomp with dramatic spoken whatzit, and from the first resounding piano chord of guest artist Muhal Richard Abrams, we're pretty much aware that this is a grant statement. Everything sounds bright, alive like great jazz should, though not "live" like the last few records. Lester Bowie's 'Baryard Scuffel Shuffel' takes a ragtimish theme and decorates it with lopsided anarchy; it's a statement of his interest in traditional/Dixieland forms but integrated into a deconstructive group method. But it's Roscoe Mitchell's 'Tnoona' that blew my young mind when I first encountered it. The Art Ensemble sorta bridged the gap between minimalism and free jazz with this track, a fecund interstate highway in the direction of an unrealised potential for What Jazz Could Be. It's like the jazz Soliloquy for Lilith, or maybe I should say Salt Marie Celeste. I know I'm prone to overdo the superlatives but of all the tracks we've spun in the last few months, this is truly one of the greatest -- and there's been a lot of great ones so far. It bubbles, purrs and leaks, threatening to explode but staying under tight control. Which makes the jaunty 'The Key', also by Mitchell, feel so much more like a release at the end. Jarman's title track should also get mention here - it has a sinister edge we haven't really heard before, but then again, these are warriors we're talking about.