Amoeba hollywood Staff
Brian Davis
Amoeba Hollywood
Mark B
Amoeba Hollywood
Record store veteran of 38 years in a few of the West Coast's finest music stores. I like belief more than religion, I like sound more than music.
Self-Determination Music (LP)
John Carter / Bobby Bradford
Issued in 1970 on the FLYING DUTCHMAN label, this important document of the Los Angeles post-Bop scene finally gets this well-warranted re-issue.
Clearly taking cues and permission from post-Ornette Coleman developments, the Carter/Bradford groups cut a signature approach to this new sound. Often simultaneously angular and swinging, sometimes simultaneously lyrical (even romantic) and strident.
On the surface you'll clearly hear Ornette's influence, but deeper listening reveals a sound unlike anything else.
Along with the works of Horace Tapscott, one of my favorite Los Angeles outfits of all time.
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Inside: Missing Link (LP)
Volker Kriegel
If we follow the ways that German and British Jazz have developed since American Jazz first hit their ears, we will find an echoing development. We can hear, for quite a while, the influences reverberating back across the wide Atlantic. That is, until Rock, and particularly Hard Rock, Prog Rock and Psychedelic Rock appear. After that, the British and German scenes broke the leash and went charging off on their own journeys.
Volker Kriegel was one of the mainstay session players for Germany's Black Forest-centered label, MPS. Though MPS was dedicated to all things Jazz, they also helped push the boundaries of Jazz-Rock, Psychedelic Jazz-Rock and even Jazz-Funk in the European market.
This 1972 session features Albert Mangelsdorff on trambone, the recently passed and legendary Eberhard Weber on bass, Alan Skidmore and Heinz Sauer playing sax, John Taylor on electric piano, john Marshall and Peter Baumeister on drums, in octet and quintet combinations.
You may recognize some of those names or not, but I assure you that ALL of them are worth looking into if you are at all interested in the development of post-Bop British and German Jazz.
Tight Bop-influenced, Rock-leaning arrangements throughout, that travel right where their going, with enough breaks for individual solos to make everything spark. For the most part, Inside rocks pretty hard - its damn near danceable throughout, with a few tracks interspersed to catch your breath.
So happy that MPS has started a re-issue program of their peak moments.
Now let's get some Sugarcane Harris back in print!
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Mine (LP)
Kosuke Mine Quintet
I'm glad to be doing this job during a time when a much wider population of American Jazz fans are discovering the current and historic strength of foreign Jazz. Jazz in the UK and Japan (and I'm sure in elsewheres that I've yet to discover) has been on the heels of American Jazz since its inception. And, rather than just being the pesky younger siblings, have created, through their own cultural idioms, works and musicians of note on par with the best of their US counterparts.
This 1970 sessions from Kosuke Mine (spelled on other albums as "Kohsuke" and "Kousuke), is an excellent example of the above.
The opener, "Morningtide," is a killer Hard-Bop, sax and Fender-driven workout, as we find on the closer, "Work I."
The quintet also gives a 12+ minute treatment of Joe Henderson's "Isotope," from his 1964 INNER URGE.
The real peak of the album, though, is the slow Fender-centered "Dream Eyes." This track made me sit up and find out what I could about keyboardist, Hideo Ichikawa, who provides chill-inducing variations throughout this almost 14-minute gem.
This has just been re-issued for the 2nd time in the last 5 years, and I think it should ALWAYS be available. A masterpiece!
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Pharoah (LP)
Pharoah Sanders
A one-off collection of musicians are featured here on Sanders' 1976 recording. Sanders had reservations about the recordings, but fans responded, and its been bootlegged multiple times since its original release, purely due to demand.
LUAKA BOP convinced Sanders to revisit it, cleaned up the recording a bit and added two live versions (with different players) to round out the box.
Extensive liner notes further help set the album in its time and context, and we're lucky to have an official re-issue at our disposal. Its a singular release from Pharoah and an important document of his late-70's vision.
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Lados B (LP)
Daniel Villarreal
International Anthem Recording Co. has quietly emerged as a label that is clearly "feeling the pulse." From Carlos Niño to Jaimie Branch, Jeff Parker to Makaya McCraven, Ben Lamar Gay to Rob Mazurek, you can be sure that whatever is within that jacket is going to reveal something new, interesting, perhaps even important.
Chicago-based, Panama-born drummer/percussionist Villarreal here assembles a trio with guitarist Jeff Parker and Australian bassist Anna Butterss (also on Parker's "Mondays At The Enfield Tennis Academy" sessions).
There is an undeniably Latin tinge to these improvisational conversations, but, like a lot of titles released by International Anthem, they are always neither here nor there, but occupying the free air provided by unbound communication in the moment.
Parker has become my must-listen guitarist and here is no exception. His decisions, often seeming pared-down and simple, belie a complex sureness, a thrilling appropriateness to the sound environment of every moment.
Culled from extra recordings made during the sessions for Villarreal's "Panama '77" release, I'm glad that he found these gems worthy of their own release, and they're certainly no one's "B Sides."
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Dolphin (LP)
Greg Foat & Gigi Masin
I was familiar with Gigi Masin and his back catalog of Belearic ambient electronica released on the always-interesting Music From Memory label, but wasn't familiar with UK keyboardist/composer Greg Foat.
Aptly titled, Dolphin feels less like the named sea mammal and more like what a dolphin, albeit one with a taste for electric piano-driven Jazz, might experience while circling white beaches through clear turquoise water with their headphones firmly in place.
Hints of Bill Evans, Debussy and Satie emerge here and there as you slip through the cool water, illumined by flashes of warm light.
Sounds ridiculous? Give it a listen and tell me if I'm wrong.
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Les Jardins Mystiques Vol. I (CD)
Miguel Atwood-Ferguson
Over the course of a quarter of a century, multi-instrumentalist, arranger, composer Atwood-Ferguson has positioned himself to be in demand from an incredible array of musicians: Dakah Hip Hop Orchestra,, Barry Manilow, Mia Doi Todd, Thundercat, Flying Lotus, Joss Stone, Thirty Seconds To Mars, Freestyle Fellowship....the list just unrolls like the longest CVS receipt you've ever seen.
This being kind of the first release on which his name and credits are fully front and center, it's no wonder that he seems to have had a LOT of ideas waiting for release. Across its 3 CDs or 4 LPs, he lays down 52 tracks (1 for each week?) that range in length from 34 seconds to just over 14 minutes, and the styles vary from fairly in-the pocket post-millennial Jazz to Perrey & Kingsley flavored Moog Electronica to amuse bouches of Exotica to HipHop/Jungle driven instrumental workouts.
Surprisingly, there are no points where a shift of idea throws us off the ride. Like taking your ears on a trip through It's A Small World. The styles shift and morph and sometimes jar, but the underlying design springs from the same intuitive pen.
It's too much for a single sitting, but on rotation over time, it settles deeper and deeper into the mind. It feels like an album that will be looked back at with very high regard.
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