Herbie Hancock- Crossings

The synth elements on almost all of Sleeping Giant are extremely subdued. This massive track is more ethnically influenced than electronically, with some random delay effects on Hancock’s playing spacing things out every so often. He lays out modal chords for 30 seconds to minutes at a time, freely improving upon them in ways that often don’t harmonically match up.  This track needs to be broken up to be analyzed accurately.

0:00-2:30 is mostly introduction and building of tension through ethnic percussion

2:30- 7:30 we get a taste of our first theme, a groove that drops in and out between Hancock’s solos

at 7:30 we hear the most cohesive “chorus” on this entire track. A few strung out bass notes and slow clashing chords from the electric piano. This builds into a gushing major ballad with harmonized horn and sax. Henderson has an excellent airy tone on this album, like baby’s humming.

at 11:00 we’re back into groove mode; this time driven by some blusey piano echoed by wah wahed keyboard. They repeat the same notes verbatim for over a minute. It’s cool though, and we get some transcendent waves blasting from the Moog as we’re taken into darker territory. It mimics the transition a bit from 7:30 and then jumps into a new groove at 14:00. This time we get more funky with a bass guitar line and some shakers and muted cowbell adding texture in the background.

Around 17:00 we call back to that uneasy transitional chorus, this time with a delayed sax solo.

18:30 gives us a theme remarkably similar to the ethnic one we started things with (recapitulation?). Finally there is just enough time to hear one more eerie slow section, which ends with more of a sultry feel as the wind instruments play up and down the first few steps of a minor scale.

It’s a great track and I’ve listened to it about a dozen times the past week or so. I’m still trying to decide if it was actually necessary to leave it at such an unwieldy length instead of splitting it up. There was obviously a good deal of composition done on it, so it wasn’t just a jam session gone wrong.  I’ve been looking at the cover, imagining a river crossing, and trying to think of the story Sleeping Giant tells in that universe. This thing is damn near sonata form and it deserves some kind of liner notes explaining more about its goal.

Quasar was written by Bennie Maupin, the sax and clarinet player on Bitches Brew. This thing is from a future we have not yet reached. Flawless basslines, luscious Rhodes chords and flute played in harmony, and incredible synth lines from Gleeson on the Moog.

If you’re not aware of Patrick Gleeson,  he played on a few Elektra and Prestige records in the 70s and 80s as well as designing soundtracks for some notable movies from the era. Originally he was just going to set up the Moog for Herbie but then H heard his playing and wanted him on the record in person. The uneasy high fluttering and low wobble he coaxes from his synth were probably completely alien to a lot of the listeners of this record in 1972. Groundbreaking track, and more electronically advanced than anything we had heard from Miles up until this year.

Water Torture is also very good but I think it is hard to outclass Quasar.  Overall this record has the same sensibilities as Mwandishi but it is more technically advanced and arguably contains better writing. This is probably one of the most important albums of the era, and you can tell the Moog is still kind of seen as more of a trick than an actual instrument. When the musicians finally let it steal some of the spotlight some completely incredible moments are created.

Crossings gets 9/10 Quasars (is that some kind of interstellar currency?) Sleeping Giant indeed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasar

Herbie Hancock- Butterfly (Thrust)

 

I’m getting ready to review some Mwandishi-era stuff, but I had to give Thrust another listen. This is one of my favorites.

Donald Byrd- Black Byrd (1973)

I only began to listen seriously to Byrd after his recent passing, but man has it been a worthwhile trip. Byrd seems to love being on the cutting edge of what is hip, but always keeps a sense of groovy and melodic music. Unsurprisingly I’ve really dug his late 60s-mid 70s stuff, and this is smack dab in the middle of that.

From 72-77 Miles Davis made a concentrated effort to market his music to African-Americans, and Byrd also hitches his train to that horse with an appropriate title and cover art.  Unlike Davis, Byrd actually succeeds in connecting to an audience of Rn’B fans, and Black Byrd became the best-selling album on the Blue Note label. This is mostly attributed to Byrd’s complete trust in Larry Mizell, the producer that shaped the popular 70s groove sound.  Black Byrd is unmistakably a motown/jazz mashup, which you may be into and you may not, but Byrd absolutely makes it work.

My favorite track after the smooth introduction is Black Byrd, which actually starts with some pretty interesting synth elements before going into shaft-soundtrack mode. It pops in and out of the classic funky groove, with some free guitar noodling and blatant repeater effects on the vocals. The words are unimportant but the male singers form a perfect harmony that is unusual for a jazz record.  I wanted more synth elements here; they would have made this a 10/10 track.

Love’s So Far Away is well-oiled perfection, with luscious rhodes, smooth horn harmonies and a subdued trumpet and flute lead line. Once again, it teases some electronic tricks at the beginning which are then forgotten. Pure liquid butter poured into your ear holes. Don’t fight it.

Mr. Thomas hits a bit harder and funkier but that is not Byrd’s forte. Sky High we see a return to soft harmonies between flute and the horns. This would all be a bit cheesy if it weren’t so perfectly executed. Or maybe it is cheesy, but I don’t care.

Slop Jar Blues finally has a synth line through the entire song, but it is also the worst and most hackneyed of the bunch. Everyone knows 12 bar blues, well, I guess this is 4 bar blues. They must charge you by the measure for synth leads, because Byrd sure is stingy with them.

Where Are We Going adds in some stank piano to the velvety equation, which actually works pretty well. And then it’s all over. Where is all the electronic influence of 3 years ago? I guess Byrd would tell you to listen to Electric Byrd and be happy that you got that much out of him. Places and Spaces in 1975 saw more of a return to electric elements, but unfortunately for Byrd, that was also nearing the end of Blue Note Records. Once BNR folded it seemed like most jazz musicians from the post-bop years were headed for doo-bop territory.

Black Byrd is an elegant specimen  of Jazz-Funk, but I wish he hadn’t shed all he learned from Electric Byrd. Experimental*Groove+Funk  is a powerful formula, and Byrd seems wary of combining the three. Maybe he thinks we can’t handle it. Black Byrd gets 7.5/10 slop jars. Listen to all of Byrd’s 70s work. I haven’t heard Stepping Into Tomorrow yet and I have unrealistically high hopes for the man on that one. He’s got all the pieces…

Wayne Shorter- Moto Grosso Feio

 

I think I may have clumsily stumbled upon a tragically overlooked album. I was initially drawn to MGF because of the personnel and the vintage. When Corea, McLaughlin, Carter (on cello) and Holland show up as support, you know you’ve made it. MGF was recorded in 1970, which is known as the year fusion was born. Bitches Brew is often credited as the record that started it all, with Holland quoted as saying “Bitches Brew has a kind of searching quality because Miles was onto the process of discovering this new music and developing it.” A bit over-dramatic to say the least.

Let’s be real, all of these dudes played together constantly, and any of them could have been the one that made THE album that defined the decade. Miles had a ton of momentum coming in and I guess had a formula that was just crazy enough to work.  But when you listen to records coming out in that year or the year before, guys like Pharoh Saunders, Hubert Laws, John McLaughlin, Chick Corea, Sun Ra, McCoy Tyner, all of these guys were doing fusion and would have probably done fusion without BB. Miles absolutely had influence over the genre as a whole, but BB gets too much credit. I don’t feel like Miles was actually discovering a new music at all. I think his way of composing and leading was very free and unique, but the idea of combining non-conventional styles into jazz was inevitable. In fact, a lot of the madness that defined BB was promptly ignored by many of the most successful fusion artists of the 70s.

Suffice to say, I believe that Moto Grosso Feio or at the very least Wayne Shorter could have been the impetus that kicked off the decade of fusion. There was only one problem: Blue Note held onto the recording for four long years, and by its 1974 release it was mostly ignored by the press. Now, we see reviewers saying that the album is interesting but that it wanders and is unfocused. Writing that about BBrew would be an easy way to get ignored by contemporary jazz aficionados, but this album is markedly more guided than BB while still keeping the same exploratory feeling of excitement.

Shorter is the master of jazz composition, and the first three tracks of this album are marvels of carefully crafted music. Moto Grosso (the track) is beyond jazz and could reasonably played by a symphony orchestra. The intro to the track is flat out gorgeous. This is not free improvisation, this is all Shorter’s monster.  Every time the main melody drops, a simple Gmin flat9 ditty played in unison by McLaughlin and Holland, it feels as though all the musicians have reached a simultaneous climax and it’s time for a cigarette. Things are reset and we can get back into one of many latin-bop-swing grooves heard in the tune. This one is a beast and is probably the best on the album. 10/10 track.

Montezuma is also based around a stupid little bass riff that feels like something I would have written and then forgotten about. But what shorter does around this riff is truly great, with all instruments firing off like some mamba-machine in a perfectly balanced rhythmic heaven. The cello is simple but the timbre is unexpected on such a groovy track, and it stands out with Stravinsky-esque tribal brutality. Shorter does some of his best playing on this track; tearing off lightning fast riffs with a fluttery mellow tone. Another 10/10 track.

The last three tracks progressively get more and more outside the groove. By the time we reach Iska, we have McLaughlin doing ridiculous wammy or wah work that sounds like he is playing in a bounce house. All of the string instruments switch between playing massive dramatic slides and plucking furiously fast. They get pretty out there and they do it well, but Shorter is in his prime when he carefully engineers rhythmic masterpieces.

So we’ve reached the end of Shorter’s vision for the future of jazz. This album is misunderstood and could have literally altered history if it had been released directly after it had been composed. Perhaps Miles’ involvement in the Illuminati prevented MGF’s release?? Nah…Davis obviously respected Shorter a ton, as Shorter’s “Serenity” is the only comp work not done by the man himself on Bitches Brew. If you have any theories or information on why Blue Note held onto this record, please fill us in! Moto Grosso Feio means “lively ugly movement”, or something close to that, and while I get the lively movement I didn’t find this album to be anything other than gorgeous.

Molto Grosso Feio gets 9/10 secret musicians, because Miroslav Vitous and Jack DeJonette both played on this album but were not listed on the CD liner. They would have been headliners with anyone else!

This album was 999 yen at K2 records in Nipponbashi, Osaka

Bitches Brew (Posterity Update)

Since this album was potentially the most influential of the 1970s, and around half the CDs that I post would have been infected  by it, I wanted to listen to Bitches Brew from start to finish. I listened yesterday but didn’t post because I was exhausted and fell asleep on the couch at 10:00. I wouldn’t recommend sitting and listening intently for two hours like I did. Or maybe it is important to do so. Maybe it is necessary? I don’t know. I felt like I unknew a lot of things after I listened to it. I only realized how stressed it was making me when the last track, Sanctuary, started playing, and I noticed my brow unfurrow and my shoulders slide down to a more healthy position.

Sanctuary is the only track not written by Davis. He wrote John McLaughlin (the song), but did not play on it, although some say on a high quality system you can hear him quietly instructing in the background. Santuary was like a blissful, playful, friendly way to come down after an hour and a half of sweat pouring out of my ears. Written by Wayne Shorter two years before the album’s release, it was originally a more straightforward ballad that was left to stew in its own juices for 12 minutes upon the insistence of Davis. Still, it has a clear recognizable melody and utilizes breaks of silence in the background to great effect, two things that the rest of the album does not do whatsoever.

All of Davis’ composing on this album has me asking a lot of things.  Critics of the album say it lacks any real melodic composing, but I find that this is a reaction to multiple melodies being played at the same time. It would be impossible to hum a lot of the songs to anyone because no melody takes precedence nor the backseat as a harmony.  Does having multiple melodic narratives at once just cause the listener to tune the songs out as background noise, or is it a higher level of composing? It also had me considering the value of being able to hum or sing or play a song in your mind. Does this oversimplify the music? Does Davis’ was of composing make a recording and live performance more valuable, because it would be near impossible to recreate a similar experience in your mind or by yourself? Don’t get me wrong, there are groovy licks. There are beats and funky basslines and blues-based solos. But I never felt that I could chill and settle into a groove. It just had me on the edge of my swivel chair anticipating the next furious dip into madness.

At the end of the album, the difference between Davis and other composers of his time is clear. Wayne Shorter is considered one of the best and most influential jazz composers in history. He wrote tons of jazz standards and was THE master of his craft. With Bitches Brew, Davis goes beyond craft and into pure artistry. Thinking about how I felt when I heard Sanctuary after all that Davis nonsense, it was like reading a quantum physics dissertation and then switching over to some algebra homework. Hey, I can do this. I know what this is. This is a melody. This is a bassline. I know all the answers. Davis makes Shorter, a brilliant composer, look like a simpleton.

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Larry Coryell And John McLaughlin-Spaces

Spaces is a strange album to start with because I’m not always the biggest fan of fusion. However, this album had by far the best artwork of the 5 I rented this week, so I’m reviewing it first.

Spaces was recorded in 1969 and released in 1974. Bitches Brew was just unleashed on the world and people were keen to begin fusing things into and around jazz. The album liner posits that Coryell was to the jazz world what Hendrix was to the rock world, and perhaps that is accurate. The guy rips here, but doesn’t get stuck in the trap of using melodies as an excuse to show technical prowess. His tone is even and balaned, showing lots of restraint. Some have commented that this is a “battle” album between McLaughlin and Coryell, but I have a hard time believing that. They’re like the Superfriends here, McLaughlin playing chord changes like a demon and Coryell tears off lyrical melodies at a breakneck speed.

Rene’s theme is the purest example of this formula, with one of the pair playing some cool chromatic and m7 chords while the other just goes all out. The chord work is just as enjoyable as the solo stuff and it really doesn’t come off as competitive whatsoever. As a personal note, I love tracks that have random chatter from the musicians caught before, after or during the playing. It humanizes the players for me and makes me feel like I’m privy to information that I shouldn’t be hearing .  This one has a drawn out count-off at the beginning that satisfied that voyeuristic side of me.

Gloria’s Step was one track I was looking forward to because it was written by Scott LaFaro, and incredibly talented bassist who met a tragic end 10 years before this recording. The bassist on this album is Miroslav Vitous, a Czech dude who had worked with all the usual suspects from this era as a founding member of Weather Report. All of his walking work is fast and harmonically engaging, but his bowed stuff sounds thin and lacks power. Czechs are known for their small basses, which does indeed allow for greater speed, but you can really hear the lack of thump and thickness in both his solo and support roles. A pictures of Vitous on one of these Czech basses is below, pictures credits to coastwalker II at the Hamburg jazz festival.  

Oh yeah, and Chick Corea. Coryell, Mclaughlin, Vitous and Corea. Not bad eh? Unfortunately he only plays on one track, but damn is it sweet. The guitarists get out of the way at let him do his thing on the Rhodes  A terrible youtube link is below. It would have been great to get him on more tracks, but really, there wouldn’t have been room for him.

All things considered this has been one of the most enjoyable jazz guitar records I’ve ever  listened to. Often jazz fusion guitar solos have me rolling my eyes, but these two showed constraint and put lyrical playing above all else.

I give it an 8 out of 10 Czechs

This CD was 300 yen used at K2 records in Nipponbashi, Osaka.