Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Looking In My Rear View Mirror with One Eye On The Road Ahead

First up, a couple of albums that got lost from last year...

'Su-Ling' is the debut album from saxophonist and flautist Finn Peters, and yet another outstanding album from the Babel label (the forthcoming release from Mark Holub's extraordinary Led Bib also looks set to add to this expanding list). The overlapping networks of jazz musicians currently operating in London is making this a most exciting and inventive period for British jazz, and Peters can join the likes of Acoustic Ladyland, Polar Bear, Oriole, Tom Arthurs and Jim Hart's Gemini in successfully translating the fluidity of live performance to a superb recorded collection. It helps that he's assembled an outstanding band - with the effortlessly swinging rhythms and daring creativity of Tom Skinner on drums, the dependably solid Tom Herbert on bass and the Afrobeat-inspired lines from guitarist Dave Okumu, this is a bold and inventive rhythm section. Nick Ramm's rich chord voicings on piano also add depth and feeling. There's also a remarkably sensitive group dynamic at work, and there's a quiet intensity to the best tracks here. With inspiration also coming from more modern musical forms such as hip-hop, it's a particularly fascinating album rhythmically, and tracks such as 'Al Dar Gazelli' and 'Red Fish' seem to develop outwards from a basic rhythmic motif. The latter begins with an outrageously groovy figure from Skinner. Elsewhere, there is a distinctly exotic flavour to the minimalist title track, and 'N.R. Shackleton Goes To The Circus' is as vigorous and playful as its title suggests. Peters' blowing is muscular and committed, and the whole group seems zesty and joyful in its exposition of Peters' intelligent themes. This would have been very high in my 2006 albums list had I actually heard it in time!

I have no idea quite why it's taken so long for Destroyer's Rubies, one of the most universally acclaimed albums of 2006, to gain proper distribution in Britian. At last, it now seems to be readily available, and it's been well worth the wait. It's completely removed from the last Destroyer album (the peculiarly hypnotic, synth-heavy 'Your Blues'), and also a good deal more unconventional than Dan Bejar's work with the New Pornographers. Epic songs with dense, allusive, occasionally pompous lyrics are the order of the day here, and most of the structures are defiantly unpredictable. It's not as perplexing as the recent Swan Lake project though, and there are plenty of enthralling guitar lines and appealing melodies scattered through this ambitious work. Bejar's strangely nasal voice is increasingly Dylan-esque in phrasing and delivery, and frequently the words and music are forced together with increasingly extravagant verve. The stop-start nature of tracks like 'Rubies' and 'A Dangerous Woman Up To A Point' make them sound like potted symphonies for a rock ensemble, whilst the shorter songs add more comfortable and familiar pleasures. It makes for an effective balance, although the inclusion of a 21 minute bonus suite of improvised electronics, whilst showing Bejar's attempts at infinite variety, only makes me head for the stop button.

As for 2007, everyone's still talking about Klaxons of course, although for how long is something of a moot point. Actually, the album 'Myths Of The Near Future' has much to recommend it, even if the group look likely to become victims of their own success. Much has been made of there being a nascent 'nu-rave' scene, and whilst most of these taglines are spurious at best, there may just be something in this. There's something enticing in the day glo clothes and siren horns for those of us slightly too young to have experienced rave culture the first time round (and there's little doubt that there was a genuine subculture at this time, initiated in simple rebellion and later fuelled by anger at the Conservative government's Criminal Justice Bill). There's also a pan-ganerational appeal in Jamie Reynolds' intention to recreate the relentless rhythms and primal assault of dance music on live instruments, a goal also pursued by Hot Chip (albeit with results likely to be much more enduring). The band do sometimes achieve real results to match this admirable theory - witness the minimal, insistent and repetetive melodies of 'Isle Of Her', or the loose groove of 'Forgotten Works'.

Actually, 'Myths...' seems to fit perfectly with another current trend - in its drive to cross-pollenate between musical genres. With its heavily overdriven basslines and vocals set octaves apart, it may actually most closely resemble the work of the acclaimed US group TV On The Radio, although others have also suggested kinship with the modern psychedelia of Super Furry Animals. It works best when at its most melodic - and 'Golden Skans' and 'Gravity's Rainbow' are genuinely sophisticated, whilst 'Atlantis To Interzone' has retained its visceral thrill.

What's most surprising is that, whilst the singles still pack a punch, the group have achieved a remarkable consistency of quality and mood across an album that excites without outstaying its welcome. This is a band I've tried desperately hard to ignore, but there's definitely something compelling and powerful about this driving, restless music.

The problem comes with the lofty pretentions of the lyrics, probably more irritating than intriguing. It's probably harsh but fair to suggest that the bulk of these songs lack depth, and certainly lack emotional warmth or feeling. Like The Manics before them, Klaxons have digested influences well beyond the musical, and there are signs of Burroughs, Bukowski, and Pynchon here, all rather inadequately digested. Still, at least they can think outside the box, and if the media are not too fickle, maybe they will get at least a second chance to state their case.

When I first read about 'Wincing The Night Away', the third album from quirky US popsters The Shins, I was a little worried. It sounded like it would emphasise lush atmospherics over melodic invention. Well, the actual results are by no means bad, and this collection effectively pushes the band into new territories whilst retaining all the elements that made them such an interesting proposition in the first place. James Mercer's lyrics remain verbose and unwieldy, but he continues to marry them to tunes that, whilst enchanting, veer off at peculiar and unexpected tangents. 'Sealegs' and 'Black Wave' may push the band further into electronic territory than we've been accustomed too, but the opening 'Sleeping Lessons', with its Wilco-esque coda, and the single 'Phantom Limb' are as spirited and immediate as anything on 'Chutes Too Narrow'. Mercer's Anglophile tendencies are all too frequently mentioned, but whilst I couldn't really detect the Echo and The Bunnymen influence on 'Chutes Too Narrow' there's the obvious reference point of The Smiths here. Many of the melodies have a Morrissey-esque twang, and the introduction of programmed beats and strange effects on 'Sealegs' may owe something to 'How Soon Is Now?'. Best of all though is the immediately loveable 'Girl Sailor' and the lush, strangely moving delicacy of 'Red Rabbits'. It's another dependably concise collection of winning pop songs - nothing more, nothing less.

Those readers who heard my student radio show and have followed my progress since will know of my admiration for former Appendix Out mainman Alasdair Roberts. His solo debut was a remarkably unfashionable collection of traditional Scottish folk songs that had timeless spirit whilst also having the bewitching and mysterious quality of the unknown. 'Farewell Sorrow' melded borrowed fragments from the same tradition with Roberts' own work, and resulted in something more accessible that retained the distinctive magic of that excellent debut. The subsequent collaborations with Will Oldham on the Amalgamated Sons Of Rest project and the 'No Earthly Man' album (a surreal and thoroughly disorientating reinvention of folk music) made perfect sense.

Roberts now returns with the excellent 'Amber Gatherers', a record which of the three previous albums, most closely resembles 'Farewell Sorrow' in its merging of traditional concerns with original music. It features contributions from regular Roberts sidemen Gareth Eggie and Tom Crossley, but it's the addition of Teenage Fanclub's Gerard Love to the ensemble that really makes a substantial difference. The sound of this album is much brighter and warmer than any of Roberts' previous efforts (indeed, the gorgeous 'Where Twines The Path' could even be one of The Fannies' own acoustic adventures).

Roberts is not a technically gifted singer, but I simply adore his deceptively vulnerable tone, emphatic Scottish dialect and elaborate phrasing. His voice melds delightfully with the delicate pluckings of the arrangements, and the subtle percussive undercurrents at work in many of these songs support his delivery intelligently. As the title implies, there's a recurring theme about gathering amber (or 'Baltic Gold') running through many of the songs. Like recent efforts from The Decemberists or Midlake, there is a tacit assumption that listeners will be able to immerse themselves in this antiquated landscape. Yet, Roberts can also draw magic from the most basic of images, as on 'River Rhine' ('Where does the River Rhine rise, it rises in her eyes/When I look in her eyes, I see the River Rhine/I see the river widen; she sees the Clyde in mine'). His melodies here are also full of warmth and genuine feeling.

Despite being played entirely on acoustic instruments, the music here still achieves an alien and otherwordly atmosphere, perhaps achieved through the deployment of unconventional guitar tunings, which the CD inlay helpfully reveals. In fact, the bluesy 'I Have A Charm' as much resembles the desert heat of Ali Farka Toure's 'Savane' as it does some of the more rural American moments in the Will Oldham back catalogue.

'The Amber Gatherers' is another fascinating addition to what is already a remarkably consistent solo career. Roberts is currently supporting the much lauded Joanna Newsom in the UK. It's a controversial suggestion - but Roberts is every bit as auteurist and unusual as Newsom, and may just be the more natural and convincing of the two. He is acutely aware that moving forwards sometimes means looking back.

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Buried Treasure #1

It's not the most original idea I've ever had but, partially because I've been writing almost exclusively about new music here, and also simply because I feel like it, I've decided to initiate a new occasional series focusing on lost or undiscovered classic albums. Here's the first.

Peter Gabriel - Us (Realworld, 1992)

Artists can sometimes never win. They are often lambasted for compromising, and paying too much attention to their core audience, as Coldplay were (perhaps justly) for resisting experimentalism on 'X&Y'. Sometimes there's a much thornier criticism though - that an artist has made a record purely for themselves, and if anyone else likes it, well, it's just a bonus. This is how many approached 'Us', Peter Gabriel's magnum opus dissecting human relationships, when it finally appeared six long years after the commercial triumph of 'So'.

It's certainly a difficult record, and perhaps there are parts of it that are easier to admire than like. Only two of the album's ten tracks are less than five minutes long. I was a mere eleven years old when the album first appeared, and much of its subtle ambience baffled me at that age. Had I purchased it on CD rather than cheapo cassette, I would surely have skipped to the more rhythmic and accessible singles - 'Steam', 'Digging In The Dirt', and 'Kiss That Frog' (the first basically a verbatim rewrite of 'Sledgehammer'), all three of which I completely adored.

Yet 'Us' is a defiantly mature record, rich in wisdom and experience, and something much greater than just a conventional 'breakup' record. The sensory, atmospheric flourishes to much of the music, the meticulous studio sheen and the sheer ambition of the arrangements serve to highlight its emotional and thematic complexity. It's a collection of songs that, challenging conventional wisdom, dare to suggest that as we grow older, we merely become more confused and perplexed by the intricacies of emotion and feeling. As such, it makes perfect sense that the accompanying music is frequently labyrinthine and difficult to interpret.

Thus far, 'Us' is probably the most coherent synthesis of Gabriel's preoccupations with Western production techniques, pop melody and the rhythms of music from around the globe, particularly from Africa. It's a much less schematic and less explicit synthesis than Paul Simon's 'Graceland', or even much of the recent solo work of David Byrne. For example, the combination of Irish intonations and harmony (as emphasised by Sinead O' Connor's longing backing vocals) with the elaborate rhythms of the Boubacar Faye Drummers on 'Come Talk To Me' makes for something mysterious and intoxicating. What a perfect backdrop all this is for Gabriel's extraordinary opening lyrics, compelling in their considered intensity: 'The wretched desert takes its form/The Jackal proud and tight/In search of you I feel my way/Through the slowest heaving night/Whatever fear invents, I swear it makes no sense/ I reach out through the border fence/Come down, come talk to me'. It has the beauty and poise of great poetry.

Elsewhere, Gabriel's imagery is unafraid to delve into the darkest of places. On 'Only Us', he sums up the album's themes most succinctly: '..I'm finding my way home from the great escape/The further on I go, oh the less I know/I can find only us breathing, only us sleeping, only us dreaming'. On 'Digging In The Dirt', he's actively searching for the unpleasant truths concealed beneath thick skin ('something in me, dark and sticky/all the time it's getting strong'). The opening lines of the gorgeous 'Blood Of Eden' are also extraordinary in their portrayal of a man finally understanding what he sees in the mirror's reflection. Reprieve comes only with the lite funk of 'Steam', a hugely enjoyable pop moment that perhaps sounds out of place, with the baptismal qualities of the vulnerable 'Washing Of The Water', and with the nostalgic regret of the closing 'Secret World'.

The album also benefits massively from its enormous cast list of musicians. Regular collaborators such as drummer Manu Katche, and technically adept bassist Tony 'Mr. Funk Fingers' Levin provide the crisp, almost mechanical rhythm section, whilst appearances from the likes of Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois and Malcolm Burn (as musicians rather than producers), enhance the dense and compelling mood. The contributions of legendary Meters guitarist Leo Nocentelli on 'Steam' and 'Digging In The Dirt' add real spirited groove too. The arrangements are audacious in the extreme - 'Digging In The Dirt' veers through multiple personalities, all the time retaining its relentless metronomic backbeat, whilst 'Kiss That Frog' places the rhythmic emphasis in a place completely unfamiliar to most western ears. What a shame that the version released as a single was plodding and conventional by comparison.

Whilst it's easy to see why the ethereal, otherworldly atmospherics made listeners feel detached from the experience, in retrospect, it's also arguable that this album had an enormous influence. It's perhaps no coincidence that Daniel Lanois and Malcolm Burn would use similar tactics as producers on records as vital as Bob Dylan's 'Time Out Of Mind' and three superb albums from Emmylou Harris ('Wrecking Ball', 'Red Dirt Girl' and, most recently, 'Stumble Into Grace'). They were lucky to be working with artists who could reach similar lyrical depth as Gabriel explored on this candid, challenging and powerful masterpiece.

It's clear now too that 'Us' marked a point of transition in Gabriel's career, much as 'The Royal Scam' marked out a seismic shift for Steely Dan in the mid-70s. After that album, Fagen and Becker became obsessed with the quest for perfection, gradually reducing the input of their always superb groups of session players, and eventually emerging with the total precision of 'Gaucho' in 1980. Gabriel's obsession with sound and studio techniques probably began as early as his time with Genesis, but there was always an organic quality to the best of his early solo albums. He would take more than ten years to produce a successor to 'Us', the meticulously crafted, if less consistent 'Up'. Rumour has it that another album will emerge this year through an online only distribution process - but Gabriel doesn't any longer have a good track record on meeting self-imposed deadlines!

Thursday, January 25, 2007

The Urban Question

No, it's not a post about Joss Stone (heaven forbid), but rather about two of the year's first major releases, both of which seem to focus thematically on modern London. 'A Weekend In The City' is the second album from the much lauded Bloc Party, and it seems that just as I've finally decided that they may just be worth all the column inches, something of an editorial backlash seems to have been instigated. Sometimes I simply don't understand the logic of the music press. Less than a couple of years ago, fashion dictated that the emphasis on rhythm and sound over melody be portrayed as some kind of vanguard, and BP were the leading lights of that movement. The reviews of 'A Weekend In The City' published so far, lukewarm rather than negative, have now highlighted that Kele Okereke doesn't deal much in melodic themes or hooks. All this despite the fact that 'A Weekend In The City' is considerably more accessible and conventional than its predecessor. Whilst it's true that Okereke's vocal range remains limited to about half an octave, he seems to have crafted more memorable songs for this collection.

In fact, the band seem to be pressing all the necessary buttons for their stadium ambitions here, whilst retaining the quirky, most characteristic elements of their original sound (estuary English, off-kilter drumming, crunchy guitars). This time using Jacknife Lee as producer over the more fashionable Paul Epworth, the rough edges are smoothed over and everything becomes crisper and more precise. Yet, in Bloc Party's hands, the big, rousing tactics work remarkably well. The more sensitive songs here have a genuine emotional impact, rather than the manipulative faux-anthemic 'qualities' of a Snow Patrol or a Coldplay. Towards the end of the record, there are three songs with grand ambitions that linger in the mind most effectively. 'Kreuzberg' is a grandiose potted melodrama, complete with chiming guitars and big drums. 'I Still Remember', with its evocative and haunting adolescent recollections (possibly homosexual?) is an intriguing and striking song, and a clear future single. 'Sunday' is slower and more morose, but also eerie and haunting, demonstrating the band's uncanny ability here to meld bombast and subtlety.

The first part of the album seems to deal more explicitly with the London theme - covering issues such as racial tension and the lack of a real sense of belonging. Okereke gave a completely fascinating and riveting interview to The Guardian last month that finally convinced me of his value as a frontman - he's an intriguing and articulate presence. In light of all this, it seems a shame that the record company appeared to have vetoed the inclusion of a track called 'This Is England', which apparently began with recollections of a tense nightbus journey before examining the recent homophobic murder on such a bus. It sounded provocative and daring, and its absence from the final running order is worth noting. Still, tracks like 'Where Is Home?' and 'Waiting For The 7.18' are both mysterious and compelling, all very much helped by a greater emphasis on clarity in the vocals across the whole album. Whilst Okereke's yelps on 'Silent Alarm' often rendered the lyrics incomprehensible, here they are in the main intelligible and completely central to the record's achievement. A Weekend In The City' is a bold, expansive record, but as it turns out, a Bloc Party album with crossover ambitions is a big and beautiful beast.

Damon Albarn has come in for attacks from all corners at various stages of his career - for being a 'mockney', for penning too many songs with 'oom-pah' rhythms, for misappropriating gospel on 'Tender', or hip hop on 'On Your Own'. Whilst in retrospect it's all too easy to emphasise Blur's inconsistencies, it's clear that Albarn was always an outstanding pop songwriter, and in particular a master of the ballad. He has since dabbled in much more esoteric territory, indulging his every whim, with surprisingly dependable levels of success. His latest project, The Good, The Bad and The Queen, is a supergroup with former Clash bassist Paul Simonon, the outstanding Nigerian drummer Tony Allen, and keyboardist/guitarist Simon Tong. The resulting album is as sonically inventive as one might hope, although Allen is not involved as much as he should be. When his drumming is present, the rhythmic emphasis is entirely unpredictable and exciting, and the music takes on a decidedly unusual edge. There's a peculiarly haunting atmosphere throughout, effectively conjuring the sensation of streetlights, damp nights and desolate highways. Albarn's melodies have become more vulnerable and less extravagant as a result of this, and his singing is mostly delicate and unobtrusive.

Whilst the album purports to be about West London, and many have presented it as the dark flipside of the Parklife coin, there's also the lingering spectres of terror, war and, particularly, Iraq. Unfortunately, as on the otherwise splendid 'Think Tank', these appear as abstract forces and are never particularly well fleshed out. Albarn's lyrics have become elusive and frustrating, although he mercifully doesn't quite resort to the Thom Yorke tactic of moaning about everything and never presenting a solution. There's something more substantial here than that, but there's the sense that Albarn feels confused by the gravitas of the global situation, and he's not quite able to articulate these feelings successfully.

Still, it's merely a niggling criticism when so much of this album sounds so assured and enchanting. The sound of the entire record has been carefully planned and cleverly executed, from the rustic pluckings of the opening acoustic guitar to the noisy, extended coda of the closing title track. It moves audaciously from the plaintive to the strident, and the only musical quibble is the slight over-reliance on Albarn's own piano playing, which is slightly heavy-handed and, consequentially, a bit plinky plonk. Still, the highlights here ('History Song', '80s Life', 'A Soldier's Tale' and 'Green Fields') can take their place among Albarn's most considered and affecting works.

Friday, January 19, 2007

Bjork

There are all sorts of half confirmed rumours going around about the next Bjork album. I take most of these with a pinch of salt as 'Medulla' was supposed to be an entirely vocal album, and it didn't quite fulfil that brief, excellent though it was. Still, if the new record really does feature a collaboration with Anthony Hegarty as well as appearances from Konono No. 1, masterful kora player Toumani Diabate and production from Timbaland, it could really be something quite unexpected and special!

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Bottomless Swamp

Chris Potter's Underground, Pizza Express Jazz Club, Mon 15th Jan 2007

Chris Potter is a musician now really starting to find his own space. His phenomenal playing with the Dave Holland Quintet lead me to seek out his own 'Underground' album from last year (which I managed to find for just £1.49 in an Oxfam shop - some people are just foolish in what they decide to give away). The band is a quartet without a bass player, but no less groovy for that. In fact, the sound the group create shakes the relatively intimate Pizza Express club for all it's worth.

Opening with the superbly titled 'Next Best Western' ('it's a long story we don't need to go into now', says Potter evasively), the band waste no time and immediately hit their stride, the sound dominated by Nate Smith's crisp and ebullient drumming, full of unusual accents and unorthodox interplay between snare and hi-hat. Potter's playing is mostly loud and full, he plays a lot of notes, but mostly in a dynamic and musical way. Most impressive is his sheer physical ability - it's hard to imagine how he hits such levels of intensity in his solos in the first place, let alone how he sustains them for anything up to fifteen minutes at a time.

It initially seemed like there might be problems. Potter can blow so hard for so long that it looked like the rest of the group might not get a look in. Actually, some of the gig's most exciting and unpredictable moments came when Potter retreated to the back of the stage and allowed Smith, keyboardist Craig Taborn and guitarist Adam Rodgers to trade playful and concise phrases. Taborn and Rodgers play minimally, but in doing so add much to the group's sound - the style is taut and percussive, relying more on rhythm and phrasing than carefully voiced chords.

It would also have been a problem had the group settled in to their mightily impressive heavy swamp groove for the entire set. Mercifully, two new compositions, both calm and enthralling, showed the increasing breadth of Potter's vision as a writer. The concentration and energy of the players was first rate throughout, the icing on the cake being a spectacularly dexterous and innovative drum solo from Smith. Smith is not just a joy to hear, but fascinating to watch, his posture peculiar, his body constantly twitching and moving in tandem with his rhythms.

A consistently invigorating and entertaining performance, this has already set the standard for gigs in 2007.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

An Appreciation of Alice Coltrane

I don't normally post tributes or obituaries on here (not even for pivotal figures such as James Brown), yet somehow I feel compelled to write something about Alice Coltrane. I think this is mainly because she spent most of her life condemned by critics either, entirely unjustly, as a Yoko Ono figure trading incomprehensible work on the legacy of her late husband or simply as an inferior musician worthlessly attempting to continue propagating his concerns. That she was in fact neither of these things has been asserted by a handful of excellent writers, perhaps most notably David Toop, who has written perceptively about her masterpiece, 1972's 'Universal Consciousness'. It has really only been during the past couple of years, with the reissue of her Impulse and Atlantic albums, a fascinating interview in The Wire magazine (one of the magazine's finest issues) and with the 2004 comeback 'Translinear Light', that her own outstanding contribution has really been recognised.

Alice McLeod actually began her musical training remarkably early, at the age of seven, and had become an able, expressive bepop pianist in the manner of Bud Powell well before she met John Coltrane. She performed with Terry Gibbs, Kenny Burrell and, perhaps most significantly, Yusuf Lateef in the early 60s. Her personal and professional union with Coltrane would completely revolutionise her style, however, as she followed her husband creatively into fiery, free-form territory. Yet her playing style was always informed by earlier developments, particularly the modal techniques pioneered by Bill Evans and extended in Coltrane's earlier works. Although there are doubters who understimate her contribution to Coltrane's later music (she doesn't appear on significant studio works such as 'Ascencion'), it's worth emphasising that 'The Olatunji Concert', now readily available on Impulse CD, is considered one of the finest live recordings of free improvisation in the history of the music.

Following John Coltrane's tragically premature death, she produced a series of albums for the Impulse label ('A Montastic Trio', 'Huntinton Ashram Monastery', 'Ptah The El Daoud', 'Journey In Satchidananda', 'Universal Consciousness', 'World Galaxy' and 'Lord Of Lords') that showed her consistent imagination and inspiration, but which mostly baffled the critics of the time. This extraordinary, visionary and exciting music was informed by a vast array of influences, not purely musical but also spiritual. The connection with gospel and the blues ran deep, and as a result the music sounded intense and fervent. Yet Coltrane also admired the Eastern religions, particularly the acts of meditation and spiritual contemplation. The earlier albums have a fiery, furious swing, frequently dominated by the juxtaposition of Rashied Ali's relentless drumming with Coltrane's full, powerful chord voicings on the piano. Where Pharoah Sanders also featured, the results were even more muscular. It was a superb ensemble, revelling in the energy and joy of musical discovery. She had already begun to push herself further in intriguing new directions though, and the deployment of the harp was more than mere novelty - in her hands it became as expressive an improvisatory medium as the piano.

By 'Universal Consciousness', she had moved well away from conventional compositional structure and had begun to explore looser, mostly free styles of playing. Yet the music on this great achievement is neither confounding nor indulgent, but rather characterised by a constant conflict between turblulence and tranquility. The notion that there was a 'universal consciousness' common to all spiritual belief is an idealistic but appealing notion which Coltrane portrayed with quiet dignity through a purely musical language. She would continue to investigate these ideas to their full extent across the next two records, increasingly incorporating strings (still a feature entirely alien to most jazz of the period) to expand the textures. 'Lord Of Lords' (still criminally unavailable on CD - I've seen original vinyl copies on sale for £70+ with that value sure to increase now) even contained her interpretation Stravinsky's 'The Firebird', prefiguring the closer relations between jazz and strict composition that would develop further during the 70s and 80s, especially in Europe. The version of 'A Love Supreme' on 'World Galaxy' neatly encapsulates the complexity of her musical relationship with her husband's legacy - it was a radical re-interpretation, retaining the spirit of the original recording, but with a substance entirely of her own making.

The Atlantic albums of the 70s are less consistent, and frequently more challenging, but they are worth pursuing as they show her reluctance to stand still. Mostly abandoning the piano in favour of a variety of organs, she continued to investigate devotional concerns through her music, and a passionate intensity remained intact. Founding her own religious centre in 1975, much of the rest of her life would be devoted largely to spiritual works and personal retreat.

She continued to perform, albeit infrequently, and judging by the standard of 2004's excellent comeback 'Translinear Light', had lost none of her dynamism or energy. Beginning to perform more regularly last year, and mid-way through recording what appeared to be an intensely serious and significant new work, her passing was unexpected and unbearably badly timed. I plan to listen to all these albums again this week, and it shall no doubt be poignant, but they are the kind of works which intimate new facets and dimensions with every play, so the experience will also be edifying and inspirational. The combination of the spiritual and the musical is difficult to achieve without becoming vulnerable to accusations of pretension, and Coltrane suffered from this during her career. Yet pretension means pretending to be something you are not - my sense of Alice Coltrane is that she was genuinely serious-minded, committed and, yes, perhaps divinely inspired.

Monday, January 15, 2007

Update

To their credit, the NME have now published the news of Alice Coltrane's death online (albeit under the predictable header - 'John Coltrane's widow dies'). Astonishingly, they credit Billboard not for the news itself, but for factual details of her discography. Are NME's journalists so ignorant of musical history that they need to credit US industry publications with information very much in the public domain, and which should be standard knowledge for any journalist called upon to report on these matters?

Sad News

The world of jazz has suffered a double devastating loss this weekend, with the deaths of Michael Brecker and Alice Coltrane. The influence of Brecker's technique is hard to overstate and he will be much missed by musicians and enthusiasts alike. Alice Coltrane's death is particularly hard to take - she had only recently started to receive due credit for her substantial body of work, and had spent too much of her life in the shadow of her husband's towering legacy. Only recently performing live again, she was due to appear at the Barbican in London in April, a concert I had been anticipating keenly. It's tragic news. I'll write a full appreciation of her as soon as I have time. Why are no major news outlets in the UK reporting this (even sites primarily dedicated to music)? The Alice Coltrane news came from Pitchfork, an American website that barely otherwise ever even mentions jazz! Maybe I'm too unrealistic in my expectations of the media, but it pains me that Kylie's outbreak of flu is considered more significant.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Sensible Spontaneity

Evan Parker Quartet, The Vortex, London

I can't admit to having much of a taste for, or even much knowledge of, completely free jazz. This comes in spite of (or perhaps because of) being a trained jazz musician myself. I am frequently stunned by the recorded improvised concerts of pianist Keith Jarrett, but this may well be more because of the hypnotic reverie of the style and sound than any technical mastery in the performance. Group free improvising can sometimes feel rampant, excessive and indulgent, without the restraining influence of composed melodic and harmonic structure. It's also frequently difficult to connect with on an emotional, rather than theoretical level. I definitely felt this at Wayne Shorter's highly acclaimed London Jazz Festival perfomance late last year. Although there were moments when everything clicked, and the musicians seemed almost divinely inspired, they were ultimately just moments, and the concert as a whole felt stuttering and tetchy, with the group mostly failing to complete the good ideas they started.

Watching Evan Parker's quartet at the Vortex tonight, just one in a series of monthly performances at the venue, certainly challenged some of my ingrained prejudices against the genre. Predictably, there was plenty of fast and furious blowing, at times an unfathomably intricate barrage of notes being emitted from Parker's saxophone like some unpleasant discharge. Like other free performances I've seen, there were two sets of continuous, unbroken music but, unlike lesser performances, Parker and his technically adept group varied mood and texture with consideration and impeccable timing. As a result, the performance was never anything less than engaging, and frequently even inspiring.

For me, some of the best moments were completely unexpected, such as when the band almost dropped to a ballad tempo mid-way through the second set, and the pianist ushered in an audacious solo with some distinctly bluesy chord patterns. Similarly, during the first set, an eerie calm descended, and Parker's playing suddenly became gentle and lyrical, before returning to the fiery, muscular style for which he is renowned.

For a drummer, the set proved particularly illuminating. Tony Marsh played with palpable sensitivity and control, producing a bewildering array of sounds that made the kit seem positively orchestral. Whilst he demonstrated a comfortable fluency around the kit, the two noticeable occasions he settled back into marking time enabled the group to shift to a different gear, and his phrasing, often mimicking or reacting to the ideas generated by the melodic instrumentalists, felt musical and considered throughout. It's exactly this kind of careful integration and contribution that I strive to achieve with my own ensemble playing, and it's always great to hear when someone has it nailed!

Thanks to James Partridge and Tom Millar (two future stars of composition and performance I have no doubt) for persuading me to listen with an open mind. Parker is the most significant contributor to freely improvised music in Britain - and it's an honour to be able to see him perform in an intimate venue.

Friday, January 05, 2007

Post-Britpop Rearing Its Ugly Head

From an NME news story:

Albarn said: "I've always had a problem with Jarvis' stance on that, I found it really disturbing when he pulled his pants down in front of Michael Jackson, that just seemed totally wrong. If someone is sick, he's not open to ridicule."He added: "He's got some very odd ideas about reality. I think it's a collective responsibility to say 'No you can't go and do what you're doing', not just to ridicule him. "The world is not full of c*nts; we have a collective responsibility not to slag people off and instead try to understand them."

Now I usually defend Damon Albarn, as I still maintain he's one of the best pop ballad songwriters England has produced (although I can do without the oom-pah stuff these days). But how seriously does the man have to take himself? I don't think Jarvis was ridiculing Michael Jackson for his mental health, more for his pomposity, the specific ghastly nature of that particular performance, and by implication the BPI for allowing it to be staged. As for 'C*nts Are Still Running The World', I think it demonstrates that Jarvis has a reasonably accurate understanding (albeit not a particularly subtle or nuanced one) of the motives of current Western governments. It's leaders and people in privileged positions of power that come under attack in the song - the argument is not that the world is full of c*nts, more that the c*nts tend to exploit all their advantages and benefits, frequently unfairly. It's also, get this, a bit funny. A bit of a joke. Perhaps you should try it, Damon.









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Monday, January 01, 2007

What The New Year Has In Store

Happy New Year to all readers of this blog!

First thing to do is quickly summarise what we can look forward to in 2007.

There is speculation as to whether or not there will be big new albums from the likes of Blur, Radiohead, REM and The Pixies. After their live shows, I have modest expectations of the new Pixies material, and the Blur and Radiohead albums are far from confirmed. Surely much more exciting is a new album from the original, seminal line-up of Dinosaur Jr. At the very least, I look forward to some squalling J Mascis guitar solos and hearing the combination of J and Lou Barlow's vocals again. I do hope that Barlow has more creative input this time around though. REM definitely plan to begin recording in 2007, but it's by no means guaranteed that the album will appear in the same year. Let's at least hope they find a new path away from the plodding monotony of 'Around The Sun'.

It looks increasingly likely that Portishead will finally return next year, and Massive Attack will also release their 'Weather Underground' album, delayed from 2006 thanks to a contractual greatest hits collection. Will these records sound dated or will they capture something more contemporary?

Unbelievably, The Stooges have made a brand new album, 'The Weirdness'. It could well be terrible...

There are certainly some albums I'm very excited about - Spiritualized, The Postal Service, The New Pornographers, Gillian Welch, Lucinda Williams, Wilco, Feist, Patrick Wolf, The Earlies, The Shins, Low, Wheat, Bloc Party, LCD Soundsystem, Aesop Rock, EL-P, Cannibal Ox, Animal Collective, Annie, Andrew Bird, Doves, Feist, Fridge, Madvillain, Magnetic Fields (continuing Stephin Merritt's prolific output), Blonde Redhead, Rufus Wainwright, Tortoise, Underworld, Spoon, PJ Harvey and The Breeders all have albums scheduled.

I may be the only person in the world interested in the imminent return of The B-52s.

Nick Cave has a new hardcore band called Grinderman - should be interesting....

'The Neon Bible' is the title of the second album from The Arcade Fire. Will 'Funeral' prove to be an albatross around their necks, or will they exceed its undoubted brilliance?

I'm still investigating jazz releases - but the return of Alice Coltrane is surely one of the most exciting prospects for the year!