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CELESTIAL GROOVES: LLANS THELWELL

2013-02-09 23:30:00 (читать в оригинале)

Llans Thelwell and His Celestials: Grazin’ In the Grass
This Guy’s In Love With You
Good, Bad and Ugly
From An ETC Holiday at the Colony Hotel (Dynamic, 196?)

Caribbean hotel albums tend to be a thankless lot: poorly recorded, full of “hits” mostly meant to appeal to tourists. It’s like K-Tel LPs but with more palms and steel drums in the photos.

This Llans Thelwell and His Celestials album is an absolute exception to that rule. As it appears on Dynamic (home to many a Jamaican artist, especially Byron Lee), I suspect it was recorded in a legit studio and the production and arrangements are clearly above countless of other hotel-themed releases in the same vein. Straight up, I don’t know if I know of another tourist-aimed LP on this level, especially the overall consistency of quality.

The cover of “Grazin’ in the Grass” isn’t mind-blowing but it’s, well, really well done. Even more so is the cover of “This Guy’s In Love With You” which is a gorgeous slice of island-inflected slow jamming. All that and some groovy rocksteady in the form of “Good, Bad and Ugly”? Makes me wish I had been around in the ’60s to drop by the Colony Hotel and see these guys play live.1

1. This same album also includes covers of “Funky Broadway,” “Love Is Blue” and what I think is an original rocksteady cut, “Colony Special.” ↩

Llans Thelwell and His Celestials: Grazin’ In the Grass
This Guy’s In Love With You
Good, Bad and Ugly
From An ETC Holiday at the Colony Hotel (Dynamic, 196?)

Caribbean hotel albums tend to be a thankless lot: poorly recorded, full of “hits” mostly meant to appeal to tourists. It’s like K-Tel LPs but with more palms and steel drums in the photos.

This Llans Thelwell and His Celestials album is an absolute exception to that rule. As it appears on Dynamic (home to many a Jamaican artist, especially Byron Lee), I suspect it was recorded in a legit studio and the production and arrangements are clearly above countless of other hotel-themed releases in the same vein. Straight up, I don’t know if I know of another tourist-aimed LP on this level, especially the overall consistency of quality.

The cover of “Grazin’ in the Grass” isn’t mind-blowing but it’s, well, really well done. Even more so is the cover of “This Guy’s In Love With You” which is a gorgeous slice of island-inflected slow jamming. All that and some groovy rocksteady in the form of “Good, Bad and Ugly”? Makes me wish I had been around in the ’60s to drop by the Colony Hotel and see these guys play live.1

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RANDOM PILE: MONTY ALEXANDER

2013-02-09 23:30:00 (читать в оригинале)

Monty Alexander: Chameleon
From Monty Strikes Again (MPS, 1976)

I was recently flipping through a bin of LPs I’ve pulled aside to sell but given that this bin has gotten rather ancient, I’ve forgotten what the deal is with some of the records therein. That includes this Monty Alexander album that I began to needle drop, only to remind myself: oh yeah, this is the one that had this quirky acoustic piano cover of Herbie Hancock’s “Chameleon.”

In contrast to electric piano flips on acoustic jazz standards, this, to me, goes the other way: taking a song best known in its electronic incarnation and then recreating it acoustically.

On the funky tip, this isn’t about to take out Hancock’s clarinet or anything but I do like hearing songs in one context flipped into another.1

1. By the way, if you want this album, holler. $10 + shipping ↩

Monty Alexander: Chameleon
From Monty Strikes Again (MPS, 1976)

I was recently flipping through a bin of LPs I’ve pulled aside to sell but given that this bin has gotten rather ancient, I’ve forgotten what the deal is with some of the records therein. That includes this Monty Alexander album that I began to needle drop, only to remind myself: oh yeah, this is the one that had this quirky acoustic piano cover of Herbie Hancock’s “Chameleon.”

In contrast to electric piano flips on acoustic jazz standards, this, to me, goes the other way: taking a song best known in its electronic incarnation and then recreating it acoustically.

On the funky tip, this isn’t about to take out Hancock’s clarinet or anything but I do like hearing songs in one context flipped into another.1

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DONALD BYRD: RIP

2013-02-09 23:30:00 (читать в оригинале)

I decided, in late 2012, I really didn’t want to write RIP pieces anymore. I meant, absolutely, no disrespect to the likes of Marva Whitney or Inez Andrews or Fontella Bass or Ravi Shankar, et. al. But it is depressing when your site begins to resemble a roll call of the dead and as I’ve said in the past, for people like me, in love with music of the 1960s and ’70s, we are definitely entering into a time when a lot of our heroes and heroines will be passing away.

This all said, I can’t not acknowledge the passing of Donald Byrd, who (according to his nephew), died on Monday at age 80. There will certainly be tributes from the jazz community given Byrd’s stature and longevity but for hip-hop dudes like me, our relationship to Byrd is different, couched more in his ’70s Blue Note recordings, especially when he hooked up with the Mizell Brothers on the production trip. Not to play compare/contrast but the only other artists who were comparable to him in the world of soul-jazz would probably have been Lou Donaldson, maybe Grant Green.

Here’s just a few of my favorites from Byrd:

All soul-jazz era songs acknowledged…I don’t think if there’s a Donald Byrd song more sublime than his version of “Cristo Redentor.” 1

1. Louis CK used this in one of the best episodes of Season 3 of his show, on the rooftop where he and Parker Posie are sitting, looking over the skyline. It’s incredible. ↩

I decided, in late 2012, I really didn’t want to write RIP pieces anymore. I meant, absolutely, no disrespect to the likes of Marva Whitney or Inez Andrews or Fontella Bass or Ravi Shankar, et. al. But it is depressing when your site begins to resemble a roll call of the dead and as I’ve said in the past, for people like me, in love with music of the 1960s and ’70s, we are definitely entering into a time when a lot of our heroes and heroines will be passing away.

This all said, I can’t not acknowledge the passing of Donald Byrd, who (according to his nephew), died on Monday at age 80. There will certainly be tributes from the jazz community given Byrd’s stature and longevity but for hip-hop dudes like me, our relationship to Byrd is different, couched more in his ’70s Blue Note recordings, especially when he hooked up with the Mizell Brothers on the production trip. Not to play compare/contrast but the only other artists who were comparable to him in the world of soul-jazz would probably have been Lou Donaldson, maybe Grant Green.

Here’s just a few of my favorites from Byrd:

All soul-jazz era songs acknowledged…I don’t think if there’s a Donald Byrd song more sublime than his version of “Cristo Redentor.” 1

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STRIP IT DOWN: JOHN LEWIS

2013-02-09 23:30:00 (читать в оригинале)

John Lewis: I Can’t Get Started
From 7″ (Pacific Jazz, 1950s). Also on Essential Jazz Masters

I don’t buy much jazz these days but I couldn’t pass this 7″ up when I came across it at the Groove Merchant. There are few things in the world I love better than a jazz ballad standard, stripped down to a couple of players. “I Can’t Get Started” is already a hauntingly gorgeous tune to begin with and Lewis – musical director for the MJQ – does a simply lovely job here on piano.

John Lewis: I Can’t Get Started
From 7″ (Pacific Jazz, 1950s). Also on Essential Jazz Masters

I don’t buy much jazz these days but I couldn’t pass this 7″ up when I came across it at the Groove Merchant. There are few things in the world I love better than a jazz ballad standard, stripped down to a couple of players. “I Can’t Get Started” is already a hauntingly gorgeous tune to begin with and Lewis – musical director for the MJQ – does a simply lovely job here on piano.

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Forest, 'John' -- Song Premiere

2013-02-09 23:27:00 (читать в оригинале)

Filed under: New Music, New Releases

Yes, Forest is a band of boys from England. No, they are nothing like One Direction. The young Cambridge five-piece self-produced their Sweetcure EP fresh out of college, in the interest of introducing their feel-good take on garage rock to the world on their own terms.

Their sound is nothing if not referential, with a fine assortment of familiar sounds both new and old -- the reverberant, distorted guitar and bass recall that of Sonic Youth or My Bloody Valentine, and lead songwriter and vocalist Henry Barraclough's delivery is not unlike Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner.

"e;All of us have been making music since we met at age 14, though Hugo joined us later when we decided we wanted a fuller sound, with more guitar and vocals, and that's when we formed as Forest around a year and a half ago,"e; Barraclough tells Spinner. "e;We worked on our Sweetcure EP as a way to get away from our end of high school exams, and managed to get it done before our gap year started, which has now let us focus on our music. We've been likened to Dinosaur Jr., Pavement and various shoegaze bands like My Bloody Valentine and Ride, though given the way most of us listen to music, our influences really come from a jumble of songs rather than a specific set of bands that we love."e;