Chávez Ravine: A Record by Ry Cooder is a concept album and historical album by Ry Cooder which tells the story of Chávez Ravine,
a Mexican-American community demolished in the 1950s in order to build
public housing. The housing was never built. Ultimately the Brooklyn Dodgers built a stadium on the site as part of their move to Los Angeles.
Kálmán Balogh, master of the cimbalom (Hungarian dulcimer) and sometime
collaborator with Janosi and Muszikas, plays a wide range of Hungarian
and Gypsy music on Art of the Gipsy Cimbalom.
Fuzzed out funk from the legendary Fugi! The groove is
incredibly sinister -- a blend of Detroit funk (ala The Counts,
Funkadelic, and others in the Westbound crew), and some of the more
guitar-based influence from the Hendrix soul generation (especially the
styles that were beginning to show up on the Bar-Kays albums at the
time!) Fugi have a groove that's gotta be heard to be believed --
hard, heavy, and filled with soul -- dipping down down down into the
dirt on the bass, and riffing up to the top again on a wave of heavy guitars!
6 tracks in all -- the complete Chess recordings by Fugi -- and
titles include "Mary Don't Take Me On No Bad Trip", "Revelations", "Jo
Jo", "Save A Little", and "I'd Rather Be A Blind Man"
Οι
Διοτίμα είναι ο Κώστας Χανής, ο Λευτέρης Αγγουριδάκης
και ο Κώστας Παπαποστόλου -μουσικοί με προϊστορία στο
χώρο του αυτοσχεδιασμού και στην εξερεύνηση των δυνατοτήτων
των παραδοσιακών οργάνων. Στην πρώτη τους δισκογραφική
παρουσίαση συμπράττουν χρησιμοποιώντας έναν ελεύθερο συνδυασμό
κρουστών και πνευστών (μαρίμπα, βιμπράφωνο, σαντούρι,
ξυλόφωνο, ντραμς, μπεντίρ, αφρικανικά τύμπανα, νέι, φλάουτο,
διαφόρων ειδών φλογέρες κ.α.) χωρίς να διστάσουν να χρησιμοποιήσουν
ιδιόφωνα όργανα και να παίξουν με ανορθόδοξους τρόπους.
Το αποτέλεσμα είναι ένα άκρως ατμοσφαιρικό άλμπουμ γεμάτο
εκπλήξεις και με μία διάχυτη ποιητική διάθεση από την
αρχή ως το τέλος.
Τόσο στο άλμπουμ όσο και στις ζωντανές τους εμφανίσεις
μουσική των Διοτίμα ξεπερνά στυλ και εθνικούς διαχωρισμούς,
καταφέρνοντας να συνδυάσει στοιχεία από μινιμαλιστές συνθέτες
του εικοστού αιώνα, τη γραμμική ανάπτυξη και τη αίσθηση
της τελετουργίας του Ινδονησιακού gamelan και στοιχεία
από την Ελληνική παραδοσιακή μουσική σε μία ισότιμη και
κατασταλαγμένη συνύπαρξη, αποφεύγοντας τις εύκολες λύσεις
ή τις προφανείς αναφορές.
μία δουλειά με σπάνια ομορφιά που αδιάκοπα προτρέπει σε
παραπέρα εξερευνήσεις.
Salah Ragab
formed the first jazz big band in Egypt in 1968, and was also the
leader of the Military Music Departments in Heliopolis. On this
recording the band consists of five saxophones, four trumpets, four
trombones, piano, bass, drums and percussion. Western jazz musicians
have been fascinated with the world of Islam for many years, and it was
therefore inevitable that musicians of the Arabian North African area
would be equally influenced by western music. This record represents The
Cairo Jazz Band responding to the American jazz scene of the 60s and
70s with influences from Mongo Santamaria, Yusef Lateef and Ahmud
Abdul-Malik to Randy Weston and Sun Ra. This release marks the first
time Salah Ragab and The Cairo Jazz Band's definitive works are
presented to the west.
HAZMAT MODINE draws from the rich soil of American music of the 20's and
30's through to the 50's and early 60's, blending elements of early
Blues, Hokum Jugband, Swing, Klezmer, New Orleans R & B, and
Jamaican Rocksteady. The band is fronted by two harmonicas which use
call and response, harmony, melody, and syncopated interweaving rhythms.
The band includes tuba, guitar, and percussion, claviola and Hawaiian
steel guitar. The band's sound reflects musical influences ranging from
Avant-garde Jazz to Rockabilly and Western Swing to Middle-Eastern,
African, and Hawaiian musical styles.
One of the funkiest albums ever on Blue Note -- a set that mixes the trumpet talents of Blue Mitchell
with some killer backings from Monk Higgins -- all in a groove that
makes more gritty edges than the best funky soundtracks of the time!
Higgins keeps the backings full, but always quite lean -- fusing all
elements together into a sharp, tight rhythm that steps along with some
of the slight African touches you might guess from the title -- a groove
that's not really that authentic, but which resonates with some of the
best inspirations that Hugh Masekela was bringing to American music at
the time. And while the album might be an attempt to cash in on
Masekela's groove, the feel here is really quite different overall -- as
tracks are nicely stretched out, with plenty of room for jazzy solo
work -- and a groove that's much harder overall, thanks to Higgins!
Other players include Freddy Robinson on guitar, Wilton Felder on bass,
Paul Humphrey on drums, and Plas Johnson on tenor -- and titles include "HNIC", "Flat Backing", "Na Ta Ka", "Bantu Village", and "Blue Dashiki".
Blue Mitchell Bantu Village Track Listing
1. H.N.I.C.
2. Flat Backing
3. Na Ta Ka
4. Heads Down
5. Bantu Village
6. Blue Dashiki
7. Bush Girl
This deluxe double-disc box from Germany's Roof Music contains a collection of Louis Thomas Hardin's music recorded from 1977-1999 entitled The German Years
as well as a second disc entitled The Last Concert, Mimi-Festival 1999.
There are 44 pages of liner notes that lovingly put the complex music
into as much perspective as possible, though it is up to the listener to
diligently explore the lifework of this creative and unique individual.
"High On a Rocky Ledge" could be John Cale
in his sixth decade and is a highlight. This track and "Do Your Thing,"
"I'm This I'm That," and "Pygmy Pig" are culled from 1979's H'Art Songs
album, one of seven different sources for the music on disc one. The
performances are as delightfully diverse as the titles and keep one's
attention as the parade of ideas unfolds. "Heimdall Fanfare" is a
completely different outing from "Fujiyama 2 (Lovesong)," while "Do Your
Thing" could certainly have found some kind of commercial success had
some publisher gotten it into a film soundtrack -- or had Janis Joplin lived long enough to cover more of Moondog's
compositions. The concert on disc two flows seamlessly from disc one
and is so perfect that it sounds like a studio recording, except for the
applause. Performed on August 1, 1999, five weeks before his passing on
September 8 of that year, it is an amazing "bookend" to this
compilation.
By AllMusic
The Black Swan is the twenty-third album by Scottish folk singer Bert Jansch. It was released in 2006 through Drag City.
Review
Now this really is a switch: Scottish guitar hero and songwriter Bert Jansch (Pentangle) recording for Drag City, with a host of admirers in tow -- Beth Orton, Devendra Banhart, Noah Georgeson (who performed and co-produced with Jansch), Helena Espvall, son Adam Jansch, and more. Black Swan is a collection of original and traditional tunes. Jansch
turns in a performance that shows his typical restraint, and within it
his wonder as a guitarist. His use of the blues, American, Celtic, and
British Isles folk forms is also informed by music from Eastern Europe,
and he ties them all together seamlessly. "High Days," a solo track,
uses all three, as he winds out an elegy for a friend. "When the Sun
Comes Up" begins with Orton's vocal and David Roback's slide guitar and Otto Hauser's drums, shuffling underneath. Jansch spills it modal and bluesy, Orton
grabs onto his changes and effortlessly lets her voice wrap around his
lyric lines. Her signing on the traditional number "Katie Cruel" has
been brilliantly rearranged by Jansch. Banhart sings in a muted duet with Orton,
but his vocal was unnecessary. It's a spooky track that's been prepared
for by the preceding cuts. The slippery Piedmont blues style Jansch
tucks into his British folk on "My Pocket's Empty" is evocative of an
earlier, simpler time, though as revealed by the tune, times were hard
then, too. Jansch's singing is at its most expressive here; he's moaning in his reedy baritone. Orton makes one more appearance here on the gorgeous and-all-too-brief arrangement of the blues tune "Watch the Stars." Hers and Jansch's
vocals take the tine out of the song's Southern American birthplace and
brings it into the world, one grainy line at a time. It's a singalong
blues that reveals the sheer expanse of the universe in the grain of
their voices. Ultimately, this disc is not so different from Jansch's
others, but it is wonderfully spirited and loose. It feels live, and
backroomish. It's as informal a date as one can find among superstars --
and make no mistake, you may or may not know his name, but his large
catalog proves it -- Jansch
is one. As for the rest, the hardscrabble dirty, slide guitar-drenched
English folk of "A Woman Like You" rings as true as a Texas blues love
song by Lightnin' Hopkins.
Traditional public domain nuggets such as "The Old Triangle" are almost
radically reworked and ring spookily true for the current era. The
blues-rock of the humorously political "Texas Cowboy Blues," complete
with keyboards and popping acoustic 12-strings, shimmies and even shakes
in places. The last few cuts, a gorgeous instrumental called
"Magdalina's Dance," and "Hey Pretty Girl" (performed solo), are
drenched in historical tropes, but are thoroughly modern and soulful.
The bottom line is this: for the past ten years Jansch has been undergoing a creative renaissance akin to Bob Dylan's and people are slowly but surely finding what he has on offer. Black Swan
proves that the guitarist and songwriter has a bounty at his disposal.
He is writing and recording music that is profound, funny, topical,
worldly, and ultimately, necessary.
