Ok, so I'm driving home again after an annoying and tiring day at the office, where I also felt at one point like I had food poisoning from the onion soup at the vegetarian restaurant...I needed a cool kind of album to "chill out" on the way home.
I've got the windows down to enjoy some of the breeze of the fall night, as I slip in another of my favorite John Scofield albums - "Blue Matter" .
If "Still Warm" has a warmish texture to it, "Blue Matter" is a bit more cool and distanced, especially due to some of the seriously dated synthesizer sounds from Mitchell Forman - if there is one thing that seems to date an album more than anything else, it's the embarrassing synth sounds that are often used in many 70's and 80's recordings, in Fusion and modern Jazz in particular. Getting past that, this album still has some great tunes on it with a killer rhythm section in bassist Gary Grainger and super drummer Dennis Chambers.
I saw Dennis Chambers live once or twice, and he nearly stole the show the second time - he is such a powerful and funky drummer with an amazing groove, that I don't think anyone today can come near him in this niche, I mean he's like Steve Gadd, Billy Cobham, and Dave Weckl all in one, playing on amphetamines...
As I'm waiting for some of the congestion to clear up along the 2 1/2 lane boulevard that passes by the Yarkon river, I get a waft of the local sewage treatment station along the way - oh putrid!!! - gotta crank up the volume on "Now She's Blond" and try to ignore the olfactory affront. As I pass the Diamond Exchange business area, another waft of sewage comes up - you can also get that whnever you pass by the Sheraton City Tower on the highway heading north, it always seems to smell terrible around there, at least for the last 3-4 years...
I flip back to one of my favorites - "Blue Matter", the first track on this album and what originally sold me on it when I bought the fine German pressing of the LP around 20 years ago, and I used to sit with the album and try to pick out the tune on my own guitar.
Just a couple of years after that album came out, I managed to help persuade someone that it would be a good idea to have Scofield over here for a live concert or two, and I even got to meet my idol and get him to autograph my Ibanez guitar (a similar model to the one that he plays).
Cool, I've chilled out now...
Eli Dr. Blues Marcus - Blues, Blues, Blues, and some other stuff too...
Showing posts with label now playing in my car. Show all posts
Showing posts with label now playing in my car. Show all posts
Sunday, February 24, 2008
John Scofield - Still Warm
On average,I have a 20 minute ride from home to work each day. Usually, this involves weaving in and out of high traffic areas and some driving on the highway. Every morning is a different story, and every morning there is a new set of "challenges" to face.
Music helps to take off the edge, to help me ignore or forgive the countless inconsiderate assholes and idiots out there on the road who are either a danger to you and everyone else, or just a nuisance for which you need supreme amounts of patience in order not to loose your cool...
This morning I placed in my CD player one of my all time favorite Jazz/Fusion guitar albums - John Scofield's "Still Warm" from 1986. I admit that I am a total John Scofield addict, and I have loved many of his albums over the years, but I keep coming back to "Still Warm". After all these years, I think that it has become a kind of classic. The different tones, colors, the rhythms, the mix of subtlety and boldness on this album are the result of an unusual team of players from different parts of the musical spectrum - guitarist Scofield and keyboard player Don Grolnick are from more mainstream and slightly traditional Jazz backgrounds, while drummer Omar Hakim and bassist Daryl Jones are from more commercial Jazz/Fusion/Rock origins.
As I'm winding through traffic on the main street in the city, I jump to track 5 - "Rule Of Thumb" which begins with a delicate keyboard rhythm, and then turns into a delicate but funky and upbeat collaboration between Daryl Jones lightly snapping the bass and Hakim on a solid funk riff, as "Sco" adds some pizzicato picking. As I am forced to weave in and out of different lanes to avoid the stupid rich-bitch that has double parked her car and has the door open - further obstructing the right hand lane...the music soothes my pain, makes it easier to grin and bear it 'till I actually get onto the highway.
The gentle but steady sounds of track 6 "Picks and Pans" begin, the fast pace of the traffic matches the music, and the idiots that can't seem to choose a lane to stay in are easier to ignore as I hold back a little and turn up the volume on Sco's long solo.
I flip back to track 2 "Still Warm", an up tempo but fairly quiet tune, very subtle and understated both in the playing and the harmonic composition - this is a great relaxation tune that doesn't put you to sleep. I'm rounding the corner now to the neighborhood of my office building, traffic seems fairly clear now, all the way up to a few meters from the entrance to the building - that's when all hell seems to break loose as all sorts of inconsiderate and impatient people are making U-turns and blocking traffic in both directions as other impatient people try to weave around them...all I can do is put up the volume a bit and wait in line...at least another 5 minutes before the mess resolves itself and I can make it into the parking garage as the first track "Techno" starts playing.
There, I made it safely to work once more,
another annoying morning in traffic,
but I had John Scofield to keep me company
and I managed not to blow my stack...
Music helps to take off the edge, to help me ignore or forgive the countless inconsiderate assholes and idiots out there on the road who are either a danger to you and everyone else, or just a nuisance for which you need supreme amounts of patience in order not to loose your cool...
This morning I placed in my CD player one of my all time favorite Jazz/Fusion guitar albums - John Scofield's "Still Warm" from 1986. I admit that I am a total John Scofield addict, and I have loved many of his albums over the years, but I keep coming back to "Still Warm". After all these years, I think that it has become a kind of classic. The different tones, colors, the rhythms, the mix of subtlety and boldness on this album are the result of an unusual team of players from different parts of the musical spectrum - guitarist Scofield and keyboard player Don Grolnick are from more mainstream and slightly traditional Jazz backgrounds, while drummer Omar Hakim and bassist Daryl Jones are from more commercial Jazz/Fusion/Rock origins.
As I'm winding through traffic on the main street in the city, I jump to track 5 - "Rule Of Thumb" which begins with a delicate keyboard rhythm, and then turns into a delicate but funky and upbeat collaboration between Daryl Jones lightly snapping the bass and Hakim on a solid funk riff, as "Sco" adds some pizzicato picking. As I am forced to weave in and out of different lanes to avoid the stupid rich-bitch that has double parked her car and has the door open - further obstructing the right hand lane...the music soothes my pain, makes it easier to grin and bear it 'till I actually get onto the highway.
The gentle but steady sounds of track 6 "Picks and Pans" begin, the fast pace of the traffic matches the music, and the idiots that can't seem to choose a lane to stay in are easier to ignore as I hold back a little and turn up the volume on Sco's long solo.
I flip back to track 2 "Still Warm", an up tempo but fairly quiet tune, very subtle and understated both in the playing and the harmonic composition - this is a great relaxation tune that doesn't put you to sleep. I'm rounding the corner now to the neighborhood of my office building, traffic seems fairly clear now, all the way up to a few meters from the entrance to the building - that's when all hell seems to break loose as all sorts of inconsiderate and impatient people are making U-turns and blocking traffic in both directions as other impatient people try to weave around them...all I can do is put up the volume a bit and wait in line...at least another 5 minutes before the mess resolves itself and I can make it into the parking garage as the first track "Techno" starts playing.
There, I made it safely to work once more,
another annoying morning in traffic,
but I had John Scofield to keep me company
and I managed not to blow my stack...
the Pentangle - Live at Royal Festival Hall 1968
Last night as I drove home from work, I was feeling a bit ill and very tired, sort of like serious jet lag. I put in my CD player a recording of the Pentangle live in concert from the Royal Festival Hall, June 29, 1968...and I was already starting to feel a bit better.
I've been a big fan of the Pentangle and all of the individual members too for over 30 years, but I don't recall the last time I gave them a good listen in the past year. So last night as I was negotiating the tricky turns of the newly built but badly mis-planned bridge near the big Ramat Gan Mall complex, it was a great delight to once again hear the delicate tones of Jacqui McShee singing "Hear My Call" and "Way Behind the Sun". As her voice gives way to the rest of the band in improvisation mode, I recalled the greatness of this ensemble - who took Elizabethan style Folk songs and zapped them with pure Jazz and Blues feeling.
The bowed Bass riff that Danny Thompson plays at the start of "Let No Man Steal Your Thyme" invokes a real Blues feeling, as does the rhythm that is later established by the rest of the band - this song is probably 300 years old or more, but they have made it totally 20th century.
As I turn into the underpass that leads me home - only about 2 km left to go, I hear Bert Jansch's unmistakable voice begin singing "A Woman Like You" with his lovely acoustic guitar sounds in the background. Jansch is one of the first virtuoso guitarists that I ever became enamored with, and his playing can still make the hairs rise on the back of my neck to this day.
It's such a pleasure to be able to listen to the Pentangle again in this digital age where so much of the recent musical offerings seem to be a rehashing of yesterday's commercial trash over and over again. So go out today and get yourself a Pentangle album!!!
I've been a big fan of the Pentangle and all of the individual members too for over 30 years, but I don't recall the last time I gave them a good listen in the past year. So last night as I was negotiating the tricky turns of the newly built but badly mis-planned bridge near the big Ramat Gan Mall complex, it was a great delight to once again hear the delicate tones of Jacqui McShee singing "Hear My Call" and "Way Behind the Sun". As her voice gives way to the rest of the band in improvisation mode, I recalled the greatness of this ensemble - who took Elizabethan style Folk songs and zapped them with pure Jazz and Blues feeling.
The bowed Bass riff that Danny Thompson plays at the start of "Let No Man Steal Your Thyme" invokes a real Blues feeling, as does the rhythm that is later established by the rest of the band - this song is probably 300 years old or more, but they have made it totally 20th century.
As I turn into the underpass that leads me home - only about 2 km left to go, I hear Bert Jansch's unmistakable voice begin singing "A Woman Like You" with his lovely acoustic guitar sounds in the background. Jansch is one of the first virtuoso guitarists that I ever became enamored with, and his playing can still make the hairs rise on the back of my neck to this day.
It's such a pleasure to be able to listen to the Pentangle again in this digital age where so much of the recent musical offerings seem to be a rehashing of yesterday's commercial trash over and over again. So go out today and get yourself a Pentangle album!!!
Mingus is God
Tuesday, the middle of the work week, another one of those unexplained traffic slowdowns where the highway seems like a parking lot more than a thruway. Just as soon as I entered the highway from the La Guardia exit, I was already making my way back out at the Shalom exit, to continue up the main road parallel to the highway, that takes me northward to the edge of the urban center.
There is an old Jazz musician's joke about the musician who just arrived in heaven, and is sitting in at the big band rehearsal with all the great legends of Jazz, and there is one guy in the corner with a trumpet playing something awful. The punchline is: "oh, that's just God, he thinks he's Miles". Well to me, Mingus has always been and always will be God.
I finally cracked open that Mingus at Antibes CD that my buddy Yair gave to me for my birthday. This is a classic live session (so many of Mingus's recordings are...) from a festival on July 13, 1960 at Juan Le Pins, France. On hand with "Chazz" (Mingus never liked the nickname Charlie - he felt it was demeaning like calling a Black man "boy")were Ted Curson (Tpt), Eric Dolphy (various reeds), Booker Ervin (T Sax), and Dannie Richmond (Dms), with special guest Bud Powell sitting in on one song.
The first tune, "Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting" is true Mingus, a happy and upbeat Gospel song that allows each of the musicians to stretch out a bit and "present their case" as it were with Mingus egging them on with shouts and screams as well as his bass riffs.
The third track, "What Love" has an amazing blowing session as both Curson and Dolphy get to really explore some of the "outer limits", Curson soloing first, followed by Dolphy, who then gets into a direct dialog of call and response with Mingus's bass and the encouragement by Dannie Richmond from time to time.
As I make the turn into Devora Ha Nevia St. I see a bit of a slowdown, so I try the shortcut through the Ramat Hachayal residential neighborhood, only to find just as big a pileup on Raoul Wallenberg. Well, I finally get through it all as I hear the beginning of "I'll Remember April" with Bud Powell as a guest on piano.
It must have been a very hot day on stage at Juan Le Pins that day,
Mingus is God!!!
There is an old Jazz musician's joke about the musician who just arrived in heaven, and is sitting in at the big band rehearsal with all the great legends of Jazz, and there is one guy in the corner with a trumpet playing something awful. The punchline is: "oh, that's just God, he thinks he's Miles". Well to me, Mingus has always been and always will be God.
I finally cracked open that Mingus at Antibes CD that my buddy Yair gave to me for my birthday. This is a classic live session (so many of Mingus's recordings are...) from a festival on July 13, 1960 at Juan Le Pins, France. On hand with "Chazz" (Mingus never liked the nickname Charlie - he felt it was demeaning like calling a Black man "boy")were Ted Curson (Tpt), Eric Dolphy (various reeds), Booker Ervin (T Sax), and Dannie Richmond (Dms), with special guest Bud Powell sitting in on one song.
The first tune, "Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting" is true Mingus, a happy and upbeat Gospel song that allows each of the musicians to stretch out a bit and "present their case" as it were with Mingus egging them on with shouts and screams as well as his bass riffs.
The third track, "What Love" has an amazing blowing session as both Curson and Dolphy get to really explore some of the "outer limits", Curson soloing first, followed by Dolphy, who then gets into a direct dialog of call and response with Mingus's bass and the encouragement by Dannie Richmond from time to time.
As I make the turn into Devora Ha Nevia St. I see a bit of a slowdown, so I try the shortcut through the Ramat Hachayal residential neighborhood, only to find just as big a pileup on Raoul Wallenberg. Well, I finally get through it all as I hear the beginning of "I'll Remember April" with Bud Powell as a guest on piano.
It must have been a very hot day on stage at Juan Le Pins that day,
Mingus is God!!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)