Day 71: Miles Davis "On the Corner" & Wayne Wallace "Three in One"

Once again the furthest away from another sampler. This is my second day into an actual CD case, a sort of make-believe apple crate that has been shaped into a single row to hold CDs. I collected as many of the wooden cases for holding CDs that I could come across in the attempt to pretend I was organizing them. It's also how I was able to make estimates as to how many CDs I have. Now I have a lot of beat up wooden racks that I drag around with the CDs and none of it is organized.

Miles Davis
On the Corner

Miles Davis continues to add to his lead as most represented artist in the Albatross. This time with one of his early fusion experiments. Not as 'grindy' as Bitches Brew, this one is a little more funk oriented. Not satisfied with having one fusion pioneer with him, the album has both Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea. And a bunch of other people that became prominent in the new fusion jazz. Because if you're in Miles' band, that kind of means something.

I know that I have two of this album because I know I've listened to it before but this one was unopened. I think it might have been a double set of On the Corner and Big Fun that I had, now that I think of it.

On the Corner might be that turning point, the sort of 'missing link' I've had with Miles Davis' fusion efforts where I've never been able to connect albums like Bitches Brew and Live/Evil to Tutu. On this album Miles discovered looping, over-dubbing, and using multiple tape machines. This is a kind of 'layered cake' recording that could be argued is anathema to jazz if one considered the interplay of the performers to be an essential element. In contrast, though, even in 'straight jazz' engineers had been stitching together solos and the like for a while. If Miles were to craft the texture over which he would select his soloists, whose to say that you can't do it that way?

While the tracks (four in total going for a little over fifty minutes) are long and have a tendency wander, this is still more accesible by bounds than the previous, more caustic fusion experiments. Which is not to say that there isn't some stuff on here that will make whoever else is listening ask you, "What the hell are you listening to?" (wah wah sitar...you heard me...)

This is about as far from the last Miles Davis that went in to the Albatross.

Even if it's fusion I'm still weirded out by the fade out.

Wayne Wallace
Three in One

Alright, so now I feel completely stupid scoffing at the notion of 'Cubop' and thinking it was made up for the first CD I came across that had it. I officially feel humbled and ridiculous in light of the fact that I apparently have been sitting on a small goldmine of cubop. I'm sorry. Can the Albatross stop mocking me now?

He's holding three trombones on the cover, so I was afraid that 'three in one' might be like the 'What More Flutes 4' thing where he just used three different trombones (well, bass trombone is pretty awesome...), but instead its a general philosophy "general representation of the African musical continuum through US and Caribbean." According to the liner notes, that is.

And Wallace doesn't leave you guessing what three elements he might have used on any particular track, on the back they're all labeled (including Cubop...).

This guy might have been my instructor had I not become obsessed with going to a UC. He's an instructor at CSU San Francisco where I had initially thought about double majoring in music and film. But instead I went to UC Santa Cruz. I liked the mascot...

I don't know what is about certain CDs or certain music, but every now and then I feel like I should be listening to it live in a beer garden. Not that I spend a lot of time in beer gardens, nor do they usually have music that would appear in the Albatross...but I get the impression anyway. This is one of those CDs.

Day 55: Los Hombres Caliente V.2 & Jose Rizos Jazz on the Latin Side Allstars V.2

I'm back into mystery territory, I don't really know when or where today's CDs came from. And another mystery that probably won't be solved until we're much deeper into the process. Also, today is the day for second volumes.

Los Hombres Calientes
Volume 2

Usually I just take the liner notes out and scan them, but I was too delighted by the sticker on the cover of this one insisting that 30% of the music was free. During the set up I've been trying to come up with how that was supposed to work and I haven't yet. It's not like this is a re-issue of an old LP, this was recorded in 1999, Jason Marsalis is the other other Marsalis brother, the drummer. With the father being a piano player I was really hoping there was just one more in the wings that played bass and we could have the Marsalis Sextet.

I don't think that this CD sold at a particular discount. All CDs have the same capacity. I'm not really sure how the 30% became free.

Alright, enough of that.

I may actually have this album twice. What's worse is I may have bought the other copy not realizing I had this unwrapped copy already. Or I have both volumes and I'm thinking of the first one, but the first one has a different cover and this is the cover I remember. With Bill Summers, percussionist from the Headhunters, leading this expedition it is heavy on the afro-cuban side of things. Not surprising given the title of the group. But with two percussionists on top of the bill, it's going to be rhythm heavy.

Mayfield's trumpet is recorded or mixed in an odd way to make everything sound like its in the same room, a more 'natural' approach to recording that essentially feels like the trumpet is further away than the rhythm section. It's kind of distracting, if I'm being honest. Though I don't know if I would have noticed if I wasn't listening to it on headphones.

Blues De Enredo finally delivers on full on percussion feature you'd expect from an album like this where the whole toy box is brought out. I have to admit I really like that kind of thing. It's the closest thing I imagine there getting to that 'musical moment' where people walk in and pick up a percussion piece and join in. I always end up with the stupid fish, though.

The best possible way to end this album would be to revisit Bill Summer's Headhunter days with a latin version of Chameleon, apparently paired up with We Want the Funk. Naturally this means we're not getting the nearly 20 minute long progression that Chameleon can take on, but it's still pretty rump shaking.


Jazz on the Latin Side All-Stars
Jazz on the Latin Side All-Stars 2

So, because I wrote down and hit 'publish' my whole disbelief regarding the whole idea of 'cubop,' which of course means that a bunch of other CDs would pop up with references to cubop, including a label.

This is apparently an all-star super band of Latin jazz performers from the LA area brought together to perform in celebration of a radio program of the same name.

According to the liner notes, what makes this special is they didn't just get together for an extended jam session but actually rehearsed and came up with new songs.

I'm kind of stunned at how much the Albatross is grouping together. There today two Latin jazz albums, there's at least one more in the wings. I had that run of blues and the gathering of hard bop Blue Note CDs. There has been no real effort to organize the Albatross by any stretch of the imagination. On top of that, once I'm about a quarter of the way into a bag it becomes a giant jumble anyway. And yet the music does seem to be grouping together. Either that or I'm about to find out that there really isn't that much drift in the Albatross after all.

All of the truly out of line CDs ended up in rotation. There was about 400 CDs that were stolen when my bus was broken into 3 weeks after I installed a stereo in a vehicle with no door locks. I really miss having a stereo in the bus, though. But anything that really stood out made it into rotations like that and are either lost now like in that theft, damaged beyond playability, or already on the hard drive. Like the best promo I ever got is already on there. I've wandered into pre-amble style writing here, but it's just a good live performance of afro-cuban jazz. I don't really know what else to say.

It does end with the coolest track with the coolest title, McKibbon Walks the Talk, which goes from smokey to smokin'...alright, I feel bad for having written that sentence. I'm sorry.

I hadn't quite realized that the last track is just over twenty minutes long. It's managed to go through a few evolutions, I imagine to showcase each of the all-stars on the stage as a sort of grand finale.

Day 45: Putumayo Presents Africa and The Colors of Latin Jazz

I encountered my first duplicate and it was rather quick for how separate the CDs were. Yesterday I did Jacky Terrasson's A Paris and today I fished out some drifter CDs that had wound up in other boxes (the truth is that just about everything has at least a few CDs in it) and I found another wrapped copy of A Paris. I'm not sure what to do with it, I don't know anyone who likes that kind of jazz off the top of my head and it's not really worth anything if I sell it to a used record store. Ah well, on with Day 45...the Colt Day? Yeah, that's not sustainable...

It's like a Starbucks in the Albatross today...

Various Artists
Africa

This is the kind of CD you might buy at a coffee shop. In fact, I'm almost certain that Putumayo specifically sells in coffee shops. Putumayo CDs are easy to pick out because the covers are all done by the same artist, Nicola Heindl. It's a world music label that puts together themed compilations that are more or less easy to listen to and therefore handy CDs to buy for someone who wants to dip their toe in a country's music. I'd be snide about it but really, people have to find out about other kinds of music somehow and things like this are pretty efficient ways to go about it.


And like any good patchouli-label, they donate proceeds of their sales to the area represented by the CD.


The descriptions are typical short-bio style usual in these compilations, and a little loose with the descriptions. Signe, for instance, was described as an acoustic guitar recording...which is true, but leaves out the heavy electronic beat and bass added to the Togolese love song.


The Albatross has provided some awesome. I started an ill-fated internet forum discussion a few days ago asking people to trace the lines in their musical tastes and one of the the people that actually tried mentioned a form of music I had never heard of before, Mbaqanga. Aparently I should have, it's the African music that Paul Simon used. Now with this recording by the Soul Brothers I have an actual sample to go by. Actually pretty cool. Thanks Albatross, you usually don't deliver this quickly.

All of this is pretty accessible with plenty of western pop elements fused into the African harmonies and poly rhythms. It makes sense that these come together so easily, African music influenced the development of modern music, it's only fitting that the influence comes full circle. But this could pass as a folk/jazz cd with lyrics you likely won't understand.

Various Artists
The Colors of Latin Jazz: Cubop!

This compilation is a little more focused than the last, though truth be told there was a lot of similarity in the previous selections.

I've never heard latin jazz referred to as 'cubop' before, though there is an un-cited stub article on wiki about it. The idea is the combination of Cuban or Afro-Cuban rhythms with bop pace and harmony. So far songs don't really seem to reflect the blistering pace or flighty solos that I've come to know of be-bop, rather it sounds pretty much like latin jazz. I guess that is a wide enough term to need a distinction as this is certainly a little 'hotter' than other forms of Latin jazz.

Well, that'll show me for not looking ahead. Not only does this track have the blistering pace and flighty solo, it's an actual bop song--Charlie Parker's Donna Lee. Donna Lee is kind of the Matterhorn of jazz, completely doable for everyone of a certain skill set but still something musicians occasionally tackle to make sure everyone knows they're of that skill set. Alright, according to Wiki, that's actually a Miles Davis song wrongly attributed to Charlie Parker. Regardless, the tune is known through Bird and the challenge is sort of a goof. It's almost melody-less, as Bird seems to launch into his solo with only the fiegntest hint of any recognizable 'head.' Various performers have approached Donna Lee different ways, from Jaco Pastorius playing a transcription of Bird's solo to this version where people burn over the changes (taken from the song Back Home in Indiana) while making their slight bow to the head as well.

Work Song, one of the coolest hard bop songs every, also gets the Latin jazz treatments.

Apparently I should look at least at the track list before I make declerations about the theme of a CD, there's a lot of bop standards on here--the aforementioned Donna Lee and Work Song as well as Night in Tunisia and Yesterdays.

One thing Latin jazz gives you is a lot more percussion solos.

Kind of short entries today, though I guess that isn't all bad.