What You'll Find Here: Music, Movies and Me

Since May 1976, I have written in journals. When I have nothing particularly resonant to say about my own inner turmoil, philosophic ramblings, sexual peccadillos or whining on about the state of the world around me...I have always fallen back on reporting the cultural time consumption that takes up in inordinate portion of my daily goings on.

In the 40+ years since my first concerts seeing Children's Symphony presentations on Sundays at the Pasadena Civic or The Hot Jazz Society's monthly Dixieland romps in an old meeting hall on the edge of the L.A. "River" across from Griffith Park, I have been sold heavily on the magic of live music. As Neil Young so aptly put it, "Live music is better bumper stickers should be issued."

Growing up a few orange groves and canyons length away from Hollywood also contributed greatly to my family's addiction to movie going. From the time I was a small there were weekly trips to the drive-in theaters that dotted the landscape, or the local Temple theater for the Saturday matinees. Once in a while we'd drive the 12 miles into Hollywood and see something in one of the magnificent old movie palaces like Grauman's Chinese, the Egyptian, The Pantages or later the Cinerama Dome. My dad loved Westerns and War movies, as if he didn't get enough shoot-'em-up as an L.A. County Sheriff in his day gig, my mom adored musicals and comedies. My brother and I loved them all.

At SDSU, I played in my first gigging band and began booking concerts on campus as part of the well-funded Cultural Arts Board, kindling for my future life in and around music.

So it's not surprising that my first jobs out of college were working in local video rental places (which were all the rage) or managing a couple of Sam Goody record stores in Mall's on the East Coast where we marveled at the new CD format and sold the first home computers and video games (yes Commodore and Pong and Atari).

So these are really just extensions of all of those journal entries talking about the great new movies I was seeing and LPs/CDs I was listening to.

Though iPODS/iPADs, apps, smart phones and downloads now make music and movies accessible in your own pocket, there is still nothing like sitting in front of a stack of speakers with a room full of people swaying to music created before your eyes. Nor is there anything that works quite so well for me to escape the real world and all of it's pressures just outside than two hours in a dark theater, absorbing the stories flickering across that wide screen as they pull you into their world.

But a really good taco runs a close third...

Sunday, April 13, 2008

What I'm listening to...Abrams, King Crimson, Trio of Doom, Miles From India, Plant/Krauss

MUHAL RICHARD ABRAMS – VISION TOWARDS ESSENCE (Pi Recordings)

One of the great thinkers of the jazz avant-garde, progenitor guiding light of the AACM, teacher and mentor to many of the post-Coltrane jazz scenes primary outside musical forces, Abrams explores the solo side of his multifarious musical personalities on this live recording from the Guelph Jazz Festival in 1998. Abrams believes that improvised solo performance best reaches his artistic essence.

An hour-long suite of mesmerizing beauty and soaring, dislocating edge-play, this set envelopes as it jars the listener into long, swooping expanses of mood. From simple eloquence to dissonant, pan-Asian jagged chord clusters zigzagging up and down the keys, Abrams technical radiance and philosophic mindset is fully exposed in the completely improvised performance. 2007 ****

KING CRIMSON – Mann Music Center, Philadelphia, PA. July 30, 1982 (live unreleaed recording)

When guitarist Robert Plant reformed King Crimson in the early 80s, the band’s new sound was all it’s own while still versed in the edgy experimentalism and art-rock proclivities of it’s antecedents. The two new members of the band (guitarist/vocalist Adrian Belew and bassist/Chapman Stick player Tony Levin, drummer Bill Bruford had played in previous incarnations of the band before joining Yes) brought their own unique approaches to their instruments into the fold. Most importantly this group sounded like a band.

This show is from the tour supporting their second CD as a unit, BEAT, which supplied about half of the program. The majority of the remaining material came from their debut CD, DISCIPLINE that stands as one of the great albums of progressive rock.

I was at this show and when the band left the stage after just about 45 minutes, I was very disappointed. Why the truncated performance? In the day and age of the four-hour Dead and Springsteen shows I was regularly attending, I was a tad miffed. Especially since the first 45 minutes had been so tremendously riveting. But the encore was nearly as long as the set itself and was face-peeling. We left the show thoroughly exhausted and fully satiated.

Belew was the stunt guitarist of choice during this period, having gained his rep with Frank Zappa, toured and recorded with David Bowie, the Talking Heads and Laurie Anderson but here he was thrust into the spotlight as relative front man, by way of his engaging vocals and strange post-modern lyrics. But, in an ensemble of such forcefully iconoclastic turf-swallowers, the precision and interaction and group gestalt prevent any one member from holding center stage for very long.

The sound quality of this boot is excellent so I must presume it was a live FM broadcast at the time. ****

JOHN McLAUGHLIN / JACO PASTORIUS / TONY WILLIAMS – TRIO OF DOOM (Columbia/Legacy)

Before fusion was a bad word in the jazz world, these three primal innovators were individually amongst the most far-reaching and popular musicians on their respective instruments. They crossed musical boundaries pulling listeners from the rock n roll world into the realm of improvised music with a maelstrom of technical brilliance, harmonic daring and rhythmic ferocity that led handful of inspirational recordings and collaborations and to armies of less musical imitators who opted for the speed and flash without the balls, vision and substance.

With this long-awaited release, the vault-keepers at Columbia/Legacy have filled a major hole in the fusion pantheon by gathering the complete recorded works of this short-lived “super-group”. The band was formed in 1979 when all three were in top form. McLaughlin and Williams, having been seminal and influential players who came into their own in the bands of Miles Davis, had gone on to form two of the most popular and explosive bands of the fusion era, Tony Williams’ Lifetime (with whom McLaughlin played early on) and John’s Mahavishnu Orchestra. Pastorius had burst onto the scene and quickly become, quite possibly, the most influential electric bassist of all-time through his groundbreaking work with Weather Report, Joni Mitchell and on Pat Metheny’s first record.

Trio of Doom was formed for a one-time only gig at the Havana Jam in 1979. Three of the tracks were previously released on the Havana Jam LP but were actually not from the concert but recorded three days later in the studio in New York. The remaining cuts here have never before seen the light of day. There are two partial alternate takes (false starts, basically) of “Papa Oriente” from the studio sessions as well as the entire live set from Havana. Though a bit on the short side, this CD does not disappoint for fans of any of the players involved.

With McLaughlin the only surviving member of the Trio of Doom, we will have to luxuriate in the fact that this is all we will ever hear of this incendiary ensemble and we are lucky to be so blessed. ****1/2

VARIOUS ARTISTS -- MILES…FROM INDIA (Times Square Records)

Producer Bob Belden (check out his work elsewhere if you don’t know him) brainstormed this trans-continental coming together of over two-dozen musicians. Roughly half the participants are Miles Davis alumni and the other half classical and jazz musicians from India. They come together to reinterpret music from a wide swath of Miles Davis career blending Indian rhythm and texture with the genre-bending proto-fusion jazz/funk/rock styling of Miles early 70s years.

Contributions include stalwart heavyweight such as Ron Carter and Jimmy Cobb from Miles’ pre-70s classic quintets to Chick Corea, John McLaughlin, and Lenny White from the “Bitches Brew”. The 70s rock/funk influenced alum here include Pete Cosey, Dave Liebman, Michael Henderson, Badal Roy, Gary Bartz and the post-hiatus players of Miles 80s units is represented by his nephew Vince Wilburn, Adam Holzman, Robert Irving III, and Benny Rietveld. Also present is trumpeter Wallace Roney who Miles chose to join him in some of his final performances and who joined the 60s quintet on the road after Miles death as well as up and coming alto saxist Rudresh Mahanthappa whose own critically acclaimed music mines his Indo-American heritage as well as the influence of Miles and the players here.

The Indian musicians here were organized by Indian keyboardist Louiz Banks and represent some of the finest musicians in the country. Belden went to Indian with sketches of the music and worked with the musicians in Mumbai and Bombay to put together tracks incorporating Miles interest in Indian sounds and mood and then once back in the U.S. Belden used SKYPE technology to record the alumni from studios around the U.S.

Most importantly, the music soars. A potent and wonderful take on everything fom “All Blues” to Pangaea. Release date: April 15, 2008 ****

P.S. Catch the Miles From India project live May 9 at Town Hall in NYC and May 31 at the Palace of the Fine Arts in San Francisco. The live band features Carter, Roney, White, Cosey, Bankz, Bartz, Mahanthappa, Roy and Rietveld as well as featured Indian musicians from the cd.

ROBERT PLANT / ALISON KRAUSS – RAISING SAND (Rounder)

2007 ***** (see separate review)