Soon enough!

Hey all, I have a new job that takes the better part of my day, but fear not! The blog will back to working order soon. Getting some ideas on what to post and other things to talk about. Any comments or suggestions feel free to send them along! Thanks Matt

Bremerhaven's Heaven 1971

Ever since I started liking music, I would find artists that had live shows. I would tape live performances off the radio or ask friends if they had bootlegs. I would prize these albums because they were never officially released, but it was a good chance that I would have been part of a great group of people who could enjoy an unreleased product. One of those was Led Zeppelin BBC Sessions. Disc one on the commercial release I had in the late 1980's and would play it all the time. I was wishing it would really come out, but that was only hope. It did and I was happy to hear that my crappy tape was cleaned up.

In other instances I wish the music on the bootleg was more. Case in point was the one I am going to talk about today. This show recorded in Bremerhaven in 1971 is a crisp A+ recording. It features two tracks, but the tracks have three songs to them each. The Jan Garbarek music of this era is his most Avant-Garde. It's the music I like a lot and shows that the quartet he had was a band not to be messed with. I mean if you listen closely to Afric Pepperbird or Sart. This band is in fine form. Another turn in back time moment to catch this group could strangle you and take you away from whatever you were listening to at the time. The abrasiveness of Terje Rypdal's guitar to the thunder of Arild Andersen bass and Jan's saxophone playing is crisp to the crash of Jon Christensen drums. This is where the wonderful gift of early ECM records gained their reputation on. I get so happy just talking about it.



If you ever asked me what makes a musical group I would answer you in quartet's. One of these quartets would be this group here. They are so tight and so good at what they do, they know each others movements before we have a chance to catch up. The funny part of this quartet is that the band would never be like this ever again. In the early years of Jan Garbarek his quartet was one of the most blinding and the staple that ECM records had in their catalog. All four of the members to this day still work for ECM and put out some great stuff. I am always eager to hear what each person puts out because some of the music they do put out brings me back to when ECM and themselves are the most daring. Maybe that is why I chose this lone bootleg.



If you hunt and peck around the internet you can find this and see why I sing the praise. The music is way out there, but the fun part is just hearing how different even for 1971 Jazz was. I did a huge paper in college on what Jazz was doing in terms of direction in the 1960's. I should added more about what was doing in the early 70's. This is proof that some of the stuff was just as out there as it was in the 60's and still kept some people like me at interest. Enjoy and remember the music is not your normal Jazz, but it shows what really can happen if you give an artist his own space and let them create the wonderful colours that they can and should! By the way listen closely to the opening first track. It really sounds like a Rock band. Terje Rypdal can really scream. You will see why I love his guitar playing.

Alone and Together With Dave Mason

I first heard Dave Mason on a Traffic album. His sitar, not his guitar playing was wonderful. It struck a few chords with me because Dave is normally a great guitar player and a very good writer. His stint in Traffic was amazing and his sad, but uneven solo albums make it hard to find a great one. I did though in Alone Together. While re-listening to this album the other day I really found his genius. His songwriting is something that you should pay attention to. Songs like "Feelin Alright" have been covered by a few artist and still to this day I love hearing it to this day. One of my odd favorite Dave Mason songs "Hole In My Shoe" is the ultimate 60's tune.

Dave's time in Traffic made me realize he was one of the best parts of the band. Sure, Steve Winwood was great, but it was Dave also playing a variety of instruments that made it just right. It was also Dave Mason who was friends with Jimi Hendrix played acoustic guitar on Hendrix version of "All Along The Watchtower." Mason played with Eric Clapton, Rolling Stones, Delaney and Bonnie, and George Harrison. He was quite a busy man. Dave Mason was the person I would loved to been in the 60's. He was part of everything that needed to be done. Being a friend of Hendrix was a big plus.



So when I put on Alone Together for the first time in quite a while I really thought I should write about this album. It maybe short by today's standards but at 35 minutes long it sure has a lot to say with eight songs. Each song is full of wonderful and really expressive pieces of music and great song writing. I like each piece because they are like short stories from the past of Dave Mason. I think of Dave as one of those songwriters that had more to say then most because he knew how to say it well. I wish the album was longer, but in the end you realize that these are some of his best writing. Below are the lyrics to one of his best songs;

Shouldn't have took more than you gave
Wouldn't be in this mess today
I know we've all got different ways
But the dues we've got to pay are still the same
Trying to change the script for this old play
Reading and not feeling what you say
You're coming on too strong for me to stay
Interpret what you're seeing anyway
It seems the simple things are hardest to explain
I'm going to come too soon, there's another way
Footprints in the snow will show well things are still the same
Beneath the wall of sound someone helps to live again
Shouldn't have took more than you gave
Wouldn't be in this mess today
I know we've all got different ways
But the dues we've got to pay are still the same



The lyrics still hold true and Dave could not say it any better then most great singer songwriters. If you listen to the song it's got so much to say and the six minute time it takes to say it is the right time. I tell you this because this album is one of the more underrated albums that missed the radar it is an album that makes you really go out there and seriously listen to a classic. I remember when I got first introduced to this album by an old hippie who told me this was the album that we all loved. It was not to mellow, and not to loud. It was just right and made everyone at peace. How true to listen to it today.

If you need to capture the music of a time, this is the album. The guitar playing is amazing just listen to "Look at You, Look at Me." This album really tells you that it is a classic and if you find it like I did on marble vinyl it really is something. It tells you that you are floating above the clouds just like Dave Mason is. Enjoy this wonderful gem from 1970. I think it might be stuck in your Ipod more then you think. Enjoy!

Phaedra Dreams

The first time I heard Tangerine Dream was when I was in High School. Yes, it might seem odd a High School kid hearing this, but one night I turned on radio to do my homework and I heard this odd music that did not have any drums or any typical rock or jazz beats and rhythms to it. It was when I first started listening to a radio show that I would listen to for a long time. I found out a few years later that this radio show had been going on since the mid 1970's. The same DJ doing the same genre changing, musical exploration for years. He still is on the air once a month too. I heard him the other day, you can always tell when he is on the air because he play's his signature artist or artists that he loves.

The Tangerine Dream music he played was quite different then what I heard music to be like in High School. I liked it because it was soothing and also expressive and different in the same way. My thought at first hearing was that this is what space music is all about. If I was in space this would be my soundtrack. It did not take too long to convince me to look for this at the record store. Sadly, the LP's were expensive and the CD's were cheap. In the early years of Virgin records they pressed these wonderful CD's with better sonic clarity then the later. This resulted in cheap CD's. The early ones were replaced by their owners and the early ones were in the used CD bins for $5.00. I grabbed about four early Tangerine Dream CD's for next to nothing. I still have them too.



The uniqueness of Tangerine Dream is the fact they are truly the fathers of space music. With the space program in full effect in the 1970's they were a band to understand. Given focus by the arpeggiated trance that drifts in and out of the mix, the track progresses through several passages including a few surprisingly melodic keyboard lines and an assortment of eerie Moog and Mellotron effects, gaseous explosions, and windy sirens. Despite the impending chaos, the track sounds more like a carefully composed classical work than an unrestrained piece of noise. (AM) Thanks Allmusic for that description I could not say it any better.

There are only four tracks on the record and each has a unique take on space travel. It is definitely a different direction, but this direction is fun. I don't know much about the music of Tangerine Dream. I know that the four CD's that I own of theirs are wonderful and fresh. It does not take long to realize that Tangerine Dream started a lot of musical heads thinking about the music they were making. People like Aphex Twin, Underworld and Orb just to name a few owe Tangerine Dream a debt of gratitude. The music hear is new and fresh and worth every listen.



Phaedra is one of the most important, artistic, and exciting works in the history of electronic music, a brilliant and compelling summation of Tangerine Dream's early avant-space direction balanced with the synthesizer/sequencer technology just beginning to gain a foothold in nonacademic circles.(AM) I am not sure where I put them in my musical influences but they would be up their with the best. Every once in a while I realize their impact by hearing the music as fresh as the day it was created. Enjoy this one and tell me what you think! Rock on!

Miles Davis Alumni

For a new twist in my blog I am going to talk about all the people that I can think of that played with Miles Davis. Many of these people I enjoy hearing as well. I first heard Miles Davis in 9th grade when I took out an album called Kind Of Blue. Still to this day is one of the most important Jazz albums of it's time. On that album the stage was already set for famous Miles Davis alum. You had Cannonball Adderley, John Coltrane and Bill Evans. All these people would go on to make some of the most important music you would ever hear. I as a 9th grade person did not get that. I thought these musicians were just friends or for that matter did not have the impact that they had. Stupid me, I guess.

Two people from Kind Of Blue after about a year did make an impact on me. These two people were Bill Evans and the other was John Coltrane. Both had great music ahead of them. Sadly, Coltrane did not last another decade, but his music was great and prolific. I stumbled up both Bill Evans and John Coltrane at the library also. I picked up their music and quickly listened to what they had to say. Both have some great stuff and I did feature them in the blog so check out those posts when you have some time. Bill Evans is still one of my favorite piano players. John Coltrane is also one of my favorite saxophone players too. The music is far cry of what they made in that Columbia studio in March and April of 1959.



After hearing Kind of Blue I went to seek out other Miles Davis albums. The next one I went hunting for was Bitches Brew. With hearing nothing except told to listen to it by a friend I bought the two tape set for a whopping $15.00 (a poor high school kid like myself). I put in my tape player and realized it was far different then what I was used to hearing. The simple saxophone and piano was replaced by organ, electric piano, electric bass and a lot of other things. The other thing that was noticed was the the music was longer which intern made the album longer. An hour and half worth of music. I got myself a treat.

The music of Bitches Brew also had a full load of musicians that I would admire and listen to. These included John McLaughlin, Dave Holland, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, Wayne Shorter, Lenny White, Jack DeJohnette and others. a few of these people are in some of the posts I have written about. All these people that I mention above have at least one album that I would listen to again and again. Even the musicians I did not name also have been influenced in my musical listening.



After a few years of getting into the last part of Miles Davis career I realized that he then too had musicians that were famous too. He added people like Mike Stern, John Scofield, Kenny Garrett, Mino Cinelu, and Marilyn Mazur just to name a few. These people I also listen to with great interest. These musicans continue to perform to this day and at one point a few of these will get their own blog posts. The period of the 1980's for Miles was tough and you could see his past mistakes had caught up to him. Too bad to, because I wish I saw him like a few of my friends.

I made the mistake that I missed a period of Miles Davis that I should have went back to in the first place. The era of the Mid 1960's. At that the time of listening to the 1980's stuff a friend handed me a tape called E.S.P. He told me that was that this was the most influential of the Miles Davis. He also told me that the alum on this album are the ones I should pay attention to. It was the Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Tony Williams and Wayne Shorter that changed the course of Jazz forever. After hearing E.S.P. I soon realized that I needed to listen a lot more closely to his music.

All in all if you really want to study the history of Jazz you should start with Miles Davis's alumni. There are so many different styles and ideas with all these great musicians. I do not even know where to start or point to a direction. Miles had great music because he had great people backing him. They learned from him and from there they too intern made great stuff. Take a listen and tell me what you think. If you need suggestions let me know, but I will tell you the music that you hear from a Herbie Hancock or Wayne Shorter or Dave Holland or even a Keith Jarrett or John McLaughlin does not need any introduction. Their music is the stuff of what makes it all great and unique. Enjoy what Miles Davis liked in their music and enjoy the fact that the music of the legacy will stand the test of time. Enjoy!!