Peter – YAPP – “Papalosquamous” – Some old friends here, who aren’t really very active these days. “This” being slowly unfolding patterns, and sequences, with a sense of freedom. Interesting quartet, melodic but disconnected with sonic regions floating into each other. A good Bryan Rodgers solo, reminds me of Tritone days. This track is unavailable currently but I added a live clip from an old iteration of the High Wire Gallery, another decades old haunt. . . Yapp – Highwire Gallery, Philadelphia 8/24/2012
Bill – Mal Waldron & Jackie Mclean – “Left Alone” (’86) – This is an echo of a performance they did together about 30 years earlier on a Bethlehem Records Mal Waldron release “Left Alone”. Jackie sounds a little like Archie Shepp (on Alto) here. I love them both, and this song too, which is a tribute (& co-written by) to Billie Holiday. I saw Jackie in ’93? ’94? in Boston, he is a huge influence. I used to practice along with the ’59 version of this song.
Travis – Klezmer Conservatory Band – “Rumenye, Rumenye” (Live) – The fastest tune Travis can think of! A young Don Byron here on one of his first recordings. It’s loose and fun, the singer definitely imbues the performance with humor. A lot of claims of the influence that Klezmer had historically. I would describe this as a repertory band, and a lot of our observations feel like characteristics of the times that this music was written: 2 feel/march, band instruments and a spectrum of European musical traditions mixed with the Jewish ones. To me, this group was groundbreaking in introducing Klezmer to the non-Jew, but I don’t think Klezmer was particularly influential, outside of the Jewish community, until it began a resurgence in the 1970’s. It’s interesting to process the cultural traditions in our immediate world compared to a century ago with limited media and communication devices. In 1920 would anyone have heard Klezmer music who wasn’t Jewish? Frank London, one of the founding members, describes the formation of the band
Dan – Denny Zeitlin – “2 Steps Forward, 1 Step Back” – From 1969 and highly experimental in the keyboard department this is from an unusual album. The Name of This Terrain was a demo recording, Zeitlin refused to release it for 20 years after it was re-discovered, but there are great things on here. This track has some nasty keyboard work and I’d say this is a seminal synthesizer recording. Zeitlin has some Funky sounding ideas with minimal but appropriate assistance. The Zappa-like singing was really just meant to be laying the ideas out for another singer to come in and record but that never manifested.
Rich – Zola Jesus – “The Fall” – Woo, epic slow down in the middle! I was trying to figure out what to write and it just changed before I could place my thoughts. Great surprise. Then they merge on the way back in to the original theme. Cool stuff, in some ways it feels a little too Pop-ish for me, but it is also very sophisticated, and ultimately I’m a fan.
Found Sounds 