03/01/25 - Jam_10

"I think it’s very pretentious for people to cite influences. It implies that, therefore, you’re carrying this on or taking this farther. Everybody’s always, “I’m influenced by this, I’m influenced by that.” What do you mean “influenced by”? You love that. You imitate that. But who knows whether what you do has anything to do with it." -- Arto Lindsay

 Listen to the show below! 

Artist	Track	Album	Label	Year	Notes
Twin Cosmos	Giniro no Tsubasa	Double Action	N/A	1982	Electronic-tinged psychedelic folk track from a Japanese twin brother duo. Opens first side of their yin-yang concept album.
Arto Lindsay	Simply Are	Noon Chill	Bar/None	1998	A surprisingly mellow art pop track from a former no wave pioneer. 15 years passed, he's clearly far removed from his abrasive DNA days.
Elton Dean's Ninesense	Nicrotto	Happy Daze	Ogun	1978	A sprawling avant-garde jazz piece with spiritual jazz undertones. Free-flowing brass arrangements. Dean was saxophonist for Soft Machine of the Canterbury scene.
Gianni Marchetti	February	Solstitium	RCA Italiana	1978	Smooth, jazzy library music from a prolific b-movie film composer.
Khan Jamal	Breath of Life	Drum Dance to the Motherland	Dogtown	1973	A spacey live vibraphone piece. Reflects Jamal's work with Sun Ra and the Sounds of Liberation.
Charlie Megira	Tomorrow's Gone	The Abtomatic Misterzinger Mambo Chic	N/A	2001	An early hypnagogic pop (read: lo-fi neo-psychedelia) track. Only about two years late from hypnagogic pop pioneers Ariel Pink and John Maus.
Anne-James Chaton & Andy Moor	Princess In A Rover P6 3500s V8	Transfer	Unsounds	2011	A collaboration between a French spoken word artist and an experimental guitarist. Fragmented electroacoustic storytelling. Track likely references Princess Diana.
Stephen Scott	Rainbows, I	New Music for Bowed Piano	New Albion	1983	A post-minimalist composition blending process-driven abstraction with a listenable and meditative quality. Light, airy, and soft sounds.

12/14/24 - Jam_7

"I want to make this clear: I am a jazz artist. I don’t want to pretend to be something that I’m not." - Grachan Moncur III talking about being the first to make trombone central to jazz, incidentally creating avant-garde music and opening the door for other weird stuff to record for Blue Note

 Listen to the show below! 

Artist	Track	Album	Label	Year	Notes
Grachan Moncur III	Air Raid	Evolution	Blue Note	1964	Ahh yes, the rare trombone bandleader. Grachan is most known for playing on some of Jackie McLean's most acclaimed early sixties records. When this record was released, along with its somewhat sister records a year later titled Some Other Stuff, playing with Jackie was most of what he had done, which makes sense considering Jackie basically picked him up when Grachan was in high school. This recording session features some heavy hitters including Jackie McLean, Lee Morgan, and Bobby Hutcherson, who adds his distinct vibraphone to an already off-kilter post-bop sound. Blue Note was generally not at the forefront of avant-garde stuff, there are a few big ones but not too much there. They put out some Don Cherry, Eric Dolphy, and Cecil Taylor, but were they leading distributors of the free or avant-garde? Not so much. Also, this is one of those somewhat rare intermediate points between post-bop and what had already come but was not yet completely accepted.
Dickie Landry	Hang the Rich	N/A	DFA	1986	Founding member of the Philip Glass ensemble records dance punk in the eighties... a total one-off. A single never released until early this year. I found this completely on accident listening to his usual run of records, all falling into the minimalism category (repetive rhythm, static harmony). Makes this even more interesting as a one-off.
Hans Reichel	Bonobo II	Bonobo	FMP	1976	This is some of the best solo free improv I've ever heard. Though I will say it does feel somewhat structured rather than being completely free. Hans Reichel has collaborated most famously with Fred Frith, a pioneering member of the rock in opposition scene. The structure I'm hearing may or may not be attributed to Reichel's early education in classical violin. He often used either his self-created instruments, such as the daxophone, or a box with his guitars. I think here he is just picking and plucking, but with a lot of overdubbing... it lets him create a great multilayered texture through the record.
New Kingdom	Mexico or Bust	Paradise Don't Come Cheap	Gee Street	1996	An interesting mash of rock and rap primarily through sampling. This duo released two albums, this one being the last. They both met at the thrift store they were working at in NYC. Their records weren't too positively received at the time, but it is pretty unique especially for the time... super fuzzed out and somewhat psychedelic stuff.
John D. Loudermilk	Goin' to Hell On a Sled	The Open Mind of John D. Loudermilk	RCA Victor	1969	The record itself totes the line between pop country and protest-y contemporary folk, this track being more on the latter side. It is a total one-off strange affair... Loudermilk was primarily known if at all for being a songwriter who had many hits under his belt, mostly in the sixties. This record is both a product of its time and a weird detour for someone who had never shown any inkling of writing songs like this.
Eugene McDaniels	Supermarket Blues	Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse	Atlantic	1971	Early sixties pop soul singer turned political progressive soul singer. His biggest hits were "A Hundred Pounds of Clay" and "Tower of Strength" in 1961, neither songs written by him. However, he would go on to be a relatively successful songwriter, including his own material starting in the late 60s. The first notable song of this type, "Compared to What," was recorded by Roberta Flack and hundreds of other important figures in jazz and R&B. His own discography hasn't gotten as much attention, however. Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse is the second of his two politically conscious seventies records. It allegedly caused Spiro Agnew, vice prez to Nixon at the time, to ask Atlantic to withdraw it from sale.
James Blood Ulmer	Are You Glad to be in America?	Odyssey	CBS	1983	James Blood Ulmer is a somewhat towering figure in 80s avant-garde jazz fusion scenes that would draw attention from publications like The Wire or Option while they were both underground-jazz-only mags. James Blood's early career consisted of playing with folks like Art Blakey and Joe Henderson before he stepped into his own bag as a bandleader. I chose his sort-of flagship track to play here... funny 'cause he's not the greatest enunciator in general but especially on this track.
Old and New Dreams	Old and New Dreams	Old and New Dreams	Black Saint	1977	Supergroup of Don Cherry, Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden, and Eddie Blackwell playing somewhat conceptually driven somewhat free jazz. The entire basis for their improv is a set melody for the theme as is typical of any jazz, and then developing specifically only on that melody throughout each song. This track in particular is very atmospheric with the consistent percussion as a backbone and the horns moving in and out.
Yaki Kandru	Mare Mare	Indianische Musik aus Kolumbien	FolkFreak	1982	Native South American traditional music from Columbia. This is actually a duo, though it doesn't sound much like it. They made about two records, this being the intro track from their second.
Billy Hart	Rahsaan Is Beautiful	Enchance	Horizon	1977	Very gentle spiritual jazz, somewhat of a tribute to Rahsaan Roland Kirk. Billy Hart is a drummer most known for playing on much of Herbie Hancock's prime fusion records. This track is from his own debut bandleading record, made some 25 years after starting a recording career. I am suspecting the Roland Kirk connection because of the track title and the way it sounds. They even bring out the koto just for this track alone.
Journeyman	Valves	Mama 6	Ntone	1992	Ambient dub side project from a standout figure in the genre. Paul Frankland, or Woob as he is more commonly known, started producing ambient music in the mid-90s as Woob. I will say electronic music in the 90s/2000s no matter how much of a cult following it appears to have is very well documented, whether through digital or print publications or other forms of documentation. There is a surprising amount of information about this guy. Ambient is especially an interesting genre... from what I have seen and read, very few people actually intend to make ambient music, it just turns out that way. This form of sample-based ambient is very reminiscent of other murky sound collage experimental recordings.
Palabritas Flojas	Isol/Zypce	Sima	Darla	2008	Art pop collaboration between a children's book writer and an industrial electronic composer. Sounds a bit wild, but is actually quite subdued and subtle. Both are from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Well I am being a bit withholding: Isol was the founding lead singer of the indie pop group Entre Rios for about five years, so it's not that strange of a collaboration, but she is definitely more well known for her books. Isol has won awards for her children's books and other such accolades, but Zypce doesn't have quite the same footprint that she does despite being more involved in music.