John Frusciante

Van Der Graaf Generator
Godbluff
Still Life
World Record
The Aerosol Grey Machines
Pawn Hearts
The Least We Can Do Is Wave To Each Other
If To He Who Am The Only One

Peter Hammill
The Silent Corner and The Empty Stage
Chameleon In The Shadow of Night
Fools Mate

The Velvet Underground
3rd Album (self-titled)
Another View

Nico
Desert Shore
The Marble Index
The End

Talking Heads
Fear Of Music
More Songs About Buildings and Food

Funkadelic
1st Album (self-titled)
Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow

Roy Woods Wizzard
Wizzards Brew

The Smiths
Meat is Murder
Louder Than Bombs

Dionne Warwick
Greatest Hits

Tear for Fears
The Hurting
Song From the Big Chair

Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark
1st Album
Dazzle Shops

Fad Gadget
Under the Flag

Durutti Column
LC
Another Setting
The Return of The Durutti Column

Radiohead
Amnesiac

Mars Volta
1st EP

Michael Rother
Stentaler
Flammende Herzen

Ricky Nelson
Ricky Sings a Song for You

Elvis Presley
Sun Sesions

Gary Glitter
Greatest Hits

Hanoi Rocks
Self Destruction Blues

The Human League
Reproduction Travelogue

The Beatles
every record

New Order
Brotherhood
Low Life

Joe Meek
everything

King Crimson
In the Court of the Krimson King

The Sparks
Kimono My House
Propaganda

Sleater-Kinney

1. Judee Sill: "Jesus Was a Cross Maker"
I am a bit obsessed with Sill these days. Her songs are psychological labyrinths, twisting and searching; they are religious and mythical explorations that touch on pain, wonder, and joy. The happy/sad quality is both elating and heartbreaking. Her voice is clear and resonant but her sideways pronunciation of certain words is like an inner demon, restless and dying to get out. The way she sings the word "wind," I feel like I'm being swept away by a force just as strong.

2. John Fahey: "The Yellow Princess"
I never tire of listening to a guitar that sings and quivers paints colors over canvases. This was one of the first songs I ever heard by Fahey and it remains a favorite. It is delicate and glorious and played with such love, like he has tiny hearts in each of his fingers.

3. Thelonious Monk: "Locomotive"
Really the entire Straight, No Chaser album could be on this list. I love the paradoxical nature of Monk's work; harsh, angular, yet also fluid and harmonious. There are moments of where he seems to sneaking up on the notes, like random attacks, but he always adheres to the underlying melody; making for a ride both rough and smooth.

4. Randy Newman: "Louisiana 1927"
A beautiful song about a flood, but really about a disappearance of a community. The chorus of, "They're trying to wash us away," sounds like it's about a government more so than a river. Like so many of Newman's songs, this one stands up over time. Probably because injustice and struggle are perennial and he tackles both in ways that are witty and tuneful.

5. Fiery Furnaces: "Evergreen"
This is pretty straight forward for the structurally adventurous FF. The lyrics are fantastical and vivid, meshing the American and English vernacular. To me, all of their songs sound like stories in the folk tradition, but filtered through rock opera bravado and prog-rock inventiveness. From the first note, I love the melody on this one.

6. Richard and Linda Thompson: "Hokey Pokey"
Is this about drugs, sex, or ice cream? It's a children's song for adults. The characters in this song circle and prance around a mysterious concoction and it's dizzying just to hear about it.

7. The Grateful Dead: "Box of Rain"
Will I get disqualified for putting the Dead on here? This is such a great song. I have American Beauty on vinyl and it's a song that sounds good with a bit of crackle in it. Phil Lesh's voice is honey-filled and yearning and I like to imagine it cutting through a whole lot of grit.

8. Jimi Hendrix: "Bold As Love"
He encompasses everything that is brave about music, that is soulful, that stretches the imagination. He knew that destruction was part of the process in a song, that tearing it down was as triumphant as building it. This one has solos that act as both chainsaws and swords.

9. Small Faces: "Lazy Sunday"
This snotty song sounds almost Dickensian, something out of Hard Times maybe. A tract on the value of frivolity in the face of drudgery. It is the forbearer to those quotidian explorations by Blur and a freakier companion to the everyday mediations of the brilliant Ray Davies.

10. Mahalia Jackson: "I'm Gonna Live the Life I Sing About in My Song"
A great Sunday tune, delivered like a thunder storm. It's danceable, if one were feeling bold enough to let go, feel the spirit, and to reach for the places Jackson can get to in single phrase.

Andrew Bird

1. Lester Young: The Jazz Giants of 56 [Verve]
This whole album is mostly ballads. I almost don't think of it as jazz. Lester's language and phrasing is so beautiful and unique. It seems like he missed the whole BeBop scene and just kept making his swing more fluid. Sophisticated but totally accessible. Lay on the living room floor and listen at night, vinyl a must.

2. Ravel: String Quartet
I played this when I was 18. Most classical music is pretty lacking in rhythmic drive or groove. This early 20th century piece is pretty rocking. I'm sure Radiohead is no stranger to Ravel. Lots of pizzicato polyrhythms.

3. Ligeti: "Atmospheres"
I haven't heard this for a while but when I do it makes everything slow down. It makes me feel like I'm at the center of slow motion atomic reaction in reverse or the death of a red dwarf. Right.

4. Duke Ellington: "Lament for Javanette"
One of those exotic jungle tunes from the late 1930s. A really beautiful melody played by Johnny Hodges with wierd dark timber of malletts on the toms. Sounds like that couldn't be replicated today.

5. Charlie Patton: "Elder Green"
Lyrically mysterious ballad. Mostly unintelligable account of a preacher going down to New Orleans with his long coat on for some 'sociation or revival. I like Charlie Patton because of the wierdness and most of his tunes are melodic gospel bases instead of 12-bar blues. strange rhythms and phrasing that have little to do with western music.

6. Geechie Willie and Elvie Thomas: "Last Kind Word"
Blues. Another country blues tune that isn't technically a blues. Mournful, androgynous voice singing a strange minor key tune.

7. Ketty Lester: "Love Letters"
You may know this from the shootout scene at the end of Blue Velvet. This song is perfect.

8. Son House: "Grinnin' in Your Face"
This is an Alan Lomax recording of an a cappella tune. Great booming voice of Son House with some good advice saying: Don't pay attention to people who get in your face and try to schmoose you, they're the ones who talk shit about you when you leave the room. Even family are suspect.

9. Ray Charles: "What'd I Say (Parts 1 and 2)"
Ray Charles in 8-track stereo. I know this isn't a revelation at this point, but who cares. The sound of the wurlitzer alone-- this is how I like my rock'n roll: groovey.

10. Oscar Sulley and the Uhuru Dance Band: "Bukom Mashie", track 2 from Ghana Soundz, Vol. 1 (Soundway)
This two-volume compilation from Miles Cleret is so so good. African funk from the 70s, kind of like Fela Kuti but more concise and creative arrangements. This tune has has the most brilliant and simple bass line, while this crazy horn chart zig-zags over the top. Impossibly danceable.

The National

Tom Waits: "Ruby's Arms"
I rewound this song over and over driving from Cleveland home to Cincinnati from my college girlfriend's wedding. Her parents went out of their way to be welcoming. Her brother called me "Mark," but was very cool about it. --Matt

The Wedding Present: "Dalliance"
I was 20 driving my 11-year-old brother around our neighborhood while playing this song. I was trying to explain how the wall of screaming guitars was the sound of not being able to say what you really wanted to. It's as close as you get, I explained. I'm pretty sure he thought I was cool for doing that. --Matt

Psychedelic Furs: "Pretty In Pink"
When I was 13, I worked at a driving range at a country club in Cincinnati. (I think Bryce and Aaron were members, I didn't know them yet.) One of my responsibilities was to collect the balls in one of those souped-up, caged-in golf carts with the baskets, a golf cart with a chicken coop over it. I would usually hear cheers from the teens when I pulled out into the field, a moving target. I'd put on my walkman and do everything I could not to flinch as I was pelted repeatedly. This song still makes me bite my lip. --Matt

Spoon: "Waiting For the Kid to Come Out"
Driving a rented moving van from Cincinnati to New York in the middle of the night, heavily caffeinated. The most important part of this song goes "whack, whack, whackwhackwhackwhack." It's about halfway through and I think its two shoes being smacked together. It's one of most satisfying moments I can think of in any song. It feels incredible to slap the steering wheel to this beat. --Matt

Lick the Tins: "Can't Help Falling in Love" (from the Some Kind of Wonderful soundtrack)
I was driving back to a rented country cottage about three hours outside Stockholm with two Swedish women after a day of skinny-dipping in a lake. We actually pulled off the road to pick wild strawberries. This happens all the time. I don't remember if we had the soundtrack in the car or the song just came on the radio. It's an Elvis cover that sounds like it's sung by a 10-year-old Irish girl. --Matt

Sade: "Lovers Rock"
We were parked in our van outside an Austrian nightclub passing around bottles of white wine before a show. It was about 25 days into the tour. This song was on repeat. Nobody did any talkin'. --Matt

America: "A Horse with No Name"
I was six years old in the back of my mom's 1980 red-and-black Buick station wagon with Bryce on the way to the Baseball Card Corner to pick out cards for our birthday. We chose three cards for about $50-- a 1963 Mickey Mantle, 1961 Whitey Ford, and a 1959 Duke Snider.

We really wanted a 1961 Roger Maris that had just come in-- and the guy in the store says it's the year he broke Babe Ruth's single-season record with 61 homers and that is why it costs $28, but mom said that was more than we were allowed. We didn't press her because she had that scary tone of voice and had just worked all day at the veterans hospital in the psych unit. On the way home she put in a Chuck Mangione tape that we hated. So we asked her to put on the horse song again. --Aaron

Grateful Dead: "Box of Rain"
I was 17 driving 80 mph down a foggy road in suburban Cincinnati after getting dumped for the first time by my 15-year-old girlfriend who said she felt trapped but I knew she just wanted a bigger, older football player. I couldn't believe this was Phil Lesh singing and wouldn't it be better just to disappear so I didn't have to see her tomorrow when a horse-like, 12-point buck came in front of the car and I screeched to a halt and it stood there looking at me in the headlights with the mist and I felt God was near and that maybe I should try to figure out the chords to this song again. --Aaron

JJ Cale: "Travelin' Light"
The perfect song for driving in summer on a European highway in order get back at your French driver who only plays Noir Desire. ---Aaron

The Beatles: "Eleanor Rigby"
The perfect song to fill you with self-doubt and loathing after you have just listened giddily to one of your own songs driving down the Prospect Expressway. --Aaron

Tom Waits (là, c'est plutôt ses albums préférés) :

1 In The Wee Small Hours by Frank Sinatra (Capitol) 1955

Actually, the very first 'concept' album. The idea being you put this record on after dinner and by the last song you are exactly where you want to be. Sinatra said that he's certain most baby boomers were conceived with this as the soundtrack.

2 Solo Monk by Thelonious Monk (Columbia) 1964

Monk said 'There is no wrong note, it has to do with how you resolve it'. He almost sounded like a kid taking piano lessons. I could relate to that when I first started playing the piano, because he was decomposing the music while he was playing it. It was like demystifying the sound, because there is a certain veneer to jazz and to any music, after a while it gets traffic rules, and the music takes a backseat to the rules. It's like aerial photography, telling you that this is how we do it. That happens in folk music too. Try playing with a bluegrass group and introducing new ideas. Forget about it. They look at you like you're a communist. On Solo Monk, he appears to be composing as he plays, extending intervals, voicing chords with impossible clusters of notes. 'I Should Care' kills me, a communion wine with a twist. Stride, church, jump rope, Bartok, melodies scratched into the plaster with a knife. A bold iconoclast. Solo Monk lets you not only see these melodies without clothes, but without skin. This is astronaut music from Bedlam.

3 Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefheart (Straight) 1969

The roughest diamond in the mine, his musical inventions are made of bone and mud. Enter the strange matrix of his mind and lose yours. This is indispensable for the serious listener. An expedition into the centre of the earth, this is the high jump record that'll never be beat, it's a merlot reduction sauce. He takes da bait. Dante doing the buck and wing at a Skip James suku jump. Drink once and thirst no more.

4 Exile On Main St. by Rolling Stones (Rolling Stones Records) 1972

'I Just Want To See His Face' - that song had a big impact on me, particularly learning how to sing in that high falsetto, the way Jagger does. When he sings like a girl, I go crazy. I said, 'I've got to learn how to do that.' I couldn't really do it until I stopped smoking. That's when it started getting easier to do. [Waits's own] 'Shore Leave' has that, 'All Stripped Down', 'Temptation'. Nobody does it like Mick Jagger; nobody does it like Prince. But this is just a tree of life. This record is the watering hole. Keith Richards plays his ass off. This has the Checkerboard Lounge all over it.

5 The Sinking of the Titanic by Gavin Bryars (Point Music) 1975

This is difficult to find, have you heard this? It's a musical impression of the sinking of the Titanic. You hear a small chamber orchestra playing in the background, and then slowly it starts to go under water, while they play. It also has 'Jesus Blood' on it. I did a version of that with Gavin Bryars. I first heard it on my wife's birthday, at about two in the morning in the kitchen, and I taped it. For a long time I just had a little crummy cassette of this song, didn't know where it came from, it was on one of those Pacifica radio stations where you can play anything you want. This is really an interesting evening's music.

6 The Basement Tapes by Bob Dylan (Columbia) 1975

With Dylan, so much has been said about him, it's difficult so say anything about him that hasn't already been said, and say it better. Suffice it to say Dylan is a planet to be explored. For a songwriter, Dylan is as essential as a hammer and nails and a saw are to a carpenter. I like my music with the rinds and the seeds and pulp left in - so the bootlegs I obtained in the Sixties and Seventies, where the noise and grit of the tapes became inseparable from the music, are essential to me. His journey as a songwriter is the stuff of myth, because he lives within the ether of the songs. Hail, hail The Basement Tapes. I heard most of these songs on bootlegs first. There is a joy and an abandon to this record; it's also a history lesson.

7 Lounge Lizards by Lounge Lizards (EG) 1980

They used to accuse John Lurie of doing fake jazz - a lot of posture, a lot of volume. When I first heard it, it was so loud, I wanted to go outside and listen through the door, and it was jazz. And that was an unusual thing, in New York, to go to a club and hear jazz that loud, at the same volume people were listening to punk rock. Get the first record, The Lounge Lizards. You know, John's one of those people, if you walk into a field with him, he'll pick up an old pipe and start to play it, and get a really good sound out of it. He's very musical, works with the best musicians, but never go fishing with him. He's a great arranger and composer with an odd sense of humour.

8 Rum Sodomy and the Lash by The Pogues (Stiff) 1985

Sometimes when things are real flat, you want to hear something flat, other times you just want to project onto it, something more like.... you might want to hear the Pogues. Because they love the West. They love all those old movies. The thing about Ireland, the idea that you can get into a car and point it towards California and drive it for the next five days is like Euphoria, because in Ireland you just keep going around in circles, those tiny little roads. 'Dirty Old Town', 'The Old Main Drag'. Shane has the gift. I believe him. He knows how to tell a story. They are a roaring, stumbling band. These are the dead end kids for real. Shane's voice conveys so much. They play like soldiers on leave. The songs are epic. It's whimsical and blasphemous, seasick and sacrilegious, wear it out and then get another one.

9 I'm Your Man by Leonard Cohen (Columbia) 1988

Euro, klezmer, chansons, apocalyptic, revelations, with that mellifluous voice. A shipwrecked Aznovar, washed up on shore. Important songs, meditative, authoritative, and Leonard is a poet, an Extra Large one.

10 The Specialty Sessions by Little Richard (Specialty Records) 1989

The steam and chug of 'Lucille' alone pointed a finger that showed the way. The equipment wasn't meant to be treated this way. The needle is still in the red.

11 Startime by James Brown (Polydor) 1991

I first saw James Brown in 1962 at an outdoor theatre in San Diego and it was indescribable... it was like putting a finger in a light socket. He did the whole thing with the cape. He did 'Please Please Please'. It was such a spectacle. It had all the pageantry of the Catholic Church. It was really like seeing mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral on Christmas and you couldn't ignore the impact of it in your life. You'd been changed, your life is changed now. And everybody wanted to step down, step forward, take communion, take sacrament, they wanted to get close to the stage and be anointed with his sweat, his cold sweat.

12 Bohemian-Moravian Bands by Texas-Czech (Folk Lyric) 1993

I love these Czech-Bavarian bands that landed in Texas of all places. The seminal river for mariachi came from that migration to that part of the United States, bringing the accordion over, just like the drum and fife music of post slavery, they picked up the revolutionary war instruments and played blues on them. This music is both sour and bitter, and picante, and floating above itself like steam over the kettle. There's a piece called the 'Circling Pigeons Waltz', it's the most beautiful thing - kind of sour, like a wheel about to go off the road all the time. It's the most lilting little waltz. It's accordion, soprano sax, clarinet, bass, banjo and percussion.

13 The Yellow Shark by Frank Zappa (Barking Pumpkin) 1993

It is his last major work. The ensemble is awe-inspiring. It is a rich pageant of texture in colour. It's the clarity of his perfect madness, and mastery. Frank governs with Elmore James on his left and Stravinsky on his right. Frank reigns and rules with the strangest tools.

14 Passion for Opera Aria (EMI Classics) 1994

I heard 'Nessun Dorma' in the kitchen at Coppola's with Raul Julia one night, and it changed my life, that particular Aria. I had never heard it. He asked me if I had ever heard it, and I said no, and he was like, as if I said I've never had spaghetti and meatballs - 'Oh My God, Oh My God!' - and he grabbed me and he brought me into the jukebox (there was a jukebox in the kitchen) and he put that on and he just kind of left me there. It was like giving a cigar to a five-year old. I turned blue, and I cried.

15 Rant in E Minor by Bill Hicks (Rykodisc) 1997

Bill Hicks, blowtorch, excavator, truthsayer and brain specialist, like a reverend waving a gun around. Pay attention to Rant in E Minor, it is a major work, as important as Lenny Bruce's. He will correct your vision. His life was cut short by cancer, though he did leave his tools here. Others will drive on the road he built. Long may his records rant even though he can't.

16 Prison Songs: Murderous Home Alan Lomax Collection (Rounder Select) 1997

Without spirituals and the Baptist Church and the whole African-American experience in this country, I don't know what we would consider music, I don't know what we'd all be drinking from. It's in the water. The impact the whole black experience continues to have on all musicians is immeasurable. Lomax recorded everything, from the sounds of the junkyard to the sound of a cash register in the market... disappearing machinery that we would no longer be hearing. You know, one thing that doesn't change is the sound of kids getting out of school. Record that in 1921, record that now, it's the same sound. The good thing about these is that they're so raw, they're recorded so raw, that it's just like listening to a landscape. It's like listening to a big open field. You hear other things in the background. You hear people talking while they are singing. It's the hair in the gate.

17 Cubanos Postizos by Marc Ribot (Atlantic) 1998

This Atlantic recording shows off one of many of Ribot's incarnations as a prosthetic Cuban. They are hot and Marc dazzles us with his bottomless soul. Shaking and burning like a native.

18 Houndog by Houndog (Sony) 1999

Houndog, the David Hidalgo [Los Lobos] record he did with Mike Halby [Canned Heat]. Now that's a good record to listen to when you drive through Texas. I can't get enough of that. Anything by Latin Playboys, anything by Los Lobos. They are like a fountain. The Colossal Head album killed me. Those guys are so wild, and they've gotten so cubist. They've become like Picasso. They've gone from being purely ethnic and classical, to this strange, indescribable item that they are now. They're worthwhile to listen to under any circumstances. But the sound he got on Houndog, on the electric violin ... the whole record is a dusty road. Dark and burnished and mostly unfurnished. Superb texture and reverb. Lo fi and its highest level. Songs of depth and atmosphere. It ain't nothin' but a...

19 Purple Onion by Les Claypool (Prawn Song) 2002

Les Claypool's sharp and imaginative, contemporary ironic humour and lightning musicianship makes me think of Frank Zappa. 'Dee's Diner' is like a great song your kid makes up in the car on the way to the drive-in. Songs for big kids.

20 The Delivery Man by Elvis Costello (Mercury) 2004

Scalding hot bedlam, monkey to man needle time. I'd hate to be balled out by him, I'd quit first. Grooves wide enough to put your foot in and the bass player is a gorilla of groove. Pete Thomas, still one of the best rock drummers alive. Diatribes and rants with steam and funk. It has locomotion and heat. Steam heat, that is.

Top ten from the free jazz underground

by Thurston Moore. Published in Grand Royal Magazine #2


No matter how you listen to it JAZZ is ostensibly about FREEDOM.

FREEDOM and the MYSTERY surrounding it.

And, like MUSIC, it is an ABSTRACT.

It's SHAPES, FORMS (SOUNDS!) are DISTINCT and PERSONAL and SENSITIVE to each player's DESIRE.

And the DESIRE is INFINITE.

FREEDOM is not just another word for nothing left to lose.

We know this from MESSAGES beamed from the space-lantern of his cosmic highness SUN RA! The MESSAGE was clear:

"NOTHING IS."


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To freely improvise a solo within a structural context may have begun with a young Louis Armstrong in the early 20's. As a boy he grew up in New Orleans hearing and seeing musicians both black and white cultivating a celebratory and spiritual vibe.
They were flowers in the dustbin.
Slaveships stole the horns and drums. The captured African would not be allowed to communicate as they had.
Upon THE FREEDOM ACT the freed slave sought and fought for the EXPRESSION oppressed.
And THE FREEDOM PRINCIPLE developed.
Jelly Roll Morton, like Louis Armstrong began to record compositions of PURE BLACK AWARENESS. Both these men had been witness, early in the century, to BUDDY BOLDEN - a man who supposedly blew the cornet so masterfully (and so loud!) that his legend was rampant. He supposedly recorded upon a cylinder (pre-vinyl format) and it has yet to be found!!
Ideas of improvisation, live and on recordings, became increasingly more sophisticated and political throughout the 40's, 50's and 60's. From Lester Youngs' twisting reedy tones to Charlie Parkers spurious key changes and (along with Miles Davis, Max Roach, et al) hyper-fast note-fly.
John Coltrane was the man. With the introduction of the long-playing record, people like Trane could experiment and extend their playing for posterity. The vinyl communicated around the world. Trane's SOUND was BEAUTIFUL and COMPLEX and inspired all who received it. Trane himself was duly inspired by some of the most far-out musicians of the then burgeoning jazz avant-garde. Chief amongst them was Sun Ra & his Arkestra.
Factions of experimentation abounded throughout the 50's and 60's. Trane, Ra, Ornette Coleman and his white plastic alto playing notes and tones at once beautiful and harsh. Thelonius Monk, Lennie Tristano, Charles Mingus and Eric Dolphy composing and playing music inspired by whole worlds of experience (blues, eastern and western classical, religion, etc.)
Music like no one had yet imagined would emanate from the wild hearts of those such as Albert Ayler and Cecil Taylor.
These are all names of artists commonly associated with the avant-garde jazz underground of the 20th century. They all recorded fairly prolifically throughout their lifetimes (and some, like Cecil Taylor, continue). But there were so many more musicians performing and recording so-called "new" music at the time. It happened mostly in the late 60's/early 70's with the concept of artist-run collectives coming into fruition.
To play jazz totally FREE and ORGANIC was a gesture whose time had come in the 60's. It was SOCIAL and POLITICAL for reasons involving relationship, race, fury, rage, peace, war, love and FREEDOM.
We search for artifacts from this underground constantly. They were arcane and obscure at the time and are even more so today. No record labels are reissuing this stuff (some are e.g.: Evidence Records reissuing all of Sun Ra's independent Saturn label releases).
Here's a list of ten (out of hundreds of) LP's recorded in total grassroots fashion from the FREE-JAZZ underground. These are fairly impossible to locate and if you want to know what FREE-JAZZ may sound like you can get CD's of certain crucial classics where this music was allowed to exist: John Coltrane-Interstellar Space (Impulse/MCA), Ornette Coleman-Beauty Is A Rare Thing (Atlantic/Rhino), The Art Ensemble - 1967/68 (Nessa, PO Box 394, Whitehall, MI 49461), Sun Ra-various titles (Evidence)


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TOP TEN FREE JAZZ UNDERGROUND

1. DAVE BURRELL - Echo (BYG 529.320/Actuel Volume 20)..

In the fall of 1969 Free Jazz was reaching a kind of nadir/nexus. Within the industry it was controversial. Classic traditionalists (beboppers included) were outraged by men in dashikis and sandals jumping on stage and just BLOWING their guts out creating screaming torrents of action. Most musicians involved with this crying anarchy could get no bookings beyond the New York loft set. The French lovers of the avant-garde embraced this African-American scene wholly. This recording is one of many in a series of LP's with consistent design. BYG released classic Free Jazz documents by Archie Shepp (at his wildest), Clifford Thornton, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Grachan Moncur III, Sunny Murray, Alan Silva, Arthur Jones, Dewey Redman and many others. A lot of these cats are present on this recording where from the first groove it sounds like an acoustic tidal wave exploding into shards of dynamite. If you can locate Alan Silva's "Lunar Surface" LP (BYG 529.312/Actuel Vol. 12) you'll find a world even that much more OUT.

2. MILFORD GRAVES & DON PULLEN - Nommo (S.R.P. LP-290)

Milford may be one of the most important players in the Free Jazz underground. He enforces the sense of community as a primary exponent of his freely improvised music. His drumkit is home-made and he rarely performs outside of his neighborhood. When he does perform he plays his kit like no other. Wild, slapping, bashing, tribal freak-outs interplexed with silence, serenity and enlightened meditation. This LP was manufactured by the artists in 1967 and is recorded live at Yale University. The interplay between Milford and Don (piano) is remarkable and very free. There's a second volume which also is as rare as hen's teeth.

3. ARTHUR DOYLE Plus 4 - Alabama Feeling (AK-BA AK-1030)

Arthur is a strange cat. Not too many people know where he's from (Alabama is a good guess). He resided in New York City in the 70's and showed up in loftspaces spitting out incredible post-Aylerisms. Mystic music which took on the air of chasing ghosts and spirits through halls of mirrors (!). He hooked up with noise/action guitarist Rudolph Grey who was making the current No-Wave scene and with Beaver Harris (drums) they played gigs in front of unsuspecting art creeps apparently not "hip" enough to dig, let alone document, the history blasting their brains. Arthur did release this lo-fi masterpiece and it's a spiraling cry of freedom and fury. AKBA Records released a number of classic NYC loft-jazz sessions, most notably those of label boss Charles Tyler, a screaming tenor player who also blew with Rudolph in the late 70's/early 80's. Arthur continues to play/teach etc. in Binghamton, N.Y. and recently released in 1993 "More Alabama Feeling" on yours truly's Ecstatic Peace label (available from Forced Exposure/POB 9102/Waltham, MA 02254)

4. SONNY MURRAY - Sonny's Time Now (Jihad 663)

Sonny was the drummer considered to be the first to realize and recognize and perform, on drums, pure FREE jazz. He played behind and along with Ayler early on and Cecil Taylor. He constructed groups which always flew and raged with spiritual abandon. He took time as an abstract and turned it into free motion. This recording is super-lo-fi and is awesome. On it play Ayler(tenor) and Don Cherry (trumpet) as well as Leroi Jones (now known as Amiri Baraka) reading a killer poem called "Black Art". This music is very Ayler but more fractured and odd. Like a lot of these records there is only a front cover with the back of the jacket blank. Whether this was done for economic or artistic reasons is unclear. Jihad was a concern of Leroi Jones and anything released on this label is utterly obscure. The only other title I've seen is one just called "BLACK AND BEAUTIFUL" from the mid-60's which is Leroi and friends sitting on the stoops of Harlem chanting, beating drums and celebrating Leroi's "poems" ("The white man/at best/is..corny!") There was an ad for Jihad in an old issue of Jazz & Pop magazine which announced a Don Ayler (Albert's amazing trumpet-playing bro) LP but I've yet to meet anyone who's actually seen this. "Sonny's Time Now" was reissued a few years ago in Japan (DIW-25002) on CD and LP (with an enclosed 7" of two extra scratchy tracks!) but even that is near impossible to locate. Recorded in 1965.

5. THE RIC COLBECK QUARTET - The Sun Is Coming Up (Fontana 6383 001)

Issued in the UK only in 1970. Ric was an interesting white cat who came to the U.S. to blow some free e-motion with NYC loft dwellers. He's most well known for his amazing playing on the great Noah Howard's first ESP-Disk release (ESP 1031). The whole 1000 series of ESP is critical & crucial to anybody wanting to explore this era of Free Jazz featuring recordings by Ayler, Ornette, Sonny Simmons, Sun Ra, Henry Grimes, Steve Lacy, Sunny Murray, Marzette Watts, Patty Waters, et al. I'm not including any of these in this list as they're all available on CD now (from Forced Exposure, address above). The picture of Ric on the Noah Howard LP shows a man with race-car shades and a "cool" haircut playing his horn while a ciggie burns nonchalantly from his relaxed grip. A very hip dude. And very FREE. His only solo recording is this Fontana LP which he recorded while cruising through Europe. He connected with South African drummer Selwyn Lissack (whatever happened to...) and the UK's famous avant-altoist Mike Osborne and bassist J.F. 'Jenny' Clark (student of 20th century compositionists Lucian Berio and Karlheinz Stockhausen) to create this exceptional and complex masterpiece.

(suite)

6. JOHN TCHICAI AND CADENTIA NOVA DANICA - Afrodisiaca (MPS CRM711)

Tchicai is a 6'6" Danish/Congolese tenor sax player who, in the early 60's, started blowing minds all across the Netherlands with his radical "music for the future". Archie Shepp encouraged him to come to NYC and join like-minded souls of avant-guardia. Tchicai came over and kicked everybodys ass. Leroi Jones shouted his name and talent loudly as Tchicai hooked up with Shepp and Don Cherry for the New York Contemporary Five and later an even heavier ensemble with Milford Graves and Roswell Rudd called the New York Art Quartet. The NYAQ recorded one of the most crucial sessions for ESP-Disk (esp1004) which had Leroi reciting his infamous BLACK DADA NIHILISMUS (available on CD from Forced Exposure). AFRODISIACA was released in Germany (and in other re-release configurations...supposedly) and is Tchicai gathered with 25 other local-Euro musicians playing a hurricane of a piece by trumpet/composer Hugh Steinmetz. This music gets way way out and has the real ability to take you "there". The echo effect on some of this shit is quite ill in a very analog way. And the way the shit gets that dirty-needled distortion at the end of side one (all 25 cats GOING AT IT!) is beautiful, baby, BEAUTIFUL!!

7. RASHIED ALI and FRANK LOWE - Duo Exchange (Survival SR101)

Frank Lowe has been studying and playing a consistently developing tenor sax style for a few decades now. At present he's been swinging through a Lester Young trip which can be heard majestically on his Ecstatic Peace recording (E#19..from Forced Exp.) In the early 70's, however, he was a firebrande who snarled and blew hot lava skronk from loft to loft. He played with Alice Coltrane on some of her more out sessions. Rashied Ali was the free-yet-disciplined drummer whom Coltrane enlisted to play alongside Elvin Jones and Pharaoh Sanders (and Alice) in his last mind-bending, space-maniacal recordings (check out surely the Coltrane/Ali duet CD Interstellar Space). Elvin quit the group cuz Rashied was too hardcore. Those were the fuckin' days. And Rashied had his own club downtown NYC called Ali's Alley! Duo Exchange is Rashied and Frank completely going at it and just burning notes and chords where ever they can find 'em. Totally sick. Survival was Rashied's record label which had cool b&w matte sleeves and some crucial releases mostly with his quartet/quintet and a duo session with violinist LeRoy Jenkins.

8. THE PETER BROTZMANN SEXTET/QUARTET - Nipples (Calig - CAL30604)

The influence of Free Jazz-era Coltrane, Ayler, Esp-disk, Shepp, etc. on hard drinking, knuckle-biting European white cats is formidable. These guys didn't care so much about plaing "jazz" as just totally ripping their guts out with high-energy, brain-plowing NOISE. Brotzmann (sax, German), Evan Parker (sax, UK), Derek Bailey (guitar, UK), and Han Bennink (drums, Dutch) are a few of the spearheaders of this Free-Euro scene and are caught on this insanely rare early document. The b&w cover has a fold-out accordion post card set of personal images of the musicians glued and paperclipped to its front. Brotzmann went on to help further the critical documentation of the Euro-Free-Jazz scene with FMP (Free Music Productions) Records which still exists to this day. There are over a 100 releases on this label of pure Euro-improv and they all offer remarkable moments. Derek Bailey went on to create his own categorically similar Incus Records in the UK which is also still extant. As is the Han Bennink associated I.C.P. (Instant Composers Pool) Records. The most mind-blasting of these recordings may be MACHINE GUN (FMP 24 CD available from NorthCountry Distr./Cadence Bldg./Redwood, NY 13679) where Brotzmann leads an octet through a smashing clanging wonderland of noise. Improvisation and classic western musics are seriously tended to by a large Euro community and it's all pretty fascinating. Check out the works of Alexander von Schlippenbach, Barry Guy & The London Jazz Composers Orchestra, Misha Mengleberg, Peter Kowald, Andre Jaume, Andrea Centazzo, Lol Coxhill and just about anybody who plays with them.

9. THE MARZETTE WATTS ENSEMBLE - (Savoy MG-12193)

Marzette was a serious black art cat who resided in downtown NYC when Free Jazz as a NEW cultural revolution was in full gear. He painted and composed wonderful music where some of the coolest locals could flow their flavor. One of the heaviest ESP-disk recordings is Marzette's MARZETTE AND COMPANY (On CD from Forced Exposure) which has the incredible talents of saxist Byard Lancaster (who released an early indie b&w Free Jazz classic out of Philly called LIVE AT MCALLISTER COLLEGE - find it and send it to me..) and guitarist Sonny Sharrock (check his wild influence on Pharaoh Sanders' TAUHID Impulse CD and his own obscure noise guitar masterpiece BLACK WOMAN on Vortex) and cornetist Clifford Thornton (academic NEW MUSIC/Free Jazz "teacher" who released a few crucial sides such as COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK on Third World and THE PANTHER AND THE LASH on America) and the amazing free vocalist Patty Waters (who recorded two infamous hair-raising platters on ESP-Disc). This recording on Savoy was one of a series produced by Bill Dixon, an early associate of Archie Shepp's, who was an incredible composer in his own right. I've heard tapes of Dixon leading Free-Jazz orchestras into sonic symphonic heavens. Very hardcore.

This recording I list because of all its obvious loaded references but it's also quite happening and anything with Marzette, Dixon (especially INTENTS AND PURPOSES on RCA Victor), Byard (careful, there's some clinkers) and Clifford is extremely worthwhile.

10. MARION BROWN - In Sommerhausen (Calig 30 605)
BLACK ARTISTS GROUP - In Paris, Aries 1973 (BAG 324 000)
FRANK WRIGHT QUARTET - Uhuru Na Umoja (America 30 AM 6104)
DR. UMEZU-SEIKATSU KOJYO IINKAI - (SKI NO. 1)
CECIL TAYLOR - Indent, part 2 (Unit Core 30555)

Five way tie for last? Well, seeing as there's no "beginning" or "end" to this shit I have to list as many items as possible just to reiterate the fact that there was (indeed) a ton o' groovy artifactual evidence to support the reality of the existence of FREE MUSIC. Dig? There's used record stores all over the country (the world!) and they all have the potential to be hiding some of these curios amongst the bins and most peeps just ain't sure of their worth and sometimes you can find 'em really cheap. It's definitely a marketplace of the rarefied so when peeps are "hip" to it expect this shit to be way pricey.

Marion Brown was/is an alto player who made an incredible LP with Tony Oxley and Maarten Altena called "Porto Novo" that just twists and burns start to finish. Marion could really get on OUT as well as just play straight up. Shepp dug him and got him to do some great LP's on Impulse. He had a septet at one point that was especially remarkable featuring Beaver Harris (drums), Dave Burrell (piano), Grachan Moncur III (bone), and Alan Shorter (trumpet). Alan being Wayne Shorter's (Miles Davis sideman/classicist) brother. Where Wayne was fairly contemporary (though eclectic as a muh'fuck) Alan was strictly ill and has two obscuro LP's worth hunting down: "Orgasm" (Verve V6 8768) and "Tes Estat" (America AM 6118). "In Sommerhausen" is Marion in late 60's exploratory fashion and is quite freaky with the vocal whoops of Jeanne Lee. There's another LP from this period called "Gesprachsfetzen" (Calig CAL 30601) which really lays down the scorch.

The Black Artists Group was an unit not unlike that of The Art Ensemble of Chicago. Except they only recorded this one document and it only came out in France on a label named after the group. This is squeaky, spindly stuff and very OPEN and a good indication of what was happening in the early 70's with members Oliver Lake (later of the infamous World Saxophone Quartet) and Joseph Bowie (Art Ensemble's Lester Bowie's bro, later to start Defunkt).

Tenor saxist Frank Wright may be (previous to Charles Gayle's current reign) the heir apparent to both Trane and Ayler. Unfortunately he had a heart attack a few years back while rockin' the bandstand. All his recordings are more than worthwhile especially his BYG outing "One For John" (529.336/Actuel Vol. 36), his two ESP sessions (on CD from Forced Exposure) and his Center-of-the-World series of trio recordings with Alan Silva (bass) and Muhammed Ali (drums - Rashied's brother, not the pugilist) on the French label Sun. This LP "Uhuru.." is nothing short of killer with the great Noah Howard (alto), Bobby Few (pianist of Steve Lacy fame) and Art Taylor (heavy old-school drummer in free mode) going OUT and AT IT in stunning reverie.

FREE JAZZ of course made a strong impression on the more existential-sensitive populace of Japan. Some real masters came out of the Japanese scene and were influential to some of the more renowned noise artists of today (Boredoms, Haino Keiji). One such Jap-cat is alt-saxist Dr. Umezu who has mixed it up with NYC loft-dwellers on more than one occasion. On this completely obscure, underground release he unleashed some pretty free shit with the likes of William Parker (bass), Ahmed Abdullah (trumpet), and Rashid Shinan (drums). Parker is possibly one of the most important FREE musicians working in NYC. He's got his own constant writing/performing schedule as well as gigs with anyone from Cecil Taylor to Charles Gayle. He recorded one solo LP in the 70's called "Through Acceptance of the Mystery Peace" (Centering Records 1001) which is, as you might've guessed, "good".

I suppose we should wind things up with the king of FREE MUSIC then and now: Cecil Taylor. Cecil started experimenting with sound, new concepts of "swing", open rhythms and room dynamics very early on. He furthered his adventure with music-conservatory studies and applied a master's technique to his fleeting, furious, highly-sensitive pianistic ACTIONS. Today he's almost shaman-like in his mystic noise transploits. He hates record business weasels after years of scorn and neglect (club owners had been know to beat him up after gigs claiming he damaged their pianos) and records now for the aforementioned artist's label FMP. In the early 70's he had his own label called Unit Core and released two crucial LP's: the one listed above and one titled "Spring of Two Blue J's" (Unit Core 30551). This is when his group included two critical figures on the FREE scene. Alt-saxist Jimmy Lyons (now deceased) was a consistent improviser and a perfect player alongside Cecil as was veteran drummer Andrew Cyrille who recorded his own solo (and duos with the likes of Milford Graves and Peter Brotzmann) LP's on various small labels (BYG, FMP, Ictus).

So..that's it...and that's not it. If you're at all intrigued by this personal primer do yourself a favor and seek some of this shit out and free yr fucking mind and yr ass will surely scream and SHOUT.

later...............thurston

Celle de Rubin Steiner

http://www.jazzmagazine.com/Musique/oreille/oreille08.htm

John Cale choses his Desert Island Discs on BBC 4 - Sunday Feb 22 11:15-12:00 (repeated Friday Feb 27 9:00-9:45):

She Belongs To Me
Performer Bob Dylan
Composer Bob Dylan

Some Kinda Love
Performer Velvet Underground
Composer Lou Reed

In My Room
Performer Beach Boys
Composer Brian Wilson; G. Usher

She Said, She Said
Performer Beatles
Composer John Lennon; Paul McCartney

Switching Off
Performer Elbow
Composer Guy Garvey

Alexandra Leaving
Performer Leonard Cohen
Composer Leonard Cohen

Song Of Athene
Performer Westminster Abbey Choir
Composer John Taverner

Here Comes The Flood
Performer Peter Gabriel
Composer Peter Gabriel; Youssou N'Dour

Alexandra Leaving

Performer Leonard Cohen
Composer Leonard Cohen



Connais pas ce morceau. Dans quel album ?

Ah ok, c'est dans '10 new songs'.

Merci.

De rien.

Buck 65

20 Albums to Live By

* The Anthology of American Folk Music - Harry Smith
* Swordfishtrombones - Tom Waits
* The Freewheelin'... - Bob Dylan
* Heart Of The Congos - The Congos
* Is This Desire - PJ Harvey
* Oar - Alexander 'Skip' Spence
* Pet Sounds - The Beach Boys
* Revolver - The Beatles
* Safe As Milk - Captain Beefheart
* The Velvet Underground & Nico
* Up On The Sun - Meat Puppets
* OK Computer - Radiohead
* Rumours - Fleetwood Mac
* The Village Green Preservation Society - The Kinks
* Singles - Goin' Steady - The Buzzcocks
* Horses - Patti Smith
* Entertainment! - Gang of four
* King Of The Delta Blues - Robert Johnson
* Back in Black - AC/DC
* Unknown Pleasures - Joy Division

Fifty Best Songs I Ever Done Heard

* Masters of War - Bob Dylan
* Satisfaction - Rolling Stones
* Oh, Pretty Woman - Roy Orbison
* The Band Played Waltzing Matilda - The Pogues
* Venus in Furs - Velvet Underground
* Search And Destroy - The Stooges
* Gloomy Sunday - Billie Holiday
* Eleanor Rigby - The Beatles
* Who by Fire - Leonard Cohen
* My Favorite Things - John Coltrane
* 1913 Massacre - Woody Guthrie
* Ramblin' Man - Hank Williams
* Teardrop Prelude - Chopin
* Highway Kind - Townes Van Zandt
* Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana
* 7 Nation Army - The White Stripes
* Pyramid Song - Radiohead
* In Every Dreamhome A Heartache - Roxy Music
* Iron Man - Black Sabbath
* Backteeth - Elevator Through Hell
* The Message - Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five
* Rebel Without A Pause - Public Enemy
* Guns of Brixton - The Clash
* Spirits in the Material World - The Police
* Cloudbursting - Kate Bush
* Damaged Goods - Gang of Four
* Little Sadie - Clarence Ashley
* Today Youth - Horace Andy
* Angelene - PJ Harvey
* Do You Realize?? - Flaming Lips
* Initials B.B. - Serge Gainsbourg
* Battery - Metallica
* Ain't No Sunshine - Bill Withers
* Trans Europe Express - Kraftwerk
* Boy/Girl Song - Aphex Twin
* Dear God - XTC
* Temptation - Tom Waits
* Goin' Down South - RL Burnside
* Wagoner's Lad - Buell Kazee
* New Dawn Fades - Joy Division
* The Devil Went Down To Georgia - Charlie Daniels
* The Wreck Of The Edmond Fitzgerald - Gordon Lightfoot
* Isrealites - Desmond Dekker
* Billie Jean - Michael Jackson
* Au Suivant - Jacques Brel
* Kiss My Neck - Lee 'Scratch' Perry
* Deep Red Bells - Neko Case
* I Put A Spell On You - Screamin' Jay Hawkins
* Winter in America - Gil Scott Heron
* El Justicero - Os Mutantes

The Best Book I’ve Ever Read:

- The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

5 Writers

- Charles Bukowski
- Jacques Prevert
- Vladimir Nabokov
- JT LeRoy
- Arthur Rimbaud

bizarrement , il y a assez peu de hip hop dans sa selection ni meme de musique electronique

très belle playlist. Je ne peux que vous conseiller les Congos.

certes, mais les meilleures bananes à bouffer immodérément où à se foutre au cul si tu préfères