August 1999 [c]

Alive & Well & Underground

The Rob Lo fidelity experience...

Back in the days when I was a member of the new school of cool (circa '85) I had some idealistic notion that the common Dancefloor Jazz herd should be challenged by some Coltrane now and again. The peak of persistence by us jazz renegades came one night when Gilles Peterson was DJ-ing at The Wag and we goaded him into playing something by The Man. It proved something of a challenge for the jazz dancers, but we enjoyed the experience. 'Dancefloor Jazz' became a trap, ultimately, confining, rather than expanding possibilities. The revival probably gave birth to Jazz FM, the station which manages to extinguish the flame of jazz almost every minute of the day by catering for housewives and white collar workers who want something smo-o-th (certainly not Cecil Taylor!).

A new compilation from Crippled Dick, Between Or Beyond The Black Forest, is subtitled 'Dancefloor Jazz Classics From The Legendary MPS Label'. Thankfully, though, there's enough interesting material here to satisfy those who are less keen to do bad impersonations of the Nicholas Brothers. Amongst this selection from the German label's late-60s and early 70s output Mike Knock's electric keyboard on the opener, 'Space Bugaloo', is a treat, as is Charly Antolini's 'Woe's All Over Me' (skin tight drumming!). Horst Jankowski's 'Speech Craft' has a finely balanced Easy Eccentric feel, and Barney Wilen breathes spontaneous fire into the funkadelia of 'Dur Dur Dur'. Yes, this another bout of retro reactivation which proves that there are still many nuggets of gold to be found in the old musical landscape.

As for the odd musical landscape, if you can find Astro-Sounds From Beyond The Year 2000 by 101 Strings you'll have a swinging time on this 'uncharted trip beyond the now generation', as it says on the sleeve. We're talking retro-futurism, of course, courtesy of the orchestra and a beat rhythm section which mixes all the essential ingredients such as India (cue the sitar), Easy Freak sounds, and the moog trance of 'Flameout'. There's also the bonus of 'Whiplash', featuring the sound of a groovy chick who digs the pain and pleasure of, er, a good whipping. But if you remain unconvinced, you surely can't resist an album with a track called 'A Disappointed Love With A Desensitized Robot', can you? This is a naughty white label release, but if you can find it, instant nirvana in pan-tastic stereo is guaranteed.

Also re-entering Earth's orbit after a couple of decades in another time dimension, Don Sebesky's The Distant Galaxy LP (DS001). There are ten great things about this album, and they are:

1. The front cover, a cosmic constellation comprising of stars superimposed upon the face and long flowing hair of a happening chick wearing heavy silver mascara.

2. The sleevenotes involving, along with a load of trippy nonsense, sentences which include some of the song titles, except those which one David A Kuntfelt couldn't work into the text (so he just puts them in brackets). Sample: 'Sounds of limitless joys that enable you to Dance The Night Away', and 'Sounds of forgotten exotica (The Blue Scimitar, Guru-vin)'.

3. The fact that the galactic 'concept' amounts to no more than brief moog intermissions with such titles as 'Martian Storm' and 'Solar Emissions'.

4. The instrumental (all the covers are instrumentals) version of Simon & Garfunkel's 'Sounds Of Silence', which transforms it into a funky orchestral number.

5. The version of 'Mr Tambourine Man', which starts as an easy-cheesy rendition before the sax solo starts wandering and post-production inspiration results in a speeding up of the recording before the final section (weird!)

6. Hubert Laws on soprano sax & flute.

7. 'The Blue Scimitar', a cool tune made special by Richard Spencer's soprano solo.

8. 'Water Brother', another masterpiece of that little-known genre, Funky Pop-Fusion.

9. The whole pop-cover-version-meets-jazz-in-space idea.

10. The Don's masterful arrangements.

Finally, down at the old-folks home, we're sat around the gramophone listening to some nice new techno by the brothers Burden, collectively known as Octave One. Mmmm, gorgeous strings on 'Burujha'...and the title track, 'Art and Soul', is pretty funky...(heads nodding, toes tapping)...they just don't make 'em like this anymore...these days it's all boom-boom-boom without the art or soul...why is everything so shallow?...bangin' minus brains...that's what the kids want, I suppose...yes, it's intelligent, it's from Detroit, and we're jolly well having it...

© Rob Lo 1999.