February / March 1999

The Rob Lo fidelity experience...
Rob Lo gets all nostalgic about jazz.

Are you ready for the vinyl revival? Ready or not, it's happening, right now; across the land, people who've experienced the pristine sound of CDs over the last few years are being driven by the desire to hear music that is accompanied by unintended crackles, scratches and surface noise. This is probably due to the impending millennium and it's nostalgia-inducing power.

Yes, everyone who sold their vinyl in the big CD changeover is kicking themselves and having to go out and buy second-hand hi-fi's because they want to remember, to re-immerse themselves in the experience of pulling shining black objects out of sleeves, touching the surface, lightly, holding it by the edges and placing it on a turntable that, once set in motion, awaits it's partner, the needle, before both connect within the circular dance of the grooves that give off this wonderful thing we call music...

The above thoughts are inspired by a trip to Mole Jazz, one of London's few jazz specialists, and a shop where, by now, I'd have expected them to have ditched vinyl completely in favour of the CD. Thankfully, that wasn't the case and, furthermore, their vinyl section seemed to have expanded, if anything, although I've a feeling that this impression was due more to my comparison with the vinyl in London's other (ex) great jazz shop, Ray's, the vinyl section of which is shrinking daily (to my horror).

Going to Mole brought back fond memories of the days when I had just moved to London and couldn't get enough jazz. The 'revival' was in full swing in the mid-80s, and Mole was blissfully local since I lived in King's Cross at the time. We'd laugh at the usually 'trad' selection played by the ol' squares behind the counter, and be entertained by weird bespectacled types who pestered them for the rarities that were highest on their shopping lists. One was obsessed with the tenor-player, Hank Mobley. In retrospect, this was a strange obsession since Mobley was hardly a cult figure, or a genius. He was no more than a good, solid musician who recorded mainly for the Blue Note label.

The great thing about Mole today is it's vinyl prices, which put most albums at the four-to-five pound mark - yes! I came across a Blue Note compilation called 'The Soul Of Jazz', which I'd never seen before. Ironically, it harvests the genre that was so popular amongst, would you believe, The Youth (well, the hip Youth of London, anyway) back when I first went to Mole, so I had to get it to double the strength of my nostalgic visit. Plus, it was only three quid. It includes the classics, Lee Morgan's 'Sidewinder', Art Blakey's 'Moanin', Herbie Hancock's 'Watermelon Man', and Horace Silver's 'The Jody Grind', as well as gems from The Three Sounds ('Still, I'm Sad'), Larry Young ('Major Affair') and Lou Donaldson ('Alligator Boogaloo'). As much as the 'soul jazz' thing was a fad, and a commercial movement, I'm amazed at how good these tracks still sound. Soul Jazz revival, anyone? No? Oh alright, then...

'Watermelon Man' crops up again on another of my buys, 'Quincy Jones plays Hip Hits' (Mercury). This purchase is stunning for three reasons, which are the price (three quid!), the sleevenotes, and, of course, the music. It has the added bonus of the running times of each track being written on by hand after each title. What kind of person bothered to time each track just so that he could write them on the sleeve? And why did he (it must have been a 'he') not bother with some? He left out five of the twelve tracks, and they're interspersed throughout, so it's not as if he got bored after the first seven. Thankfully, though, he looked after the vinyl which, considering that it's been knocking around since 1963, must have seen some cool Sixties party action. Every track is a winner, and included amongst the selection of 'today's soulful jazz hits' are 'Comin' Home Baby', 'Back At The Chicken Shack', and 'Take Five'. The sleevenote bonus, for me, comes in the form of Mercury Recording Director David Carroll's slap in the face of what was then the full-blown avant garde scene. Check out the opening sentence:

It is unlikely that Quincy Jones will ever become eligible for membership of that eccentric, tortuously bleating, anarchical in-group often known as the avant garde of jazz.

No trips to The Village coffee shops for Dave, then, otherwise he'd have been 'tortured' by the likes of Cecil Taylor, Don Cherry and Sun Ra. But, funnily enough, amongst the largely mainstream line-up on the 'Hip Hits' album, there is an impostor; Roland Kirk, and how the hell did he get in there? Mind you, he was a maverick who frequently side-stepped the obvious schools, who could play blistering blues or full-throttle noise but on Quincy's arrangement of 'A Taste Of Honey' (Kirk's only solo) he is, of course, more restrained.

Kirk also crops up again on Jones's 1969 album for A&M, 'Walking In Space', which features, somewhat bizarrely, to my mind, a side-long 'tribute' to the musical, 'Hair'. Not being too familiar with the show, I fail to appreciate the connection; perhaps it's in the 'lyric', which consists of virtually nothing but 'My body' sung intermittently by female vocalists. Should Jazz FM ever open a gym, it would be an essential soundtrack to all the physical activity. I'd programme tapes by Fats Waller and Slim Gaillard too...The highlight of the album, though, has to be Quincy's arrangement of Benny Golson's all-time classic, 'Killer Joe', which is simply one of the coolest tunes ever written.

After 'Walking In Space' courtesy of Quincy (who, I must add, does not attempt any form of cosmo-electric futurism) we join the German composer, Peter Thomas, on 'Space Patrol', a 1996 release on Bungalow. With the imminent remix compilation of Thomas's work, 'Warp Back To Earth', he'll no doubt be in vogue, if only for the month of March. I've not yet heard that album, but I doubt that it'll match the genius of 'Space Patrol', much of which sounds like nothing less than early Sun Ra meeting Elmer Bernstein to form an orchestra for 'Come Dancing' on Mars circa 2525.

Thomas doesn't overload arrangements with FX, but suggests intergalactic science and spooky otherworldliness by combining kitsch Sixties pop-style swing with fragmentary discordance and 'radical' composition. Then he'll do end-of-the-pier organ pop like 'Landing On The Moon'. One highlight is 'Love In Space', which sandwiches a brief outbreak of mayhem between a wonderfully lush solo saxophone. There's also 'Bolero On The Moon Rocks', featuring the horn riff as stolen by Pulp for 'This Is Hardcore'. The 'New Astronautic Sound' of Peter Thomas, as it charts the 'phantastic adventures of the space-ship Orion' is definitely essential listening for any serious member of the Far Out In-Crowd.

Excorcise The Demons by Source Direct reviewed