A nice little roundtable discussion of Miles Davis' endlessly fascinating On The Corner, which was released 50 years ago last fall. An album we're still coming to terms with!
One of the guests here is bassist/producer Bill Laswell, who dug deep into the Electric Miles era for his Panthalassa collection back in the 1990s. And apparently he's digging even deeper. At some point in this BBC program Laswell reveals that he's working with hours and hours of On The Corner session reels for an upcoming boxed set: "It'll be called Around The Corner, or something," Bill says. There's also a brief mention of some kind of Panthalassa-esque sequel utilizing the OTC stuff (and maybe some other period-appropriate recordings?). I haven't heard anything else about these releases, but uhhhh color me excited.
And speaking of Bill Laswell, he's run into some health/financial troubles in the last year or so — the U.S. Blues, right? He's got a GoFundMe page if you want to help out. You could also grab this terrific double CD-R mix of Laswell's work over the years, with profit going to Bill.
- “Always and forever the most beautiful human being,” Luaka Bop label says
Jazz saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, whose six-decade career found him collaborating with everyone from John Coltrane to Joey DeFrancesco, has died at age 81, his record label said.
No cause was given.
“We are devastated to share that Pharoah Sanders has passed away,” Luaka Bop said in a Sept. 24 statement.
“He died peacefully surrounded by loving family and friends in Los Angeles earlier this morning. Always and forever the most beautiful human being, may he rest in peace.”
Sanders began his career with Coltrane in 1965. He went on to work with Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman, DeFrancesco and others, while also releasing some 30 solo recordings.
“He will be greatly missed,” the Sun Ra Arkestra tweeted.
Though he continued playing live, Sanders went nearly two decades without releasing any new music until 2021’s acclaimed Promises.
“Listening to Pharoah Sanders made me a better human being,” Timothy Showalter, who performs as Strand of Oaks, said in a tweet.
“Transformative art at its highest level. No greater gift someone can give. Rest in power.”
I am really heartened by the fact that a number of the people I follow have had Donald Byrd touch their lives and loves in one way or another. What would otherwise have been a solitary walk in the park of tributes feels like a beautiful celebration. I’ll dance to that.
“I crisscrossed with Monk
Wailed with Bud
Counted every star with Stitt
Sang “Don’t Blame Me” with Sarah
Wore a flower like Billie
Screamed in the range of Dinah
& scatted “How High the Moon” with Ella Fitzgerald
as she blew roof off the Shrine Auditorium
Jazz at the Philharmonic
I cut my hair into a permanent tam
Made my feet rebellious metronomes
Embedded record needles in paint on paper
Talked bopology talk
Laughed in high-pitched saxophone phrases
Became keeper of every Bird riff
every Lester lick
as Hawk melodicized my ear of infatuated tongues
& Blakey drummed militant messages in
soul of my applauding teeth
& Ray hit bass notes to the last love seat in my bones
I moved in triple time with Max
Grooved high with Diz
Perdidoed with Pettiford
Flew home with Hamp
Shuffled in Dexter’s Deck
Squatty-rooed with Peterson
Dreamed a “52nd Street Theme” with Fats
& scatted “Lady Be Good” with Ella Fitzgerald
as she blew roof off the Shrine Auditorium
Jazz at the Philharmonic”
seeing as how we haven't gotten cracking on our new theme and this got lost at roland cake's and all, might as well take it home to be with its jazz fan looks back sistren...
closing out the week with this offering from clifford thornton. heads up that the first track is in rough shape- so rough that aside from expressing gratitude for the keening violin on pt. 2, played by lakshminarayana shankar, there's not much to say about side a. but thankfully thornton isn't our focus here.
the entire b side is a recording of jayne cortez's performance at the festival of african-american music, playing alongside thornton's expanded band. she sounds a little muffled, but thornton on cornet, nathan davis on soprano saxophone, and jay hoggard on the vibes pierce through such that it all seems orchestrated for maximum psychedelic effect. (note that this is a very different piece from the festivals and funerals that appears on celebrations and solitudes, btw) this performance is ill, period, but it's worth an immediate listen just on the strength of cortez's turns of "survival money" and jay hoggard's vibes. towards the end, the piece takes a turn for the earth-rumbling and i'm still feeling a little shaken myself.
track listing (restructures)
Communications Network, Part 1
Communications Network, Part 2
Festivals and Funerals
personnel (restructures)
-tracks 1-2 (side A)
Clifford Thornton (cor; el-p)
Jerome Cooper (d, perc)
Lakshminarayana Shankar (vln)
Sirone (b)
-track 3 (side B)
Clifford Thornton (cor)
Jayne Cortez (voc)
Nathan Davis (ss)
Jay Hoggard (vib)
Andy Gonzalez (b)
Vincent George (perc, cga)
Jerry Gonzalez (perc, cga)
Nicky Marrero (perc, tim)
tracks 1 and 2 recorded january 22, 1972; track 3 recorded april 17, 1972; new york, ny. third world 12272.
although the backing band on unsubmissive blues is essentially the firespitters, it's useful to note that this album, released between celebrations and solitudes and there it is, has yet to christen them as such. the band is significantly more sparing in its interjections and restrained in its forms than in later albums, sticking mostly to rhythm and blues (tracks 1, 5) and nods to the incipient hip hop scene (tracks 3, 4). the hip hop tip is kinda wild, relying mostly on cortez's syncopation over breakbeat-style drumming, or more eloquently, as bill cole put it on the back cover, "the opportunity to meld together instruments from the non-western (untempered) world with African-American poetry and improvisational styles." also, more than once tracks 3 and 4 reminded me of the slits.
in content as well, unsubmissive blues works as a transition between celebrations and solitudes and there it is; while indignant and otherwise politically charged, the album pays tribute to friends and ruminates on artistic necessity and daily life as readily as it delivers more explicitly 'movement' poems. this album is instructive for how it speaks to cortez's musical development, as well as the state of black music in the late 70s/ early 80s. also, cortez offers a coda for each track on the back cover- they're great.
track listing
[A1] You Know
[A2] For the Brave Young Students in Soweto
[A3] Ogun's Friend
[B1] Brooding
[B2] In the Morning
[B3] The Red Pepper Poets
personnel
Jayne Cortez, poet
Bill Cole, muzette on Soweto and nagaswarm on Brooding
jayne cortez grew up in the watts section of los angeles and in 1964 was a founding member of studio watts, a community arts center with a liberationist orientation. she directed the acting and writing workshop, which developed into the watts repertory theater company, one of many ensembles that came out of the studio. steven louis isoardi relies on interviews with cortez and other artists in the dark tree: jazz and the community arts in los angeles, a book about this hella fertile point in time and space. you can check out excerpts from google, or click the cover to find it at your local library.
Jordan Camp and Elizabeth Robinson speak with revolutionary surrealist poet Jayne Cortez and UCSB Professor of Black Studies Clyde Woods. We discuss the blues, surrealist poetry, Cortez’s new book On The Imperial Highway: New and Selected Poems (Brooklyn: Hanging Loose Press, 2009), and her upcoming Shirley Kennedy lecture “From Watts to Dakar: A View of African American Culture in Los Angeles and Beyond,” taking place on April 6 at 4 p.m. in UCSB’s MultiCultural Center Theater.
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