Hypnotic Brass/Betty Lavette/Fire/Lee Fields/Render Useless

Kelan Philip Cohran and the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble

Here is another album of great spiritual jazz, this time with even more unabashed funk leanings.  Kelan Philip Cohran is probably best known for his work as a cornet player with Sun Ra's Arkestra where he appeared on a number of excellent records.  He has also released several excellent reecords of his own in the deep/spiritual jazz vein as well as founding the influential and afro-centric Afro Arts Theater in Chicago.  The Afro Arts Theater focussed on promoting African American art as well as having a strong kid-friendly educational aspect.  Music education was indeed another passion of Cohran's including the serious education of his many children, I mean many, check out the photo above of Cohran and some of his kids.  I believe that at least eight of his children are professional musicians and many of them play in the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble.  This ensemble released an excellent record of brass band funk a few years ago and is now following it up with a collaboration with the father of much of the band.  The funk is still foremost but there is much more of a deep jazz feel on this one.  Absolutely one of the best albums of the last couple years and likely to please a wide variety of tastes from start to finish.  I highly recommend this album.

For example see Stateville:

Betty Lavette - Thankful N' Thoughtful

Betty Lavette spent the first four decades of her career as an almost successful soul singer with an abundance of heartbreaking stories of getting screwed over by record companies and their ilk.  It seems that she had all but given up on the dream in the early 2000s when her career was given new life by interest from Anti Records and a surprisingly good record where she was backed up by the Drive By Truckers.  The record received enthusiastically positive reviews and was followed by another surprisingly fanstastic record of British classic rock covers.  Last year she released Thankful N' Thoughtful, another collection of covers but without a theme this time and I would say this is her best record yet and one of the best records of 2012.  She is one of those aritsts who can really make a song entirely her own and is capable of giving her treatment to an astonishly wide range of material.  Here she tackles material from Gnarls Barkley, Neil Young, the Black Keys, Bob Dylan, Savoy Brown and Sly Stone to name a few.  There is to me great power in these songs although at first listen they may seem to be too restrained and somewhat underwhelming.  I recommend giving these songs a couple listens before casting judgement.  I cannot stress how much I love this record though.

Everything Is Broken:

 Thankful N' Thoughtful:

Fire with Jim O'Rourke - Unreleased?
Here's another Mats Gustafsson (see the Thing from the last post) project for you all.  Like the Thing, all fire records are quite different but in this case the constant elements seem to be a super repetitive, krauty vibe overlaid with some forceful, skronky saxophone noise.  And hey, Jim O'Rourke is here too, what's not to like?  Kindly Dig.

Please, I Am Released:

 
Lee Fields - Faithful Man

Yet another late in like soul singer success story.  Lee Fields has been quietly releasing fantastic albums in the James Brown style for several years now but final got noticed a couple of years ago thanks to what seems to be somewhat of a revival of interest in soul music and an excellent record, "My World".  Last year he followed up this success with an even more excellent and well rounded soul record, "Faithful Man".  This is maybe not as much of gem as the Charles Bradley record that I posted some weeks ago but it should be noted that T. Brennick, the guitar player and major songwriter for Charles Bradley also had a big hand in Lee Fields' last couple records.  It should also be noted how powerfully amazing this track is:




Wish You Were Here:

  
Vancouver Hardcore #3 - Render Useless

Continuing on in this mini-series that I can't imagine has much interest for people outside of Vancouver where these records are probable unattainable I present to you Render Useless.  These dudes were considered very clever and socially conscious etc.  They were favourites of nerdy, often humourless, punk rock activist types.  I was once one of those types and found inspiration or rather found shared idealistic frustration in the music of this band.  Despite all those associations, I still think that the band put out some fucking great hardcore, maybe too clever for its own good at times but, well, you know, think for yourself, judge for yourself etc. right?

I managed to find a youtube post of the entire 7" The Relationship Between a 1/4 note and an 1/8 Note so lucky you:

 Render Useless 7"  (For some reason, I couldn't get the video to embed here so you'll have to follow this link to Youtube.  Do it.)

Baptists/Haggatha/The Thing/Beak/Steve Reid

Alright.  Despite appearances and Adrian's comments to the contrary February has been a very productive month for me in terms of music appreciation.  This is a pretty big post this week to account for a glut of new music I've been digging recently.

Baptists - Bushcraft (2012)

Baptists are probably the darlings of Vancouver's thrash/hardcore scene right now and deservedly so.  Over the years playing in shitholes in East Van they have become a polished and devastating sonic machine.  They were just signed to the illustrious Southern Lord records and hosted a rightous record release party on Friday.  This record has been on my platter pretty steady for the last couple days.  Nothin' particularly original going on here but some very solid representations of the genre that definately repay repeat listens.

Check out a nicely packaged little trio of songs from the record release show (take note of the classic breakdown ~6:30):

Haggatha

Here's a little taste of another Vancouver band.  These guys are my current favourite local act.  They opened for Baptists at the aforementioned recent slow and are brutal.

Dig them from a recent European tour:

Their drummer is a personal hero of mine. Now dig them from their new record:

Neneh Cherry and The Thing - The Cherry Thing (2012)

The Thing are a Swedish based avant-jazz power trio led by superstar saxman Mats Gustafsson of whom more will come in future posts.  Each of their records is quite different but generally contain a good deal of devastating, balls out jazz noise and maybe a punk cover or two.


Item: Hidegen Fujnak A Szelek

Elsewhere they do a great cover of Lightning Bolt's Ride the Sky but it was sadly not to be found on Youtube.

For the new record though the trio is joined on vocals by Neneh Cherry, the daughter of pocket trumpet genius Don Cherry.  They run through a surprisingly accessible set of mostly covers which ends up being being a mix of sugary pop-jazz and fierce free jazz blowing.  This record is full of really fresh sounds not quite like anything I've heard before.

Check out the opening track Cashback:

 

 Beak - s/t 2009

Here's one for those more krautily inclined.  This is the new project from Portishead's Geoff Barrow and here he and a couple of other English dudes diligently follow the cartography of Can and Neu! This, their first is so indebted to the Can and Neu! that it sometimes feels that one is listening to some lost metting between those two motoric German ensembles.  Even the record's production carries with it the clean, warm sound of the early '70s.  Generally, each track centers around one repetitive minimal groove, I am given to understand that some of you out there enjoy this sort of thing.

Here is a characteristic example, Iron Action:

The second album is also very good  and finds the band adding more variety to the mix without moving far away from their krauty devotionals.

Check out the opening track from Beak II, The Gaol:

Steve Reid - Rhythmatism (1975)

Of late I have been going through somewhat of a deep jazz kick and one of the artists most able to provide the fix I need has been drummer/bandleader Steve Reid.  His is a long career the details of which I will not relate in full here but he grew up in New York out of the free/spiritual jazz scene associated with John Coltrane and Sun Ra.  He also spent some years in West Africa playing with Fela Kuti after which he was arrested and spent a few years in jail for missing his military duty in Vietnam.  Following his release from prison he recorded three birlliant records on his own label and helped to propel the burgeoning New York loft jazz scene.  The selection presented here comes from his first record.  The later two records follow in the same vein although they steadily move farther 'outside'.  Despite a move to freer playing Steve Reid remained dedicated to a strong rhythmic pulse in his work.  In the last decade Steve Reid has returned to the spotlight leading his own band with electronics whiz Keiran Hebden to much deserved acclaim.  I plan to post some contemporary material from Mr. Reid later this week along with a slew of other material that I have been spinning lately but for the time being I will close with some insanely groovy spiritual jazz.

 Kai:

Unfortunately I could not find a full version of this song online, it should be 12:45.  If you want more I guess you'll have to find the whole album for download or buy the thing.