Tag Archives: jazz

charles mingus – all the things you could be by now if sigmund freud’s wife was your mother (1961)

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From the record Charles Mingus Presents C.M., recorded 20 October, 1960at ‎Nola Penthouse Sound Studios, New York, with the wild Eric Dolphy on alto/bass clarinet, Danny Richmond on drums, and Ted Curson on trumpet.

johnny dyani, don cherry, & okay temiz, live on french tv (1971)

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MBIZO DAY – today, Wednesday 30th November

The Pan African Space Station (PASS) will host a 24 hour live broadcast of music written and/or performed by healer, musician, composer and painter Johnny Mbizo Dyani (30 November 1945 – 24 October 1986), as well as rare interviews with the artist and comments by people who knew and worked with him.

TUNE IN HERE from 12:00 midday (GMT+2) today, Wednesday 30 November till midday on Thursday 1 December.

This listening session is in celebration of Mbizo’s life work and in commemoration of 30 years of his passing.

During his short life, Mbizo helped to establish the Blue Notes, a group he co-founded with Chris McGregor, Louis Moholo, Mongezi Feza, Dudu Pukwana and Nic Moyake, as the one of the most innovative and powerful forces in jazz. Or more precisely, what he called the SKANGA (a family of black creative musics). Mbizo was a highly sought-after bass player and vocalist who performed with some of the music’s most important figures, including Don Cherry, Abdullah Ibrahim, David Murray, Mal Waldron, Famoudou Don Moye, Khan Jamal and many more. He recorded over 70 albums.

In addition to Chimurenga people, selectors and speakers include Keorapetse Kgositsile, Lefifi Tladi, Marcus Wyatt/Blue Notes Tribute Orkestra, Louis Moholo, Lesego Rampolokeng, Ikapa Jazz Movement, Tete Mbambisa, Maakomele Manaka, DJ Mighty, Tumi Mogorosi, Dala Flat, and many more.

And check out this wonderful performance from July 1971, broadcast live on French television.

louis moholo’s 4blokes, live at straight no chaser, cape town (15 january 2016)

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It’s weird how the recording industry warps experience. We can sometimes forget that every recording is only one iteration that was captured and set in stone as “The” Definitive Performance, when really it just happened to be captured that particular time among many, many other possible times. Records, like photos, pluck moments out of time and concretise them… And they are the only thing we’re left with later to glimpse a whole era. That’s why densely detailed archives such as Ian Bruce Huntley‘s, where there were many recordings of the same bands made during the same era, are so interesting. I’ve posted here, and in the preceding post, recordings of the same band on two consecutive nights.

One of the lovely things about everyone having a camera in their pocket on their phone is that this is not something that is rare anymore, and the democratisation of shared experience is a very powerful and positive thing. One of the horrible things is that there is just such a volume of recorded stuff (much of questionable quality) being generated that the brightest nuggets of wonder can be drowned in the dross… Too much recording and we have a shaky, pixelated backup of every moment kept on hard drives, that no one ever has time to live through twice, to the extent that everything melts into undifferentiated, indigestible “big data” and can only be apprehended as statistics. I feel very ambivalent about it.

I think it’s really important that, whenever possible, we still have experienced photographers, videographers and sound recorders assigned to do this stuff, so that in years to come what we are left with are some beautiful and considered recordings, and not just a haunted avalanche of muddy glimpses.

louis moholo’s 4blokes – ghosts/you ain’t gonna know me ‘cos you think you know me (16 january 2016)

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An incredible gig at Straight No Chaser, Cape Town, South Africa, 16 January 2016.

This moves into two songs: first ‘Ghosts’ by Albert Ayler at 7:00 and then ‘You ain’t gonna know me ‘cos you think you know me’ by Louis Moholo at 14:00. The 4blokes are:

Louis Moholo: Drums
Shabaka Hutchings: Tenor Saxophone
Kyle Shepherd: Piano
Brydon Bolton: Double Bass

“so you think you can play with me” – the louis moholo-moholo legacy project (7 october 2016)

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This promises to be an interesting evening in the company of a living legend…

moholo-legacy-projectIf you’re a young musician and fancy getting involved this coming Friday, get hold of Terry-Jo Thorne ASAP.
They need (and some positions are already filled):
2 x drummers,
2 x Guitarists with own amps
2 x Pianists
2 x Bassists with own amp
2 x Trumpets
2 x Alto sax
2 x Soprano sax
1 x Flute
3 x male singers

albert ayler – spirits (1964)

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Please play this over the last few bars of the Bargeld below. (That’s how I would play it for you if I were playing it for you.)

The third track from Ayler’s Spiritual Unity (1964).

The critic Ekkehard Jost wrote that “Ayler’s negation of fixed pitches finds a counterpart in Peacock’s and Murray’s negation of the beat. In no group of this time is so little heard of a steady beat […] The absolute rhythmic freedom frequently leads to action on three independent rhythmic planes.” Maintaining these qualities required deep group interaction, Ayler himself said of the record, “We weren’t playing, we were listening to each other”*.
__
*from: Wilmer, Valerie (1977). As Serious As Your Life: The Story of the New Jazz. London: Quartet. p. 105.

keeping time at uct, 2 august 2016

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This coming Tuesday, find out more about the extraordinary archive of photographs and live recordings made by Ian Bruce Huntley in the 1960s and early 1970s. In 2013 I was involved in putting this archive of recordings online, which you can explore HERE.keeping time event

Keeping Time: Ian Bruce Huntley’s South African jazz archive
by Jonathan Eato

Ian Bruce Huntley is not a name that you’ll find readily in the burgeoning annals of South African jazz. Unless, that is, you talk to the dwindling generation of jazz musicians who were working in South Africa in the mid-1960s. Tete Mbambisa remembers Huntley as the man who ‘recorded our gold’, and this Huntley did through a series of remarkable photographic images and live audio recordings. Having privately preserved these records for over forty years, throughout the state repression of grand-apartheid and into the democratic era, they have recently been made available for the first time.

This talk will consider how, in the face of increasing political oppression, Huntley’s archive documented a community of vernacular intellectuals exploring and developing ideas in counterpoint to much commercially available South African jazz post-‘Pondo Blues’.

For more info:

email: ems@uct.ac.za
tel: 021 650 2888

Facebook event HERE.

moses taiwa molelekwa – darkness pass

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NOTES BY ROBERT TRUNZ
“Back in 1994 during the Outernational Meltdown recordings, in the early hours of the morning after we had finished one of the many late night recording sessions, Moses and I were the only ones left in Downtown Studios, Jo’burg. We were hanging out together, with Moses seated at one of the pianos whilst I settled down on the floor next to him. It was there that I first heard him playing solo piano.
Moses took me on a journey that lasted almost 3 hours, a journey that, for somebody who is normally not particularly enamoured by the piano, expanded my horizons and revealed a depth of Moses that few people have probably ever had the privilege to encounter.”

Read more about this recording HERE.

mosesmolelekwa

being present: patric thormann, mandla mlangeni & niklas zimmer live

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Happening this Wednesday, 7 May 2014, at 20h00 at Bolo’bolo, 76 Lower Main Rd, Observatory, Cape Town, South Africa:

zimmer et al
Dear friends,

We’re incredibly excited to invite you to a special edition of our new Eclecticity sessions – a monthly experimental music evening at bolo’bolo.

This Wednesday we’re hosting an improv set by three musicians who need no introduction: Patric Thormann (Sweden) on double bass, Mandla Mlangeni (SA) on trumpet and Niklas Zimmer (Germany / SA) on drums.

Those of you who were lucky enough to attend the recent Edge of Wrong festival know what to expect from Patric and Niklas, and Mandla should be familiar to everyone who has followed the Cape Town music scene over the last few years. We’re lucky to be hosting three such talented performers and we hope to see lots of you there!

NB: The event is totally, 100% free. We have vegan food and drinks on sale and you may bring your own snacks and drinks as long as you respect the alcohol-free and vegan ethos of our space :-)

electric jive huntley archive goes live!

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IBH-DJ-Cover-Front-medium

Psych “Big T” Ntsele on the cover of “Keeping Time”, the recently published book of Ian Bruce Huntley’s photographs that this archive of recordings accompanies.

SO VERY EXCITED TO BE ABLE TO SHARE THIS AT LAST! I’ve had the privilege of being involved in putting this amazing archive online over the past few months.

Find out more HERE, and then visit the archive for free downloads of more than 56 hours of jazz played in Cape Town between 1964 to 1972 by South African musicians — some famous, others who have had little exposure. Download a PDF of the book, browse the pictures, engage, enjoy!

thelonius monk live – berliner jazztage, 1969

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A solo performance by Thelonius Monk of four Ellington tunes: “Satin Doll,” “Sophisticated Lady,” “Caravan” and “Solitude”. Then he plays his own composition “Crepuscule With Nellie,” before joining the Joe Turner Trio in a performance of “Blues for Duke.” These performances are available on the DVD Monk Plays Ellington: Solo Piano in Berlin ’69.

the boswell sisters – shine on, harvest moon (1931)

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Recorded in New York on 27 August 1931 with the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra: Mannie Klein (tpt) Tommy Dorsey (tbn) Jimmy Dorsey (cl, as) unknown (vln) Martha Boswell (p) Eddie Lang (g) Joe Tarto (sb) Stan King (d)
E-37112-A Shine On, Harvest Moon (Norworth-Bayes) 3:08 Brunswick 6173, [BSC1], [NWST], [IGSOY], [IY], [ITG]
E-37113-A Heebie Jeebies (Atkins-Boswell) 2:37 Brunswick 6173, [BSC1], [NWST], [ELMB], [IY]

The Boswell Sisters were a close harmony singing group that attained prominence in the USA in the 1930s.

Sisters Martha Boswell (June 9, 1905 – July 2, 1958), Connee Boswell (December 3, 1907 – October 11, 1976), and Helvetia “Vet” Boswell (May 20, 1911 – November 12, 1988) were raised by a middle-class family on Camp Street in uptown New Orleans, Louisiana. They came to be well known in New Orleans while still in their early teens, making appearances in local theatres and radio, and their first recordings for Victor Records in 1925. However, the Boswell Sisters did not attain national attention until they moved to New York City in 1931 and started making national radio broadcasts. After a few recordings with Okeh Records in 1930, they made numerous recordings for Brunswick Records from 1931-1935. These Brunswick records are widely regarded as milestone recordings of vocal jazz.

Martha, Connie and Vet Boswell, New Orleans, 1925

Martha, Connee and Vet Boswell, New Orleans, 1925

Connee’s ingenious reworkings of the melodies and rhythms of popular songs, together with Glenn Miller’s hot arrangements, and first rate New York jazz musicians (including The Dorsey Brothers, Benny Goodman, Bunny Berigan, Fulton McGrath, Joe Venuti, Arthur Schutt, Eddie Lang, Joe Tarto, Manny Klein, Dick McDonough, and Carl Kress), made these recordings unlike any others. Melodies were rearranged and slowed down, major keys were changed to minor keys (sometimes in mid-song) and rhythmic changes were par for the course. Interestingly, the Boswell Sisters were among the very few performers allowed to make these changes to current popular tunes as during this era, music publishers and record companies pressured performers not to alter current popular song arrangements).

The Boswell Sisters were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1998.

(Info from Youtube.)

kyle shepherd trio – die maan skyn so helder

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“The moon’s shining so brightly tonight…”

Kyle Shepherd (piano, voice), Shane Cooper (double bass) and Jonno Sweetman (drums) perform a version of this subversive traditional Cape Goema song arranged by Kyle Shepherd. Recorded live at Welgemeend, Welgemeend Street, Gardens, Cape Town, South Africa on Friday 21 May 2009.

hideo shiraki quintet + 3 koto girls – sakura, sakura

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Hideo Shiraki (drums), Terumasa Hino (trumpet), Takeru Muraoka (tenor sax, flute), Yuzuru Sera (piano), Hachiro Kurita (bass), Keiko Nosaka (koto), Kinuko Shurane (koto) and Sachiko Miyamoto (bass koto).

“Sakura” means cherry blossom – this flight of fancy is based on a traditional Japanese tune.

Recorded in Berlin on November 1, 1965 by Willi Fruth and Guenther Topel. Saba SB15064.

sathima bea benjamin – i’m glad there is you

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Thank you for being here, Sathima. I am so grateful that I had the chance to meet you before you left… May you go in peace.

Sathima Bea Benjamin by Seton_pic_6

The track above comes from the album, A Morning in Paris, recorded in 1963 but only released in 1996.

Sathima Benjamin met Duke Ellington while he was in Zurich for a short engagement in February of 1963. Standing in the wings during most of the Ellington band’s performance, once the concert ended she insisted that Duke hear her husband Abdullah Ibrahim (then known as Dollar Brand)’s trio at the Club Africana, one of the few local jazz spots where the couple could work fairly regularly. Duke obliged and liked what he heard, but he also insisted that Benjamin sing for him. He adored her voice and promptly arranged for the couple to fly to Paris and record separate albums on the Reprise label (at the time, Ellington was the A&R man for Reprise Records). Ibrahim’s record, Duke Ellington Presents The Dollar Brand Trio, was released the following year and subsequently helped him build a following in Europe and the USA. Benjamin’s recording, unfortunately, languished in the vault because Reprise executives did not think she was “commercial” enough. It was eventually released under the title A Morning in Paris, but not until 1996.

Read about what made her so special yet kept her in obscurity HERE.