It being 365 days since I last posted anything here, maybe I need something to motivate some regular ramblings! Hardly groundbreaking, I know, but a quick overview of the music I've been listening to may serve as a springboard for other, even more random/rambling thoughts.
Miles Davis "Dark Magus". Typically classified as one of Miles' "difficult" albums (and originally released only in Japan, in spite of having been recorded at the Carnegie Hall in NYC). I know that this is one of the first Miles albums I ever heard ... As an impressionable 18 year old I had a job (in what these days would be called a "gap year") working in the central public library in Belfast. In some ways it was the best job I ever had; my daily routine was to open up the boxes of newly arrived books, etc., check them off against purchase orders and match them up to requests from the library's numerous branches. Fortunately the expected productivity was low, so I could get my "day's" work done in a few hours and spend the rest of the day reading :-)
As well as books, though, I also did the same job with new records that arrived for the music library and was often able to borrow these in pristine condition. One of the albums that I was able to hear by this route was "Dark Magus". At that time I had had little real exposure to jazz, although I knew enough to recognize Miles being an "important" artist. However, prior to hearing "Dark Magus" I suspect that I'd only listened to one or two Miles albums and that those were from the late 50s/early 60s. Not the best preparation, then, for the heavy, electric funk that Miles's band was creating in 1974! With the benefit of 30 years, and a lot of time spent listening to work from throughout Miles's career, I find the music from this period exciting, at times frustrating (especially the sloppy guitar playing), but far more accessible than many critics/experts would have us believe.
If anyone still thinks of "Dark Magus" as a challenge then my next choice is probably one to avoid ...
Henry Cow - Halsteren, Netherlands, 26-Sept-1974 (remastered soundboard tape). From the same tour as the "Groningen" and "Groningen Again" tracks on the "Concerts" album, when HC temporarily excluded Lindsay Cooper from the band and played a series of shows in Holland as a quartet (Frith, Hodgkinson, Greaves, Cutler). As noted on Chris Cutler's website, they weren't able to play any of their existing repertoire without Lindsay, and created something "derived entirely from the first three minutes of an unfinished composition of Tim's (Living In The Heart Of The Beast)". This takes up the first 30 minutes of this recording, follower by a free(r) improv, of similar length. I'll admit that HC are an acquired taste - and that some may be equally deterred by the complexity of their music and by the Socialist Worker nature of the lyrics to some of their vocal pieces. However, having been familiar with their work since 1973 (when the "Leg End" LP first came out) I'll stand by the assertion that I was wont to make to school friends at that time (especially those given to championing the likes of Yes and ELP) that Henry Cow were one of the few truly "progressive" bands of that - or any other - period. It's been a delight over recent years to discover and acquire a significant number of live recordings of the band from early BBC sessions through to their final concerts in 1978.
Phil Lesh & Friends - July 7, 2007 @ The Sweetwater, Mill Valley, CA. My first exposure to the latest lineup of Phil's ensemble (albeit in this case with Barry Sless on guitar rather than Larry Campbell). A good show without being a great one, and I think that it'll take a while to determine how well Jackie Greene fits into the P&F framework. On this evidence at least I don't think that this particular set of friends will reach the dizzying heights often achieved by the "PLQ" lineup (Lesh, Haynes, Herring, Barraco, Molo) from a few years back, or the elegant "rock-jazz" flavour brought to the GD repertoire by the lineup with John Scofield that recorded the "Live At The Warfied" CD/DVD.
Still, its early days for this particular lineup and, much as Barry Sless's playing always impresses me, I think that Larry Campbell's inclusion in the band that's been touring in recent weeks will be a big improvement. Hopefully I'll find myself in the situation where a trip to the US allows me to take in a P&F show - I miss the days when I was travelling regularly to San Francisco and was able to see the PLQ lineup six times over a period of a year (three times at the Warfield, twice at the Greek in Berkeley, once at the Frost Amphitheater at Stanford).
Van Morrison "Still On Top - The Greatest Hits" (3CD version). Far be it from me to deny the Grumpiest Man In Showbusiness a further top-up to his pension fund, but three compilation albums in one year (Best Of Vol.3, At The Movies, and now this one) does seem a little excessive. I was a little put off at first by the non-chronological sequencing but on the basis of a couple of listens it does seem to work. Nice, too, to see that the sleeve notes are written by my former classmate at Belfast Royal Academy, Barry McIlheney!