100 Meter Freestyle: Don Ellis 90

Don Ellis Orchestra - Let's Do It This Way for a While (aka Eros)

Sorry I've been away but I'm kind of a mess, with otitis externa messing with my ears and anxiety filling my being on multiple fronts. I got drops for the swimmer's ear but the anxiety and sleepless nights (I've only slept every other night for a while) are ravaging.

I guess that look on Don Ellis' face stems from the thought crossing his mind that this odd-time-signature shit -- and having to have to pay a 600 gazillion-piece band to play it -- isn't exactly gonna provide much sense of financial security or a long, conventionally prosperous life.

What's funny is, the next picture, he's actually ten years younger than the previous one! What's not so funny is that he was dead soon after it was taken.

Music and art -- they're just about the only things humans do that makes us extraordinary and potentially transcendent of our darker, more primal impulses -- are some hard ass going, aren't they?

This world isn't exactly set up for much more than exploitation and needless, monetized suffering, so when it encounters real beauty or is asked to find the worth in something not named Godpaper, it tends to react with exponential hostility and destructive capacity, often at the expense of the creative people moving the mountains.

It's kind of sad that the experimental types and the fringe figures are often so little remembered, and I struggle on this page to not just make it about whatever cokebloated, Anglo-Saxon heterosexual Rock Star got spangled enough by the machine to be put on the King Biscuit Flower Hour.

Don Ellis -- born this day in 1934 -- is one of those cats.

Someone who strived so much to get beyond stagnant, rote forms, and who gave work to many struggling musicians when they'd nowhere else to pay the bills... it's not that it killed him, but his damaged heart was not helped by it all, I'm sure.

He passed at just 44 of cardiac arrhythmia, but the Real Ones can never die and as long as I'm here and not completely deaf, I don't think they should be forgotten and I'm gonna do what I do.

One of the things I seem to be in a phase of doing is going through these concerts on the Site That Had To Be Legally Stopped From Selling Them, and determining which ones can conscionably circulate.

Remember, these are technically lossy-sourced, although they often go lossless way higher in the spectral analysis than some Art Pepper show from 1981 that France Musique rebroadcasts, and then immediately hits the trading trackers.

Speaking of Art Pepper, he's in this band! In this wild two hours of metrical mayhem I snozzed off you-know-where that went lossless to 20 kHZ, even though the music only went to 18.

Don Ellis Orchestra

Great American Music Hall

San Francisco, California USA

4.23+24.1976

01 "French Connection" Suite

02 Slow Head

03 Palomar

04 Final Analysis

05 Do It Easy

06 Let's Do It This Way for a While (aka Eros)

07 Pussy Wiggle Stomp

Total time: 1:59:15

disc break goes after Track 03

Don Ellis - trumpet 

Jack Coan - trumpet

John Gross - reeds and woodwinds

Alan Kaplan - trombone

Ernie Carlson - bass trombone 

Sam Falzone - woodwinds

Ann Patterson - woodwinds

Art Pepper - alto saxophone & clarinet

Charles Black - baritone saxophone

Milcho Leviev - piano

Paul Keane - tuba 

Sidney Muldrow - French horn 

Darrell Clayborn - bass 

Dave Crigger - drums 

Chino Valdes - congas & percussion

Don Palmer - violin 

Pam Tompkins - violin 

Jimbo Ross - viola 

Karen Henderson - cello

plus intermittent vocals by the band

Tracks 01 & 07 are from 6.24.1976

Tracks 02-06 are from 6.23.1976

320/48k webstream from Wolfgang's Vault 

spectral was lossless to 20 kHz but only has music to about 18 kHz, so this is equivalent to somewhere between an FM and a preFM source

converted to 16/44 CD audio, edited, repaired, tracked and slightly remastered by EN, July 2024
645 MB FLAC/direct link

If you're totally unfamiliar with Don Ellis and what he was doing, this show would be a real good place to start, featuring all the broad dynamics and counting -- for a drummer such as I,  he can be like going on a game show called Time Signature Jeopardy and being afraid to get the buzzer for saying 21/4 when it was 14/8 -- for which this Maestro of Meter was legendary.

That will likely do it from me for July; I apologize for the short month but I'm not feeling all that awesome and I think I need to chill. I will try to return on August 10th and resume things. But don't worry about me, just enjoy this blast of a performance of a cracking 20-piece orchestra under the direction of today's 90th birthday guy!--J.

7.25.1934 - 12.17.1978

Archives of Oblivion: Brian Auger 85

Brian Auger & The Oblivion Express - Freedom Jazz Dance

I'm taking time out from the ear infection I've developed over the last week -- and the absurd atrocity that would make Voltaire vomit called American "for profit" medicine -- to bring you this milestone birthday.

This guy began in the 1960s first as a session organist (he plays the iconic part on The Yardbirds' For Your Love), and then as the leader of one of the most beguiling English groups, with a full-on chanteuse -- she ended up marrying another keyboard player -- out front casting her spells.

First it was called Steampacket, and then The Trinity.

When the Sixties turned to the Seventies he formed his most enduring group, entitled The Oblivion Express, which as far as I know still occasionally plays.

Perhaps the leading British Fusioneer keyboard player of his time, his music does it all but specializes in the Jazz-Funk and R&B flavors.

Anyways here's this funked up concert that's been circulating from defective, skippy digifiles since the reasonable version of it fell out of the trading circles 20 years ago.

Luckily I had a CDR with the original iteration of it, from back when those were a thing and dinosaurs roamed the Rotary Phone Earth that was covered with red plankton.

Luckily until I listened to it and found out it was likely mixed for FM radio by 100 monkeys with Neve consoles, that is.

Ah, but then that's what the Sound Forge channel converter tool is for, isn't it? It was in dire need of not having the drums in the Bering Strait east of Siberia and the bass in mile high, downtown Denver.

A little stereo reshuffling, a little this, a little that, and now it should be in at least the best shape of its somewhat checkered existence thusfar.

Did I mention it's the pre-broadcast tape? These Ebbets Field shows are many from 50 years ago and I'd sure like to be turned loose in the legendary Ebbets archive of awesome, I know that is right.

Someday, someday... when pigs fly and the first thing they ask you in the Urgent Care office isn't your credit card information, it will happen.

Brian Auger & The Oblivion Express

Ebbets Field

Denver, Colorado USA

4.4.1974

01 introduction

02 Beginning Again

03 Don't Look Away

04 Freedom Jazz Dance

05 Happiness Is Just Around the Bend

06 Maiden Voyage

07 Compared to What/band introductions

08 Second Wind

09 Listen Here

Total time: 1:37:40

disc break goes after Track 06

Brian Auger - keyboards & vocals

Jack Mills - guitar & vocals

Barry Dean - bass & vocals

Alex Ligertwood - vocals & percussion

Steve Ferrone - drums

preFM reels of unknown origin, courtesy of agalli & mr. mags

edited and slightly repaired and remastered -- with channels rebalanced -- by EN, July 2024
402 MB FLAC/direct link

I have to chill for a minute and see what is happening with my ears, so I might be gone for a bit, I don't know. Or I might be able to keep on with the late great Steve Albini on Monday, not sure and I apologize but health comes first, last and always here in Falling Rome.

But never mind my miseries and just enjoy Brian Auger's 85th birthday today, born as he was this day in 1939.... why not? We're all headed for Oblivion anyway, right?--J.

Thread Brigades

Henry Threadgill Society Situation Dance Band - Dance Ghost, Dance

We'll kick off the weekend with this incredible facemelter of a concert -- it was taped 27 years ago today in The Hague -- and its anniversary.

I've been wanting to cover this aggregation since forever, but all the shows that circulate are missing the song titles, which in my obsessive, detail-driven approach to this stuff I loathe.

Case in point: this show circulated without the last tune for almost 20 years!

Thanks to that good old fashioned know-who, I was able to contact Jazzrita Jakob -- one of the superstars of the ROIO firmament -- whom I knew could supply the missing 10 minutes and 51 seconds of fun!

AFAIK this ensemble has toured twice... once in 1988 and again in 1997, from which this performance comes.

And what a performance it is. If I had to describe this music, I would brand it the crossroads of New Orleans Funk and the Albert Ayler-verse.

Particularly notable are violinist Leroy Jenkins and vocalist Aster Aweke, who shows up somewhere in the territory between Yoko Ono and Linda Sharrock on several of the songs.

Overall this is 67 minutes of mayhem that should get summer off to a sizzling start wherever you are.

Of course I've covered Henry Threadgill before as a part of his seminal trio Air, but this is so different from those guys that I figured let's do it.

So let's do it!

Henry Threadgill Society Situation Dance Band

North Sea Jazz Festival

Tuinpavijoen

Den Haag, The Netherlands 

7.12.1997

01 Bell and Pounds

02 Last Mingo

03 Everybody Will Hang By the Leg

04 False Face

05 Dance Ghost, Dance

Total time: 1:07:11

Henry Threadgill - alto saxophone, flute & percussion

Ted Daniel - trumpet

Stanton Davis - trumpet

Osvaldo Melendez - trombone

Wayne Goodman - trombone

Bob Stewart - tuba

Rolando Briseno - alto + soprano saxophones & flute

Booker T. Williams - tenor saxophone

John Stubblefield - tenor saxophone

Leroy Jenkins - violin

Charles Burnham - violin

Jason Kao Hwang - violin & viola

Michelle Kinney - cello

Akua Dixon-Turre - cello

Tony Cedras - accordion & harmonium

Brandon Ross - guitar

Stomu Takeshi - bass

J.T. Lewis - drums

Roberto Maldonado - percussion

Aster Aweke - vocals (Tracks 03 & 04)

Tracks 01-04: ggln seed of a likely master off-air FM cassette

Track 05: Lewojazz's digital capture, likely of an off-air FM broadcast

retracked w/announcer eliminated/titles corrected, edited, denoised & slightly remastered by EN, July 2024
485 MB FLAC/direct link

I'll be back in a little less than a week with a tasty milestone birthday for one of the primary architects of Oblivion.

But in the interim, don't hesitate to implicate Mr. Threadgill and his orchestra into your weekend dance card!--J.

The Tribe of Horacee

Horacee Arnold Sextet - Captain Marvel

And just like that, we start a new month with an artist I never, ever, ever imagined I'd get to cover, yet somehow my looting of (you know where) has led me to pastures unknown once again.

It all happened because when I was appending the bonus track to the Herbie Mann post of 48 hours ago, and trying to scissor out the cloying, unctuous announcer voiceover, my husband came in and started talking to me, causing me to leave the end of the tape running longer than I would have.

That's when I turned back to the terminal, and annoying announcer dude said "And what about that Horacee Arnold set from earlier on?!"

That's when I froze and replied What Did He Just Say?

A quick search of You Know Where, and what had seemed as far removed from the realm of possibility as me being named Pope of the Roman Catholic Church was reality.

Once I confirmed it was one of those WV selections that has a spectral analysis that goes to 20 kHz, we were off and running into a spectacular, funky Soul/Spiritual Jazz set that makes a toppermost companion to this guy's only two known records as a leader, which were both made around this time 50 years ago.

Those two LPs -- Tales of the Exonerated Flea and Tribe, are as good as any 1970s Jazz platters and I command anyone unfamiliar to purchase them immediately.

As for Horacee Arnold, he eventually became a revered music teacher after drumming for a bunch of luniaries in the 1960s, '70s and '80s. He is still around and is 86 years young as of right now.

Look out for reeds & winds ace Joe "Moon Germs" Farrell, especially on soprano in the last tune, oh my.

All right, enough blather. It's 1973 and it's Showtime at the Apollo!

Horacee Arnold Sextet

Newport Jazz Festival

Apollo Theater

New York City, NY USA

7.2.1973

01 introduction

02 Captain Marvel

03 band introductions & Horacee talk

04 Spain

05 Tribe

06 outro

Total time: 48:22

Horacee Arnold - drums & percussion

Joe Farrell - soprano saxophone, flute & piccolo

David Friedman - vibes

Steve Khan - guitar

George Mraz - bass

Don Alias - congas & percussion

320/48k audio streamed from Wolfgang's Vault

spectral analysis goes to 20 kHz, making this essentially equivalent to a preFM source

converted to 16/44 CD Audio, repaired, tracked & very slightly remastered by EN, June 2024
306 MB FLAC/direct link

OK, so I apologize for being unable to do Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson -- to me, the most ridiculously undersung member of the unfortunate 27 Club -- on his July 4th b'day, but it's just that all Canned Heat bootlegs from his time have the irritating Gorilla Man grunting and boogie-ing over mostly horrifyingly poor sound, and Alan only tiptoes out from behind that guy every so often to take center stage anyway. Maybe someday someone will excavate that unissued 1966 Takoma record of the Owl that his pal John Fahey made but never put out, with all the harmonica and guitar Blues ragas.

Anyway I shall return in 10 days with something tremendous, trust me. But make sure you check out what Horacee Arnold and his Tribe were up to at the Newport Festival 51 years ago today, it's sure to exonerate your fleas!--J.