What are you listening to?

[mongers]

Pierre Henry  ‎–  Une Tour De Babel.   

Friedrich Graf  - Cello Concerto in D major. 

[Liep]

The new War on Drugs.

[Savonarola]

The Yardbirds - Having a Rave Up with the Yardbirds (1965)

Those English boys want to play the blues so bad, and they do.
-Sonny Boy Williamson



Similar to "The Rolling Stones Now!" in that it's a collection of Yardbirds' tracks thrown together rather than an album (and in that almost every song is a cover).  The tracks cover the personnel changes of their early period.  There are two versions of "I'm a Man," you can hear the difference between Eric Clapton's and Jeff Beck's approach.  Keith Relf might not exactly be the most credible blues singer, but otherwise the album is great throughout. 

[The Minsky Moment]

George Coleman - Horns of Plenty

Coleman is an archetype of a jazz saxophonist.  He has a beautiful, warm tone, plays lots of standards, and is firmly in the mainstream despite a resume that includes the earliest version of the 2nd Miles Davis quintet.  This album is about as plain jane straight-ahead mainstream modern jazz as you can find.  It may not find itself on any top 100 lists, but the group sounds great.  It's actually a good intro kind of album to this kind of music.  Drummer Billy Higgins - famous for his work with free jazz pioneer Ornette Colemam -- gives a master class in jazz drumming on this album, melding his active style into the more mellow laid back playing here.

George Coleman was born in Memphis in 1935.  Pianist Harold Maburn, also on this album, was born in Memphis in 1936.  Also from Memphis:  Charles Lloyd - latest reviewed above (1938), Booker Ervin - formerly a Mingus collaborator (1938).  Some other Memphis guys born around the time.  Something in the water.  These names may not mean much to most, but they had prominent careers.  Coleman, Maburn, and Lloyd are still actively recording last I checked.

[Savonarola]

Paul Butterfield Blues Band - Paul Butterfield Blues Band (1965)

Proof that white boys can sing the blues, no matter what Eric Clapton may have led you to believe.



Not only a great album in its own right, but also a good introduction to Chicago style blues.  All the songs are covers but it goes over a wide swath of Chicago's blues scene.

[garbon]

Garbage - I Hate Love
Kate Bush - Song of Solomon

[Liep]

Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile - Over Everything

[Josephus]

Steven Wilson. To The Bone

[Savonarola]

The Rolling Stones - Out of Our Heads (US Release) (1965)

The songwriting is really starting to come together (Satisfaction, The Last Time, Play With Fire; even The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man, and The Spider and the Fly are better than most all the original songs on The Rolling Stones Now!).  Most of the rest of the songs are covers of 60s soul songs (they have a great cover of Marvin Gaye's Hitchhike.)  The recording quality is also noticeably improved.

This is the one with "I'm Alright" that Minsky mentioned above.  I'm didn't know they ever claimed that as their own.  That's pretty funny; as it's obviously Bo Diddley.

[Eddie Teach]

All I know about Bo Diddley is that old Bo Jackson commercial. 

[Savonarola]

All I know about Bo Diddley is that old Bo Jackson commercial. 

I once saw him in concert; he must have been about 70 at the time.  He rapped and he did the robot.  It was a strange show.

Anyhow you should at least know:

Bo Diddley and
Who Do You Love?

The entire album "Bo Diddley" is great if you like 50s era rock 'n roll.

[Savonarola]

I listened to a series of Kurdish songs played mostly on the Bağlama.  It was on Youtube and, as always, the comment section provided a good deal of entertainment as well.  My favorite:

FREE KURDISTAN FROM SUDAN!

Hear! Hear!

[Drakken]

Elena Vaenga - The Tanks Were Rattling in the Field

[The Minsky Moment]

This is the one with "I'm Alright" that Minsky mentioned above.  I'm didn't know they ever claimed that as their own.  That's pretty funny; as it's obviously Bo Diddley.

They definitely did - if you search images of the back cover, you'll see some examples.
E.g. here
http://www.kesteloo.net/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=6138
It's credited to Nanker Phlege, which is a Stones credit. 

[The Minsky Moment]

Louis Smith- Here Comes Louis Smith (1958)

Smith was a trumpet player who sounded a lot like Clifford Brown - not a bad thing, Brown was one of the best, and died tragically a couple of years before this.  This is the first of two albums Smith did for Blue Note - both of them very good.  This is particularly notable due to contributions from Cannonball Adderley, just months before he would join Miles Davis and play on the sessions for Milestones and Kind of Blue  Due to contractual issues, Adderley was credited on the album as "Buckshot La Funke."  It's a great name for a sideman, sadly too good to be true.  Branford Marsalis reused the name for one of his bands a while back.

Smith did this one, a follow-up and appeared as a sideman on a few other things, most notably a jaw dropping live date with Horace Silver at Newport.  He then left the music business to become a school teacher.  Over the years, he made a couple short comebacks and played some dates, but nothing so intense or enduring as to mess with his pension.