What are you listening to?

[Savonarola]

Fela Kuti - With Ginger Baker, Live!  (1971)

Not an album to soothe your migraine to ().  Ginger is only on about half the tracks; other than the bonus track (Ginger Baker and Tony Allen Drum Solo) it's a Fela Kuti album rather than a Ginger Baker one.  It's a good representation of his early sound; and, while the band isn't as big as they would become, they still cook and still sound great.  The sixteen minute Ginger Baker and Tony Allen Drum Solo isn't my thing; they are great drummers but sixteen minutes is way too long for a drum solo.  (I guess it would actually be a drum duet in this case.)

[Savonarola]

Surf's Up (1971)

This is more of a Carl album than a Brian one; the harmonies are still gorgeous, but nowhere near what they had been on the previous "Sunflower."  The subject matter is all over the place from a couple surprisingly political tracks ("Don't Go Near the Water" and "Student Demonstration Time") to the weirdness that had been present since Smiley Smile ("A Day in the Life of a Tree," and "Take a Load off your Feet," which is about feet) to a full blown Brian Wilson existential crisis ("'Til I die.")  There are some real gems notably here Carl's "Feel Flows" and Brian's "Surf's Up."  It's good, maybe too strange to be great.

[Savonarola]

Isaac Hayes - Shaft: Music From the Soundtrack (1971)

I read that Black Moses had a high squeaky voice before puberty.  That must have been quite a surprise to his classmates.

The theme song is awesome; the the 20 minute groove "Do Your Thing" is pretty cool, the rest of the album is serviceable.  If nothing else it's better than the movie.

[The Minsky Moment]

Superfly has a better soundtrack.  Also Black Caesar.

[Savonarola]

Superfly has a better soundtrack.  Also Black Caesar.

I've never heard Black Caesar, I'll put that on the list.  Superfly definitely has a better soundtrack. 

[Savonarola]

The Bee Gees - Trafalgar (1971)

I'm really not sure what to think about this:



Even though that's the gatefold and the cover is Pocock's "Battle of Trafalgar" there's only one song about the Napoleonic Wars (Walking Back to Waterloo; there is a song called "Trafalgar" but it seems to be about introspection.)  "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart" is the biggest hit off of this (it was originally written for Andy Williams, but I don't think he would have sung it the way they did.)  The rest of the album is okay; nothing else really stands out.

[Savonarola]

Emerson, Lake and Palmer - Pictures at an Exhibition (1971)

After listening to this I've come to realize that Vladimir Poutine has a point; he's not entirely wrong to hate and fear the west.

 

This isn't the worst adaptation of classical music to rock that I've ever heard (A Fifth of Beehtoven or maybe Night on Disco Mountain deserves that prize) still I didn't think this was good.  I really don't get the appeal of Emerson, Lake and Palmer.

[The Minsky Moment]

I really don't get the appeal of Emerson, Lake and Palmer.

They win the lifetime achievement Grammy for band name most likely to be confused with a fictional law firm.

[Josephus]

I'm a big fan of Prog rock; but I don't rate ElP that highly. I do like some of their stuff, but by and large they needed a producer to tame their excesses

I think their appeal was partly because they were a supergroup, already big names in their own right, and what they were doing was seen as pretty avante garde at the time.

And they scored an MOR hit with Lucky Man, that helped

And live, watching, Emerson stab his keyboard with a knife or play as his keyboard flew and flipped upside down would have been a novelty.  Like I said they were excessive.

They quickly wore out their welcome though.


Their first album and Karn Evil Nine are their best

EDIT: Actually the album is not Karn Evil Nine, but Brain Salad Surgery. Karn Evil Nine, being the only thing really worth listening to on it.

[PDH]

Somebody needed to take the pretentiousness up to 11...

[The Minsky Moment]

Roy Haynes is 98 today.  So Roy Haynes.

Mentioned this before but will again while its still true.
In 1949, Bud Powell led a small group recording at WOR studios in New York.  The following year, the trumpeter Fats Navarro died.  Powell suffered severe physical and mental health issues, effectively ending his career by the late 50s and contributing to his death by his early 40s.

But two participants in that session are still alive more than 70 years later.  Roy Haynes and Sonny Rollins, both in their 90s.  Knock wood.

The recordings can be heard until the album title, The Amazing Bud Powell Vol. 1.  The title is accurate in all respects - it features Bud Powell, he was amazing, and it was released before volumes 2 and 3.

[Savonarola]

Anthony Braxton - For Alto (1971)

About 3/4 of the double album is made up of sonorous, haunting solo sax pieces.  On the remaining 1/4 he sounds like he is torturing a burro.  It's impressive he got a saxophone to sound like that, (assuming he was actually playing saxophone and not, in fact, torturing a burro,) but it's really not my thing.

[The Minsky Moment]

He was trying to get some extra sound in for John Cage, who presumably needed it.

[Savonarola]

He was trying to get some extra sound in for John Cage, who presumably needed it.

Heh, I was expecting to hate the entire album when I saw the second track was "To Composer John Cage."  While that track sounds like peak burro torture, most of the rest of the album is pretty good.

[Savonarola]

Paul Simon – Paul Simon (1972)

(This is actually Rhymin' Simon's second solo album.  His first was unreleased in the United States.  He made in England after he had broken up with Art Garfunkel for about the fourth time, but before "Sounds of Silence" became a hit.)

Comparison's to "Bridge Over Troubled Water" are inevitable as this is the fist album after the final breaking up of Simon and Garfunkel (other than a couple concerts and a few tracks on Greatest Hits albums.)  There aren't any show-stoppers like "The Boxer" or "Bridge Over Troubled Waters," but he continues with the broader experimentation and instrumentation of "Bridge Over Troubled Waters."  It's not the big leap that "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" was ahead of "Bookends" (or, for that matter "Bookends" was ahead of "Parsley, Sage Rosemary and Thyme.")  It still sounds like Paul is writing his solo songs for Simon and Garfunkel; it's not bad, but it's hard not to notice Art's absence (not that I think Simon and Garfunkel could have survived into the 1970s, even if they had more compatible personalities.)

I'll give Paul Simon credit for not trying to follow the singer-songwriter craze of the era, "Blue," "Plastic Ono Band" and "Tapestry" all came out in late 1970 or 1971.