(166) Sun Ra – Space Is
The Place
Sun Ra was a jazz musician who fused it with all sorts of
stuff. Equally adept
at fronting huge orchestras or small combos he recorded in excess of 100
albums but never really enjoyed what you
could call mass success - after all we are talking about jazz here and Ra’s
claim that his ancestral home was the planet Saturn wasn’t going to garner much
support among record company executives. The CD edition of this album is
one of only a handful released on anything resembling a major [jazz]
label and it’s easy to hear why. The album commences with the incredible 21
minute title track, a hypnotic number in which later period John Coltrane like
saxophones play over a multitude of voices repeatedly singing the title in
different pitches and tempos. On paper
this sounds weird but it actually works.
The remaining tracks ran the gambit of conventional jazz (such as Images)
to the flat out weird (Sea Of Souls and Rocket Number Nine).
(167) Funkadelic –
Maggot Brain
As their name implies, Funkadelic were one of the true
pioneers of funk music but this album was about as close to a rock album as
they ever got. Led by the genius of
George Clinton, this album is notable for the title track which kicks off
proceeding. Introduced by a spoken word
intro by Clinton himself (ordinarily I’d say “whacked out intro” but coming
after Sun Ra it sounds positively conventional) the track is effectively a 10
minute guitar solo performed by Eddie Hazel.
The playing here is infused with such emotion that its instrumentation
is frequently forgotten. The rest of the
album is pretty damn good too, notably Can You Get To That and the plea for
black unity You And Your Folks, Me And My Folks.
(168) Yo La Tengo –
Genius + Love = Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo is one of the all-time great trios but is
effectively a cult act known only by a fortunate few. Unsurprisingly their main reference point is
the ultimate cult act ,The Velvet Underground, but they also make a habit of producing extraordinary
cover versions and instrumentals. This
album is a two disc rarities and B-sides album and unusually for such an album
is packed full of highlights. These
include the frenzied guitar attack of Too Late; the indie pop of Cast A Shadow;
Speeding Motorcycle in which they play live in a radio station studio whilst a
fan sings the lyrics over the phone; a surf instrumental version of the Ramones
Blitzkrieg Bop and One Self Fish Girl, another instrumental which uses motifs
from Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart.
But the highlight of this package is the 26 minute closer Sunsquashed,
an instrumental that appears to draw inspiration from the VU’s famed extended live
workouts of Some Kinda Love.
(169) Frank Zappa –
Our Man In Nirvana
Zappa is a natural fit here.
This is one of a series of bootleg records that he re-released under a
program he termed “Beat The Boots”. This documents a performance just prior to
the release of the Uncle Meat album and so it provides an opportunity to hear a
his greatest guitar epic King Kong before his audience became
too familiar with it. This version runs
to at least 30 minutes with no end in sight when the bootlegger's tape ran out;
there are also cuts at different points in the album. Also of note is the combination of A Pound
For A Pound On A Bus and Sleeping On A Bus which goes for 25 minutes. Amazingly, better versions of these tracks are
available in the Zappa catalogue but not necessarily in the same album which
made this an automatic iPod inclusion.
After dinner I completed the reimporting process and not a
moment too soon as I have a country drive tomorrow.
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