Sweet Jazz

Sweet jazz time -

Harry Edison - Willow Weep For Me

Count Basie - One O'Clock Jump

Art Tatum - Willow Weep For Me

Billie Holiday & Lester Young - All Of Me

Enjoy these sweet jazz tunes for an early start to the day.
Jazz Cat has been on the tiles blowing his horn.

Good Morning

Viscera

From her wonderful 2011 album Viscera on Rune Grammofon, the pure joy of listening to Jenny Hval is visceral.

Jenny Hval - Black Morning/Viscera

The Wire review of this CD -

“I arrived in town with an electric toothbrush pressed against my clitoris”, declares Jenny Hval – the first line of the first song on the first album to be released under her own name. The sluices are wide open from here on in, and references to body parts and functions tumble out and squint in the daylight: clitoris, cunt, erection, blood, sweat, veins, itching, eggs, lips, voice, piss, fingernails, marrow. Her evocative surrealistic language is planted in a lush backdrop of zither, guitar and church organ (played by Hval herself), more guitars by Håvard Volden and drums by Kyrre Laastad. The record as a whole is a finely sculpted construction. Fragile melodic laser-cut patterns are set against an earthy beat of tambourine and bass drum, giving the album a folky drive.

Laurie Anderson, Kate Bush and fellow Norwegians Bel Canto and Mari Boine have clearly been in Hval’s tap water while growing up. However, the territory she conjures feels entirely her own. First conceived as a musical version of Georges Bataille’s erotic novel The Story Of O, Viscera is instead a meditation on the human body as resonating chamber – specifically the female body, with its chambers and tubes. Hval is steeped in the magic of words, having written a novel, an academic dissertation (about Kate Bush) as well as poems, beside her musical outings as founder of Avant pop group Rockettothesky and the duo Meshes Of Voice with Susanna Wallumrød (of Susanna And The Magical Orchestra). Viscera forms part of a prolific artist’s growing body of work and manages a rare thing: to be a stunning achievement both conceptually and musically.

Enjoy.

Ali Farka Toure

Another great album from Ali Farka Toure.

Ali Farka Touré - Yer Mali Gakoyoyo

The Wire review said that -

Radio Mali surveys Toure's long-deleted 1970s recordings on which his reputation in Mali rests, as well as his legendary status among European aficionados. The pieces are rolling acoustic blues built on repetitive rhythmic sequences pronounced - if that is the right word -with an easy perfection which belies their complexity. Never especially notable as a singer, much is made of Toure's virtuosity as a guitarist, particularly on these early sessions, but his style is not in itself a virtuosic one. Expect no dazzling stream of semiquavers here, for his is a transparent kind of virtuosity which attracts all the attention to the music and very little to itself. On performances like "Soko" and "Gambari", as rich in detail as they are in the tangible atmosphere, simple accompaniments allow him to shift the rhythm around, creating a chain of complex relationships between inflexion, response and restatement from essentially rudimentary materials in much the same manner as a percussion ensemble. Modest enough on the face of it, his music sounds fuller and deeper the longer you listen. All credit to World Circuit who have done a great job with every aspect of thls release, which is also one of the best-packaged CDs I've ever seen, and which (hopefully) sets new standards for the release of Africa's musical archives.


Enjoy.

Oh, and check out my bro' site coming42 as he had great music and taste as well.

Canterbury and Whitstable Visits

Two visits completed today. One in Canterbury and that pub visit in Whitstable.
The weather was very sunny and reached around 27C in the afternoon.

Found three cheap CD's -

Jean-Luc Ponty - Cosmic Messenger (Atlantic)
Art Pepper - The Artistry Of Pepper (Pacific Jazz)
Charlie Parker - One Night In Chicago (Savoy)



From the Canterbury Tales attraction, I purchased this paperback as the shop is part of the covert visit.



Quite a good day in fact.

Tomorrow though will be a total slouching day, recharging the batteries and chilling out to music and stuff.

Just Wondering

Have any leaves started turning where you live (or for those of you in the other hemisphere, are flowers coming up yet)?

Do you prefer cloudy or sunny days?

Are you going to get a flu shot this year or do you not bother?

For The Night People

One of the more reflective tracks from the album.

Jean Luc Ponty - Ethereal Mood

From the album -Cosmic Messenger


Electric Piano: Allan Zavod
Percussion: Casey Scheuerell
Producer: Jean-Luc Ponty
Solo Violin: Jean-Luc Ponty
Electric Violin: Jean-Luc Ponty
Acoustic Guitar: Joaquin Lievano
Electric Guitar: Joaquin Lievano
Acoustic Guitar: PeterMaunu
Bass: Ralphe Armstrong
Arranger, Composer: Jean-Luc Ponty


Enjoy