Music – Page 3 – Seb Palmer

10 December 202218 December 2022

MUSiC: Herbie & co. Danish TV, 1976

Loving the montage effect! And the vivid colours!

Great near 40 minutes of Herbie and co on Danish TV, from 1976.

Personnel 
Herbie - Keys
Bennie Maupin - Sax, etc
‘Wah Wah’ Watson - Guitar
Paul Jackson - Bass
James Levi - Drums

What terrific music. Such a great combination of funky groove, and jazz, with the perfect balance of instrumental prowess and structure, creating instrumental sounds that absorb and uplift. Truly music that is both high art and tasty home-cooking.

Setlist (taken from the YouTube post)

Herbie Hancock and his band perform cuts from the albums “Man-Child” and “Secrets”:

1. Hang Up Your Hang Ups (from Man-Child, 1975)
2. Gentle Thoughts (from Secrets, 1976)
3. Spider (from Secrets, 1976)

When I was running my own jazz funk group, I had all three of these tunes on my setlist wish-list. We did occasionally play some of the usual suspects: Watermelon Man, Canteloupe Island, Chameleon. And one or two less frequently covered numbers, such as Wiggle Waggle, and that one Dee-Lite sampled (I forget the title!).

Others that I really wanted to do include Actual Proof and Tell Me A Bedtime Story. Oh, Herbie! What a talent. And surrounding himself with folk like Paul Jackson, Bennie Maupin, Bill Summers, and a parade of drummers and guitarists that include the likes of Harvey Mason, Mike Clark, and of course Watson and Levi.

Wah Wah Watson’s Gentle Thoughts epitomises an era for me. I may have ‘golden age syndrome’* when it comes to stuff like this? And who knows, perhaps actually now is the golden age? Inasmuch as I can enjoy this Danish TV show that, at the time, I had no idea about.

Ah, the sheer bliss, of watching and hearing the joyous melodic grooving of Gentle Thoughts, in an expanded live version. These righteous dudes both recreate the magic of the album version, and transcend it, with the live improv’ aspects of the performance.

So, I’d like to thank Herbie and co for the music, Tim Berners-Lee for the internet, and YouTube and ‘Phazers’ for hosting/posting this. Thanks for making an everyday Saturdsy magical.

* I get this phrase from Woody Allen’s Midnight In Paris.

3 December 202231 December 2022

MEDiA: La Planète Sauvage, 1973

Wow! This is a pretty amazing animated film. The quality of animation is terrific. Especially for its (pre CGI) era. Whilst the visual aesthetic is not immediately to my own tastes, it’s so singular and powerful it kind of sucks one in. Well, me at least, at any rate.

I discovered the existence of this movie thanks to the inclusion of some music from it on the vinyl compilation Mindbending Nuggets, which a friend had bought. This latter is a great collection of slightly obscure music, with a good selection of odd and unusual but groovily funky tracks (released in ‘97).

The basic premise of the film (itself based on a book*) is that humans, called Oms, are kept as pets by Draags, big blue red-eyed and web-eared humanoid characters. These Draags spend most their time meditating and being a bit weird.

They live on a planet, Ygam, whose look reminds one of both surrealism generally, and in particular the paintings of scientist (and surrealist painter) Desmond Morris. All organic blobbiness, but with an appropriately ‘sauvage’ spikiness.

Apparently the movie was marketed as a stoner experience, best watched in an altered state. And I can see that that might well be a good way to see it. Although personally those days are, for the most part, very much behind me now.

The music, by Alain Goraguer is terrific. It’s often compared to Atom Heart Mother era Floyd. Although, to my mind/ears, it’s far more complex, focussed and funky than the Brit-proggers.

Funky keys, wah-guitar, and lush strings and vocals create the perfect aural companion to the visuals. It’s one of those rare instances where the music stands in its own right, and is as strong as the film it accompanies.

Mmm… sexy jazz!

Above, a bit more of Goraguer’s work. I’ll prob do a post on him at some point. But for this one, let’s get back to the animated film. Which is, frankly, visually stunning.

* Based on this book:

All told, there’s something a bit odd, and slightly limp or disappointing, in the ideas or the narrative. The visual imagination and invention is terrific, but the conceptual side occasionally feels a little lame.

There’s a definite hangover of both WWII and the hippy era. The ‘de-Om’ing’, or culling of humans, clearly resembles the Nazi ‘final solution’. Most obviously so when gas releasing pellets – Zyklon B springs to mind – are used to kill Oms en masse. But in the end, and rather quickly, it’s determined that peaceful co-existence is the only way forward. And, rather abruptly (and dissatisfyingly), boom, the film ends.

It almost feels like they just ran out of either budget or ideas! Maybe not? Who knows. Either way, it’s a bit of a damp squib way to end.

Nevertheless, the sheer visual richness, and the soundtrack, make this essential viewing, in my opinion.

26 November 202218 December 2022

MUSiC: Cocaine, Cale & Clapton…

I grew up with J. J. Cale’s Naturally. It was in my parents’ record collection. And I always loved it. One of the first covers I ever attempted, in my early teens, was the song Magnolia, from this superb album.

We also had a few Clapton discs, including both Slowhand and 461 Ocean Boulevard. Fantastic albums! Slowhand is interesting because it features two covers by other artist that are both superb in their original versions, by their composers – J. J. Cale’s Cocaine, and John Martyn’s May You Never – and none too shabby in Clapton’s readings. And in both cases Clapton’s versions helped make the original songwriters a little better known.

If you want to hang out, 
You've got to take her out, cocaine
If you want to get down, 
Get down on the ground, cocaine
She don't lie, 
She don't lie, 
She don't lie, cocaine

If you got bad news, 
You want to kick them blues, cocaine
When your day is done 
And you want to run, cocaine
She don't lie, 
She don't lie, 
She don't lie, cocaine

If your thing is gone 
And you want to ride on, cocaine
Don't forget this fact, 
You can't get it back, cocaine
She don't lie, 
She don't lie, 
She don't lie, cocaine

She don't lie, 
She don't lie, 
She don't lie, cocaine

What do I want to say about this song? Well, first off, I love both versions. Cale’s is more personal, with his unique ‘home studio’ vibe. Clapton’s benefits from the sublime drumming of Jamie Oldaker, whose buttery smooth press rolls lend the song a whole new feel.

Jamie Oldaker performing with Clapton and co.

Also, and perhaps more controversially, I love the ambivalence of the lyrics, and their stance re the titular drug. On the Wiki page on the song Clapton says it’s a clever anti drug song. I think he’s being a bit disingenuous!

The line ‘Don’t forget this fact, you can’t get it back’ is the only cautionary caveat to what is otherwise a fairly clearly pro-cocaine line, so to speak. But it has to be admitted, as the last statement before the recurring refrain ‘she don’t lie, she don’t lie, she don’t lie’, it does subtly and cleverfully skew the up until then positive perspective.

Of all the drugs I tried in my, um… what shall we call them… wasted years? It was the only one I have no bad memories of. All the others turned from happy highs to depressing downers. But cocaine was, for me, always pure fun.*

Maybe it was just that I didn’t take it in the quantities rock stars and Tony Montana types did? I did that instead with weed. And that soured the experience. But, whatever, as they say these days, for some reason this song is resonating with me right now.

I think it’s high time – sorry, can’t he’p maself – I both transcribe and learn the Oldaker drum part. It’d be a great tune to teach in my drum lessons.

Clapton’s version popularised Cale’s song.

* I’m not advocating it’s use, by the way. Merely relating past experience. One of the strongest objections to its use – quite apart from the well documented hazards for users – is that it inevitably supports the brutally exploitative international narcotics trade.

22 November 20228 February 2024

MUSiC/ART & DESiGN: The Blue Note Art Blakey Covers

I have a few ‘coffee table’ art books on the subject of jazz record covers. And whilst all of them contain great stuff, none of them quite capture or distil the real magic of the best album covers as I wish they would.

I think to do that they’d have to be bigger than LP-sized, and reproduce all the covers at full size. Ideally with room to spare. There’s naught worse than beautiful images that run into the gutter/spine of a book! Well, I admit, there’s a lot that’s worse. But you know what I’m saying.

This post isn’t meant to be in any way comprehensive. For starters I’m limiting it purely to one record label and one artist: Art Blakey on Blue Note. But isn’t it amazing how great these covers are? For my money they elevate the packaging to a plane very much akin to the music.

This one belongs to a weird sub-category!*

And when both music and art are sublime, that kind of sympathetic synergy is a wonderful thing, to be savoured, treasured, and just plain enjoyed/appreciated… so feast your eyes. And, ideally, put on some Blakey, and feast your ears as well!

In Art Blakey Reid Miles and Francis Wolff found someone who had the musical spirit they loved, plus seemingly unbounded energy and charisma, and really striking looks to boot. He’s a funny looking dude, in some ways. But he’s incredibly photogenic with it.

Wolff would be busy, snapping away at recording sessions. And then later Miles would work his hyper-aesthetic design magic. The resulting package is on a par with the music, as art in its own right. And it helps lend the era/genre a hard to define but instantly recognisable vibe, both rootsy and yet sophisticated.

Above is the kind of raw material Wolff would provide Reid Miles with, a fantastic studio shot of the artist at work. Interestingly Wolf’s photographic estate is handled (at least in part?), by the specialist jazz label Mosaic, who might very well have taken their name – they certainly share it – from a Blakey track.

A lot of the covers use black and white photos with single colours as screening tints. And the use of typography is just phenomenal. But as the images directly above and below demonstrate. Miles could still weave his spells with full colour imagery, and more colourful font palettes.

Whether using a fuller range of colours, or going super stark and minimalist, as on Three Blind Mice (below), these covers have a tremendous power. I absolutely adore them!

Pictured below is one of the books mentioned at the top of this post.

Also worth noting is how the Wolff/Miles house style lives on. The following images are all later non Wolff/Miles productions that clearly owe a debt to and seek to emulate (with varying degrees of fidelity/success) the classic Blue Note house style.

The above is, by normal standards, a great cover. But frankly it’s not in the same league as the real deal. The effort below is a lot better.

Another later ‘in the style of’ example.

I intend to get a body of these and similar record covers decently printed, and then frame and display them myself, both in my office/home studio, and around our home. To finish, a very early example, from back when Blue Note issued 10” discs. And this last one finds Blakey sharing the billing with another Blue Note legend, Horace Silver.

* I’ll prob do another separate post on the sub-category of Blue Note album covers that favour semi-abstract photos, often either out of focus, or treating imagery in almost purely textural terms.

20 November 202231 December 2022

MiSC: Joe Hill

Thanks to a FB pal’s post I learned of Joe Hill today. Not heard of him before.

An itinerant worker of Swedish ancestry, Hill was a ‘Wobblie’, or member of the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World), rising to prominence in that organisation as a songwriter and cartoonist, as well as for his vocal activism.

Hill was executed, aged just 36, in 1915. Allegedly for a robbery in which two men, father and son (the elder an ex-policemen), were killed. I know next to nothing about all this. So I’ll be looking into it. It’s pretty fascinating!

Tom Morello of RATM credits a whole lineage of protest music to Joe Hill’s leading example, which is interesting. As a musician and artist I’m immediately drawn to Hill, not just because I share his politics to some extent (to what extent I don’t know as yet!), but because art and music are my ‘bag’.

Rather strikingly, Hill’s will, reproduced below (along with a post-mortem photo showing his corpse, complete with the execution bullet holes!), is in verse. A poet to the last!

The popular perception on the left is that Hill is a martyr, a scapegoat, a ‘pesky agitator’ silenced by the boss class. Hill refused to exonerate himself entirely, claiming he was innocent. But unwilling to name a lady for love of whom he had, he said, been shot by a another man!

The gunshot wound, which he presented to a doctor on the same day as the fatal double shooting of which he was eventually accused, was, it seems, what got him the death penalty.

A tantalising tale! I must find out more.

One of Hill’s cartoon. I’m assuming the pianist is a self-portrait?

* Quite a striking/good looking dude! Could’ve been played by a young Willem Defoe, perhaps?

18 November 202218 December 2022

MUSiC: The Free Design

Bubbles… what an ace track! I just acquired the rather excellent Butterflies Are Free set, which is the complete recordings of The Free Design, covering seven albums, plus a few oddments, over the period 1967-72.

I emailed Chris Dedrick – their de facto musical leader – years back, and got a lovely reply. I’d hoped to interview him for my putative music book, on music of the early ‘70s. Sadly, since then, he passed away. The ‘Big C’, alas.

Prior to getting Butterflies I had a couple of their albums on CD, and the most of the rest as digital only downloads. I also have a Chris Dedrick solo album, from ‘72, called Be Free. I don’t think I’d ever had their kid’s album, Plays For Very Important People, until now.

Initially a trio of siblings, they were augmented by a fourth family member, (?), becoming a vocal harmony quartet. They also played instruments, with Chris the most active that way (guitar, keys, trumpet, etc.). But in the studio for their recordings, they were backed by stellar sessionistas, such as (names!).

One of the reasons they’ve remained a bit under the radar might be that they weren’t on a major label. Fearing that a major would be too constraining, they went with audiophile Enoch Light, on his Project 3 label. This ensured them total artistic freedom (and great sound!). But it also meant they didn’t have the publicity machinery of a major label promoting them.

The marks of the late ‘60s era are strong, their whole sound and vibe partaking of a groovy hipness that, ironically, dates the music a little, and is also in danger at times of coming across as a little naff. But, having said this, at the very same time they also have a beguiling mixture of naïveté and musical sophistication that has a timeless appeal. And, despite sharing certain qualities with other similar-ish ‘sunshine pop’ acts of the era, they’re pretty damn unique.

And, for me, Bubbles – posted at the head of this entry – captures this all extremely well. Bill LaVorgna’s drumming is particularly noteworthy, on this oddly funky nugget, negotiating the odd time signature with a lithely supple and elastic groove that makes the whole thing groove very nicely.

But right from the get go, the first and title track of their debut album, Kites Are Fun, sets out their stall; goofily child-like, lyrically, musically adult, and whilst outwardly joyful, there’s nearly always a wistful lonely teardrop in there somewhere. Lovely stuff, as Alan Partridge (or Shakin’ Stevens, if you credit Coogan’s alter-ego) might say.

And as a little additional bauble, the lyrics to Bubbles:

Blowin' bubbles outta the window
Chewin' bubblegum and blowin' big bubbles
Gettin' gettin' ridda ridda all my troubles,
Watchin' the tadpoles glubba, glubba in the puddles
Soap bubbles carry my dreams up high
Bubble gum kinda keeps my heart from gettin' heavy and cryin'

Ma 'n' Pa are arguin' again,
today I lost my best friend
The kitty has a little cold,
'n ' grammama is getting older
My tummy has a little pain,
'n' when does Jesus come again?

Blowin' bubbles outta the window
Chewin' bubblegum and blowin' big bubbles
Gettin' gettin' ridda ridda all my troubles,
Watchin' the tadpoles glubba, glubba in the puddles
Soap bubbles carry my dreams up high
Bubble gum kinda keeps my heart from gettin' heavy and cryin'

Blowin' bubbles outta the window
Chewin' bubblegum and blowin' big bubbles
Gettin' gettin ridda ridda all my troubles,
Watchin' the tadpoles glubba, glubba in the puddles
Soap bubbles carry my dreams up high
Bubble gum kinda keeps my heart from gettin' heavy and cryin'

17 November 202218 December 2022

MUSiC: Ramon ‘Tiki’ Fulwood, drummer

I absolutely adore some of the Funkadelic/Parliament music. And it’s often very largely due to tremendous rhythmatics, from the drums, obviously, and bass, guitar, keys, etc.

One of the engine room crew responsible for some of this musical wizardry was Tiki Fulwood. As the years go by, and my appreciation for musicians like Fulwood grows, I want to know more about them.

This post will, I hope, grow into a little biog/tribute to this superb musician. First of all, I’ll link to a few things I found on the web about him, such as this, from George Clinton’s website.

Tiki, funky cowpoke, in wide-brimmed hat.

I was surprised to learn that Fulwood had played the drums not only on lots of fab Funkadelic stuff, but also on two stone cold soul pop classics, Tyrone Davis’ Can I Change My Mind and Turn Back The Hands of Time. Dude should be a legend for those alone!

Another more in depth piece can be found here, posted to the ‘rate your music’ website, by someone going by the tag soulmakossa. Whoever you are, thanks for this superb piece!

In my search for all things Tiki, I also found this, from another drummer (props to Ben Woollacott), giving his take on one of Fulwood’s opening fills, in this instance from the Funkadelic track Goold Old Music.