Waxing nostalgic
Many many years ago I was first exposed to the Broun Fellini's as I heard them playing at the Ajax Lounge; I was at street level and could hear their percolating sound from the open windows Ajax's 2nd story speakeasy location.
The Ajax later put out a newlatter which had a blurb about them and their strange inner universe (which is ceneterd in an absurdist colony on an island called Boohaabia, and whose language seems to mix hip-hop laced allegory and jazz-on-dada visions of a funky utopia). It would be years before I picked up my sole cd of material from them, Aphrokubist Improvisations, Vol. 9 (there were no other 8 volumes), and only managed to cath their live show last year as an opener to Living Colour at the Great American Music Hall. They have since changed line ups several times (the groups cre continues to be saxophone/reeds/occasional verbalist David Boyce) but they continue to play a funky solution of jam-band friendly jazz (think Medeski, Martin and Wood or Soulive) with periodic tangents into more adventurous waters; influences from Eric Dolphy and Sun Ra are apparent. Thrown into the mix is a hip-hop bounce reminiscent of the Native Tongues movement and an almost happy-silly-get-down vibe.
In any event, I went to Rasputin's to look for the new Me'Shell N'degeocello album (look for it folks, as it will be smokin') and ended up finding the Broun Fellinis original cassette-only release, 3 Laughs for $1.95 in a bargin bin. It features -obviously- the original line-up and has some brilliant performances, most notably Clyde the Sprinting Hippo and Botticelli's Roommate
The Ajax later put out a newlatter which had a blurb about them and their strange inner universe (which is ceneterd in an absurdist colony on an island called Boohaabia, and whose language seems to mix hip-hop laced allegory and jazz-on-dada visions of a funky utopia). It would be years before I picked up my sole cd of material from them, Aphrokubist Improvisations, Vol. 9 (there were no other 8 volumes), and only managed to cath their live show last year as an opener to Living Colour at the Great American Music Hall. They have since changed line ups several times (the groups cre continues to be saxophone/reeds/occasional verbalist David Boyce) but they continue to play a funky solution of jam-band friendly jazz (think Medeski, Martin and Wood or Soulive) with periodic tangents into more adventurous waters; influences from Eric Dolphy and Sun Ra are apparent. Thrown into the mix is a hip-hop bounce reminiscent of the Native Tongues movement and an almost happy-silly-get-down vibe.
In any event, I went to Rasputin's to look for the new Me'Shell N'degeocello album (look for it folks, as it will be smokin') and ended up finding the Broun Fellinis original cassette-only release, 3 Laughs for $1.95 in a bargin bin. It features -obviously- the original line-up and has some brilliant performances, most notably Clyde the Sprinting Hippo and Botticelli's Roommate
posted by theloniusfunk at 2:19 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home