Time Gallery - Time Gallery

Oh boy, where to start. I bought this on a whim back when it came out. I had money burning a hole in my pocket and this album by Scandanavian one-shot group Time Gallery was produced by Keith Olsen (whose work with various artists like Saga, Pat Benetar and Santana I dug). How bad could it be?

Not bad at all. Not exactly. Just very bland. Really, really bland.


How bland you ask? Well, imagine taking the pop-rock/AOR sensibilities of early A-Ha, Toto (during the J. Williams fronted period) and Saga (circa Wildest Dreams), and castrating them wholesale, then recording it. Add lyrics that are too sappy/bad for even any 80s hair-metal band to use, and you have a recipe for obscurity.

Sad, since some of the melodies and arrangements had potential. But otherwise, pure pap.

Lusophonic Music Site O' The Day

...or week or month or maybe year, as I do not run into them often (although maybe I should look more). This site has to do with the Portuguese guitar style of Coimbra. The blog is in Portuguese, which is great for me, not so much for others (maybe you).

Honk if You Love Tony...

...Iommi.

Christian McBride Band, Live @ Yoshi's

Yoshi's is a west coast institution. I have seen dozens of shows there, including one that was recorded and later released as a live album (I can honestly say on Bill Bruford's last live Eartworks disc that I am one of the clapping sounds between songs). Yay...who cares?

In any event, it is a great venue that attracts great talent. Last night was no exception.

McBride is the new 'something', although I do not know what. He is not solemn enough to be Ron Carter or mercurial enough to be Mingus, but he leads with a see-saw motion between the understated grounding of the former and the conviction and intensity of the latter...and the technique to stand in their company. The dude smokes. His electric playing is solid and soulful, but like Dave Holland suffers from a bit of a nondescript tone, and like Holland has a completely different character on upright; absolutely thundering. Elastic, thick and capable of wrenching notes from the farthest reaches of the fretboard, McBride has the physicality to dominate a generally difficult instrument, and the sensitivity to also cover material needing a delicate touch (the best bow work live since I saw George Mraz play with Herbie Hancock several years ago).

He also gives great repartee, and his good natured announcements and anecdotes seemed natural and unrehearsed, makiing it all the more enjoyable. The guy in sincerely funny and a natural bandleader.

Ron Blake I am still trying to get a handle on. There is some Joe Henderson in there, and some Wayne Shorter, and some other things which sound good, but I do not think he has started to really hit his stride (although his last solo album, Sonic Tonic, the title track to which was played live as the closer, is a damn fine effort that is getting slept on for no good reason at all) and as a result there were a few misfires early in the show until he got all pistons firing.

Now his stickman was in full octopus mode from the start, and not in a busy, overbearing way. Terreon Gully is a name to watch. He can play anything, has staggering amounts of not only technique, but stylistic finesse and stage presence. We are talking equal parts Brian Blade and Lenny White; other drummers should fear where he treads. The same goes for piano/keyboardist Geoff Keezer, who is not getting his due from the jazz buying public. The man is off the charts. When I first heard Keezer was when I found a few of his early solo albums (largely solo piano with the occasional contribution from McBride or Diana Krall) and I thought "Wow, this guy has some chops and compositional skill. He'll never get anywhere...but he should." Then a few years later I notice he is doing fusion madness on McBride's Vertical Vision disc and I see he is not a Jarrett-style purist, but can operate Rhodes and synths with just as much aplomb as he manages the piano. On this show, he went several steps further, and proceeded on several occasions to showcase a soloing technique that was visually arresting and sonically satiating. Ballistic speed runs and tasty phrasing came forth in surplus, and his ability to swap around various keyboards and patches made him a complementary creature to our aforementioned drumming octopus. It was funnier to watch Keezer though, as he looks like your 3rd grade substitute teacher fresh from getting his teaching creds.

Material-wise, they covered ground written by all four members, as well as a cover of Wynton Marsalis's Aural Oasis (from his 1985 Black Codes from the Underground album), which was heavily rearranged for electric bass and keyboards. The fun of course is that Wynton would probably have balked at such a treatment, being the parochial jackass that he is, but it was clear that even McBride understood and maybe even intentionally did it that way to poke a little fun at the neo-traditionalists like Wynton, who he appears to have broken away from, without giving away his own identity. Bravo.

The group is releasing a new multi-disc live album, recorded at an East Coast institution, Tonic, to be released on Ropeadope real soon now.

John Beasley - Surfacing

So Surfacing was an impulse grab from the bargain bin; I had never heard of John Beasley, but given that it was a trio outing with Rob Hurst on bass and Vinnie Colaiuta on drums, how bad could it be?

Ends up it is pretty good. Hurst is never bad, and in many ways was the Ron Carter of the Young Lions set when he first came to prominence. Thankfully, he no longer seems associated with that stifling setup and gets to pull open a ways. In the case of Colaiuta, it is good to hear him stretch out a bit, and not just doing pop-rock studio work or fusion noodling (of which he is great in both areas, but his versatility really does not get a chance to shine often, and this is one of those few cases where his straightahead jazz chops come to the fore).

Geri Allen - The Gathering

Geri Allen the Gathering
Verve 1998

Produced by Teo Macero, with Geri Allen and Herb Jordan













Performers:

Geri Allen - piano
Wallace Roney - trumpet
Robin Eubanks - trombone
Dwight Andrews - reeds
Vernon Reid - acoustic and electric guitars
Ralphe Armstrong - 7 string bass
Buster Williams - bass
Lenny White - drums
Mino Cinelu - percussion

When I first got word that Geri Allen had assembled this stacked line up for her then upcoming album, I was very curious as to what exactly was going to happen. Was she going to shoot into a fusion throwback phase? Was she going to play it safe with unsafe players? Was she going to try a multitude of disparate things with little commonality?

I was mostly wrong on all counts.

This album is very accessible, even inviting, but it takes risks. It has variety, but does not lack any coherence. This album is electric in persona, but the often maligned f-word (fusion) is not really applicable. What it is goes beyond the standard post-bop fare and is a self-contained moody, pensive work.

Allen has always been a diverse player, able to traverse styles and approaches with a deftness few can match. Her more abstract work has certain parallels to Keith Jarrett and Don Pullen, but on this there is strong hints of Herbie Hancock's lyricism and the sense of space that reminds me of Bill Evans at his best. It's cerebral, but not clinical.

The opener starts with a stalking piano motif and a percussive undercurrent by White and Cinelu, and flows with the unison lines of the brass. If anyone has an intuitive manner around Allen's material it is her husband, Wallace Roney. He shines in several spots, but most notably on Baby's Breath, which has an almost processional quality to it and his tone generates a warm heat throughout. The surprise player on this outing is Reid, who while already well known for the versatility of his electric playing, here mostly plays acoustic, and is practically a whole other musician altogether (not too dissimilar in the way Wayne Shorter seems to have two different playing approaches between Tenor and Soprano saxes), eschewing some of his trademark pyrotechnics, effects laden voicings and funky angularity to a crisp, unadorned tone. His phrasing hints at some of his speed and dexterity, but it is mostly in interplay with Allen, when she takes the charge. This is evident on Ray and Joy & Wonder, where at times Reid seems to be evoking Bill Frisell and Steve Tibbets at the same time. The sole electric pass is in the Miles Davis tribute, Dark Prince, which slaps bop and early fusion together in a fun, freewheeling romp. To anyone who knows the work of Lenny White, knows he was meant to play on this kind of record. White is versatile and has a deft set of hands; moving from propulsive and bearing down hard on the pulse, to slipping into delicate passages at will (his brushwork is always good).

Allen has often worked in trios, and the format is an excellent one for her, as it gives her ample space to play in. Many of the better tracks here follow that; Ray (piano, guitar, percussion), Soul Heir and Light Matter (piano, bass, drums) most notably. The larger line ups work very well, but the focus is on ensemble playing, whereas if you want to get your Allen-on, the smaller line ups make for more solo heat.

Keeping all this together and cogent at the mixing desk is the legendary Teo Macero, and he makes the whole recording have a fullness and earthy, haunting quality suited to the material. No filler, all killer.

This should have made anyones top jazz albums of the 90s, and is well worth seeking out for both the post-bop n00b as well as someone looking to expand their horizons.

Dear Mr. Steve Howe...

...stop trying to write lyrics, and really stop trying to sing them.

While your voice is no longer the atrociously thin, tuneless, toneless and horribly offkey vehicle it was on your first solo album, Beginnings (way back in 1976), it is now simply thin, tuneless and toneless. Stick to trying your hand at being Chet Atkins.

Your vocal calamity has ruined almost everything it has touched (in terms of your solo output). I guess I need to put Turbulence on just to wash out my ears.

p.s. cut it out with the overuse of pedal steel (i.e. the constant upper register whine on tracks like Chariot of Gold). Yes, we know you can play a lot of different string instruments. No, we do not need to be reminded of it on every occasion. Just play the tunes macrobiotic boy.

An observation

Let me state this simply: Lee Scratch Perry and the Upsetters do not actually upset anyone except the copy cats. Dub be good to me.

Kurtis Blow - America

Kurtis Blow
America
1985 Mercury Records


The title track opens, and the intro section sounds like a light version of something Tack>>Head would do (it's just tough to match the T>>H beat mechanics and sample science) but once the vocals kick in, we know its Kurtis. At 9+ minutes, it could have been cut in half and been effective. The song is a semi-coherent rant on foreign affairs from the mid-80s perspective. Take that for what you will. The next cut is 1:10 and is too long. It is a generic beat that goes aimlessly save the song title spoken at the beginning....Super Sperm. More like super dumb. This has some of KB's weakest cuts, including Hello Baby, Summertime Groove and the neo-Prince wannabe ballad Don't You feel Like Making Love (any woman who would after hearing this track needs to have her head examined). AJ is Cool sounds good only because it sounds like Grandmaster Flash.

However, it does have one classic cut, later sampled by Nas, If I Ruled the World. For that it is at least an interesting musical historical artifact.

But that is about it.

Kurtis was a pioneer with his very early releases, but by 1985 had lost most of his steam. I would generally skip this and if you really want to get into some hip hop archaeology, pick up his first two LPs (the self-titled debut and its follow-up, Deuce) or get Ego Trippin', which features the classic and goofy Basketball.

Big Audio Dynamite - Megatop Phoenix

Big Audio Dynamite
Megatop Phoenix
1989 Columbia/CBS records

Produced by Mick Jones and Bill Price

Like many groups from the 80s,I was first exposed to Big Audio Dynamite (B.A.D.) with their debut album and debut video, The Bottom Line, a ridiculously catchy dance-rock exercise. This was Mick Jones after the Clash and extending the concepts hinted at with their Combat Rock release. B.A.D. never was anywhere nearly as successful or relevant as the Clash, but over the course of their dozen or so years, they managed to make a few moments worth returning to.

As a rule, any album by the first incarnation (B.A.D.) is superior to B.A.D. II & Big Audio. This was the last of that stage.

The first post-intro cut from Megatop Phoenix, Rewind, is the anthem that makes this album, with its Jamaica toasting meets Brixton chorus:

Rewind Operator, Gonna Kill them with Sound
Bawling out Murder & Selector Come Down!

Now this is the late 80s, so acid house was rearing its head (as evident on the skittering drum machine beats of Contact and the light drum, synth and piano vamp that Baby, Don't Apologize is built around), and sampling was moving out of the novelty ghetto in pop music and taking a more studied presence. B.A.D. were all over it, with sampling used in layered backdrops at times, at others as goofy accents, often mixed with jangly guitars and dubbish bass, as it is used on Union Jack. Occasionally Mick gets his guitar out and actually solos, on the lazy-hazy mellow of Stalag 123, but mostly it is patched into a mix of electronics and synths and mixed instrumentation in a splatter pattern of dance-oriented rock.

The album has its weaker moments, but mostly due to the dated nature of some of the sounds (which if you enjoy the 80s can probably, like me, get over) as is the case with Dragon Town, House Arrest and Everybody Needs a Holiday. So be forewarned if that ain't yer cup o' tea.

Things You Find Just Roaming About:

I always like finding other music related blogs that cater to things other than that which I am bombarded with via mainstream outlets.

Lost in the 80s is exactly that, and as someone who has a fairly broad knowledge of that period, it is nice to go visit for some schooling.

Josh Roseman, whose work in Groove Collective, The SF Jazz Collective and his own Josh Roseman Unit are all worth seeking out and purchasing. He and Grachan Moncur III made the trombone interesting to me almost single valvedly (does the trombone count as valved? hmm). Now I find out he has a blog and a Flickr account. Now how cool is that.

Daily Video Feature, 3: Repurcussions w/Curtis Mayfield

So, I have a big soft spot for Groove Collective, particularly their early material, and their side project, Repercussions (of which I am still trying to get their second album). Nicole Willis is an underappreciated gem as far as soul singers go, and Genji Siraisi is the Jeff Porcaro of the Acid Jazz set.

They did a video with Curtis Mayfield covering his track Let's Do It Again, and it was sweet to see the by then wheelchair-bound Mayfield active so shortly after the accident that left him paralysed from the neck down. The video itself exudes some of the mellow and accepting (almost peace + love retro) vibe that was so indicative of the scene in the early 90s, and truth be told, i miss that vibe.

Nu Kudu 4 U from Nublu

So it looks like the long awaited follow up to their debut is out, and Kudu is launching The Death of the Party with a small tour and you can even sample one full track in free .mp3 tastiness.

This is a duo that evokes a wealth of stuff into a potent warped electro-pop funk stew.

Daily Video Feature, 2: Squeeze, and other related fun.

Well well, here is something I just fell upon, a documentary of sorts of former Squeeze frontman, Glenn Tilbrook.

Now, Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford never got as famous as John Lennon and Paul McCartney (or sold even a fraction of their records), but many critics and fans of the 1980s have and would cite them as the closest thing to such a partnership during that period. The writing duo had a near endless capacity to write hook-laden pop songs. Often they worked in conjunction with Jools Holland, who has since gone on to have the successful Later With Jools Holland show on the Beeb.

And since we are here and talking about video, here is an excerpt from the classic 80s MTV show, The Cutting Edge, featuring those three members prominently.

Personally, I still think their album Play, is an unsung gem, and one of Tony Berg's best production jobs.

Daily Video Feature, 1: Head>>Fake Rehearsal

So, with the now growing use of YouTube to plop up all manner of video content, I am going to trawl for the stuff I find worth taking a peek at. First up, some brief rehearsal footage of Head>>Fake, which consists of Doug Wimbish and Will Calhoun (aka the rhythm section of Living Colour, BlackJack Johnson, and Jungle Funk among their own seperate credits). It also has a cameo by Wimbish cohort in various On U Sound projects, Skip MacDonald.

Mariah Carey Fan Has a Mental Meltdown Bigger than Mariah

Right in this thread (that I have been amusing myself with).

I do not generally mind fanboyism per se, it is the fervent need to rewrite reality that gets me irked. And this imbecile has made it her duty to retool reality to suit her fetishistic desire to be Mariah Carey. I have a feelisng this is one of those 250 pound sweaty social mistakes that needs a celebrity to fawn over in order to feel well adjusted. The kind of person that if asked would happily suck the snot of their own heads with a straw if it meant being closer to their object of obsession.

UPDATE: This lunatic is at it again. How much of a hollow husk of a person do you have to be to make the axis you spin around be a random pop star? And to the point where you have to make up ever wilder "accomplishments" to justify your borderline psychosis?

UPDATE II: This twit has become the running joke of various site staffers and numerous users. The woman is a complete whackaloon, and I admit my schadenfreude gets the bettre of me at times.

Sevendust - Next

Sevendust - Next

I have good news and bad news. First the good news: this follows consistently with most Sevendust releases going back to Home. The bad news: see Good news. The band has always offered the promise of something above what they have pushed, but to date have not realized that potential; they continue to have a few really good tracks per album and a lot of pedestrian nu-metal remnants with some Sevendust flavoring (Lajon Witherspoon and Morgan Rose's distinctive vocal interplay, and a durably concussive backbeat, also due to Rose). The riffing is beefy and offers some real precision, but still comes off sterile at times. When it comes together in Hero or Desertion, or in the intro to See and Beleive, its definitely above par, but often their production and often nondescript lyrical content, and quite a lot of cut-and-paste nu-metal applications of dropped tunings and dissonance.*

The token acoustic ballad Shadows in Red, is absolutely sophomoric and I am guessing is there as single fodder to capture the weeny "look a metal band with range" award of the week.

If you are interested in more of the same, you may as well go back and buy Home...again.

* Which I really do not take as truly dissonant, since the style has now come to equate dissonance in an way that often resolves cleanly (oh, let's just jam a few pinched harmonics and minor key noodles here and there repetitively), somewhat obviating the true concept of dissonance as practiced by bands like Vernon Reid & Masque, Gang of Four, early Helmet and in various avant-garde contexts.

Mixed Bag

R.I.P. Ali Farka Toure. A monster player from Mali (yes, the country has produced more than just Salif Keita in the big and bad music department).










The soft-headed New Age catatonic boredom meister Yanni got to spruce up his image in true rock n' roll style...by being an abusive woman beater. When do we see the Prodigy remix of Reason For Rainbows (the Smack My Bitch Up 12")?

Finally, something built to properly listen to Miami Bass compilation cd's.

Daddy G plug

Former Massive Attack member Daddy G has a set released under the DJ Kicks series. Nearing the essential listening portion of the range, it follows well with his work with the Wild Bunch and MA.

His name is Prince....

...and he is quit funky.


I will make this very simple: if the rest of the new Prince album is as good as Black Sweat, it will be the best he has accomplished since the Revolution era. Black Sweat is just a half step away from being a less overt follow up to Erotic City and the video is excellent not only from a technical standpoint (director Sanaa Hamri seems to have a penchant for being subtle with tones and smooth cinematography. Her video for Prince's Musicology is one of the decades 10 best I think)
, but seeing the juxtaposition of Prince talking some of his typical loverman smack, while being the hunted rather than the hunter role in the video made for an amusing portrayal of himself. It was almost self-deprecating.

Anticon

So, I caught this posting the day before, and unfortunately could notstay long enough to actually watch Anticon perform, but did manage to see them while openers Second Degree did their thing. Their thing was not bad, but was odd, as they wer two very white, very clean cut kids that looked like extras from Napoleon Dynamite.

And hey, free show....can't complain.

Hagans - Animation + Imagination

Hagans
Animation Imagination
1999 Blue Note Records

Tim Hagans starts this release off with a deceptively sly bop lick that makes you think this will be a possibly pretty straightahead gig, and as the first few bars of the opening The Original Drum and Bass kick in, there is nothing to really suggest otherwise; high speed, tasty bop...which comes grinding to a halt a minute and 19 seconds in as the title track deconstructs into a Miles-like series of snaking trumpet bursts while Bill Kilson starts a driving drum pattern, and Kurt Rosenwinkle rips through some very McLaughlinesque guitar fury. It's jungle, but from a jazz perspective. Where the traditional instruments and programmed parts collide or transmute from one state to another is almost seamless. The album is pretty ambitious, and stays on point throughout, instead of falling into the tokenism of what many attempts at cross-pollination do.

All kinds of interesting treatments are used; both DJ Smash and DJ Kingsize lend their talents to constructing some soundscape magic, there is some phat (dumb word but appropo) Fender Rhodes (replete with occasional use of a ring modulator as far as I can tell) in a few spots from Kevin Hays; both veteran Ira Coleman and new low-end soldier David Dyson pull some paramilitary level acoustic and electric bass discipline, and Belden himself drops a little sax and reversed acoustic piano (although I am not exactly sure what it is, based on the results it would appear to be cool). And of course there is Tim Hagans himself, who cuts across the melee with his crisp trumpet tone.

While much of this album has a Miles like experimental stamp to it, and some of his phrasing could be seen as ripped wholesale from the Dark Princes fusion-era playbook, his tone and much of the more brash solos lend themselves to driving players like Freddie Hubbard in 28 IF, and late period Lee Morgan in Trumpet Sandwich. Hagans is a very sharp in terms of technical execution, which is a strength when trying to drop bursts of notes on the really uptempo sections, and his sense of swing adds some human element to the otherwise cold processed backdrop of I Heard You Were Dropped. Are You Threatening Me? starts off like a track from one of LTJ Bukem's various Ingredients comps, but rapidly shifts to something akin to territory mined by Nils Petter Moelvar and Erik Truffaz, to equally good effect.

Given the denseness of some of the performances, this album has a surprisingly shifting sense of space, with breathing room given either in the tracks themselves, or in terms of track order (i.e. the sole ballad, Love's Lullaby, is near the middle, and tracks with more spartan rhythmic treatments such as Slo Mo, get placed strategically so as to prevent listener fatigue. Otherwise, one could get drained by the often furious playing of the uptempo cuts.

This could easily fit into both Miles Davis early fusion heads and modern followers of LTJ Bukem's various labels and London Elektricity. Fans of the jungle experiements of Bill Laswell and Nils Petter Moelvar will also most likely be pleased. Even better is the live album, called Re-Animation, of mostly this same line up showing an even more muscular interpretation of the material. Both received Grammy nominations, which I find shocking for such a staid trapping of the music biz.

Really Bad Things

Well, maybe. As I have mentioned before, a couple of months ago I started spending a couple of Sundays a month harboring the fanatsy that I am a musician (well, I was once) and have been experimenting in what little free time I have to making some arty noise with the guy from Mutant Audio.

We won't be on TRL anytime soon (read: never), but we do have fun. At some point we will have to actually complete a song, but as it stands we improvise stuff all over the place, like this second take. The keyboard voice is probably a little too YMO/Kraftwerk for the rest of the instrumentation, but oh well. When you improvise, you are going out on a limb anyway, and the three of us literally put this together on the second take (the full track is 5+ minutes long with a bridge section that makes me want to cut off both my feet as a punitive measure). And then there is stuff like my own experiments in Ableton Live, such as this under 2 minute section that I hope to redo with extra imput for the rest of the crew into a complete track.

We keep talking about doing an instrumental EP of sorts, but we'll see.

Mandriva and Mindawn Make it Mutual

So Mandriva (formerly Mandrake), the Linux distro, is going to cozy up with Mindawn to offer a bundle with their next release.

While I am not sure in economic terms it will amount to a whole lot (and certainly will not directly threaten the Apple racket), I still think it is newsworthy. It's kinda indie.

Trackwerks

Trackwerk has their latest batch of broken beat mixes available for dl. Make some real use of that DSL connection fool!

Bruford with Towner and Gomez - If Summer Had its Ghosts

Bill Bruford with Ralph Towner and Eddie Gomez
If Summer Had its Ghosts

Produced by Bill Bruford

Personnel:
Bill Bruford - drums, percussion
Ralph Towner - 12 string and classical guitars, piano, electronic keyboards
Eddie Gomez - bass

I do not know why, but I waited a few years after its release to actually getting around to picking this up. There was absolutely no reason to deprive myself of the joy of listening to this.

As is even mentioned in the liner notes, (at the time) the pairing of beat-surgeon Bruford (coming off the recent revival of bleeding-edge art rocker unit King Crimson)* with the delicate fingerstyle acoustic playing of Towner and the bassist most noted for a decade with the brilliant Bill Evans trio starting in the mid-sixties didn't appear so much incongruous as unlikely. While Bruford had always worn his jazz influences on his sleeve (even when subsuming them in cacophonic workouts and his dense electronic chordal drums), it was in the mid 90s that he took the plunge into full acoustic jazz, with this release and the first of what became his second major incarnation of his Earthworks unit, and their release The Sound of Surprise.**

This is the most low key material since his first duet album with Patrick Moraz in the mid 80s but has a much different ambience. This has a relaxed aire, a totally unforced vibe of three guys casually working through some very interesting material. Some of it is somber, some simply laid back, but all of it comes together well as a complete album. This is not to say the material is breezy; some of the arrangements are quite involved, like the overlapping articulation in Splendour Among Shadows, or the deceptively minimalist Silent Pool, which sounds like it could have been a lost track from Steve Reich's oevre with its shifting pulse. The closest this comes to anything from previous Bruford is the last track, Now is The Next Time, which structurally hints to the Bates/Ballamy Earthworks era.***

Towner has such a clean, crisp guitar tone, and that and his piano playing is very much in the ECM vein. He knows how to coax a good set of sounds out of the 12 string in particular, with in uplifting resonance and occasionally jangly tones. Gomez, like all great jazz bassists, provides a grounded pivot point for the others to reference, while dropping an accentuating riff or short solo when appropriate; his is a method that is tasteful from opening note to coda. Bruford proves why he is one of the most influential and revered players...he actually uses drums musically as opposed to just trying to sneak in as many fills as he can or being as loud as possible. This is his gig, and he does not exhibit any hint of having anything to prove. The result is some really velvet playing. Almost exclusively acoustic trapkit, with a little logdrum hither and electronic kalimba yon, he has an intimacy and comfort behind the throne few others can.

This whole album will appeal to anyone wanting a kind of earthy jazz; people who like the Americana-laced releases from Bill Frisell, or various similar sounding releases from across the ECM stable, like Marc Johnson or the new Manu Katche album, Neighborhoods.

* Bruford initially joined KC in the early 70s, and played on every album subsequent until 1998, including such influential releases as Red and Discipline. This album was actually released under the Discipline Global Mobile label, founded by KC emir Robert Fripp.

** Bruford spent the late 70s also running a jazz-rock fusion quartet named Bruford and later founded an experimental electric jazz unit called Bill Bruford's Earthworks, which featured the talents of multi-instrumentalist Django Bates saxman and Iain Ballamy, both of whom are UK jazz stars in their own right, the latter alos being the founder of Feral Records with multimedia artist Dave McKean. The initial Eartworks lineup only changed bassists once and was centered on Bruford's development of chordal drums, by which he used electronic drums to not only polyrhthymic parts, but melodic phrases and key changes and offering a rather interesting foundation for soloists. The band had a very unique sound that I have never heard really emulated in terms of compositional style and sound palette.

*** Oddly enough, this is the one track written by Towner.