Astounding Eyes of Mingus

Selected: Anouar Brahem's "The Astounding Eyes of Rita" would have probably never gotten another listen from me if I had happened to play it first in the car or on some other small speakers. I happened to play it on some really transparent near-field studio monitors and immediately fell in love. The combination of oud and bass clarinet is amazing; the two instruments resonate together very subtly. Coupled with some extremely sensitive electric bass (yes electric, and it works) and percussion, this album draws you in with warm tones and slow, but ever evolving melodies. I've played it almost three times in a row.

Random: The Squeezebox randomly selected Charles Mingus recording made on the Symphony Sid show from Birdland on Oct 19, 1952. This is an unreleased performance, part of what is known as the Boris Rose tapes, which have gone from tape, to acetate, to flac files on the internet. The band here sounds unrehearsed and more interested in entertaining for the radio than getting into the tunes. Typically Mingus ensembles have a big sound, not so here. Eddie Armour (tp), Don Butterfield (tuba), Charles McPherson (as), Pepper Adams (bars), Jaki Byard (p), Charles Mingus (b), Dannie Richmond (d), Symphony Sid Torin (mc). The standout tune is Monk Funk or Vice Versa in which Byard captures some Monk licks well. Lots of clipping and distortion on the recording, but interesting as frozen moment from an average gig.

Dresden Puppets

Random: Puppet Show's Traumatized is a solid average younger generation progressive record like many others in the middle 90's. The second track has a memorable chorus, otherwise melody doesn't seem to be the band's strong point. It seems that 10 years later, this keyboard driven band has produced a second album... probably worth a shot.

Selected: Jan Garbarek's Dresden is a driving performance from the begining to the end of the two disc set. Garbarek has a great sense of melody and creativity, but left to his own devices he can devolve into reverb-dominated tone poems. The other three musician's, particularly Manu Katche, drive Garbarek forward creating sustained energy. With excellent keyboard and bass work as well, it is clear that these four musicians were enjoying the moment. This is one of my favorite Garbarek recordings.

Diablo Swing, Reuben

Selected: Reuben Wilson's Set Us Free is clearly an attempt by the second wave organist, to change the direction of Blue Note organ combos. This 1971 disc established a more mellow organ sound that is occasionally backed with soul-type female singers. The track Mr. Big Stuff stands out as it starts with a soft soul-pop groove and develops into a tight swing with a nice sax solo over the top. Mercy, Mercy Me, of course is such an archetypal tune for the 70'a.

Random: How could I not buy an album called Diablo Swing Orchestra - Sing A Long Songs for the Damnned and Delerious? The shtick here seems to be alternating 4/4 crunch with odd snippets of swing, latin, and other genre tidbits. Female (and male this time) operatic vocals sit on top of this strange creation altough they don't sound quite as sincere or organic as Therion. The music is generally light and all-over-the-place with cello, clarinet, and trumpet melodic lines occasionally sitting on top of the metal-ish guitar. I particularly like the Latin / Brazilian percussion that breaks out briefly. The disc is fun, but a bit synthetic on the first listen. Love the cover art.

New World Punch

Selected: Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 "From the New World." The Georg Solti version with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra has great tone and balance in the strings, and a very warm resonant brass section. The dynamic swings are more pronounced and Solti keeps a more organic tempo than Masur. This is probably the best of my recordings of this piece, but my familiarity with the Batiz version makes for a difficult choice.

Random: The debut album from The Punch Brothers sounds essentially like another Chris Thile solo effort. His incredibly sensitive voice and magical mandolin playing take center stage in an ensemble that performs lengthy compositions that sound alternately like mellow bluegrass and a classical string quartet. The group throws in a few challenging rhythms along the way along with some responsive group interplay. While some of the compositions seem to lack energy at times, they provide a rewarding listening experience overall, particularly on a sound system that can adequately reproduce the subtle acoustic resonances of the instruments.

New World Roots

Selected: Kurt Masur and The New York Philharmonic's performance of Antonin Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 "From the New World." The strings here have a much more balanced sound in the soft sections, particularly in the opening of the first movement and throughout the second movement. The dynamics do not swing as widely within movements as Batiz's version, but rather the volume builds consistently across all the movements to the end. This dampens some of the energy of the piece and almost makes my favorite descending brass run in the third movements indistinguishable. Masur also keeps a more clockwork-analytical pace that seems artificially restrained.

Random: Jethro Tull's "Roots To Branches" sounded a lot like just another 90's Tull album when I purchased it on release day. Listening to it now on a good sound system the subtleties of Anderson's voice and flute as well as the emotive guitar work by Martin Barre really stand out. Barre is greatly under appreciated by the public. There is a warmth and resonance to their playing that passionately supports Ian Anderson's razor sharp observations of human nature. The backing instruments do not detract although at times they can seem a bit synthetic, probably the result of numerous overdubs. I noticed for the first time the great musical work on "Valley"; although more quiet and subtle, it is currently my favorite track on the album.

Kinda Give, Take Yours

To make up for lost time, here's 4 tracks: 2 selected and 2 random.

Take a Pebble

An early example of the progressive era's blending of classical and popular music. What begins as a simple ballad turns into extended sections of instrumental music with more complicated arrangement. Much of this (as with much of Emerson, Lake & Palmer) is a showcase for Keith Emerson's piano playing. Equally as interesting though is his companion's use of their traditional rock instrumentation of bass and drums. Palmer in particular has very little traditional rock space here but nonetheless presents a percussion part that fits both idioms extremely well.


Yours Is No Disgrace

This is the first song I on the first CD I owned, The Yes Album. This album marked Steve Howe's first appearance on a Yes recording, although it was his second album cover with the band, since Peter Banks left Yes before the photo shoot for Time and a Word. It was also one of my earliest exposures to progressive rock, in that I'd never really been exposed to extended arrangements and classical influence in rock music. It's also easy to claim that this song would hold a special place for me even beyond nostalgia. Chris Squire's bass playing stands out to me in particular with his melodic lines as does Bill Bruford's drums.


Kinda I Want To

I walked into my dorm room in college one day to hear my roommate listening to something. My immediate reaction was, "why are you listening to a guy and a computer?" He answered, "This isn't a computer; it's a band called Nine Inch Nails." To settle the argument we had to go to the liner notes which of course, read "Nine Inch Nails is Trent Reznor" and "All programming by Trent Reznor". I can appreciate some of Nine Inch Nails industrial sound, but the recorded music sounds so still and lifeless to me, dominated as it is by programmed synthesizers. It must be said that at least this track does not sit entirely still, but rather progresses and builds in intensity. I'm told the touring band is a different beast owing at least to the fact that it is a full band of musicians, but as yet I've not had any exposure to NIN's live music.


Give It All

I have to confess to cheating a bit today. I've leaned heavily toward progressive rock so far and the first two tracks that popped up on the iPod were King Crimson and Pete Sinfield, followed by a recording of a Number Station. Skipping past those brought me to Rise Against, which is an example of "nice find" for me. I heard this particular track in the game Rock Band and picked up the CD on a whim when I found it for $5. A more poppish hardcore punk band influenced by the likes of Black Flag and Minor Threat, among others. More polished and with vocal harmony, that influence may be less obvious in their more well known albums, like this one. It served as a nice introduction to punk for me, since I'd never really paid much attention to the genre.

New World Fleet Foxes

Selected: Dvoark's Symphony No. 9 "From the New World" This disc represents my first ever classical music purchase. At the time, in college, it was a completely random action. This piece is one of the most performed works of classical music. Each of the four movements has distinctly memorable themes that will be familiar to most people as they have been used in radio shows, as bumper music on NPR, and have been closely quoted by other composers. I can think of no other work with so many memorable themes. The piece features dynamic swings from soft string work (a little muddy in this performance) to boisterous brass themes which flow in counterpoint to the strings. Having heard this performance so many times over the years it has become my reference point for future comparisons. The first movement has a couple of memorable themes, both soft and loud. The second movement plays principally from the softer strings, while the third and forth movements return to intermittent contrasts of brass and strings. The third movement has a descending brass run that is particularly pronounced here and has become one of my favorites.

Random: I'll have one of these... hold the reverb. While it's nice to see a pop band which features strong vocal harmonies, this disc from Fleet Foxes beats the ears to numbness with unending, surreal, almost comical, reverb. The sparse and creative (mostly acoustic) instrumental parts are completely swamped out by the heavy compression and reverb. The style is a refreshing retro 60-70's pop folk, but by the end of the disc the vocal reverb has made all the tunes indistinct. The vocals sound like they were recorded in a cavernous cathedral which can be nice, but the rest of the instruments don't have that much reverb which results in a comical, artificial sound. I'd love to see these guys in a bar with no PA system.