Monday, March 18, 2024

Adele Sebastian - 1981 - Desert Fairy Princess

Adele Sebastian
1981
Desert Fairy Princess



01. Desert Fairy Princess 8:56
02. Belize 5:28
03. I Felt Spring 6:56
04. Man From Tanganyika 8:12
05. Day Dreamer 5:43
06. Prayer For The People 2:32

Bass – Roberto Miranda
Drums – Billy Higgins
Flute, Vocals – Adele Sebastian
Marimba – Rickey Kelley
Percussion – "Daoude" Woods
Piano – Bobby West



Adele Sebastian was an Afro American jazz flutist and singer, active from the early 70s (when she was still a teenager) until her untimely death at the age of 27 in 1983 from a kidney failure. In fact she had been depending on monthly dialysis to stay alive for years. She lived through and for the music and you can hear it on her only solo album “Desert Fairy Princess” which was first issued in 1981. The mostly acoustic instrumentation brings a very natural and therefore rather retrospective sound considering the year the album was recorded. Adele and her band pull it off right from the start as if it had been 1966 and it was time for a revolution to shake the dust from the old time jazz. In a perfect way she mixes classic American vocal jazz elements with playful and more free passages, Latin music and tribal African sounds in the lengthy and quite rhythm oriented “Man From Tanganyika” and makes the title track start with a mystical “Allahu akbar“ chant while it turns more and more into a dark and gloomy song with something like a psychedelic edge reminiscent of Pharoah Sanders on his early works. Wild rhythms from drums, percussions with tons of bells and chimes weave a thick groove carpet and conjure a magical atmosphere. Those jazz aficionados who love the mid 60s John Coltrane, his sidekick Pharoah Sanders and Alice Coltrane will go crazy for this album.

The name Adele Sebastian likely doesn’t ring bells in broader jazz circles, but it should. During her lifetime, a tragically short span of 27 years due to kidney failure, she played flute alongside a number of prominent West Coast jazz musicians, and was a member of pianist Horace Tapscott’s Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, a community arts collective offering local jazz and music education to students across Los Angeles. In its heyday, the Arkestra would perform in prisons, hospitals and churches, but didn’t record its first studio album until the late 1970s.
For Sebastian, a trained musician with an interest in Pan-Africanism, performing in the Arkestra married her love of art with her sense of Black pride. “I want to be an inspiration to all people,” she once said. “I strongly believe in, contribute to and support the preservation and education of the black arts. For these are my people and our contributions are priceless.”

Sebastian was born in 1956 in Riverside, California to a mother, Jacquelyn, who played piano, and a father, Malvin, who played saxophone. Her brothers were singers and Sebastian took up the flute at a young age. She played through high school, then went to California State University, where she majored in theatre and minored in Pan-African Studies. Reportedly, this is when she started making her way through the scene, quickly earning a rep through her artistry. In 1973, Sebastian co-wrote, staged and choreographed the Black History musical It’s A Brand New Day. Five years later, her flute could be heard across the Arkestra’s studio work. A funk-driven ensemble version of her track, “Desert Fairy Princess,” appeared on Live At I.U.C.C., the band’s 1979 album.

In 1981, Sebastian released what would be her only solo album: Desert Fairy Princess, a 38-minute spiritual jazz suite that brought her creative ambitions to the fore. Featuring Bobby West on piano; Daa'oud Woods on percussion; Billy Higgins on drums; Roberto Miranda on bass; and Rickey Kelley on marimba, the album conveys matters of the soul in ways that align with Sebastian’s aesthetic. These songs are incredibly emotive, her flute billowing amid the simmering hum of Higgins’ drum and West’s radiant piano.

There’s a palpable joy emanating here; on arrangements like “Belize” and “I Felt Spirit,” Sebastian’s playing sounds light and effervescent, the sound of a woman with the world to gain. The same went for “Man From Tanganyika,” her version of McCoy Tyner’s original. Where his track focuses on the piano as its lead instrument, Sebastian’s arrangement rightfully puts the flute center stage. Elsewhere, on “Day Dream,” it’s as if she’s reflecting on her past. Yet there’s no sorrow; instead, she can only smile when pondering freedom. “I’m looking back on my yesterdays,” goes a line from the track. “I’ve made brand new plans just to fit my ways.” The lyrics land differently now; Sebastian passed just two years later.

It’s been said that she was adored musically and personally. I can see that. And while I try to avoid comparisons between artists, Desert Fairy Princess hits me the same as Roberta Flack’s records. The artists are remarkably sincere in their work; the music itself feels guided by omnipresent forces. Forty years later, Desert Fairy Princess is a major part of Sebastian’s legacy. Her star shone brightly and faded too soon.

A special home to spiritual jazz on the west coast at the end of the 70s – and crucial for giving us some really unique talents like this! Adele Sebastian may have only ever cut this one album as a leader, but she's a hell of a flute player with a very deep, spiritual vibe – these sublime lines that soar and stretch out over modal rhythms – played by a totally hip group that includes Rickey Kelley on vibes, Roberto Miranda on bass, and Billy Higgins on drums and a bit of gembreh – a string instrument that brings a nicely exotic vibe to the record. The group's rounded out by Bobby West on piano and Daoude Woods on percussion – and the songs have this open flow that's wonderful – never too far out, but always searching – as the group soar through a version of McCoy Tyner's "Man From Tanganyika"

Linda Hill - 1981 - Lullaby for Linda

Linda Hill
1981
Lullaby for Linda


01. Leland´s Song 14:10
02. The Creator´s Musician 10:12
03. Lullaby For Linda 11:15
04. Children 10:57

Bass – Roberto Miranda
Drums – Everett Brown Jr.
Flute – Aubrey Hart (tracks: 3)
Flute, Vocals – Adele Sebastian
French Horn – Fundi Legohn (tracks: 3)
Percussion – Virjilio Figueroa
Piano, Vocals, Liner Notes – Linda Hill
Tenor Saxophone, Clarinet – Sabir Matteen
Vocals – Jugegr Juan Grey


Producer Tom Albrach was the patron saint of Horace Tapscott and the Pan-African People's Arkestra. His large amount of money that seemed to need spending on a radical pianist and his communal, Watts area big band meant that Tapscott could record what he wanted when he wanted, and it also allowed opportunities for band members to occasionally record. 1981, which found Horace Tapscott himself recording frequently yet still recovering from his aneurysm in 1978, was a banner year for band recordings, and include both this excellent, soulful album from alternate PAPA pianist and "PAPA matriarch" Linda Hill and the equally amazing Adele Sebastian. Neither artist recorded a solo record again, though in Sebastian's case, that is likely the increasing kidney troubles that led to her death just two years later. Hill deserved more, but she also was fine with her role in the band. It was the use of her house all the way back in 1962 that allowed PAPA to form. Constantly rehearsing there, the band moved quickly from a small number of players to 18 and from all available descriptions were already a major force by the mid sixties when they began playing all over LA, though especially Watts, where the band lived communally. She continued to play with the Arkestra through all this time, with her piano being traded with Tapscott's (who would conduct solely while she was on it). This piano also had a quite different sound than Tapscott's. Still forceful but more elegant, and its sound lent itself well to the spiritual/modal music that was PAPA's music of choice.

She even got a few originals in the repertoire over the years, but she only turned to one that is known, "Leland's Song", for this record (and no versions of that would be released under Tapscott or PAPA's name until the posthumous issue of "Live at the Lighthouse" and later "Live at Century City"). This album, which utilizes a great cast of fellow PAPA band members, dug more into a vocal based spiritual music that allowed all three vocalists on the album (especially the pairing of Hill and Sebastian's voices) to shine. Each track has just a few lines for the vocalists to sing before moving into instrumental explorations of the themes, which are not too far removed from Tapscott/PAPA albums like "Live at the IUCC". She lets Sabir Matteen's tenor sax do a lot of the heavy lifting here, but she's always propelling him and others on with her wonderful piano work. Take the album highlight, opener "Leland's Song". It opens on Hill and Sebastian's voices intertwined and leads into stellar work by Matteen that propels everyone else forward. A secret weapon is the bass and drums combination of Roberto Miranda on bass and Everett Brown Jr. on drums. They are the backbone of nearly all of the early Tapscott recordings, and they keep the bottom end pushing and pulsing on this track and the album as a whole. In particular, they more or less (along with the percussion of Virjilio Figueroa) drive the closing track "Children", which is mostly a spoken word battle between Hill and Sebastian. As they talk about the music scene, Kwanzaa, and invented gossip, with occasional ululating from Sebastian or singing from both (some of which seems to be overdubbed), the track manages to sustain interest and keep the listener guessing as it moves through its eleven minutes, though it's a shame in some ways not to get a little more from the rest of the band.

There's plenty of that on the rest of the album. The title track is sung by Jugegr Juan Grey as an homage to the "matriarch", and second track "The Creator's Musician" finds Hill and Sebastian in a particularly spiritual moment, dedicating their music to a higher power and leading into some of the most gospel-based work by the band on the record. Ultimately, more albums likely would've brought out more sides of this near forgotten pianist. What's here is enough to show how potent she was as a composer and player. PAPA was truly made of musicians with lots of abilities. It required a devotion no other group outside of Sun Ra's Arkestra or perhaps Ellington's orchestra had, with songs being written first and foremost for the existing band members. In PAPA's case, they were also songs written BY the band members, and this recording is a great example of what they were capable of any given night with the band. Well worth searching out.

One of our favorite albums ever on the legendary Nimbus label – and the only set we've ever seen from pianist Linda Hill as a leader! The set's got the same open-ended, spiritually-expressive sound as Adele Sebastian's record for the label – and Sebastian's also a key part of the group, working here on vocal and flute, to give the album a richly righteous sound! The vocals are great, and often feature help from Jugeger Juan Grey – with more soul than usual for this sort of set, but still plenty of jazz elements too – with an offbeat quality that's almost like Oneness Of Juju – often used just to lead off a tune, before the solos come in strongly. Other musicians include Sabir Matteen on tenor, Roberto Miranda on bass, Everett Brown on drums, and Virjilio Figuera on percussion.

Les Rallizes Dénudés - 2012 - Mars Studio 1980

Les Rallizes Dénudés
2012
Mars Studio 1980



CD 1: Studio Session: Mars Studio 1980/09/04-06


101. Enter The Mirror 4:33
102. 遠い記憶 (Distant Memories) 6:30
103. Jam 1:36
104. Enter The Mirror 19:31
105. 夜、暗殺者の夜 (Night Of The Assassins) 2:54
106. 恋の物語 (A Tale Of Love) 11:40


CD 2: Studio Session: Mars Studio 1980/09/06-07


201. 恋の物語 (A Tale Of Love) 7:09
202. 黒い悲しみのロマンセ I (Otherwise Fallin' Love With I) 9:10
203. 黒い悲しみのロマンセ II (Othewise Fallin' Love With II) 9:23
204. 白い目覚め I (White Waking I) 2:09
205. 白い目覚め II (White Waking II) 7:54
206. 白い目覚め III (White Waking III) 2:45
207. 白い目覚め IV (White Waking IV) 7:50


CD 3: Studio Session: Mars Studio 1980/09/09


301. Guitar Jam 24:21
302. 氷の炎 (Ice Flames) 15:20
303. 夜、暗殺者の夜 (Night Of The Assassins) 12:37
304. 黒い悲しみのロマンセ (Otherwise Fallin' Love With) 10:59


CD 4: Double Heads September


401. 夜の収穫者たち (Reapers Of The Night) 11:40
402. 白い目覚め (White Waking) 6:36
403. 黒い悲しみのロマンセ (Otherwise Fallin' Love With) 11:05
404. Enter The Mirror 9:48
405. The Last One


Recorded at Mars Studio, September 4-9, 1980, except for track 3-4, recorded at Meiji Gakuin Daigaku, 1973, and tracks 4-1 to 4-5 recorded on September 11, 1980 at Yaneura, Shibuya, Tokyo.
Disk 4 is a bonus live disk, entitled 'Double Heads September' and only available with initial copies of the release.



The best-known studio recordings by Les Rallizes Dénudés is the legendary Mars Studio sessions from 1980. The tracks were laid down during the tenure in the group of guitarist Fujio Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi is one of the more notorious figures in the Japanese rock underground. He was born to a Japanese mother and a black British father, brought up in a reformatory before channeling his anger and energy into a series of rock bands including Group Sounds garage rockers The Dynamites and proto-glam stompers Murahachibu. Yamaguchi's sojourn in Rallizes lasted just over a year, from early 1980 to March 1981, but the weightless, languid weird-form blues created by the meshing of Mizutani's billowing feedback and Yamaguchi's acid-etched lines has been regarded by many Japanese fans as one of the group's peaks. The fourth disc in the set comprises a live show from the same period as the studio recordings. Recorded on September 11, 1980 at the Yaneura club in the Shibuya district of Tokyo, this show was previously released under the title Double Heads September, though it was not included in the Double Heads 6CD document of Fujio's tenure in the group. Numbered, limited edition 4CD box set including a booklet with liner notes. Digitally remastered.

The Mars Studio 1980 box set represents one of the most complete and interesting releases in the Les Rallizes Dénudés catalog. While most of the material on here is in my opinion better served on other bootlegs, the different versions of Otherwise Fallin' In Love With and White Walking are very interesting and provide a lot of insight into how the band improvised during their recordings. The studio chatter also gives this album a voyeuristic atmosphere I really love. It feels like you're right there, listening to the band crank out classic tracks no one's going to hear till decades later.

Those repeated songs, while good, are bound to turn a lot of people off. I know of only one person who's actually interested in listening to White Walking four times in a row - that person being me. It is for that reason that I advise those looking to start listening to LRD go for 77' Live (or Heavier Than a Death in the Family) first as that release is a lot more "accessible" in comparison to this. I hate to say it too but I much prefer 77's version of Enter the Mirror. The version on here just sounds too sloppy and quiet.




Les Rallizes Denudés is the finest band that never released a record. They began at Doshishi University in Kyoto, Japan, in late 1967 and after a horrendous and shameful experience in a recording studio, band leader Takeshi Mizutani decided to limit the band to live shows only. They spent the next three decades or so playing relentless, blinding, feedback-laden, caveman-simple, bumptious psych. In 1988, 17 years after the bassist helped highjack a Japan Airlines jet under the banner of the Japanese Red Army Faction, Les Rallizes Denudés recorded this version of their most thudding, doomy tune, “The Last One.” It sounds like an A&R guy’s night-sweat nightmare.

I’m less certain today that the track is from 1988, but it seems plausible. I'm also uncertain about track titles here, given the profusion of inaccurate information circulating online. Really, I’m less certain of everything now.

I was supposed to put out this record. This version of "The Last One" simply had to be on vinyl. It was going to be a two-song LP, with “The Last One” on one side and one other song on the other side, which as far as I can tell is untitled, recorded at Shibuya Yaneura on December 13, 1980 and released on the “December’s Black Children” CD. It was going to be a bootleg. I didn’t care about getting permission, which seemed impossible anyway. Others were releasing bootlegs of Rallizes right and left. There are so many that it becomes impossible to keep track, even less possible to afford to buy them all. My intention was to release the band’s two finest recordings on one record, a simple introduction for beginners and a celebration of the pinnacles of their achievement for experts. I never did put it out. Now someone has gone to the trouble of releasing “The Last One” not once but twice. Unfortunately, the label has wasted the rest of the vinyl on inferior tracks, without the sublime qualities of this untitled track that I love.

What seems to have occurred here is that someone pressed two of the three tracks from the supposed “France Demo Tape” on vinyl. That "tape," released as a CDR in 2007, was probably not a single recording, nor was it likely recorded in France. (Faux francophilia is part of the band's mystique.) It gathered together three relatively disparate tracks in terms of sound. I don’t know the truth, but I assume that the record was accidentally pressed with just two tracks and the bootlegger then released it for sale, making a sleeve for it that included minimal information. Really, what information could it include?

My guess is that then, after the LP sold out, and some reviews of it appeared, the bootlegger (or a colleague, or a competitor?), now under the ostensibly more legit imprint Bamboo, pressed it again. It now has all three tracks and heavyweight orange vinyl. It includes on the insert a review/distributor's blurb of the prior, two-track pressing. It’s weird. And it’s dumb, because now “The Last One” appears on the same side as an underdeveloped and incomplete, though decent, version of a song titled “Strung Out Deeper Than the Night” that is not actually “Strung Out Deeper Than the Night” but is actually “Ice Fire.” Who needs track titles anyway? Those two tracks, which total almost 30 minutes, fill one side, while the other side comprises only “An Awful Eternity,” clocking in under 20 minutes. It would have made more sense to pair "Eternity" with “Ice Fire,” for a slightly shorter and more sensible side, leaving the megalithic “The Last One” to stand on its own, as it will for eternity in the annals of fucked-up, shit-fi music.

Buy either version of the record. Both contain the one "The Last One" you need. I prefer the two-track bootleg, with its more spare presentation.

Back to the December 1980 untitled track. Rallizes was improvisational and unpredictable, rarely giving off the feeling of control. The band’s repertoire included not more than 20 songs, played differently every time, for a couple decades. It’s a form of devotion to a craft that seems impossible to grasp today, in an era of instant gratification and equally rapid obsolescence. This particular track, which I think has not really grabbed many listeners’ attention before, requires a close listen. It begins as one of the most pacific, anodyne, and calm Rallizes tunes. It’s springlike, west coast psychedelia. It’s nothing like the brooding night that usually inspires their sound. For over ten minutes, hardly anything happens. Past the ten-minute mark, a moment of feedback indicates that things might be changing soon. At 10:45 or so, the world explodes. It comes basically out of nowhere. Shattering feedback and noise cascade. Beneath it, the effervescent tune continues. It’s a juxtaposition that grabbed me the first time I heard it and has yet to let me go. That was around a decade ago, before the crisis of 2008, which I related to a song by Shotgun Solution that has similar aesthetic qualities of catastrophe: a smooth start and an infernal finish. Today, the present crisis, a new act of the ongoing crisis, holds different auguries. The attempt to hold on to normalcy amid the storm and stress is impossible. We are all enrolled, including and especially the ultra-rich, who hope to ride out the destruction they are enabling in their enclaves. It won’t happen. They’ll be engulfed too. Anyone who tries to hold on to the fading dream of it all going back to normal is simply playing the underlying tune here, while today, at the 10:45 moment, the klaxons sound, shreiks echo, and the world burns to death around us. It’s impossible not to hear it, as impossible as it was not to see it coming.

Les Rallizes Dénudés - 2011 - Great White Wonder

Les Rallizes Dénudés
2011
Great White Wonder



1974.07.13

101. 造花の原野 (Field Of Artificial Flower) 8:32
102. 心の内側 (Inside Heart) 10:04
103. 黒い悲しみのロマンセ (Otherwise Fallin' In Love With You) 7:42
104. 天使 (Angel) 10:01
105. 黒い悲しみのロマンセ (Otherwise Fallin' In Love With You) 4:50
106. お前を知った (You Were Known) 11:36
107. The Last One 20:27


1975.10.01

201. 夜より深く (Deeper Than The Night) 10:58
202. 黒い悲しみのロマンセ (Otherwise Fallin' In Love With You) 8:25
203. 造花の原野 (Field Of Artificial Flower) 6:10
204. 白い目覚め (White Waking) 5:33
205. 記憶は遠い (A Memory Is Far) 9:10
206. Improvisation 1:51


1977.07.22

301. 夢 (Dream) 5:57
302. 夜、暗殺者の夜 (Night Of The Assassins) 7:30
303. 造花の原野 (Field Of Artificial Flower) 5:16
304. 夜の収穫者たち (The Night Collectors) 6:31
305. 氷の炎 (Flames Of Ice) 14:06
306. 鳥の声 (A Voice Of Bird) 10:01


1980.11.07 (Bonus Disk)

401. 氷の炎 (Flames Of Ice) 16:17
402. 夜、暗殺者の夜 (Night Of The Assassins) 18:04
403. 夜より深く (Deeper Than The Night) 14:36
404. 記憶は遠い (A Memory Is Far) 13:29
405. 夜より深く Part 2 (Deeper Than The Night Part 2) 8:57

Contains three shows:
Disk 1: 13 July, 1974 at Hebon Bldg, Meiji Gakuin Daigaku
Disk 2: 1 October 1975 at Adan, Shibuya
Disk 3: 22 July 1977 at Nichifutsu Kaikan (Maison Franco-Japonaise), Tokyo



Originally released in 2006 on the Univive label, Phoenix Records presents this highly-collectable, numbered limited edition 4CD box set of three live gigs spanning 1974-1977 and one bonus disc of live material from a 1980 gig of legendary Japanese rock outfit Les Rallizes Dénudés. The group was formed in 1967 and incredibly, for a group that had only one official release (Oz Days Live, a double vinyl compilation release in 1973), played their last gig almost 30 years later in October 1996. As news of new rock music made it to Japan from the UK and the USA -- mostly via rock magazines and music papers, with most LPs tough to find even on import -- something was lost in translation in Japan that allowed it to mutate well beyond its original remit. Rallizes took rock music at its word while envisioning it as both unnecessarily complicated and too stupid by far. In doing so, they formulated an inspirational blueprint that would go on to have a marked effect on everything that came after them in Japanese underground music. It's a music that's as loose as it is uptight, as sophisticated as it is punk-primitive, as radical as it is simplistic. Digitally remastered. Includes a booklet with liner notes.

The best thing about this album is that it contains tons rarities. In my opinion, the rare tracks are worth the entire box set (not to say that the rest of the album isn't great because it is), plus it opens with one of the hardest rocking versions of "Field of Artificial Flower" I've ever heard (although still not quite as heavy as the version on Yodo-Go-A-Go-Go). From what I've gathered from other sources, this archival compilation is made up of four complete concerts from 1974, 1975, 1977 and a bonus disc containing a concert from 1980. all four are solid concerts (the only setbacks I see are that the bass is slightly out of tune on the second disc and the third disc sounds like it was recorded behind a wall). Overall, I think that it is an excellent album and a must for Rallizes fanatics. Highlights on the album include Field Of Artificial Flower (all three versions), inside Heart, You Were Known, A Memory is Far (second disc), A Voice of Bird and Deeper Than the Night parts one and two (fourth disc).

The whole compilation gives an idea of what the Rallizes were able to deliver on stage when they were at their best. Here the sets are really powerful... psych-noise power! The obvious drawback is the sound quality, which is rather average (still the best source possible, as always with Univive) - except for Disc 2. I think this one stands as one of their best live recordings out there. Just turn up the volume on "A Memory Is Far". This should have a 5-star ranking alone (I have always been reluctant to give high ratings for "bootlegs" when sound is not good enough). Cover art seems to be awesome, which makes it a very lovable box set.

Sets 1 and 4 are particularly strong. Set 4 sounds like songs I've heard before, things like Strung Out Deeper Than The Night. It concentrates on the minimal groove-riff side of things. By contrast Set 1 which contains (I think) more obscure stuff (other than The Last One) is much more on the heavy wailing acid I-wish-I-was-Lou-Reed guitar solos end of things. Happily these are the longest sets, between them taking up 6 out of 10 sides of vinyl, plenty to enjoy.

Set 2 is like Set 1 but shorter and not quite as good. The improvisation at the end is one of the best bits. This encapsulates the contradiction at the heart of this band, best expressed by reference to the Velvet Underground: when they set out to do Sister Ray they are awesome; even when they actually want to be doing Sweet Jane and Pale Blue Eyes, all the songs keep turning into Sister Ray anyway.

Near the end of set 4 there is a nasty bit of technical feedback, not guitar feedback but a white noise fizzing caused by a faulty connection, the sort of feedback not even its mother could love. It goes on ruining things for 3 or 4 minutes until someone notices and plugs in the loose cable, or whatever it was, and it promptly stops.

Sunday, March 17, 2024

Les Rallizes Dénudés - 2011 - Double Heads

Les Rallizes Dénudés
2011
Double Heads




Live 14 Aug. 1980


101. 造花の原野 7:21
102. 夜より深く 16:16
103. 白い目覚め 6:24

201. 夜、暗殺者の夜 12:27
202. Fantastique 13:06
203. 夜の収穫者達 8:32
204. The Last One 27:50


Live 29 Oct. 1980


301. 夜より深く 15:43
302. 氷の炎 19:27
303. 夜より深く Part2 11:00

401. Enter The Mirror 12:20
402. 夜、暗殺者の夜 13:22
403. The Last One 19:23


Live 23 Mar. 1981


501. 夜、暗殺者の夜 16:00
502. 夜より深く Part2 30:41

601. The Last One 24:24
602. 氷の炎 20:57

Bass – Doronco
Guitar – Fujio
Guitar, Vocals – Mizutani
Percussion – Noma

6 x cd in individual card sleeves in box, numbered edition of 1000.
Contains 3 soundboard recordings from Yaneura, Shibuya, Tokyo.


Between August 1980 and March 1981, Les Rallizes Dénudés (or The Naked Larryz, as the long-lost acetate they are rumored to have recorded for Virgin Records in the mid-'70s dubbed them) played seven concerts in and around Tokyo. Never officially released, illicit ninth generation cassette copies circulated in Japanese fan circles for many years, attaining a whispered, Holy Grail status amongst initiates to the Rallizes cult. High quality soundboard versions were finally released by the secretive Univive label in 2005. Three of the best of these concerts are collected on Double Heads, all recorded at Yaneura, a small club in the teeming neon teen shopping mecca of Shibuya in Tokyo. Together, these three concerts comprise a singularly pivotal moment in Les Rallizes Dénudés' development -- as well as some of the most glacially psychedelic music of their long career. This numbered, limited edition 6CD box set contains a booklet with liner notes.

If you are reading this, then you probably know something about this band already. Various bootlegs circulate over the internet, and the physical copies are not that easy to find. But the British label Phoenix has made some of them available at a very reasonable price lately. Just like the band, the label is also covered in mystery and controversy: they don't have a website, people say the copies they sell are not really "limited" or "numbered" as advertised, they rip off the artists and do not pay them royalties, etc, etc... Well, considering the material they put out (obscure Japanese bands that no one ever hears about), not much can be properly judged. This is a 6-disc collection of a couple of concerts Les Rallizes Denudes played in 1980-81, featuring the guitarrist Fujio Yamaguchi (from the legendary band Murahachibu). The sound quality is from a great soundboard source and less "disturbing" than on other albums. And although you can actually hear the drums on most of the tracks - something that normally doesn't happen with this band - the noise and all that guitar work is still present and clear. The package is pretty cool, each CD comes in a separate cardboard sleeve with a few black and white pictures. But do not expect much: everything looks and sounds like a bootleg. However, for the price you'll pay, it is really worth it.

This is one of the main three contenders for the best ever release, official or unofficial, by Les Rallizes Denudes. It is a fantastically high quality recording that reveals in full glory the outstanding muscianship that underpinned the band in their prime. The interplay between Mizutani and Fujio Yamaguchi arguably reaches its peak in these three recordings and amounts to a masterpiece of experimental psychedelic blues that I think surpasses even Jimi Hendrix's Filmore East performances. If you are at all a fan of the band, or any of the subgenres encompassing psychedelia, noise rock, or late 60s/early 70s avant garde, then every show on this album is essential listening as they are up there with the very best live albums ever made.

The first show is a fan favourite and for good reason. The more heavy, noisy aspect of Mizutani's guitar is toned down here, allowing for a quieter and warmer show than usual while also allowing the more subtle notes of his musicianship to become more visible to the naked eye. The Krautrock influence on their sound is quite apparent here with the double bill of Fantastique/Reapers of The Night. There are a lot of highlights on here so I won't attempt to list all of them, its best to just listen to it and let it take hold of you.

The second recording, on October 29th, is, for me, a worthy contender for the best show they have ever put on. The back to back versions of Deeper Than The Night are up their with my favourite moments in their discography and honestly two of the most amazing songs I have ever heard. Every single track on this recording has a kind of magic to it. Mizutani is obviously fantastic here but its clear the band he is working with is particularly good. Yamaguchi and Mizutani play off each other so well but it is especially noticeable on this recording, creating an interplay between the avant garde improvisation and chaos of Mizutani's guitar and the more conventional psychedelic blues of Yamaguchi. It is magnificent, The Last One on this is probably my favourite as well. As great as the first show was, this is the one that made the biggest impression on me and I'm surprised it isn't talked about more.

The final recording is by far the least accessible. While the first show has a reputation for showcasing some of the more conventional (by Rallizes standards) aspects of their work, this is by far one of their most experimental. It is slow, builds gradually and works towards a prolongued, controlled explosion in the last two tracks. The sheer length of each track on this one makes it a more challenging listen than the others, but if you liked the first two then you'll almost certainly like this one too.




You know how they say every Yin has a Yang? I consider this band to be The Grateful Dead's Yang (or Yin, however you want to see it), and here's why:
-While Garcia was making inoffensive twinkly psychedelic country sounds for the American carefree hippies, Mizutani was unleashing otherworldly, yet blissful sonemic assault on Japanese over-burdened salary workers who just wanted to get away from it all, before returning back into the fray.
-At the GD concert, you look over to a flower field as you see a happy man with his girlfriend fast asleep in his arm. At the LRD concert, you walk into a bathroom and see on the floor that same man now fast asleep himself, girlfriend replaced with a heroin needle. You have to step over him if you want to take your piss.
-The Grateful Dead, forever loved, Treasured, and adorned by the people it shared it's generation with, now continues to fade a little closer and closer into obscurity with each coming generation due to the kids just not understanding or relating to the appeal and context of the band. Les Rallizes Denudes was shunned, ignored, and scorned by the people it shared it's generation with, due to them just not understanding the appeal or context of the band. Their Kids however, love it. Just like Marty McFly told them they would.

The first show alone is almost certainly the best performance they ever put on and one of the coolest things I've ever heard. Actually, this embodies a level of cool I find difficult to put into words. It's like the conventions of rock taken to the very limit, then cast in a nihilistic blackness that feels so charming in its relaxed extremity (the dark sunglasses help too of course). With an enigmatic presence realised long after its demise, this band left behind a mass of studio recordings and live performances pushing the very boundaries of psychedelic rock. The formula they settled on was simple yet entirely unique, a concoction of psych bass riffs and swirling strums cloaked in the violent lead guitar of Takashi Mizutani. Of all the tales I've read about this band, not once have I seen mention of the musicianship, so I'm going to say it. This fellow is one of the best guitar players ever. I'm not even sure how; when he freaks out I can't tell what the hell he's playing, on the other hand his calm strums and vocals are like a soothing dream extending into eternity. Not only that, he concocted an incredibly sturdy set of songs. Filler was a completely alien concept to this band, 'cause every track is a killer; with Rallizes it's all about the performances of said tracks. They could take songs like Flames of Ice, Deeper than the Night pt.2 and The Last One and play them anywhere from 7 to 40 minutes through a complete mastery of texture, while still retaining that essential dogged rock base. It's a perfect example of noise in context.

In 1980 they acquired guitarist Fujio Yamaguchi, whose catchy, traditionally-aligned playing provided a fantastic counterpoint to Mizutani's uproarious spells, rendering their sound utterly complete. Two legendary guitarists on the stage - the result is Double Heads, three sets that capture Rallizes in absolute prime condition in superior recording quality and boy did these guys know it, for they churn out a set-list like no others before it. From the very first strike of the guitar tone I was completely enthralled, not only with the clarity, but just how understatedly badass it sounds. It's the kind of twanging tidal wave that makes you tilt back in awe, a clarion call for a gig of monolithic proportions. Throughout, the guitars and Doronco's bass intertwine and battle it out in psychedelic bliss of the highest order, book-ended by Mizutani's declarative screeches of guitar feedback. His vocals were never better, they're echoed to the max, and the distinctive delivery of each syllable, consonant hisses flying everywhere only adds to the wasted atmosphere.

The threefold opening sequence of Field of Artificial Flowers, Deeper than the Night and White Waking is surely among the best moments in their entire discography. A strident opener of cyclical blues rundowns gives way to a slow creeping death trip, followed by a bittersweet melancholy dirge bathed in narcotic atmosphere. The initial culmination of this first show is The Night Collectors, a track filled with primal vigour like no other. It was certainly the most identifiably rocking track of '77 Live and Fujio takes full advantage of this, laying down that delicious rock 'n' roll lick against Mizutani's wild hysterics. All the nuances of this piece are perfect, from the urgent vocals to the guitar harmonies, even when the drums briefly drop out to a kick and snare. Really, there is no better example that displays the spirit of this band, you can feel the passion behind it.

After this initial accessibility however, the following two shows take a plunge into deep psychedelia. The second of these is the stepping stone between the two, but it still has its moments. Take Enter the Mirror, typically their most beautiful track. Yet something sounds slightly off here, perhaps the bass, and as a result it takes on an unnerving quality completely unique to this rendition. The opening sounds seriously cold.

The '81 show is the true gem of this set, reaching the peak of explosive psych riffs and spirit cleansing distortion. In terms of heaviness, this gives '77 Live and Volcanic Performance serious competition. It begins with a chilled out slow version of Night of the Assassins, which is some kind of pinnacle in itself, but it gets even better. Check out that 30 minute monster that follows it, when I say cool this is what I'm referring to. You can almost feel the relish as they draw it out, while Mizutani becomes increasingly deranged on the strings. I've always had some trouble with Flames of Ice and The Last One, they were certainly not my favourite when I first encountered Rallizes. The Last One in particular is the kind of track that smashes your face into the ground over and over with 'that' riff, but it compels you to endure all the same, because it's the conclusion of all conclusions, their ultimate statement of extremity. But this is something else entirely, these two closing performances I found absolutely jaw-dropping. I mean holy shit! An apocalypse of sound is an apt description, while Fujio's lively decoration keeps the groove in check. In the closing minutes of Flames of Ice you can almost feel the guitarists battling for space with their different styles. The most ridiculous thing? Both tracks just fade out... and I'm left thinking: wait, there was actually more?

Listening to this excessively I've come to accept that these bass riffs, especially The Last One, are going to haunt me for some time to come. As silly as it sounds, if you get too much into Rallizes you may have to trade a bit of sanity for it. Lardopirate was spot on, fire up the best hi-fi you can get your hands on, play this loud as hell and be damned, it's quite the experience.

Les Rallizes Dénudés - 2006 - Naked Diza Star

Les Rallizes Dénudés
2006
Naked Diza Star



101. Unknown (Nov 1973)16:36
102. White Waking (8 Apr 1975)5:53
103. A Memory is Far (8 Apr 1975)8:59
104. Field of Artificial Flower (3 Nov 1975)5:27
105. Strong Out Deeper Than the Night (3 Nov 1975)13:11
106. Flames of Ice (3 Nov 1975)13:02
107. Dream (8 Apr 1975)7:07
108. The Kindness That Kills (25 July 1976)9:18

201. Diza Star (25 July 1976)8:53
202. Night of the Assassins (25 July 1976)11:34
203. Enter the Mirror (12 Mar 1977)8:14
204. The Night Collectors (13 Aug 1977)10:04
205. Flames of Ice (13 Aug 1977)15:08
206. The Last One (13 Aug 1977)26:02

301. Flames of Ice (19 Dec 1981)18:30
302. Romance of Black Grief (19 Dec 1981)11:15
303. Unknown (2 Oct 1982)7:26
304. Night of the Assassins (9 Sept 1986)13:36
305. Field of Artificial Flower (13 May 1987)8:10
306. The Last One (13 May 1987)18:05

1-1 recorded November 1973 at Meiji University, Tokyo.
1-2 and 1-3 recorded April 8, 1975 at Hinamatsuri [Doll Festival], Gotemba
1-4, 1-5 and 1-6 recorded November 3, 1975 at Meiji Gakuin University, Tokyo.
1-7, 1-8, 2-1 and 2-2 recorded July 25, 1976 at Yaneura, Shibuya.
2-3 recorded March 12, 1977, Tachikawa Shakai Kyoiku Kaikan, Tachikawa. This recording is also featured on Les Rallizes Denudes - '77 Live.
2-4, 2-5 and 2-6 recorded August 13, 1977 at Yuyake Matusri, Ishikawa.
3-1 and 3-2 recorded December 19, 1981 at Yaneura, Shibuya.
3-3 recorded October 2, 1982 at Keio University Hiyoshi Campus, Kanagawa
3-4 recorded September 9, 1986 at the Rokumeikan, Meguro. This performance is also featured on Les Rallizes Denudes - Cable Hogue Soundtrack (track 2-7).
3-5 and 3-6 May 13, 1987 at the Rokumeikan, Meguro.

Purportedly, this compilation originated from a request by a music critic in 2003 for Mizutani to produce a high-quality release from a master source.



A collection of live recordings by the very underground band Les Rallizes Denudes. I'd like to say that they're so underground and unknown that even Windows media player didn't recognise the cd.

Silly joke aside, the music is essentially psychedelic and avant-garde. What it means is that the entirety of the album follows the same formula as the Rallizes' other releases; the songs are long, loud, repetetive romps with almost incomprehensible singing and seemingly a oath to never release a ordinary studio album. While Naked Diza Star does not have the loud feedback heard in "heavier than a death in the family" or is as calm as "Mizutani" the cd collection is just great sounding to me.

Lot's of music for the low price, which made me very happy and satisfied with buying it. But that's me who has been a fan of theirs since before - I'd recommend you to listen to Les Rallizes Denudes on spotify or youtube before deciding to buy. It is a acquired musical taste.

I hear a bunch of you (in my mind) already calling me "spoiled",....and I mean that because I am going to write a not so glowing review of something most of you would say we are just plain "lucky" to even hear(and in a way that's true). But I am very disappointed to find that this set is recorded on CD-R media! Other Bamboo brand releases were at least real ,pressed CDs. What made this company go cheap and release this, of all titles, as a set of CD-R's?? Naked Diza Star is known as one of the best sets of Les Rallizes' recordings,.....and truly (although NOT stellar in sound) this has to have the best recording sound and performances I have heard from this fabled band(which IS a BIG positive!).

Various live tracks assembled circa 1973-1987. As news of the new rock music made it to Japan from the UK and the USA, mostly via rock magazines and music papers, with most LPs tough to find even on import, something was lost in translation that allowed it to mutate well beyond its original remit. Les Rallizes Dénudés took rock music at its word while visioning it as both unnecessarily complicated and too stupid by far. In doing so they formulated an inspirational blueprint that would go on to have a marked effect on everything that came after them in Japanese underground music. It's a music that's as loose as it is uptight, as sophisticated as it is punk-primitive, as radical as it is simplistic. As the old ESP-Disk banner used to promise, truly, you never heard such sounds. Digitally remastered. Includes an 8-page booklet in English and Japanese.

Friday, March 15, 2024

The Soul Jazzmen - 1969 - Inhlupeko Distress

The Soul Jazzmen
1969
Inhlupeko Distress



01. Inhlupeko 10:35
02. Relaxin' 08:11
03. Mr Mecca 06:34
04. How Old is the World 08:47
05. Love For Sale 10:05
06. Dollar the Great 04:05

Bass – Pych "Big-T" Ntsele
Drums – Mafufu Jama
Piano – Tete Mbambisa
Tenor Saxophone – Duku Makasi



Inhlupeko, alongside the other massive jazz hit of the era, Winston Mankunku's Yakhal'Inkomo, sums up the South African jazz sound and mood of the late 1960s, its bluesy inflections heralding a more hard-bop feel of music in the decade to come. Defiantly modern, and seeking inspiration from the "black heroes" of John Coltrane, Dexter Gordon, Elvin Jones, Ron Carter, Johnny Hodges and Lockjaw Davis, this album envisioned what a new South Africa might sound like.

Tete Mbambisa composed four of the six tracks on the album. Of the two others, the title track is the work of tenorman Duku Makasi. The other track is a standard, Love for Sale, also frequently covered by Makasi’s contemporary, the equally important Winston ‘Mankunku’ Ngozi. Pianist Mbambisa’s memories reveal a great deal about the environment in which the progressive black players of the era worked. The album, recorded at the EMI Studios in Johannesburg – “they had the best sound at that time,” recalls Mbambisa – was the brainchild of two important jazz organisers of the era: Ray Thabakgolo Nkwe in Johannesburg and Monde Sikutshwa in Port Elizabeth (PE).

“Ray and Monde talked about doing an album with Duke and some other Eastern Cape musicians. After a while, they called me up from East London to do the arrangements. People know that’s my gift: from the time I was involved in vocal groups I have had an ear for arranging. Apart from Inhlupeko, Duke’s tune, I selected the tunes. We were all travelling at the time, doing shows, but there were long rehearsals for this material. We’d play, and discuss, and then go off to a shebeen – and carry on discussing the music. A lot of thinking went into it. I’d say probably about a month. I was travelling with the musicians in a kombi – it was supposed to be a jazz tour with Mankunku too, but he had another gig with Chris Schilder (Ibrahim Khalil Shihab) in Rustenburg, so in a way it became a launch for the Inhlupeko material.”

In fact, Mankunku was launching his second album as leader, Spring. Music writers at the time made much of the fact that the title track of that album was ‘stolen’ from the melody of Inhlupeko (and Makasi used to joke with Ngozi about it) but Mbambisa feels that something different was going on. “It was that Trane style. We were all in the same kind of place musically at that time.” South African jazz players felt a strong affinity with John Coltrane, who had died only a couple of years earlier. The expressive mastery of his playing and the soulful, spiritual searching of his mood served as both revelation and inspiration. It was the search for that Coltrane feel that guided Mbambisa’s final choice of players.

The acknowledged affinity in creative approach –in the words of trumpeter Johnny Mekoa: “these were our black heroes…and the music sounded a bit like our mbaqanga here” – fed, rather than stifled originality. In the music they created, South Africans always started from what another trumpeter from an earlier era, the late Banzi Bangani, called “that thing that was ours”, not only in musical idioms, but also in history and experience.

As scholar Robin Kelley has noted, both urban Africans and urban Americans were consciously crafting “modern” music – and in South Africa’s case, it was a modernism deliberately and defiantly set in opposition to the narrow, backwards-looking parochialism of apartheid, where some white universities did not even permit gender-mixed dancing until the 1970s. The sophisticated, snappily-dressed black players of South Africa’s cities in the 1960s were not trying to ‘be like’ America; rather, they were enacting in their performance, and reaching through their horns for what a new South Africa might sound like. Coltrane’s searching voice was a natural lodestone, for as Kelley has also observed: “the most powerful map of the New World is in the imagination.”

The studio session that laid down the tracks was far from the original liner note fable of a spontaneous blow over a bottle. As well as the extensive rehearsal that had preceded it, it carried its own stresses. “In those days,” Mbambisa recalls, “they used to tell you all the time how much they were paying for an hour in the studio. So they give you pressure: ‘Come on guys! This is costing me!” However, thanks to that extensive preparation, the pressure wasn’t too much of a problem. Mbambisa has always disliked an overworked feel on his recordings: “that’s why my albums catch that live feel, even from the studio.” That was particularly important for this session. The quality he was looking for was, he says, “connectedness. If you can’t be connected, forget it. So I told them: Hey, guys, let’s try and do these in one take only or we’ll lose the feel.” He says that none of the tracks used more than two takes, and most were completed in one.

But the hurried, penny-pinching recording was also reflected in the way the album was presented. Makasi’s name is inconsistently presented as ‘Duke’ and “Duku’ in different places. Even the title, Inhlupeko, appears in that form (the isiZulu spelling) on the cover and notes, but ‘Intlupheko’ (the isiXhosa form) on the disc label, suggesting a hasty process. The word itself can be translated as ‘distress’, but like many African-language words with their multiple poetic resonances, also as ‘inconvenience’, ‘trouble’, ‘poverty’ and more. For the artists it had all those resonances – to whose more political implications Nkwe would certainly not have wished to draw attention in his translation. The players were not told about the planned cover images, nor, as Mbambisa’s story confirms, were they sent copies of the LP. There was no advertising and no formal launch, and Mbambisa recalls that Sikutshwa also received no communication about the release. The LP was clearly pressed in a fairly small run, for when Mbambisa tried to buy his own copy, he could not immediately find it in any shops.

The image conveyed by the cover also fitted well with other cultural currents of the era. The 1960s and 1970s were dominated by apartheid’s re-tribalisation project: a propaganda push to both the majority population and the world that black South Africans (even those whose families had been city-dwellers for decades) were essentially simple, rural people with no place in the cities and no capacity for sophisticated culture. Official patronage was given to neo-traditional sounds, particularly via the State broadcaster, the SABC, split into narrow, tribally based stations, the purity of whose musical contents must be verified by apartheid ‘experts’. In this context, state censors would certainly smile more kindly on an album whose images placed a syncretic music like jazz in a more disreputable corner.

Tete Mbambisa and co, chasing the mbaqanga in Trane. Five originals and Love For Sale, from Johannesburg, 1969. 'Both urban Africans and urban Americans were consciously crafting 'modern' music -- and in South Africa's case, it was a modernism deliberately and defiantly set in opposition to the narrow, backwards-looking parochialism of apartheid, where some white universities did not even permit gender-mixed dancing until the 1970s. The sophisticated, snappily-dressed black players of South Africa's cities in the 1960s were not trying to 'be like' America; rather, they were enacting in their performance, and reaching through their horns for what a new South Africa might sound like.' 180g vinyl with excellent sound; photographs from the Ian Bruce Huntley archive and concert bills; extended notes. Pure worries -- 'inhlupeko' means 'distress' -- very warmly recommended.

The Four Sounds - 1969 - Jazz from District Six

The Four Sounds
1969
Jazz from District Six



01. Seven Steps Lament
02. Interim
03. Beautiful Katrina
04. Up From Slavery
05. Wells Square Theme
06. The "Goema" Dance
07. Don't Close Your Eyes

Lead Guitar, Vocals – Clifford Moses
Bass – Basil Moses
Drums – Billy Bowers 
Piano – Richard Schilde

Guest, Cello, Drum [Goema] – Roy Nolly
Guest, Flute, Alto Saxophone – Basil Coetzee



A South African jazz set from the end of the 60s, but one with a different vibe than some of the rest – as the group have a lean style that still also seems to mix a fair bit of Township elements in with the jazz – which makes for tracks that have a wonderfully playful mix of modes, and a great sense of energy throughout! The group features Clifford Moses on lead guitar and a bit of vocals – the latter of which have a lightly raspy charm that's really unique – as he steps out next to core work from Richard Schilder on piano, Basil Moses on bass, and Billy Bowers on drums. The set also features some excellent guest work from the legendary Basil Coetzee on flute and alto 

True Jazz today is becoming a rare art whose existence depends not only on the Jazz-musician but also on the medium by means of which it is propagated. This album is the combined effort of musician and Trutone Record Company to add their contribution to the interest of the arts. The theme for this album is set in "District Six", the community which brought forth "The Four Sounds".


Basil Moses is perhaps most widely known, in the context of South African jazz history, as having recorded prolifically – including performing on seven or eight of Abdullah Ibrahim’s 1970s recordings. He also features on Sathima Bea Benjamin’s African Songbird (The Sun, GL 1839).

Guitarist Cliffie Moses, three years older than brother Basil, was also a professional musician and the two, along with Richard Schilder and Billy Bowers (aka Billie Dollie), formed the Four Sounds in the early 1960s. The group with Basil ‘Manenburg’ Coetzee and Roy Nolly recorded their debut album, Jazz from District Six, in 1969 for Trutone (TBLC 1).

In 1970 Basil, Cliffie, Roy Petersen and Monty Weber were all hired to tour the country as the core of Percy Sledge’s backing band for a seventeen-week sell-out tour of South and southern Africa. Percy Sledge described it as the “greatest tour of [his] career”.

Spirits Rejoice - 1978 - Spirits Rejoice!

Spirits Rejoice
1978
Spirits Rejoice!



01. Emakhaya
02. Woza Uzo Kudanisa Nathi
03. Music Is Our Purpose
04. Spirits
05. Happy And In Love
06. Confusions
07. Why All This Time
08. Papa's Funk

Alto Saxophone, Flute, Lead Vocals – Robbie Jansen
Backing Vocals – Joy (32) (tracks: B1, B4)
Bass Guitar – Sipho Gumede
Drums, Bell Tree, Vibraslap, Finger Cymbals – Gilbert Matthews*
Electric Guitar, Acoustic Guitar – Paul Petersen (3)
Electric Piano, Strings, Piano, Synthesizer – Mervyn Africa
Percussion – George Tyefumani (tracks: A2)
Tenor Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone – Duke Makasi
Trumpet [1st] – George Tyefumani
Trumpet [2nd] – Thabo Mashishi
Vocals – George Tyefumani (tracks: A1)



South African response to the modern jazz sounds represented overseas by bands such as Weather Report. The group included guitarists Herman and Enoch Mthalane, reedman Duku Makasi and Robbie Jansen, brass players George Tyefumani and Themba Mehlomakhulu, bassist Sipho Gumede and for a time Bheki Mseleku on keyboards, later replaced by Mervyn Afrika.

The band’s innovative original music won plaudits and fans, and for younger players such as saxophonist Khaya Mahlangu who joined one of its later incarnations, was an inspiring learning experience, impelling him and Gumede to explore whether an even more African-sounding response to jazz fusion was possible by founding Sakhile.

Behind the scenes, as Francis Gooding’s liner notes recount, the sailing wasn’t quite so smooth.

Mthalane was fired because the band’s white management could not accommodate his proud assertion of his home language, isiZulu; Mseleku’s later departure echoed those same politics. Though the music on African Spaces was recorded during October 1976, no South African label was interested in such innovative jazz; a stance reflecting their commercial imperatives (and political timidity) at a time when radio was the best way to promote records, but the SABC’s ethnically segregated stations were wary of boundary-busting music they could not comfortably fit within a language-group slot.

Spirits Rejoice - 1977 - African Spaces

Spirits Rejoice
1977
African Spaces



01. Joy 4:22
02. Standing Here Alone 4:06
03. Savage Dance & African Spaces 8:58
04. Mulberry Funk 2:25
05. Minute Song 4:48
06. Sugar Pie 2:45
07. Makes Me Wonder Why 3:45
08. Electric Chicken 3:33

Drums, Percussion – Gilbert Mathews
Bass, Percussion – Sipho Gumede
ectric Guitar – Russell Herman
Electric Piano, Piano, Organ, Vibraphone – Mervyn Africa
Tenor Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone – Duke Makasi
Trombone, Trumpet – Temba Mehlomakulu
Trumpet – George Tyefumani
Vocals – Felicia Marian* (tracks: B3), Russell Herman (tracks: A2, B4)



Spirits Rejoice drew together some of South Africa's most abundantly talented and forward-thinking jazz players and created a complex and challenging jazz fusion that shifted the terms of South Africa's engagement with jazz towards new music being made by pioneers such as Chick Corea, Weather Report, John McLaughlin, Pat Metheny and others. 'African Spaces', their debut recording, is one of the key documents in the South African jazz canon. Emerging in the aftermath of the 1976 Soweto uprising, and taking its place alongside the crucial mid-1970s music of Malombo, Abdullah Ibrahim, and Batsumi, it is a defining but unsung musical statement of its era.

At a distance of more than forty years, the radicalism and significance of African Spaces can be seen more clearly. Ambitious, uncompromising, and resolutely progressive, it represents a unique high-water mark in South Africa’s long musical engagement with the newest developments in American jazz – a response to the cosmic call of Return To Forever, and an answer to Miles’ On the Corner.

Spirits Rejoice drew together some of South Africa’s most abundantly talented and forward-thinking jazz players and created a complex and challenging jazz fusion that shifted the terms of South Africa’s engagement with jazz towards new music being made by pioneers such as Chick Corea, Weather Report, John McLaughlin, Pat Metheny and others.

African Spaces, their debut recording, is one of the key documents in the South African jazz canon. Emerging in the aftermath of the 1976 Soweto uprising, and taking its place alongside the crucial mid-1970s music of Malombo, Abdullah Ibrahim, and Batsumi, it is a defining but unsung musical statement of its era.

A soulful set of fusion from the South African scene of the 70s – a record that's a lot more electric overall than some of the others we know from the time – served up by a youthful group that's brimming over with power! The core of the set is awash in electric bass, guitar, and keyboard lines – the latter played by Mervyn Africa with a great mix of rhythmic currents and more spacious modes – and the set features some especially nice tenor and soprano sax lines from Duke Makasi, who soars next to two other trumpets in the frontline, in a way that makes the whole record sparkle with a lot of joy! The rhythms change up in all these wonderful ways – and the record almost has a James Mason vibe at times, especially on the cuts that bring in vocals by Felicia Marian or Russell Herman. And like James Mason, there's a wonderful blend here of electric jazz and soul – all infused with a very positive spirit

It wasn’t released until the band’s management took it to WEA, and came out on the Atlantic label in 1977. After that, another enthusiastic supporter, musician Dave Marks – then running the Market Café – worked hard to find ways of securing some radio play.

Nevertheless, none of the Spirits Rejoice survivors Gooding interviews feels the album found adequate space for effective promotion on a largely pop oriented landscape, even though the band secured a ‘Jazz Band of the Year’ title.

Heard today, though, the beauty and challenge of the sound stands out. The poppier tracks, which utilise the voices of Herman and Joy’s Felicia Marion, are still underlaid by an intricate mesh of band work that is far from three-chord formula playing; the lyrics of Makes Me Wonder Why are a clear political challenge.

As with so many of those 1970s releases, Gumede’s stature as a bassist who could combine subtle complexity and rock steady walk, absolutely shines. There’s adventurous composing on both Herman and Africa’s Savage Dance and African Spaces, and Makasi’s more deceptively melodic Minute Song and an irresistible rhythm groove on Joy. Makasi and Tjefumani make no intellectual compromises in their playing whatever the ostensible character of the tune. For fans of any of these artists, it’s a must-have addition to the collection.

None of them is adequately remembered in either the media or the scholarly record. But the lack of archive for Herman’s work is perhaps the most tragic. Born in District Six in 1953, he worked not only with Spirits Rejoice but with other experimental jazz groups of the era including Oswietie and Estudio. When he and drummer Brian Abrahams found conditions in South Africa too intolerable, they left for the UK in the early 1980s.

There, Herman continued playing and composing. He worked in the groups District Six (with Abrahams) and Kintone (with another SA exile, tenorist Frank Williams), and can also be heard on Jonas Gwangwa’s London-recorded Flowers of the Nation, Winston Mankunku’s Jika and flautist Deepak Ram’s Flute for Thought. As a composer, he contributed to multiple albums. Gorgeous compositions South Africans may not know include Sivela Kude on the District Six album Akuzwakale (whose music has no trace online) and Freedom Song on Kintone’s Going Home 

Herman also did impressive work as a producer. He worked on three of Mseleku’s albums: Celebration, Meditations and Timelessness and was also another rock of friendship and support when the pianist was in London. Additionally he was part of the Melt 2000 production team for Moses Molelekwa’s Genes and Spirits and Vusi Khumalo’s Follow Your Dream.

Herman died tragically after a heart attack in 1998. He was only 44.

It’s unjust that an artist who made such a significant contribution to South African music here and overseas is so little remembered in any accessible record. But it’s not unusual. Once more, the history that Google presents when we search is massively incomplete – and yet it’s what South African youngsters doing research often mistakenly believe comprises all the knowledge in the world. It’s time we started writing more of our own.

Pacific Express - 1976 - Black Fire

Pacific Express 
1976
Black Fire



01. Brother 5:00
02. Feelings (Deep In Your Heart) 5:15
03. Sky Ride II 5:40
04. Heaven (I've Found In You) 5:10
05. Black Fire 3:35
06. You're Everything 3:30
07. Love Your Baby Right 4:10
08. Wind Song 5:35

Ebrahim Khalil Shihab: Fender Rhodes Electric Piano
Zayn Adam: Vocals and Percussion
Robbie Jansen: Trumpet, Alto Sax and Vocals
Basil Manenberg Coetzee: Tenor Sax and Flute
Issy Ariefdien: Guitar and Vocals
Paul Abrahams: Bass Guitar
Jack Momple: Drums



This album is hard evidence of that 1976 musical moment in which Pacific Express forged an entirely new South African sound and musical identity out of what was ‘Cape Town Jazz’, Latin, R&B, soul, pop and fusion.

From the political heat of 1976 come the militant, upbeat and irresistible funk tracks Black Fire and Brother - where singer Zayn Adam calls out for hope and optimism in spite of present difficulties. The pace moves down a gear for heart-felt ballads and Latin-tinged jazz instrumentals. Group leader Chris Schilder, after his deep jazz beginnings with Winston Mankunku Ngozi and the cream of Cape Town’s jazz crop had already spent some time with seminal black fusion group The Drive in the early seventies. Black Fire lays down a fusion of jazz funk and soul that was later picked up on and developed by Spirits Rejoice and others.

Black Fire presents the core repertoire that made Pacific Express the resident band sensation they became at the Sherwood Lounge in Manenberg, Cape Town in the mid-seventies. The ‘coloured’ township of Manenberg – about 20km away from Cape Town’s city centre, and cut off from the black settlements of Gugulethu and Nyanga by a railway track – had been officially established in 1966, based on the apartheid regime’s belief that what they defined as different “racial groups” could not live harmoniously together. Residents had been forcibly removed from and ‘relocated’ from the various suburbs now being allocated to ‘white’ people. Manenberg and surrounds were “quite a rough place” reflects Chris Schilder (now Ebhrahim Kalil Shihab). “But the Sherwood Lounge was located close to the highway, so people could come in without getting mixed up in whatever was a happening on the streets. And once we opened – people flocked.”

Matsuli Music is proud to add the debut album of this Cape Town ‘supergroup’ among our growing catalogue of high-quality re-issues of classic South African afro-jazz on vinyl. New liner notes from acclaimed jazz historian Gwen Ansel claim this album as the first successful confluence of multiple styles delivering a uniquely South African but also globally accessible new musical expression.