Box sets are by their very nature a time intensive undertaking; as other year-end lists have made plain, there are quite a few from 2014 waiting to be investigated, and if the reader discovers a suggestion below leading to personal satisfaction, than all this fussing over hierarchy has been worth it.
5. Native North America (Vol. 1): Aboriginal Folk, Rock and Country 1966-1985 and When I Reach That Heavenly Shore: Unearthly Black Gospel 1926-1936
Light in the Attic’s illuminating spotlight focuses almost entirely on artists hailing from Canada, a geographical factor making its sustained level of quality all the more impressive.
Consisting of previously released but long unavailable recordings, the three genres listed in the title frequently overlap, with country-rock well represented. The enriching presentation, including comprehensive notes, is the result of diligent, respectful research, and again, it’s consistently listenable from start to finish.
Also a reliably gripping if not necessarily breezy experience, Tompkins Square’s latest gospel collection uncovers a wealth of fervent and sometimes bluesy material, places it onto three discs (the vinyl will arrive in spring of 2015) and adds Bible verses thematically selected for each track by compiler Christopher King. Then it leaves the listener to draw their own conclusions, or at least scurry to the nearest internet connection or appropriate reference books for assistance.
While the occasional guitar lick or seed of Soulfulness lends a touch of contemporaneousness, the vast majority of When I Reach That Heavenly Shore depicts styles, approaches (particularly an inclination for repetition that can be captivating), and even instrumentation have been long overwhelmed by the march of the modern.
4. NME C86: Deluxe Edition and Howe Gelb Little Sand Box
I’ll admit to being suspicious when I first heard about Cherry Red’s indie pop endeavor, though in retrospect that was silly; a simple perusal of the track-listing clarifying the additional assemblage of bands, and from top to bottom this is an examination of music made by bands, was based upon solid knowledge of the movement, as well as good intentions.
Disc one presents the original C86, with the second and third holding the deluxe portion, sprinkling a few famous names (The Primitives, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Happy Mondays) with some of more fleeting popularity (That Petrol Emotion, Pop Will Eat Itself) as a significant number of influential units (The McTells, B.M.X. Bandits, The Dentists, The Membranes, Talulah Gosh, 14 Iced Bears) mingles with obscure entries (Pigbros, A Riot of Colour, Episode Four, King of the Slums, and Stitched-Back Foot Airman).
Alongside the emphasis on bands, NME C86 reinforces the primacy of the guitar in recent music history (to the chagrin of some, no doubt), but together with underlining this scene’s determined cultivation of original stuff (unless I’m missing something, I don’t hear a cover in the bunch) is the sturdiness of the entire set. And it’s a trait shared with Gelb’s Little Sand Box, an 8CD doozy of the Giant Sand-leader’s solo output that’s as welcome as it was unexpected when it dropped way back in January.
Gelb, whose work inhabits a distinct corner of the Americana labyrinth (though he encompasses much more than one stylistic bag), is as prolific as he is perpetually underrated, with nearly all his albums issued by independent labels. This circumstance might’ve hindered his distribution over the decades (he commenced activity in 1980 in the outfit Giant Sandworms), but it probably made gathering them into Little Sand Box’s combined haymaker a tad easier.
Spanning albums from 1991’s Dreaded Brown Recluse to 2010’s Algerias, with the live Sno Angel Winging It and a disc of piano pieces thrown in, Little Sand Box’s heft is considerable but not overdone, and if there’s a place-setting for the CD at the contempo banquet of physical media, it’s largely through boxes such as this and NME C86. After hours spent with Little Sand Box, I’m kinda perplexed over why some folks still rate Neil Young as a big deal.
3. The Miles Davis Quintet featuring John Coltrane All of You: The Last Tour 1960 and John Coltrane Offering: Live at Temple University
Make no mistake, All of You, which amasses broadcast recordings and in one instance an audience tape from six cities of a European tour to document the final music Miles and Trane made in tandem with pianist Wynton Kelly, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Jimmy Cobb, is intended for the hardcore jazz fiend.
To assist the reader in not taking this statement lightly, there are eight different versions of “So What” sequenced across the four discs. And yet the opportunity to extensively soak up the saxophonist’s then controversial and enduringly vigorous explorations from inside the context of the trumpeter’s rigorously disciplined Modernity could easily interest more casual jazz fans. This is captured and still vibrant history, a rhythm section of giants occasionally struggling to find a fit with Coltrane’s improvisations (as leader, Davis solos first, so he doesn’t encounter this difficulty).
In terms of pre-electric Miles there’s really nothing else like it; even when his ‘50s-‘60s groups fall below top form there’s a constant sense of control. Plus, an outlier like ‘64’s Miles in Tokyo, with Sam Rivers on board between George Coleman and Wayne Shorter, is relatively well-behaved, and tapes that constitute ’65’s Live at the Plugged Nickel, arguably the freest music Miles was ever involved with, is simply in a class by itself.
No, All of You’s most apt bookend also emerged in 2014, Resonance Records’ Offering: Live at Temple University a highly enlightening glimpse of Coltrane’s late band, with the lineup containing absolutely nobody from the Classic Quartet as they push deep into the realms of Freedom. However, this does feature 4/5ths of his ’66 band; Pharaoh Sanders is on tenor and piccolo, wife Alice holds down the piano bench, and Rashied Ali is planted firmly in the drum seat.
Absent is bassist Jimmy Garrison, replaced by Sonny Johnson. Also in the ranks is a pair of alto saxophonists, one of them 18-year-old college student Steven Knoblauch, and a trio of percussionists including Robin Kenyatta. And while there’s been much discussion of Coltrane’s freeform excursions into vocalizing during “Leo” and “My Favorite Things,” to these ears the most striking aspect of the whole 2LP is his continued dedication to the abstract ideal.
All of You highlights some early, sporadically uncomfortable moments in the journey, but this version of “My Favorite Things,” which contains Johnson’s absorbing solo bass opening, fiery playing from Alice, a riveting soprano solo from the leader (as Sanders’ piccolo is barely audible), and yes more emoting, only magnifies Coltrane’s relentlessness as well as his generosity. He’d gone far in six years, but Offering details his disinterest in slowing down.
2. Annette Peacock I Belong to a World that’s Destroying Itself and Frank Lowe Quartet Out Loud
Recorded in ’68-’69 and released by Polydor as the Bley-Peacock Synthesizer Show in ’71 under the title Revenge: The Bigger The Love The Greater The Hate, it’s been renamed after its third track and reissued by Peacock on her own label Ironic, the credit adjustment fitting as pianist-early synth adapter Bley only turns up on three selections (for a true collab by the pair, search for the very cool Dual Unity from ’72 on Freedom).
This often fascinating intersection of avant jazz, spaced-out rock, and heady experimentalism is accurately her debut, predating the more well-known I’m the One by a year. Reputed to be the earliest documentation of a vocalist singing through a synthesizer, this element certainly adds to the LP’s intermittent aura of the unusual, but while I Belong can be fairly described as unconventional, it avoids a lack of focus as it offers Peacock’s rewarding and at times meditative compositions.
It’ll potentially stoke discerning fans of psychedelia as much as lovers of free jazz, though the lineup does round up some important improvisational figures, amongst them her first husband bassist Gary Peacock, drummer Barry Altschul, and clarinetist Perry Robinson. But most definitely up the alley of free jazz buffs is Out Loud, Triple Point Records’ exquisitely designed and spectacular sounding retrieval from the heyday of the ‘70s loft jazz scene.
Lowe’s group features trombonist Joseph Bowie, drummer Steve Reid, and bassist William Parker (Ahmed Abdullah guests on trumpet for a track), and anybody that’s had their chain yanked by the saxophonist’s Black Beings ESP Disk should contemplate investing in this beautiful item. Out Loud isn’t cheap, but much is delivered for the price tag; heavy-duty double vinyl in an equally substantial gatefold sleeve, an extremely informative booklet with exceptional photos and even a link to period video footage of the group.
The ‘70s lofts produced some sweet music, and Out Loud hangs right up there with the best of it, Lowe and his cohorts delving into a zone drawing on the precedent of Fire Music and the collective sensibility expressed by such units as the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Studio cut for an LP that never happened, Out Loud isn’t the place for the free-jazz curious to begin, but it’ll make a truly boffo gift for a relative who’s spent decades searching high and low for the legendary obscurities of avant-improvisation. Maybe that relative is you.
1. Bessie Jones with the Georgia Sea Islands Singers Get in Union and The Rise and Fall of Paramount Records, Volume 2
What these choices share with the picks in the No. 5 spot, and in fact everything in between, is an elucidation of the diversity found across the span of the 20th century. The music of Bessie Jones is a compelling example of how difference once flourished, especially when aided by a level of isolation.
Jones was attempting to preserve traditions, and Get in Union, a set compiling tapes made by Alan Lomax on his second visit to the Georgia Sea Islands and later in Williamsburg, VA and New York City, all from ’59 to ’66, makes it clear as crystal she succeeded. Folk fans gassed by last year’s Tompkins Square Caffe Lena live compilation should find this 2CD to be an essential acquisition to their library. The scene was more than just earnest strummers and the music here, often performed a cappella, cuts deep.
Conversely, the original owners of Paramount Records cared not for folk tradition, instead desirous of accumulating dollars, which for a while they did. Of course the stock market imploded like a faulty soufflé and it was only a matter of time before a company being run on the cheap and specializing in the dissemination of race music and other lowly, often rural styles with little to no discrimination between religious and sometimes risqué material, bit the dust.
With time comes clarity. The label’s holdings are now considered to possess some of the previous millennium’s greatest sounds, music that persists in knocking ears onto asses in part because the essence wasn’t weakened in a desire to garner wider appeal. Third Man and Revenant’s second and culminating volume of the Paramount story carries a price tag that’s formidable, but it also gives the listener access to nearly 40 hours of music.
And rather than embodying a Luddite attitude, The Rise and Fall of Paramount Records employs digital technology to provide the purchaser with a huge hunk of a vastly important musical library. The set has been assessed by some as a vanity project for Jack White and Dean Blackwood, but the longer it commands my attention the more I think its combination of physical and digital can be tweaked into a sustainable and even affordable release model. Naturally, only time will tell.
