Ran Blake - piano player

Here is an interview with Ran Blake in the Boston Globe ahead of a concert to be held in celebration of his 75th birthday.  John Medeski is the guest interviewer.  Ran was an influential mentor of John’s when he was a student at the New England Conservatory.  Ran has been a professor in the third stream music department for over 40 years alongside Gunther Schuller and George Russell.  He is an avant-garde jazz piano player, composer and educator known for his “primacy of the ear” teaching philosophy.

Ran Blake – official website

Boston Globe Interview

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Trombone Shorty's debut cd on Verve Records

It is widely known and nearly universally agreed by fans of New Orleans music that Troy Andrews, known as Trombone Shorty, is the most gifted crescent city musician of his generation and a promising beacon in a musical lineage as thick as the roux that has flavored its rich tradition. On his debut solo cd, Backatown, on Verve Records, he embraces the uncertain challenge of trying to sell himself (and his well-honed, funky-ass band – only a few holiday dinners removed from the kids’ table) to a mainstream audience with no grasp of his deep roots or prodigal talent, while remaining true to both. In practical terms, this means short tunes, no extended solos and radio-friendly production techniques, when a live-in-the-studio-jamin’-like-its-jazzfest concept would have played to his strengths and satiated his established fanbase.The choice of Ben Ellman as the producer in this effort was a critical step towards fulfilling this ambition. They have played on many stages together, and with the last two Galactic outings and his Gypsyphonic Disko mix-tape, Ben has proclaimed himself an ardent and imaginitive producer committed to finding an authoritative voice for New Orleans musicans in the American pop music discourse so often a dysfunctional talkfest between the deaf and dumb.

Backatown opens with “Hurricane Season,” the first of many scorching instrumental tracks, with all of the horn-driven excitement of a brass band shout chorus over a thunderous bass line and swanky NOLA-phonic backbeat that would light up Frenchman street any night of the week. Next, Allen Toussaint knuckles some piano on a tune he wrote, “On Your Way Down” – a sweet, laconic, bubbly groove with some simple, tasty harmonic movement and the amusing refrain: “well, it’s high time that you found, the same people you walk on, on the way up, you might meet on your way down.” For the most part, the cd alternates dutifully between instrumental and vocal tracks. Shorty is joined on vocals by guests Lenny Kravitz on “Something Beautiful” and Marc Broussard on “Right To Complain”. All of the tunes are powered by a supafunky, in-ya-face rhythm section dripping with in-the-pocket, ballsy, contrapuntal horn lines – this is not your daddy’s Verve Records release, but the confidence, craftsmanship and relentless badassness on display throughout stands with the best of that historic catalog.

Sonically, Backatown is as radio-friendly a rock album as anything you’ll hear with your FM dial tuned between 101 and 107. This is no 2:1 affair; the drums, bass and guitars are compressed and mixed with the intention of putting the listener back on his/her heals. Despite the heavy production, the groove never loses it’s live feel even when the drums are gated and processed to sound like a drum machine. The horn production is bombastic and fantastic. Forget blending in – they leave me wondering how it is possible that the power of a horn section has not been on the forefront of the hard rock sound for the last 20 years. Finally, the vocal production does not suffer from being an after thought on a great instrumental record. Many of the standard rock/pop vocal production techniques are here, with the thankful exception of the pandemic “really?  I mean really!?!” Melodyne effect. Some soulful phrasing and well-mixed doubling sell me on Shorty as a vocalist. Everything to do with production on this cd seems intent on kicking ass – and does it with conviction. Once again, Ben Ellman shows himself as uniquely able to produce contemporary New Orleans funk within the mainstream rock aesthetic without coming up short on either end.

In today’s homoginized, temporal culture, a generation of musicians in New Orleans including Trombone Shorty, Galactic, Dumpstaphunk, and the Rebirth Brass Band are branching off a deep-rooted tradition, with the hard-earned respect of those that came before them, and reasserting the city’s important influence on the American musical landscape. No one represents the depth of that tradition or the urgency of that cultural promise more than Trombone Shorty.  On his debut solo cd, we are introduced to an artist who’s vision is fueled by a youthful, vibrant exuberance and tempered by tremendous maturity, clarity and confidence. This recording succeeds in bringing Trombone Shorty to a mainstream audience without alienating or disappointing his existing fanbase who for years have been eagerly following his performances during jazzfest and packing Orleans Avenue shows around the country. Deep funk astronomers will herald this disk as the birth of new a rock star. And without a doubt it will be part of the constellation that guides my bbq this summer!  Buy it on Amazon

Trombone Shorty Reel 2010 from verve on Vimeo.

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Fela Kuti Collections on Knitting Factory Records

“AfroBeat is about social, political and cultural literacy. It confronts the geography of world complacency, greed and fear and calls for a trans-formative insubordination.” – Carlos Moore, author of Fela: This Bitch of a Life

Fela Kuti is making his resurgent presence felt in popular culture today, 13 years after his untimely death.  The broadway musical Fela (produced by Will & Jada Pinckett Smith & Jay Z.) was just nominated for 11 Tony awards.  A film about his life, directed by Steve McQueen (Hunger) begins production this fall and will be released by Focus Features.

Fela’s pioneering contribution to Afro-beat blended African descendent music from the west (funk, salsa, calypso, reggae) with Juju, highlife, and west African percussive roots, creating a truly pan-African sound which along with his unequivocal political message of strong African identity in the wake of wide-spread disillusionment with neo-colonial rule established him as a heroic figure far beyond his home in Nigeria.  He remains a beloved messenger in culturally and politically conscious movements across Europe, Africa and the Americas rooted in the liberation and human rights struggles of the twentieth century.  He was also an enigmatic personality filled with contradictions, idiosyncrasies, controversy and magnanimous excess that make him ripe for re-examination through a variety of narrative and biographical mediums.

Knitting Factory Records has released two re-mastered and re-packaged collections of Fela’s musical output during the late 60′s and 70′s. Batch 1, Chop & Quench, is six cds containing the music from the original albums: The ’69 Sessions, Live with Ginger Baker, London Scene, Shakara, Roforofo Fight, Open & Close, Afrodisiac, Gentlemen, and Confusion. Batch 2, Na Poi, is 7 Cds, including music from the original albums: Alagbon Close, Why Black Men Dey Suffer, Expensive Shit, He Miss Road, Monkey Banana, Excuse O, Everything Scatter, Noise For Vendor Mouth, Ikoyi Blindness, Kalakuta Show, JJD, Unnecessary Begging, Yellow Fever, and Na Poi.  Each collection is offered in a three-tiered package.  The deluxe package includes: immediate download in 320kbps MP3 (plus free Apple Lossless file upgrade), digi-pack Cd’s featuring original artwork, and the biography “Fela: This Bitch of a Life” (with Batch 1) or a first edition Fela sun t-shirt (with Batch 2).  The regular packages includes the immediate download and digi-packs featuring original album artwork minus the biography and t-shirt.  Finally, they offer both batches as a digital download only.

These collections are satisfying in several different ways.  The gratification of downloading this much Fela music was realized moments after I imported it into iTunes and pressed play – knowing that the cd’s with the original artwork of artist Ghariokwu Lemi are on their way leaves me in child-like anticipation each day when our mail carrier arrives.  I do not have the originals to compare them to, but the remastered collection sounds clean and even throughout when played in shuffle mode.

The record nerd in me is thrilled to have this comprehensive body of work from such an influential artist and activist.  Examination of these collections in chronological order, gives the listener clear insight into the intricate and mulit-layered Afro-beat sound being developed by Fela.  Tight, angular horn section lines woven with a relentless rhythmic foundation powered by Tony Allen’s drums and dry, percolating guitar stabs give testament to the catalyzing influence of James Brown but create a uniquely west African flavor of funk.  His well-documented political journey through the 60′s & 70′s supports his increasingly militant message, but it is his development of a truly individual, rhythmic and vocal style of saxophone playing that to me best illustrates the confident, sly, dissident, outraged and outrageous aspects of his personality.  There is a tremendous amount of music in these collections, but it does not suffer the dilution of its potency through exhaustive presentation.  It demands both intensive study and laid-back, bbq-infused enjoyment – many hours of both lie in my future.

Fela Kuti Discography

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Dakah - Hip-Hop Orchestra

“LA Opera has joined forces with Los Angeles’ cultural and educational institutions to stage the first significant citywide cultural festival since the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival. Ring Festival LA showcases a wide variety of exhibitions, symposia, museum shows, conferences, and special events. All of these events will be thematically related to the first-ever presentation in Los Angeles of the four-opera drama The Ring of the Nibelung.” (Ring Festival LA)

Mark Swed of the LA Times called it “one of the most glorious and moving instances of stagecraft I have ever witnessed.”

There is no doubt that this work is one of the most significant European artistic achievements of the 19th century and had a huge influence on classical, jazz and film composers in the twentieth century. As we stand at the edge of the second decade of the twenty-first century, the tenants of post-modernism are instilled through “tweets” and artists face the age-old dilemma of finding a renewed and relevant understanding in which to place previous masterpieces amid unprecedented social white noise and distraction. Beneath the canopy of the business of entertainment, there is a dedicated artistic community in Los Angeles intent on finding ways to tie what is hip to a traditional cultural foundation.

Composer, multi-instrumentalist and band leader Geoff “Double G” Gallegos is leading this effort with urgency, intelligence, creativity and a willful “fuck it, I’m doing this” attitude that has allowed him to stage hugely successful presentations of historical work to large and diverse audiences in the contemporary context of both his hip-hop orchestra, Dakah and his Concert 9Net. With the help of traditional arts organizations in the city, he has established himself as a true visionary in breaking down the categorizations and stereotypes of how and where music is presented and who it is presented to. From the formative days of Dakah (30 musicians) at the Temple Bar taking up the stage and half the dance floor, to packed shows in California Plaza (as part of Grand Performances) and Disney Hall, Double G has fashioned the instrumentation and repertoire of a hip-hop orchestra (now with 70 musicians & MC’s) into a phenomenon that finds unity and respect in many disparate musical landscapes.

His Concert 9Net was featured in the lobby of LACMA as part of the opening of the Ring Festival LA.  On June 19th, Dakah will be performing again as part of the Grand Performances concert series, presenting a program of new work featuring themes from “Der Ring des Nibelungen” re-imagined – Gangster Wagner.

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photo of Gabe Roth by Jacob Blickenstaff

Here is a link to a great interview with Daptone Records founder Gabe Roth on the Waxpoetics website.  He is also the producer of Sharon Jones’ latest cd, “I Learned the Hard Way” which dropped on April 6th.  There is a cool promo video from it here.

Gabe is one of my favorite producers working today.  His stuff with Sharon Jones, Amy Winehouse and the Budos Band has been tearing up my iTunes and contributed to the soundtrack of many Venice BBQ’s over the last several years;  Always marked by vintage analog sound and humorous creativity.

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