Conjure • Bad Mouth

This double CD foregrounds the words of poet Ishmael Reed, accompanied by grooves and tunes assembled by producer Kip Hanrahan, using what amounts to an American Clavé house band. Horacio el Negro Hernandez, Robby Ameen, Billy Bang and Fernando Saunders, Anthony Cox, David Murray and others contribute intense Latin-funk riffs, tunes and atmospheres that underscore Reed's poetry, which is by turns coruscating, moving, tender, explosive and political. However, it is Hanrahan's personal, hands-on method of shaping this material that gives the album its musical and artistic cohesion.
The centrepiece track is In War Such Things Happen, in which Reed lists the consequences of present-day war and terrorism from all sides, telling plainly how easily outrages can be justified. "You killed secretaries, dishwashers, janitors, busboys, dishwashers, civil servants and when we asked you why, you said, 'Well, this is a war, and in a war such things happen.'" Three numbers in, this is a hard track to follow, and some of the lesser pieces go on a tad too long. Had this been a single CD, it would have merited five stars. Nevertheless, it's a stunning album.
John L Walter • Guardian

Disc 1
1. Mo Ku Lana, Mo Jinde Loni
2. Conjuring a Calm Between Wars
3. In War Such Things Happen
4. He Picked A Fight With The Haitians
5. For Dancer
6. Bad Mouth
7. Tokyo Woman Blues

Disc 2
1.Go To Jazz
2. Louisiana Red
3. At An Azabu Cafe
4. Jack Johnson / Skirt Dance
5. Prayer to Earth

Alvin Youngblood Hart • voice, electric guitar

Fernando Saunders • voice, electric bass

Leo Nocentelli • electric guitar

Anthony Cox • electric bass

Horacio El Negro Hernandez • trap drums

Robby Ameen • trap drums

Yosvanni Terry • alto sax, checkere, voice

Pedro Martinez • voice, congas, percussion

Ricie Flores • congas

Ishmael Reed • voice • recitations

Billy Bang • violin

David Murray • tenor sax

Dafnis Prieto • trap drums

Kip Hanrahan • musical director, voice

Produced by Kip Hanrahan
Recorded January through April 2005, New Jersey, New York

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Label: American Clavé – AMCL 1052/53
Format: 320
Country: US
Released: 2006
Genre: Funk / Soul, Jazz
Style: Soul-Jazz, Jazz-Funk

Music Revelation Ensemble • No Wave

One of the first and best free jazz/funk bands. On No Wave, its 1980 Moers Music debut, the band was comprised of James "Blood" Ulmer (guitar), David Murray (tenor saxophone), Amin Ali (electric bass), and Ronald Shannon Jackson (drums). The MRE became Ulmer's baby since he has been the only constant throughout the group's two decades of existence; Murray has made a couple of returns, and Jackson has been in and out. The lineup of the group changed from album to album, especially in the late '90s. Pharoah Sanders and John Zorn recorded with the band (Crossfire), as did Hamiet Bluiett and Arthur Blythe (Knights of Power). Drummer Cornell Rochester succeeded Jackson early on, and Jamaaladeen Tacuma replaced Ali for a time. The band has remained reasonably vital thanks to Ulmer, but one can be excused for preferring their early records, made when Ornette Coleman's Dancing in Your Head was still fresh in listeners' ears.
~ Chris Kelsey, All Music Guide

1. Time Table
2. Big Tree
3. Baby Talk
4. Sound Check

James "Blood" Ulmer • Guitar & Vocal

David Murray • Tenor Sax

Amin Ali • Electric Bass

Ronald Shannon Jackson • Drums

Recorded at: Studio 57, Düsseldorf, June 80

Recorded By Hans Schlosser, Norbert Büllmeyer

Produced by Burkhard Hennen

Label: Moers Music 01072 CD
Format: 320\F
Country: Germany
Released: 1980/1987
Genre: Jazz
Style: Free Jazz, Free Funk

Blue Box • Captured Dance Floor

Captured Dance Floor is an odd one I picked up on my electric Jazz travels in the late eighties. The cover artwork is not to my liking but I'm guessing it is meant to be satirical.
A stripped down Toshinori Kondo's IMA spring to mind on re-listening, an intriguing mixture of funk, techno, experimental jazz. ~ Stylo

Blue Box is a cult. The name itself is a programme. For twenty years this band has succeeded in over layering each period with its music, much like the blue box technique used in film making. The jazz trio does not go along with the prevailing musical trends but cultivates styles that go against the drift and charts a new course. In the early eighties when DJ club jazz was still in its infancy, the new-age music produced by Blue Box upset the jazz purists. Some called it ‘techno jazz’, others ‘no wave funk’, and some ‘industrial dance’.

Their third album "Captured Dancefloor" reflected the rise of dancefloor jazz in the late 80s. Charismatic trumpet lines communicate with complex rhythms and driving bass grooves: The sound of Blue Box was way ahead of its time and soon turned this trio into a cult band.
nubox.com

01. Perpetuum Mobile
02. Dreamless Nights
03. Little Prince
04. Network
05. Going
06. Dance Floor
07. Criss Cross
08. Cheers
09. Thumbs Up
10. Samba
11. Cartoon


Reiner Winterschladen • Trumpet, Vocals
A member of the NDR Big Band since 1995, participated in numerous recordings for jazz labels, radio and TV. Over the years he played some very distinguished solos on albums of the Nighthawks, the Klaus König Orchestra and Ensemble Indigo

Alois Kott • Acoustic & Electric Bass
bass professor and founder of several ensembles, has been a professional musician for 30 years. He made recordings for ECM, Enja, Intuition and other labels and composed works of chamber music for the WDR.

Peter E. Eisold • Drums, Percussion & programming
is best known for his work on the experimental and alternative concert scene. He played with groups like the AOS Ensemble and Modern Percussion Quintet and was the drummer in Helge Schneider's Big Band.

Produced by  Blue Box


Purchase

Label: Tiptoe – CD 888 801
Format: 320
Country: Germany
Released: 1989
Genre: Jazz, Rock
Style: Future Jazz

Whitney Houston RIP

I met Bill Laswell, on Labor Day 1982 at RPM studios in New York City. I was subbing for another engineer and the session was for Material, which was then Bill Laswell and Michael Beinhorn. We were recording a singer and a saxophone player and then mixing the song afterward. As it turned out the singer was Whitney Houston, and I think it was the first time she was ever in the studio, because I remember she didn't really feel comfortable wearing headphones while she was singing. The sax player was Archie Shepp! I remember when we recorded Archie. I was talking to Bill about doing fly-ins. That is taking a solo or a vocal from one part of a song and moving it to another part by recording the track from the multi track tape to a ½ inch tape machine, and then “Flying” the ½ inch tape back to the multi track tape – but at a different spot on the multi track tape - which he thought was really interesting, and we ended up doing that to a solo that Archie Shepp took on the song “Memories” on the Material record “One Down”.

Robert Musso

Musican, Producer, Engineer

Piri Thomas • Every Child is Born a Poet

"...What a great title. And how good to hear an album that lives up to it... This rich and multifaceted 27-track CD is based on the soundtrack to Jonathan Robinson's film about Piri Thomas, the Nuyorican "poet laureate", assembled from the poet's own readings and sessions led by auteur/producer Kip Hanrahan. ...Thomas, now in his 70s, has a speaking voice that is still powerful, resonant and urgent. The music moves logically from improvised textures to Latin schmaltz; from streetwise percussion jams to the minimalist, multitracked pianos of Hanrahan's instrumental title track. The young boy's spoken voice on I'm Tough is almost unbearably moving: 'I'm tough. I hope I'm tough enough.' ...."
~John L Walters, The Guardian

1. Like Tight (At Juvie)

2. Bullets Or Butterflies / Every Child Is Born A Poet

3. Born Anew At Each a.M.

4. Oye Familia!

5. What Better Place?

6. Softly, Puerto Rican, You're Not Alone

7. Mom and Pop Had Filled My Eyes With the Wonderous City

8. I Speak For Myself

9. Vaya!

10. Mindtrances

11. Freedom of Expressions

12. Getting From Nothing

13. Pride On Bended Knees

14. Momma Never Lost Her Sense of Beauty

15. Those Who Is And Those Who Ain't

16. Armed Robbery On West 8th Street

17. Puerto Rican Identity / I'm Tough / El Miedo

18. Distant Shore Dreams / the Cruelest Prison of All

19. Hollywood In Harlem

20. Every Child Is Born a Poet

21. Hard Stuff

22. El Vejiganté

23. Doubt Kills

24. Dignity

25. No Vuelvo

26. Dialogue With Society a/K/a Sermon From the Ghetto

27. Pretty As Thee

PIRI THOMAS, ROBBY AMEEN, CHOCOLATE ARMENTEROS, BILLY BANG, MILTON CARDONA, EDSEL GOMEZ, ANDY GONZALEZ, JERRY GONZALEZ, KIP HANRAHAN, STEFON HARRIS, JT LEWIS, PEDRO MARTINEZ, MARIO RIVERA, FERNANDO SAUNDERS, ALFREDO TRIFF, JAMES ZOLLAR, JONATHAN ROBINSON

Produced by Kip Hanrahan and Jonathan Robinson
Recorded 1990 through 2003, San Fransisco, New York

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"words can be bullets or butterflies. The truth uplifts, while lies destroy. So say what you mean and mean what you say."

Piri Thomas 

 Piri Thomas, the author known for the best-selling book “Down These Mean Streets”  died October 17, 2011 aged 83.

Label: American Clavé – AMCL 1032
Format: 320
Country: Japan
Released: 2006
Genre: Jazz, Latin
Style: Latin Jazz, Poetry

Third Rail • South Delta Space Age

Ulmer formed Third Rail with Laswell and Modeliste in 1993 as an avant-jazz version of the Cream-style power trio. Worrell and Myers joined shortly thereafter and the group became regulars at the Knitting Factory and other New York clubs. The group even toured as part of the P-Funk Revue for a couple of years. Third Rail released its first album, South Delta Space Age, in 1995. A 1997 follow-up, with Jerome "Bigfoot" Brailey replacing Modeliste on drums, was originally announced as As It Is by Third Rail, but the album was eventually released as James Blood Ulmer’s Blue Blood, with the same personnel and compositions.
AMG

1. Dusted
2. Grounded
3. Funk All Night
4. In The Name Of
5. Please Tell Her
6. Itchin'
7. Blues March
8. First Blood
9. Lord Thank You

info • silent-watcher

James "Blood" Ulmer • Electric Guitars, Vocals
Bernie Worrell • Hammond-3 Organ, Clavinet
Amina Claudine Myers • Hammond-3 Organ, electric piano, voice
Bill Laswell • Bass
Joseph "Zigaboo" Modeliste • Drums, Percussion


Produced by Bill Laswell & James 'Blood' Ulmer

Purchase

Label: Antilles
Catalog#: 314 533 965-2
Format: 320
Country: US
Released: 1997
Genre: Blues, Funk / Soul
Style: Electric Blues, Free Funk

Fuse • World Dance Music

Although previously underground, World Music is now rapidly
becoming a recognised musical force in ti's own right.
Clubs in New York, Paris and London are beginning to focus
on World Music and many DJ's are now mixing these tracks on
turntables, utilising musical styles from all over the globe.

Relatively undiscovered Artists are featured on this album
and the talent that are highlighted reveal a kaleidoscope of
cultural backgrounds and influences. Indian rhythms fuse with
percussion, Latin American strings, Japanese horns and tin
whistles, while traditional World vocals and lyrics fuel the
international pulse.

The Oriental and Latin American instrumentation is authentic,
and is recorded live in all cases. The lasting impression
is of diverse musical styles and rhythms, dynamically married
in a huge cultural melting pot.

This compilation is a stimulating, informative and creative
masterpiece: EAST MEETS WEST has never been more exciting
and revealing.

Timbo 1989

1. David Harrow • Yassassin (Wild Assassin Mix)
Justin Adams • Guitar
Zahrema • Vocals
Produced by David Harrow

2. Mahatma T • Jihad
Produced by Harri Kakoulli and Talvin Singh

3. Sapna • Ah Kudia
Harjit • Vocals
Produced by Talvin Singh

4. !Loca! • Encantador
Tim Coley • Flamenco Guitar
Glenn Campling • Keyboards
Natacha Atlas • Vocals
Dave Holden • Keyboards
Produced by Harri Kakoulli

5. Sapna •O'dhe O'dhe 

Harjit • Vocals
Produced by Talvin Singh

6. Pulse 8 • Radio Morocco (Club Mix)
Justin Adams • Guitar

Jah Wobble • Bass
Produced by David Harrow

7. Mahatma T • Shanti
Jon S. • Vocals
Shubir Kamir • Vocals
Produced by Harri Kakoulli and Talvin Singh

8. Paradise • Teus Quay Ana
Talvin Singh • Percussion
Produced by Harri Kakoulli

Label: Nation Records
Catalog#: NR 001 L
Format: Vinyl Rip, 320/Flac 1/2
Country: UK
Released: Apr 1989
Genre: Electronic, Jazz
Style: Fusion, Tribal

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