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Crate digging and interesting obscurities |
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js 
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 Posted: 24 May 2018 at 9:18am |
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During an era when strange records were abundant due to free jazz musicians discovering LSD, Khan Jamal's "Drum Dance to the Motherland" stands out as one of the strangest. Here we have a free fusion jam subjected to constant dub echo excursions that sound like a cross between King Tubby, Sun Ra and Syd Barret's Pink Floyd. This once super rare oddity has been re-issued on vinyl complete with the original album artwork and everything.
  Edited by js - 25 May 2018 at 6:46am |
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js
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Posted: 12 Jul 2018 at 6:49pm |
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Lyman Woodard was a keyboardist and arranger who worked for Motown as well as many top notch RnB musicians. His first solo album "Saturday Night Special" is a crate digger's dream. The album opens with orchestrated psychedelic RnB, but as things progress Lyman gets into some fairly heated fusion jams with plenty of hot Hammond B3 playing.
The orchestrated parts can recall David Axelrod and Isaac Hayes, while the B3 led psychedelic jazz rock bears some resemblance to early Brian Auger. The late night sound to the production recalls another crate digger gem, Cymande's self-titled album.  Edited by snobb - 12 Jul 2018 at 10:45pm |
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js
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Posted: 07 Sep 2018 at 8:40am |
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The albums of William S Fischer are absolute diamond mines for crate diggers and those who seek the truly unique. His first album, "Circles" (1970), has to be heard to be believed. On this one we get plenty of experimental electronics, psychedelic RnB, fantastical prog rock arrangements and other hard to describe excursions.
Listen: 
Edited by js - 14 Oct 2020 at 8:30pm |
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js
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Posted: 07 Sep 2018 at 9:03am |
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Fischer's follow up, 1972's "Akelarre Sorta", was less experimental and focused more on exquisite RnB/jazz grooves.
Edited by snobb - 07 Sep 2018 at 10:31am |
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js
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Posted: 22 Oct 2018 at 5:49pm |
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Getting away from the crate digging for a moment and taking a look at a current artist. Those who miss the exotic big band sounds of David Axelrod, Lalo Schifrin, Quincy Jones and Don Ellis may want to check out current arranger Fred Pallem. His music is pleasingly kitsch without going overboard into corny silliness.
 Edited by js - 22 Oct 2018 at 5:51pm |
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js
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Posted: 24 Oct 2018 at 8:37pm |
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Another one on the current tip is Sonido Gallo Negro, who draw upon the legendary psychedelic Peruvian cumbia sound and add other Latin influences as well as bits of surf guitar and spy movie soundtracks. Solid musicianship throughout with a strong knowledge of all manner of Latin rhythms.
Edited by snobb - 24 Oct 2018 at 10:49pm |
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js
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Posted: 28 Oct 2018 at 7:09pm |
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Getting back to the real crate digging, "Overdrive Rock Jazz Party" is much better than its rather cheezy title would imply. What we get from this short lived early 70s German trio (The Bridge) is plenty of hot funk jazz with a spacious reverb sound plus some exotic extras too. The keyboard player is Kristian Schultze, who some may remember from his work with Passport. Expect plenty of wah wah Fender Rhodes.
Edited by js - 29 Oct 2018 at 4:54am |
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js
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Posted: 19 Jan 2019 at 6:42pm |
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The Lightmen were a top notch RnB, Afro-Latin fusion, free-jazz band out of Houston Texas in the early 70s. Their debut album mixed avant-garde fusion with Afro-Latin grooves and deserved much wider recognition that it received at the time.
 Edited by snobb - 20 Jan 2019 at 2:02am |
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js
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Posted: 26 Jan 2019 at 8:43pm |
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"Crystal Spears" was recorded by Sun Ra in the early 70s, but not released until now. Of all the old Sun Ra music that is being dredged up these days, this one is better than most of the poorly recorded mess that is recently being pushed on the public. Like a lot of his music during this time period, this album does not sound like any of his other albums.
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Edited by js - 17 Nov 2021 at 8:35pm |
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js
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Posted: 01 Apr 2019 at 5:51pm |
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Although most of this thread will deal with jazz, RnB and exotica, we're going to look at a rock band that many have forgotten. Death was a group of young African Americans in Detroit who were playing punk rock in the mid-70s before punk caught on in London and NYC.
Influenced by fellow Detroit proto punkers like Iggy Pop and the MC5, as well as fellow Detroit black rockers, Funkadelic, Death was way ahead of their time, yet you rarely hear about them.  Edited by js - 30 Oct 2019 at 8:19pm |
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js
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Posted: 01 Apr 2019 at 7:07pm |
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One of the most intense rock/RnB bands of all time featured early 60s garage rock guitar thrasher Link Wray with the way over the top vocals of David Walker from the gospel group The Mighty Clouds of Joy. David had to change his name to Bunker Hill so he would not get kicked out of the gospel group for recording secular music, but he got caught anyway. Later, all was forgiven and he was re-instated into the Mighty Clouds group.
Edited by js - 02 Apr 2019 at 6:42am |
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js
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Posted: 26 May 2019 at 5:08pm |
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There are a lot of archival Sun Ra recordings coming out these days, some better than others. This recording from a bar in Minnesota in 1978 is one of the better ones.
On here we get Sunny playing solo on acoustic piano and on a Crumar synthesizr, probably an Orchestrator or something similar. I own one of these old synths myself and I recognize the sounds. Crumar was an Italian keyboard company that made lower cost versions of popular models by Moog, ARP, Hammond and others. They were often great keyboards in their own right and had unique features that their more expensive counterparts might not have. The Orchestrator was similar to an ARP Solina, but it also had electric piano too, and some incredibly deep bass notes that Sunny makes good use of. The Orchestrator also allowed you to mix up the different pre-set sounds, which is a feature that Ra also makes good use of. The music on here is a mixture of Sun Ra's stride piano roots, re-visits to some classic original material, and free improvisations in a variety of styles. The recording quality is surprisingly good for a portable cassette recorder  Edited by snobb - 27 May 2019 at 12:41am |
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boredop
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Joined: 25 May 2019 Location: New York Status: Offline Points: 45 |
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Posted: 26 May 2019 at 11:00pm |
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Replying to the post about Death - they reunited a few years ago (with a new guitarist replacing the original guitarist, who died some years back), recorded a new album and have been touring ever since. I actually saw them play in New York last month. They're still sounding great.
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js
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Posted: 26 May 2019 at 11:35pm |
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js
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Posted: 17 Nov 2019 at 1:42am |
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After Bootsy and Catfish Collins left James Brown, they led their own groups with names like The House Guests and Complete Strangers. Shake It records has recently put many of these tracks together and released them on one record.
On these numbers, Bootsy and his crew often imitate James, but with a more substance fueled abandon and chaotic creativity. Other tracks show the influence of punky fellow urban mid-westerners like Funkadelic, MC5, Death and Iggy Pop. On some jams, the Collins Brothers sound like a funky version of The Velvet Underground. All of this quickly led to the Collins brothers being invited to join Funkadelic as their new rhythm section. Many of these same musicians would also go on to be Bootsy's Rubber Band.  Edited by snobb - 17 Nov 2019 at 10:23am |
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js
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Posted: 16 Dec 2019 at 1:07am |
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The Sounds of Liberation was a short lived group out of Philadelphia in the early 70s that mixed psychedelic RnB and rock with free jazz in a very African spiritual setting.
Listen:  Edited by js - 11 Aug 2020 at 9:12am |
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js
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Posted: 06 Feb 2020 at 9:13pm |
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Cochemea Gastelum is a Native American from California who is known for his saxophone work with the Dap-Kings. His 2010 debut, "The Electric Sound of Johnny Arrow", is not a soundtrack, but it sounds like one. Here we have orchestrated trip-hop, Latin rock, soul jazz and 50s instrumentals that all flow together perfectly. Imagine a cross between Sly 5th Ave, Eddie Harris, Santana and Quincy Jones and you might get an idea of how appealing these little rhythmic nuggets are.
 Edited by js - 07 Feb 2020 at 7:54am |
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js
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Posted: 08 Apr 2020 at 8:37pm |
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Big Jay McNeely is hardly obscure, in fact he was very popular in his day, but its his pop hits that live on and not his more off-the-wall material.
Listen to these tracks to get an idea of how much rock-n-roll became sanitized over the years. Edited by js - 12 Nov 2020 at 6:02pm |
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js
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Posted: 15 Apr 2020 at 8:49pm |
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Much of this thread has dealt with early 70s psychedelic funk and soul and Del Jones' one and only album fits in with that vibe. Originally the album was titled "Court is Closed", but a second version added horns to the mix and was called "Positive Vibes"
Edited by js - 15 Apr 2020 at 8:51pm |
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dreadpirateroberts
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Posted: 15 Apr 2020 at 10:15pm |
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Awesome!
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We are men of action. Lies do not become us.
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boredop wrote: