Doom & Gloom From the Tomb

Happy Jazz Thanksgiving! Here are some jazzy Jazz Week jazz links! Jazz!

Cannonball Adderley -3/15/69, Stephaniensaal, Graz, Austria (FM)

Miles Davis - Belgrade, Serbia (November 3, 1973)

ANTHONY BRAXTON
Live at 40th Deutsches Jazzfestival, hr-Sendesaal, Frankfurt, Germany, October 30, 2009. Ex FM stereo.

Newport Jazz Festival 1959 sets, w/ Jimmy Smith, Dizzy Gillespie, Ahmad Jamal, Count Basie & more!

Vice Versa

“This is going to be the greatest broadcast of all time,” Symphony Sid Torin mutters at the start of these recordings, made at Birdland, NYC in 1962. He doesn’t sound like he means it. But what follows is pretty fabulous — after all, it’s Charles Mingus near the peak of his powers as a bandleader. It doesn’t get much better than that. Taped off of the radio by some enterprising soul, the first set features an odd, drum-less, two bass group with Toshiko Akiyoshi on piano and Booker Ervin on tenor sax blazing through “Peggy’s Blue Skylight” and “Tijuana Table Dance.” The second set showcases a more familiar Mingus group, with Jaki Byard on the keys and Dannie Richmond behind the drums. Especially good here is the Thelonious tribute/pastiche “Monk, Funk Or Vice Versa.” I really like the time capsule quality of these broadcasts. Hard to imagine turning on the radio these days and hearing something like this! Enjoy.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/uge03y

Alice

Following up John with a little Alice. This is just one track, but it’s a long one: 28 minutes worth of Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp, Jimmy Garrison, Ed Blackwell, Clifford Jarvis and Cecil McBee performing a fiery rendition of John’s “Africa” at Carnegie Hall in early 1972, a little over a decade after the original was recorded. It’s an intense ride, as perhaps is obvious from the players involved! Recording quality is excellent, capturing an historic occasion that, to my knowledge, has never been released officially. I have no idea how much Alice performed live during the 1970s, but this is the only bootleg I’ve got of her during that era. Note: I believe I downloaded this from http://ileoxumare.blogspot.com, which has plenty more good stuff for you jazz-heads. All credit where credit’s due!

http://www.sendspace.com/file/ijdqgv

Transfigurations

We’ll kick off Jazz Week here with a wonderful 1961 show from John Coltrane in Copenhagen, featuring Eric Dolphy, Elvin Jones, McCoy Tyner and Reggie Workman. Taken from a radio broadcast, the recording quality is pretty solid, despite not serving Tyner or Jones particularly well. The real pleasures come from ‘Trane and Dolphy, who both sound inspired and invigorated by one another. Check out the absolutely swoon-worthy reading of “Naima” for proof of these two players’ chemistry. The opening “Delilah” is a rarity — it doesn’t seem to appear on any of the other recordings from this tour. It’s a treat. Another rarity is simply hearing Coltrane address the audience after a false start on “My Favorite Things.” Dude was not exactly a chatty cathy on stage, to say the least. But the ensuing, almost half-hour long “Favorite Things” is fantastic — despite its length, it’s actually a somewhat gentle reading of the song, at least compared to what would come in later years, with Dolphy’s playful flute solo as a highlight.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/onz9oi

Dig it!

Jazz Week is coming to Doom & Gloom!

Down In Flames

(More Richard Lloyd guitar madness for you). Out of all the proto-punk, punk and post-punk bands that reunited this decade, Rocket From The Tombs was probably the most unlikely of them all. After all, RFTT didn’t even release an album during their short mid-70s existence, and one of the band’s primary creative forces, guitarist Peter Laughner, had been dead for well over a quarter century. But following the release of The Day The Earth Met Rocket From The Tombs, a stunning collection of rehearsals and live recordings, David Thomas, Cheetah Chrome and Craig Bell reformed the band, recruiting current Pere Ubu drummer Steve Mehlman and Television guitarist Richard Lloyd along the way. The latter was an inspired choice, since Laughner was known to be a Television superfan back in the day. The 21st century incarnation of RFTT was better than it had any right to be, capturing an incredible amount of excitement and power during their live shows (my brother and I caught them blowing down the house at TT the Bear’s in the midst of a ridiculous Boston snowstorm). This recording is a radio session from 2003, and it is beyond killer, the band members sounding like they would like nothing more than to strangle each other. From the slow burn of “So Cold” to the auto destructo rock of “What Love Is” to the band’s terrifying magnum opus “30 Seconds Over Tokyo,” RFTT are on fire throughout this set. Don’t miss it!

http://www.sendspace.com/file/ftqxud