Mueller_Roedelius - Imagori (2015)

Glitchy, clicky, and of course beautifully melodic precision electronics from Roedelius and the latest in a long line of collaborators, Christoph H. Mueller from Gotan Project.  Their first album together starts as it means to go on, with classic Roedelius piano over a bed of modern electronics, and covers ground both calm and unsettling over the course of 50 minutes.

In a sense, Imagori could be described as a bit like a Qluster album (see last three links below) with the rougher edges shorn off, but for all its refined exactness it's never dull.  Roedelius' Qluster collaborator Onnen Bock is actually featured here in an occasional supporting capacity, as is the deftly sampled voice of Brian Eno talking about tape recording on one track.  There would be a sequel three years later, Imagori II, which I've still to pick up.

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Roedelius at SGTG:
Kluster 1970-1971
Cluster & Eno
Jardin Au Fou
Live In Vienna
Curiosum
Lustwandel
Wenn Der Südwind Weht
Offene Türen
Apropos Cluster
Inlandish
Qua
Rufen
Fragen
Tasten

Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 - Herb Alpert Presents Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 (1966)

A quick shot of pure sunshine bossanova pop, from Sergio Mendes and the group he'd assembled to work as an international crossover act.  It was an inspired setup that had a smash hit with Jorge Ben's Mas Que Nada, and this debut album packs in that and nine more tunes into 26 minutes.  Just piano, percussion and vocals in Portuguese and English, it's a formula that still sounds fresh and joyful.

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Colin Currie plays Xenakis, Nørgård, Stockhausen and more (recorded live, Friday 17 July 2020)

Solo percussion from Scottish performer Colin Currie, previously featured on this blog in one of his earliest recordings.  This recital, performed in an empty hall in Glasgow with the stage strewn with instruments (and kitchen utensils), was broadcast live as one of Radio 3's Lunchtime Concerts, and takes in seven composers in a breathtaking hour.

There's the sonically powerful material that you might expect from a solo percussion showcase, not least in the closing Rebonds B by Iannis Xenakis and in Kevin Volans' Asanga, but also pieces of wonderful subtlety, and even elements of both in the brilliant opener I Ching: Fire Over Water by Per Nørgård.  From the mellower end of the spectrum are the Dessner, Aho and Hosokawa works for marimba, and the Stockhausen piece for vibraphone.  All of it ear-bending stuff from a master of his arsenal of instruments.

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bonus concert - Sofia Gubaidulina's Glorious Percussion

Gubaidulina's spectacular work, which includes elements of improvisation, was performed by the Colin Currie Group and BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in August of last year at the Edinburgh Usher Hall.  It was paired in this concert with music from Greig's Peer Gynt, performed by the orchestra.

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Joni Mitchell - Miles Of Aisles (1974)

For all the creative strides that she made in succesive studio albums throughout the 70s, it's perhaps odd that my most enduring favourite Joni Mitchell albums have ended up being her two live releases (see also Shadows And Light, link below).  In both cases though, some of her very best songs really sparkle in a new light in their jazz-inflected arrangements; much more so on Shadows And Light, but on the 1974 Court And Spark tour Joni was on the cusp of her jazz era, backed by The LA Express.

The bulk of Miles Of Aisles comes from the LA Universal Ampitheatre in August 1974 - none of the recordings are from the Michigan Pine Knob Theater, although that venue did make for a striking album cover.  All of Joni's albums up to this point are touched on here in superb versions, personal highlights being the languid For The Roses tracks.  There's new material too - the second last song wouldn't appear on a studio album for another three years, and the final one is exclusive to this release.

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Previously posted at SGTG: Shadows And Light

Don Grolnick - Hearts And Numbers (1985)

Debut album as leader for Brooklyn-born jazz pianist/arranger/producer Don Grolnick (1947-1996).  Grolnick often worked with the Brecker brothers, and gave sub-billing to Michael Brecker on this breezy, summery slice of 80s fusion.  All the material is penned by Grolnick, and ranges from the buoyant opening track (with its neat minimalist reprise), smoother grooves like Pools and the gently pianistic Regrets, to the choppier Human Bites, where Brecker really gets the chance to cut loose.

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Lô Borges - s/t (1972)

About 6,000 miles south-east of Shuggie Otis, another incredibly talented musician barely out of his teens was involved in two great albums in 1972.  First was the Clube Da Esquina double-album with Milton Nascimento (see below); and then whilst it was being put together, Lô Borges was also asked by the label to make a solo album.

This was the result: with 15 tracks in a half-hour runtime, quickly made with songs written and recorded the same day, Borges' solo debut covers a mind-boggling variety of songwriting hooks and great guitar playing.  "Disco do tênis", as it would become informally known due to the shoes on the cover, squeezes in inspired moments in the very model of economy - even the 37-second track that ends Side 1 packs in a neat harpsichord part and a tempo change.

Much of the material is cut from the same Beatlesque cloth as Clube Da Esquina, including three instrumentals, making this album an every-bit-as-good overspill from its legendary parent project.  An essential MPB classic.

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Previously posted at SGTG:
Clube Da Esquina
Clube Da Esquina 2

Shuggie Otis - Inspiration Information (1974)

Between the release of his second album Freedom Flight and this, his third, Shuggie Otis transitioned from precociously talented and well-connected teenager to a young adult and true auteur.  Working from a home studio, he wrote and produced this album alone, played all the instruments bar the horn and string arrangements, and virtually abandoned his blues roots for something (even) funkier and altogether weirder.

It was a sound that didn't have much impact at the time, and ended up with Otis being dropped by Epic, but Inspiration Information's time would come a quarter of a century later when David Byrne's Luaka Bop label first revived it.  At that time, Shuggie was posited as a proto-Prince, which does hold up in the loose, funky songs and singular artistry and musicianship.  It's also historically congruent with the advances in the studio that Stevie Wonder and Sly Stone had been making in the early 70s, not least in the use of a primitive Rhythm King drum machine.

The first side of the album is a flawless run of four great songs, bursting into life on the smoking funk groove of the title track, followed by the languid Island Letter.  Next are the taut, spare groove of Sparkle City and the drum-machine based comedown experience Aht Uh Mi Hed.  Other than the first 58 seconds, the album's second half is entirely instumental, in common with its predecessor.  Unlike Freedom Flight, there aren't two lengthy jams here but a clutch of short impressionistic sketches, which reach their experimental apex in XL-20 and Pling.  Shuggie might have been too ahead of his time in 1974 for this record to be huge, but now it just sounds timeless.

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Previously posted at SGTG:
Here Comes Shuggie Otis
Freedom Flight

Antonio Carlos Jobim - Tide (1970)

Two albums were recorded simultaneously in the spring of 1970 by Jobim, with Eumir Deodato at the helm as arranger: one was the more contemporary-sounding Stone Flower (see list below), and the other was Tide.  This album was conceived more as an orchestral-Latin jazz sequel to Wave (also below), and was even packaged in an old-style album cover from the earliest days of CTI to match.  Furthering the link, the title track was a deft re-write of Wave's title track.

Nothing, of course (IMHO) could be as good as Wave, but Tide is still a gorgeous album on its own merits.  Deodato is never less than a fine arranger, concentrating on brass and winds where Claus Ogerman gave Wave its lightness of touch with strings.  Highlights include the flute-led Tema Jazz, the percussive Remember (which does sound a bit more of a piece with the material on Stone Flower) and the languid Caribe.

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Previously posted at SGTG:
The Composer of Desafinado, Plays
Wave
Stone Flower
Elis & Tom
Urubu

John Adams, Osvaldo Golijov, Augusta Read Thomas (BBC Symphony Orchestra 2019)

Great concert recording from May of last year, with Portuguese conductor Joana Carneiro taking on the BBC SSO in three works by American composers, with two UK premieres in its first half.  The concert has its ideal curtain-raiser in Radiant Circles by Augusta Read Thomas (b. 1964, New York), with its luminous harmonies gradually spiralling into a brass fanfare.

Next up is Osvaldo Golijov's (b. 1960, La Plata, Argentina) bewitching cantata Oceana.  Taking its text from Pablo Neruda, the work incorporates Latin American influences (especially in the guitars), inspiration from Bach, and evokes the rolling ocean in its lead voice and massed choral forces.  Falling away to ritual incantations at its end, it's a memorable journey that made me want to explore Golijov further.

Lastly, the main event of the concert is John Adams' symphonic work Naive And Sentimental Music.  The first movement takes a simple melody over strummed chords and gradually works it into something complex and stunning in its scope.  The second, Mother Of The Man, is a slow movement inspired by a Busoni berceuse, before the explosive finale Chain To The Rhythm takes a trademark minimalist pulse and builds on it.  Wonderful stuff, superbly rendered.

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John Adams at SGTG:
Shaker Loops (orchestral version)
Shaker Loops (original version) / Light Over Water
Grand Pianola Music 
The Chairman Dances, etc
The Chairman Dances (live 2020)
Road Movies, Hallelujah Junction etc
Harmonium etc (scroll past main post)

Shuggie Otis - Freedom Flight (1971)

Shuggie Otis' second album was such a huge step up from his debut that it's easy to forget this was still the work of a 17 year old.  With two execptions, he's the sole songwriter, and his already prodigious guitar talent continued to shine as well as showing off his skill at several other instruments.  Shuggie's rising profile also brought guest stars on board for this one: George Duke and Aynsley Dunbar are featured here.

Freedom Flight is perhaps best known for Strawberry Letter 23, the gorgeous piece of baroque psychedelic pop that would later be a funked-up hit for The Brothers Johnson.  That's only one of four superb songs on the first side of the album though, which is filled out by one of the funkiest blues covers ever recorded.  The album's second side was taken up by two lengthy instrumentals: the bluesy Purple, which expands on the template of Gospel Groove from Shuggie's debut, and the beautifully mellow title track.  It's difficult to pick Shuggie Otis' masterpiece between this one and the one coming up next week.

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Dennis - Hyperthalamus (1975)

Dennis were a short-lived 'supergroup' of sorts, made up of members of the second-division krautrock bands Frumpy, Thirsty Moon, Tomorrow's Gift and Xhol.  They formed around Frumpy drummer Carsten Bohn, who named the band after his young son, and in sound were closer to jazz fusion that anything strictly krautrock.

Their sole album does open with its most experimental material: Do Your Own Thing starts with an audio-verite recording from Hamburg's central railway station, which gives way to a great atmospheric echo-guitar piece.  After this, the instrumentation gradually expands, with Others Do a nice funky guitar-bass-drums jam that adds organ at the end to continue into the third track Already.

The sound quality is a bit muffled, especially on those two tracks - Hyperthalamus is apparently comprised of live recordings stitched together at a time when the band was to all intents and purposes finished.  Despite the lower fidelity, it's clear that this band had decent fusion chops, and the 19-minute album closer Grey Present Tense gives all the band members room to stretch out, including flute and sax solos and a short synth passage.  Bohn and Wili Pape, as trailered on the Hyperthalamus LP sleeve, next ended up in Kickbit Information with Uli Trepte; they didn't even get as far as releasing an album, but a rehearsal tape did emerge 20 years later.  I don't have that, but for now enjoy this one-off from Dennis.

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Steve Reich - The Desert Music (1985)

Steve Reich kicked off his relationship with Nonesuch, which continues to this day, in grand style.  The Desert Music, composed 1982-84, augmented his usual ensemble with the chorus and members of the Brooklyn Philharmonic.  The sung text is extracted from William Carlos Williams' poems Theocritus: Idyl I, The Orchestra and Asphodel, That Greeny Flower.  It was Reich's most ambitious work so far, and remains one of his most impressive and thrilling to listen to.  Set in an arch structure, bookended by that trademark Reichian pulse, The Desert Music takes everything Reich had been experimenting with up until the early 80s and creates a true epic journey.

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Previously posted at SGTG:
Drumming, Six Pianos etc
Octet etc
Tehilim
Variations for Winds, Strings and Keyboards
Vermont Counterpoint / Eight Lines
Sextet / Six Marimbas + bonus concert feat. Music For 18 Musicians
Nagoya Marimbas

Shuggie Otis - Here Comes Shuggie Otis (1970)

First in a three-Friday exploration of the slim but awesome discography of Johnny Alexander Veliotes Jr, best known by the pet name his mother gave him, and the shortened surname that his famous father already went by.  Shuggie Otis started performing live with his father's band in the mid 60s when he was eleven years old, where he'd "wear dark glasses and a paint a moustache on" to disguise his age, as he relates on this album.

Here Comes Shuggie Otis was his solo debut as a prodigious teenager, and consists mostly of material co-written by father and son, its standout feature being Shuggie's rapidly developing guitar versatility.  The ten tracks touch on the psych-soul and baroque AM pop sounds of the day, with a bedrock of blues and R&B.

The highlights include Oxford Gray, the longest and most ambitious piece that opens the album, and the slow-cooking Gospel Groove, pointing the way to what was to come.  As mentioned above, Shuggie's Boogie starts out with a potted autobiography of his formative influences, saved from being a bit precious and corny by exploding into another great twelve-bar tearup.  From here, Shuggie's playing, singing and writing would just get better and better.

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Antonio Carlos Jobim - The Composer Of Desafinado, Plays (1963)

Summer isn't summer without Jobim as far as I'm concerned.  So here's his debut solo album, recorded in New York, which became the launchpad for his international reknown.  The tracklist is a virtual bossanova songbook - just about every one of these twelve Jobim-penned tunes would become much-covered standards.  The album also marked the beginning of his working relationship with Claus Ogerman, who fleshes out every track in typically gorgeous style with his lush strings and flutes over Jobim's spare guitar and piano.

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Previously posted at SGTG:
Wave
Stone Flower
Elis & Tom
Urubu