WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Fine Records on Fine Records (MP3s)

As the moribund recording industry marginalizes itself into utter irrelevance, it warms the cockles to hark back to the heyday of the great independent labels across the country whose legendary bossmen cast their nets across all genres in search of hits. Syd Nathan in Cincinnati (King), Art Rupe in L.A. (Specialty), and Sam Phillips in Memphis (Sun), among others, were recording r&b, blues, country, gospel—whatever sounds they could reel into their studios that had a chance of making a buck or, better yet, catching a wave of national popularity. While these powerhouse labels were churning out legendary sides by the crateful, a number of smaller-time outfits in the boonies were following the same business plan, though with minimal chances of achieving more than just the occasional regional score.

One such enterprise that hummed along under the radar was Fine Records based in Rochester, New York, which produced spirited releases over the course of 30 years beginning in the late 1940s. The label was owned and operated by Vincent Giancursio, a dance-band saxophonist who began playing professionally in 1932 at the age of 12. After a frustrating 15-year run traveling the dead-end nightclub circuit in upstate New York, Vince Jan (his preferred music-biz moniker) decided that if he couldn't hit the big time making music, maybe he'd record someone else who could. After the War, Giancursio studied audio engineering for a year, then opened Fine Recording Studio. He started off cutting mostly custom recordings, but then began to release 45 rpm discs on his own label, which he did up until his death, at the age of 58, in 1977.

During his three decades in the record business, Giancursio supported the music passionately, producing over 3,500 sessions single-handedly, most resulting in limited pressings of rarely more than a thousand copies, though usually a lot less. The sessions he engineered were wide ranging and eclectic, mostly one-offs by an assortment of jazz bands, garage rock combos, Elvis wannabes and even a few country & western acts. In addition, for a fertile stretch in the '60s and '70s, Fine Records captured on tape a string of electrifying performances of soulful gospel as good as any from the era.

(25 righteous MP3s are posted after jump)

Someday, Your Exotic Prince Will Come (mp3s)

I live on a quiet street in the Carroll Gardens section of Brooklyn, a block away and parallel to the overhyped foodie hub that is Smith Street. Aside from the tedious home-furnishings boutiques and toddler-apparel emporia pushing up through the concrete like so many weeds, Smith is also home to an absurd proliferation of restaurants—most with prices calibrated to the wallets of the ex-Manhattanites bestriding the neighborhood like new-world conquerers. But it wasn't always this way. A dozen years ago, the site of Brooklyn's future "restaurant row" was still just a dusty backwater boasting cat-piss-smelling bodegas, murky social clubs and dingy junk shops on every block.

And it was in several of those airless storefronts that I used to do some of my best crate diving for oddball records. Back behind the piles of chipped tableware and as-is electronics in one particular haunt—the place had no name—I could always count on having a semi-moldy box of vinyl to flip through. Typically, I could expect to find at least one item worth a buck or two every visit, but one particular day, I encountered a carton containing many dozens of sealed copies of a single peculiar vanity pressing. Its cover featuring a blissed-out dashiki-wearer, a diminutive urbanite in a Superman costume, and a photocollage of lethargic-looking zoo animals. Of course I bought a copy, but I've been kicking myself ever since for not having scooped up the entire cache.
 

Credited only to "Your Exotic PRINCE" on the dust jacket, this record is my all-time favorite Smith Street find, and I'm pleased to share it here in its entirety. As outrageous as the cover is, the music is even more so. It comprises six tunes, each one essentially a nonstop caterwauling of horns, accordion, banjo (or is that a ukelele?), wah-wah guitar and drums. The musicians, if you can call them that, sound for all the world like a combination of Sun Ra's Arkestra, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and your local junior-high stage band rolled into one. Even stranger are the bizarrely cut-off endings to each track. Just as the songs are clearly coming to a close, the sound stops, mid-din, as if the tape just ran out on the four-track. Sounds weird, right?! Check it out for yourself:

SIDE A: Concert for My Lady (MP3)  /  Eastward I Traveled (MP3)  /  Speak Up (MP3)

SIDE B: Wisters Rapasady (MP3)  /  I Am in the Wine (MP3)  /  Drums in Passion (MP3)

If anyone has a clue as to the origins of this recording, I've been dying to know more for ages.

Care for a swim?

Last week on my radio show, I played a set of tunes from Zimbabwe in honor of the recent elections there and the hopes of removing the execrable Robert Mugabe from power. Responding to the music, a listener, Peter R., emailed me some photographs of tourists going for a dip in the Zambezi River.*

Africa's fourth longest river, the Zambezi marks, for a 300-mile stretch, the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia. The swimmers happened to be in the water at just about the point where the upper Zambezi, er, flows into the middle Zambezi. This location is also known as Victoria Falls— the locals call it Mosi-oa-Tunya (Smoke That Thunders). Often referred to as one of the world's Seven Natural Wonders, Victoria Falls is more than twice the height of Niagara Falls.

Known as the Devil's Pool or Devil's Swimming Pool, the refreshing spot happens to be mere inches from the edge of the falls. That is, the falling part of the falls. Astonishing photos of loopy vacationers splashing at death's edge have been making the rounds lately, but nothing quite captures the knee-knocking thrill of the scene like this footage:

For a thrilling first-person description of a Devil's Pool frolic, read writer Michael Joseph Gross's account in the New York Times.

*I'm not sure if listener Peter was aware of this curious connection between the photos he sent and the music I played in tribute to Zimbabwe's re-liberation: Despite the fact that Mugabe has unleashed violent political repression throughout the country, there have been pockets of fairly open opposition. One such area just happens to be the city of Victoria Falls itself. Located on the Zimbabwean side of the Zambezi, Vic Falls has been a hotbed of support for the MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) and its leader—and (fingers crossed) Zimbabwe's new president—Morgan Tsvangirai. Mugabe has resisted lashing back at the town in fear of scaring off desperately needed tourist dollars that are attracted by the Falls.

King of the Mambo Kings, Cachao's Reign Ends (MP3s)

Along with the brilliant composer, band leader and tres player Arsenio Rodríguez, Israel "Cachao" López must be considered among the most significant and influential innovators in the history of Cuban music. With the recent passing of virtuoso percussionists Carlos "Patato" Valdés and Tata Güines, Cachao's death, on March 22 from kidney failure, is another loss to the ever-dwindling group of artists who, with creative flair and sophistication, transformed older forms of Cuban music into a global powerhouse of sound.

During the 1930s, while Rodríguez was reworking folklyric ditties from the countryside into smoldering nightclub fare, Cachao, collaborating with his older brother Orestes, began deconstructing the stately but stiff danzón, injecting elements of the rootsier son songform, while adding syncopation as well as open spaces for extended vamping. The result of these dual innovations by Rodríguez and the López brothers became known at first as nuevo ritmo. By the early 1950s, dives and dance floors throughout Havana, New York, Mexico City, San Juan, and beyond, were crammed shoulder-to-shoulder with frenzied fans—loyal subjects in the kingdom of Mambo.

Mambo (MP3)
• Written by Orestes, arranged by Cachao, this danzón from Antonio Arcaño y Sus Maravillas (1944) was one of the first compositions of the nuevo ritmo. (A violin player then with Arcaño's group, Enrique Jorrín, is credited by some as being the first to slow down the mambo to a more danceable pace. His invention? The cha-cha-chá.)

[Three MP3s and two video clips after the jump]

Lone Star Sage of the Everyday: Adam Carroll

While everyone and their grandmother (and her publicist) descend upon Austin this week for SXSW, I thought I'd shine a little light on a terrific local singer/songwriter who's been working that town for the past decade. East Texas troubadour Adam Carroll is a master teller of small stories. Leaving the sweeping Cinemascope epics to other Lone Star crooners, Adam offers quieter Polaroid ruminations on everyday moments. He sings with an unadorned matter-of-factness that gives extra weight to his words and draws you closer to the characters who inhabit them. Listen straight through any of Adam's three fine studio recordings—all produced by local guru Lloyd Maines (father of the Dixie's Chicks' lead vocalist Natalie)—and the wry narratives will begin to intertwine, bringing into stark relief a whole dusty townful of motel inhabitants, bartenders, chain-smoking taxi drivers and ex-girlfriends that will linger with you well after the music stops.

 

Here's a clip of a live performance in the Netherlands, March 2007
"Rice Birds" by Adam Carroll (with Michael O'Connor)

[Three MP3s after the jump]

Funeral for a Friend

Last summer more than a hundred people attended the funeral of a young man from Dokkum in the Dutch province of Friesland and now you can too. His parents have posted a highlight video online. That this most private of moments from a far-off stranger's life could be put on display in such a manner may seem perverse, but for hundreds, maybe thousands of people around the world, watching this footage is a sweet and tearful conclusion to an odd sort of friendship made possible by the Internet and a shared love of music.

Dirk Sietse Gjaltema died last August 1 before reaching his 20th birthday. On a Thursday in late March 2006, he started a blog called Cities on Flame With Rock and Roll on which he posted downloads of his favorite albums paired with charming and impassioned descriptions of them. Though the majority of his posts presented Japanese music—in June '06, he added a download of Anthology of Japanese New Folk, a terrific marathon premium from WFMU's Janitor From Mars—his adventuresome taste led readers through the acid folk, garage rock and psychedelia of Turkey, Korea, Brazil, his native Holland and many other wide-ranging outposts of progressive sounds. In early September, Dirk promised to put up a download of the rarity Zeer Oude Klanken En Heel Nieuwe Geluiden by the Dutch three-string guitar masher Eddy van der Meer, but the following post instead contained this stunner:

dear music friends i wont be posting new music for at least two weeks because i am in the hospital , i need a operation for my legg , becauce it is very bad with my legg a car hit me, and hurt my legg very badly, it would be very nice iff you send me a postcard.

Back home a few days later, Dirk dutifully posted the album while also happening to mention that an MRI on his damaged leg revealed a tumor and he was due back in hospital for tests since "they don't know yet if its a good one or a bad one." Well, the tumor turned out to be Ewing's sarcoma, an aggressive form of bone cancer.

Ain't That a... Shamisen

[There are 3 MP3s at the end of this post.]

Niigata Prefecture, on the Northwestern coast of Honshu Island, facing the Sea of Japan, is home to one of the richest rice-growing regions in the world. It is also an area that experiences unrelenting winters featuring annual snowfalls rivaling anywhere else on the planet. (Back in 1986, the town of Yuzawa received a Biblical dumping deeper than 7½ feet in one day!) Niigata, along with other prefectures along the Japan's Western seaboard, is also known for a peculiar musical tradition dating back four centuries.

The life of the itinerant musician has never been a cakewalk. Despite the ubiquity of the Bauls, griots, and troubadours passing through the towns of human history, most cultures have treated these rootless oral historians as second-class citizens. In not-so-ancient Japan, the inferior status of women and the disabled have long been a bafflement, so you can only imagine the island nation's treatment of its unsighted females. Cast out by a disdainful society, these doubly afflicted souls nevertheless crafted for themselves a new identity as wandering musicians, spreading news and social commentary while eking out a threadbare existence of alms and free lodging along the road. (Occasional rice-crop failures leading to undernourishment along with the unrelenting brilliance of the snow may have lead to a high frequency of blindness in the region.)

Known as goze, blind women shamisen players have been traveling and performing a circuit of remote villages dating back to the early 17th century. Living and working under harsh conditions the goze organized formal associations, which helped earn them a measure of honor and legitimacy (not to mention a yen or two) from a dubious populace. Precious few recordings of this archaic folk tradition are extant—the last active goze, Haru Kobayashi, died in 2005 at the age of 105—but the tracks that are available reveal raw and riveting performances miles beyond the mere light entertainments you might expect:

[Three MP3s after the jump!]

Loony Tunes for Kooky Times (MP3s)

[There are 21 MP3s contained in this post]

Call me crazy, but in 2005, I compiled a bunch of whacked out tunes for my WFMU marathon premium. Back then, the disc, Loony Tunes, was given out exclusively to pledgers to my show Give the Drummer Some, but now, invoking the insanity clause, I'm making the whole shebang available here. Posted below are the original liner notes, MP3s of (most of) the tracks, and quotes uttered by each manic maestro. Go nuts!

LOONY TUNES:
Loony Tunes reveals that, right up there with love, sex and death, insanity is among the most enduring—€”and entertaining—€”themes in popular music. The idea for such a collection originated with Madness in Opera, a sampler of tormented arias released in '€™76 as part of a promotional blitz for Loxitane, a new schizophrenia treatment from Lederle Laboratories. No psychopharmaceuticals are included with this compilation, but repeated listening just may produce similar results!

1. WILLIE DIXON & KOKO TAYLOR ~ Insane Asylum
"I can'€™t eat and I can'€™t sleep. Lord, I can'€™t even live in peace.
Please take me baby for your slave. And save me from that early grave."

Insane Asylum (MP3)

2. SCREAMING JAY HAWKINS ~ I Hear Voices
"I long so much to be where I was before I was me.
My mind can'€™t stand the strain. Wow if my heart
could help the pain."

I Hear Voices (MP3)

3. PORTER WAGONER ~ The Rubber Room
"Illusions in a twisted mind to save from self destruction...where a man can
run into the wall till his strength makes him fall and lie still and wait for help."€

The Rubber Room (MP3)

 

 

Heroes of Jazz, Sung and Unsung

The past year saw the dimming of some of the brighter stars in the jazz firmament. In February, violin shaman Leroy Jenkins died. He was an early stalwart of Chicago's legendary Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) and brought wit and elegance to countless recordings and performances. Historian and raconteur Dick Allen departed in April. A cherished figure on the New Orleans jazz scene, he spent half a century compiling an archive of oral histories of the music. Max Roach's long battle with alzheimer's ended in August, adding a final minor chord to his brilliant symphony of lifetime. And last month, ace record producer Joel Dorn (left) split the scene, suddenly, leaving an enduring legacy and a towering heap of vital sides by Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Yusef Lateef, Jimmy Scott and a bevy of other swinging geniuses, their records all midwived to perfection by a cat as cool as a happy dog's nose.

The last day of 2007 also saw the passing of an woman who's generous and dogged contributions to jazz were known by few, and she deserves to be acknowledged and celebrated. Larayne Black, 82, was a longtime resident of Chicago's South Side, where her spiritually inclined pursuit of creative expression led to an appreciation of modern dance, the study of Chinese language and art and an abiding love for jazz. In the early 1960s she began attending performances by a cadre of free-spirited and progressive musicians, who would eventually disengage from the exploitive machinations of the music biz and form the self-help collective AACM. Along with her husband, John, Larayne (right, with musician and past AACM president Douglas Ewart) was instrumental in helping establish the legal founding of the group and was a devoted supporter of the musicians, to many of whom she became a beloved compatriot. All the while raising her own four kids, Larayne became a sort of unofficial den mother to the fledgling AACM. She brought recordings to radio DJs and got them airplay, she helped get bookings at performance spaces and she helped get the musicians to those spaces, sometimes driving them and their instruments to the shows and then back home again. But most of all, Larayne was a wellspring of positivity and inspiration. Always encouraging, always exuberant.