Mining the Audio Motherlode, Volume 148

Give the Drummer Some's
Favorite Downloads from the MP3 Blogosphere

If I produced this weekly column for the glory, I might have quit a hundred motherlodes ago. Much like producing a radio show, music blogging largely involves serving up solitary epiphanies for mass consumption. Sure, it's sweet to get some appreciation reflected back, but if you're not doing it for the pure pleasure of sharing, you'll probably end up disappointed.

Every few weeks, it seems, another blogger threatens to quit over not getting enough comments on their posts. It's kind of a silly dance, really: Blogger gripes. Blogger gets a ton of rah-rah messages. Blogger relents. (This melodrama played out recently at the prolific Garage Punk 66—see here then here.) Occasionally, the host really does fold up the tent, but I'm guessing the reasons have more to do with the daily grind of maintaining a well-stocked site. Speaking of which, the wonderful Oufar Khan has recently stopped posting new material, but will graciously maintain the abundantly endowed archives. For a blast from the past check our lead-off item posted at Oufar Khan back in August 2010:

    
Norman Feels  ~  "Norman Feels" & "Where or When"
(Blog: Oufar Khan)

He Who Feels It, Knows It
"Mellow soul, sweeping strings, and sweet electric keys – a stone '70s classic from Norman Feels! The album's Norman's first (of two), and is a vastly under-recognized sweet gem–the kind of record that easily stands next to some of the best male sweet soul of the time .... More sweet soul with Norman Feels' second album, still for the Just Sunshine label, and still with this heavenly Marvin-like sound—sweeping timely strings, bubbling groove, delicate horns here and there, and touches of background vocals to enrich the whole thing."  (Descriptions by Greg, at Oufar Khan)

Varetta Dillard  ~  "Double Crossing Daddy"
(Blog: Be Bop Wino)
[PW = greaseyspoon]

A Real Killer Diller
"Varetta’s forte was the big beat ballad, and there are some good examples on this excellent LP. “Love” is perhaps the pick of the bunch, with yours truly reaching for the whisky bottle (again!) when it blasts forth from the be bop wino music machine. “Double Crossing Daddy” is a more bluesy performance and just about worth the price of admission alone. “I Love You Just The Same” is another good weepy performance and “Getting Ready For My Daddy Tonight” (with the T.J. Fowler band) is a great sassy “let the good times roll” blaster. A lot of the Savoy material was recorded under the supervision of Leroy Kirkland and features top notch NYC session musicians."  (Description by Boogiewoody, at Be Bop Wino)

 

Stan Tracey Trio  ~  "Little Klunk"
(Blog: BritJazz)

Thelonious Klunk
"Stan has, among other things, been accused of aping American pianists, but I think it fairer to state that any similarity is due to the influence of approach rather than style. He selects notes and chords from the piano keyboard and vibraphone bars rather like someone choosing hors' d'oeuvre. No wild flourish of notes—no flaying left hand—just well chosen, tasteful sounds. These sounds, augmented by the sensitive, full-toned bass of Kenny Napper and the drive of Phil Seamen's drums, made this recording inanimate proof that Britain can produce jazz that is not just a faithful exercise in mimicry but a plain honest-to-goodness example of well played, well conceived music."  (Kenny Graham, in the liner notes )

 

Karlheinz Stockhausen  ~  "Trans"
(Blog: A Closet of Curiosities)

Trans Fusion
"I dreamed the piece. That is why I cannot speak at all freely about it: I do not have an objective relation to it. I simply dreamed it thus." (From the liner notes)

 

 

Various  ~  "Rock y Nueva Cancion Chilena"
(Blog: En Busca del Tiempo Perdido)

Red Hot Chile Poets
"The most important source for Nueva Canción is the recollection and diffusion of folklore undertaken independently by Violeta Parra (1917-1967) and Margot Loyola (1918) in the 1950s and 1960s. Nueva Canción owes Violeta Parra two of its defining features. First, as a performer and composer, Parra developed a pan-Latin American folk aesthetic. In her music she incorporated and hybridized traditional Chilean styles she collected in her travels at home as well as Andean and Afro-American styles she first heard in Paris in the late 1950s. Second, a sizable portion of Parra’s oeuvre was openly critical of the social inequality and the political regime of her time. Interestingly, it was also in Paris in the early 1960s that Parra transitioned from compiler and performer of Chilean folklore to composer of denunciatory songs that addressed contemporary events. As historian Claudio Rolle summarizes, Nueva Canción inherited from Parra the project of «reinterpretation of Chilean traditional music, turning rural into urban, a bucolic chant into one of denunciation and protest."  (Daniel Party, Ph.D.: Beyond "Protest Song": Popular Music in Pinochet's Chile [1973-1990])

 

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Comments

[Holly]

Do see the comment section @ http://tinyurl.com/7pbxltr to get a sense of why Garagepunk66 followers are so happy that Mark has decided to stick around. Much like the good Miner, this is a man who cares! ;-)

[Doug S.]

Hey Holly, thanks for highlighting Mark's heroism in blogging. There are so many like him who toil away selflessly.

[Jessi Hance]

I'm excited about the Chilean music and blog. I'm gonna dive in over there. Found another neat comp there, La Clave. We'll see if I'm as crazy about it as the allmusic.com reviewer is ;) Anyhow, back to the download you recommended, I like hearing how the Nueva Cancion singers, whom I usually think of as folk singers, team up with a band called...Los Blops??? :D to go electric. I had no idea those guys were doing anything like that.