Author Archives: Joseph Neff

Sound reads, all summer long. —Ed.

John Coltrane’s Atlantic period presents an arresting convergence of circumstances. It was a time of raised profile and of considerable transition, the artist’s confidence audibly growing as he united jazz tradition and experimentation; most of all it was an era of major breakthroughs establishing the saxophonist as a leader in his field. The Atlantic Years in Mono doesn’t include the entirety of his work for the label, but it does ably document a thrilling era that brought Coltrane to a mainstream audience. Don’t be scared by the audiophile angle; Rhino’s 6CD/6LP+7-inch set is a splendid acquisition for both newbies and longtime fans. One gets to hear the thriving mastery as it was originally released.

By the time John Coltrane hooked up with the Ertegun brothers he’d already chalked up a significant list of achievements, serving as a powerful voice in post-bop’s development via the bands of Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis, guesting for a track on Sonny Rollins’ Tenor Madness, teaming with Hank Mobley, Al Cohn, and Zoot Simms for Tenor Conclave, and leading bands for Prestige and for one LP Blue Note. Top billing came with Coltrane in 1957, and next was Blue Train for Blue Note, which many consider to be his first great album. John Coltrane with the Red Garland Trio followed in ’58 (aka Traneing In for its ’61 reissue), and Soultrane retained the services of the Garland band. As Coltrane’s fame grew Prestige would later release nearly a dozen albums under his name from unissued sessions and elevated sideman dates, in turn possibly lending a false impression of the saxophonist as unusually prolific during ’57-’58.

Coltrane was constantly playing but was nowhere near popular enough to have that many albums produced in such a short span; indeed, his two ’58 records with Wilber Harden as co-leader, Jazz Way Out and Tanganyika Strut, are rarely discussed in spite of their being positioned directly before Coltrane’s move to Atlantic. Well, not quite; the closest correspondent recording to his ’59 Atlantic debut Giant Steps is Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue.

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Liverpool’s The Room in the Wood features vocalist Dave Jackson and guitarist-bassist Paul Cavanagh, and their project’s self-titled debut marks the first time they’ve worked together since the breakup of their noted post-punk outfit The Room back in 1985. Both have been musically active since, so the limited vinyl’s 11 songs (a dozen on the CD) show no traces of rust as the contents imbue a mature post-punk-descended melodic rock with folk and acoustic blues influences. Altogether, it’s a winning combination, and it’s out June 22 through the reignited A Turntable Friend Records.

I first heard The Room long after they’d called it a day, during one of my periodic dives into the labyrinthine nooks of the post-punk wave, with my lingering impression of a solid band with a handful of great songs (maybe the greatest being “Things Have Learnt to Walk that Ought to Crawl”) and a few characteristics in common with their country’s indie pop impulse.

If critically adored while extant (at least reportedly so), in the years since they’ve become somewhat underrated, though far from forgotten; the high-volume discography of the post-punk retrospective label LTM holds two CD collections of The Room’s work, one a Best of (No Dream) and the other an LP/ mini-album combo (In Evil Hour/Clear!)

After the breakup Dave Jackson went on to sing and write songs in Benny Profane along with a bunch of other bands and projects, while Paul Cavanagh took part in a slew of activities as well, amongst them recording solo as Cabin in the Woods. The Room in the Woods finds them rejoining forces, but in a positive development, not attempting to fall back into the motions of their former band.

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Rock musician, stand-up comedian, actor, comedic advice columnist: Nashville’s Chris Crofton wears many creative hats, but with Hello It’s Me he dives wholeheartedly into singer-songwriter pop with an emphasis on serious, complicated love songs. Crisply produced by Kevin Ratterman and with sharp instrumental assistance from like likes of Jim James and Scott Moore of My Morning Jacket and Matt Rowland from the bands of Bobby Bare Jr. and Caitlin Rose, the star of this bright and at-times surprising ten-song set is undeniably Crofton, and he’s delivered a pop-lover’s delight but with an undercurrent of subtle unusualness. It’s out on vinyl, compact disc, and digital June 22 through the Arrowhawk label.

Every record has a backstory, but Hello It’s Me’s is especially interesting. Much of it derives from the breadth of Chris Crofton’s pursuits, having kicked out heavy punkish rock in the Alcohol Stuntband, acted in the sitcom Still the King on the CMT Network, and Harmony Korine’s faux found-VHS mindfuck Trash Humpers, performed edgy stand-up all the way out in Los Angeles (running in the same circles as Bob Odenkirk and Neil Hamburger), and back home serving as the Advice King for the weekly Nashville Scene.

Much of this activity was fueled by booze, an unsurprising fact given the name of his band, but a few years ago Crofton made the decision to get sober, and while sticking with it he wrote and recorded a striking batch of tunes that register as an ode to the soft rock side of the classic singer-songwriter experience.

Along with a quickly discernable writing talent, the key to the album’s success is its seriousness. Hello It’s Me is not a tongue-in-cheek thing; Crofton is an open admirer of John Denver, Bread, and Gordon Lightfoot because to quote him, “the melodies are strong as shit.” It’s hard to argue with that. But if respect is vital, Crofton’s personality keeps this set from becoming an exercise in mere imitation or homage.

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While the punk genre has its share of great albums, and the same can surely be said for the refinements, expansions, and disruptions in post-punk’s playground, the list of those having excelled at both is short indeed. If any outfit makes the cut, it’s Wire. Having delivered the UK class of ’77 a cornerstone LP, their next two full-lengths helped to define the sound of post-punk; they remain amongst the finest records the styles ever produced. Out now through the band’s label Pinkflag are special edition CD books of all three, 80 pages each and sized like 45s, featuring text by Jon Savage and Graham Duff plus additional tracks. The standalone vinyl and no-frills CDs arrive July 6. Here’s our look at 1978’s Chairs Missing.

The enduring stream of adulation awarded to Wire’s debut Pink Flag can mask the fact that the esteem wasn’t instantaneous. As the printed observations in these CD books helps to clarify, the band was strikingly distinctive as part of the whole ’77 punk shebang, as they garnered a pocket of fervent advocates, including then Sounds writers Jon Savage and Jane Suck, but overall, Wire existed as just one outfit amongst many, and this lack of a microscope of expectation surely allowed for creativity to flourish without the hinderance of unnecessary pressures.

If somewhat ambivalent to the punk tag at the time and in retrospect, it’s pretty apparent now that Wire benefited from their emergence in connection to the sheer tumult of the time. Just as importantly, they weren’t anointed the saviors of its essence, the crucial destabilizers of convention, or the inevitable deliverers of what comes next.

Simply put, making rock music is hard. Making rock music that will produce an immediate audience reaction (and critical response) is harder. And making rock music under outsized expectations has been the end, literal and figurative, of many a band, resulting either in breakups or a nosedive in quality. At the very least, the avalanche of attention will irrevocably change the music.

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Bassist Joshua Abrams’ discography is loaded, and with accumulated credits considerably more diverse than the norm. As a young Philadelphian, he was a member of The Roots, and after relocating to Chicago, he’s played with, amongst others, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Tortoise, and Jandek. As a jazz explorer, his connections include Roscoe Mitchell, Fred Anderson, Peter Brötzmann, Hamid Drake, Kidd Jordan, and Nicole Mitchell, but he’s probably most noted for forming the beyond category Natural Information Society. Abrams’ latest release presents him solo, and for lovers of advanced abstraction, it’s a killer; Excavations 1 is out June 15 on vinyl through Feeding Tube.

While not a native of Chicago, Joshua Abrams carries forward the city’s jazz tradition exceptionally well. Although he’s released one CD as leader of the Joshua Abrams Quartet (2013’s Unknown Known on Rouge Art), his name has been established through steadfast collaboration and the sturdy output of groups. First there was Town and Country (five albums, all but the first for Thrill Jockey, between ’98 and ’06), and beginning in 2010 (with four releases and a joint disc with Bitchin Bajas) there is now the Natural Information Society.

This is not to suggest that Abrams is a diligent adherent to the precedent set forth by the Art Ensemble of Chicago and Air. To the contrary, he’s clearly the leader of NIS (in fact, many of the records are credited to Abrams, though, interestingly, all except the debut Natural Information and the Bajas collab feature textless front covers), and of the comparisons I’ve run across, the one to Don Cherry feels quite right, in large part through a persistent disinclination to adhere to a single stylistic path.

As anyone familiar with NIS knows, they utilize instrumentation both trad (frame drum, tabla, gongs, bells, harmonium, dulcimer, and Abrams’ guembri) and electric in a blend of psychedelia, minimalism, drone, Krautrock, and yes indeed, jazz. All with a refreshing eschewal of hierarchy, with Abrams less a leader than a shaping coordinator, which brings me back to thoughts of the Windy City.

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The homemade quality of the cover to the Lithics’ second album recalls the heyday of DIY post-punk, and it’s an adequate tip-off to the nature of their sound. Many have done it over the years, and it can seem like just as many are doing it right now; and so, it’s necessary to spotlight the good stuff. Across a dozen tracks, the Portland, OR four-piece make clear they didn’t stumble onto the genre last week, but neither do matters unfold as premeditated. Mostly, Lithics connect as confident and inspired, and the songs place Mating Surfaces securely in the keeper column. It’s out now on LP, CD, cassette and digital through Kill Rock Stars; this month, the band will be playing shows with Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks.

A lot of neo-post-punk, particularly the bands displaying an inclination for the early stuff, gets all (too) caught up in the defining aspects of execution, e.g. the stuttering rhythms, the needling guitars, the structural angularity, the skeletal and/ or the shambolic, the whole non-pro yet non-workmanlike nature of it all.

Lithics, who consist of vocalist-guitarist Aubrey Horner, guitarist Mason Crumley, drummer Wiley Hickson, and bassist Bob Desaulniers, don’t skimp on the formal qualities. In fact, any of the cuts from this, their second full-length and first for Kill Rock Stars (the pairing a comfortable fit) could be slipped onto a mixtape of the original impulse made for the curious novice with nary a snag. But what immediately struck me, an experienced post-punk listener, was how well Mating Surfaces’ “Excuse Generator” engaged with those conventions as the song appealingly flowed amongst the jagged.

This can partly be chalked up to practice, but it’s just as attributable to intent, and it’s the combination of attentiveness, diligence, and taste that pushes this effort to the front of the current post-punk class. Horner’s alienated Euro delivery is wholly appropriate for their chosen style, but it nicely avoids the feigned, and the way she rides atop the disjointedly melodic instrumental attack of “Still Forms” is impressive and indicative of the record’s whole.

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It’s doubtful that a new exotica compilation, 18 years into century 21, is going to result in the en masse dropping of jaws, though this observation isn’t a slight; in fact, it lines up rather well with a musical style that from its very inception was much more about setting the mood than leaving listener’s agape. However, this doesn’t mean there aren’t new insights to be had while enjoying the tiki torch, luau, and lounge ambience offered by Numero Group’s extensive survey of the form. Technicolor Paradise: Rhum Rhapsodies & Other Exotic Delights is a well-ordered and meticulously researched plunge into an often unfairly disrespected genre, out now on exquisitely designed and info-drenched 3LP and 3CD.

I was around for the initial exotica retro-wave, which played out as part of the larger ’90s lounge craze, and at the time I dug into reissues of material by Juan García Esquivel, Martin Denny, Yma Sumac, and even a little Les Baxter. As covered in this set’s outstanding notes by producer/ compiler Ken Shipley, it’s the last three of those names who prove the most germane to the copious material spotlighted here.

It’s not that Esquivel isn’t exotica exactly, though his stuff is probably best described by its promotional catchphrase of Space-Age Bachelor Pad Music. The major diff is that Esquivel was a bandleader, with the size of his group big as he reliably utilized then cutting-edge studio technique to results that are often enjoyably zonked. While there are moments on Technicolor Paradise that can get a little out-there, overall the contents are far more modestly scaled, a tendency that hits the sensibility of exotica right in the bull’s-eye.

It also sticks to Numero’s working program of uncovering underheard and obscure sounds, a la their long-running Eccentric Soul series (spotlighting regional independent ’60s-’70s soul and R&B), the Yellow Pills and Buttons collections (digging into the rich underbelly of the power-pop wave), and the Wayfaring Strangers (folk), Warfaring Strangers (hard rock & metal), and most recently Seafaring Strangers (yacht rock) compilations.

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Billed on its sleeve as an “experimental fusion of hip-hop and jazz,” the 1993 release of Guru’s Jazzmatazz delivered historical perspective, seriousness of intent, and organic richness in a sweet-sounding package that, rather than succumbing to grandiosity, registered as a natural (and inevitable) encounter. It was a landmark affair that spawned numerous sequels, but UMG’s Urban Legends division has kept the focus on the first with a sharp 25th anniversary expansion, adding instrumental versions and a rack of remixes for a total of three LPs. Certain to be cherished by longtime fans, this edition’s approachable depth and diversity make it a worthwhile pick-up for appreciative newbies. It’s out now.

Although the parameters of its ambition get established in its opening introductory track, Jazzmatazz is a crisp pleasure to listen to throughout, and its success now stands as an essential chapter in the voluminous tome that is ’90s hip-hop’s golden era. Like the music of his contemporaries, Guru, an MC who came to prominence in the Brooklyn-based duo Gang Starr (alongside turntable wizard DJ Premier), was a meticulous and levelheaded purveyor of urban groove science, and it was through this approach that he shared a baseline with the jazz that is his most celebrated album’s inspiration.

Too many fusions are nearer to patchwork, but Jazzmatazz not only seamlessly blends elements of post-bop and soul-jazz (its cover design in homage to the bountiful achievements of the Blue Note label) with the thrust of cutting-edge East Coast hip-hop, it also pulls off the tricky combination of live instrumentation (which works better at deepening the relationship of hip-hop and jazz than it does in other’s attempts to fuse rap and rock) and the style’s original tools, namely a pair of turntables, some records, and a microphone.

If a byproduct of the LP was the mass awakening of doubters to hip-hop’s burgeoning artistry (a still somewhat contentious topic in ’93), there were no traces of pleading for acceptance (and by extension, lessened impact). Instead, Guru (who sadly passed in 2010) cut an album that aficionados would be (and still are) proud to pull off the shelf, its contents also dropping a knowledge bomb regarding the general connectedness of African-American musical experience.

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It’s been ten years since Analog Africa unveiled African Scream Contest, an outstanding compilation appropriately subtitled Raw & Psychedelic Afro Sounds from Benin & Togo 70s. A decade might be a long time to wait for a follow-up, but it’s a duration that insinuates patience in the accumulation of quality, plus a desire to do right by the music’s creators. Listening to the 14 entries shaping African Scream Contest Vol. 2–Benin 1963​-​1980 supplies proof of due diligence, and it’s out now on CD with a 44-page booklet and on double 140gm vinyl in a gatefold sleeve with an LP-sized 24-page insert. If primo ’70s African sounds are your bag, this set is a piece of designer luggage.

The first installment of African Scream Contest arrived in the midst of a swell upsurge in excavated ’70s funky African band action. The span of ten years has solidified the album as one of the movement’s highlights, and one covering distinct territory. That the ’70s African strand of the reissue impulse has endured rather than proving to be a temporary flurry may blunt the fanfare for this second entry, but only slightly, and the care in assemblage and consistent aural sweetness more than adequately replace any diminished excitement.

“A Min We Vo Nou We” by Les Sympathics de Porto Novo kicks off side one, spilling a fine mess of guitar distortion as prelude to an appealingly tough Afro-rock groove, its progression accented with a strong and lithe guitar solo, nicely non-crap organ, and some jazzy trumpet. Appropriately, it stretches out for a while. Next is an immediate twist, as “Asaw Fofor” by Ignace de Souza & The Melody Aces exudes ska flavor, and as cited in the label’s promo text, vocal smoothness descended from Nat “King” Cole and a structure seemingly derived from the ’60s Batman theme.

It’s a wild, surprising mix (hell, I’m also hearing trace elements of Bill Doggett’s “Honky Tonk”). “Dja Dja Dja” by Stanislas Tohon is nearer to the horn-laden funky glide one might expect from comps of this era and continent, but it’s all sharply executed, fruitfully extending a la Les Sympathics, while turning up the heat. A hearty sax solo is the icing on its satisfying confection.

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To burnish the label of throwback when writing (or simply gabbing) about music is often, if not an act of derision, then quite likely a gesture of diminishment. But there are exceptions, and Gene Turonis aka Gene D. Plumber is one of them. However, his new CD All the Pretty Girls, while assuredly suggestive of earlier, less harried times, is ultimately just a warm, good-natured and timeless affair. It’s out now through his hometown label Bar/None Records.

Regarding Gene Turonis’ alternate handle, he is indeed a plumber, having worked at the trade since the ’70s. This may seem gimmicky, but just as the great Atlanta bluesman-songster Barbeque Bob dished no tunes about cooking meat or working at Tidwells’ Barbecue, there are no tracks on Turonis’ new disc relating to leaky faucets or burst pipes.

Not a gimmick, but rather a way to illuminate the simultaneous plying of craft and honing of musical skills, and it takes just one listen to absorb All the Pretty Girls as the byproduct of an experienced singer-guitarist. Had the choice been made to release this set solely as Gene Turonis, one might gaze at that cover photo and wonder where exactly the guy’s been over the years; the extra moniker simply clarifies that he’s spent a significant portion of time underneath sinks.

With his band D. Plumbers, he’s performed in Hoboken since the ’70s, navigating scene changes while raising a family, and it’s clear that he’s persisted at music out of love. And it’s just as apparent through Turonis’ deft handling of the guitar and the distinctive addition of Charlie Giordano’s accordion in All the Pretty Girls’ opening title track that this is no amateurish undertaking.

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