Author Archives: Joseph Neff

Remembering Bert Jansch, born on this date in 1943. —Ed.

There might be no better time than the present to be a record collecting fan of Bert Jansch. Vinyl reissues from all stages of the Brit-folk guitar linchpin’s career have been flowing into the racks for a while now, and we’re currently experiencing a crescendo of material from the late singer-songwriter.

The 1960s was flush with fingerpickers, and Bert Jansch was amongst the very best. Adding to his appeal, the Scottish troubadour was also a capable vocalist, solid songwriter, and a deft collaborator, first teaming with fellow guitarist John Renbourn; in short order the duo co-founded the progressive folk combo Pentangle.

Jansch’s eponymous debut and its follow-up It Don’t Bother Me, both issued in 1965, have endured as classics, and for those wishing to become conversant with the man’s work, they are the place to begin; last year Superior Viaduct issued the LPs singly, and both will be part of Earth Recordings’ upcoming box set of Jansch’s output for the Transatlantic label.

This period remains the most lauded stretch in the guitarist’s oeuvre, in part due to its consistency and sharpness of focus. 1966 brought third album Jack Orion, which both extends from and contrasts with its predecessor, the opening strains of banjo in “The Waggoner’s Lad” picking up where It Don’t Bother Me’s finale “900 Miles” left off. The instrumental switch intertwines productively with Renbourn’s guitar, as his role, having commenced on the prior disc’s “Lucky Thirteen,” is deepened across four Jack Orion cuts to positive effect.

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On October 13 the Mushroom Hour Half Hour and New Soil labels co-release kwaNTU, a gorgeous album of South African guitar from the duo of Madala Kunene (the elder) and Sibusile Xaba (the protégé). Known as the King of the Zulu Guitar, Kunene is little known outside his home country, while the younger jazz-influenced Xaba is poised to break out even more on the world stage. This 10-track collection is a splendid balm for troubled times, available on vinyl, compact disc, and digital.

That Madala Kunene isn’t better known by international listeners can be chalked up to the difficulties of exposure that befell South African musicians in the waning moments of Apartheid and then immediately after. His self-titled 1990 debut album, originally released by Third Ear Music, is certainly a pleasant experience, if unsurprisingly a wee bit dated in the production department.

Sibusile Xaba’s 2017 debut, the double set Open Letter to Adoniah/Unlearning, was the first release on Mushroom Hour Half Hour, an adventurous Johannesburg-based label that began as a vinyl-only radio show on a pirate radio station. If jazz influenced (Wes Montgomery and Jim Hall are cited as having impacted his style), Xaba is no trad cat; his debut finds him just as moved by South African sounds and also singing, often exuberantly in a sort of dialogue/counterpoint with his guitar playing.

After a meeting and time spent together, Kunene and Xaba became friends, with a budding mentorship to follow, and now comes this collaboration, which is often stunning in its beauty, and immediately so in opener “Umkhulu Omkhulu,” with its exchange of folky and jazz guitar as Xaba sings atop.

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Sublime Frequencies has travelled the globe in pursuit of worthy sonic discoveries, but until the arrival of West Virginia Snake Handler Revival “They Shall Take Up Serpents,” the set available now on LP and digital wherever adventurous music is sold, the label had never focused an entire release on a locale from inside the borders of the United States. As the title indicates, West Virginia is the destination, specifically Appalachia, for a deep dive into the fervor of a group known simply as the Pastor Chris Congregation. It’s one of the wildest and totally unexpected releases of 2025. The vinyl comes with a 13-minute bonus track.

The reality is that many will listen to West Virginia Snake Handler Revival with the intention to laugh and point. When people let it all hang out, a reliable reaction is derision. Soaking up these excerpts as captured by Grammy-award-winning record producer Ian Brennan (Tinariwen, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Zomba Prison Project, Peter Case), if nothing else, illuminates the difference between sincere Christian belief in its extremity and those who profess religious conviction but are in reality frauds.

But this album delivers much more, capturing the last snake-handling church in the only state that still legally tolerates the practice prior to the likelihood (if not inevitability) of the tradition’s disappearance. It offers excerpts of church service preaching ascending into the realms of pure mania. In Sublime Frequencies’ notes, Brennan details a snakebite that can be heard in the track “Don’t Worry It’s Just a Snakebite (What Has Happened to This Generation?).”

The whole of West Virginia Snake Handler Revival is fascinating, and most of all for the sheer power of the music. Those preaching excerpts are infused with the raw musicality that can be the byproduct of sheer conviction and the evaporation of inhibition. The intensity is galvanizing, formidable, at times uncomfortable, even from the distance this recording provides. One can only imagine what it was like for Brennan up close as he tended to his duties as an audio documentarian.

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Hearing Charles Mingus and his band in performance is a reliable pleasure, and when his various aggregations were really cooking, the sounds they produced remain one of the joys of modern music. Recorded in 1964 and released the following year, Mingus at Monterey is one of the bassist-bandleader-composer’s finest live recordings. Reissued earlier in 2025 for Record Store Day, the initial 2LP set quickly sold out after hitting the album charts. Now it’s back with a fresh edition via Candid Records in partnership with Charles Mingus’ Jazz Workshop, Inc. It’s a delight from start to finish. All Mingus fans need a copy.

The live stage is where any jazz musician has to make it. It can be at Lincoln Center or in the back room of a Unitarian church, in a nightclub after midnight, or in a college auditorium before noon, in a museum’s performance space, or under the canopy at a festival: it’s where the musicians prove they have the stuff.

Charles Mingus proved it repeatedly through a long, consistently evolving life in music, but in 1962, he hit a creative low point on the stage as his ambitious performance, conceived by Mingus not as a typical concert but as a sort of recording session with audience/workshop hybrid, was a notorious debacle, although that didn’t stop United Artists from releasing a portion of the evening as Town Hall Concert in 1962.

Town Hall Concert was reissued as an expanded CD in 1994 as The Complete Town Hall Concert. The addition of bonus material clarified that the event wasn’t as disastrous as it was long assessed, but it was still a tough night by any yardstick. Take note that the 1962 Town Hall show shouldn’t be confused with the release of a 1964 live recording also titled Town Hall Concert; we’ll discuss this return engagement a bit further down.

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Celebrating Dale Crover, born on this date in 1967. —Ed.

It’s not a bit surprising that a band on a label called Ipecac has released a record titled Freak Puke. The pleasant twist is that in reverting back to a trio with bassist Trevor Dunn, The Melvins have delivered their best release since 2006’s (A) Senile Animal.

The Melvins, by my count eighteen studio albums strong (not including collaborations), have become one of the longest-serving examples of the “heads down/amps turned way up” mode of rock ‘n’ roll expression, a style not known for its survivalist tactics. While the vast majority of groups specializing in music of comparable heaviness understandably lack the stamina and depth of creativity for creating worthwhile records over a period of more than a few years, The Melvins have managed to stay interesting for close to thirty.

Part of the secret might just be their refusal to fall comfortably into one single camp. Often hailed in mainstream coverage as a “godfather of grunge” due to geographical location and their music’s motions toward a punk/metal hybridization, and most importantly because of their close ties to Mudhoney and Nirvana (if not to Sub Pop proper), The Melvins were surprisingly (and in retrospect, understandably) indifferent to cultivating a forefather-esque association with a rock movement that would inevitably culminate in a big ol’ nasty backlash.

Signing the rather predictable ‘90s major-label deal with Atlantic (who just as predictably didn’t really know what to do with them), the then trio of guitarist Buzz Osborne (aka King Buzzo), drummer Dale Crover and not long for the band bassist Lori “Lorax” Black (aka child actress Shirley Temple’s daughter) retained a close relationship to the indie scene that spawned them, again as if sensing that the tide would inevitably turn in the other direction, with bands of their ilk being hung out to dry if found too dependent upon the corporate teat.

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Remembering Bobby Fuller, born on this date in 1942. —Ed.

Inspecting chart history proves otherwise, but due to the ubiquitous nature of that one song everybody remembers, Bobby Fuller is considered by many as a One Hit Wonder. Others view him as the true-blood ‘60s extension in art as well as life of fellow Texan Buddy Holly, which overlaps with the assessment by some that Fuller was maybe the last gasp of rock ‘n’ roll innocence before the ‘60s became The Sixties. But he was also just a passionate young guy with a boatload of talent for whom music was paramount, and nothing communicates that better than a listen to The Bobby Fuller Four’s 1966 LP, I Fought the Law.

The Bobby Fuller Four’s second and best long-player opens with what is probably my pick for the band’s greatest moment and certainly one of their leader’s finest compositions. It’s not the title track, for “I Fought the Law” was penned by Sonny Curtis of The Crickets, a group most famous for their backing of Buddy Holly (Curtis joined after Holly’s plane crash demise; the original appears on 1960’s In Style with the Crickets.)

The tune is “Let Her Dance,” a delicious slice of guitar and vocal harmony driven pop-rock and easily one of ’65’s best singles. Perfectly calibrated for airplay, its 2:32 flows with expertly layered simplicity. Once established, none of the song’s elements drift far in their roles; not Fuller’s lead singing of his wounded-heart love lyrics or the gorgeous chiming and jangling of his and Jim Reese’s guitars, not the beautiful but non-grandiose backing vocals, not Randy Fuller’s bass, and definitely not DeWayne Quirico’s drumming, which with subtle alterations follows the same pattern throughout.

Individually, none of these aspects are especially noteworthy. It’s in the assemblage and the ensuing vigor of the captured performance that greatness is attained. And over the years, playing “Let Her Dance” has turned many a head that had erroneously pegged Bobby Fuller as basically a slightly displaced rockabilly guy.

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Celebrating Steve Cropper on his 84th birthday. —Ed.

Back in the fall of 2019, Real Gone Music released on 2LP and CD The Complete Stax Singles, Vol. 1 (1962-1967) by Booker T. & The MG’s, rounding up 29 original mono single sides. Later came a repress alongside The Complete Stax Singles, Vol. 2 (1968-1974), which features 20 selections, the first 15 in mono, the last five in stereo in keeping with the versions as originally released. Remastered with care with notes for both volumes by Ed Osborne, these two sets offer definitive documentation of all the singles by the greatest instrumental R&B outfit in the history of the style. Although they are a band extensively and deservedly praised, we’ll add to the discourse below.

In 1991, when Atlantic released The Complete Stax-Volt Singles 1959-1968 across eight compact discs, much celebration ensued. Once buyers broke the shrink wrap and played the set’s contents during a few house parties, celebration could grow into borderline pandemonium. I was there to witness it. But as magnificent as that collection continues to be, Atlantic did play a little loose with the notion of completeness, as they omitted numerous songs, specifically B-sides, likely in an attempt to deliver maximum listener enjoyment alongside an acceptable price tag.

This matter is relevant here as Real Gone’s The Complete Stax Singles, Vol. 1 (1962-1967), its second edition pressed on red wax (the first was on blue), rounds up the Booker T. & The MG’s tracks that Atlantic didn’t include, by my count 11, and sequences the flips directly after the plug sides. And if you’re wondering about Vol. 1’s odd-numbered total of 29, that’s because “Mo-Onions” was issued as both an A and B side.

The thing about releases conceived with a completist objective is that they are often best suited for completists. That’s not exactly untrue in this case, but the crucial difference is in how well the music on Vol. 1 overcomes the transition from standalone 45s to longform chronological compiling, a feat that’s almost miraculous given that Booker T. & The MG’s weren’t exactly known for their range.

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Side projects can be a mixed bag, but Darling Black, the bonus activity/creativity of Lulu Lewis vocalist-songwriter Dylan Hundley, is unburdened with any disappointing, underwhelming factors. Instead, the truly solo endeavor’s eponymous debut full-length, releasing tomorrow as a Bandcamp exclusive and premiering here, is consistently engaging with the occasional surprise. Anybody with a penchant for post-punk dancefloor bangers should prick up those ears, toot sweet.

Darling Black isn’t a breakaway project but instead serves as a stylistic extension and more often is a complementary overlapper in the oeuvre of Dylan Hundley. “Shock” opens the record with a fun slice of resourced audio, and then, quickly following, Hundley’s breathy intoning enters the scheme atop a minimal groove.

With “8th and Alvarado,” things get edgy and body moving in the tradition of dance club No Wave. The mention of champagne and cocaine can’t help but bring Vega and Rev to mind (not a bad thing), but with the infusion of police sirens, the track radiates a more contemporary vibe.

“Everyday” floats out Kraftwerk-y Motorik motions, but with a sweet, tense atmosphere a la darkwave. Rhythmic repetition is also an integral component in “Dial,” and there’s more of that aforementioned and quite appealing post-punk edge. Instead of NYC No Wave, the track is decidedly Anglo.

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Los Angeles punk mainstays Fear will be forever defined by the anti-social expressions of their 1982 album The Record. Many thousands cherish that disc, while others evaluate it as the locus of obnoxious fakery. But those who completely dismiss them shouldn’t do so without hearing their 1978 single “I Love Livin’ in the City” b/w “Now Your Dead,” for both musically and in terms of attitude it paints a distinct portrait of the group’s early development.

The general consensus on The Record finds it ranking very high in the punk rock pantheon, but after going back again to recheck, I must admit that I’ve never felt it’s all that great. Actually, I’d rate it as only moderately good, at best. Yes, the LP is loaded to the gills with historical importance and does have enough moments that I’ve kept a copy around, but the only time the thing’s gotten play in this house over the last few decades is when I would periodically feel the need to reassess my evaluation in the face of other’s rampant enthusiasm.

This happened more than just once or twice, and on a few occasions my viewpoint was met with something other than just disagreement. Instead I received stares of deep incomprehension, like I’d just called Michael Jordan an okay shooting-guard or Shakespeare a middling playwright. It was enough to instill some personal doubts. Perhaps it wasn’t The Record; maybe the problem was with me. But each time I pulled it out the same conclusion was drawn, and until just recently it has spent roughly a dozen years tucked away on the shelf.

However, I will agree that a significant part of my reaction does come down to personal considerations. Specifically, I didn’t get to hear it until around 1987 or so. If I’d been a late teenager when The Record kicked up its first clouds of dust, it might’ve been a gripping experience. But in 1982 I was just peaking into the doorway of adolescence, with my musical heroes the predictable suburban standbys Zeppelin and Sabbath. If someone had played The Record for me then, my reaction would’ve naturally held some measure of, well, fear, but it surely would’ve been overtaken by a much greater sense of bafflement.

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Celebrating La Monte Young on his 90th birthday. —Ed.

La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela are absolute titans of the 20th century avant-garde, having broken considerable ground at the intersection of Minimalism and Drone Music during their 1960s heyday. However, the duo’s early work has been persistently difficult to hear. For example, Superior Viaduct’s release of 31 VII 69 10:26 – 10:49 PM / 23 VIII 64 2:50:45 – 3:11 AM The Volga Delta a.k.a. The Black Record is the first (legit) reissue of this legendary album since it first came out in 1969. Featuring two wildly differing side-long pieces, it is a masterwork of highly disciplined drone logic and experimental abstraction.

Partners in art and life, La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela came to prominence (of a decidedly subterranean fashion) in New York City during the waning days of the classic Bohemian era, and that they both still walk among us is a reality to cherish. Young is the more well-known of the two, as Zazeela, a multimedia artist on her own, notably, has contributed to a small number of his recordings as a musician. But as photographer, album designer, performance lighter and producer in general, her impact is felt throughout his discography, as difficult as that body of work has been to hear.

The LP under review here, which for space considerations will be called The Black Record, was already half an archival release upon issue in 1969. Side two, “23 VIII 64 2:50:45 – 3:11 AM The Volga Delta,” was captured in the New York City studio of Young and Zazeela in 1964 (per the title), the recording a part of a longer composition, Studies in the Bowed Disc; for the piece, a gong is bowed (the instrument a gift to Young and Zazeela from sculptor Robert Morris), with the sound nearer to noise music than to the sustained resonances one might expect to result from a bowed gong.

More typically dronelike prolonged tones are heard via side one’s “31 VII 69 10:26 – 10:49 PM,” which was recorded in Munich in 1969 at the gallery belonging to arts impresario Heiner Friedrich. Released on vinyl by Friedrich on his Edition X imprint that very year, “31 VII 69 10:26 – 10:49 PM” is also part of a another longer composition, Map of 49’s Dream the Two Systems of Eleven Sets of Galactic Intervals Ornamental Lightyears Tracery; this segment features the voices of Young and Zazeela against a sine wave drone, with the stated influence of Hindustani singer Pandit Pran Nath easy to absorb.

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Muse Records stands amongst the most esteemed labels in the long history of jazz. Established by producer/executive Joe Fields, Muse thrived during the transitional era of the 1970s by being true to the music as it developed. On October 17, Time Traveler Recordings, yet another label spearheaded by indefatigable producer and archivist Zev Feldman kicks off the Muse Master Edition Series with three 180 gram reissues. Drummer Roy Brooks’ The Free Slave, a 1970 live quintet recording hosted by the Left Bank Jazz Society released in 1972, is the earliest of the three. We give it proper consideration below.

Prior to starting Muse Records in 1972, Joe Fields was an executive at Prestige, a label that had kept abreast of jazz as it had developed throughout the 1960s. In a nutshell, Muse began as a continuation of the Prestige mission after that label was purchased by Fantasy Records in 1971.

The two recordings that coincide with this reissue of The Free Slave are pianist Kenny Barron’s Sunset to Dawn, originally released in 1973, and tenor saxophonist Carlos Garnett’s Cosmos Nucleus, originally released in 1976. With its lack of polish and live performance energy, Brooks’ album stands out. It’s the one to get if you can only get one of the three reissues.

Immediately apparent in The Free Slave’s leadoff title track is the rowdiness of the audience assembled at The Famous Ballroom in Baltimore, MD as organized by the Left Bank Jazz Society. The crowd is ready to get down; the band doesn’t disappoint. Pianist Hugh Lawson taps into a Ramsey Lewis-like groove right out of the gate and rolls with it for just over 12 minutes, as Brooks and bassist Cecil McBee work up a lively foundation from which trumpeter Woody Shaw and tenor saxophonist George Coleman productively launch.

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Remembering Art Tatum, born on this date in 1909. —Ed.

Fans of jazz piano and Art Tatum in particular have reason to rejoice, as Jewels in the Treasure Box: The 1953 Chicago Blue Note Jazz Club Recordings offers 39 previously unreleased performances from Tatum’s trio with guitarist Everett Barksdale and bassist Slam Stewart. Recorded by the Blue Note Jazz Club’s proprietor Frank Holzfeind, this set is a major discovery that deepens a persistently undervalued side of the pianist’s artistry.

Born in 1909, Art Tatum’s style evolved from stride piano as exemplified by Fats Waller, James P. Johnson, Willie “The Lion” Smith, and Luckey Roberts. Importantly, he was also impacted by the innovations of his contemporary Earl “Fatha” Hines. When assessing the key influences on Modern Jazz piano, Hines and Tatum hover at the top of the list.

The Smithsonian Collection Of Classic Jazz includes two selections by Tatum, both featuring him solo. As a student of stride, Tatum was a technical powerhouse with great stamina who thrived without accompaniment. Lennie Tristano was once quoted as saying that Tatum and Hines were the only two pianists who could deliver jazz’s essential swing while playing alone, and solo is the mode for which Tatum remains most celebrated.

Indeed, even during a trio engagement such as this one, captured by Holzfeind on August 16–28, 1953, Tatum acquiesced to play a few tracks solo; at the Blue Note, it was “Humoresque,” “Begin the Beguine,” “Someone to Watch Over Me,” and “Elegy,” all revealing him in solid form. It’s notable that the cuts on the Smithsonian collection were recorded in 1949 for Capitol (“Willow Weep for Me”) and in ’56 at a private party (“Too Marvelous for Words”). Interestingly, one of Tatum’s signature solo tunes, “Tea for Two” is tackled on Jewels in the Treasure Box by the trio.

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Remembering Thelonious Monk, born on this day in 1917. —Ed.

Monk’s Music was the fifth Thelonious Monk LP released by Riverside Records across a strong mid-1950s stretch. It helped to increase the pianist-composer-bandleader’s visibility on the scene and repair an undeservedly formidable reputation, but even after it was selected for inclusion in the Original Jazz Classics series of reissues, it’s become one of the less celebrated masterpieces in Monk’s extensive discography. 

It might seem strange given Thelonious Monk’s secure position in the jazz pantheon, but the first two records he cut for Riverside consisted solely of standards, with his debut for the label entirely devoted to compositions by Duke Ellington and the second offering a blend of well-known selections from the American Songbook. Both hit stores in 1956.

Thelonious Monk debuted on record as a leader in 1951 for the Blue Note label with two 10-inch discs, each titled Genius of Modern Music. In 1956, those volumes were expanded into LPs with additional material from the original series of sessions Alfred Lion organized from 1947–’51, plus one more date from the following year. Those two albums, further expanded in the CD era, are the logical place to begin a solid Monk collection, but they didn’t a cause retail firestorm. The five records Monk cut for Prestige from ’52–’54 saw no curtailing of creative momentum but befell similar the same commercial fate.

In 1957, Riverside’s Orrin Keepnews pivoted with Brilliant Corners, which featured all Monk tunes save for one. Later in the year Thelonious Himself, a more balanced mix of originals and standards, was released. As the title suggests, Himself is a solo piano affair, with the exception of closing track “Monk’s Mood,” where tenor saxophonist John Coltrane and bassist Wilber Ware are added.

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Residing in the Keystone State but with roots in the fertile Athens, GA scene, Giant Day is Derek Almstead, he of The Olivia Tremor Control, of Montreal, Elf Power, and The Glands, and Emily Growden, she of Faster Circuits and Marshmallow Coast. The duo’s second album is Alarm, a generous 14-track set that offers a solid blend of psychedelia, synth pop, contempo indie, and even flashes of prog. It’s out on vinyl (black or limited evergreen) on October 10 from The Elephant 6 Recording Co.

Alarm comes hot on the heels of Giant Day’s debut long-player Glass Narcissus, which was released on August 23, 2024, also on vinyl and also by Elephant 6. In fact, Giant Day delivered the first new recording by an official Elephant 6 band in a decade and a half. Augmenting this significance is how both the debut and this follow-up are tangibly but subtly connected to the psychedelic sound that defines their label.

That is, Giant Day’s sound is distinctive in the grand Elephant 6 scheme of things. The songs have been impacted by the darkness and desperation of our current era, but overall, the mood is anxious rather than gloomy or despairing. Much of the record is quite danceable, including the succinct opener “Out of Hand,” which is also one of the record’s more forthrightly rock-oriented tracks.

“Golden Times” builds up gradually and is impressively layered in its psychedelic comportment, while “Without Warning” is more jagged and infused with guitar haze. “Healthier Families Virginia” shifts into a poppier mode as it radiates an Anglo vibe, and after the intriguing instrumental fragment “Paoli,” the record shifts into the groove zone established on their debut with “King of Ghosts,” combining new wavy bustle harkening back to their Athens predecessors The B-52s with a druggy aura Broadcast fans might dig.

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Amongst other qualities, the music of Australia’s The Necks is hypnotic and always evolving. That is, mesmerizing in the moment and never static over the span of a single long improvised piece or across a nearly four-decade stretch of productivity. Their twentieth studio album Disquiet, available October 10 through Northern Spy, is an appropriately expansive affair, featuring four tracks on three compact discs with durations ranging from 26 to 74 minutes. Massively scaled yet engrossing, The Necks’ brilliance is singular as it journeys once again to unexpected heights. 

Disquiet clocks in at 3 hours, nine minutes, 27 seconds, making it roughly one minute longer than Magnolia, Paul Thomas Anderson’s feature film released in 1999. Disquiet is roughly four minutes longer than Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon but eight minutes shorter than Kubrick’s Spartacus. These comparisons aren’t particularly significant except to denote the coexistence of the epic and the engaging.

But why choose film rather than music for the purposes of illuminating similarities? Indeed, there are numerous recordings that are of comparable length or even considerably longer than Disquiet. One reason is to acknowledge the reality of difference as it applies to The Necks, whose music has often been categorized as jazz but sounds like no other working group in the wide-ranging history of the form, even as it flows from the well-trodden ground of the piano trio model.

That’s Chris Abrahams on keys of various types, Lloyd Swanton on basses electric and acoustic, and Tony Buck on drums and percussion. They have welcomed guests on a handful of recordings but more often assume the roles of multi-instrumentalists, frequently by adding electronics into the weave.

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