Manafonistas

Diese knappe Stunde der JazzFacts vom 1. Oktober stellt neun völlig unterschiedliche Welten aus Jazz und Improvisation vor. Sie erzählt von den den verschiedensten Dingen, von den Vorteilen von Mono, einem Trick der „Minimalisten“ – und Lust, Miles Davis’ „On The Corner“ wieder mal zu hören, könnte sich auch einstellen. Jon Hassell und Nils Petter Molvaer sind ja nicht die einzigen, die diese Platte lieben. Auch ein „film noir“ von Robert Siodmak wird eine Rolle spielen.  „The Spiral Staircase“ features one of the longest thunderstorms in film history (it lasts for almost the entire movie!), but the wide dynamic scale handles all the rumbles – as well as several piercing screams – without a hint of distortion. Nuances come through nicely, too, and Roy Webb’s eerie music score complements the action without calling too much attention to itself.

Nat Birchall meets Al Breadwinner: Upright Living (Black Ark vibes revisited) – with an excerpt from my interview with Nat*** / Terje Rypdal: Conspiracy (old magic re-invented)***** / Karl Lippegaus presents: Michel Benita: Looking At Sounds (timeless chamber jazz with folk flair and electric flavour) / Anja Lechner & Francois Couturier: Lontano (in a „blue nowhere“ between notated and improvised sounds)* / Ran Blake & Andrew Rathbun: Northern Noir (50 ways to lose yourself and find some noir) / Kolumne: „Was Jazzmusiker/innen hören“ (diesmal: Simin Tander, vorgestellt von Hendrika Entzian)**** / Makaya McCraven: Universal Beings E & F Sides (the cut-up spirits of sophisticated jams) / Thomas Loewner presents: Mino Cinelu &  Nils Petter Molvaer: Sulamadiana (digging deep, or just some more red wine world jazz?) / Josephine Davies: Satori – How Can We Wake? (the art of intuitive interplay with an Eastern twist)** – with an excerpt from my interview with Josephine

* „Lontano“ erscheint als CD und LP am 16. Oktober bei ECM Rec.

** „Satori – How can we wake?“ erscheint am 8. Oktober bei Whirlwind Rec.

*** Nat Birchall‘s Sun Ra inspired Space Jazz album „Mysticism of Sound“ is now finally available on Cd –  Nat Birchall plays all the instruments – Tenor & soprano saxophone, bass clarinet, Korg Minilogue synth, bass, drums, hand drums, bells & shaker. This album is also deeply connected with melodic qualities of the old school of „spiritual jazz“. Go to Bandcamp for further information.

**** Sometimes nice coincidencies are going to happen when planning and sequencing a radio show. We have a new column, in which a jazz musician is speaking about some favourite albums, and I didn‘t know at all what the chosen artist of this week‘s edition of JazzFacts would bring up. I even don‘t know Simin Tander very well. So, surprise when I saw her list that contains several beloved albums of mine, and even one  album I was kind of witness when it had been recorded in Lugano. Here‘s her list, and now I‘m really curious about Simin‘s next album to be released these days.

Hamasyan / Henriksen / Aarset / Bang – Atmosphères
Mats Eilertsen ‎– Reveries And Revelations
Mette Henriette – Mette Henriette
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan – mustt must
Håkon Kornstad – Dwell Time
Golfam Khayam & Mona Matbou Rihai – Narrante
Anja Garbarek – Briefly Shakin 

***** without knowing about it til yesterday, but making sense of course, a couple of great Terje Rypdal albums from the 70‘s will be reissued on Oct. 9 on the ECM CD touchstone series (see our column „From The Archives“).

The new novel by Anthony Doerr, to be released by C. H. Beck in German translation next week, will most likely be featured in Michael’s radio night „Klanghorizonte“ at the Deutschlandfunk, in December, along with music from Radiohead’s forthcoming archival discovery, Robert Wyatt‘s „Cuckooland“, Lambchop‘s 2021 masterpiece and a terrific new / old ambient piece by Brian Eno.

An ambient piece for my desert island playlist, nearly unbearbly beautiful, and strangely lost among the chance choices of a vast archive spanning from 1990 to 2021: The Lighthouse #166. 

„The book is a puzzle. The greatest joy in it comes from watching the pieces snap into place*. It is an epic of the quietest kind, whispering across 600 years in a voice no louder than a librarian’s. It is a book about books, a story about stories. It is tragedy and comedy and myth and fable and a warning and a comfort all at the same time. It says, Life is hard. Everyone believes the world is ending all the time. But so far, all of them have been wrong. It says that if stories can survive, maybe we can, too.“ (Jason Sheehan, NPR)

* Dieser Satz beschreibt übrigens sehr gut bestimmte Aha-Erlebnisse und Momente, wenn in den „Klanghorizonten“ klanglich disparates Material auf einmal seltsam zusammengehörig wirkt. (m.e.)

New and forthcoming albums (1): Michel Benita Quartet / Mohammad Reza Mortazavi & Burnt Friedman / Jon Hassell / Mino Cinelu & Nils Petter Molvaer /  Jon Hassell / Laraaji / Mino Cinelu & Nils Petter Molvaer / Nat Birchall & Al Breadwinner / Nat Birchall & Al Breadwinner / Burnt Friedman & Jaki Liebezeit (Steve Lake is the producer of the forthcoming ECM quartet album by Michel Benita, titled „Looking At Sounds“, excellent chamber jazz with a subtle palette of folk and electronics. La Buissone, the studio on Southern France, a real power spot. Like, speaking of Birchall / Breadwinner, The Bakery is in or near Manchester.)

New and forthcoming albums (2): Michel Benita Quartet / Shirley Collins / Shirley Collins / Neil Young / Darren Hayman / Darren Hayman / The Jayhawks / Fiona Apple / Fiona Apple / Fiona Apple / Hedvig Mollestad (in spite of a period of silence because of a muted cd-player, this might be, in retrospect, my favourite sequencing of tracks, for this night.)

Close-up – („Into the British hinterland“): Will Burns and Hannah Peel / Shirley Collins / Richard Skelton / Ann Margaret Hogan / The Unthanks / Will Burns and Hannah Peel  / Erland Cooper / Darren Hayman /  Anne Briggs / Green Gartside / Trains In The Night  / Roger Eno and Brian Eno (Luminous – only, if the vinyl arrives on time)

„So abseitig, so gut, Darren Haymans Trilogie „Thankful Villages Vol. 1, 2 & 3“!  Der ferne Erste Weltkrieg ist  zwar hier und da Thema, doch nicht das zentrale – und was für eine Bandbreite:  Schließung örtlicher Schulen,  Liebesaffären, Nazi-Vikare, Badeunfälle, stillgelegte Eisenbahnen, eine  Explosion, mit Leichenteilen überall. „Oral history“ und  Song-Vignetten. Statt einer musikalischen Parade mit Liedern über den Krieg hat sich Hayman also dafür entschieden, nachdenkliche Meditationen über das Landleben, den Wandel und verlorene Lebensweisen zu schaffen. Und er hat ein Händchen dafür, die Freigeister überall ausfindig zu machen. Dass ich nur einen Song seiner Trilogie gespielt habe, lag daran, dass die Sendung übervoll war, und am Ende noch eine Dampflokomotive mit schrillem Pfeifen durch eine Nacht des Jahres 1961 stampfte, aber kein Platz mehr war, im Finale, für die „Elderly Brothers“, und ihren kleinen Nachschlag zu „Mixing Colours“ in Vinyl, namens „Luminous“. Darren Hayman ist übrgens im Blogroll der Manafonisten angekommen.“

Time Travel (1) –  („The Tokyo-Montana Express and other surfing guides“): Shigeru Suzuki, Harry Hosono & Tatsuro Yamashita / Hiroshi Yashamura / The Beach Boys / Hiroshi Yashamura / Pacific Breeze 2 / Nina Simone / Pacific Breeze 2 / Nina Simone / Pacific Breeze 2 / Shigeru Suzuki, Harry Hosono & Tatsuro Yamashita / The Beach Boys / Shigeru Suzuki, Harry Hosono & Tatsuro Yamashita (the last track of this hour was a bit of a stranger on the „Pacific“ album, with  hints to the electro sounds of Yellow Magic Orchesta, and Hiroshi Yashamura‘s perhaps finest ambient music, „Green“ got a great remastering. The title song of Nina Simone’s „Fodder On My Wings“ is one of my most beloved Simone songs, and not really well-known. Thanks to Uli for his insightful words on Hiroshi Yashamura’s  „Green“  which I was ruthlessly quoting without asking.)

Time Travel (2) – („From Rock Bottom to The Bakery“): Robert Wyatt / Robert Wyatt / Robert Wyatt / Robert Wyatt /// Vin Gordon / Vin Gordon  / Birchall & Breadwinner / Birchall & Breadwinner /  Birchall & Breadwinner (the two records from The Bakery are Vin Gordon‘s „African Shores“, and „Tradition Disc in Dub“, and I do very much hope there were people out there who listened to Robert Wyatt‘s „Rock Bottom“ for the first time in their lives. At least for some that might have been a very special experience. I have been listening  to this album all my life.)

 
Postscriptum:

„As for nostalgia: isn’t that ‘the pleasure in re-experiencing something in our minds that is no longer available to us’? Isn’t that a way of digesting past experience, of returning to it in your mind and finding what it was that you liked and wanted and still need from it? We are all living in fast-changing worlds that we have to keep adapting to, and it’s natural that we scan our past experience for clues as to what might be the best ways of living. When I lived in New York for five years I became increasingly aware that I wanted to make a kind of art that gave me a place to get lost, to be alone in a wilder, less populated place which was not controllable. I made the album On Land to be able to access that place.“

(Brian Eno, 2020)

NEULAND I (with excerpts from interviews with Ulrike Haage & Jon Balke) Simon Fisher Turner & Edmund De Waal: A Quiet Corner In Time / Cyrillus Kreek – Vox Clamantis & Jaan-Eik Tulve: The Suspended Harp of Babel / Jon Balke: Discourses / Sophie Tassignon: Mysteries Unfold (thanks to Ingo) / Ulrike Haage: Himmelsbaum / Sonar & David Torn: Tranceportation Vol. 2

„Ryuichi Sakamoto was one of the last pieces of the puzzle. I‘m trying ro remember how exactly I asked him if he‘d care to join us in spirit … it was through my friend in Kyoto, Shiro Takatani and his wife Yoko. A conversation maybe. I proposed we exchanged sounds of both our recordings of porcelain, and I found a way for him to beautifully put a full stop on the end of each side of the vinyl. Edmund also knows the master artist in Kyoto who Sakamoto recorded. It‘s a perfect circle. You couldn‘t have written a more perfect tale.“

(Simon Fisher Turner)

NEULAND II: Tony Allen & Hugh Masekela: Rejoice / Die Wilde Jagd: Haut (thanks to Hans Rollmann) / Neil Young: Homegrown / Benjamin Moussay: Promontoire / Lucinda Williams: Good Souls Better Angels / Bob Dylan: Rough And Rowdy Ways / Einstürzende Neubauten: Alles In Allem (2 tracks) / Roger Eno & Brian Eno: Mixing Colours

„Musically, Lucinda’s Good Souls is a world away from the expansive The Ghosts Of Highway 20, a sprawling, murky, late-career peak which recalls Neil Young’s underrated and equally defeated Sleeps With Angels. Where the atmospheric Ghosts sounded like it had been plucked from the ether, Souls sounds dug up from the dirt – twelve shitkicking jams which veer from righteous to resigned.“ 

(Alex Wisgard)

CLOSE-UP: „DIE ETWAS ANDERE KLAVIERSTUNDE / A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT PIANO LESSON“ – Jon Balke (again) / Franz Schubert (Andras Schiff) / Max de Wardener (thanks to Uli) / Ian William Craig  / a Keith Jarrett  „nocturne“ moment for his 75th birthday /  Harold Budd & Brian Eno / Anna Gourari / Ulrike Haage (again) / Peter Broderick plays Cage

„Full of utterly bare songs centred on the piano and voice, Red Sun Through Smoke cuts deep into the random nature of life. Love and loss grow entangled as the lifeline to a subject with nowhere to run or hide, nor to succumb to the comfort of stories to ease the burden and soothe the confusion. It’s a full acceptance of life’s random power, embracing human finitude and vulnerability, that gives the greatest strength and depth to one of Craig’s most mature works from a long trajectory of quiet artistic excellence. What on previous recordings was buried underneath thick layers upon layers of uncanny noise, now emerges unashamedly as a sentimental and metaphysically alone human being at the very intersection of the sublime and the material, the artist at his most humanly exposed. Craig’s advanced aesthetics of decay employ the volatility of tape decks and the fragility of analogue technology. The media’s vulnerability to loss becomes a metaphor for frail humanity, transcribing it into sound with palpable intimacy …“

(Danijela Bočev, The Quietus)

ZEITREISE 1: „DIE ENTLEGENEN  UND POPULÄREN RÄUME VON SYLT IM LOCKDOWN / THE DESOLATE AND THE POPULAR SPACES OF SYLT IN LOCKDOWN“ – Yumiko Marioka, Bensarin Quartet, Kraftwerk, The Mamas & The Papas, „The dying sounds of Sylt“ (thanks to „The Source“), The Kinks, Hans Joachim Roedelius, „The Westerland dawn chorus“ (thanks to Rosato‘s remix), Dave Holland, „another green world“ in the background, Boards of Canada from „The Campfire Headphase“, a short apearance of the windharp from „Dis“, Leonard Cohen, Yo La Tengo (by mistake, the wrong track instead of the groove piece from Yo la Tengo, but I let it happen:)), and a Japanese piano „outro“ by Satoshi Ashikawa (thus, the Japanese framing of  the hour was a nod towards the Lucillle Carra documentary „The Inland Sea“ I talked about and that has been beautifully reissued by Criterion – there will be a special remix of the Sylt hour that lets it all end after the last note of the Cohen song / poem. Good option.

„There is a memorable closing summary of Nick Drake’s music in Rob Young’s book, Electric Eden, one that can’t be read without a considerable swell of emotion. Young sees Drake’s work as something that engenders a beatific state: “if we all abandoned the calendar of industry, fashion and routine, slowed down to the magical time, stepped far beyond the chine of a city clock, took more time to hear what the trees whisper, what the sea sings and the moon brings, dusted by oak, ash and thorn, we might yet be granted a glimpse of Paradise.” Frankly you could say the same about Roedelius’s music on Tape Archive Essence.“ – btw: Rob Young will make  a public talk with Irmin Schmidt at the next Punktfestival in early september (m.e.)

 

ZEITREISE 2: Fela Kuti and Africa 70: Afrodisiac  / Lee Perry with Seskain Molenga and Kalo Kawongolo / Culture: Two Sevens Clash / Edikanfo: The Pace Setter

Brian Eno – Thoughts on Fela

ZEITREISE 3: Eric Malmberg (thanks to Der Interaktionist)

(Journey’s end: E. Malmberg eschews familiar organ clichés (there’s not a single soul flourish in sight), opting instead for an almost classical-pop style that’s pretense-free, I might add. And, though the deep sonic richness of the organ spans centuries, there’s a modern dimension to the recording too; the ascending and descending whorls haunting the background of “Människan och evigheten” could be taken for a Kraftwerk nod. Häpna describes Den gåtfulla människan as “a highly personal record (and) a travel into the human psyche” and, while I’ve no doubt that that’s true, what’ll stay with you longest are the album’s timelessly simple yet melancholy melodies.”)

Die Wilde Jagd: Haut

Roger Eno and Brian Eno: Mixing Colours

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A heartfelt thank you (for the kind of advice, support and kindness that made this journey possible and deep) to: Lajla N, Susanne B, Claudia K, and „The Source“