Max Roach ‎– We Insist! Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite

"We Insist! Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite", co-authored by Max Roach and Oscar Brown, Jr., was a pivotal work in the early-'60s African-American protest movement, and continues to be relevant in its message and tenacity. It represents a lesson in living as to how the hundreds of years prior were an unnecessary example of how oppression kept slaves and immigrants in general in their place. 

Vocalist Abbey Lincoln expresses this oppression as effectively as anyone could with her thespian-based wordless vocals, and lyrics written by Brown that tell the grim story of the struggle of African-American for far too long. Musically, Roach assembled one of the greatest bands, from his own emerging ensemble with trombonist Julian Priester and trumpeter Booker Little, to the legendary Coleman Hawkins and lesser-known, underappreciated tenor saxophonist Walter Benton. Percussionists Ray Mantilla and Michael Olatunji gave the poetic pieces sung by Lincoln enough substance and spice to also refer to Afro-Cuban and South American prejudice and urgency for change. Hawkins is particularly impressive, as his emotional range during the deep and dour, 5/4 slave song "Driva' Man" clearly feeds off of Lincoln's blues singing about quittin' time. 

"Triptych; Prayer/Peace/Protest" is the magnum opus of the set, introduced by Roach's signature drum moves, an eerie operatic vocal or oppressed angst yelling from Lincoln, and a 5/4 beat from the percussionist against a calmer vocal component, all written for interpretive dance. Of the modern jazz that Roach is renowned for, the horns jump into furious hard bop with solos from Little, Benton, and Priester on "Freedom Day" after Lincoln quietly invites you to "whisper/listen," while the obscure bassist James Schenck leads in 6/8 and 5/4 ostinato over Lincoln's sustained tones on "Tears for Johannesburg," with the layered horns in and out of well-wrought harmonies, and another triad of instrumental solos. "All Africa" sports lyrics about being on the beach, or maybe the beach head in the battle for freedom, as chants of tribal names echo similar village beats. 

This is a pivotal work in the discography of Roach and African-American music in general, its importance growing in relevance and timely, postured, real emotional output. Every modern man, woman, and child could learn exponentially listening to this recording - a hallmark for living life.


Tracklist:

Driva' Man  5:10
Freedom Day  6:02
Triptych: Prayer, Protest, Peace  7:58
All Africa  7:57
Tears For Johannesburg  9:36

Max Roach ‎– We Insist! Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite
(320 kbps, cover art included)

Sun Ra - Outer Spaceways Incorporated (1968)

This album adds a previously unreleased "Intergalactic Motion" to the original five-piece program. Sun Ra's orchestra was at its most radical during this period, alternating simple chants with very outside playing and dense ensembles.

While the sidemen include such notables as Marshall Allen and Danny Davis on altos, baritonist Pat Patrick, John Gilmore on tenor, bassist Ronnie Boykins and percussionist Clifford Jarvis, most of the other players in the 15-piece band (such as trumpeters Ahk Tal Ebah and Kwame Hadi) have slipped back into obscurity. This music is quite intriguing, although it requires an open mind and a sense of humor to fully appreciate.   

Tracklist:

1	Somewhere There	15:10
2	Outer Spaceways Incorporated	7:02
3	Intergalactic Motion	8:07
4	Saturn	6:08
5	Song Of The Sparer	4:22
6	Spontaneous Simplicity	7:56

Track 3 was previously unreleased, recorded in New York City 1968.

Sun Ra - Outer Spaceways Incorporated (1968)
(256 kbps, cover art included)          

Jackie Mittoo - Macka Fat (1972)

Keyboard virtuoso Jackie Mittoo was among the true legends of reggae -- a founding member of the Skatalites and an extraordinarily prolific songwriter, he was perhaps most influential as a mentor to countless younger performers, primarily through his work as the musical director at the famed Studio One.

There are a dozen nice sultry instrumentals on this LP, released in the early '70s, though as always with vintage reggae albums, that doesn't necessarily indicate that all of the material was recorded then. Certainly it has the sound of the best rocksteady music, some of its trancier grooves hinting at the dub era. Bubbly organ riffs are heard throughout, of the sort that, with some tweaks, would be popularized in the U.S. by Timmy Thomas´ 1973 hit "Why Can't We Live Together."

Tracks:

Henry The Great
Good Feeling
Macka Fat
Lazy Bones
Fancy Pants
Something Else
Happy People
Purple Heart
Whoa Whoa
Division One
Ghetto Organ
Dad Is Home

Produced by C.S. Dodd at Studio 1 (Kingston, JA)

Jackie Mittoo - Macka Fat (1972)
(192 kbps, front cover included)

Nina Simone And Her Friends (1959)

Nina Simone and Her Friends is an album released by the Bethlehem Records label that compiled songs by Jazz singers Nina Simone, Carmen McRae and Chris Connor.

All three artists had left the label and signed with other companies by the time Bethlehem released this album. The songs of Nina Simone were previously unissued “left overs” from the recording sessions for her debut album Little Girl Blue (1958) and released without her knowing.

The tracks by Chris Connor and Carmen McRae were already issued together this way as Bethlehem's Girlfriends in 1956 accompanied by the debut recording session of Julie London.

Tracklist:

01.  He's Got The Whole World In His Hands

02.  Cottage For Sale
03.  Old Devil Moon
04.  I Loves You, Porgy
05.  Try A Little Tenderness
06.  You Made Me Care
07.  For All We Know
08.  What Is There To Say
09.  Too Much In Love To Care
10.  African Mailman
11.  Good Bye
12.  Last Time For Love

Nina Simone And Her Friends (1959)
(320 kbps, front cover inlcuded)

Dave Van Ronk - Sunday Street (1976)

This album, originally released in 1976, may or may not be, as annotator (and former Dave Van Ronk guitar student) Elijah Wald claims, "Dave's greatest single album" (frankly, Van Ronk has made so many albums for so many fly-by-night labels that it is hard to endorse so sweeping a statement), but it is certainly a very good one.

Van Ronk had made various efforts in recent years to accommodate pop and rock music on his albums, but this one was a return to his usual repertoire of folk-blues tunes and jazz and ragtime transcriptions for guitar, with one Joni Mitchell song ("That Song About the Midway") and an original, the title song, thrown in.

And it was a solo album on which Van Ronk sang and accompanied himself on acoustic guitar. Thus, it approximated what a good set in a club by this artist would sound like, minus the singer's witticisms, of course. Van Ronk never hid his influences, but he never sounded exactly like them, either, and on this album he was very much himself. Maybe it is his greatest single album; it is certainly one of his most representative.  

Tracklist:
A1 Sunday Street 3:27
A2 Jesus Met The Woman At The Well 5:34
A3 Nobody Knows The Way I Feel This Morning 3:51
A4 Maple Leaf Rag 3:59
A5 Down South Blues 4:35
B1 Jivin' Man Blues 3:03
B2 That Song About The Midway 3:33
B3 The Pearls 4:29
B4 That'll Never Happen No More 3:48
B5 Mamie's Blues 4:19
B6 Would You Like To Swing On A Star? 2:38


Dave Van Ronk - Sunday Street (1976)
(192 kbps, cover art included)

Sun Ra - The Singles (2 CDs)

Had the chance to see a wonderful Sun Ra concert this week with bandleader Marshall Allen.

Of all the jazz musicians, Sun Ra was probably the most controversial. He did not make it easy for people to take him seriously, for he surrounded his adventurous music with costumes and mythology that both looked backward toward ancient Egypt and forward into science fiction. In addition, Ra documented his music in very erratic fashion on his Saturn label, generally not listing recording dates and giving inaccurate personnel information, so one could not really tell how advanced some of his innovations were. It has taken a lot of time to sort it all out (although Robert L. Campbell's Sun Ra discography has done a miraculous job). In addition, while there were times when Sun Ra's aggregation performed brilliantly, on other occasions they were badly out of tune and showcasing absurd vocals.

Sun Ra consistently maintained he came from another planet - and his taste in clothes and harmonies lent some credence to the claim - but he also felt he could connect with a broad terrestrial audience, which is why he continually released singles on his Saturn label. Some of these singles were his trademark space-jazz, but most of them were more down-to-earth-doo-wop, blues, R&B vocals, swing standards, novelty songs and big-band dance numbers. Yet they all had the Sun Ra touch, which made them weird and worldly all at once.

Back in the mid-'50s, bandleader Sun Ra decided to get his music to his audience through a more direct process by starting his own label, Saturn Records. Equal parts creative futuristic vision and small-time Southern R&B bandstand hustle, these 45s were pressed in unbelievably small quantities (sometimes in runs of only 50 copies), making them the holy grail of Sun Ra collectibles. The collection of singles runs a neat 30-year time-frame and features everything from Sun Ra with an embryonic form of his Arkestra doing backup duties behind doo-wop groups and R&B slopbucket singers like 'Space Age Vocalist' Yochannon to wild-ass sonic experiements from the late '70s into the early '80s that would have atmospherically fit on any of his avant-garde albums. Pieced together for this release from the contributions of private collectors around the world -- and sonically cleaned up far beyond the audio capabilities of the original vinyl they were pressed on -- these 49 three-minute opuses will alternately confuse, astound, confound, delight, and illuminate Sun Ra fans of all stratas of involvement. A major piece of puzzle that is the man, now in place.

Sun Ra - The Singles CD 1
Sun Ra - The Singles CD 2
(192 kbps, cover art included)

Richie Havens - Something Else Again

As a little thank you for all the nice comments related to the earlier Richie Havens postings, here´s one more of his albums: "Something Else Again".

The sound here is more keyboard-heavy than its predecessor "Mixed Bag", but Richie Havens continues in a similar vein with his distinctive smoky voice and thumb-fretted open-tuned guitar.

"No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed" and "Don't Listen to Me" are propelled by Warren Bernhardt's percussive electric piano, while "Inside of Him" and "Sugarplums" are pretty ballads featuring the flute of Jeremy Steig. "The Klan" and "Run Shaker Life" are cut from the same mold as "Handsome Johnny," the Woodstock show-stopper from "Mixed Bag". The melody of "New City" has attractive, expansive intervals, and "From the Prison" is an intense piece of balladry built around a riff on the guitar's bass strings. Finally, the title track is seven-and-a-half minutes of sitar, flute, tamboura, and tabla, very much of its time, when George Harrison's interest in Ravi Shankar led many musicians to experiment with Indian instruments, rhythms, and melodies. This cut could be the soundtrack to a flower-power dance in the park or an incense-laced gathering around a hookah beneath posters and black lights.

Tracklist:

A1 No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed 2:58
A2 Inside Of Him 4:27
A3 The Klan 4:31
A4 Sugarplums 2:54
A5 Don't Listen To Me 4:25
B1 From The Prison 3:40
B2 Maggie's Farm 4:35
B3 Somethin' Else Again 7:26
B4 New City 2:50
B5 Run, Shaker Life 5:45


Richie Havens - Something Else Again
(320 kbps, cover art included)

Fela Kuti - Shuffering And Shmiling (1977)

After the 1977 police attack on Fela's Kalakuta Republic, where his mother and about 80 members of his entourage and band were injured and arrested, he set out to light a fire underneath the authority figures and his various other enemies that were causing him and, in his eyes, the people of Nigeria to suffer in the form of harassment, oppression, and economic devastation.

"Shuffering and Shmiling" is one of those comments. While continuing along in his tradition of savvy instrumental innovation, "Shuffering and Shmiling" plays out with the same intensity and voracious soloing that mark other great Africa 70 performances like "Confusion", "Gentleman", and "No Agreement"; but the point of departure here is the outward remarks he makes on a touchy topic: religion. Fela had become increasingly concerned about the growing influence of non-traditional religions fracturing African countries. He believed that these divisions had created a population unable to unify and stand up for themselves and instead had them living in conditions that forced "them go pack themselves in like sardine (into a bus): Suffering and smiling," and without trying to change things he says they "Suffer suffer for world/Enjoy for heaven."

"Shuffering and Shmiling" is another highly recommended Fela Kuti and Africa 70 release.               
Tracklist:

"Shuffering and Shmiling (Vocal)" - 12:12

"Shuffering and Shmiling (Instrumental)" - 9:47

Fela Kuti - Shuffering And Shmiling (1977)
(192 kbps, cover art included)

Claude Lanzmann died at 92. - "Der Letzte der Ungerechten"

Claude Lanzmann, the French director behind the landmark nine-and-a-half-hour Holocaust documentary Shoah, has died yesterday at 92.

Lanzmann – who fought with the French resistance aged 17 – will be best remembered for Shoah (1985), one of the most important documentary features of all time and a significant moment in cinema history.
The director's magnum opus is over nine hours in length and was 11 years in the making, composed entirely of new interviews with survivors of the Nazi Holocaust during the Second World War.

Lanzmann believed that the process of recycling contemporary newsreel footage of Germany's extermination camps only served to erode our understanding of the true significance of what went on behind their walls.
In re-running old clips or seeking to dramatise the Final Solution in fiction, we were remiss in our duty to remember, he believed.

Doing so safely confined the horrors of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belsen, Treblinka and the rest to the annals of history, the first step on the road to forgetting the worst atrocity in human history and increasing the likelihood of our repeating it in the future.

Instead, Lanzmann undertook the enormous task of interviewing as many survivors of the camps as he could – with no exposition or explanation, just straight talking head recitals of their memories of what they endured, a necessarily gruelling and unflinching business.
His elderly subjects include Abraham Bomba, a barber living in Israel who breaks down in tears as he recalls shaving the heads of Jewish women destined for the gas chamber, shaking with sorrow as he relives the moment a woman he knew sat in the chair before him and sought reassurance that everything would be OK.

Others include Sonderkommando Mordechai Podchlebnik, escapee Rudolf Vrba, train driver Henryk Gawkowski and Szymon Srebrnik, a 13-year-old boy soprano forced to sing for the Nazis as he rowed down the Ner River near Chelmno in Poland, tasked with dumping sacks of bones and ashes into the water.

Persistent and intrepid, Mr Lanzmann also worked hard to track down former members of the SS to interview, although securing their co-operation was far tougher. 
What is so devastating in Shoah is the details: Nazi Corporal Franz Suchomel – one of the few he is able to speak to, with the aid of a concealed mic – admits making naked Jewish prisoners destined for extermination queue outside in winter temperatures of -20C, asking camp barbers to take their time in sheering their hair so as to ensure they suffered more.
In making it, Lanzmann achieved the impossible, recording oral testimonies that would otherwise have been lost to reveal to us the true legacy of the atrocity. Lanzmann's film is a gruelling experience but an essential one.

Claude Lanzmann and Benjamin Murmelstein, Rome, 1975; from Lanzmann’s film The Last of the Unjust

“Le Dernier des Injustes” (“The Last of the Unjust”) was a devastating 2013 film about betrayal, complicity and survival centered on the figure of Rabbi Benjamin Murmelstein, who had been on the governing body at the Germans’ “show-camp” of Theresienstadt. Murmelstein was an "Ältester" (council elder) of the Judenrat in the Theresienstadt concentration camp after 1943. He was the only "Judenältester" to survive the Holocaust and has been credited with saving the lives of thousands of Jews by assisting in their emigration, while also being accused of being a Nazi collaborator.

Here´s the ebook "The Last Of The Unjust" in German language.

Claude Lanzmann - Der Letzte der Ungerechten
(ebook)

King Tubby - Explosive Dub

Born January 28th 1941, King Tubby (Brad Osborne) is known primarily for his influence on the development of dub in the 1960s.
In the 1950s, King Tubby's musical career began with the sound systems, set up on the streets of Kingston and playing dance music for the people. As a radio repairman, Tubby soon became quite helpful at most of the sound systems around.
Tubby began working with Duke Reid in 1968. At Treasure Isle, a studio, Tubby began making remixes of hit songs, usually by simply removing the vocals. In time, Tubby (and others) began shifting the emphasis in the instrumentals, adding sounds and removing others and adding various special effects, like echoes. By 1971 , Tubby's soundsystem was one of the most popular in Kingston and he decided to open a studio of his own. His remixes soon proved enormously popular, and he became one of the biggest celebrities in Jamaica.

During the 1970s, Tubby's work in the studio gave rise to modern dub music. He had a long string of hit songs, and worked as a producer for some of Jamaica's most popular artists, including Lee Perry, Bunny Lee, Augustus Pablo and Yabby You. In 1973, he began recording vocals to put along the instrumentals. By the later part of the decade though, King Tubby had mostly retired from music, still occasionally recording remixes and tutoring a new generation of artists, including King Jammy and Scientist. In the 1980s, he focused on production for Anthony Red Rose, Sugar Minott and other popular musicians.

He was shot and killed by unknown persons, probably in a robbery attempt, in 1989, February 06th."

"Explosive Dub" is a collection of tracks originally appeared on Brad Osbourne's New York based Clocktower label in the late 70s, many of which were played as dub plates by the sound systems of these days.


Tracklist:

Soundtrack Dub
Easy Skanking Dub
Burning Dub
Daylight Dub
Stepping Dub
Just A Man Dub
Send Me Dub
In Love Dub
Perfidia Dub
Reggae Dub
Babylon Dub
Love Me With Your Heart Dub
Music Field Dub
So Fine Dub
True Dub
Freedom Dub
Today Dub
No One Dub
Good Man Dub

King Tubby - Explosive Dub

Eulenspygel - Ausschuss (1972)

Eulenspygel was one of the many German bands in the early '70s who combined rock with theater and politics, though unfortunately for the English listener, the lyrics to this are all in German. The music, though, is enough to keep it interesting, as the group blends classic and progressive rock styles with a lot of other stuff thrown in.

On this, their second album from 1972, Eulenspygel expands their range of instruments from the first record, confusingly called "Eulenspygel 2".  The album was recorded at Apple Studios on April, 4th to 8th 1972. It features razor sharp lyrics criticizing the shadowy sides of German society in the early 70's. The first track is the sidelong opus "Abfall," which is about an orphan, with many different sections segued together and lengthy instrumental parts featuring a guitar, keyboard, and horn section. This is the strongest piece on the disc, but the shorter tracks from side two of the original album are still very good. These are varied but mostly up-tempo rockers with many psychedelic and progressive flourishes. The CD also includes seven bonus tracks, either from television appearances in 1972 or some demos from 1973 and 1974, most of which have good sound quality and are similar to the album's material, though with a slightly lighter atmosphere.

On "Ausschuss", Eulenspygel continue with their left wing lyrics which have become increasingly demanding and critical of society. There is a side long suite on this their second album about orphans. Lyrics are still in German and the band certainly didn't just preach without practising their philosophies as they would visit orphanages and youth prisons which gave all the band members that emotional connection to the subject matter.

Tracklist:

1	Abfall	22:17
2	Menschenmacher	2:57
3	Teufelskreis	6:50
4	Herzliches Beileid	2:55
5	Der Fremde	5:45
6	Untertanenfabrik	3:55
	Bonus-Tracks:
7	Sechs Uhr aufstehen	2:08
8	Junge, was willste draußen	2:42
9	Mich kotzt hier alles an	2:18
10	Schlafstadt	3:56
11	Kinderlied	4:28
12	Freut Euch, Kinder	2:51
13	Zusammenstehen	6:22

Eulenspygel - Ausschuss (1972)
(256 kbps, cover art included)

Tom Robinson Band - Up Against The Wall (Single, 1978)

 .

Tracks:
A Up Against the Wall
B I'm All Right Jack

"Up Against The Wall" was the great third single from the Tom Robinson Band, released in 1978. This storming stuff from a wonderful band is still actual more than 30 years after it´s release. Tom Robinson jettisonned his band Cafe Society after he attended a Sex Pistols gig and got to work on a band that what would become the overtly political T.R.B.

Tom Robinson began gigging in London in 1976. By the end of the year, he had decided to put together a permanent band. Robinson's old friend, guitarist Danny Kustow, was the first in the permanent lineup. They ran small ads in the music papers looking for a bass player and drummer. Robinson found drummer Brian "Dolphin" Taylor. The search for a bass player continued, until Mark Ambler auditioned. Some days later, Ambler mentioned he also played keyboards; he had spent many years studying piano with veteran jazz musician, Stan Tracey. After listening to Ambler playing his Hammond organ Robinson realised he would have to be the bass player himself.
The band hit the club scene right in the middle of London's punk explosion. Their live shows got favourable reviews, and soon A&R men were attending many of their gigs.
EMI Records signed TRB. Robinson later described this period, saying "Within nine months we'd made the transition from signing on at Medina Road dole office to Top Of The Pops, Radio One, EMI Records and the giddy heights of the front cover of the New Musical Express".
TRB made leaflets and fliers about their political views and sent them to everyone who attended their gigs, they gave away badges and made up T shirts emblazoned with the band's logo and they appeared regularly at Rock Against Racism concerts.

"2-4-6-8 Motorway" was their first single, released in late 1977. It got into the top five of the UK singles charts, staying there for over a month. It was followed almost immediately by their next record, a four song EP called "Rising Free" which was recorded live at London's Lyceum Theatre in November 1977. It contained the songs "Glad to Be Gay", "Right On Sister", "Don't Take No for an Answer", and "Martin". The EP reached #18 in the UK singles charts.
In early 1978, TRB recorded their debut album, "Power in the Darkness". The UK version of the LP contained all new songs, but in the US (on the Harvest label), the "2-4-6-8 Motorway" single and "Rising Free" record were combined for a six-track bonus EP that made the album almost a double.
"Power in the Darkness" reached number 4 in the UK album charts and won the band a gold record, and TRB were voted "Best New Band" and "Best London Band" for the year 1977 by listeners at the Capital Radio Music Awards. Mark Ambler left the band after recording the album. Session pianist Nick Plytas was drafted in as a temporary replacement, and played with TRB at a major Anti Nazi League rally in London's Victoria Park early that year.
Ian Parker joined as a permanent replacement for Ambler. TRB then went to Rockfield Studios in Wales to record their next album, "TRB Two". Chris Thomas who had produced their first album, was also at the control deck for their second album, to start off with. Dolphin Taylor suggested Todd Rundgren should replace Thomas. After not being able to decide which tracks should appear on the LP, the band eventually agreed to let Rundgren choose. However, he picked two of the songs Dolphin particularly disliked, and Taylor decided that he would leave rather than play on the tracks. A day later he had calmed down somewhat and offered to return, but Robinson refused, and Preston Heyman was recruited as an emergency stand-in. His picture was included on the album cover, but there was never any intention for him to join the band permanently. Taylor's eventual replacement was Charlie Morgan who had played for Kate Bush, and went on to drum for Elton John for a further fifteen years.
To support the album's release, the band went on tour, but by this point the TRB's infighting had taken its toll. When Kustow decided to quit in 1979 that was the end of TRB.
In 1989, Robinson, Kustow and Ambler put together a reunion tour and played sold out shows at the Marquee in London and went on for the best part of a year before splitting one final time.

Tom Robinson Band - Up Against The Wall (Single, 1978)
(192 kbps, cover art included)