RECORDS

RECORDS

JOHN MCLAUGHLIN - DEVOTION - DOUGLAS 4

TONY WILLIAMS LIFETIME -TURN IT OVER - POLYDOR 24-4021

This is the real shit.

John McLaughlin plays guitar with real self-assurance because he is a guitarist, not some half-assed replica thereof. Tony Williams is, perhaps, the greatest drummer presently tromping the planet. Larry Young must surely be the most cosmic organist in the universe. Jack Bruce and Buddy Miles are, at the very least, pop stars supreme who, on these records, become true musicians. Billy Rich does all right on the McLaughlin record’s basswork, as well.

Williams’ genius comes as no surprise to those of us who’ve watched the Miles Davis group and the later formation of the Lifetime into the unique organism that it is. At 23 or 24, Williams plays with a calm frenzy, a wizard devotion to his own music that lays it out there with strength and self-assurance.

That self-assured stance is the most important thing about these records; both of them have generous measures of confidence and strength, not in any bogus, egotistical sense but in the sense of really doing what one really knows how to do.

Certainly the Tony Williams album (Bruce, Williams, McLaughlin, Young) is the more frantic of the two. More stellar, inter-stellar, trans-stellar. Williams makes it go but the flash of Young and McLaughlin is where it all really begins to make more than mundane sense.

The two Chic Corea compositions that begin the album, “To Whom It May Concern — Them” and “To Whom It May Concern — Us” are relatable translations of Corea’s astounding work. More in a rock vein than Corea’s pleasant but chilling Is (Solid State) they are stronger here, with Williams providing most of the disparate sense of un-control. Not uncontrol but. un-control if you can relate to where that’s going.

You have to be able to relate to this music from remembrances of live performances, past and present, especially on Turn It Over. Not that Turn It Over isn’t as enthralling andmystically satisfying as Devotion but, as with Emergency (the first Lifetime album), the recording here doesn’t quite capture the strength that the group has live.

And this is live music, this is Life Music. Larry Young is the most exciting musician here, especially as he is featured with the Lifetime. On “Once I Loved” he rises to a Sun Ra pitch, just him; and Tony’s chanting.

The glimpses one gets of McLaughlin on Turn It Over are totally fulfilled with Devotion. The title composition is soothing, fulfilling, astral and nearly perfect. Like “Vuelta Abajo” on the Williams’ record, this is a McLaughlin/Young feature all the way through. Like Sun Ra’s music taken to another plane, this is the whole force of the universe brought to bear on plastic.

It’s the title cut that has me most enchanted. McLaughlin rips off chords that are whole chunks of the universe, a kind of “Star Trek” of music. This is music from the outer ozone and the inner void, music that is so intense to observer and participant alike, that one is immediately caught up in it. Larry Young’s keyboard here is more of the same. Space music, again, reminding me of Sun Ra, yet more technoligically up-to-date:

Devotion rocks more than Turn It Over perhaps, mainly due to the force of Buddy Miles’s percussion. Miles is at his best here, more than adequate and, whatever his deficiencies in some weird way he makes this record work. It might be that Tony is too strong a force, for his work seems to over-dominate the Lifetime album. Or maybe that’s just me, maybe that’s because Tony Williams is so astounding that I expect to be laid back by his energy.

But what can I tell you, really? What more is there to say than that both records possess energies of these men. What more?

This is the real shit.

Dave Marsh

BITCHES BREW - MILES DAVIS -COLUMBIA GP 26

Pharoah’s Dance; Bitches Brew; Spanish Key; John McLaughlin; Miles Runs the Voodoo Down; Sanctuary Miles Davis, trumpet; Wayne Shorter, soprano sax; Bennie Maupin, bass clarinet; John McLaughlin, electric guitar; Chick Corea, Joe Zawinul, Larry Young, electric piano; Harvey Brooks, fender bass; Dave Holland, bass; Lenny White, Jack DeJohnette, Charles Alias, drums; Jim Riley, percussion. ,

This music seems to inspire a reluctance to talk about it. To talk about it in any specific terms — all the reviews I’ve read so far illustrate how words fail the music. Even a veteran liner notes bullshiter like Ralph J. Gleason (I’ve no doubt that Gleason is sincere, here anyway, but almost all liner notes contain an element of bullshit, if only in the omission of even the most peripheral criticism) realizes the futility of describing any given moment of this music in his notes to the album. The music is a mind stretch and the exercise of conventional description is an embarassingly lame indulgence before the music’s power and strength and beauty (and uglyness and complexity and simplicity . . . ) ... the newness and why it works — the roots, the structure, the message. The music refuses to be itemized, like listing the components of an effect, so you can put your finger on a couple and say “yes this is what was felt and this is what was said.” Which is probably what makes it music. Possibly.

Miles is uncompromising in his progress (dropping albums along the way) though his surroundings seem to change faster than his personal style (but remember the two are interwoven and needn’t be taken apart). And that the singularly most impressive artifact to come from him since the In Europe album — appreciate the subjectivity of this premise — is also a best seller is weird and good. Good because it denotes that a large amount of people are coming around to him (which was inevitable) rather than vice versa, which would have been a loss (but it wouldn’t have happened anyway). Weird because it’s hard to imagine what the bizarre reasons are a lotta people may have for buying this record. It could be that a lot more people need a more complex beauty to accompany a more complex awareness. More likely, a lot more people are getting stoned and like to play sound games because they’re easier than word games. Cynicism is a hard mother to shake.

So listening to this record, I realize the difficulty, even the undesirability of translating reaction and involvement with the music into more or less straight forward written statements. But believing that the record should be written about — if only to make you aware of its availability — I’ll limp a little farther and give you an idea of some of the more obvious things waiting here for you.

Two of the major things that inform the direction of this music are an increased group effort and the use of electric amplification. Miles has gotten away from the long held jazz stance, has been away from it for quite a while, away from what John Cage called “a monologue accompanied by the incessant ticking of a metronome” - or words to that effect. Cage was being simple. There has always been group interaction in jazz, though sometimes it has been minimal. The point is that this interaction is currently being explored (created) to its fullest, its strongest and Miles concept of how to get it off the ground is unique. Like the expanded electric rhythm section. Within the rhythm section any of the instruments is free to lead or follow as long as it can co-operate with and respond to what is being created around it (Miles still works in the context of predetermined changes, though very loosely). There is still the idea of the soloist but he too is more responsible to the urgings of the rhythm section as well as vice-versa. The group thing. It’s very important to understand that so you can become a part of the group, letting your responses flow in and out of the music, determined by who you are, whatever that might be. So you too can become involved in the subtle interplay, the creation of feeling. Which just might be the most beautiful thing about music. You decide. All those immortal ESP classics are here: “I Couldn’t Get High,” “Homemade Shit,” and that terrifying existential masterpiece of Nihil-Rock, which destroyed the best minds of its generation, gave the Doors the idea that accounted for their brief flash-in-the-pan, and signalled the beginning of the disintegration of Western Civilization at the hands of the Jook Savages, “Nothing.” In this unforgettable five-minute suite of variations on that great original theme, Tuli’s “Volga Boatman” chorus speeds up into a cossack dance, moves higher into a shrieking atonal freakout, and culminates in a blaze of shorted-out amps with “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day . . . ?”

The essence of Miles’ approach, which for me has always been the distillation of pain into something beautiful and inspiring, remains the same (though everything else about it is different). John McLaughlin doesn’t have that anemic sound that seems almost de rigeur for jazz guitarists. An important thing for Miles to have him now (but his steady gig is with Tony Williams). These are all particulars. Suffice it to say that the music is vast.

Addendum: You get two records for the price of one.

Richard C. Walls

GOLDEN FILTH, THE FUGS -REPRISE 6396

The Fugs came spurting out of the East Village in 1965, a classic mixture of Beat poetry, Okie-Dada rock, and the Dionysian ecstacy of good old healthy frothing sex! Their ESP albums found more artless musical invention in absolutely primitive materials than hosts of solemn purists trying much harder, and in general they seemed the first glorious proof to the rule that you don’t have to be any great musician to make beautiful rock & roll — you just have to have the Spirit.

Their Reprise releases, unfortunately, found that holy dementia considerably palled and almost suffocated by slick overproduction, but this final album, a wild glossalalial group-grope recorded live at the Fillmore East, ought to wipe out all the bad memories and bring their career together to a whooprngly ecstatic climax.

Asalways, the Fug gift for outrageous juxtaposition insures that they hit all those wrong notes at the right time, and that kitchen sink fits right in there too, between Joan Crawford’s Tomato Orgy and those pruriently rhythmic underpinnings the strato-lingual Mr. Sanders terms “Skush-gush.”

The instrumental backup is the best they’ve had since the Virgin Forest album, which means that it cackles and barks along in a roiling barnyard cacophony. Roadhouse git-pickin’s, Albert Ayler saxophone squawks, punctual tuba farts and a panting french horn played by none other than Julius Watkins. And above it all them three horny urban hillbillies yodelling right along, mating Mamie Stover with the Lesbian Trolls, celebrating balcony bangs with the sunshine Slum Goddess, and alternately lamenting the inefficacy of “Suran Wrap” and the true chill of William Blake’s “loss of liberty.” It’s all here. Chaotic? You bet, but the Fugs had the literacy, the boundless exuberance, and the instinctive sense of style that made it all cohere. We’ll know a thousand bands that play their instruments better, but there’ll never be another quite like this one again. Sure was a joy to know you pinko-squack-tokers — grope on!

Lester Bangs

WORKINGMAN’S DEAD - THE GRATEFUL DEAD - WARNER BROS. WS1869

What this country needs is a good five-cent non-review. Or a committee to abolish critics. One may say, for example, that a record is bad if once on the turnstile it doesn’t play. Or, just as validly, one can say: “I don’t like such and such a group” or “That group is great, in my opinion”. The best kind of tribute (or alternatively, the worst kind of put-down) of a record, group or any other material which has spawned those parasites, critics, is a documentation of what goes down when the object of the ctiticism does its thing. First, you must know what the thing is that the record (in this instance) is trying to accomplish. A lot of so-called critics damn away, and at the same time are totally incognizant of the whole point of the record. Or, in other words, the critic must be an interpreter, letting the record speak for itself.

Narrowing the beam of focus from the general to the specific, we go from criticism in general to one particular album, one Workingman’s Dead, an anthology of human experience by the Grateful Dead.

One of the things that any record strives for, it is safe to say, is to be heard, and once heard, seduce the listeners’ ears sufficiently to induce them to get up off their asses and investigate further material that the group produces, be it concerts or other records. Workingman’s Dead has done this, selling more than any of their former records and now, consequently, making it impossible to find a seat at a Grateful Dead concert (if you can still feel like sitting). The weird thing is not, however, that the record is selling so well — come to think of it, that is pretty strange — but the broadness of the appeal the record has. Any Dead veteran knows that their range in age and class and race is limitless, but this record of theirs makes this more manifest by its wider sales. With many groups, the promoters keep in mind the age of the audiences the groups reach. With the Dead, however, you can be forty or sixteen; the point is are you a Grateful Dead freak or aren’t you?

Prior to this release, the fame of the group went by word of mouth, as the group absolutely abhorred any kind of hype. The result was the old-fashioned way of ‘Telling your friends”; you heard them one night when you were tripped-out or stoned or mellow, found it impossible to listen to any other group for months and dragged your friend to see them, converting him, too. It was like an underground religious society. But the conversion rested on seeing them in live concert; the paucity of their former record sales will testify to that. So the ranks of the Dead freaks did increase, but slowly.

This record has served as a'Vitamin B1 injection. The amount of fans they have is increasing mitotically, like goddamned cells. The songs on the record, however, are not really new. The album consists of songs that veteran Dead freaks had been hearing for months at live gigs, and were pissed off at the Dead for not having formerly recorded. These are especially “Uncle John’s Band”, “Dire-Wolf”, “Cumberland Blues”, “Easy Wind” and “Casey Jones” (or “Casey’s Dope”), all written by the Dead and all very lively tunes, which seem to make people get up and dance, like they do at the Dead’s live gigs. In fact, most of the album is lively, except for two cuts, which relax you the way city people find it hard to relax: “High Time” and “Black Peter”, both done in the colors of late summer. “New Speed-way Boogie”, which assimilates, verging on parody, a Rolling Stones sound, is the band’s statement about Altamont. Except for that cut, they sound like nobody but the Grateful Dead, as usual. It is always hard — in fact impossible — to verbally give the feeling of a specific music. Words are one form and mus;c another. It is certainly impossible with the Dead, whose sound is reminiscent of almost every kind of music every made — a«jwhere, and so smacks of universality. One thing is noticeable, and that is the fact that their tunes stay with you; you will probably find yourself humming them on the street, and smiling as you do so. That’s another thing the record does, after playing it at parties, for friends, for myself. It clears the air; people gradually stop talking, start listening, no matter how often they’ve heard it. it’s an up. Not for everyone, but for more tastes than you’d expect one album to satisfy .

If you don’t have the album, don’t buy it. Have someone who does own it play it for you — if he doesn’t sit you down and make you listen first. Then you won’t have to be told to get it. Then go out and see them live. THEN you’ll go out and get their earlier records, and be willing to give them the opportunity of getting acquainted with you, of savoring them more deeply than the other records you own.

This is not an order; it’s a request from an old Dead freak who has spread the word and now has many Grateful Dead buddies as a result; one who wants everyone to be happy, for purely selfish reasons.

Alice Polesky

JOE COCKER - MAD DOGS & ENGLISHMEN - A&M SP 6002

Well . . . SHIT! They were here and they were there and now as a group they’re gone and you aint gonna hear them no more (except on this album) but this album doesn’t quite convey the mindfuck that the Mad Dogs & Englishmen were to us working out their set for the first time in Detroit. (See CREEM Vol. 2, No. 12 for the historical shit). This deluxe 2 record set really drags as a live, live, live performance. The entire visual aspect of all those people wandering around on stage — strings being cosmically pulled by Cocker and Russell (and some wandering without strings) — is completely missing and sorely missed. The “groovy” fold-out jacket with all the pretty pictures and paintings doesn’t fill the void. They ought to package the film of the tour with the album. But I guess I’m being overly critical of an incredible array of talent. Listening to Mad Dogs & Englishmen for the third or fourth time I can’t help digging the shit out of it. You only have an experience like their live performance once in a great while and you can listen to this album every day.

Each time I listen to Mad Dogs I think that it could have been done on 2 sides, but each time I think that something different should have been cut out. So maybe it needed four sides after all. “Bird on the Wire” on side one seems a little long just about the time it ends. But side two is out-a-site in its entirety, (“Feelin’ Alright”, “Superstar” and “Let’s Go Get Stoned”). Some of the magic is missing from “Stoned” ’till Cocker starts rapping about “moondust” and the Englishmen & Mad Dogs and the audience seem to get a little more stoned.

That Cocker has good taste in the songs he picks has been said before, but it’s interesting to note that except for the multiple appearances of Leon Russell (twice with Bonnie Bramlett and once alone) each song was written by a different author. And none but the greatest for Joe. According to one of the introductions on side three Dylan was in the Fillmore East audience and “Girl From the North Country” was done “because we love him — that’s why” and l don’t doubt that they love Lennon-McCartney, Jagger-Richard, Leonard Cohen, Oti§ Redding, Dave Mason, and more. Till1 entire album is an example of monster talent paying tribute to monster talent. If this review is now sounding a lot more like praising Caesar then it did at the beginning it’s ’cause I’m listening to the album for the sixth or seventh time and I’m starting to visualize all those people jamming on stage. Besides I’ve got 200 pictures of them to look at from my files and that helps.

Side four is an abbreviated “Joe Cocker’s Greatest Hits” four cut encore. (“She Came in Thru the Bathroom Window”, “Space Captain”, “The Letter”, and “Delta Lady”). I can’t say anything bad about those four and too many people have said all the good things about them that can be said so I’ll leave ’em alone.

Which brings me to the question I’ve had all day — What are you going to do next Joe? Leon? Chris? Don?Carl?Jim?Chuck?Sandy? Bobby?Jim?Bobby?Rita? Claudia? Dan iel?Donna?Pamela? Matthew? Donna?Nicole?Bobby? Canina?

Ric Siegel

FUNKADELIC - FUNKADELIC -WESTBOUND 2000

How do you write about a something when you don’t know quite what it is? That’s the problem I had when I first heard this record. Undoubtedly, this is what critics of ten years ago felt when they were confronted by those first records by Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane. Whatever this is, I know I like it, and that’s all that counts.

In light of most of the present shit that passes for music these days, Funkadelic is a welcome ray of sunlight. Everything flies around here, through your ears, off the walls, and everywhere else sound can travel. It’s hard to tell if this is for real, but since it sits on the turntable, and I’m listening to it through my speakers, I’m inclined to think it is.

Their name definitely fits; they are Funkadelic, funky, and a lot of other things. If Sun-Ra were playing rock and roll, what would he sound like? Listen to Funkadelic. This record is a cross between Their Satanic Majesties Request, The Best of Sly and The Family Stone, with a little Sun-Ra spirit/influence thrown in for good measure.

The first two songs, “Mommy, what’s a Funkadelic?”, and “I Bet You”, follow the description of space-rock to the bone. On “Mommy”, there’s hardly any singing, just a lot of funny rapping. Like the opening lines: “If you will suck my soul, I will lick your funky emotions.” It goes on for another nine minutes or so like that; lots of rapping with music thrown in, voices echoing, and lots of fun. This track, for the dialogue alone, is worth the price of the record.

But that isn’t all, there’s more to

come. 4‘I Bet You”, along with “Mommy”, are the most impressive tunes on the first side. The latter is the six minute version of the single released last summer. Here, there is more feedback, with chanting (“bet you never lose my love” over and over) taking up most of the song.

The last two songs on this side are sort of a letdown after listening to the first two. “Music For My Mother” starts off as good and funky as the previous two, but slows down in the middle. Too bad. The last track on side one, “I Got A Thing, You Got A Thing, Everybody’s Got A Thing”, (really!!) is almost too easy to miss. That’s probably why it’s got a name like that.

Side two’s first track, “Good Old Music” is the minor cut on this side. It’s nice for background, though.

“Qualify and Satisfy” is my favorite song on the album. It’s mostly an instrumental with some brief vocals in the beginning. Here, you can hear Funkadelic play their instruments, and they can play! “Qualify” is a statement of the band’s versatility, and especially the prowess of their two guitarists, Ed Hazel and Tawl Ross, who are as good as any musicians in the current roster of supergroups.

If ‘^Qualify and Satisfy” is representative of the group’s musicianship, “What Is Soul”, the records last track, is a statement of the group’s humor. This is the funniest song on the record. Lyrics like “Soul is a joint rolled in toilet paper” abound amid flying sounds and great guitar playing.

This first Funkadelic record is amazing. It just may go down as one the the year’s best.

Geoffrey Jacques

JOHN BARLEYCORN MUST DIE -TRAFFIC - UNITED ARTISTS UAS 5504

Glad; Freedom Rider; Empty Pages; Stranger To Himself; John Barleycorn; Every Mother’s Son

Steve Winwood, organ, piano, percussion, bass guitar, electric piano, acoustic guitar, vocals; Chris Wood, sax, flute, electric sax, percussion, organ; Jim Capaldi, drums, percussion, tambourine, vocals

This is a good record, a pleasant record and I should say that up front because there isn’t too much else to say for it. It’s very mild. No striking direction, but entertaining, the energy level a bit low but sustained, the artistry well-developed but not particularly imaginative . . . and I doubt if the music will change you in any way ( which is probably good news for some.)

The problem here is that I feel compelled to assess this record in the context of other new sounds that have been reaching me lately — like Bitches Brew, Pharoah's Jewels of Thought and the new Pink Floyd record to name a few of the high points — as well as a half dozen other new records which demand a certain gratifying level of involvement and which make putting John Barleycorn on the turntable a little like turning on the tube.

So it suffers in comparison. But it ain’t bad. The melodies are nice (that sounds so sarcastic, but they are, really). The arrangements (if the word can apply) are sometimes excellent and show a lot of care; “Glad” taken as a whole, is beautifully put together.

The lyrics are secondary to the music, which is fine because they’re not very heavy . And Winwood’s vocal style, though appealing and occasionally moving (he sounds like he’s transcending some deep depression), tends to obscure certain words. It sounds somewhat like malted milk, you know, thick-but not in the British sense of the word. Sounds like his tongue’s coated.

Actually, Winwood is the mam talent here, responsible for all the instruments on “Stranger” and all but the drums on “Mother’s”. Wood’s woodwinds are used to fill out the sound but he isn’t given enough room to really develop any ideas or bare his soul or whatever he may be capable of doing. On parts of his “Glad” solo his electric sax sounds remarkably dexterous. And his flute playing is always dexterous.

See, 1 told you it was good — good for when everybody’s too high to be critical (i.e. demanding), when you want something to move to but you really don’t want to go anywhere. Tight, lyrical and funny. And nothing to write home about. Richard C. Walls

DAVID PEEL & THE LOWER EAST SIDE - THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION - ELEKTRA EKS 74069

David Peel is what is commonly referred to as a streetsinger. That is, he is that rare breed of animal that takes his craft out into the streets and joyously shares it with any and all passerbys. In a time of commercial exploitation, such people are regarded with much suspicion (“everybody knows you can’t get something for nothing”) and little respect (“look at that idiot making a fool out of himself”). Oddities perhaps, but that’s David Peel for you.

Peel’s first album, Have A Marijuana (Elektra EKS-74032), was recorded, quite appropriately, on the streets of New York. It was basically a concept album, the subject matter of the songs (dope, sex, cheap thrills) taking precedence over the performers (Peel & his motley crew). Although entertaining, exuberant and tons of fun one couldn’t help but wonder how an album like this could conceivably be followed up. After all, concept products are more often than mot one-shot amusements and rarely possess the power to sustain themselves.

His latest release, The American Revolution. instantly dispelled any fears I might have had concerning Peel and his little friends. The new album is the same sort of illiterate celebration as the first, except that the emphasis (in my mind, at least) has shifted away from the concept and now rests securely on the dapper Mr. Peel himself.

David Peel has come to typify all those things we associate with “street people”. He’s dirty, raunchy, loud and pushy, at times incoherent, and tends to see things in simple black and white terms. Yet in dealing with David Peel ail these characteristics must be seen in positive terms. His lack of education

(refinement) has resulted in a blunt and sometimes illiterate approach; but while a good many of us are inclined to over-intellectualize, this approach is forceful and crudely effective. A comparison between the Fugs and Peel is frequently made, but this quickly boils down to the intellectual and the non-intellectual, a case of day and night. You’ll never catch Gregory Corso appearing on a David Peel record.

Peel’s style mirrors this blunt conception. He sings in a wonderfully boisterous manner, unaffected by any sense of rhythm or cadence; his phrasing is simply wretched. Brooklyn asserts itself so heavily on his accent that at times he sounds like a demented parody of himself. His lyrics and music fall into this same mold. The lyrics, often inaneiy simple, are designed that way on purpose. They are based on the repetition of a simple line or phrase (“We are from the Lower East Side/We don’t give a damn if we live or die”), put together so that even the most dull-witted can follow right along. This is an important facet of Peel’s art. The audience plays an integral role in his music, so he gives them something that they can easily grasp and be part of. This is also true of his music. It is usually based on an uncomplicated rock riff that we have all heard a million times at least, something that we can instantly relate to. We all become part of the band, and a David Peel performance takes on the atmosphere of a revolutionary hootenanny.

For The American Revolution Peel has enlisted the support of some electric sidemen, and my first reaction was to think that he had been musically co-opted. Well, I was wrong. The guitars are played in that same idiotic manner, it’s just that they are electric this time around. The organ, drums, bass and saxaphone are there only for rhythmical support, and don’t mess things up by doing anything too complicated. Peel is still the leader of the pack.

The subject matter of this album may be viewed as an extension of the first. Peel covers a lot of revolutionary ground; from dope smoking to chicks to cops to the draft to God, all part of life on the killer Lower East Side. Yet Peel adds that necessary ingredient so long missing in the revolutionary formula — humor. And if indeed the revolution has finally learned how to laugh at itself, it must be viewed as a healthy sign.

Abbie Hoffman was supposed to do a guest spot on this record, but it hardly matters now because he wasn’t missed. The party was fine without him. Once again David Peel has presented us with a crudely enchanting picture of his world, as seen from the streets, perhaps the last bastians of sanity. As usual, the trip has been an enjoyable one. More power to David Peel! Ben Edmonds

Ben Edmonds

SPIRITS KNOWN AND UNKNOWN -LEON THOMAS - FLYING DUTCHMAN FDS 115

Thomas, vocals, percussion; Lonnie L. Smith, Jr., piano; James Spaulding, alto sax, flute; Pharoah Sanders, (on “Malcolm’s Gone” only); Richard Davis, Cecil McBee, basses; Roy Haynes, drums; Richard Landrum, bongos

THE GIANT IS AWAKENED -HORACE TAPSCOTT QUINTET -FLYING DUTCHMAN FDS 107 Tapscott, piano; Black Arthur Blythe, alto sax; David Bryant, Walter Savage, Jr., basses; Everett Brown, Jr., drums.

Leon Thomas’ record isn’t, for me, what it appears to be. The packaging, the liner notes all emphasize the newness of his approach and his desire to incorporate voice (his) into the new music. Which is a very small part of this record. Mostly, Leon Thomas is a blues and ballad jazz singer with flawless phrasing, a strong mellow voice and a scatting technique he uses sparingly (with taste, if you can dig that.) The scat is what’s new, a unique sound, which, when laid down at an up-tempo, has as it’s propulsion feeling rather than the chord changes — which is how it relates to the new music.

“Plan” (from Pharoah Sanders’ Karma) is a song of spiritual peace which, as we stare down the gun barrel, seems hopelessly sweet. But it feels right and we’ve got to have it. “Damn Nam” is a protest song in the form of a rousing blues — this feels right too and Thomas’ Joe-Williams-type-approach is perfect. “Malcolm’s Gone” is very heavy, a suspended time tribute which benefits greatly from Sanders’ volcanic tenor. “One” is an up-tempo Thomas original, the best setting for his scatting on the record. Like just coming out of bebop into something new, not entirely or even mostly new yet (not entirely or even mostly a new creation, for what that may mean to you). His is fantastic and in a more imaginative setting it could probably be startling.

Not much left. “Rain” is a straight ballad and “Father” is a vocal version of the Horace Silver hit. The instrumental version is better — if you don’t admire your father this rendition can be a little flat. “Echoes” is a good vehicle for the yodel.

Added bonuses are James Spaulding’s brief solos on “One” and “Nam” and Roy Haynes’ drumming throughout.

Tapscott’s debut album is a collection of three originals by the pianist and one by altoist Blythe (“Fats”), all consistently interesting. Though Tapscott’s ideas are explorative and the playing of the group free and imaginative, the music is easy to get into — mainly bacause each song has a basic riff which is sustained through the solos. The results are “free” solos complimented by a strong rhythm thrust and a feeling of drama and tension through repetition.

“Fats” and “Nigers” are very Monkish themes but Tapscott’s playing is closer to Andrew Hill’s than Monk’s. (These points of reference are used by me to describe (advertise) the music and not to discredit in any way Tapscott’s creativity). Blythe has a good post-Trane sound, a full sound that intertwines with Tapscott’s percussive playing.

I could never understand having two bassists, probably because I could never afford that kind of stereo equipment.

The liner notes are hot - black and proud and right — but you could get the impression that the group is going to turn your head completely around, hitting you with something completely new, instead of being right in the flow of something that started a long time ago and isn’t going to stop.

Although is is becoming less and less meaningful to talk about this music, it seems that when one does talk about it the trend, as evidence by these two albums, is to talk of a new spirit and of the music as a force (a result and a beginning) of a newconsciousness. Nothing is that simple. And the music on these two particular records ain’t that far-out.

Richard C. Walls

THE WHO - ANYWAY ANYHOW ANYWHERE - DECCA SINGLE

It was the spring of 1965. The Top 40 still ruled, standard fare was dreck like Len Barry’s “One Two Three,” and rock’s most adventurous statement yet was probably something like “I Feel Fine” by the Beatles. Suddenly the radio was blitzed for a few brief moments with an incredible explosion of electronic thunder — “Who in the world is that?” — and as suddenly a classic song, probably the very first of its kind, dropped from sight. The world just wasn’t ready for this kind of intensity and abstraction yet. But “Anyway Anyhow Anywhere” remains one of the Who’s supreme accomplishments, as powerful as the original “My Generation” or anything on the live album, and it deserves resurrection from the Decca boneyard today.

It opens with a great throbbing chord and a straight-ahead progression that is the bulwark of a power-anthem for an emerging youthful consciousness, the reverse of the stuttering misanthropy of “My Generation”: “I can go anyway — way I choose! I can live anyhow — to win or to lose! I can go anywhere for something new — Anyway anyhow anywhere I choose!” Suddenly Keith brakes it and redirects the energy with some vicious snare-raps that change the tempo. Enter sharp, terse piano (Nicky Hopkins?) and everything gets faster and tauter as Daltry sings “Nothing gets in my way, not even locked doors, don’t follow the lines that been laid before,” ending in a drawn-out vocal note that swells until it seeins to engulf the whole ensemble and signals the song’s second change‘ into the suspended (or all-rhythmic) tempo of an electronic eruption featuring high-pitched telegraphic guitar pulsations (an ironic S.O.S.?) over a crashing, wailing sea of beautiful noise that sounds like the soundtrack of a futuristic war. It’s one of the most stunningly effective pieces of experimental electronic rock ever recorded, a pioneer essay in the driving, precisely distorted style which the Yardbirds carried on in pieces like “I’m a Man” and “Shapes of Things,” and which probably found its ultimate exploration in the Velvet Underground’s great “Sister Ray.”

One of the most amazing things about “Anyway Anyhow Anywhere” is how it says so much, running through two changes of tempo and repeating them, so concisely. The entire cataclysm lasts only 2:35 - one of the most brilliant concentrations of power and energy in memory. This record has beers out (or out" of print) for five years, and it still gives me chills every time I hear it. It was so far ahead of

its time when it was released that it sank quickly into obscurity, but it is a crime that now when the listening audience has caught up with the Who, we should be denied it while Decca placates us with slapdash collections like The Who On Tour. I nominate “Anyway Anyhow Anywhere” for the next Who single, and if there are any more like this lying around in the can (how about the original version of “Substitute”, too?), maybe they can release that album they talked about once called The Who’s Greatest Flops.

It just might be the best record they ever made.

Lester Bangs

GIMME SHELTER - MERRY CLAYTON - ODE ’70

Merry Clayton, they say, is one of the voices. Sang with the Stones, she did and very well too. Toured with Ray Charles and sang for Lou Adler. And sang for Cocker and Leon and God knows who else.

And now she has this single out called “Gimme Shelter” and the first time you hear it, it’s a disappointment. When she sang the tune on the Stones album, she was a wailer — like, “it’s just a shar-ar-ar d’away-y-y” and on her own she’s a lot lower and less waily and you think that she falls flat til you listen again.

I heard it the second time very loud and it damn near pushed me right through a wall. Merry Clayton must have lungs like a glassblower. She just' pushes and pushes with the grumbling bullwhip voice and the backing just pounds away behind her as if everybody in the world was there and most of them that count probably were. '

Listen to this record and buy it.

Ice Alexanovich.

ALL RIGHT NOW - FREE -A&M-1206

This is exactly the kind of insidious tripe that it’s so hard to defend one’s self against. Free manage to promulgate (and get away with, AM and FM) a song so obvious that perhaps our beknighted disc jockeys and such can't help but play it. On the other hand, the bore and excess of such flabby British jams is exactly what most needs to be stomped out; extremism in the pursuit of heavy is an excretive vice.

This ain’t even the definitive version of the song; someone will cover it in six months or a year and really blow our minds. And,.make no mistake, the idea expressed here (however lamely) is a good one. No element of creativity involved, you understand, no element of anything — a lead singer with an imitative British-imitation voice and a lead guitarist who’s putting his fingers in all the right places at all the right times. (And could bore you to death in the process.)

But fuck man, what we need is the unexpected. Despite its harpy like charms, this one just won’t do. And if you can’t get it out of your mind, that don't mean it’s good. Like 1 said, just insidious and overplayed. (If you hear “Strangers in the Night” five times a j day, you just might achieve the same effect, repetitively speaking.)

C. K. Hopper