Saturday, May 30, 2020

THE LOUNGE LIZARDS – The Lounge Lizards (Editions EG – EGS 108/LP-1981)




Label: Editions EG ‎– EGS 108
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: US Released: 1981
Style: Avant-garde Jazz, No Wave, Free Improvisation
Recorded at CBS Recording Studios in New York on July 21-22, 28-29 1980.
Mixed at CBS Recording Studios in New York on August 6, 14-15 1980.
Design – Peter Saville
Photography By – Fran Pelzman
Engineer – Frank Laico, Ted Brosman
Recorded By – Teo Macero
Mastered By – Gc
Mixed By – Don Puluse
Producer – Teo Macero
Pressed By – Hub-Servall Record Mfg. Corp.
Matrix / Runout (Runout area side A Var.1): ESG - 108 - A STERLING HuB
Matrix / Runout (Runout area side B Var.1): ESG - 108 - B STERLING Gc HuBre

side1:
A1 - Incident on South Street   (John Lurie) .............................................................. 3:21
A2 - Harlem Nocturne   (Earle Hagen) ...................................................................... 2:04
A3 - Do The Wrong Thing   (John Lurie / Steve Piccolo) .......................................... 2:40
A4 - Au Contraire Arto   (John Lurie) ......................................................................... 3:22
A5 - Well You Needn't   (Thelonious Monk) .............................................................. 1:55
A6 - Ballad   (John Lurie) .......................................................................................... 3:25
A7 - Wangling   (John Lurie) ......................................................................................2:58

side2:
B1 - Conquest of Rar   (John Lurie / Evan Lurie/ Anton Fier) ................................... 3:14
B2 - Demented   (John Lurie) ................................................................................... 2:02
B3 - I Remember Coney Island   (John Lurie) .......................................................... 3:29
B4 - Fatty Walks   (John Lurie) ................................................................................. 2:52
B5 - Epistrophy    (Thelonious Monk / Kenneth Clarke) ........................................... 4:15
B6 - You Haunt Me   (John Lurie) ............................................................................. 3:40

Personnel:
John Lurie – alto saxophone
Evan Lurie – keyboards
Steve Piccolo – bass
Arto Lindsay – guitar
Anton Fier – drums, percussion

The Lounge Lizards is the first album by The Lounge Lizards. It features hectic instrumental jazz. The songs are mostly composed by band leader and saxophone player John Lurie. The album artwork was designed by the English graphic designer Peter Saville.


The Lounge Lizards were an eclectic musical group founded by saxophonist John Lurie and his brother, pianist Evan Lurie, in 1978. Initially known for their ironic, tongue-in-cheek take on jazz, The Lounge Lizards eventually became a showcase for John Lurie's sophisticated compositions straddling jazz and many other genres. They were active until about 1998 with the Lurie brothers as the only constant members, though many leading New York City based musicians were members of the group.
The group's name was borrowed from American slang. A lounge lizard is typically depicted as a well-dressed man who frequents the establishments in which the rich gather with the intention of seducing a wealthy woman with his flattery and deceptive charm.

At its founding, the band consisted of John Lurie and Evan Lurie, guitarist Arto Lindsay, bassist Steve Piccolo, and percussionist Anton Fier. They released a self-titled album on EG Records in 1981. The album included two Thelonious Monk covers, but as one critic noted, "the two aforementioned Monk covers seem a strange choice when you actually hear the band, which has more in common with sonic experimentalists like Ornette Coleman or Sun Ra."
By the mid-1980s, a new line-up included bassist Erik Sanko, trombonist Curtis Fowlkes, guitarist Marc Ribot, saxophonist Roy Nathanson, and percussionists Dougie Bowne and E.J. Rodriguez. This group recorded various live and studio albums and showcased John Lurie's increasingly sophisticated and multi-layered compositions.



Note:
In 1998, the band released Queen of All Ears on John Lurie's Strange and Beautiful Music label and had added Steven Bernstein, Michael Blake, Oren Bloedow, David Tronzo, Calvin Weston, and Billy Martin. "The Lizards' music isn't jazz," said Fred Bouchard of JazzTimes, "but it is intelligent and rhythmically and harmonically interesting (it ain't rock either, in other words) and, despite the ultra-hip trappings, it has an almost innocent directness that can transcend stylistic prejudice."
Recent years have found the Lounge Lizards less active. John Lurie has been occupied with painting, while Evan has worked on The Backyardigans, a children's show that highlights multiple musical genres.



If you find it, buy this album!

THE GOLDEN PALOMINOS – The Golden Palominos (CEL 6662 / LP-1983)




Label: Celluloid ‎– CEL 6662
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: France / Released: 1983
Style: Avantgarde, Free Improvisation
Recorded at Radio City Music Hall Studio/NYC and OAO Studio/Brooklyn
Mixed at RPM Studio/NYC and OAO Studio/Brooklyn
Design [Layout] – Jan Luss
Photography By – Thi-Linh Le
Engineer – Don Hünerberg, Martin Bisi
Engineer [Assistant At RPM] – Mike Krowiak
Mixed By – Anton Fier, Bill Laswell, Martin Bisi
Executive-Producer – Karakos, Roger Trilling
Producer – Anton Fier, Bill Laswell
Producer [Associate] – Arto Lindsay, Martin Bisi
Repetiteur [Vocal Coach] – Peter Blegvad
Matrix / Runout (A-Side Runout, Etched): Cel 6662 A
Matrix / Runout (B-Side Runout, Etched): Cel 6662 A

side 1:
A1 - Clean Plate   (Fier, Lindsay) .............................................................................. 6:32
A2 - Hot Seat   (Fier, Noyes, Miller) .......................................................................... 5:13
A3 - Under The Cap   (Fier, Lindsay) ........................................................................ 5:32
A4 - Monday Night   (Fier, Lindsay) .......................................................................... 6:29

side 2:
B1 - Cookout   (Fier) ................................................................................................. 4:38
B2 - I.D.   (Fier, Lindsay) ........................................................................................... 6:45
B3 - Two Sided Fist   (Fier, Lindsay, Frith) ................................................................ 7:42

Musicians:
ARTO LINDSAY – vocals, guitar
ANTON FIER – drums, oberheim DMX, percussion
FRED FRITH – guitar, violin
BILL LASWELL – bass guitar
JOHN ZORN – alto saxophone, clarinet, game calls
NICKY SKOPELITIS – guitar on "Monday Night" / "I.D."
THI-LINH LE – vocals on "Monday Nigh''
MARK E. MILLER – vocals on "Hot Seat", turntables on "Hot Seat" / "Monday Night"
DAVID MOSS – percussion on "Clean Plate" / "Under the Cap" / "Two Sided Fist"
MICHAEL BEINHORN – drums and Oberheim DMX on "Hot Seat", piano on "Cookout"
JAMAALADEEN TACUMA – Steinberger bass guitar on "Clean Plate" / "Two Sided Fist"
ROGER TRILLING – tape on "Cookout"

The group first featured drummer Anton Fier, singer-guitarist Arto Lindsay, saxophonist John Zorn, bass guitarist Bill Laswell and violinist/guitarist Fred Frith. Their self-titled debut album was released on New York's Celluloid Records in 1983, and featured guest appearances by bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma, guitarist Nicky Skopelitis, percussionist David Moss, turntablist M.E. Miller and others.

Arto LindsayAnton Fier

For twenty years, the Golden Palominos have been musical chameleons, continually changing lineups and styles. The only constant has been drummer Anton Fier, whose vision and interests have steered the group through two decades of music making.
The Golden Palominos were formed in the early 1980s, as a joint project, by drummer Anton Fier and noise-guitarist Arto Lindsay. Fier came from Cleveland where he had played with new wave cult band Pere Ubu. In 1978, he left Ohio for New York City. Once there he moved through various bands including a band he formed himself, the Feelies and the Pedestrians. At the end of the 1970s, with Lindsay and John Lurie, he co-founded the Lounge Lizards, a band that played an indescribable combination of noise, rhythm, and jazz. “Actually, when I first started playing with the Lounge Lizards, Arto and I wanted to call the band the Golden Palominos,” Fier told Down Beat’s Bill Milkowski. “We liked the name but Lurie didn’t.” Lindsay, Fier said, was the reason he joined the Lounge Lizards. So when Arto left the band, Fier did too and decided the next step was for the two of them to form a new band together, which they were able to name the Golden Palominos.



The group’s first incarnation was as a super group of the late-1970s New York downtown improv scene. Its participants included luminaries such as saxophonist John Zorn, guitarists Fred Frith and Nicky Skopelitis,and bassists Bill Laswell and Jamaaladeen Tacuma. The music the band made was a marvelous combination of incongruous styles. On the one hand, the music was improvised, free, uncontrolled even. Lindsay, the Palominos de facto frontman, played chunks of noise on his 12-string guitar which he deliberately refused to tune and squawked out truncated, nonsensical lyrics, while Zorn was as likely to accompany the band with bird calls as with his horn. On the other, when the band played it locked into a throbbing, unrelenting funk groove driven by Tacuma and Laswell’s basses and Fier’s unerring backbeat.

The group gave a series of critically well-received concerts in the New York City area in 1982, and in 1983 released a record, simply titled Golden Palominos, on Bill Laswell’s Celluloid label. The New York Times lavished praise on the album. Down Beat called it “a masterpiece…an enormously important and satisfying album” and gave it five stars, the magazine’s highest rating.



If you find it, buy this album!

Wednesday, May 13, 2020

TAJ MAHAL TRAVELLERS – 1 - August 1974 (Nippon Columbia Co. / 2LP-1975)




Label: Columbia ‎– OP-7147~8-N
Format: 2 × Vinyl, LP / Country: Japan / Released: May 1975
Gatefold-cover / Originally / First Pressed
Style: Experimental, Free Improvisation
Recorded On August 19th, 1974 At The Nippon Columbia Studio No.1 In Tokyo.
Album design : Michiro KIMURA
Engineering : Kaoru LIDA
Produced by Yoshiharu KAWAGUCHI
Liner Notes – Yuji TAKAHASHI
1975 Nippon Columbia Co., Ltd.
Matrix / Runout (A-Side runout): OP-7147~8-N / N-357-449 - 1
Matrix / Runout (B-Side runout): OP-7147~8-N / N-357-450 - 2
Matrix / Runout (C-Side runout): OP-7147~8-N / N-357-451 - 3
Matrix / Runout (D-Side runout): OP-7147~8-N / N-357-452 - 4

Issued with printed innersleeve (top half text in Japanese, bottom half: liner notes by Yuji Takahashi / verso: TMT biography).

side 1:
A - 1 ......................................................................................................................... 19:55

side 2:
B - 2 ......................................................................................................................... 21:30

side 3:
C - 3 ........................................................................................................................ 23:35

side 4:
D - 4 ........................................................................................................................ 23:30

TAJ MAHAL TRAVELLERS
Takehisa KOSUGI – electric violin, harmonica, voice, etc.
Ryo KOIKE – electric double-bass, suntool, voice, etc.
Yukio TSUCHIYA – bass-tuba, percussion, etc.
Seiji NAGAI – trumpet, synthesizer mini-korg, timpani, etc.
Michihiro KIMURA – voice, percussion, mandolin, etc.
Tokio HASEGAWA – voice, percussion, etc.
Kinji HAYASHI – electronic technique
Guest performer : Hirokazu SATO – percussion, voice, etc.

High quality of the monumental work ''1 - August 1974'' by Japanese experimental music ensemble Taj Mahal Travellers.



In April 1972 a group of Japanese musicians set off from Rotterdam in a Volkswagen van. As they crossed Europe and then made their way through Asia they made music in a wide range of locations. They also paid close attention to the changing scene and to differing ways of life. Midway through May they reached their destination, the iconic Taj Mahal on the bank of the Yamuna river in Agra, India. The Taj Mahal Travellers had fulfilled physically the promise of the name they adopted when they formed in 1969. But their music had always been a journey, a sonic adventure designed to lead any listener’s imagination into unfamiliar territory.



The double album August 1974 was their second official release. The first July 15, 1972 is a live concert recording, but on 19th August 1974 the Taj Mahal Travellers entered the Tokyo studios of Nippon Columbia and produced what is arguably their definitive statement. The electronic dimension of their collective improvising was coordinated, as usual, by Kinji Hayashi. Guest percussionist Hirokazu Sato joined long-term group members Ryo Koike, Seiji Nagai, Yukio Tsuchiya, Michihiro Kimura, Tokio Hasegawa and Takehisa Kosugi.

The enigmatic Takehisa Kosugi, whose soaring electric violin was such a vital element in their music, had been a pioneer of free improvisation and intermedia performance art with Group Ongaku at the start of the 60s. Later in that decade, before launching the Taj Mahal Travellers, he had become known internationally through his association with the Fluxus art movement. During the mid-70s the Travellers disbanded and while his colleagues more or less stopped performing as musicians Kosugi continued to reach new audiences across the course of several decades as a composer, regular performer and musical director for the acclaimed Merce Cunningham Dance Company.




August 1974 captures vividly the characteristic sound of the Taj Mahal Travellers, haunting tones from an unusual combination of instruments, filtered through multiple layers of reverb and delay. Their music has strong stylistic affinities with the trippy ambience of cosmic and psychedelic rock, but the Taj Mahal Travellers were tuning in to other vibrations, drawing inspiration from the energies and rhythms of the world around them rather than projecting some alternative reality. Films of rolling ocean waves often provided a highly appropriate backdrop for their lengthy improvised concerts. 
This is truly electric music for the mind and body.



If you find it, buy this album!

Tuesday, May 5, 2020

NOIR MIX-1/2/3 – Per Different Jazz In My Room (DP-10001-3 / night mix-2020)



Noir MIX-1 / Per Different Jazz In My Room
(DP-10001 / 2020)
MIX de Nuit / Night MIX
CISM and Free Jazz shows from Montreal
Thursday Night or Friday Morning: 2 AM to 4 AM /
episodes of January 14, 2009. until December 28, 2012.
CISM 89.3 FM :: WWW.CISM893.CA
département jazz et nouvelles musiques de CISM /
department Jazz and New Music by CISM
Author by Francois Samson-Dunlop
Cover Design by vitkoArt / Noir MIX [graphics] by VITKO /2020
+
Noir comic book "The Devil Of My Colt 45" by Gavin Spencer

one lane:
01 - NOIR MIX-1Per Different Jazz In My Room ................................................. 121:28




Noir MIX-2 / Per Different Jazz In My Room
(DP-10002 / 2020)
MIX de Nuit / Night MIX
CISM and Free Jazz shows from Montreal
Thursday Night or Friday Morning: 2 AM to 4 AM /
episodes of January 14, 2009. until December 28, 2012.
CISM 89.3 FM :: WWW.CISM893.CA
département jazz et nouvelles musiques de CISM /
department Jazz and New Music by CISM
Author by Francois Samson-Dunlop
Cover Design by vitkoArt / Noir MIX [graphics] by VITKO /2020

one lane:
02 - NOIR MIX-2Per Different Jazz In My Room ................................................. 121:54




Noir MIX-3 / Per Different Jazz In My Room
(DP-10003 / 2020)
MIX de Nuit / Night MIX
CISM and Free Jazz shows from Montreal
Thursday Night or Friday Morning: 2 AM to 4 AM /
episodes of January 14, 2009. until December 28, 2012.
CISM 89.3 FM :: WWW.CISM893.CA
département jazz et nouvelles musiques de CISM /
department Jazz and New Music by CISM
Author by Francois Samson-Dunlop
Cover Design by vitkoArt / Noir MIX [graphics] by VITKO /2020

one lane:
03 - NOIR MIX-3Per Different Jazz In My Room ................................................. 121:36



Dear friends....
.... This isolated condition is no longer inspiring enough for my soul….
.... and I decided to do something for myself and for you, by launching "Noir MIX" that should pop up every now and then, without a specific announcement time. In front of you are the first three numbers .... Were used parts of the radio episodes "mix de nuit" (night mix), popular CISM and Free Jazz Shows from Montreal (CISM 89.3 FM), and released by Mr. François Samson-Dunlop. The episodes lasted from January 14, 2009 until December 28, 2012 and aired between 2 AM and 4 AM at night. I liked the concept very much and I followed it literally .... The characteristic of these soundtracks is that the music runs continuously for two hours without interruption, the tracks flow seamlessly from one to another with the perfect feeling of combining the artist and changing the tempo.....

Everything is designed to be a little more exciting with music that aims to evoke different moods as we sit indoors in our houses trying not to go crazy in isolation. With good jazz,..... let's beat the coronavirus together.......... !!!

I would recommend everyone to listen to music at night, or into the deaf and lazy afternoon..... Well enjoyable ..... Dream your movie ....!!!

.... A noir mix that disperses without ever getting lost.....

In the first issue you also get a gift the noir comic book "The Devil Of My Colt 45" by Gavin Spencer.

.... Write your comments....

Regards.
VITKO



If you love yourself, pick this up...!