BOB JAMES TRIO – Explosions (LP-ESP Disk-1965)

Label: ESP Disk – ESP-1009, ESP Disk – ESP-1009

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Stereo / Country: US / Released: 1965/66 ?

Style: Free Jazz, Free Improvisation

Recorded At Bell Sound Studios, New York City, May, 1965.

Art Direction – Paul Frick

Cover – Bob James

Engineer – Art Crist

Matrix / Runout (Runout stamp side A): ESPS 1009A

Matrix / Runout (Runout stamp side B): ESPS 1009B

This version has BOB JAMES as artist on cover, and BOB JAMES TRIO as artist on labels. Black & white print cover, and orange labels with black print.

A1 - Explosions ......................................................................................... 5:42

         Written-By – Bob James

A2 - Untitled Mixes .................................................................................... 5:17

         Written-By – Bob James, Bob Ashley

A3 - Peasant Boy ........................................................................................ 8:30

         Written-By – Bob James, Gordon Mumma

B1 - An On ................................................................................................ 8:54

        Written-By – Barre Phillips

B2 - Wolfman ............................................................................................. 6:07

         Written-By – Bob James, Bob Ashley

Bob James – piano

Barre Phillips – bass

Robert Pozar – drums, percussion

+

Robert Ashley / Gordon Mumma – electronics [electronic tape collage]

Bob James is more known for his break-filled fusion sides for Tappan Zee and Columbia and his production for CTI than as a curious figure in the avant-garde jazz milieu of the 1960s. In fact, his two dates as a leader from this period have pretty much slipped under the radar. His first, Bold Conceptions (Mercury, 1962) was produced under the aegis of Quincy Jones upon the trio's winning of the Collegiate Jazz Festival. Featuring drummer Bob Pozar and bassist Ron Brooks, it combined post-Bill Evans textures with a hefty dose of shifting meters, plucked and prepared piano strings, magnetic tape, chance operations and unconventional sounds.

Explosions, recorded in 1965 in New York with Barre Phillips replacing Brooks on bass, jumps with both feet into the electro-acoustic improvisation field, with significant assistance from Robert Ashley and Gordon Mumma of Sonic Arts Union. Their contributions are especially notable in a version of Ashley's multi-channel tape composition "Wolfman" and Mumma's assault on Barre Phillips' "Anon" (here titled "An On").

James more than acquits himself as a free player, coaxing dense clusters at both the high and low end, beginning "Peasant Boy" in glassy arpeggios that mate with the fluid, all-over lines of Phillips and Pozar. Affinity for Ran Blake and Don Friedman enter into James' approach to a sparse canvas, at once plaintive and rustling both at the keyboard and in the "guts," in conversation with knitting needles and high bass harmonics. It's not clear whether the tape manipulations were added to the first track in real time, but they flesh out the shadowy, lower-register group improvisation as it reaches a brief crescendo.

A comparison might be made to Burton Greene (a Moog and piano-string jazz pioneer), but unlike his emotionalism and folksy melodies, the Bob James Trio seems more academic in its investigations, with deliberateness in the combinations of sounds. That's not a slight—rare indeed is a successful pairing of electronic and acoustic audio collage, much less in a mid-1960s jazz setting. Whirring feedback and tape manipulation are part of the instrumental palette, alongside temple blocks, bells and chimes, ping-pong balls on piano strings, and a florid approach to "conventional" free playing.

Couple this with the fact that this is one of the most cleanly recorded items in ESP's catalog, and Explosions is a weighty historical artifact not to be missed.

(by Clifford Allen / AAJ)

If you find it, buy this album!

ROBERT ASHLEY – Perfect Lives (Private Parts) - The Bar (LP-1980)

Label: Lovely Music, Ltd. – VR 4904

Format: Vinyl, LP / Country: US / Released: 1980

Style: Minimal, Improvisation

Recorded at Right Track Recording/ Lovely Music/ Vital Records, 1979.

Arranged By [Chorus Parts, Orchestrations] – Peter Gordon, Robert Ashley

Arranged By [Chorus Parts, Orchestrations], Co-producer – "Blue" Gene Tyranny

Mixed By – Joshua Harris, Peter Gordon, Robert Ashley

Producer – Peter Gordon

A - The Bar I .............................................................................. 15:23

B - The Bar II (continued) .......................................................... 12:44

Robert Ashley – voice

"Blue" Gene Tyranny – keyboards, piano, organ, clavinet

David Van Tieghem – percussion, chorus

Jill Kroesen – chorus

Note:

Perfect Lives - An opera in seven episodes

"The Bar" is episode four:

Rodney, the bartender, meets Buddy, the piano player.

This performance of "The Bar" was composed and produced in collaboration with "Blue" Gene Tyranny and Peter Gordon.

Robert Ashley (March 28, 1930 – March 3, 2014) was an American composer, who was best known for his operas and other theatrical works, many of which incorporate electronics and extended techniques.

“Perfect Lives is generally accepted as Robert Ashley’s masterpiece, and is also a wonderful introduction to his work. This seven-part television opera had a long gestation period, and Ashley made a few attempts at recording it. In 1977, Private Parts (The Record) was released. It was a simple recording that consisted of Ashley’s voice, “Blue” Gene Tyranny’s piano, and a tabla player, credited only as “Kris”. This album contained “The Park” and “The Backyard”, which became the first and last sections, respectively, of Perfect Lives. By 1983, Ashley was performing a version of the piece with a group of like-minded musicians including Peter Gordon, David van Tieghem, and Jill Kroesen, many of whom were his former composition students at Mills College in Oakland, CA. This group recorded a complete version of all seven parts of Perfect Lives and released it on cassette (and eventually CD). “Perfect Lives (Private Parts): The Bar”, is a fascinating document of Ashley’s process. It represents a midpoint in the development of this piece. Released in 1980, “The Bar” is the exact center of Perfect Lives – part 4 of 7. It’s title is a combination of the two other versions. It was recorded just as Ashley was beginning to perform with his new group (Gordon, van Tieghem, and Kroesen), and allows us to hear another wonderful perspective on this genius work.”

(by Adam P. - ghostcapital)

Enjoy!

Here you can learn all about "An Opera For Television" by Robert Ashley and of course buy the CD (Lovely Music, Ltd. ‎– LCD 4917.3 / 3CD box):

http://www.lovely.com/artists/a-ashley.html

http://www.robertashley.org/productions/1977-83-perfectlives.htm

http://www.lovely.com/titles/cd4917.html

http://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Lives-Robert-Ashley/dp/B00000IOA9

If you find it, buy this album!

TEMPORARILY NOTICE:

ANTHONY BRAXTON QUARTET – Live At Moers Festival (2LP-1974)

Vinyl Rip / 2LP's - four lines + Artwork

New FLAC Rip and complete remastered recordings.

See:

http://differentperspectivesinmyroom.blogspot.ba/2013/04/anthony-braxton-quartet-live-at-moers.html

CARLOS SANTANA / MAHAVISHNU JOHN McLAUGHLIN – Love Devotion Surrender (LP-1973)

Label: Columbia – KC 32034

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Gatefold / Country: US / Released: Jul 1973

Style: Jazz-Rock, Fusion, Free Improvisation

Recorded at Columbia Records CBS Inc., New York in October 1972 / March 1973.

Design [Album], Photography By [Cover] – Ashok

Photography By [Other Photographs] – Pranavananda

Liner Notes – Sri Chinmoy

Engineer – Glen Kolotkin

Pressed By – Columbia Records Pressing Plant, Santa Maria

Matrix / Runout (Side A Label): AL 32034

Matrix / Runout (Side B Label): BL 32034

A1 - A Love Supreme (John Coltrane) ........................................................ 7:48

A2 - Naima (Coltrane) ................................................................................. 3:09

A3 - The Life Divine (John McLaughlin) ...................................................... 9:30

B1 - Let Us Go Into the House of the Lord (Traditional) ............................ 15:45

B2 - Meditation (McLaughlin) ...................................................................... 2:45

Mahavishnu John McLaughlin – guitar, piano

Carlos Santana – guitar

Doug Rauch – bass guitar

Larry Young – organ

Jan Hammer – drums, percussion

Billy Cobham – drums, percussion

Don Alias – drums, percussion

Mike Shrieve – drums, percussion

James Mingo Lewis – percussion

Armando Peraza – congas, percussion, vocals

Love Devotion Surrender is an album released in 1973 by guitarists Carlos Santana and John McLaughlin, with the backing of their respective bands, Santana and The Mahavishnu Orchestra. The album was inspired by the teachings of Sri Chinmoy and intended as a tribute to John Coltrane. It contains two Coltrane compositions, two McLaughlin songs, and a traditional gospel song arranged by Santana and McLaughlin.

A hopelessly misunderstood record in its time by Santana fans -- they were still reeling from the radical direction shift toward jazz on Caravanserai and praying it was an aberration -- it was greeted by Santana devotees with hostility, contrasted with kindness from major-league critics like Robert Palmer. To hear this recording in the context of not only Carlos Santana's development as a guitarist, but as the logical extension of the music of John Coltrane and Miles Davis influencing rock musicians -- McLaughlin, of course, was a former Davis sideman -- this extension makes perfect sense in the post-Sonic Youth, post-rock era. With the exception of Coltrane's "Naima" and McLaughlin's "Meditation," this album consists of merely three extended guitar jams played on the spiritual ecstasy tip -- both men were devotees of guru Shri Chinmoy at the time. The assembled band included members of Santana's band and the Mahavishnu Orchestra in Michael Shrieve, Billy Cobham, Doug Rauch, Armando Peraza, Jan Hammer (playing drums!), and Don Alias. But it is the presence of the revolutionary jazz organist Larry Young -- a colleague of McLaughlin's in Tony Williams' Lifetime band -- that makes the entire project gel. He stands as the great communicator harmonically between the two very different guitarists whose ideas contrasted enough to complement one another in the context of Young's aggressive approach to keep the entire proceeding in the air.

In the acknowledgement section of Coltrane's "A Love Supreme," which opens the album, Young creates a channel between Santana's riotous, transcendent, melodic runs and McLaughlin's rapid-fire machine-gun riffing. Young' double-handed striated chord voicings offered enough for both men to chew on, leaving free-ranging territory for percussive effects to drive the tracks from underneath. Check "Let Us Go Into the House of the Lord," which was musically inspired by Bobby Womack's "Breezing" and dynamically foreshadowed by Pharoah Sanders' read of it, or the insanely knotty yet intervallically transcendent "The Life Divine," for the manner in which Young's organ actually speaks both languages simultaneously. Young is the person who makes the room for the deep spirituality inherent in these sessions to be grasped for what it is: the interplay of two men who were not merely paying tribute to Coltrane, but trying to take his ideas about going beyond the realm of Western music to communicate with the language of the heart as it united with the cosmos. After four decades, Love Devotion Surrender still sounds completely radical and stunningly, movingly beautiful.

(Review by Thom Jurek)

If you find it, buy this album!

SANTANA – Caravanserai (LP-1972)

Label: CBS – S 65299, CBS – KC 31610

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Gatefold, Tubepak Cover / Country: UK / Released: 1972

Style: Psychedelic Rock, Progressive Jazz-Rock, Free Improvisation

Recorded at Columbia Studios, San Francisco, Ca. March, April, & May 1972.

Artwork [Album Art] – Joan Chase

Engineer – Glen Kolotkin, Mike Larner

Liner Notes [Excerpt From "Metaphysical Meditations"] – Paramahansa Yogananda

Producer – Carlos Santana, Mike Shrieve

Matrix / Runout (Label side A): S 65299 A

Matrix / Runout (Label side B): S 65299 B

A1 - Eternal Caravan Of Reincarnation ................................................ 4:28

A2 - Waves Within ................................................................................ 3:54

A3 - Look Up (To See What's Coming Down) ...................................... 2:57

A4 - Just In Time To See The Sun ........................................................ 2:16

A5 - Song Of The Wind ........................................................................ 6:03

A6 - All The Love Of The Universe ....................................................... 7:37

B1 - Future Primitive ............................................................................. 4:15

B2 - Stone Flower ................................................................................. 6:09

B3 - La Fuente Del Ritmo ..................................................................... 4:33

B4 - Every Step Of The Way ................................................................. 9:05

Personnel:

Carlos Santana – lead guitar, guitar, vocals, percussion

Neal Schon – guitar

Gregg Rolie – organ, electric piano, vocals, piano

Douglas Rauch – bass, guitar

Douglas Rodrigues – guitar

Wendy Haas – piano

Tom Rutley – acoustic bass

Michael Shrieve – drums, percussion

José "Chepito" Areas – percussion, congas, timbales, bongos

James Mingo Lewis – percussion, congas, bongos, vocals, acoustic piano

Armando Peraza – percussion, bongos

Hadley Caliman – saxophone intro, flute

Rico Reyes – vocals

Lenny White – castanets

Tom Coster – electric piano

Tom Harrell – orchestra arrangement

Caravanserai is the fourth studio album by Santana released in October 1972. It marked a major turning point in Carlos Santana's career as it was a sharp departure from his critically acclaimed first three albums. Original bassist David Brown left the group in 1971 and was replaced by Doug Rauch and Tom Rutley, while original percussionist Michael Carabello left and was replaced by Armando Peraza. Keyboardist/vocalist Gregg Rolie, who was having a falling-out with Santana, was replaced by Tom Coster on a few songs. Caravanserai reached number eight in the Billboard 200 chart and number six in the R&B Albums chart in 1972.

The sound contrasted greatly with Santana's trademark fusion of salsa, rock, and jazz, and concentrated mostly on jazz-like instrumental passages. All but three tracks were instrumentals, and consequently the album yielded no hit singles. The album is the first among a series of Santana albums that were known for their increasing musical complexity, marking a move away from the popular rock format of the early Santana albums towards a more contemplative and experimental jazz sound. Caravanserai is regarded as an artistic success.

This album has been mixed and released in both stereo and quadraphonic.

Well, hardly any words can describe just how fantastic this album. Only one of a handful albums that reach perfection, this stunning chef d'oeuvre, even with this site's vast choice of albums, I cannot think of five albums ahead of it. The peak in Santana's career (Carlos' solo career was not really started yet, either) comes rather early, and unfortunately will not be equalled again, although they will come close with Borboletta. By now, the classic Santana group was becoming a loose aggregation of great musicians, this album marks also the turning point between the first and second era of the group. The first departure woula happen after this album, while some future members made their apparition. While the previous albums were just collection of songs and I would not call this album a full-blown concept album, there is definetely a theme all the way through (outside stunning musical beauty that is): every song flow from each other so naturally that you will actually feel that there are just one track per album.
As opposed to their previous three albums, the feeling is drastically different and you know that there will be many adventures from the extatic exhilaration to the stunning and reflective introspection. With a solidly almost-atonal opening track telling you that your musical trip will be as wonderfully strange as a Touareg caravan crossing the Sahara, the album gets a kickstart with Waves Within and segues into the majestic Look Up where the band is in full stride and now compleyely unleashed. And by now you have barely just left the banks of the Nile River heading for the Atlantic Coast, so you can imagine the amazing trip still laying ahead. Just In Time In See The Sun is one of two sung tracks and although short is yet another highlight of the album. The first side closes on the lengthier Song Of The Wind (where Carlos delivers some of his most delightful guitar lines) and All The Love In The Universe (the other sung track), this is one of the most perfect type of jazz-rock with many ecstatic moments.

Leaving Lake Tchad (the halfway mark and watering hole in your trip) behind you, you are heading straight for the forbidden city: Mali's Timbuktu with still quite a few marvels laying before your path. The sun-drenched (more like sun-baked) Future Primitive is evocative of all the traps laying in the desertic and arid lanscapes and is a fitting almost free improv. The mildly Arabian scales in the intro of Stone Flowers (probably referring to the sandroses) indicates that the trip is not always easy for the occidental youth, but the ultimate goal is at hand reaching the fabbled oasis. Clearly another peak is reached with Fuente Del Ritmo as you attack the lasdt quarter of the desert trek on your way to Dakar. This track sets aén incredible tension in the music with its 100 MPH cruising speed, the album reaching its apex: this track shows just how superb and awesome the band could be, and presenting for the first time Tom coster on the electric piano. The only flaw of the album comes from the fade-out of the track failing to create a real link with the apotheosis of the album, the closing 9-min Every Step Of The Way. I have a hard time thinking of a track that tops the musical tension created on this track: after a slowly increasing crescendo, the track suddendly jumps to a cosmic speed and some of the wildest musical landscapes ever: from the saturated flute solo, to the first guitar solo, solemnly underlined by a superb brass section for increased dramatic effects, you are just waiting to see if the orgasm will come when that one note will deliver your intellectual wad. And it does come (and so will you) in the form of a single guitar note (but the one you waited your whole life for), it releases all the built-up tensions and Dakar is in sight. Surely you have succeded in your internal quest for freedom of the mind and cannot be anything else but completely happy..... 
I certainly believe that in the genre, no other albums comes even close to the mastery of this album, at least in the evocational power of the music. A true trip into the meanders of your brain, this album is more essential than anything that the prog big five have made. And I am hardly exagerating... :-)

Uuuuhhh, Max!?!? About creating that sixth star rating, I asked you for.................

Review by Sean Trane (Progarchives)

If you find it, buy this album!

GRATEFUL DEAD – Live-Dead (2LP-1969)

Label: Warner Bros. Records – WS 1830

Format: 2 × Vinyl, LP, Album, Gatefold / Country: UK / Released: 1969

Style: Psychedelic Rock, Free Improvisation

Recorded live on Jan. 26 show at San Francisco’s Avalon Ballroom and Feb. 27 and March 2 1969, shows from the same city’s at the Fillmore West.

Art Direction – Ed Thrasher

Cover – R.D. Thomas

Engineer [Consulting] – Owsley “Bear” Stanley, Ron Wickersham

Photography By [Liner Photos] – Florence Nathan, Herb Greene, Jim Marshall (3)

Producer – The Grateful Dead

Producer, Engineer – Betty Cantor

Producer, Engineer [Executive] – Bob Matthews

Technician [Sound] – Bear

A  -  Dark Star ................................................................................... 23:15

B1 - St. Stephen ................................................................................. 6:45

B2 - The Eleven .................................................................................. 9:39

C  -  Turn On Your Love Light ........................................................... 15:30

D1 - Death Don't Have No Mercy ..................................................... 10:30

D2 - Feedback .................................................................................... 8:52

D3 - And We Bid You Goodnight ........................................................ 0:36

Jerry Garcia – guitar, vocals

Bob Weir – guitar, vocals

Tom Constanten – organ

Phil Lesh – electric bass, vocals

Mickey Hart – drums, percussion

Bill Kreutzmann – drums, percussion

Ron "Pigpen" McKernan – vocals, congas, organ on "Death Don't Have No Mercy"

Live/Dead is the first official live album released by the San Francisco-based band Grateful Dead. Three concerts were recorded for the double album: a Jan. 26 show at San Francisco’s Avalon Ballroom and Feb. 27 and March 2 shows from the same city’s Fillmore West and released later in the year on November 10. Seven songs ended up on the 75-minute LP, and one of them — the closing ‘And We Bid You Goodnight’ — clocks in at 35 seconds. Doing the math, that leaves some really long songs, which would become an integral part of the band’s history. At the time of its release, Robert Christgau wrote that side two of the double album "contains the finest rock improvisation ever recorded."

The Grateful Dead legend begins here.

This double live album capped off The Dead’s initial phase of their career, characterised by their electric acid jugband blues as it curled at the corners into freaky experimentation. And at this point, the band’s live performances began to mutate into sinewy effortlessness incarnate. And on a good night such as this, their vibing skills were honed to such a point it enabled them to subsume themselves into ‘group brain’ telepathy: producing music that would roll on powered only by the highest, reflective and ever-striving improvisation they ever got down on record. The first three-quarters of the album was a single, massive, run-on jam of four songs’ duration, interrupted only by fade outs and fade ins as dictated by the strictures of album length...

“Dark Star” takes up side one in its entirety with a slow fade-in into its quiet paces. It’s an interplanetary, interplaying synaptic ZAP; one that doesn’t meander so much as ebb and flow within the locked multi-tiered levels of consciousness of the players -- who all improvise responsibly as an ensemble giving each other tremendous tracts of open space to demarcate their individual rhythms while absorbing the always becoming-ness of where they were, and where they were going. The lyrics enter sung sweetly and strongly by Jerry Garcia, his yearning inflections casting through the nether reaches of emotional shadow-land as he reigns and regroups the piece time and time again, but it’s by no means his exploration alone. The kicking of Bill Kreutzmann’s bass drums (remarkably picked up by the expert ambient miking of Betty Cantor and Bob Matthews) and hand held percussion devices are shaken, stirred and struck as snatches of keyboards, bass extrapolations and skinny Bob Weir rhythm guitar are all constantly manifesting into what the song already is -- a deep and wordless joy that reawakens shades of existence that go passing by in a mindscape where nothing is preordained and flow is all. The drums cease completely at one point, but it’s not noticeable in the least as the group extends a track originally cut as a single A-side into an album side’s worth of consciousness mapping penetrations. You can listen to this track a thousand times and still hear something previously unrevealed. It’s beautiful.

The side ends into a fade, catching the first chords of “St. Stephen” which gently awakens side 2; a place where things start to get far more raucous and complex. The lyrics are cryptic as hell, yet evoke a “Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam”-type life and death cycle, as hints of the strictest gnosis blossom and start to fragment into mythic imagery and suggestion in a waking dream that soon gets even more raucous and complex for, oh about eight minutes, and it’s about as precariously balanced as an overloaded chicken truck you see in old-tymey movies about to collide at a train crossing. The collision never occurs, but it’s running over everything: a stop sign, a cop, upsets a grocery-carrying grandmother, straddles half the sidewalk but it never, ever slows for any twist or turn. Before anyone can feel it, they’re already home free and well into “The Eleven” as they only brake lightly for Bob Weir’s out of tune vocals singing more oblique lyrics. But the rolling double drumming re-ensues and Lesh’s bass parts are busy distilling an intuitive beaker of alchemical rhythms as the music sallies through life as the group consciousness gets poured through into eternal grokking and bopping through life with a grinning soul, thumbing a ride on the great cosmic wheel. They realign rhythms to the less complex and far more traditional and loose as hell R&B framework of “Turn On Your Love Light” where Pigpen steps up to the mike with hollering, badgering and generally hell-bent-for-mojo pleading. The Spartan latticework of Kreutzmann and Hart’s double drumming breaks down to expertly handled snare rattlings from Kreutzmann as the stomping continues to rapturous psychedelic ballroom audience response. Pigpen starts rapping up a storm, cajoling everybody and yet the music continues all bouncy and teasing, with many stops and starts along the way -- for an entire album’s side, no less. They bring it on home with all guitarists backing on vocals and Weir’s shrieking background vocals are plain hair curling cracking...

The final side sees The Reverend Gary Davis honoured with a cover of his blues, “Death Don’t Have No Mercy.” Garcia regains the spotlight vocal while all other lights are down for this mournful, subdued and heartfelt rendition, turning in a pure Sam Andrews/Quicksilver solo accented with soaring feedback controls, but instilled with the eccentric lyricism of Celtic arabesques that could only emanate from his nine-fingered dexterity in the prime of his fabulous Gibson SG phase. “Feedback” sees the Grateful Dead re-emerge as the seven-headed feedback monster of improvised noise and overall gong abuse, but in a far more refined manner than their deafening live ’67 freak-outs from “Anthem Of The Sun”: Which is not to say it doesn’t get discordant as hell with the volume pedal fucking around but Tom Constanten’s near-invisible spookoid organ lightly sweetens it all with graceful hovering. The piece treads many times into ultimate fried-out freeform when tones start to sway and undulate and threaten to swoop and collect both band and audience and banish them to bad trip land forever until it simmers to a halt until all falls away but soft and lyrical passages. It finally hushes and spills directly into an excerpt of the traditional vocal, “And We Bid You Goodnight,” a sweetened lullaby in the dark as the final lingering wisps of smoldering hash vanish...

The band would release several live albums during their run, most notably 1971’s self-titled LP, better known as ‘Skull & Roses’ among fans. By the early ’90s, with their reputation as one of the planet’s most popular live groups now firmly set, the Dead began releasing vintage concert recordings from their expansive archives. Of course, Deadheads were long on to all this, recording, collecting and trading tapes over a vast network of likeminded fans, a practice the group fully supported. But none of these recordings — bootlegs or otherwise — match ‘Live/Dead”s significance and thrills. They played better shows, and they found new, more exciting ways to spread out the songs onstage. But they never sounded more together than they do on this record.

The text is taken from the "Julian Cope Presents Head Heritage" and adapted for this post:

https://www.headheritage.co.uk/unsung/thebookofseth/grateful-dead-live-dead

If you find it, buy this album!

CAPTAIN BEEFHEART AND HIS MAGIC BAND – Strictly Personal (LP-1968)

Label: Liberty – LBS 83172, Liberty – LBS 83172E

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: UK / Released: Dec 1968

Style: Blues Rock, Avantgarde

Recorded April 25th - May 2nd, 1968 at Sunset Sound, Hollywood, California.

Art Direction – Tom Wilkes

Photography By – Guy Webster

Arranged By, Written-By – Don Van Vliet

Engineer – Bill Lazerus, Gene Shiveley

Producer – Bob Krasnow

Matrix / Runout (Side A stamped runout): LBS 83172 A//1 420

Matrix / Runout (Side B stamped runout): LBS 83172 B//1 420

LBS 83172 is the catalog number on the spine and labels while LBS 83172E is the catalog number on the back cover.

A1 - Ah Feel Like Ahcid ................................................................... 3:05

A2 - Safe As Milk ............................................................................. 5:20

A3 - Trust Us .................................................................................... 8:05

A4 - Son Of Mirror Man - Mere Man ................................................ 5:20

B1 - On Tomorrow ........................................................................... 3:25

B2 - Beatle Bones N' Smokin Stones ............................................... 3:15

B3 - Gimme Dat Harp Boy ............................................................... 5:00

B4 - Kandy Korn ............................................................................... 5:05

Don Van Vliet – lead vocals, blues harp [mouthharp]

Alex St. Claire – guitar

Jeff Cotton – guitar

Jerry Handley – bass

John French – drums, percussion

"Strictly Personal" is the follow-up to "Safe As Milk" and the band's 2nd official album, recorded at Sunset Sound Recorders between 25th April & 2nd May 1968 and released on the "Blue Thumb" label in October of that year.

After the production of "Safe As Milk" Ry Cooder departed, resulting from an incident at a warm-up 'Magic Mountain' gig at Mount Tamalpas prior to their booking at Monterey. The band thus failed to capitalize on airing the tracks at the all-important Monterey Festival in June '67. Problems further plagued Vliet's new-formed line up of Snouffer, Handley, French and Cotton when they began their European gigs in January '68. Their appearances at the UK's "Middle Earth" and "Speakeasy" clubs were jeopardized by problems at Immigration, where they were accompanied by event organizer (and "The Who" manager) Pete Meaden. This 'lack of UK work permit' fiasco soured UK deals between Meaden, Buddah management and Pye - perhaps beginning the rot that would lead Krasnow, and the band, to depart from Buddah. However, the band completed gigs in Hanover on the 16th, London's two club dates on the 20th & 21st, "The John Peel Sessions" on the 24th, the MIDEM performance on the beach at Cannes on the 27th and the Casino le Croisette with "The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown" on the 28th. They then returned to the US in February, appearing at the Whisky-A-Go-Go from the 1st to the 4th.

By late April a number of compositions, rehearsals and tapes were begun by the band for a second album on Buddah - broadly conceptualized as a double vinyl entitled "It Comes To You In A Plain Brown Wrapper". The core of this work took on a new shape when Vliet teamed the band up to an agreement with producer Bob Krasnow. Vliet had considered renaming the band "Blue Thumb", but this became the name of the new label which Krasnow formed. The material was pared-down to a single album and, whilst The Magic Band were appearing and performing this material back in the UK in May '68, Krasnow assembled the album under his own initiative. Much of the work had been created under the Buddah aegis, which may have been one of the reasons the work was reduced to a single album. Phasing and effects were added by Krasnow to the mix and the "Strictly Personal" album emerged as the first release on "Blue Thumb" as BTS 1. The album has also been manufactured & distributed by Liberty, United Artists and EMI.

The band began and ended their European "Strictly Personal" tour at UK's "Middle Earth" on 3rd & 25th May 1968. In between they appeared in Rome, along with UK bands such as "The Trinity" with Auger & Driscoll, "Ten Years After", "Donovan" and "Fairport Convention", plus another "John Peel Session". Dates also encompassed UK colleges, pubs and clubs, including "Frank Freeman's" in Kidderminster on the 19th - some of which can be found on record.

In retrospect, there has been much controversy among Beefheart followers over the merits of Krasnow's additions to the "Strictly Personal" work. 'Un-phazed' material and sessions can be found on such releases as "I May Be Hungry But I Sure Ain't Weird" or "The Mirror Man Sessions", which provide an overview on the birth and existence of "Strictly Personal". The album "It Comes To You In A Plain Brown Wrapper", on the 'Sundazed' label, also plugs gaps in the band's "Strictly Personal" history- onwards to the release of the fifth official album "Mirror Man".

Considered by many to be a substandard effort due to the circumstances of its release (producer Bob Krasnow, the owner of Blue Thumb, the label which debuted with this album, remixed the album while Don Van Vliet and crew were off on a European tour, adding extraneous sound effects like heartbeats and excessive use of psychedelic-era clichés like out-of-phase stereo panning and flanging), 1968's Strictly Personal is actually a terrific album, every bit the equal of Safe As Milk and Trout Mask Replica. Opening with "Ah Feel Like Ahcid," an a cappella blues workout with its roots in Son House's "Death Letter," the brief (barely 35 minutes) album is at the same time simpler and weirder than Safe As Milk had been. Working without another songwriter or arranger for the first time, Captain Beefheart strips his idiosyncratic blues down to the bone, with several of the songs (especially "Son of Mirror Man/Mere Man") having little in the way of lyrics or chords beyond the most primeval stomp. Krasnow's unfortunate sound effects and phasing do detract from the album at points, but the strength of the performances, especially those of drummer John French, make his efforts little more than superfluous window dressing. Strictly Personal is a fascinating, underrated release.

(Review by Stewart Mason)

If you find it, buy this album!