PHIL WOODS And HIS EUROPEAN RHYTHM MACHINE – Live At Montreux 72 (LP-1972 / Pierre Cardin – STEC 131)

Label: Les Disques Pierre Cardin – STEC 131

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: France / Released: 1972

Style: Free Jazz, Contemporary Jazz, Free Improvisation

Recorded June 19. 1972 at the Montreux Jazz Festival.

Design [Cover, both side] By – Pierre Cardin

Photography By [Front/Back Cover] – David Redfern

Engineer – Stephen Sulke

Graphics – Hartmut Pfeiffer

Mastered By – Christian Orsini

Producer, Mixed By – Emmanuel "Pinpin" Sciot

Original French pressing with round corners

Matrix / Runout (Side A runout, etched): STEC 131 A

Matrix / Runout (Side B runout, etched): STEC 131 B

It's not my rip (a gift from A. R.) so I apologize for the relatively poor sound. But the album is great.

A  -  The Executive Suite .................................................................... 26:00

B1 - Falling ........................................................................................... 9:00

B2 - It Does Not Really Matter Who You Are ..................................... 15:00

All compositions by Gordon Beck

Phil Woods and his European Rhythm Machine:

Phil Woods --- alto saxophone

Gordon Beck --- piano

Ron Mattewson --- bass

Daniel Humair --- drums, percussion

This LP is a real rarity how for the record company that produced it, so also for the jazz music and the huge number of admirers an early Phil Woods. The album has never re-issued on CD. 

In the early 70s, the Italian-French fashion designer Pierre Cardin, great lover of music, founded a record company in his name, which had very short life and that was distinguished by his covers particularly elegant artwork, designed by himself.

In the short period of activity he published several LP's, not only of jazz, among which also the French edition of the Concerto Grosso by New Trolls.

Of particular interest are the recordings made during the Montreux Jazz Festival 1972 concert by Jean-Luc Ponty, the Lubat, Louis and Engel Group, in addition to this the European Rhythm Machine Phil Woods, who at the time was hailed as a masterpiece.

Briton David Waddington critic of Jazz called this album "a fluid and breathtaking improvisation titanic wise." The A-side of the vinyl with engaging twenty-five minutes of 'Executive Suite was also described by critics Brian Case and Stan Britt, in their Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz, "a tour de force of the alto sax, with no accompanying sequences in which Woods gives vent his extraordinary instrumental mastery acute from screaming extreme to severe extreme moaning of the instrument. "

In England, the album was released by Verve, on granting the French publisher, with a different layout.

At a distance of forty four years the record is still valid and is an extraordinary testimony to the evolutionary trend of those years jazz. Roberto Arcuri, about that experience said, "Go and hear the term European Rhythm Machine, that was not a rival of no one, Phil Woods was a wonderful musician, super, which remained like that. "

Colossal music. My favorite album for this month.

If you find it, buy this album!

ANIMA – Anima (LP-1972 / Pilz Rec. – 20 29097-2)

Label: Pilz – 20 29097-2

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: Germany / Released: 1972

Style: Free Improvisation, Experimental, Krautrock, Free Jazz

Recorded at Neues Arri, München 1972.

Design [Cover Design] – Michael Fessel

Engineer [Sound] – Dieter Dierks

Producer – Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser

Pilz it's the German progressive label  run by BASF Musikproduktion under the initial direction of Jürgen Schmeisser, subsequently directed by Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser.

Liner Notes – Friedrich Gulda, J.A. Rettenbacher, Limpe Fuchs, Paul Fuchs

Written-By – Gulda, Rettenbacher, Limpe Fuchs, Paul Fuchs

Matrix / Runout (Side A): 1P 2029097-2 A SST

Matrix / Runout (Side B): 1P 2029097-2 B II SST

A - Meeting In The Studio .............................................................. 20:35

B - Anima-Live ............................................................................... 27:25

Limpe Fuchs – vocals [stimme], zither [Fußzither], electronics, 

                         percussion [diverse percussioninstrumente]

Paul Fuchs – horn [Fuchshorn], performer [schilfzinken, klangbleche], vocals [stimme], 

                      electronics, percussion [diverse percussioninstrumente]

Friedrich Gulda – piano

J.A. Rettenbacher – bass

Note:

The music contained herein is totally improvised. Nothing has been premeditated or decided beforehand.

On the back cover composition credits are given the individual members, but on the labels it    is credited to Anima.

On the back cover is written "Anima-LP". This does not appear anywhere else (spine, label, front cover) so it does not appear to be an album title.

Limpe Fuchs (she was born 1941 in Munich) is a German composer, performance and sound artist.

At the age of 12 she received her first piano lessons. After graduating from high school she studied classical music right up to the artistic examination, later percussion with Prof. Hans Hölzl.

At the beginning of the 1970s she began to develop her own instruments of wood, metal or stone with Paul Fuchs. They founded the group Anima, who quickly made a name for himself in the German music scene. At the end of the 1980s the group dissolved. Limpe Fuchs also worked with famous musicians such as Friedrich Gulda, Hans Rettenbacher, Theo Jörg.

Paul Fuchs (born 1936, in Munich) is best known as the husband Limpe Fuchs and fusion duo Anima. With Anima he expanded his instrumental repertoire by inventing a whole range of bizarre instruments, like the notorious Fuchshorn, and increasingly a unique range of sound sculptures and percussion instruments.

The 'Anima' sound was extreme for sure: a very spontaneous music, close to extreme free jazz, but lacking the academic approach of this genre. Paul And Limpe Fuchs' (aka Anima Sound) music was more primitive in a way, full of screams, goons, weird sounds and much percussion. For this reason  their album Sturmischer Himmel isn't exactly everybody's taste! This was one of the few Ohr albums to have a standard (non fold-out) cover. Their very rare second album Musik Für Alle (LP-1971, soon on this blog) contained two further improvised cuts. The duo was later joined by Friedrich Gulda and J.A. Rettenbacher for the group Anima, to record an album for Pilz in 1972.

Enjoy!

If you find it, buy this album!

FREDERIC RZEWSKI – Attica / Coming Together / Les Moutons De Panurge (LP-1974 / Opus One – Number 20)

Label: Opus One – Number 20

Format: Vinyl, LP / Country: US / Released: 1974

Style: Experimental, Contemporary, Minimal

A and B1 composed in 1972 and recorded April 20, 1973 at Blue Rock Studio in NYC.

B2 composed in 1969 and recorded at the University of Northern Illinois DeKalb, Illinois, 

May 10, 1973.

Engineers – Eddie Korvin (track A), Jan Rathbun (track B1), Steven Ovitsky (track B2)

Producer – Mike Sahl

Written-by [Text] – Sam Melville (track A), Richard X. Clark (track B1)

Composed By, Liner Notes – Frederic Rzewski

Design [Cover Design] – Herman Zaage

The inks of this cover are fluorescent.

Sponsored in part by the Ford Foundation and Anthony Keashey.

Matrix / Runout (A-Side Runout Etching): OPUS #20 RE <1> CF

Matrix / Runout (B-Side Runout Etching): OPUS No. 20 Side 2 JF

A  -  Coming Together ...................................................................... 19:15

         bass – Richard Youngstein

         piano, electric piano – Frederic Rzewski

         alto saxophone – Jon Gibson

         synthesizer – Alvin Curran

         trombone – Garrett List

         vibraphone – Karl Berger

         viola – Joan Kalisch

         voice [speaker] – Steve Ben Israel

B1 - Attica ......................................................................................... 6:30

         bass – Richard Youngstein

         piano – Frederic Rzewski

         alto saxophone – Jon Gibson

         trombone – Garrett List

         piccolo trumpet – Alvin Curran

         vibraphone – Karl Berger

         viola – Joan Kalisch

         voice [Speaker] – Steve Ben Israel

B2 - Les Moutons De Panurge ........................................................ 16:15

         Blackearth Percussion Group:

         percussion [almglocken] – Garry Kvistad

         percussion [nabimba] – Richard Kvistad

         vibraphone, glockenspiel – Christopher Braun

         xylophone – Anne Otte

Note:

Cover has different typesetting for composer's name (stacked as opposed to on a single line) and lettering is in blue/violet instead of gold. This cover is fluorescent.

Labels on disc are reversed (A-label on B-side). Album has a piece of typewritten paper inserted stating the following:

"Please note: the labels on this record are reversed. We regret the inconvenience."

This brilliant early recording of Frederic Rzewski (unfortunately unavailable of 2002.) showcases the composer emerging from a period in which he was largely involved with free improvisation (with the group Musica Elettronica Viva) and beginning to investigate more structured writing.

The lineup on this recording is pretty amazing. Rzewski himself plays piano. Jon Gibson, who has worked with the big four minimalist composers (Young, Riley, Reich and Glass) as well as being an excellent composer himself, plays alto sax. Composer Alvin Curran, also of Rzewski's MEV group, plays synthesizer. Garrett List, whose beautiful LP "Your Own Self" already on this blog, plays trombone. Karl Berger play vibes, and has played on some classic ESP jazz recordings as well also working with Don Cherry. Violist Joan Kalisch has played on recordings by Don Cherry and Alice Coltrane, and Richard Youngstein has worked with Paul Bley. The reading is done by stage actor Steve Ben Israel, who was a member of New York's Living Theatre.

Here the burgeoning minimalist movement was a prime musical influence, although on two of the pieces what strikes the listener first and foremost is the political content. "Coming Together" melts a wonderfully undulating and propulsive score that just won't give up with the impassioned reading (by Steve ben Israel) of a text written by Sam Melville an inmate at Attica prison documenting both his woes and his impressive resolve not to knuckle under. The words are repeated with increasing ferocity as the music goes through several permutations, eventually matching the speaker in a roaring finish. When other prisoner Richard S. Clark was released from prison in 1972, he was asked by a reporter how it felt to leave Attica behind him. His response, "Attica is in front of me," provides the text for the powerful and haunting second work here. His words are spoken in additive fashion -- first just "Attica" then "Attica is" -- in a soft, almost ghostly fashion over a gently percolating score that combines sorrow and hope in a complex and rich fabric.

"Les Moutons de Panurge," a completely instrumental composition, uses the same basic structural idea. A 65-note melody is performed in the sequence 1, 1-2, 1-2-3, 1-2-3-4, and so on, until the entire melody has been read with the understanding of the near-impossibility of the ensemble staying in unison for the duration. Here, as performed by the Blackearth Percussion Group, it takes on the character of a wild gamelan orchestra, perhaps slightly tipsy. It's utterly invigorating, as is the entire record. Very highly recommended.

_ Review by Brian Olewnick

This LP was recorded is on the excellent Opus One records - all the covers of LPs on the label were meant to respond to black light!....... Trippy.



If you find it, buy this album!

KEITH TIPPETT – Blueprint (LP-1972 / RCA – SF 8290)

Label: RCA – SF 8290

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: UK / Released: 1972

Style: Free Improvisation, Free Jazz, Experimental

Recorded at Studio Command, London, England, 1972. Cutting: RCA

Graphics [Reprographics] – CLE Print

Engineer – Andy Hendrickson

Recorded By – Ray Hendrickson

Lacquer Cut By – Arun Chakraverty

Producer – Robert Fripp

Composed By – Frank Perry, Julie Tippetts, Keith Bailey, Keith Tippett, Roy Babbington

A1 - Song ....................................................................................... 9:05

A2 - Dance ..................................................................................... 5:10

A3 - Glimpse .................................................................................. 4:40

B1 - Blues I .................................................................................... 4:05

B2 - Woodcut ............................................................................... 12:40

B3 - Blues II ................................................................................... 3:15

Line-up / Musicians:

Keith Tippett – piano

Roy Babbington – bass

Julie Tippetts – guitar, vocals , recorder , mandolin

Frank Perry – percussion (tracks: A2, A3, B2)

Keith Bailey – percussion (track: A1)

The sounds are acoustic - no electronics are involved (Robert Fripp)

All music on this album is improvised (Keith Tippett)

Coming straight after the gigantic "Septober Energy" as it did, Blueprint must have come as a bit of a surprise for many of Keith Tippett's fans. The music is minimal - both in scale and sound - but whereas the Centipede recording leaves its impression by its overwhelming force, Blueprint makes it mark with much more subtlety.

At the session, supervised by Robert Fripp, the collective ensemble consists of Keith Tippett (piano) Roy Babbington (bass) Keith Bailey and Frank Perry (percussion) and Julie Tippetts (voice/guitar/mandolin/recorder) but the groups on each track never go above quartet and four of the tracks being trio numbers.

With a few rushes of blood aside (for example on the quartet numbers "Dance" and "Woodcut", much of the album is dominated by quiet, with zen-like bells and percussion drifting into Tippett's piano and Babbington's ethereal bowed bass, while at the beginning of "Blues ll" Julie Tippetts coaxes the mandolin into sounding like a Japanese koto.

As someone who often veers away from anything that even suggests a "jazz" vocalist, I was very much taken by Julie Tippett's abstract use of her voice and the way she blends it with the rest of the instruments, making a much more textural balance between herself and the others.

_ By Alfie Cooke

This is a magical album that takes time and quiet to listen to.

If you find it, buy this album!

OVARY LODGE – Ovary Lodge (LP-1976 / Ogun – OG 600)

Label: Ogun – OG 600

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: UK / Released: 1976

Style: Free Improvisation, Free Jazz, Experimental

Live recording at Nettlefold Hall, London SE27, 6 August 1975.

Composed By – Ovary Lodge

Design [Cover] – Liz Walton

Photography By – Franz Nager, Jak Kilby

Lacquer Cut By – DB

Recorded By – Keith Beal

Mixed By, Edited By – Keith Beal, Ovary Lodge

Producer – Keith Beal, Ovary Lodge

Sleeve Notes – Keith Tippett
Matrix / Runout (Runout A, etched): OG 600 A₁-2 D
Matrix / Runout (Runout B, etched): OG 600 B₁-2 B

A1 - Gentle One Says Hello ..................................................................................... 14:00

A2 - Fragment No. 6 ................................................................................................... 8:50

B1 - A Man Carrying A Drop Of Water On A Leaf Through A Thunderstorm ............... 5:10

B2 - Communal Travel .............................................................................................. 17:40

B3 - Coda ................................................................................................................... 1:10

Keith Tippett – piano, harmonium, recorder, voice, maracas

Harry Miller – bass

Julie Tippetts – voice, recorder [sopranino], erhu

Frank Perry – percussion, voice, flute [hsiao], sheng

Album mixed and edited in Hastings by Keith Beal and Ovary Lodge. All music composed by Ovary Lodge.

Note:

All the music on this album is improvised. The sounds are acoustic and no electrics are involved. The music vocabulary of 'Ovary Lodge' has developed out of 'blows' as opposed to rehearsals. In the three years that the group has been in existence there has been no discussion between members as to musical direction. For those of you who are interested in other areas we explore, check out 'Blueprint' RCA SF8290 and 'Ovary Lodge' RCA SF8372.

During playback and mixing the members of the group were unsure at times who was playing what. So, in danger of sounding dogmatic, I suggest to the listener that he or she forgets there are four people on this recording and tries hearing it as an orchestra. K.T.

One of the almost mythical bands of early British free jazz history, Ovary Lodge was led by pianist Keith Tippett, although he would definitely stress that he was a figurehead-organizer rather than authoritarian boss. This is, after all, a collective that's dedicated to the most extreme form of improvising and abstraction, with no prior discussions allowed over the direction of each new piece. At the time, this was something of a departure for Tippett, but over subsequent decades, such hardcore improvisation has become the foundation of his work.

Beginning as a trio, in 1971, with percussionist Frank Perry and bassist Roy Babbington, they released an eponymous titled album in 1973. Ovary Lodge lost Babbington to Soft Machine, and he was replaced by South African exile Harry Miller. This is, confusingly, the band's second self-titled album, recorded in 1975, live at Nettlefield Hall, London. By this time, singer Julie Tippetts was becoming a regular guest, whilst Miller and Perry still remained with Keith.

There's absolutely no compromise with the opening 14 minutes of "Gentle One Says Hello," which certainly makes no attempt at being an easy path inwards to the group's minimalist sonic sphere. It has as much in common with Stockhausen territory as it has with any distant jazz memories, particularly when hearing Julie's high vocal acrobatics. Perry is singing too, up in a similar range. Much is made of drones and lashed cymbals, with the Lodge's chief influence being Far Eastern ritual music (...Buddhism...)

The next piece, "Fragment No. 6," is the one with which most bands would have opened the album, a jazzier pulse ensuing, with Miller's walking figures and Keith's rippling up and down the keyboard's entire spread. Julie's sopranino recorder sounds trillingly Chinese, but later, Perry whips out the real deal, with his sheng mouth organ. "Communal Travel" is another extended rumination, at nearly 18 minutes, and has the strongest Oriental sound, with Perry exploring his full spread of gongs.

It's possible to see how this album is very much of its time, and that some cynics might dismiss it as an aimless hippy happening. Even this reviewer, an avowed admirer of this band, and all music Tippettian, had such thoughts flitting past during some stretches, but the Lodge's high level of musicianship, careful listening abilities and philosophical bent, tend to overcome most of these uncertainties.

_ By Martin Longley

It’s hard to believe there are only four musicians at work here such is the density, richness and diversity of their sound. Ovary Lodge is without doubt a difficult, rigorous and demanding album. It’s also an exciting, dramatic rollercoaster ride in the company of some of the 70s UK jazz scene’s brightest players.

If you find it, buy this album!

FRANK PERRY – Deep Peace (LP-1981 / Quartz Publications – !QUARTZ 007)

Label: Quartz Publications – !QUARTZ 007

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: UK / Released: 1981

Style: Free Improvisation, Experimental, Minimal

Recorded Sept. 1-3 and Oct. 4-6, 1980 at Ridge Farm Studios, Surrey, England

Artwork [Cover Design] – David Toop

Front Cover Manadala Painting – Frank Perry

Liner Notes – Robert Fripp

Composed By, Liner Notes, Producer – Frank Perry

Photography By [Back Cover] – Jak Kilby

Engineer – Tony Andrews, Tony Spath

Matrix / Runout (Side A): !QUARTZ 007-A.

Matrix / Runout (Side B): !QUARTZ 007-B.

A - Deep Peace Of The Flowing Air To You ........................................... 20:04

B - Deep Peace Of The Son Of Peace To You ...................................... 19:45

FRANK PERRY employs a fascinating array of acoustic instruments:

Bells [400 Year Old Zen Buddhist Densho Bells, Ming Dynasty Chinese Temple Bell, Japanese And Chinese Bell Trees, Tibetan Bells, Indian Bells, Swiss Cowbells, Japanese Resting Bells, Japanese And Chinese Bells], Gong [Various Kyeezees (Burmese Meditation Gongs) None Less Than 50 Years Old, Chinese Buddha Gongs, Chinese Gongs, Paiste Orchestral Tuned Gongs, Paiste Sound-plates And Sound-discs (Tuned And Untuned), Untuned Sound Discs], Singing Bowls [Burmese Chime Bowls], Percussion [Glass Bowls And Glasses, Home-made Petal-discs (Made From The Paiste Sound-disc Material)], Cymbal [Tibetan Invocation Cymbals And Meditation Cymbals]

From Frank Perry's liner notes: "The production of the music on this album involves no electronics whatsoever. Apart from where obvious (i.e. accurately timed gong strikes on Side 1) all the music is completely improvised (as also inspired and spontaneous)".

"Bells and gongs are representative of some of the most spiritual music," says Perry. He is a master of his art form, understanding how each gong produces its fundamental tone, harmonics and sub–tones. He carefully blends to create the specific meditative mood he desires. "Admittedly, percussion is not a field of instrumentation or sound–source most usually associated with meditational music, but I have spent half of my life refining the potential usages and overcoming the initial restrictions imposed by this musical medium of percussion."

It is impossible to do justice to this ‘music for meditation’ through words, for the experience is in the music itself. Suffice it to say, that on hearing ‘Deep Peace’, it is as if the whole world, and not just the human ear, stops to listen and comes alive to its subtle vibrations. The music conveys the experience of another dimension of reality hidden beyond ‘outer’ form, so that the vibrations of its sound resonate with and invoke a response from the natural vibrations that live around us – the music of the spheres. In the LP’s accompanying booklet, Frank Perry states that “…the Sun and Moon principles, which form the basis of this work, are each dependent one upon the other in their inseparability; being here representative of the Eucharistic Christian Sacraments.”

The cover of the record depicts a beautiful mandala by Frank, representing the planet Jupiter and the title is taken from an old Gaelic prayer: “Deep peace of the running wave to you. Deep peace of the flowing air to you. Deep peace of the quiet earth to you. Deep peace of the shining stars to you. Deep peace of the Son of Peace to you.”

Few artists are as spiritually sincere and philosophically dedicated as Frank Perry. "For the maintenance of well–being, each one of us is in need of a constant attunement or alignment with that deep peace at the center of all life. This music is designed to provide a means, a bridge, towards this condition."

Perry has been perfecting his musical skills as he has been perfecting his spiritual skills for the past several decades. In fact, the two aspects are fused in his life. He is a student of numerology and cosmology, and an ardent reader of varied theological and philosophical works. The knowledge he gains from these studies, he incorporates into his pieces to share with others. "This music centers one's energy through concentration within sound, thus forming a bridge between past and future, or between the visible and invisible realms of Life."

And this masterpiece? ..... This is something only for my tortured soul :)

If you find it, buy this album!