NOVEMBER 09′
OLA BELLE REED
Traditional old timey folk music when authentic and spirited makes for some of the most gratifying sounds I know, and these sweet grass songs of times gone by are just the stuff (and include all the usual death ballads, broken hearts, drifters, liquor, God, etc.). Ola’s voice is a solid driven engine with strength enough to freight the long winding family sound on this 1973 Rounder Records LP recorded by Gei Zantzingerin in 1972 in Devault, Pennsylvania. The record features Ola Belle Reed, banjo and fiddle; Bud Reed, harmonica, banjo and guitar; David Reed, banjo and guitar; John Miller, fiddle; and Alan Reed, banjo and guitar. Genuine and stirring, this is deeply rooted stuff, with tracks like “Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss” and “The Springtime of Life” winning hearts and moving feet - I can only trust that “The Soldier And The Lady” will soften even the hardest among us. Still available in CD format by the folks at Rounder. From the liner notes:
“Unlike many other musicians, Ola Belle’s music is balanced and integrated with the rest of her life. She views music as a part of life that can effectively bring people together and help them work together. Having grown up in a poor but religious atmosphere, she realized that if life can be made qualitatively better for any of us, it can be brought about only by a community sharing and working together. 
There is a very basic and vital optimism in Ola Belle’s belief that we can positively change our lives for the better by relying upon ourselves and “by taking matters into our own hands and doing something about the problems and situations that come in front of us everyday.” Since any true radical’s battlefield is provincialism and bigotry, Ola Belle has come to deplore many of the recent tendencies of country musicians to become ardently chauvinistic about their tastes in old-timey, bluegrass, etc. to the exclusion of all other music. This development runs directly counter to Ola Belle’s affirmations of music as a unifying and comradely tie among people. Ola Belle herself is aware of her own tastes and roots in music, but jealously defends the rights of other performers to choose their own style and material. Music, she feels, belongs to us all. As concrete support for this assertion, she can point to songs that are adapted beautifully to many different styles.”
Rounder Records 0021, 1973
Side One:
1. Wayfaring Pilgrim (4′29)
2. High On A Mountain (2′32)
3. The Soldier And The Lady (4′12)
4. Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss (2′00)
5. Go Home Little Girl (3′56)
6. Blues In My Mind (3′00)
7. God Put A Rainbow In The Clouds (2′47)
8. Flop Eared Mule (2′21)
Side Two:
1. The Springtime Of Life (4′07)
2. Billy In The Lowground (1′28)
3. You Don’t Tell Me That You Love Me Anymore (3′42)
4. I’ve Always Been A Rambler (3′16)
5. Rosewood Casket (2′38)
6. John Hardy (1′41)
7. My Epitaph (3′07)
8. I Believe (2′46)
TWO MUSICAL TRADITIONS OF INDIA: DR. L. SUBRAMANIAM AND SMT. LAKSHMI SHANKAR
Although a huge fan of Dr. L. Subramaniam, this live split-LP’s highlight is Lakshmi Shankar’s contribution occupying the entire first side of the record. Her voice is totally captivating, and her versatility and gently patient style make for a really sweet ride into the ether. Lakshmi recorded with both Ravi Shankar and George Harrison, among others, and is well known in the lexicon of eastern Indian greats who have recorded for Western audiences. “Her greatest assets are a brilliant and melodious voice which encompasses three octaves with ease, a polished style, dedication to music, and an intelligent approach to art.” Featured with her are Zakir Hussain, tabla, and Vijayashree Subramaniam, tanpura.
On side two are three tracks by Dr. Subramaniam, the first of which is unfortunately cut short. One of the many great things about Indian classical music is the song durations, but unfortunately, the folks at Ganesh Records felt it better to include a variety of short tunes by the Dr. instead of just one side-long track as they did with Lakshmi. In the end you can’t go wrong with any song duration by Subramaniam, as he always delivers fanfare, and a mind-numbing brilliance of style and form. Featured with the Dr. are Palghat T.S. Mani Iyer, Mridangam, and Vijayashree Subramaniam, tambura. Unfortunately, I was unable to get information about the dates or locations of these performances, nor can I find any information about Ganesh Records (seems to be c. mid to late 70’s).
Ganesh Records, DRL 1008
Side One (Lakshmi Shankar):
1. Supna Ban Aaye, Raag: Rageshri Khyal Vilambit: Ektal
Side Two (Dr. L. Subramaniam):
1. Kriti: Siddhi Vinayakam, Raga: Shanmukhapriya, Tala: Roopakam, Composer: Muthusvami Dikshitar
2. Kriti: Paluku-Kanda Sakkeranu, Raga: Navarasa Kannada, Tala: Adi, Composer: Thyagaraja
3. Thirupugazh, Raga: Todi, Composer: Arunagirinathar
[.zip]
JON GIBSON: TWO SOLO PIECES
The track “Cycles” on side one is a drop dead gorgeous minimalist drone piece, indeed one of the finest I have heard, containing no overdubs or electronics. Featured instead is what the liner notes describe as “an environmental, textural piece that is essentially improvised on a constantly shifting seven-note melodic progression in four-part harmony… played on a pipe organ… using sustained tones in various groupings, clusters, and stop settings.” Side two of the LP is a more straightforward “structured improvisation” for the flute, but no less interesting in its compositional framework, and as a demonstration of Gibson’s ability as a skilled flautist. The record has been reissued previously on CD by New Tone, and again recently in a package that includes three extra tracks not found on this Chatham Square LP. From the Grove Dictionary:
“Gibson began his own early experimental work as an improviser and composer, performing in the New Music Ensemble, which also included composers Larry Austin, Richard Swift and Stanley Lunetta. Gibson’s compositions reveal an underlying Minimalist/Post Modern vocabulary which he helped pioneer, along with influences from jazz, which he has studied since his teens, notably with saxophonist John Handy in the early 60s; and the South Indian vocal music he studied simultaneously at the Ali Akbar Khan School. Other non-Western musical influences include Indian musicians Pandit Pran Nath, Bismallah Khan and Mahalingam.”
Chatham Square Stereo LP 24, 1977
Side One:
1. Cycles (1973), Recorded December, 1975 at Washington Square Church, New York (22′49)
Side Two:
1. Untitled (1974), Recorded December, 1975 at Big Apple Recording Studio, New York (18′15)
[.zip]
VIBRACATHEDRAL ORCHESTRA
Given the field, I think these guys do a nice job with the drone/improv/psych/whatever genre, and find themselves in fine form on this recording of a live performance from 2003 for WFMU radio in New Jersey. The lineup featured the usual Adam Davenport, Bridget Hayden, Julian Bradley and Michael Flower (Neil Campbell stayed home with a new baby), and included special guests John Godbert, Matthew Bower, and Tom Greenwood. Tribal harmonics meets electric atmosphere, with drone as platform for the freewheeling and earnest jams - the thing I appreciate most, though, is the members never stray too far from course, maintaining a cohesion that generally feels like a functional organic mass treading the sympathetic course on the good trip to peak-out mountain. Steve Rybicki writes:
“Vibracathedral Orchestra live is a totally different proposition than their “studio” recordings. Playing live gives them a chance to stretch out their improvisations and set the controls for the heart of the drone. Add to that the fact that they had acquired confidence after having just completed very successful gigs with American sympaticos Sunburned Hand of the Man and Double Leopards, the inspired contributions from their guests, and the soundboard quality you get from these two side-long recordings and what you’ve got is some pretty essential stuff.”
Eclipse Records, ECL 031, 2004
Side One:
1. Ridin’ Free (19′59)
Side Two:
1. Captain Labour (14′55)
[.zip]
EKKEHARD EHLERS “BETRIEB”
Throughout this double LP are intersections between the cerebral and the poetic, and although rife with both, it’s sometimes hard to discern where the one begins and the other ends. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, especially if you enjoy the fin de siécle minimalist sounds of Ekkehard Ehlers (et al.) in his various guises. “Betrieb” (operating) was Ehler’s first solo release under his own name from 1999 on Mille Plateaux, coming smack dab in the middle of the time when experimental post-digital deconstruction (call it what you will) was really taking hold, and lots of artists and computer music-types started making sounds similar to what you hear on this LP, utilizing among other things, the detritus (samples) from the library of 20th century music. That’s not a bad thing either, and while considering the genre through the austere impulses of this album ten years later, it’s an interesting listen both in its conceptual aspirations, and for the beauty it encompasses. The first two sides contain only song titles, with no source material references other than to Ives and Schoenberg (tucked away in the liner notes by Curd Duca), while the second two sides give credit to the artists covering titles from the first two sides, all more or less stalwarts within the genre (and thus, the détournement becomes the snake eating its tail sort of thing). If I recall, the latter ‘cover’ tracks could only be found on the LP version of the original release.
Mille Plateaux, MP 86, 1999
Side One:
1. Auf (0′49)
2. Innen (3′52)
3. Offen (4′33)
4. Langsam (3′16)
5. Weit (4′39)
6. Schneller (1′20)
7. Früher (6′09)
Side Two:
1. Rund (0′43)
2. Weiter (2′29)
3. Später (3′47)
4. Unten (6′29)
5. Tief (4′46)
6. Immer (1′15)
7. Zu (2′58)
Side Three:
1. Unten (Christian Fennesz) (3′56)
2. Tief (Akira Rabelais) (4′53)
3. Offen (Autopoieses) (5′54)
Side Four
1. Später (Full Swing) (7′22)
2. Weiter (Komet) (5′49)
3. Früher (Stewart Walker) (5′29)
4. Innen (Neina) (7′10)
CHARLES IVES: THE SONATAS FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO, VOLUMES ONE AND TWO
“My God! What has sound got to do with music!” Ive’s once wrote, and a fitting departure point from the above to deliver a couple more relevant Folkways titles… From the Liner notes by Samuel Charters:
“Although Ives’ theories of music were strongly personal his general aesthetic theories were greatly influenced by the transcendentalism of Emerson, Channing, and Bronson Alcott, which believed that the natural world was the expression of a larger universal reality. He is regarded as one of the first American composers to write music in an American idiom, but he would have been disturbed to find himself thought of as only “American” in his creative expression. 
He felt that the artist’s only truth was to be found within himself, that what he might express as himself takes on the coloration of a place or environment, but if he has been honest in his artistic search the artistic truth that he has found will be a truth beyond any national or local tradition. Ives was too aware of the difficulties of “scene painting” to pretend that he could describe “… the west wind in the pines and oaks, the running brook… the distant voices of the farmers across the hill getting in their cows and sheep,” but he did insist that an artist could capture some essence of the larger spirit that was at the heart of the experience that concerned him. In the collection of essays that he wrote to accompany the publication of his “Concord” Sonata in 1920, “Essays Before A Sonata,” Ives discussed some of his philosophic attitudes toward music and art. In a concluding Epilogue he raised the question of how much a piece of music could be “descriptive.”
‘The futility of attempting to trace the source or primal impulse of an art inspiration may be admitted without granting that human qualities or attributes which go with personality cannot be suggested, and that artistic intuitions which parallel them cannot be reflected in music… That which the composer intends to represent as “high vitality” sounds like something quite different to different listeners. That which I like to think suggests Thoreau’s submission to nature may, to another, seem something like Hawthorne’s conception of the relentlessness of an evil conscience - and to the rest of our friends, but a series of unpleasant sounds. How far can the composer be held accountable? Beyond a certain point the responsibility is more or less undeterminable. The outside characteristics - that is, the points furthest away from the margins - are obvious to mostly anyone. A child knows a strain of joy from one of sorrow. Those a little older know the dignified from the frivolous - the “Spring Song” from the season in which the “melancholy days have come” (though is there not a glorious hope in autumn!). But where is the definite expression of late spring against early summer - of happiness against optimism? A painter paints a sunset - can he paint a setting sun?’
He then went on to the Emersonian ideal of the duality of artistic expression, with its belief that a work of art is at once its substance, or content, or “soul,” and its manner, or style, or technique. Music, he felt, should be like Emerson’s essays, all substance, contain the essence of some moment of reality. The American composer Elliott Carter, in an essay entitled “Ives Today: His Vision and Challenge,” which appeared in Modern Music in the May-June issue, 1944, recognized this duality in Ives’ music:
‘On the surface of his work, the infinite complexity of nature, the rapidly changing moods of forest and plain, the web of counterbalancing forces appear confused and dissociated. But Ives’ involved texture, while mirroring this superficial confusion, at the same time attempts to show the larger harmony of rhythm behind the natural process.’”
Folkways Records, FM 3346, FM 3347, 1965
Side One, Sonata 1:
1. ANDANTE - Allegro Vivace (8′19)
2. LARGO CANTABILE (8′49)
3. ALLEGRO (9′01)
Side Two, Sonata 2:
1. AUTUMN - Adagio Maestoso - Allegro Moderato (5′30)
2. IN THE BARN - Presto - Allegro Moderato (4′13)
3. THE REVIVAL - Largo - Allegretto (4′47)
Side Three, Sonata 3:
1. ADAGIO, Verse 1 - Andante, Verse 2, allegretto, Verse 3 - Adagio, last verse (14′08)
2. ALLEGRO (4′19)
3. ADAGIO CANTABILE - Andante Con Spirito (10′34)
Side Four, Sonata 4:
1. ALLEGRO (2′25)
2. LARGO ALLEGRO (con slugaroko) (6′09)
3. ALLEGRO (1′51)