Various - The History Of The House Sound Of Chicago (BCM - B.C. 70-2060-49)

"The beat won't stop with the JM Rock. If he jacks the box and the party rocks. The clock tick tocks and the place gets hot. So ease your mind and set yourself free. To that mystifying music they call the key".

House music has historic significance for mid aged chaps like me. We were in our fountain of youth when we started listening House music when it was becoming a fully fledged style of it's own. Then came the Acid vs Metal fury and blew it all off. You were to pick a camp. I wanted to be on both camps due to my already varied taste, but you just had to pick one. So in the automatic protesting teenage years, I acted like a Metal man even though I had a secret love relationship with Acid going on. It was more than a fling and the main reason was my background with House.

House originated from the club Warehouse in Chicago where Frankie Knuckles was playing. He is known to be the Godfather of the genre with some true acclaim to it. He pioneered the style mixing RnB & Soul music with dance tunes and created a new mash up style which we today call House music. However, from those days onwards, House music evolved to numerous shapes, sizes and tastes. House music has been the most fruitful of genres in almost all music history since it has bred and fed the most genres afterwards. To name a few, Techno, Tech House, Progressive House, Hard House, Trance, Us Garage, Italo Disco, etc. etc.

This huge box set of 12 LPs is all about the history of the House music. It includes tracks which are mainly from the beginning stages and then covers a certain era (2 years naturally) when the genre was still in it's growth stages. This has limited the span of the tracks relevant in the box set since you just get a glimpse of how House music has started, but not as how it has developed. However, it is still historically significant in all ways.

The artists and tracks that appear in this box set are both legendary and forgotten. Both types are here. Adonis is here, Chip E., Jackmaster Funk, Marshall Jefferson, Phuture, House Master Boyz, and of course D Train. They are all there. There is also a sort of diversification between labels, the first famous tracks and the rest. However, looking back to it after 20 something years, those distinctions are not so clear now though others are more obvious. It would have been or might be a little better if there is a new version of this box set which covers the whole era. Honestly I think even 20 records may not be enough to cover it, but who can blame me for dreaming and hoping. This is House music. This is where it all started. Thank you Frankie Knuckles.

To buy this box set:

@ Ebay
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Woody Guthrie - Library Of Congress Recordings (Rounder - 1041/3)

Woody Guthrie is an interesting character altogether apart from being the idol of many musicians that we and our fathers have been fans of including Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Pete Seeger. He is originally a Folk musician as well as an improviser, though during the development of his career, he sang more and more Blues songs. I should also note that he is certainly not a Country singer as that may be sometimes mixed up with Folk. Another interesting aspect of Guthrie is that he was not a rebuplican. More than that, he was an unofficial communist as he was never listed in any party or groups, but his views were clearly in that line. One reason may have been that he grew up in a well integrated town where a quarter of the population was Indians, the other quarter African Americans and rest Whites. Another aspect could be the Great Depression to which he grew into.

No matter his political leanings, one thing that we can be sure of is that he was one hell of a musician. This box set is also a very good proof of that. Most of his recordings are in the archives of Library Of Congress, hence this box set represents most of the best live recordings he has done. Additionally, before and after each song he plays live, he explains the music, his story and his views which makes the records all the more beautiful while listening. We learn that his mother died in an asylum and his father somehow caught fire after losing all his money and ranch (Guthrie thinks his father set himself on fire incidentally). He even explains his experience with a certain dust storm which happened in April 14th, 1935 which eventually turned up into a song named "Dust Storm Disaster".

The tracks which have been enlightening for me were "Railroad Blues", a story about whiskey "Rye Whiskey", "Do-Re-Mi", a self explanatory post Great Depression song called "I Ain't Got No Home", etc.  The main theme of the box set is the post Great Depression era and the dust storms that came with it. During the interviews you hear a lot about the Dust Bowl and it's effect on people, how people migrated from the Great Plains to states like California and how they lived there. Songs are actually about them as well. Due to wrong farming procedures  and the drought that came with it, the whole Great Plains were covered with dust and when came the prevailing winds, they took up the dust to create dust storms which are famous of that era. These storms caused sicknesses (Hence the song "Dust Pneumonia") and changed lives drastically. For the people interested in this era which also gave birth to John Steinbeck's famous "Grapes Of Wrath", you can watch the TV series "Surviving The Dust Bowl" from PBS's website here.

Overall I have to say that this is quite a sincere performance I am listening. It was recorded in 1940 and I have serious thoughts that this was a radio show. Unfortunately I have the newer version of this box set. The original was released by Library Of Congress records back in 1964 while this one is a repress from 1988 by Rounder records. I also have to say that everything about the release is the same with the previous one. No remastering etc, so that is a good thing. The whole box set left me stunned with the interviews, the songs and the stories behind them. It is a must for any music and sociology lover.

To buy this box set:

@ Ebay
@ Discogs

Keith Jarrett - J. S. Bach - Das Wohltemperierte Klavier Buch 1 (ECM New Series - 835 246-1)

Keith Jarrett is a worldwide known Jazz and improvisational pianist/composer. Actually it would be hard not to know him if you are into Jazz since he has been one of the most prominent artists in the last 3 decades. However, his talents are not limited only to Jazz since he has tried (Similar to his fellow contemporary Chick Corea) many different musical genres, mainly on the piano.

This box set is the interpretations of Bach's works for Harpsichord. This is quite a brief explanation of the whole thing actually. The reality lies a little deeper. As Jarrett himself explains, he did not want to add another Glenn Gould style version of Bach's works. There were already too many by lots of excessively gifted pianists. What Jarrett wanted to accomplish was to emphasize the whole thought process of Bach while he was composing these works.

One other interesting thing about the box set is that Jarrett did not want to adopt the works to the more flexible and expressive piano. He rather stuck to the original instrument of harpsichord. He explains the reasoning as "The piece is better than the piano". This is of course a step in his total process of trying to be as authentic as he could get to the music of Bach as he could while still having a touch of modernism via his improvisations. Honestly Jarrett's improvisations are the only key factor of difference from the original scores. Yet, we don't feel any make up or excessive expressionism on Jarrett's part. He is not showing off the parts that he improvises on. There are no Hendrix style "I lose myself now" solos. Jarrett's true talent here becomes in syncronising his miniature improvisations according to the general thought process of Bach and thus giving a more subtle view. There is no reforming here, no innovations, no ground breaking interpretations. It is just Bach with a little touch of Jarrett, but still under Bach's supervision. Even Bach would have been proud of this work.

Please also note that Keith Jarrett will be performing live in Istanbul during the Istanbul Jazz Festival on the 18th of July 2012 with Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette. This will be a night to remember. Tickets can be found here.

To buy this box set:

@ Ebay

Miles Davis - In Person, At The Blackhawk, San Francisco Volume I & II (Columbia - P 17383 & 17384)

Blackhawk club in San Francisco had a well earned fame with exquisite and cozy performances. Miles Davis is among the many legendary artists who has taken the stage in this club which was explained to be close to ruins even in its heydays. Nothing was as important as the music.

Maybe the true success of the club lied in this standardness. There was absolutely nothing special about here. You just came, listened and went out. Nothing fancy, nothing to distract you apart from the smokey atmosphere. They took no reservations, there were no special arrangements for anyone. They had a teenage section where they only sold soft drinks and this was closed down by the city mayor. After huge protests from the artists, jazz lovers and the media, they reopened it. This shows how crucial the club has been to the people of SF.

Many recordings have been made here and Miles Davis's is among them. Ahmad Jamal, Dave Brubeck, Cal Tjader, and Thelonious Monk are all there. However, these sessions were the first for Miles Davis to record live. The recording setup was prepared at the club next door called 211. It is clear that even he felt home there and this reflects on his performance. He is known to wander around the club while his band were into their own solos. It doesn't get more intimate than this.

Coming back to the records, it is also self explanatory since the records have been a story of success since their first release. The sound is totally raw and real. Miles Davis is trying to touch your heart and brain with his solos and guess what, he damn well does it. If you cramp up the volume which I advise feverishly, you just need to close your eyes and picture yourself there with Miles smoking, sipping champagne and throwing out one of his solos in between. His solos are even showing all signs of this character. Sometimes extremely talkative, telling long stories, sometimes sharp as his tongue can be, hitting fast and then retreating. Yet it all comes down to one thing only. You listen Miles Davis without any corrections, any studio hanky panky. Pure Miles, pure music.

There is one thing I need to add before ending this. In 2003, Columbia records released the full version of the performances of these two nights, Friday and Saturday. However, the guys in Columbia were only wise enough to release them as CDs. It takes 4 CDs to cover the whole nights and unfortunately we don't get the privilege to listen them on vinyl. This is one of the dumbest things I've seen, I'm sorry to say. They are reissuing tons of old releases and missing this one out has been a blast. I hope they'll come to their senses soon. These performances are meant to be on records.

Michael Nyman - Drowning By Numbers (Venture - VE23)

Michael Nyman is a composer who helped to shape the modern composition techniques and experimentations. It is a must to mention his name while talking about 1970 and onwards on classical music since he layed the foundations for today's young and developing composers.

Drowning By Numbers is a record that can drown you into other worlds of joy and sorrow. It drowns you into it's beauty. Even though it is a meticulously calculated experiment based on Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante for violin, viola and orchestra, it has such a perfectness to it that listening once can not and will not be enough.

The first idea of decomposing and recomposing of the Sinfonia Concertante came from Peter Greenaway and Nyman really jumped on the idea there and then. His first project was to concentrate on the four notes (58-61) for the movie "The Falls". For the film Drowning By Numbers, he enhanced the idea to cover the full movement and this obviously opened a whole world of opportunities to Nyman.

Even before achieving this information from the back cover of the record, one can feel a completeness, a collectiveness within the recompositions. It feels like all of them are attached to each other somehow in one way and they are a part of a greater good. Therefore, I find it extremely unjust to separate and criticize on any of the recompositions by itself. They are meaningful together even though within themselves they are immensely affectionate and profound.