This site looks like it has gone silent but you should peep it out anyway...
"Famous reggae author Door Peeper & Mista P from the Port-O-Jam Sound System present new podcasts & achive shows from their Internet Radio Show on (defunct) GlobalGrooving.com A mixture of new releases, roots, revival from ska 2 skinhead 2 roots oldies 2 jazz rare grooves & some old chat"
Why should you care? Well, see, the podcasts are still up and running and they are well worth your time...streaming and download available...though not a main focus of the site, there are also
a bunch of scans of vintage reggae vinyl labels.
Dig
DoorJam Archive
Let's open with some brief excerpts from
a great review from AMG:
"...the pre-Messengers quintet heard on this first volume of live club dates at Birdland in New York City provides solid evidence to the assertion that this ensemble was a one of a kind group the likes of which was not heard until the mid-'60s Miles Davis Quintet...This recording, as well as subsequent editions of these performances, launches an initial breakthrough for Blakey and modern jazz in general, and defines the way jazz music could be heard for decades thereafter. Everybody must own copies of all volumes of A Night at Birdland."
There is an epic take on "A Night in Tunisia" but the highlight for me is a Horace Silver composition, "Quicksilver"...
Download:Art Blakey Quintet - A Night at Birdland, Vol. 1
From
Wikipedia:
"Flying Lotus, (born Steven Ellison) is an experimental hip hop music producer, disc jockey, and laptop musician from Winnetka, California...He is most famous (yet also uncredited) for the music in many of the segues of Cartoon Network's Adult Swim...His great-aunt is the late Alice Coltrane...Flying Lotus is commonly identified as a hip hop producer, but his style is drawn from many genres, including jazz, electronic, and Brazilian music. His hip hop beats are unique for their hazy, ambient sound, while his percussion is purposely slightly off time, creating a messier, more organic atmosphere..."
Hip hop is not at all what I would call Flying Lotus but who cares what I think...Here's what AMG has to say about this record:
"...Lotus layers spacy keyboards over bass-heavy beats, clearly very much influenced by the whole free jazz-based electronica and hip-hop Sa-Ra craziness that's prevalent in the L.A. area...Lotus doesn't drag out his pieces; instead, all but two of them fall neatly under four minutes, keeping 1983 from becoming a masturbatory exercise in keyboard lines and instead making it very listenable, with beats that circle around without becoming predictable, pulling jazz and Brazilian rhythms into his own electronic-based production and creating a very coherent and listenable album. The individual songs are good...but it's the entire record that has the greatest effect. It's controlled and circular but also very warm and expressive, able to have fun, to not take itself too seriously....intelligent, accessible, jazz-based electronica and left-field hip-hop..."
The thing I agree with most here is that the record
as a whole is the way to go when listening to it...It also blows by; I have listened to it several times last night and this morning. It is great mood music...
Because the record is (or seems) so short, I am including two tracks from Flying Lotus's 2008 record
Los Angeles, which I originally scored from
Captain's Crate...
Download:Flying Lotus - 1983
From
his All Music bio:
"One of the "big three" of current jazz guitarists (along with Pat Metheny and Bill Frisell), John Scofield's influence grew in the '90s. Possessor of a very distinctive rock-oriented sound that is often a bit distorted, Scofield is a masterful jazz improviser whose music generally falls somewhere between post-bop, fusion, and soul jazz..."
And
their entry about this record:
"John Scofield owes a great deal to Medeski, Martin & Wood for the success of A Go Go. The piano/organ, bass, and drum playing trio adds a world of bouncing vibes to Scofield's inquisitive, happy guitar work here...an album of mostly breezy, sometimes tense, jam-based grooves. The album's charm is in its "city meets the tropics" feel. The four players create such a warm, vibrant sound that resisting the urge to tap one's feet along with the beat becomes a near impossibility...There's nary a moment of filler to be found across the ten tracks. It's clear that Scofield enjoyed the collaboration, as his guitars seem to nearly speak joy. His alternately jangling and plucking style sees him weaving in and out of the young trio's sound net with ample confidence. As fun as A Go Go is, it's just as well-sequenced, as Scofield and company vary their pace and tone expertly throughout the album's running time...far more than four cool cats jamming together and enjoying each other's company. It's an immensely entertaining, enlightening ride."
I have had a mental block against Scofield for a few years now, not quite accepting his latest incarnation in the jam band scene. That was foolish. This record is not redefining music but it is fun as hell. Great sound, great playing.
Download:John Scofield - A Go Go
Here's a happening site...
loads of hip hop, which makes it a great site to feature on a Friday night...
Dig
The Dice Game.
And hopefully you haven't forgotten to
check out my twitter updates...
From the June 29 issue of
The New Yorker,
this piece starts promisingly enough:
"In the winter of 2004, Jonathan Pieslak, a composer and an associate professor of music at City College, was researching a paper on heavy metal when he stumbled on a Web site devoted to the death-metal band Slayer...On the site, a fan had written that, during the Gulf War, the band received forty per cent of its fan mail from soldiers in the Middle East. The claim turned out to be an exaggeration, but Pieslak became interested. In April, Indiana University Press published his book “Sound Targets: American Soldiers and Music in the Iraq War,” which examines the role of music in military recruiting, combat, interrogations, and morale, and explains many things about Slayer’s appeal..."
But sort of wound up depressing me:
"...listening to heavy metal, with its double-pedal bass drums and tremolo-style guitars, Pieslak writes, is a good way to prepare mentally for a mission, because it “sounds considerably like the consistent discharge of bullets fired from an automatic gun...”"
and
"...Music, Pieslak writes, has always been a part of the military experience, from training cadences (“Soldier, Soldier Have You Heard”) to battle cries (Joshua’s trumpets, “Hakkaa päälle”) and “thunder runs,” in which troops descend in force upon a given area...In the book’s fourth chapter, “Music as a Psychological Tactic,” Pieslak examines a “sonic battle” between American troops—who blasted “Welcome to the Jungle,” by Guns N’ Roses, and “Hell’s Bells,” by AC/DC—and Iraqi mullahs, who tried to drown out the metal with chants of “Allahu Akbar” and Arabic music..."
To be clear, what I am writing here is not a commentary on soldiers. I have never and could never do the job they do and frankly have no judgment whatsoever to cast upon them. Now the people that put other people in these situations...who force human beings to debase something as important to our species as music...I guess I am just looking for things to be outraged about today and this did it for me...Sorry.
