Burning Dervish

Carol Kaye has been a session player for the better part of 50 years, though according to her website "..only for the people I want to work for and if the situation is right...not much these days, but enough...".

Kaye's played bass or guitar on some of the biggest songs in the initial rock era and really left her mark with her playing on Pet Sounds...Some of her session credits appear to be in dispute, particularly some (so far undocumented) work she claims she did for Motown. Here are some interesting links on the background of that controversy:

CarolKaye.com FAQ
This section from her Wikipedia entry
Who Played Bass on Stevie Wonder's "I Was Made To Love Her"? on Bassland.net

The compilation below includes only a very small handful of songs associated with Kaye. Enjoy.

Download Burning Dervish Vol 15: Carol Kaye

The albums these tracks are on are all available in the Burning Dervish Amazon Store.

This is a really pretty, "cool" jazz record. I almost feel like McCoy had to make this and Inception, his first record as a leader which I blogged about last week here), before he could begin making the kinds of records he did over the next fifteen years or so...those where he fully defined his sound, experimented with various line-ups and instrument combinations and of course, accompanied Coltrane on some of the most exciting music around...

I don't make these comments to detract from what a great (and great sounding) record this is, and it stands up really well in its own right, but for me it is the appetizer at the beginning of a 4-star meal...

Download
Groove Waltz
Blue Monk
from Nights of Ballads and Blues

Received this email from a cat I know:

Dear Friends,

Please join us for great live music and drinks this Thursday night from 8-11:30pm at the Velvet Cigar Lounge located at 174 Broadway in Williamsburg. We need your support to keep this series on the map. Come out and stop by for a drink or two. I guarantee that you will not be let down by the music or the venue. We have a really great group for you this week featuring one of my mentors from down south, Steve Hanes, on bass. This guy is amazing, we are lucky to have him!!

Geoff Vidal- Tenor Sax
Nir Felder- Guitar
Steve Hanes- Bass
Jon Pratt- Drums

TWO FOR ONE GLASSES OF CHAMPAGNE FOR THE LADIES ALL NIGHT LONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And the subject line of his email says, "No cover"...

Disclaimer: I came very close to ignoring this band entirely because they use "emo" to describe themselves on MySpace...I mean, does the world need anymore of that?

But of course, I can't help myself so I gave it a listen.

I get a few inquiries a week through my website from artists asking me to check out their stuff and blog about. Truthfully, very little of it is any good so in the spirit of saying nothing instead of something not good, I usually just reply and say "thanks" and move on.

So anyway...Plushgun...not something I would put on for my own consumption, its sorta white, but the songs are well put together and the production is strong and I feel like these guys have a sense of craft and to me, that is worth recognizing, if not celebrating.

The music has gotten a few nice write-ups online:
on Your Standard Life
on All That She Surveys
on AM Music Blog

And don't forget the obligatory MySpace page.

What do you think?

I never would have thought that I would want to read a 300+ page book about Tom Petty...Conversations With Tom Petty is really something else, though. It reminded me how much great music Petty has made - with the Heartbreakers, the Wilburys and as a solo artist. He's really easy to take for granted but dig out Wildflowers, She's The One or The Traveling Wilburys, Vol. 1 and just listen.

Forget the fact that he knew and played with everyone: Duck Dunn, Jim Keltner, George Harrison, Ringo, Dylan, etc etc etc...

He turns out to be a pretty interesting cat to read about, too. Made me want to dig out one my favorite Petty tracks...Enjoy the MP3...

I downloaded this CD on a whim from eMusic and it is one of my recent favorites. I cannot pretend to know much about these two performers (yet) so let me quote and link to other sources...

Wikipedia says this about Kayhan Kalhor:

"Kayhan Kalhor is an Iranian kamancheh player of Kurdish descent...Kalhor consciously pins Persian classical music structures to the rich folk modes and melodies of Northern Khorasan, the cultural heart of historic Persia and a bridge to Central Asia. Kayhan Kalhor's music speaks from an ancient Persian tradition while sounding timeless and spiritually invigorating today...Kalhor was born in Tehran (1963). At seven years of age, he began studying music under Ahmad Mohajer. By thirteen years of age, Kalhor was playing in the National Orchestra of Radio and Television of Iran...Kalhor studied radif in addition to the different types of music in northeastern and western Iran under various musical teachers. He later and moved to Rome and Ottawa to study Western classical music...Because of his wide range of musical influences, Kalhor's style is sometimes considered radical in that it combines multiple elements from many different musical styles. He uses different musical instruments and crosses many cultural borders with his work..."

And this about Ali Akbar Moradi:

"Ali Akbar Moradi is a well known Kurdish Iranian musician and composer. He was born in Kermanshah in western Iran...and learned the Kurdish maqam repertoire and tanbur (Kurdish lute) under the supervision of Kurdish masters such as Mirza Sayyed Ali Kafashyan, Kaki Allah Morad Hamidi and Sayyed Vali Hosseyni. He gave his first recital in 1971 in Kermanshah...and performed throughout Europe and North America. He is an expert on the tanbur instrument, which is considered sacred in Kurdish sufi music..."

For more info, Google Kayhan Kalhor and Ali Akbar Moradi individually.

Download:
Kayhan Kalhor & Ali Akbar Moradi - Majnooni-Bedaah-e bar Asaas-e Nag and Choopi
from In the Mirror of the Sky

This was McCoy's first release as band leader. Heretofore, McCoy had made his name primarily as a part of Art Farmer's Jazztet and John Coltrane's Quartet, where he occupied the piano bench from 1961 - 1965.

McCoy is easily my favorite piano player - his style just gets me...he bangs out some heavy ass chords with the left hand and plays the most amazing runs with the right...really explosive, especially in his post-Coltrane work, which I will get to in future posts.

In the meantime, enjoy this download...

McCoy Tyner - Inception
from Inception

How do you not love this?

From: Bob Lefsetz [mailto:bob@lefsetz.com]
Sent: Wed 7/11/2007 7:56 PM
To: BurningDervish.com
Subject: Idea Of The Day


Dear Bob,

I really enjoy your eMails. I wanted to share something with you.

Along the lines of the DIY approach you described here's another tactic indie artists might consider. I've been doing it for all of our artists and although it's hard to quantify the result, at least I know my CDs are getting into the hands of music fans. Starbucks has two stores in my community with great CD racks unfortunately populated primarily with corporate, major label product. If Starbucks is going to come into our community and sell us over-priced coffee drinks under the guise of being a community resource, I believe some of their CD rack should be dedicated to local music. Hear Music used to be the company that sold all the music nobody knew about, right? Well, I take 4-5 'promo' CDs, apply a "Complimentary" sticker, add the info on a local show if there is one, and stealthily place those CDs in the Starbucks CD rack. I've even stuck around sometimes and watch people discover complimentary CDs on the rack, watch them ask the staff person about it (who is usually as surprised as the customer), and walk out with a free CD. I've had people show up at our shows who mentioned they got our CD at Starbucks - for free. There are a few of us beginning to do this in NYC and around the region, we do it when we go on the road, and I encourage more people to do it. It's one part protest against the corporate entity that builds into our communities but ignores local artists/music, and another part pure grass roots marketing.


Jeff Eyrich



http://www.BePopRecords.com

http://www.DavesTrueStory.com

http://www.KellyFlint.com

http://www.Lipbone.com

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Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/

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If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter,

http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1

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Now here is a record getting a ton of hype. I think there are a few reasons for that:

1. Mary's original success was with the Shangri-Las, an amazing group that sputtered out before they had a chance to get even more interesting, and they could have

2. It's a "comeback" story. She hasn't recorded new material since 1965 for god's sake

3. Her story is interesting.

Its one of those things...the record doesn't have to be amazing (it isn't) but it is very, very good. It sounds like a natural progression, no pandering, no ignoring the past.

Have you heard any of it?

Mary Weiss from Dangerous Game:
Nobody Knows (But I Do)
I Just Missed You
Tell Me What You Want Me To Do

Each year, throughout my normal course of reading, I usually try to get in at least one book about baseball and one about the Grateful Dead.

Baseball books are easy, as there are so many ways in: biographies, franchise histories, literary fiction, storied seasons, games or events, etc.

The Grateful Dead have gotten difficult, though. Their biography is what it is and it seems regardless who is telling the story - insider, outsider, observer, bandmember - you get the same in-depth story through the early 70s and then as soon as they reconvened from their haitus and Jerry became a serious drug addict, it is a lot of higher-level, less insightful stuff. There is too much caution when it comes to judging or commenting on the attitudes, behaviors and lifestyles of a profoundly talented, innovative and fucked up group of people for nearly any of the authors to be credible.

Which is why I like the book I just finished reading, Grateful Dead Gear: The Band's Instruments, Sound Systems, and Recording Sessions from 1965 to 1995.

The book is a quasi-technical look at the band's instruments, equipment and ever-evolving commitment to putting together the best sonic presentation of their music possible for their audience. In the process, the book gets to wholely avoid (though it doesn't) the other aspects of the band's history. It touches on the social history, the demanding personalities, the relentless grind and the final bleak years, but all in the context of the larger story and how all of these other elements and factors impacted the band's professional needs. Most exciting to me, the book gets to linger on figures and episodes from the band's history that most of the books written by those who care more about preserving the Myth and their own access to the Core Four tend to downplay or avoid.

Pretty nerdy at times, but a really enjoyable read. Most male Dead Heads I know love to obsess over Jerry's choice of guitars and what he played when but there is a nice equality to the coverage, too, concerning every band member's gear (though a little light on the T.C. era), area of interest, etc.

The book's dimensions make it a better couch/bed than beach/commute read but either way, it is worth a look.

I read this morning about how hot it has been for our West Coast brothers and sisters and thought I would post something to help cool them down...

Dorothy was a jazz harpist, who through some rare talent, was able to conjure up a little swing from the instrument. Throughout her career she played with a very broad spectrum of jazz and pop artists, including Louis Armstrong, Woody Herman, Bill Withers, Stevie Wonder, Richard Davis, Dionne Warwick and others. Check out her wikipedia entry to read more about her interesting career.

Ashby's music is always cool and sophisticated and not a bad chill out partner for a hot summer day...

Dorothy Ashby - Pawky
from In a Minor Groove

So the story of the first year of burningdervish.com will end with a couple of notes about projects I have already started and will continue to work on and roll out for the next few months...

The posts with my mixtapes and those with links to other sites hosting mixes have been some of the most popular since I first started doing that whole thing. I have a list of mixes I want to make that is about 30 deep, so at the current haphazard rate of one every month or so I will be busy for a few years....

Chicks on Bass is a silly little thing I have going but one I plan to keep expanding on.

But the big, sprawling, on-going project I am working on is creating a digital archive documenting concerts I have been to over the years. I am posting ticket stubs, set lists, photos, other memorabilia and in many cases recordings of the shows. Its been a blast to work on and I'm really excited about a lot of the items I have to share...

Enjoy and as always, let me know what you think.

Fela expresses his views on the role of music in modern African society...

My buddy John turned me on to this blog, which focuses on obscure and often out-of-print power pop records, usually from the late 70s/early 80s. Music the author describes as, "...you know, raw rock & roll with la la la's". He posts a bunch of MP3s, album art scans and sometimes his own compilations.

Would love to know what you think. Check out Power Pop Criminals.

Here are the four remaining mixes from the set of fourteen I posted throughout year one of burningdervish.com...

Burning Dervish Volume 11: Grateful Dead

Burning Dervish Volume 12

Burning Dervish Volume 13: Spring can be Freaky

Burning Dervish Vol 14: Alice Coltrane

Volumes 1 - 8 are still available here while 9 and 10 are available here.

Looking back at the first year's worth of posts on burningdervish.com I was struck by how much music I made available for download. As evidence, check out the top five most common tags for the items posted from June 2006 - June 2007 (clicking the tag name will bring you a list of all posts with that tag):

1. free music

2. free mp3s

3. concerts

4. live music

5. live mp3s


Given a few of the projects I started during the course of the year, and the fact that I estimate 4 - 500 posts will be needed to finish them off, I expect to be busy for a while...but more on those later...