Super FreQ

2009-11-16T09:56:00.001-08:00

Cristo Redentor | Donald Byrd (1963)
This album has been trashed by jazz snobs, but I love the use of a gospel choir in the arrangements. Another great jazz album employing a chorus, Max Roach's "It's Time," released the previous year, gets similarly dismissed.

Duke Pearson was inspired to write "Cristo Redentor" when he laid eyes on Rio's Christ the Redeemer statue. "I'd never felt that close to religion before," he said.

2009-09-16T12:30:00.000-07:00

Two-Faced World | Millie Jackson (1973)
Millie Jackson dishes out earthy, often salty, observations on life in her warm, soulful voice, which sounds like an edgier Gladys Knight. A signature of her style is the outburst reminiscent of a karate yell that she uses to punctuate her uptempo numbers. The deep, funky sound that Muscle Shoals studio in Alabama is famous for is in full effect on this album.

2009-09-16T10:05:00.000-07:00

Places | Reason to Believe (1990)
After this recording, Reason to Believe gave way to Sense Field, which after a few good albums gave way to schmaltzy "emo" hardcore with vaguely Christian lyrics. It's hard to believe. If you like early Sense Field and have never heard Reason to Believe, or if you would like Sense Field if they weren't quite so cheesy, you'll have a field day with this. These recordings capture the band in raw, crystalline form.

2009-09-16T09:15:00.000-07:00

My Man My Man | Jennifer Lara (1981)
Jennifer Lara, a queen of the Jamaican music scene, joined Studio One in 1969, cutting her own album in 1974, "Studio One Presents Jennifer Lara," and a handful of singles through the years. She also recorded backup vocals for a number of artists on the label, including the Ethiopians. Lara died at age 52 in 2005.

2009-09-15T11:00:00.000-07:00

Non-Alignment Pact | Pere Ubu (1978)
Ferocious, in your-face, avant-garde primordial punk from Cleveland, the city that sired Rocket from the Tombs and Albert Ayler. Ubu's expressive and dissonant, theatrical sound is often described as "difficult" or "challenging" — and it is, in that it's always original, unexpected and unrestrained. But "challenging" is often code for boring, which this certainly is not. "Non-Alignment Pact" leads off the debut album.

2009-09-15T09:37:00.000-07:00

Asante | McCoy Tyner (1970)
I tend to like albums that jazz purists hate, particularly works that incorporate the human voice. Rather than distract from the arrangement — the usual accusation by elitists who dislike vocals in jazz — Songai's singing is organic to the humble and introspective mood of the album.

PIANO: McCoy Tyner; ALTO SAX: Andrew White; VOCALS: Songai Sandra Smith; CONGA: Mtume; GUITAR: Ted Bunbar; BASS: Buster Williams; DRUMS: Billy Hart.

2009-09-11T13:14:00.001-07:00

The Beast | Milt Buckner (1956)
Milt Buckner rocks the Hammond and the piano on this song, which was tapped decades later for David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive" soundtrack. Buckner cut his teeth tickling the ivories in Lionel Hampton's big band but really came into his own when he took up the electric organ.

2009-09-11T12:51:00.001-07:00

A Tribute to Courage (JFK) | Rufus Harley (1968)
The jazz bagpipe was born when Rufus Harley watched JFK's funeral on the television at his Philly home, and was stirred by the music mourning the president. Harley, who already played the sax, oboe, flute and clarinet, had found his form.

2009-07-31T12:03:00.000-07:00

Squad Car | Eddie and the Showmen (1963)
Frenetic, slightly sour surf rock, heavy on reverb. This kills the Bel-Airs version.

2009-07-16T11:24:00.000-07:00

Voodoo Economics | Proletariat (1982)
From the sequel comp to This is Boston Not L.A. comes an appropriate anthem for the current economic meltdown. Boston's Proletariat, although associated with the hardcore scene, churned out a jangly, art-punk sound more in the vein of Wire than Gang Green, with socially conscious lyrics.

2009-07-07T13:03:00.000-07:00

He Don't Belong to Me | Doris Troy (1965)
Doris Troy sang the blockbuster "Just One Look," cut an album on the Beatles' Apple label and was one of the singers on the Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want." She also was capable of deep soul, as evidenced by this ballad. Accompaniment is minimal, allowing her wistful vocals to shine.

2009-07-07T10:06:00.001-07:00

Rockin' Behind the Iron Curtain | Bobby Marchan
and The Clowns (1959)
Rock 'n' roll infects Communist China in this r&b romp. Singer Bobby Marchan was a female impersonator and lead singer on Huey "Piano" Smith's "Don't You Just Know It" and "Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu."

2009-07-06T10:26:00.000-07:00

Katie Cruel | Karen Dalton (1971)
Raw, wounded vocals and stark banjo playing mark this song on the second album from Greenwich Village scenester Karen Dalton, who with her raspy delivery has been called "folk's answer to Billie Holiday" but reportedly hated the constant comparisons.

2009-07-06T10:02:00.000-07:00

Exuma, The Obeah Man | Exuma (1970)
Bahamian New York transplant Exuma is hard to classify. Political. Poetic. Prophetic. Psychedelic. Tribal. Mystical. This song, a sonic, rhythmic and hypnotic mix of calypso, folk and other influences, leads off his debut album.

2009-05-18T09:52:00.000-07:00

There's Been a Change | The B. C. & M. Mass Choir of Nashville, Tennessee (c. 1969?)
According to the liner notes, the choir is a coalition of Baptist, Catholic and Methodist youths from South Nashville who got the chance to perform alongside such gospel stars as the Rev. James Cleveland, the Staple Singers and Shirley Caesar.

Young Regina McCrary pushes herself higher singing the lead on this song, which was written by James Dewitt Johnson (the piano player). Gerry Waddell Jones lights up the organ. McCrary's voice is girlish and sweet but seems to gain strength from the large supporting choir.

Here's a quote from Bob Dylan on Regina McCrary:
"Regina McCrary played with me for a while. She's the daughter of Preacher Sam McCrary from Nashville who used to have the old gospel group the Fairfield Four. Anyway, she would open these shows with a monologue about a woman on a train, she was so incredibly moving. I wanted to expose people to that sort of thing because I loved it and it's the real roots of all modern music but nobody cared."

2009-05-17T10:33:00.000-07:00

Tjak | Performed by the singers of Peliatan (c. 1970)
An epic, trance-inducing, percussive amalgam of voices imitating gamelan instrumental ensembles in structure and texture.

If you've heard anything that even comes close to sounding like this, please let me know what. The only thing that comes close to my hearing is a martial song from a Burmese Folkways collection.

Here, 225 Balinese singers form a tjak choir. According to the liner notes, tjak springs from a singing ritual in which male choirs induce marriageable girls into a trance. But here the choir forms a background for soloists, male and female, who act and sing parts from the Sanskrit epic the Ramayana. The performance even includes Balinese translators, as the reciters use the original Kawi language.

This was captured around 1970 by Jacques Brunet, a French pianist and musicologist who recorded traditional music in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia and Indonesia from 1963 to 1982. The collection, Musical Atlas Bali, was released in 1972.

My record player is set a bit fast, but this clocks in around 20 minutes.

2009-04-19T10:56:00.000-07:00

Damp Rag | Stomp Gordon (1952)
Stomp Gordon plays the dozens, his insults egged on by backup singers and punctuated by screaming sax, driving percussion and hand claps.

2009-03-27T19:56:00.001-07:00

Jambo | Claude McLin (1963)
If you hired a tuva overtone singer to get the party started, and accompanied him on the Hammond, it might sound like this, if he was really drunk (and you were a wizard on the organ).

Ace Records published the sheet music to this novelty tune as part of the packaging to the "Great Googa Mooga!" compilation.

Instructions: "Hum as Jews Harp."

Lyrics: "A -Dairn Dear Doo-De-Doo 'N' Dairn Dairn-De Doo 'N' Dairn Dear Doo-De-Doo 'N' Dairn Dairn. A Hong Doo-Dle Dairn A Hong Dear Doo-De-Doo 'N' Hong Dear Dairn De Oop..."

And so on.

"The Soul of the Falcons" The Falcons

2008-03-22T05:23:00.000-07:00

The Falcons were a Detroit vocal group that recorded in the late '50s/early '60s with a rotating lineup that boasted at various times Wilson Pickett, Eddie Floyd, Mack Rice and Joe Stubbs (Levi's brother), among others. Their sound transcends doo-wop and r&b conventions, but can't be boxed as straight-up sixties soul, either. It's a rough mix of r&b's energy and hooks, gospel's gritty fervor and doo-wop's flights of fancy. Especially here on this collection of unissued masters, demos and rehearsals, the listener can exalt in the group's raw magic. Backing on these songs is minimal but edgy and soulful, sometimes just piano. You can hear snapping and clapping here and there. And occasionally someone sings off-key.

Note about quality
I ripped these from vinyl and I'm far from an audiophile. I didn't get fancy with the equalizer or even try to clean up the sound. I don't take good care of my records. And I probably need to clean my ears.

1. Since You've Been Gone
2. Something Hit Me
3. I Found A Love
4. We Met In A Dream
5. Short & Nappy
6. I Got A Feeling
7. Love The Way You Walk
8. Searching For You Baby
9. I Ain't No Cryin' Man
10. Round & Round
11. You've Got A Friend
12. Skinny Girl
13. Love At First Sight
14. Never Find Another Girl Like You
15. Stick By You
16. Swim

Ann Cole

2008-03-03T09:45:00.000-08:00

If you like Etta James, Faye Adams, Ruth Brown, Sugar Pie DeSanto, LaVern Baker, Big Maybelle, Annisteen Allen, Big Mama Thornton and Wynona Carr, you might like Ann Cole even better. Scant information can be found on the r&b singer, but I read she was voted Most Promising R&B Female Artist of 1956 -- by who, I don't know. Here's what I do know: She's got the raw power of Big Maybelle but with less melodrama and more polish and finesse and a quirkiness similar to Annisteen Allen's that gives her interpretation of the lyrics some flavor. The songs, ranging from the 1950s into the early 60s, have a rootsy, rockabilly, gospel feel. The arrangements for the most part hang back -- OK, I'll say it, they're generic -- but they allow her fiery vocals to dominate. Here's a sample of some of the tracks she cut, many for the label Baton.

1. Got My Mojo Working
2. I've Got Nothing Working Now
3. You're Mine
4. Please Forgive Me
5. The Clock Of Love
6. Danny Boy
7. I Want To Be A Big Girl
8. Easy, Easy Baby
9. Don't Stop The Wedding
10. The Love In My Heart
11. Brand New Hearts
12. Are You Satisfied
13. I've Got A Little Boy
14. Darling Don't Hurt Me
15. Plain As The Nose On Your Face
16. Give Me Love Or Nothing
17. Each Day
18. Easy, Easy Baby (Live)
19. A Love Of My Own

The Valentinos

2007-09-28T11:18:00.001-07:00

When the Rolling Stones' version of the Valentinos' "It's All Over Now" hit the charts in spring 1964, the story goes, the tune's singer and composer, Bobby Womack, was spitting nails over the band's interpretation; but before the fat royalty checks could console him, his record label's chief -- producer extraordinaire, songwriter, singer, mentor, visionary, all-around genius and soul and gospel legend Sam Cooke -- said to him about the Rolling Stones, "This will be history. Bobby, man, this group will change the industry. ... They gonna make it loose for everybody." That quote is from the liner notes to the "Sam Cooke's SAR Records Story" collection, a must-have for fans for the insight it gives into Sam the talent developer and producer. SAR these days might sound like a mysterious disease, but it was Cooke's label, and the Valentinos were born out of The Womack Brothers, a gospel group Cooke signed with an eye toward sending them down the same secular path he had blazed.

Producer Sam Cooke's guiding hand is revealed in the chatter that opens "I've Got A Girl," a love song bursting with so much religious ferocity, the silly lyrics hardly matter ... until you find yourself singing along. "Keep the feel," Cooke instructs Bobby before the song starts, "but give me that message." Peter Guralnick's biography, "Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke," breathtaking in detail, scope and access to those closest to the man, delves into the emphasis Cooke placed on phrasing and communicating a message. In the liner notes to the SAR collection, Womack says of Cooke, "He would say, 'Bobby, I can't understand you in that third verse. You can do me better on that one.' And he would pick it out. He was very dominant, because once he heard something he would just keep coming back to it."

Bobby tears up the Womack Brothers track "Couldn't Hear Nobody Pray," and Curtis's sweet, star-climbing vocals take the lead on "Yield Not To Temptation," a rendition so convincing it will make you want to be very, very, very good.

1. Darling, Darling, Darling
2. Lookin' For A Love
3. I've Got a Girl
4. It's All Over Now
5. I Found a True Love
6. What About Me
7. I'm Gonna Forget About You
8. Let's Get Together
9. I've Come A Long Way
10. See Me Through
11. Sweeter Than The Day Before
12. Couldn't Hear Nobody Pray
13. Yield Not To Temptation