guinee an x - grand tierce musical

Guinee An X celebrates ten years of Sekou Touré et la Républic with exclusive tracks from Guinea's top Orchestres Nationaux. Syliphone anniversary anthologies X, XI and XII were followed by seven annual singles collections - Discotheque 70 thru 76.

bembeya jazz / balla et ses balladins / keletigui et ses tambourinis
guinee an x - grand tierce musical
syliphone slp 8 (1968)

01 Soundiata (Keletigui) 5.50
02 Diaraby (Balladins) 6.10
03 Republique de Guinee (Bembeya) 5.10
04 Djoute Wassa (Keletigui) 3.25
05 P.D.G. (Balladins) 4.50
06 Armee Guineenne (Bembeya) 3.55
07 Sara (Balladins) 6.20
08 Beyla (Bembeya) 6.55

vinyl @320

greg copeland - revenge will come

The ballad of the reluctant troubadour. Copeland became a published songwriter around 1967 along with Orange County high school pals Jackson Browne and Steve Noonan, hitting paydirt with the latter when the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band covered their Buy For Me The Rain. Eventually, Browne, who says watching Copeland write songs inspired him to start writing his own, secured his mentor a record deal with Geffen, producing this 1982 debut in the bargain. But the left-leaning Copeland's disinclination to capitalize on his good fortune, refusing to appear in public to promote himself, led him to sign on as a paralegal at a good-hearted friend's law firm, eventually becoming a lawyer himself. He released his follow-up album, the bleak and wondrous Diana & James, in 2008, a mere quarter century after the first, and is apparently hard at work on a third. Good things come to those who wait. And wait.

greg copeland
revenge will come
geffen records ghs 2010 (1982)
01 Used 3.04
02 Starting Place 3.14
03 Full Cleveland 2.27
04 Eagleston 3.17
05 That'll Never Be The Same 4.58
06 Richard Hill 4.59
07 At The Warfield 3.33
08 Wrong Highway 2.49
09 El Salvador 3.38
10 Revenge Will Come 4.38

Distance and boredom, dragging you down
Nowhere to go but an Air Force town
Nowhere to heal these feelings in you
Nowhere to hide when the medicine came through
Fire on the water, fear in the land
Gather ye children, the time is at hand
Any ten dollar bill and you can fly like the dove
From Eagleston, Texas, to somewhere you love

In his own words.

vinyl @320

quartetto italiano - complete music for string quartet by webern

Maready of The High Ponytail is responsible for my pulling out this chestnut. He's determined to get us all to listen to more classical music. Check out his post of Robert Craft's complete Webern box from 1959, which Columbia probably deleted shortly thereafter.

quartetto italiano
complete music for string quartet by webern
philips 6500 105 (holland)

01 Slow Movement For String Quartet (1905)
02 String Quartet (1905)
03 Five Movements For String Quartet, Op. 5
04 Six Bagatelles For String Quartet, Op. 9
05 String Quartet, Op. 28

Paolo Borciani / Elisa Pegreffi / Piero Farulli / Franco Rossi

vinyl @320

holy modal rounders - alleged in their own time

"It wasn't until 1970 that we started Rounder Records but one of the reasons for the name was the Holy Modal Rounders. It was they who introduced us to Charlie Poole. Since we started, 'Rounders On Rounder' was one of the things we wanted to do the most. Another is a Ramblin' Jack Elliott record. It gets kind of confusing when both sets of Rounders are together since everybody's talking about the Rounders but it's not always clear about which set. We wanted to do a Stampfel and Weber album but Robin was there and he wrote Euphoria and was legendary, and Peter brought friend Luke Faust up and it grew and grew. Weber was kind of out of it most of the time, unfortunately. Well, it's finally here. We don't have much else to say right now, at least about this."
- The Rounder Collective

holy modal rounders
alleged in their own time
vscd-137 (japan)
originally rounder 3004 (1975)

01 Low Down Dog
02 Don't Seem Right
03 New Reuben's Train
04 Voodoo Queen Marie
05 Chitlin' Cookin' Time In Cheatham County
06 Nova
07 Sally In The Alley
08 She's More To Be Pitied
09 Rocky Road
10 Across The Alley From The Alamo
11 Synergy
12 Red Rocking Chair
13 Random Canyon
14 Monday Morning
15 Shoot That Turkey Buzzard

Peter Stampfel / Steve Weber / Luke Faust / Robin Remailly / Antonia (who sings Voodoo Queen Marie)

cd @320

paul bley - mr. joy

There are worse-sounding jazz albums, like Curtis Counce's Exploring The Future, but that was made on the cheap for Dooto, a label known primarily for raunchy party records. This was recorded in Seattle on either side of a concert date at the University of Washington, so maybe The Sonics and Wailers had all the decent studios booked solid for their concept albums. Cover art clearly targets the underground rock market, with Bley's lover and in-house theme genie Annette Peacock featured on the inside of the trendy Unipak folder having her breasts massaged. Endless fiddling with the stereo to try to make this thing sound a little better could spoil the mood, though. It's never been reissued on CD, not even in Japan.

paul bley
mr. joy
limelight ls 86060 (1968)
01 Only Lovely 6.20
02 Kid Dynamite 3.10
03 Nothing Ever Was, Anyway 5.44
04 El Cordobes 6.04
05 Ramblin' 4.44
06 Touching 4.49
07 Blood 6.10
08 Mr. Joy 3.50

vinyl @320

kaloum star - syliphone 45s

Kaloum Star managed only three Syliphone singles before the military takeover ended Guinea's great socialist cultural experiment. If you like these, check out World Service for live tracks recorded for Dutch radio in 1987, as well as the demo tape that got them the job. Then peruse the comments for links to more. When I left an inquiry about the two Kaloum Star 45s I was missing, saintly aduna supplied a link the next day. Just another internet miracle.

kaloum star
complete syliphone 45s (1975)


01 Lalaba 6.06 (SYL 568a)
02 Donsoloufa 3.40 (SYL 568b)
03 Mansane Cisse 5.23 (SYL 569a)
04 Maliba 3.20 (SYL 569b)
05 Sanu Bakary 4.45 (SYL 570a)
06 Gbassikolo 3.35 (SYL 570b)

vinyl @320

lennie tristano sextet - wow

Live recording of Tristano with his gifted protégés, Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh. Sound quality is a bit primitive, from tape or wire recorder or maybe tin cans and string. Marsh is one of the secret godheads of modern jazz - smoky and dreaming, drifting into the spaces between beats, deftly snaking his way into unmapped territory and then winding his way back. Konitz is a perfect foil, coaxing abstractions from his alto as Marsh explores the upper registers of his tenor. On their recordings together, I'm never absolutely sure which one I'm hearing in the first sax solo until Marsh steps forward, all smooth and smart and infinite. Listen to the two of them on the 1949 Capitol b-side Crosscurrent for an illustration, posted here along with its flip. Just another perfect single. For more, check out the Lennie Tristano Live At The Half Note clip on YouTube. Recorded in 1964 for a TV series on spirituality called Look Up And Live, now available to the entire universe just like Air Force Amy.

lennie tristano sextet
wow
jazz records jr-9 cd

01 Wow 8.27
02 Remembrance 3.53
03 April Fool 9.51
04 Subconscious-Lee 3.51
05 Fugue In D Minor 1.04
06 Chord Interlude .27
07 Sound-Lee 7.52
08 Do The Things You Do 3.32
09 No Figs 7.42
10 Wow 3.19
11 Crosscurrent 2.48

1-9 recorded live circa 1950 New York City
10-11 recorded March 4, 1949 New York City, released as a Capitol Records single

cd @320