Rahsaan Roland Kirk / “Salvation & Reminiscing” (from Prepare Thyself To Deal With A Miracle, 1973)
The Magic Lantern
Tagged
jazz
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Alice Coltrane / ‘Oceanic Beloved’ (from A Monastic Trio; June 6, 1968)
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Ornette Coleman / ‘All My Life’
*recorded at Columbia Studio C, New York City on September 13, 1971
Bass - Charlie Haden
Drums - Ed Blackwell
Saxophone [Alto], Composed By - Ornette Coleman
Saxophone [Tenor] - Dewey Redman
Timpani - Billy Higgins
Trumpet - Carmine Fornarotto , Gerard Schwarz
Vocals - Asha Puthli
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Charles Mingus / ‘Freedom’ (1963)
a beautiful rigid improvisation diagram by French composer Edgard Varèse, given to jazz musicians in their ‘jam sessions’
Click here for some audio excerpts of the studio realization and a very interesting article titled Varèse, Charlie Parker, and the New York Improv Sessions.
Don Hunstein Miles Davis, New York City 1958
This shot was taken by Hunstein in New York City, at the 30th Street Studio where Miles and Gil Evans were in the process of recording their brilliant interpretation of Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess.” Davis later said that his and Evans’ reworking of the Gershwin opera into cool jazz was one of his favorite recordings. The look of transcendent joy on Miles’ face during this break in the recording session kind of tells you that he already felt that way, even as the recording was being made.
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Alice Coltrane / ‘Om Supreme’ (from Eternity, 1976)
Electric Piano [Fender Rhodes] - Alice Coltrane
Vocals - Deborah Coomer, Edward Cansino, Jean Packer, Paul Vorwerk, Susan Judy, William Yeomans
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Duke Ellington / ‘Transblucency (A Blue Fog That You Can Almost See Through)’ (1946)
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Dorothy Ashby / “Soul Vibrations” (from Afro-Harping, 1968)
Francis Wolff Miles Davis, Hackensack, NJ 1953
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Miles Davis / “Shh/Peaceful”
Lately I have been thinking of dub as the center. I have been thinking this even though I am concurrently aware that there is no center and there never was. The threads we gather in are delusions of narrative and meaning, and we are tangles of yarn—borne to no transcendent destination, just on an elaborate path to the end, which is the start. All that.
Lately I have been thinking of technology as the great equalizer—the hope that we would be made even by Roland’s disused machines. These are dashed hopes. They decorate the teeth of history. But still. Maybe one day we can quit viewing each other through anthropological distance. Maybe we will look at each other and see the nest of metal inside.
This is an early version of the center. Though soft and ignitable instrumental acumen is on display, it is undone, in its appearance on record, by the perverse edits of its two architects: Miles and Teo Macero. They reconstitute something hypnotic out of a fractured rehearsal. Tony Williams is compressed into the functional pulse that Eric Dolphy so admired and sought (“Notice Tony. He doesn’t play time, he plays. Even though the rhythm section breaks the time up, there’s a basic pulse coming from inside the tune. That’s the pulse the musicians have to play.” Out to Lunch! liner notes, as quoted by A. B. Spellman). Miles and co. float in and out of the final structure like ghosts determined by purgatorial demand to reenact their horrible mistakes. There is no relief.
This, from The Complete In a Silent Way Sessions, is the tangle they transfigured. It is one minute longer than the LP version of “Shh/Peaceful.” The preparation for the ritual is often more protracted than the ritual itself. It is a process of making your odd howl legitimate.
(Thanks, korut & unbornwhiskey)
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Alice Coltrane With Strings / ‘Galaxy in Turiya’ (from World Galaxy, 1971)
Alice Coltrane, piano, organ, harp, tamboura, and percussion; Frank Lowe, saxophones and percussion; Reggie Workman, bass; Ben Riley, drums; Elayne Jones, tympani; David Sackson, concertmaster; Arthur Aaron, Henry Aaron, Julien Barber, Avron Coleman, Harry Glickman, Edward Green, Janet Hill, LeRoy Jenkins, Joan Kalirsh, Ronald Lipscomb, Seymour Miroff, Thomas Nickerson, Alan Shulman, Irving Spice, William Stone, strings. Arrangement by Alice Coltrane.
