Things have been rather tumultuous lately, but after a busy summer of traveling moving and settling in to our new home, hopefully I will have the chance now and then to to keep up with blogging. I am sure that with whatever I get the chance to share, people won't complain much, or at least the people who are the rare music aficionados! Anyways, for this post I thought I would put up Clifford Thornton's "Ketchaoua" album from BYG-Actuel. I first got turned on to Thornton's music through one of his other albums, "Freedom and Unity." I have to admit that this was only a couple of years ago (Freedom and Unity is still available on CD--I actually found it while browsing through a music store in Santa Cruz, CA), but I have been furiously collecting anything that I can get my hands on related to him since. Now if only the sound on "Freedom and Unity" was a little crisper at times... Oh well--I can definitely manage!
As for "Ketchaoua," it basically is a star-studded line-up including such greats as Archie Shepp (Thornton also appeared on some Shepp albums around the time including "Attica Blues" and "Blasé/Live at the Pan-African Festival"), Grachan Moncur, Dave Burrell and Sunny Murray. For some reason, I don't really feel like summing the music up right now, so I think I will let Brandon Burke from AllMusic.com do it for me, lazy you-know-what that I am:
"Clifford Thornton's only Actuel date as a leader is, like many of the others in this BYG series, an all-star blowing session highly indicative of the times. For some, it will be difficult to tell whether taking credit for composing these pieces is a lost cause. This is some very free music and, save for a handful of scored passages, almost wholly improvised. A number of the scene's top players make appearances here in different groups. On the large ensemble pieces Thornton is joined by Grachan Moncur III, Archie Shepp (on soprano sax), Arthur Jones, Dave Burrell, Beb Guerin, Earl Freeman, and Sunny Murray. Otherwise, "Brotherhood," a piece for quintet, is performed by Thornton, Jones, Guerin, Freeman, and this time, drummer Claude Delcloo, while on "Speak With Your Echo" only the two bassists (Guerin and Freeman) accompany Thornton's cornet. This piece in particular is especially enjoyable and reminiscent perhaps of Arthur Jones' fantastic ballad, "Brother B," from his own Actuel LP, Scorpio. At times the ensemble pieces sound like a Pan-African Morton Feldman, and at others, hazy, psychedelic post bop. Fans of brooding and contemplative improvised music will find a great deal to enjoy here. In fact, many would argue that this is the best LP under Thornton's leadership."
Pretty nice stuff, even if it can get a little bogged down at times, and something I haven't seen posted on any blogs yet. Kind of surprising considering the wide variety of rare albums being posted out there...
Clifford Thornton
Ketchaoua
Recorded Aug 18, 1969
BYG-Actuell
AAC Files - iTunes ready (m4a file extension)
Line-up:
Dave Burrell - Piano, Bells
Claude Delcloo - Drums
Earl Freeman - Bass, Percussion, Conga, Gong
Beb Guérin - Bass
Arthur Jones - Sax (Alto)
Grachan Moncur III - Trombone
Sunny Murray - Drums
Archie Shepp - Sax (Soprano)
Clifford Thornton - Percussion, Trombone, Trumpet, Conga, Cornet
Tracks (split into Side A and Side B, but labeled)
1. Ketchaoua (Thornton)- 12:35
2. Pan-African Festival (Thornton) - 7:50
3. Brotherhood (Thornton) -10:40
4. Speak With Your Echo (And Call This a Dialogue) (Thornton) - 9:15
Two choices for the same file (Sharebee is a mess right now):
*Updated links*--the original zip file was corrupt--sorry!
http://www.mediafire.com/?dv5c5ikck3z
http://rapidshare.com/files/57030495/Ketchaoua.zip
p.s. Did I mention how much I like "Freedom and Unity?" Oh yeah, well, I couldn't resist throwing up a track here--track 7, "O.C.T." Go find yourself a copy of it if you don't have one already!
http://rapidshare.com/files/56932779/07__O.C.T._.m4a
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?1lxi95yxauu
28 comments:
I can't resist, here's one more from the stellar album "Freedom and Unity," the first track titled, "Free Huey."
Sorry, but all I feel like doing this one on is Rapidshare for right now--it is getting rather late here!
http://rapidshare.com/files/56934790/01_Free_Huey.m4a
Enjoy!!
sweet! the byg collection proceeds apace (my collection, that is!).
thanks for the post, j, and welcome back to posting. i hope you caught jacques coursil's *black suite*, wch i posted on c#9 prior to its late lamentable demise.
http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/o670482.jpg
that's a slightly higher-res version of the cover. you might need to open a "rate yr music" account to access it, but it's free.
getting "unexpected end of archive"? problem on my end or yrs?
(previous comment refers to both rapidshare and mediafire options)
Brent--
Oof, sorry man--the archive was corrupt, so I just re-zipped it and am currently re-upping it to both sites. I'll just throw the new links into the post as soon as I can. Thanks for the quick catch! (and for the better version of the cover, which I have included both in the post and in the zip file)
As for the Black Suite, thanks for the great share! I feel like I have enough new great music for a lifetime...so why is it that I always find myself on the lookout?
Anyways, I hope you enjoy Ketchaoua and the tracks from Freedom and Unity. Do you already have it?
-J
I don't have *F&U* yet, but I'm contemplating downloading it using my emusic subscription. Given yr recommendation perhaps I'll have to!
Here's that "Free Huey" track from "Freedom and Unity," only this time upped through Mediafire:
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?dwcwm1l1xai
Enjoy!
Hi J- ! Welcome back, it's nice to see you again. And thanks for the Ketchaoua, now downloading...I'll try to come back with comments.
thanks j... sounds intriguing but i can do no more at this point than sample it... early start coming up (and at the weekend, boo hiss)
"I feel like I have enough new great music for a lifetime" - well, exactly... enough to keep us all busy for a long time yet, at any rate..! further thoughts will be elaborated in the old place in due course (though i do seem to be taking my time over it...)
Welcome back!
Great to have you back. Wonderful to have a replacement for my scratchy old vinyl copy. Thornton lovers should be sure to check out his brilliant African-diaspora tour de force Gardens of Harlem.
just picked up *freedom & unity*, & wondering if mcphee is playing sax here? i don't see him credited as playing anything but trumpet. is that him or somebody else?
Hi j-bombay,
welcome back!
Hope your wife is still enjoying the music of Mr. Brahem!
Cheers!
Great post (I was gonna post this). U beat me to the punch. Its good to have u back in action, though. Clifford Thornton is one of my favorites. Anybody have him with the Reform Art Unit?
Many thanks and welcome back!
joel in chicago
Hey Everybody!
Thanks for all of the positive comments about this post and about getting my blog back up and running. As I already mentioned, I am very busy right now with a ton of other stuff, but I will try and get another post up as soon as I can.
As for specific comments made:
Brent - Man, I wish I could tell if that was McPhee playing sax, but unfortunately my ears aren't that well tuned and I just started getting into McPhee just recently anyways. I am sure it coulod have been possible--this was his first recording and he may not have gotten all of the credit he may have deserved...
Centrifuge - Thanks for the reference over at C#9 and such a great comment to read. Of everybody, both you and Fredito have especially been fun to have around here. Hope you had time to check out this recording!
Bumkuncha - What an incredible memory you have! Yeah, I got my wife an iPod shuffle for Christmas, and of course the Astrakan Cafe album ended up on there. She got a kick out of the fact that you remembered that as well. She has strayed a little more into some more improvisation (she is crazy about the Miles Davis Plugged Nickel sets- does that count?), but steers far clear of the heavy stuff. Oh well, her tastes are constantly expanding at least! :) By the way, Pathways has been especially sharp as of late - who would have though I would be diggin' on some Hawaiian jams?
Sunmyth - Great to have you back from Holland, and with some rare albums to boot! Nice! I was on a bit of a Lyons kick this summer (the man is simply amazing), and just wanted to say thanks again for that great post over at your site. Fantastic! Oh, what Reform Art Unit Recordings were you thinking of? I have a fair amount of Thornton recordings, but have to admit being a little ignorant about them (other than I really like them!)...
Fredito - Hope you are enjoying this recording - I am still trying to listen to all of the great stuff from your site while I was out. I keep expecting to get tired of hearing Lacy recordings, but it hasn't happened yet! Keep up the great work!
GilHodges, Pelle and Joel - Thank you for the nice welcome back! I am sure that Fredito likes your nod to his site for his Gardens of Harlem post (great!) as well Gil.
Well, I think that about covers it for now - back to some landscaping/rock moving around the house. Unfortunately my old iPod just crapped out (temporarily? it did this before a couple of years ago) so I can't listen to anything outside at the moment. Any of you know any good Apple Voodoo tricks? >:)
-J
hi... i did check it out, but it's an odd one, not sure what i think of it..! i had trouble concentrating on the two larger ensemble pieces - other than murray's drums and shepp's soprano, not much jumped out of the mix at me (but i'm sure this says as much about my limitations as a listener as anything else).
the second side held my attention better - especially the first piece, although the second is probably more ambitious (cornet plus two basses... rather unusual!). anyway, thanks for sharing this one :)
Just spotted you're back in the cockpit, though it looks as though you've been back a month. Welcome back anyway j-bombay. Nice post to start baxk on.
j -- just picked up evan parker's monoceros over at *a great work of fiction* (http://tinyurl.com/3e54mp).
it made me remember that when *finger palace* was making the rounds i passed b/c it was flacs. well now i can covert flacs no problem, but i can't find the file anywhere. any chance you could post it here in the comments?
thanks.
Hey Brent,
Yeah, I saw the posting for the Finger Palace album over at Destination Out and have been listening (re-visiting?) to the album since (I also pulled out Conic Sections--intense tunes going on around here). It is a great one! I don't have FLAC files, but I do have a pretty clean copy of it in AAC format. It was taken from a 192 MP3 copy, so there wasn't any loss of sound from the original. I have included the original info file that I got with it and the amazing cover art as well. Let me know if you want the original MP3 files instead...
http://www.mediafire.com/?an3znoxuntq
I am working on a pretty decent post, so hopefully that will be up by the end of the week. Too bad about the whole FMP thing--maybe we should get an some kind of email network rolling? Just an idea for now...
Thanks, J!
I loved the Monoceros when I listened to it last night -- that first track is a beast, and would probably be just as interesting if played back at half speed (one downside of moving away from vinyl). I'm going to give the AAC a shot; I'll let you know if it doesn't work.
btw -- Monoceros is Incus, not FMP. I wasn't sure if the FMP comment was in reference to that. Gebers seems to be pretty vigilant about keeping all of that stuff of the 'net (cf. the Wuppertal thing lasting about a day at C#9 w/out its title even being listed). Personally (& unfortunately) I don't have any FMPs beyond what Atanase posted (although I think I have all of those) and the ones re-released on Atavistic (and of course some more recent in-print stuff like the Cecil stuff and some Bill Dixon). I'd love to hear some of the things collecting dust (now that they themselves have been "collected"). I'd help out where I could. (One that knocked my socks off was posted, I think, by Kike -- Michel Pilz' Carpathes.)
Hey Brent,
If you get the chance, please drop me a quick email at tastethemysteryblog@yahoo.com . I have a question or two for you (and maybe some interesting stuff to offer--you might already have it though!).
Thanks!
J
p.s. That Carpathes album was unreal. Yeah, that would have to be one of the gems I was introduced to from C#9. I didn't even recognize the name Pilz before that...
carpathes was posted on volkan's old blog (by the man himself)... it was an early casualty of jost g's kill-the-link campaign...
i didn't grab finger palace at the time either, it being flacs - various people have told me how easy it is to convert those, but the time involved in downloading them, converting them etc - forget it, not worth it for me! then i saw that at d:o and grabbed it - but i still haven't fucking listened to it, keep forgetting i even have it - of course i'm deeply immersed in the ocean of braxton at the moment ;-)
Heya Centrifuge,
That Finger Palace link (the Mediafire one above) has both sides of the album, where I believe only one side was posted at D:O. I know you are ear-deep in Braxton tunes right now, but eventually you might want to listen to the whole thing, right? :) I know that a lifetime is a fairly long period, but as more and more interesting albums keep popping up, I am wondering if it will be enough time... I made the mistake of starting up the Ayler "Holy Ghost" box last night again (amazing stuff, and I really like the packaging and notes inside, it's like a treasure trove). Man, it is so easy to get sidetracked into some other brilliant vein -- I guess what I am trying to say is that I STILL haven't gotten back to Conference of the Birds... Sorry. ;)
J
Much & many thanks for the Thornton - the Freedom & Unity tracks outstanding!
Ketchaoua still in the download, but looking forward...
Immediately O.C.T. (Freedom & Unity) finished playing, placed an order for a copy on CD.
Thanks again!
J-Bombay
I've tried to download the rip "Ketchauoa" unsuccessfully.
Perhaps the file has been removed due to inactivity.
Could you kindly repost.
Yusef
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