Jamaican Jazz from Island Records

Island Records is well-known among music lovers as a quality label [Koen writes], the same for its subsidiary Mango Records. But at times Island tried out different directions…

In 1996 Chris Blackwell launched his new label Island Jamaica Jazz with two new albums by Monty Alexander and Ernest Ranglin. Three more albums, by Ranglin, Dean Fraser, and the Skatalites, followed in 1997 but after that, someone pulled the plug and that was the end of Island Jamaica Jazz …

All five albums featured an interesting mix of jazz, reggae, dub, ska, and mento, combining classic reggae/ska covers with original compositions!

The five albums are:

Monty Alexander - Yard Movement (1996)

Ernest Ranglin - Below The Bassline (1996)

Dean Fraser - Big Up! (1997)

The Skatalites - Ball Of Fire (1997)

Ernest Ranglin - Memories of Barber Mack (1997)

Ernest Ranglin played guitar on all of the albums, except for Dean Fraser’s Big Up! Monty Alexander played piano on Ranglin’s Below The Bassline.

A sampler of these 5 records was never released, therefore I decided to rectify this omission with 2 songs from each album, resulting in a decent 1 hour+ CD.

Note from jonder: Thank you Koen for another excellent post and compilation! A pdf is included in the download with more information on each of the Island Jamaica Jazz albums. The always excellent blog Things And Time Will Tell recently posted Monty Alexander's Love And Sunshine (1975), which also features Ernest Ranglin. 

Hackneyed Imams: 2023 Comebacks

Just in time for Christmas shopping, it's the 2023 edition of Comeback Specials!  

Creation Rebel (pictured at left) and Classix Nouveaux released their first albums of new material in 40 years!  Also back with their first new full-lengths since the 1980’s: Zamrock legends Witch, Rain Parade, Scream, and Subterranean legends Frightwig.

Unheard from since the 1990’s: The Bluebells, Bush Tetras, Chickasaw Mudd Puppies, Drop Nineteens, Everything But The Girl, and The Van Pelt.

Comebacks from the 2000's and 2010's: American Analog Set, Bang, Be Your Own Pet, Cheater Slicks, dEUS, The Hives, and Quasi.

Mick and Keef, lookin for a hit

Honorable mentions go to Khanate (whose first album in over a decade consists of three very long songs), Peter Gabriel and The Rolling Stones (first new original music since 2005).

Drop Nineteens' album Hard Light is ridiculously good. I've already expressed my love for the new Bush Tetras album. Wharf Cat Records wins 2023 with those two releases.

Label 51 Recordings started strong this year with Frightwig and Rain Parade. In February, Label 51 will release the soundtrack to the upcoming Dream Syndicate documentary.

Scream's DC Special is a surprisingly fun and diverse listen, and the title track has been in my head for days. As a fan of all things On-U Sound related, I was thrilled to hear Creation Rebel again (as well as Adrian Sherwood's production work on Reset In Dub and the new African Head Charge album).

The Quasi album is topical and funny, and Janet Weiss puts younger drummers to shame. I'm not the first to compare Quasi to Attila, but I think Sam Coomes & Janet Weiss have truly fulfilled Billy Joel's vision of a heavy rock duo with keys and drums (minus the raw meat and furs).

Sunbathing With The Sinceros

Bobby, Mark, Ron and Don

The Sinceros were a British band that existed for a few short years (1978-81), but whose members have had wide-ranging careers.  You might dismiss the Sinceros (like Ira Robbins of Trouser Press) as "a vehicle for guitarist/singer Mark Kjeldsen".  You might also note (as Ira did) that Don Snow replaced Paul Carrack in Squeeze.  (Don played keys on "Black Coffee In Bed".)

But didja know that Sinceros drummer Bobby Irwin was Nick Lowe's go-to drummer for many years (before his death in 2015)? Bobby worked with all the Rockpile members, as well as Carlene Carter, John Hiatt, Geraint Watkins, Bryan Ferry, and Van Morrison.

Don Snow (who changed his name to Jonn Savannah) was the singing half of the synth-pop duo The Catch, and had a big European hit with "25 Years".  He has also worked with Van Morrison and many other other artists.  He now owns a recording studio in New Jersey.  

Bassist Ron François joined Teardrop Explodes after The Sinceros broke up, and then moved to Australia as a member of The Eurogliders. Ron now owns Point Studios in New South Wales.  

During The Sinceros' existence, Bobby, Don and Ron played on Lene Lovich's 1978 debut album Stateless, and were Lene's backing band on the Be Stiff tour.  Bobby, Ron, and Mark were the main players on Valerie Lagrange's self-titled 1980 album.  Fact is, the other Sinceros members were as talented as Mark Kjeldsen (who left the music biz and became a social worker after the band broke up).  Mark died in 1992. 

Stinky has compiled a Sinceros retrospective that includes songs from their three albums, their work with Lene Lovich and Valerie Lagrange, a live track, and Mark Kjeldsen's pre-Sinceros single "Are You Ready?"  Y'all get ready for some Sincerosity!

Twilight Time at Blue Note

The 1970s weren’t very kind to the Blue Note label [says Koen]: jazz was under pressure by rock and pop, and talent like Grant Green, Ronnie Laws, Ronnie Foster, Bobby Hutcherson, Bobbi Humphrey and Donald Byrd were recorded in more commercial settings that were laced with wispy R&B, disco grooves and strings.

In the mid-’80s, however the arrival of Bruce Lundvall as CEO led to a proper reactivation of the label, and under him Blue Note thrived on creative and commerce-savvy fronts.

Lundvall brought on board newcomers like the pianistic guitarist Stanley Jordan and the one-man choir Bobby McFerrin; started a program for reissues and previously unreleased recordings; and recruited legacy Blue Note artists like Freddie Hubbard and Woody Shaw. 

He also invested in highly influential stylists like Cassandra Wilson, Don Pullen, John Scofield, Joe Lovano, Greg Osby and Jason Moran; and experienced unimaginable sales with Norah Jones’ debut.

During the late 1980s and early 90s, I spent considerable time browsing through cassette shops(!) in Penang, Malaysia, and Bangkok, Thailand, as I was in between vinyl and CDs. Among the tapes I bought were Bobby McFerrin’s first Blue Note solo album Spontaneous Inventions, the great Duke Ellington’s Money Jungle reissue with Charles Mingus and Max Roach, and Stevie Ray Vaughn’s first two solo albums.

You may wonder what the connection is between Blue Note and Stevie Ray Vaughn.  I had read about one particular Blue Note album which I couldn’t find anywhere. Only much, much later I finally managed to score a digital copy and was very pleased to be able to play it at last! I guess not many music fans are aware of this classic album at all.

Tenor saxophonist Bennie Wallace had only one album on Blue Note, 1985’s Twilight Time. The producer, of all people, was Dr. John (The Night Tripper!), who gave it a neat R&B and funk vibe!

The core musicians included Ray Anderson on trombone, Eddie Gomez on acoustic bass, Chris Parker and Jack DeJohnette on drums, John Scofield on guitar, and the good old doctor himself on piano & organ. Tracks 1 and 7 included Stevie Ray Vaughan on guitar, Bob Cranshaw on electric bass, and Bernard Purdie on drums.

With a lineup like this you hardly could go wrong, and Twilight Time doesn’t let you down.  It swings in all the right places!  [Leonard Feather called it "hectically eclectic" - jonder]

Bennie and Dr. John teamed up later once more, for the 1988 Bull Durham soundtrack, for two tracks in a similar vein (one with Bonnie Raitt on vocals!), and therefore I added these as bonus tracks (#10 & 11). As far as I know this classic record is only available second hand nowadays -- and certainly not in this slightly extended version only here on jonderblog, so enjoy!

It's Beginning To Smell A Lot Like Christmas

What is that smell?  Is it mistletoe and holly?  Could it be frankincense or myrrh?  Is it the smell of roast beast?  It's beginning to smell a lot like Christmas, and that means that Stinky's got a present for you! 

Several blogs are posting Christmas treats: Albums I Wish Existed, Groovy Library, Cat Waller, Egroj World, Ernie Not Bert, and Do It Once (reggae Christmas comps!) At Power Pop Angels, Angelo has reposted all 16 of his Power Pop Criminals holiday compilations, plus new ones!)  And it won't be long until Wilfully Obscure's annual Eight Nights of Chanukah.

A few blogs are already counting down their Best of 2023 lists: Is This The Life, Opium Hum, and The Un-Herd Music are the earliest I've seen. There are fewer music blogs posting anything these days, and fewer readers. I'm happy that Angelo and One Buck Guy bucked the trend by starting music blogs this year. 

Several great blogs fell silent this year: Shiny Grey Monotone, Themes From Great Cities, The dB's Repercussion and The Good Old Major's Hole (although I keep hoping that SteveShark will resurface).  Rest In Peace to Mythkoz and Gaius. They are missed!  [Primitive Offerings shares my feelings.]

So what does Stinky have for us this year?  I won't do a rundown of the whole tracklist: I'm glad to see Tav Falco on it, but concerned that Stinky went with "Ding Fries Are Done" as a finale.  

Just checked the download links, and A Stinky Christmas from 2019 through 2022 are still available.  And one more thing: my blog labels might not be 100% accurate, but it's entirely possible that this is Stinky's 100th post. Thank you for everything, my friend -- and Feliz na bla bla, everybody!

Robert Palmer's Adventures in Tropical Music

Please welcome art58koen with the first of what will hopefully be a series of posts. In the tradition of Willard's Wormholes, he has assembled an updated "faux deluxe" version of a Robert Palmer compilation from 25 years ago.  Take it away, Koen...

On this blog, Robert Palmer has been the subject of a post before, resulting in a cool live version of his 1980 Clues album.

For the average music fan, Palmer is mainly seen as the "Addicted To Love" superstar with sexy video clips and therefore "not really relevant". Big mistake, as he was a musician’s musician, knew what he was doing in the studio, and played various instruments too! Checking out his albums showed that almost every one had one or two "odd tracks" that are not the usual rock music at all. Fact is that Palmer was seriously interested in all kinds of music, and that showed particularly in those tracks: African highlife, calypso, samba, reggae, etc. Apparently, Chris Blackwell (head of Island Records) ranked Palmer as the most knowledgeable music nut he'd ever encountered, acquiring a taste for obscure sub-genres and new trends long before anyone else.

Palmer's preferred medium for enjoying music were self-made mix tapes which would be stuffed with everything from Fred Astaire to African folk, and his albums ran a similar course!

In the 1990s Gerald Seligman, the founder of the Hemisphere world music label, suggested the initial idea for Woke Up Laughing, but Palmer wasn't interested in a simple compilation, preferring instead a rethink and a fresh approach. The result was that several tracks got remixed, new vocals, and even a hybrid of an earlier and new version: Woke Up Laughing 79/89 [latter portion of track (1:49-5:32) recorded in 1989]. The CD liner notes included an in-depth interview with Palmer in which he provided lots of details in the making of the chosen tracks, talk about an eclectic artist!

While working on this post, I played Woke Up Laughing again and it still sounds excellent, a great flow of different kinds of music.

The subtitle of the CD is Adventures in Tropical Music: 1977 - 1997, and that gave me the idea of expanding it, as Palmer continued doing this all throughout his career, from rock to new wave, swamp funk, soul, rhythm & blues, American Songbook, proto-techno, disco pop, and finally blues! Even his final blues album, Drive, had a surprise calypso song on it…

Also it seemed a good idea to include the unmixed original tracks as long as they followed the ‘tropical music’ line. The collaboration with Adrian Belew on guitar (& Palmer on everything else!) is probably bordering on tropical madness, but he sings it in French and it’s one of my personal favorites!

The pdf contains all artwork, incl. the extensive interview with Seligman, plus additional pics of album covers, labels, etc. The single Lee Perry track (warning: vinyl rip, poor quality!) warranted adding another interview with Palmer to the pdf about the working conditions in Kingston, Jamaica during his time there. Most other artists probably would have packed their suitcases and left the same day, but Palmer hung on for a while -- impressive.

Zip, Zip, Zip, Zip, Zip

 

Zip It #5 is here, so be of good cheer.  In this series, Prof. LePew and I continue our exhaustive survey of the history of popular music, searching for songs about people puttin' people down.  

It isn't always a putdown to suggest that someone keep shtum. Sometimes the kindest advice is to hold one's tongue.  Honest Abe once said that it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.  Michelle Shocked wrote, "Silence is golden/ And words are made of lead/ And in the alchemy of love, you know/ Some things are better left unsaid." And she knows a lot about paying the price of silence.

Back to the music: in the zip file for today's Zip It!, you'll find punk rock, country, soul, R&B, a couple of pop idols, and even some of that grrrungy "complaint rock" that was all the rage in the mid-90's.  But only a little!  

The wonderful Dubhed blog was the inspiration for two of the tracks, as Khayem suggested the mashup "Shut Up Let's Hook Up", and Stinky fell in love with The Anchoress' version of "Enjoy The Silence" (which was featured on Dubhed).  "Honey Hush" appears once again (this time by Johnny Burnette's Rock & Roll Trio).  I think I suggested "Don't Start Me Talkin" and the "Shut Up" songs by the Drive-By Truckers, The Coathangers, and Jr. Walker's All-Stars.

In the words of the internet's favorite music blogger, "Gitit! (no pw)" -- and stay tuned for another episode of Zip It!  Or something entirely different.  We're flexible.