The Wire

100 Records That Set the World On Fire extra

In The Wire 175, we polled our writers to nominate records that
should have ignited the world's imagination - but somehow got forgotten
along the way. What follows is not that list, but 30 runners-up that we
had to leave out of the original article.

King Sunny Ade Ju-Ju Music (Island 1982)

The album that should have pushed African music into the public eye, it
actually succeeded in burying it ever deeper. An album of intricately
melodic guitars, thundering percussion, call-and-response talking drums,
it was as much a marketing device as a musical statement. Island
Records, looking for a replacement for Bob Marley as the standard bearer
of tropical music, picked up on the commercial potential of Ade's
earlier work such as Private Line and simply decided to make him that
man. They invested heavily in prmoting Ju-Ju Music - with considerable
success - but leant heavily on Ade to tailor his sound to a Western
audience. The follow-up, Synchro System, although an even bigger
success, was clearly a compromise, one that Ade - a proud man of royal
lineage - was no longer prepared to accept. His music reverted to type,
its Yoruba lyrics and ever-complex rhythms straying right off the
commercial path. Island dropped him and the boom ended. PM

Arcane Device Engine Of Myth

Any album that namechecks Tod Dockstader is all right with me. An
uncredited soundtrack to one of Arthur Machen's unfilmable stories. A
ledge of noise stuck inside an awesome abyss of sound. A psychotic lathe
unsupervised. Great to mix in with Tubby dubs on the unsuspecting
dancefloor. The horror! Word is that Mr Arcane Device has submitted to
the call of the Lord. SB

The Art Ensemble Of Chicago Fanfare For The Warriors (Atlantic 1974)

The Art Ensemble's first studio recording for a major US label, produced
in 1973 (funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, following their
return from Europe) featured new member Don Moye playing small
percussion and AACM anchor Muhal Richard Abrams, piano. The seven tracks
range from Jarman's mytho-poetics on "Illistrum" through Bowie's raucous
"Barnyard Scuffel Shuffel" to the brief first realization of Mitchell's
"Nonaah", demonstrating the rangy "Great Black Music, Ancient To The
Future" concept as well as the members' bracing collective virtuosity.
It's particularly notable for Muhal's contributions, as most 'free'
groups in that period abjured pianists' presumed harmonic contraints.
But this music is wide open, rigorously detailed, sometimes meditative,
sometimes screaming, and mostly masterful fun. HM

Baby Ford Ford Trax (Rhythm King 1988)

Manchester born, New Zealand raised, Peter Ford's tender years were
spent listening to Marc Bolan, Northern Soul and David Bowie, in the
days when he was any good. It was predictable that this melange would
show up as influences in his own music, less predictable that Ford would
discover concrete techniques for himself (it was in these tape
experiments that his debut single, "Oochy Koochy", would originate), and
wed them to a revamped song format. Launched into the hubbub of London's
1988 Acid House scene, Ford Trax contained plenty - "My Innersence",
"Crashing", the wonderful "Chikki Chikki Ahh Ahh" (it lost its original
title, "Disco Me To Ecstasy", as a concession to prevalent drug panics),
with its warped proto-Third Man catch melody - to keep the night feet
flying. But Ford Trax was something more, too: its darker, melancholic
moments show themselves the product of a sensitive writer whose talents,
quite possibly, were eclipsed by the squelches of a 303. Still living in
London, Ford now DJs and runs his own indie label. LG

Ray Charles The Spirit Of Christmas (CBS 1985)

Apart from Phil Spector's famously kitsch effort, the Christmas record
is not a tradition regarded with much affection, but in 1985 Ray Charles
recorded an epic that aficionadi return to each Yuletide. Charles's
magnificent voice is wielded like a glossy tenor saxophone and
evaporates all doubts about the sentiment-oozing programme. Trumpeter
Freddie Hubbard contributed brilliantly sleek solos to "What Child Is
This" and "All I Want For Christmas". Jeff Pevar's guitar keeps
surfacing, insinuating and blue. The knock-out punch was "Rudolph The
Red Nosed Reindeer": Charles managed to turn this most irritatingly
perky of jingles into a lugubrious, soulful lament. To hear Charles
adlib the aside "ah, Rudolph!" is to experience the most poignant
détournement of late 20th century art. And of course, the blind,
bow-tied genius is posing on the cover in a winter wonderland. He's
standing on a horse-drawn sleigh, holding the reins. Unbelievable. BW

Vinicius Cantuaria Sol Na Cara (Gramavision 1997)

The should have been the summer album of 1997, when singer, songwriter
and guitarist Cantuária made a brief, stunning contribution to Laurie
Anderson's Meltdown. Sol Na Cara is a recording of great subtlety and
musicality, with some appropriately hip little machines, guitar noises
and electronic bleeps courtesy of Ryuichi Sakamoto and Arto Lindsay, who
mixed it at the relaxed Kampo Cultural Centre, a New York building owned
by a Japanese master of calligraphy. There are no inverted commas around
Cantuária's work. Like a calligrapher, he expresses his art in a few
brush strokes, and his collaborators resist the temptation to overdo the
overdubs. The material could have been more consistent, but there are
some outstanding tracks, including "O Nome Dela" ("Her Name"), with
Lindsay's fabulously restrained guitar scratchings, and "Sol Na Cara"
("The Sun On Your Face"), with YMO-ish synths and a lyric containing the
typical Wire reader's recipe for a lazy day: "Lie in the hammock,
swing/And bring the guitar/I want to play/Play some dissonant chords,
come dream". JLW

Charles Brown Superstar Days Of Our Drive/Sweet Piece Of Ass (Win 1995)

LA's volatile Charles Brown Superstar were beyond perverse: this, their
only album (though it includes both of their earlier EPs), was only
released in a small run of vinyl double LPs, without even a track
listing. But they had a huge two-bass swoop-attack, a singer whose
sneering little-girl voice was nearly obliterated by the waves of bass
and electronics, and one brilliantly shining hybrid of unstoppable
machines and delicate flesh: "Beestung Remix," which occupies most of
the fourth side - first backwards, then forwards, and finally in its
rocked-up non-remixed version. You can hear the "creative differences"
between kiddie chants and gut-snarling low-end grime and mechanical
hypnosis that eventually broke up the band; the album sounds like
fragile, jury-rigged common ground, and rocks like it's about to
collapse. DW

Lowell Davidson Lowell Davidson Trio (ESP Disk 1965)

If this pianist's star-crossed career had developed differently, free
jazz piano could have acquired a style template fitting in between those
of Paul Bley and Cecil Taylor. Born in 1941 in Boston, he died in 1990;
in those 49 years his issued output consisted solely of this
intermittently available album. After studying biochemistry at Harvard,
in the mid-60s Davidson moved to New York, where he played with Ornette
Coleman and cut this LP with bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Milford
Graves. Later Davidson played drums in an early line-up of The New York
Art Quartet, but a lab accident affected him both mentally and
physically, short-circuiting his career. ESP never had very high sonic
standards, and this is one of the label's worst-engineered efforts.
Peacock is nearly inaudible except when Davidson lays out, and the
overall sound is flat, tinny, and undefined. But the music is
fascinating. Davidson worries small thematic nuggets until he has
produced myriad possibilities from them (sometimes suggesting an atonal
Thelonious Monk) and scatters evanescent, twisting right-hand runs in a
style that, while hardly lacking in energy, stands in stark contrast
both to Cecil Taylor's monumental sonic edifices and to the dense,
furious blowing of the New York school of improvisors who grew out of
Ayler and Coltrane. Throughout, Graves gooses the proceedings with a
masterful array of polyrhythms. Whether considered a false start/dead
end or an intriguing might-have-been from a historical perspective,
musically speaking this album continues to tantalize the few who
discover it. SH

Dead Can Dance The Serpent's Egg (4AD CD 1988)

Released in 1988, Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard's fourth album is
notable for its medieval-effect aesthetic; simple, yet imaginative use
of strings create space for Gerrard's mournfully expressive voice, as it
alternates with Perry's rich, lulling baritone. The voices are the
strength at the heart of the album, upholding a channelled intensity
that's sustained throughout; similarly, the traditional arrangements
benefit from a contemporary twist, as loops of violin, church organ and
hurdy-gurdy weave through each other with considerable finesse.
Overdubbed plainchant and spartan polyphonic vocal pieces like "Orbis De
Ignis" provide the album's more magical elements, but it's Perry's
smouldering voice on "Severance" that truly ignites it, accompanied only
by the wake-like tones of a church organ. Even after repeated
listenings, these remain the most enchanting set of songs I've ever
heard. VPI

Eric Dolphy Out To Lunch (Blue Note 1964)

Composer/reedist Eric Dolphy pushed the envelope from the inside out in
1964, convening the perfect ensemble to realize his five startling
originals wedding 20th century compositional obliqueness and impassioned
avant garde improvisation. Originality, concentration, interplay and
vivid nuance are this music's strengths: on "Hat And Beard", a sketch of
Monk, Dolphy unleashes the bass clarinet's 'til-then-unknown gruffness;
Freddie Hubbard aims his horn skyward; Bobby Hutcherson hammers then
lightly sweeps his vibes; bassist Richard Davis and drummer Tony
Williams create a beat-shifting round. "Something Sweet, Something
Tender" has both languour and surprise stop-times; in its final chorus,
Dolphy blows and Davis bows, as one. On "Gazzelloni", dedicated to the
daring Italian flautist, Eric extends that instrument even further, over
Willliams's super taste and touch; the title track maintainssuspense for
12 minutes, while "Straight Up And Down" is actually kinky and craggy. A
unique achievement, even for the one and only Dolphy. HM

Bob Dylan Live At The Manchester Free Trade Hall (Bootleg/Columbia 1966)

Long the Holy Grail amongst Dylan collectors (alongside the original
Basement Tapes), and now at last scheduled for official release by
Columbia, this is the exact moment, preserved forever, when rock became
truly electrified. In 1966 Dylan was at the height of his
abstract/visionary powers, midway through a tour that guitarist Robbie
Robertson likened to a war zone. Slow clapping, walkouts and the sheer
level of abuse suffered by Dylan and The Hawks each night had already
claimed one casualty in drummer Levon Helm who dropped out in late 65,
claiming he couldn't stand the thought of "taking it to Europe and
hearing this shit". The Free Trade Hall was where it all finally blew
up. Two sets - Dylan solo with acoustic and harmonica was by this time
so extended and free-form, "Visions Of Johanna" in particular shaped
only by Dylan's resonant way of chewing over phrases, the sounds of the
words equally as important as the lyrics, arcing across the roof of the
auditorium. The electric set is so charged with aggression and nervous
energy it looms and builds until finally all hell breaks loose when some
lone jerk screams out "Judas!" as Dylan rises from the piano. "I don't
believe you", Dylan spits, "You're a liar!" He turns to face the group,
saying, "Play fuckin' loud!", and Mickey Jones's snare crack kicks "Like
A Rolling Stone" into your face. DK

The 49 Americans We Know Nonsense (Quartz LP 1982)

Not many of those visiting the London Musicians Collective venue in
Camden Town during the late 1970s, and hearing the free improvisors
active therein, would have conceived the idea of recording an album of
happy-go-lucky pop songs with them. But that's exactly what American
expat Giblet (alias Andrew Brenner) set out to do, and so here are 17
doo-wop, disco and samba ditties produced and co-written by David Toop
and Steve Beresford. Musicians include Lol Coxhill, Peter Cusack, Max
Eastley, Viv Albertine (of The Slits), and Etta and Eddy Saunders. The
sense of childlike fun is palpable as the album waves a flag for
unpretentious pop - as Giblet sings on "It's Time": "Happy music doesn't
have to be dumb; there's a lot of sense, at no expense, in motor
discharge baby". CBe

Jimmy Giuffre Free Fall (Columbia 1962)

Recorded in 1962, Free Fall put the kibosh on Jimmy Giuffre's recording
career for nearly 10 years. Condemned for not being 'real' jazz,
Columbia responded by deleting the album after several months;
unbelievably, it remained out of print until 1995. Unlike the tumultuous
outpourings on most free jazz LPs of the 60s, Free Fall was a velvet
revolution. Giuffre abandoned time, key and metre in search of a largely
non-idiomatic, freely improvised music of exceptional subtlety,
precision, spatial awareness and restraint. You hang on every nuance of
expression. His radical solo clarinet improvisations presage the work of
Evan Parker, while his duets and trios with Paul Bley and Steve Swallow
are models of clarity and sensitivity. And it still sounds utterly
modern. CBl

Golden Gate Jubilee Quartet Golden Gate Gospel Train (Bluebird 1937)

With their inch-perfect syncopation, slick harmonies and Mills
Brothers-style imitations of trumpets, trains and basses, The Golden
Gate Quartet were more worldly than any of their early gospel
contemporaries. Their suavity, however, barely contained a ferocious
sense of swing that lurked just beneath the surface and anticipated the
'hard gospel' quartets of the 50s. Beating out stiff competition from
"Midnight Special", "Hot Rails To Hell", "Mystery Train" and "Crazy
Train", "Golden Gate Gospel Train" is the best train song of them all
because, unlike the others, it has a locomotion that suggests that their
anticipation is almost over and the train is right around the bend. PS

Hot Gossip The Hollywood Jungle (DinDisc unreleased 1981)

Choreographer Arlene Philips's Hot Gossip was the dance troupe best
known for its inserts on the Kenny Everett Show. For this project, they
recruited producer Richard Burgess and arranger John Walters, who
recorded a rhythm section including Harvey Mason and Airto Moreira at
Conway Sound in Los Angeles. For its repertoire of alternative pop
covers (including "Satisfaction", "I Burn For You" and Metro's "Criminal
World"), the album was cast like a cult movie, with cameos from Ian
Carr, Chris Heaton, Guy Barker, Francis Monkman and Andy Pask's peerless
fretless bass. Phil Minton, Maggie Nicols and Julie Tippetts provided
improvised backing vocals. Has David Sanborn played better than in his
passionate scream of consciousness on "Sister Europe" (a curiously
perverted Psychedelic Furs ballad)? Is this the first example of Gil
Evans playing on someone else's record (flanged, Monk-ish piano on Percy
Mayfield's "Hit The Road Jack")? Was anyone ready for the triple axe
line-up of David Rhodes, Ray Russell and Derek Bailey on Adam Ant's
"Press Darlings"? The multitracks still languish in Virgin's vaults,
perhaps waiting for some enterprising remixer, perhaps some different
lead vocalists, to re-awaken the rejected album's eccentric charms. JLW
(yes, that JLW)

Howlin Wolf The Howlin' Wolf Album aka This is Howlin' Wolf's New Album
And He Doesn't Like It (Chess/Cadet 1968)

The second darkest day of my life was when I discovered that a summer
tenant (a law student, no less) had stolen this album. I lost more than
the outrageous sum of money I paid for it; its very universal power
scalds anyone exposed to it. (Think more Ark of the Covenant, less
collector marginalia.) In 1968, the Chess family wanted to pull the
hippy consumers turning the blues market into the rock market and to
this end they put the greatest shouter of all time (allegedly against
his objections) in front of an electric band and recut some of his old
hits. It just so happened that the group, including Morris Jennings on
drums and Pete Cosey and Phil Upchurch on guitars, was capable of
outdoing both Funkadelic and The Meters at their own game, and unafraid
to get very foreground and doubly black. (So much for the hippies.) This
line-up also recorded two albums with Muddy Waters - After The Rain and
Electric Mud &emdash; that come close to the majesty, but there's no
topping Howlin's polytonal bellow. Combine that voice with the rhythm
and noise here and you have evidence of the greatest rock group that
never was. MCA has only reissued Electric Mud, but here's hoping
someonewakes up. Until then, if you see a copy, buy it and send it to
me. And then get yourself one, even if you don't eat for the rest of the
year. SFJ

Lee Konitz Motion (Verve 1961)

Surprised at Lee Konitz jamming with Ornette Coleman at an Italian jazz
fest this past summer? Don't be. Konitz has often ventured into the
thickets of melodic free association over the course of his nearly 50
year career - not that he's been given credit where it's due. Everyone
knows about his freeform experiments with Lennie Tristano, and you can't
play "The Song Is You" (Lone-Lee) unaccompanied for 40 minutes without
drifting away from the chords for a spell. But Motion is a masterpiece
and proves that Ornette and Cecil Taylor weren't the only ones exploring
music without a map in 1961. It isn't total freedom, but thge episodes
of 'pure' melodic improvisation are frequent and fascinating. Part of
the credit must go to Elvin Jones, whose drumming offers buoyant
polyrhythmic possibilities as well as enough open space for the altoist
to imply his own spontaneous directions. AL

Labradford A Stable Reference (Kranky/Flying Nun 1995)

After their more elemental Prazision debut, Labradford's second album
was a fully realised exploration of atmospheric, textural music whihc
dismanled conventional 'rock' structures and rassembled them in
different forms. Using a combination of analogue synths and pared-back
guitar and bass. Labradford created a kind of reinvented futurism which
floated timelessly in its own space. Here skeletal song structures
emerged out of abstract sound, guitar notes floating up out the ether
and lyrics reduced to a ghostly whisper. A Stable Reference was perhaps
the clearest signifier of a burgeoning underground shift towards greater
experimentation and abstraction inthe pursuit of a genuine alternative
in an increasingly homogenised 'alternative' rock culture. TR

Last Exit Last Exit (Enemy 1986)

Recordings which broach a new rapport between hitherto disparate strands
of music are few and far between. Last Exit's debut was one such -
marrying the aggressive dynamics of electricity anbd amplification to
the visceral intensity of free music. remarkably, it nonetheless remains
staunchly non-idiomatic. Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited and Miles's In
A Silent Way are its only real documented forebears - although these
were works of individualistic genius, whereas Last Exit exemplify
collective endeavour. Bill Laswell, Shannon Jackson, Peter Brotzmann and
Sonny Sharrock distil their essences into a thrillingly potent group
exorcism &emdash; Laswell's bassline melding Jackson's awesomely potent
harmolodic polyrhythms with Brotzmann's primal b ellow and Sharrock's
excoriation of the blues. TO

JB Lenoir Alabama Blues (Bellaphon CD 1965)

Just as folkies were picking up the remnants of American Country blues,
and The Rolling Stones were starting to brag about the size of their
mojos, JB Lenoir cut one of the finest post-war blues albums, and one of
the few to deal head-on with contemporary political issues. Though he's
generally remembered in blues anthologies by the jaunty electric riff of
"Talk To Your Daughter", Alabama Blues captured his uncommercial but
preferred acoustic style - stark, intimate protests about racism and
Vietnam, that revealed Alabama as the biblical lion's den, mixed with
more upbeat items in what he termed 'African hunch' rhythms. Prefiguring
the political turn in soul music, the album's outspokeness caused it to
remain unissued in America for years, though it seems a copy reached
Jimi Hendrix who cited it as an influence. MF

Derrick May Debut LP (Transmat unreleased)

"The album I did which has not been released is not me toying with
people". Which album? Is it one of the two Ambient-type LPs that R&S
(with whom May's Transmat label have a deal) have allegedly refused to
release? Is it the African drumming project he's produced with, amongst
others, percussionist Sundiata and former Last Poet Omar Ben Hussain? Do
any of these actually exist? The fact is, since Derrick May, the man
who, together with Juan Atkins andKevin Saunderson, effectively invented
Techno, pulled the plug on recording activities in 1990, the concept of
an album from the man has become, for many, the Holy Grail of
electronica. The music may have moved on in quantum leaps, but the
brutal beauty of creations such as "R-Tyme" and "Strings Of Life" remain
peerless statements, sounds that moved dance music to a level previously
undreamt of. Will he ever move that music even higher? PM

Rachel's Music For Egon Schiele (Quarterstick CD 1996)

Pianist Rachel Grimes originally composed this as a live soundtrack, for
a theatre and dance production of Egon Schiele's life. The CDs
handmade-style card packaging, with its exquisite sepia-tinged sleeve
and accompanying booklet, is the first thing that catches your eye, but
it's really the skeletal structure of the musicthat conveys the
austerity of Schiele's work. It's easy to become swept up in Grimes's
delicate piano, combining with viola and cello to form a kind of chamber
ensemble framework. Although classical in nature, the gentle timbre
portrays a delicate intimacy, with an aura more reliant on
sophistication than snobbery. This unique, beautiful work succeeds
because it's flexible enough to uproot deep-seated emotion, while
sending shivers racing down your spine. VPI

The Soul Stirrers (featuring Sam Cooke) Jesus Gave Me Water (1951)

Cooke was 19 and this was his first recording, as a replacement for the
retired lead singer of the most famous gospel group of the day. If he
was nervous, there's no sign. He swoops, he flies, he floats, he cries.
Solid as rocks, the rest of the group provide the rhythm and structure -
just listen to the vocal bass line from Jesse Farley. The record sold
around 70,000 at the time, a hit in gospel circles but virtually unknown
outside the black ghettoes of America. It was another six years before
the rest of the country discovered Sam Cooke's golden voice, when "You
Send Me" topped the pop chart. Sam went onto make some other great
records, but he had put it all together, flawless technique and
controlled emotion, right at the start. CG

The Staple Singers Uncloudy Day (Vee Jay Records 1959)

Another alien sound courtesy of the USAF radio stations which were my
conduits to avoid the 'pap' music of England during my teens. My first
hearing of The Staples featured Mavis at 15 singing some of the most
plaintive and assured gospel I've ever heard. Souldful and deeply
erotic, this was the throb of heat from the swamps. Against the eerie
plantation guitar of 'Pops' Roebuck Staple and the restrained drumming
of Paul Crussman, the five kids snaked complex harmonies to lead Mavis
into the shining mix. Her contralto swooping from arcing melisma to
dark, growling gasps, shuddering into orgasmic moaning. Devotional
deliveries charged with sensuality, undercurrents tremble into
unfettered abstractions asa she flies. Only Mahalia Jackson and Aretha
have come close. "I'm Coming Home", "Low Is The Way" and "On My Way To
Heaven" are some of the best examples of minimal forces producing
maximum emotional range of extraordinary power. Mavis has one of the
finest voices in the world, capable of sucking tears from the most
determined cynic and of inducing a faint from the devil himself.
Uncloudy Day is the best example of The Staples at their most glorious.
RM

Cecil Taylor Looking Ahead! (Original Jazz Classics 1958)

There's something peculiarly exciting about listening to serial
rule-breakers back when they were just getting a taste for it. Cecil
Taylor's late 50s recordings seem all the stronger for their relative
conservatism: the groove they kick against, the sudden cluster, the wide
interval leap against the orthodox walking bass. Looking Ahead!, from
1958, features bassist Buell Niedlinger, drummer Dennis Charles and, in
a stroke of genius, Earl Griffith on vibraphone, and benefits from a
fractured but climactic opening (the minor blues "Luyah! The Glorious
Step") that must rank amongst some of Taylor's finest quartet work. LC

Willie Mae Thornton Hound Dog (Vogue 1953)

You ain't nothing but a hound dog. The record came together more or less
accidentally at a recording session in Los Angeles in August 1952.
Precocious songwriter Jerry Leiber (20 years old) came up with a few
phrases for Willie Mae to spit out with gleeful venom, The Johnny Otis
Band hit a funky mambo groove, and Pete Lewis was goaded into playing
one of the best guitar figures ever, especially in the solo where Willie
Mae exhorts him to growl and moan like a dog without a bone. Three years
later, Elvis truly did shake the world with his reworking of the song,
and Leiber & Stoller had to take Johnny Otis to court to establish that,
young as they were, they really had written the song without his help.
Later, when everybody thought that the only credible performers were
those who wrote their own material, Willie Mae said she wrote it. But I
look into Jerry's eyes (one brown, one blue) and I believe he thought up
those words - "You can wag your tail but I ain't gonna feed you no
more". CG

Lennie Tristano "I Can't Get Started With You" (Keystone 1946, now
available on The Complete Lennie Tristano on Mercury)

In a year in which the most advanced records made were bop anthems like
Charlie Parker's "Ornithology" and Dizzy Gillespie's "Things To Come,"
pianist Tristano took a pop song from the 1930s and questioned its very
ground for being. Given only a Nat King Cole-type trio of piano, guitar,
and bass, and the piano vocabularies of Art Tatum and Bud Powell,
Tristano reframed the song with atonal harmonic clusters, moved the
rhythm back and forth between standard time, double time, and
double-double time, and shifted the meter from 4/4 to 2/4 back to 4/4
and ended in 3/8. Gunther Schuller suggests that within only three
minutes, Tristano broke new ground in melody, harmony, rhythm, timbre,
dynamics, form and structure, making it one of the most radical
recordings that jazz has yet produced. JFS

Various Artists Ice Cream And Suckers (Mercury 1963)

At the same time that more respectable South African musicians like
Dollar Brand, Miriam Makeba, and The Blue Notes were thinking about
making tracks to Europe, the rural township musicians on Ice Cream And
Suckers watched their music leap the ocean to become one of the first
exports to America. . . if they were informed at all. Using Western
instruments - harmonicas, chunky saxophone, lots of guitar &emdash; the
patterns of the highlife dancehall were underlined in funky bass and
drawn above with cascading harmonies. In this collection of singles,
each group has a strong presence that comes from the hybrid of soul and
mbube. The place where cultures collide can form greatness, like the
birth of rocksteady in Jamaica, but a clash is not easy when you're
trapped in it. When "Mr Bull" (Freddie Gumbi) yelled "You bloody
bastard, get out of my yard!" over the goofy sound effects of a
distressed steer, you wonder what he really meant. An almost painfully
happy record, Ice Cream And Suckers yields a fascinating and
suspiciously sunny picture in a brutal period of history. RE

David S Ware Third Ear Recitation (DIW 1993)

Tenor saxophonist David S Ware's synthesis of free jazz, post-bop and
New Thing traditions is unique. Third Ear Recitation wasn't his first
great moment &emdash; an alumnus of Cecil Taylor, he was already well
into a solo career - nor is it typical. Conceived as a suite, Ware
ultimately deconstructed his own work to reclaim his original
inspirations, in the process laying bare the mechanics of pianist
Matthew Shipp and bassist William Parker's partnership, one of the
finest in all jazz history. Without Shipp and Parker, Ware would b much
diminished, his trenchant individualism merely demotic bullishness.
Without them, he tears the living heart from jazz standards - "Autumn
Leaves", in this case - and rends the souls of empathetic listeners. TO

Marva Whitney It's My Thing (King 1969)

Marva Whitney was one of James Brown's 60s protegées, which is her
blessing and curse. An awesomely powerful gospel-trained screamer
&emdash; she's basically incapable of singing more than two lines
without going into an ecstatic howl - she got backup from the hardest,
trickiest funk outfit of her day, and on her duet with JB here, "You Got
To Have A Job", she calls for Maceo Parker like she's calling down the
judgment of God. But working for the Godfather meant that her own career
was an afterthought where the label was concerned; this is her only
studio album, and bootlegs aside, she only had one solo track left in
print before this year's James Brown's Original Funky Divas compilation.
With her crisp, bold grooves and electrifying yell, she deserves better.
DW

© The Wire 2010