|
|
|
|
|
|
HOME | ABOUT | BIOS | EMAIL |
|
 |
| |
Thursday, July 14, 2005
TIGER RAG
The Mills Brothers
Brunswick : 1934
Available on The 1930's Recordings, Vol. 1
[Buy It]
LOVESICK BLUES
Emmett Miller
Okeh : 1928
Avilable on The Minstrel Man from Georgia
[Buy It]
A LAST STRAW
Robert Wyatt
Rock Bottom
Virgin : 1974
[Buy It]
MONTEREY
Tim Buckley
Starsailor
BIZARRE/straight : 1970
[Out of print]
PORTRAIT OF LINDA IN THREE COLORS, ALL BLACK
Sonny Sharrock
Black Woman
Vortex : 1969
[Buy It]
As a stone-cold, gravel-throated MC put it to me once,""It's mostly tha voice that makes you buck." That holds true for things other than hip-hop. (On the other hand, I'd love a Jon Caramanica version of this thread devoted to beat-boxing and the like, as well as a 4 CD box of Biz Markie outtakes from "Ah One, Two"). Sure, it's the original instrument, the infant cry for attention, the intimate vibration of a lover whispering in your ear, the familiarity of your grandmother's breathless drawl, asking you to speak slower on the line. In the case of an annoying old roommate, her voice was of such an enervating timbre and frequency that any utterance from her mouth put me on edge. (It recalls the time I lent a copy of Yoko Ono's ascerbic, yowling Plastic Ono Band record to a married friend, who responded that he didn't need it, since he already had a wife and two young, screaming children.)
The synesthetic qualities of the voice appeal to me in the above selections, and in each case, these throats emulate horns specifically. The Mills Brothers, in their original incarnation, were actually four brothers (the death of John in 1936 brought their father aboard), and their earliest sides were somewhat famous for the backing band, but the boys making the music with their mouth biz. Stand-up bass, piano runs, chugging rhythms, horn lines, all from their fraternal lips and gullet.
Emmett Miller, that garish and beguiling hillbilly singer (and Nick Tosches' subject), was known throughout the South as the minstrel singer with the "clarinet voice," the "trick voice," able to stretch out vowels across five syllables, and a precursor to Jimmy Rodgers' own blue yodel (purportedly modeled on Miller's eerie plaint). How much is Emmett the daddy? Hear in that craw and cry of his the roots of Rodgers, Hank Williams, Bob Willis, (heck, even David Lee Roth).
Robert Wyatt, the Soft Machine drummer turned wheelchair-bound Canterbury crooner of grandfatherly import over the last thirty years, looses a woozy warble that emulates trumpet idols like Miles Davis and Chet Baker (and African bandmate Mongezi Feza), as well as the nautical nuances of his fragile, water-colored classic, Rock Bottom.
Tim Buckley, black-eyed and smiling on the back cover of his sixth album, Starsailor, was also a huge fan of Miles. Embracing the exploratory artistic aspect of the trumpeter, both were steely in their intent on eschewing expectations and leaving fans to go "what the fuck is this noise?"
Starsailor, some thirty years on, sounds like nothing else. Sure, there are strands of Ligeti, Penderecki, Coltrane, and Albert Ayler in the mix, and the concepts of Diamanda Galas, This Mortal Coil, and Radiohead (not to mention his own spurned progeny, Jeff) can be found in the dense protein strands and jagged shards of the vinyl, but there's an impregnable darkness here that still sends shivers, and no one can quite encapsulate le bete noir. While "Monterey" starts off within the realm of rock, Buckley quickly moves to brigand territory, at the edge of civilization and light. His baritone throat turns into a horn in the company of Zappa brass players Buzz and Bunk Gardner (who played on that session, but not this track), and then, as he reaches the line about running with the damned, his voice becomes like a pack of gorillas, tearing apart a madman in a moonless night.
As for the music made by Sonny and Linda Sharrock...well, Sonny's unbridled, bludgeoning six-string fury informed New York rock - No Wave, Television, Sonic Youth - more than anything in the realm of jazz, and Linda's voice is an acquired taste, like goat's milk or broccoli, fortified and pungent like Yoko or Patty Waters. (Perhaps as a single man, my perception of a screaming woman differs from that of my married friend?) On the glorious, peaking finale to their stunning Black Woman record, a classic of out sound and unfettered fire, they elevate and crest over and over again for nigh-on nine minutes, buoyed by the polyrhythmic octopus pounding provided by drummer Milford Graves. After a trumpet solo by Ted Daniel, Linda unleashes a wail that blows past human/horn distinctions and into a realm closer to the stratosphere. It makes me buckle more than buck, cowed by such raw power.
-by Andy Beta
posted by Alex
LINK |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
