jackhammer

^^^

Great album there I have to say. I haven't heard it in a while though and should do really. A timely reminder.

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lucifer_sam

there were certainly remarkable jazz elements to Minutemen's career. they were steeped in many genres and it's a shame that D. Boon died so young, when the band was on the verge of making it big. some of their albums are a little sparse (their debut clocks in at under seventeen minutes), but this one delivered and in great fashion.

incidentally a record i've been obsessed with lately and one of the greats to emerge out of SST's awesome (but short-lived) run.

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SATCHMO

So It's fair to assume you're a Firehose fan too. I'm a big fan of anything that Mike Watt is involved with. His solo albums largely went under the radar, but they're pretty good. What an underrated Bass player.

Jackhammer: I just replaced my copy of Double Nickles today, just after I had the idea for the thread entry. Until this evening I hadn't listened to it in years. For a 25 year old album it has certainly aged beautifully.

SATCHMO

I'll get somemore entries tomorrow guys. for now I just wanna' give this a quick bump.

Bulldog

I'm loving this album at the moment. You're certainly right about the dark soundscapes therein. It's the first album that arrived in my iTunes library with the tag 'jazz funk' which, seeing as I've been trying to get into some more jazz recently, is always welcome. There's a very interesting melting pot of jazz-funk and electronica here, and it certainly seems from the first few listens like it was recorded on an improvisational limb.

Anyway, I'll be be giving this a few more spins today. My point it, god review (and cheers for sending the link alone) Looking forward to some more listness here.

SATCHMO

^^^^^ I'm very glad you like it. I had a feeling you would. And, yes the trio have a very improvisational approach to everything they do, especially live performances of which I've seen several. If you ever get the chance to see a show it's an experience to say the least.

SATCHMO

# 37 Charlie Hunter Quartet - Natty Dread



To tell you the truth I'm almost at a complete loss for where to begin with Charlie Hunter.

I could start with showing you a picture of his instrument:


I know, I know we've all seen these musicians that need to have 1, or 2, or 10 more strings than the next guy. Usually its a matter of a musician wanting to increase the tonal range of his instrument. That's not quite the case with Charlie.

You see when Charlie Hunter was a teenager he, despite the fact that he was a guitar player, had an obsession with all the great jazz organ players. Mainly he was obsessed with transposing all the cool Hammond organ licks to his guitar, but discovered early on that a conventional 6 string wasn't apt for pulling off the tonal range & timbre of a Hammond B3 organ.
A Hammond organ's bass extends deeper into the lower register than almost anything that you listen today that isn't synthetically produced. Most competent B3 players, especially jazz players, will literally play bass lines with the left hand while playing chordal structures and melodies with the right. Achieving this particular effect really wasn't a possibility for Chrlie with a conventional guitar.

So what did charlie do? Well, he did what any of us would do given the same conundrum, He designed an instrument himself that was the top 3 strings of a bass guitar and the bottom 5 of "regular" guitar, routed the bass strings through a bass amp, the guitar strings through a guitar amp, played effectively, 2 instrument parts simultaneously, and made it sound like an organ. And for any stringed instrument musicians that are putting it all together in their head. I'll give you the answer before you ask. He doesn't employ any right-hand tapping.

Confused yet? Well here comes the good part. Somewhere, a few albums into his discography, Charlie had a fantastic idea. He, it would seem at least, asked himself the question "what If I took one of Bob Marley's best records, covered it in its entirety, first song to last, instrumentally as a jazz piece?".

Such an endeavor if attempted by most contemporary electric jazz musicians would really run the risk of falling directly into the smooth jazz pit of despair, but this album is a work of interpretive art. Them Belly Full swings with the intensity and bravado of a big band orchestra. No Woman No Cry is as tender and emotional as the original and every song in between has something to lend to the overall palette of this wonderful album. Definitely a must hear for any reggae fans.

TheBig3

I think this is one of the reasons i enjoy your reviews. Theres an ethos of quality around how you operate. I recently read a blog review about CtS, between your ambiguous endorsement and that review, I'll certainly check it out.

Similarly, I just just got into Howlin' Wolf thanks to LastFM. One of the struggels I find with old artists who have tons of works, esp. someone like Wolf who worked in the singles era of corporate music, is that you can never find the good stuff, through a field of overmarketed GH albums. I think this is going to be one of the more fruitful threads on the board for just this reason. It seems that you're working with notable, but non-mainstream acts who have tons of things. (MMW comes to mind; btw which album has chubsub on it?)

Its a new path for a lot of us (myself included) and giving us a good point to jump off on is brilliant. Thanks, man.

Edit: I'm a man who likes to dip his toes before commitment (take that how you want), is there a way we could get some recommended tracks on an album? I know this is sacrelig but I'm tryin'. Can't blame a man for tryin'.

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Janszoon

Great review! I saw Charlie Hunter in concert several years ago and he's absolutely amazing live. The only album of his that I own is the self-titled one, but I love it it. I wasn't aware of the whole story about him trying to transpose organ but I've always thought a lot of his guitar playing sounded very organ-like.

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A Night in the Life of the Invisible Man

Time & Place

25 Albums You Should Hear Before the Moon Crashes into the Earth and We All Die

last.fm

SATCHMO

Thanks big3. that definitely serves as afeather in my cap and really influences me to stay on task with this thread.

P.S. Chubsub is on Friday Afternoon in the Universe, another great MMW album.


I'll try to include some highlight tracks from now on, but I also should add that there will likely be albums in this list that really can't be fully appreciated outside of the context of listening to the album in full, and in those cases that fact will be duly noted as well.