Burl Veneer’s Music Blog

Medeski Scofield Martin and Wood give me goosebumps

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 09:00:13 -0700

I've liked Medeski Martin and Wood ever since I first heard them on the Get Shorty soundtrack (one of the grooviest soundtracks to a mainstream movie since the 70s), but I only ever got a couple of their albums. One that I bought was their first album with guitarist John Scofield, issued under Scofield's name alone as A Go Go. That came out in 1998, and MMW dropped off my radar after that. Last week I decided to do some catching up, and got their second collaboration with Scofield, Out Louder from 2006, credited to all four of them this time. I skipped forward to "Miles Behind," which I gathered was a play on Miles Davis's Miles Ahead and may be a tribute of sorts. And it is a tribute: not to the late-50s-era Miles of Miles Ahead, but to my absolute favorite stretch of his career, the wildly creative funk-rock-jazz fusion of the early 70s, Bitches Brew through Get Up With It, so despised by jazz purists but beloved by many who, like me, approach music with rock as their baseline. I first heard Miles's 1975 live album, Agharta, at the Tower Records (remember those?) in Rockville in 1991, and I bought it even though I was broke, because it was exactly the music I needed at the time. "Miles Behind" nails the Electric Miles sound (albeit without a trumpet); it distills that entire oeuvre into less than three minutes, and reliving the rush of my initial Agharta revelation actually gave me goosebumps.

Miles Behind

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Back with some vintage guitar funk

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 19:08:40 -0800

I've been laid low by illness for the last few days, too sick to blog, but I did manage to listen to some music and find a nice trifecta of funky guitar instrumentals from the 70s. The grandaddy of them all is Dennis Coffey's "Scorpio" from 1971. As one of Motown's in-house Funk Brothers band, Coffey, with his wah-wah guitar, was one of the architects of the "psychedelic soul" sound that would later become the de facto soundtrack music for the entire blaxplotation movie genre. (Template: poverty and discrimination force ghetto residents into moral compromises.) In "Scorpio" Coffey's guitar sounds like an electric knife cutting through a steel rod (that's good, BTW), which I assumed to be the work of an effects pedal or three. I was wrong, though, it's simply nine overdubs (thanks to Oliver Wang for doing the research on the occasion of "Scorpio" being NPR's Song of the Day on January 18, 2007). Wang also gives the details on one of the funkiest, most generous (and therefore sampleable) percussion breaks ever, which involved four percussionists. Get down!

09-Scorpio

Dennis Coffey

"Scorpio" must have spawned a galaxy of imitations (Coffey did some himself, such as "Taurus" and "Son of Scorpio"), since I found two this weekend without even trying. First up is Donald Austin's "Side Saddle" from his sole solo LP, Crazy Legs (1973):

09 - side saddle -1974

Donald Austin

Then there's "Dr. Abraham" by Janne Schaffer of Sweden (and ABBA), from his 1974 album Andra:

A1 Dr Abraham

Janne Schaffer

Coming soon, some new vinyl rips of 80s obscurities I just received from Platters That Matter Records!

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More Blood

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 14:18:30 -0800

I could sit and post songs and videos to this blog all day every day, but the prospect of picking out one or two from the universe of things I want to post sometimes paralyzes me into inaction. So in the interest of catching up, here's a follow-up to my first James Blood Ulmer post, which contains all of the relevant information, so I won't repeat it here. That post featured the standout track from Ulmer's second Columbia album, Black Rock (1982); here I back up to 1981 and his first album for Columbia, Free Lancing, for "Pleasure Control"--

02 Pleasure Control

James Blood Ulmer

Demand James Blood Ulmer in your city! Hmm, one person demanding him in Ithaca, I wonder who that is? (Hint: it's me.)

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Santana still shreds

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 19:37:22 -0800

Mrs. V. introduced me today to StSanders's sublime overdubbed guitar hero "shreds" videos on YouTube, which are painfully funny. A quick blog search shows that I'm about two months behind the bloggerati curve, or "fashionably late" as I like to call it. I think my favorite is "Carlos Santana shreds"--

Carlos Santana shreds

Sounds like me playing Guitar Hero on expert mode! Go ahead, follow the YouTube suggestions, watch them all, you've got nothing to lose but time and bandwidth.

These clips remind me of the classic "Jazz Club" skits on The Fast Show, hosted by Louis Balfour (John Thompson)--

The Very Best of Jazz Club

Nice!

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