Charles "CD" Davis, 24 Hour Blues

The blues goes on. For a while there were folks doing things, and they are still out there, mostly, that had a big blues influence, that were tauted as the new blues sensations. Truthfully, it didn't always hit me as "the blues." Soul, yeah, other things, yeah, but maybe not exactly the blues. And that's cool. Well, OK and there have been some cats there clearly in the blues tradition, doing something right now. Along with the surviving cats (RIP Bobby Bland) who still are very much doing it. I've been covering them here and on the Gapplegate Music Blog. Here's another good one.

I speak of Charles "CD" Davis, with a cranking band, and his CD 24 Hour Blues (Blues House 0300). Charles plays a sizzling blues guitar. He was doing it for years with the Calvin Owens Blues Orchestra. Calvin passed in 2008 and Charles decided to hit out on his own. This is his debut.

Charles holds forth on the guitar and puts in an excellent showing. His axe is joined by four good vocalists here: Jabo, Roberta Donnay, Rue Davis and Trudy Lynn. They all have something going. The tunes are a mix of classics and classic-sounding new things or not-so-known things. It's modern urban soul blues with blazing guitar and it plays real nicely, man, no matter where or when you are. That's what it's about.

Permanent Clear Light, Beyond These Things

Psychedelic music still has a place today. In much of the psychedelic revival happening from the '80s onward, there has been a good bit of the jam proto-metal or avant realm in play. But we should not forget that the music had its beginnings in the consciousness of listeners as an extension of song form as much as a sound that gradually developed alongside it. So the Beatles' "Strawberry Fields" was first and foremost a song, though "Tomorrow Never Knows" almost wasn't. "Who Are the Brain Police" by the Mothers was a song as much as it was a sound. "Arnold Layne" by Pink Floyd the same. XTC's psychedelic takeoffs of the '80s were centered around song.

All this a prelude to an excellent contribution to psychedelia in the Finnish group Permanent Clear Light's first full album, Beyond These Things (Havasupai Records 001). I've covered an EP and single or two of there's here, but at last an album. And it's good. Very very good.

Keep in mind the intro paragraph has a point: Permanent Clear Light take as their starting point the song form. This is a collection of excellent songs with that distinct wall of psychedelic sound going, some great jam moments, great vocals, guitar and spooky keys, but first and foremost songs as the launch mechanism for orbiting.

They have the knack of coming up with something new using the neo-psychedelic sound, so expect those quasi-Beatlian early BeeGee-ian Indo-cello strings, mellotronian nirvana, phase-shifted everything on occasion, the Floydian floating islands, the fairly compact timeframe (mostly), a little Brain-Brian Wilsonian eccentricity of musical means...just enough of everything but in new combinations and with a freshness that drives it all forward to make it of today.

Arto Kakko, Matti Laitinen and Markku Helin have it together. The album paces very well, the songs are great and there is much excellence to be had here. Beautiful! If you dig the psychedelic thing, there should be no hesitation. Grab this!

Norman Johnson, Get It While You Can

I never make a point, at least to myself, of thinking "I will never review music of x or y category, so if I put on a review CD and it's that, off it goes." If something is good at what it does, then I'll talk about it. There is a point of satiation for certain musics, but that is more cumulative for me. So when I got a copy of guitarist Norman Johnson's CD in the mail and put it on, I listened.

The CD is Get it While You Can (Pacific Coast Jazz 83454). It's Norman on electric and some acoustic, with an instrumental backdrop in the arranged light funk zone. OK so it might be music you hear when you get put on hold talking to some company. But it's miles better than most of that stuff. It is because it never goes into a bad taste zone, and because Norman Johnson can play. There is a bit of the current George Benson in there somewhere. It's bluesy. And when he gets a solo going it is very ear-worthy. And the arrangements are decent.

But mostly it's Johnson the guitarist that makes it worth hearing. He's good. Now I'd like to hear him cut loose in a small group setting. But hey, thanks for your playing Norman!

Blowing Fuses Left and Right, The Legendary Detroit Rock Interviews, DVD

Lest we forget (and there have been those who would rather we did) the '60s in America were times of great upheaval on both social and cultural levels. The struggle for Civil Rights, the attempt (in part successful) to redefine and/or rediscover an ethics and cultural outlook beyond what had become well-entrenched by the comparatively stolid '50s, the idea that all have an actively articulated role to play in a national debate of who we are and what we want to be, all became particularly pronounced by the late '60s.

With that came a flowering of rock (and soul) as art form. Two Detroit bands of the era, the Stooges and the MC5, made an impact on the music scene that was not initially huge but over time came to be seen as increasingly important for the music that came after, no matter how stutteringly sporadic that "after" became.

It was with this in mind, during the height of the Reagan years, that Gil Margulis, young student and enthusiast, set out with a video camera to interview some key members of both groups. Blowing Fuses Left and Right (O-Rama MVD DVD 5119D) captures three lengthy interviews made during that time.

So we have interviews of the late Ron Asheton, guitarist and co-founder of the Stooges, late MC5 singer Rob Tyner, and MC5 drummer Dennis Thompson.

These are rough-and-ready segments that gain by the informal, enthusiastically non-professional nature of the interactions to give you first-person insights into the politics and realities of Detroit and the country at large during the time, the playing situation of the famed Grande Ballroom, the struggle to establish a musical identity and the rather horrific results of national recognition and/or the lack of it.

Of course the Stooges and the MC5 were groups with a striking energy level, an in-your-face punkyness that was as innovative as it was considered then brazen. The interviews give you concrete insights into the different outlooks the two bands had, pronounced perhaps especially in the political realm, and the difficulties, traumas and relative triumphs each faced when national attention, enthusiasm and/or hostility was meted out to them during their period as recording artists and touring performers.

Anyone with an interest in these bands, the general rock scene and the cultural history of the '60s will find articulate spokesman and invaluable first-hand testimony as to what it was like! Whether you know the general story or you do not, these interviews are pretty near mind-blowing! Very much recommended.

Vo-Duo, Nou La, Markus Schwartz, Monvelyno Alexis

It's not of course unusual to hear the music of New Africa and experience new releases here in the States, whether it be Afrobeat or Jazz inflected sounds, two areas that can provide lots of appeal and fresh infusions of vitality.

A duo that does an especially great job of it with an intimate lineup is Vo-Duo, as heard on their Nou La (Lakou Brooklyn). What we have is the Afro-Haitian vocals and electric guitar of Monvelyno Alexis and the drumming and backup vocals of Markus Schwartz.

There is much going on here: some very subtle excellence in the rhythmically chording and melody weaving of the guitar, the polyrhythmic richness of Schwartz's drumming and the song-vocal effectiveness of Alexis. It has all the traditional heft of call-and-response mesmerizing but gets a big lift with the way Alexis works his magic.

This is an excellent match of musical talent in a extraordinary set of songs. All Africanists will love it--and if you want some great adventure but don't know a lot about the musical world this represents it's a great place to start.

Beautiful!

Joe Morris, Agusti Fernandez, Nate Wooley, From the Discrete to the Particular

Joe Morris has become one of the very seminal free music guitarists out there today. He's written a book on playing free that I am reading right now, teaches at New England Conservatory and has made a large impact through many recordings and of course personal appearances. For the album on tap today he plays acoustic guitar (or at least it's his semi-hollow with little amplification, not sure) and joins in chamber free trio improvisations with trumpetmaster Nate Wooley (who has also become a centripetal force on his instrument) and pianist Augusti Fernandez, perhaps a lesser-known artist but fully at the level of the other two in his own way.

From the Discrete to the Particular (Relative Pitch 1008) brings the three together live at Firehouse 12 in New Haven in 2011. The triple-tiered interplay can get downright contrapuntal, which is only logical given the players and what they tend to do. But at all times there are various zone interactions going on, each player plotting out an aural spot and then working off the other two in the zones they establish. Seven individual pieces vary the freedom in ways that keep it interesting and exciting.

The harmonic texture of the music primarily comes out of the overlapping, interacting melody lines. The high inventive level of those lines and how they work as a triumvarate is what makes the music come through, makes it all "pop" so to speak. And pop it certainly does. The threesome have chosen their version of the open road; they challenge each other to get spontaneous chamber combustion on a continuous basis, and it happens. This is not easy music to do well. It is a tribute to the musical ears and imagination of the players that they succeed, that they plummet the hurdles of free playing in tandem. This music is vital!

Little Women, Lung

Little Women, an avant quartet based in New York, hit the ground running a while back with a very in-your-face offering, Throat. They return with a new one that marks a bit of a departure, Lung (AUM Fidelity 076).

The instrumentation is not exactly typical: Travis Laplante on tenor sax, Darius Jones, alto sax, Andrew Smiley, electric guitar, and Jason Nazary on drums. Like on the first album the band has worked out an interestingly eclectic mix of free and composed interplay. The first album hit it pretty hard most of the time for a skronk electricity and energy level way up there.

Lung goes a much more dynamic route. There are reflective, almost meditative moments of group ensemble texture and there are contrastive onslaughts that make for more "symphonic" (if you will) climaxes. It's one continuous work lasting 42 minutes. The last section is flat-out power, high-electric skronk, avant free-post-Beefheartian slamming. This isn't about individual solos as much as it is about collective sound.

That it builds into such a literally heavy end-section makes the listening experience that much more mesmerizing, absorbing. It's quite a feat and shows you that Little Women have their own sense of how to change things up, how to make it all different. They do that.