The Modern Sounds

A.K. Salim - The Modern Sounds Of A.K. Salim, Complete Savoy Recordings 1957-1958 (2007) {2CD Set Fresh Sound FSR-CD 474}
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© 1957-58, 2007 Savoy / Fresh Sound Records | FSR-CD 474
Jazz / Bop

A.K. Salim (Ahmad Khatab Atkinson) was an ex-reed man who retired from playing in 1943 to arrange and compose for several jazz and Afro- Cuban bands. This 2-CD set draws together all the recordings he did as a leader for Savoy Records in 1957-1958. Most of his work here reflects Salim’s deep knowledge of blues and his arranger’s talent for setting down relatively simple lines combining down home traditionalism with harmonic sophistication. His unpretentious arrangements have an unmistakably visceral quality and offer a fine framework for the eloquently powerful soloists of both reed and brass sections.

This is an MJQ album that, for most fans, is somewhat off the beaten path. At a time when they had left Apple Records to return to Atlantic, and when fusion was just getting started, the group incorporate more Brazilian music in the mix, and John Lewis plays Fender Rhodes electric piano on two tracks. While their laid-back, mellow, chamber-like sound is very much intact, the rules of sonic preparation had changed, and the band followed in kind. Drummer Connie Kay even adds a bit of R&B funk to the proceedings, as on the chunky opener and title track, which is very atypical for the group. One of two Lewis originals, "Valeria" is a light bossa nova, energized as it goes along, while the absolute beauty of "Romance" is marinated in waltz pace with accenting cymbal zings - the perfect candlelight-and-wine dinner music…

Having always made records that exist at the margins of descriptive language, this project by Austin, Texas' most spaced-out duo, Stars of the Lid, is their most ambitious to date, featuring 11 tracks parceled over two CDs (or three LPs), four of which are multi-part suites. Taking a step further down the road they embarked upon with Avec Laudanum, the duo have expanded the pure space and black hole vistas they offered on Music for Nitrous Oxide and The Ballasted Orchestra to embrace small melodic fragments that seemingly endlessly repeat through minimally varying textures. The effect can either be soothing ("Requiem for Dying Mothers"), hypnotic ("Broken Harbors"), or unsettling ("Austin Texas Mental Hospital"). The trademark analogue guitar/tape cut ups are ever present; what would normally be considered the sound of a guitar is nowhere in aural earshot…

Sun Ra was a true innovator, releasing music that was a bit different to his peers from his earliest output. But what would Sun Ra have made of today’s music scene? If he is looking down from his cosmic realm, he’ll be pleased to know that his music from the past still sounds eerily futuristic. Recorded in just one day, on October 10, 1961, The Futuristic Sounds of Sun Ra features 11 tracks. Among the selections is the Latin-influenced opener, “Bassism,” the bluesy “Of Sounds and Something Else,” and the aptly named, “What’s That?,” which breaks into a four-saxophone improvisation, stands out as an example of Ra’s early experimental work.

HELL IN THE CLUB from Italy feature members of ELVENKING and SECRET SPHERE, from bands which play a totally different genre, though, but the songs delivered here on their fifth album to date are pure hard rock with lots of party attitude including hooks that can mostly be called anthems. CRAZY LIXX, CRASHDIET, (more recent) H.E.A.T. or even MÖTLEY CRÜE seem to have been major influences here. Luckily, the modern sounds – whatever this means – mentioned in the info sheet provided by the label can’t (hardly) be found at all. And “Lullaby For An Angel“ is a great ballad with a lot of eighties DNA. Nevertheless, there are a couple of songs which can’t fully meet the quality of highlights like the mentioned tracks or “Nostalgia“ and “Tokyo Lights“. A pretty solid album, though. An album with an honest and down-to-earth production which does want to sound perfect…

Ray Charles’s Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, Volumes 1 & 2 are major landmarks in American culture. Charles demonstrated that great songs with signature performances work in all genres. “I Can’t Stop Loving You” was a standard in country, soul and R&B, as he proved. Modern Sounds also brought America together during the Sixties’ civil rights movement. Charles became one of the first recording artists to have ownership and complete control of the masters. Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music has been listed among the greatest slbums of all time, along with the Beatles, Dylan, Motown, Springsteen, Hendrix and the Beach Boys.

Gerry Mulligan & His Ten-Tette - Shorty Rogers And His Giants - Modern Sounds (1951-1953) {EMI Music rel 2008}
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© 1951-53, 2008 Capitol Records / EMI Music | DRG-CD-8505
Jazz / Cool Jazz / West Coast Jazz / Saxophone / Trumpet

Mention the style “cool jazz” to a music fan and most likely their first thought will be of Chet Baker or Dave Brubeck. All well and good, but there was a cat who came before them who actually laid the groundwork for the style. That was Gerry Mulligan, the baritone saxophonist, arranger, and composer whose original piano-less quartet introduced Baker to the world, and who was also present at the early Miles Davis BIRTH OF THE COOL sessions.

Shorty Rogers and Gerry Mulligan - Modern Sounds (1953) {Capitol Japan TOCJ-6887 rel 2007}
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© 1951-53, 2007 Capitol Records / Toshiba EMI Japan | TOCJ-6887
Jazz / Cool Jazz / West Coast Jazz / Saxophone / Trumpet

If bebop was ‘hot’, then with perfect timing Newton's third law of motion – that every action has an equal and opposite reaction -kicked in with emergence of ‘cool’ jazz at the end of the 1940s with a series of recordings under the auspices of Miles Davis that became known as the Birth of the Cool. Using six instruments in three groups each an octave apart – trumpet and trombone, alto and baritone saxes, French horn and tuba – plus piano, bass and drums, produced a unique sound in jazz.