Excursions

George Adams & Don Pullen - Melodic Excursions (1982) {2015 Japan Timeless Jazz Master Collection Complete Series}
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© 1982, 2015 Timeless Records / Solid Records Japan / Ultra-Vibe | CDSOL-6378
Jazz / Post Bop / Avant-Garde Jazz / Piano / Saxophone

Reissue with the latest remastering. Features original cover artwork. Comes with a descripton in Japanese. One of the most beautiful albums ever cut by the team of reedman George Adams and pianist Don Pullen – a spare set of duets that really lets both players open up in their most soulful styles! The set begins with a pretty freewheeling vibe – one that might almost make you doubt the "melodic" in the title – but soon settles into that gently spiritual style that both players brought to their work at the time – almost lyrical at points, but always with deeper ideas at play – and perfectly balanced out between the solo passages of Adams and Pullen!

After almost two decades of hibernation under the ambient waves and dub currents of the Sargasso Sea, LSD announces the next installment of the seminal ‘Auntie Aubrey's' series, an Orb Remix Project. This 2 x CD compilation is a veritable smorgasbord of classic, new and unreleased labour-of-love remixes that span three decades yet still transcend space and time.

Matt Berry - Night Terrors: Nocturnal Excursions in Music (2017) {Acid Jazz–[PIAS] AJXCD415}
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© 2017 Acid Jazz / [PIAS] | AJXCD415
Rock / Progressive Jazz / Neo-Psychedelia / Indie Pop / Indie Folk

Matt Berry's excellent 2016 album, The Small Hours, was another step toward establishing the comedic actor as a serious musical force with roots in indie pop, folk, prog, and psychedelia. The Night Terrors EP is a brief companion release comprising remixes and retakes from the album, plus a handful of new songs. Saint Etienne and Clark do very different things to the prog-jazz title track with their mixes, the former delving into some laid-back, funky grooves that aren't as much terrifying as they are tasty, while the latter takes the terror part seriously and turns the song into something that sounds like whirling knife blades, possessed wind-up dolls, and scream-inducing jump cuts.

Older Ives enthusiasts may recall the First Piano Sonata in performances by William Masselos who played the work for the first time in 1954, the year the composer died. Odd, but familiar in Ives, for such a masterpiece to have to wait 45 years to be heard! Masselos made two recordings (nla) which established the character of this richly inventive work. The one by Noel Lee (on a Nonesuch LP—only available in the USA) made in the late 1960s is almost as impressive. Joanna MacGregor's recording is now a landmark since there is effectively no competition in the British catalogue: DJF found little to recommend in John Jensen's performance on Music and Arts (9/90) so it is best to compare MacGregor, who is certainly busy in the recording studios these days, with these earlier Americans.

John Fahey - The Great San Bernardino Birthday Party and Other Excursions (1966) {Takoma TAKCD-6508-2 rel 2000}
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© 1966, 2000 Takoma Records / Fantasy | TAKCD-6508-2
Folk / Blues / Contemporary Folk / Finger-Picked Guitar / Folk Jazz / Folk-Blues / Progressive Folk

Few guitarists, even ones leaning toward the eccentric, would dream of pasting together a 19-minute instrumental out of various improvisations. But John Fahey is on his own planet, and he assured that fingerstyle guitar would never be the same when he issued The Great San Bernardino Birthday Party on his own Takoma label in 1966. The album features Fahey's more experimental explorations on the guitar between 1962 and 1966, ranging from solo guitar on "Guitar Excursions Into the Unknown" to the eerie organ accompaniment on "Will the Circle Be Unbroken."