Miles Davis, Mulatu Astatke, and hearing a sound take shape

No. 1278: Miles Davis - Filles de Kilimanjaro

It happens every few hundred posts or so, and so it has once again: I missed one. And if you’re wondering how, I have no idea—it’s marked clearly on my list, there’s no reason for me to overlook it. For that matter, I don’t consider Filles de Kilimanjaro a minor or unremarkable album, even though it’s often spoken of as a very good Miles Davis album rather than a great one. And look, when you arrive less than a year before In a Silent Way, then yeah, I can easily see how that might happen! (But I also skipped Endtroducing… by mistake early in this series, one of my all-time favorite albums, so my own disorganization has little to do with the quality of the album.) 

Filles De Kilimanjaro is an album I might call a “personal favorite” in the sense that it’s one I love and I rarely hear anyone else talk about it. It’s also, by definition, a transitional record. It arrives between his more avant garde-leaning post-bop period (See: E.S.P.) and the beginning of his fusion era. I find myself drawn to his ‘69-’74 period above all, but this is where it starts. It’s less fusion per se than electric bop, Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea’s keyboards providing much of the vibes here while the arrangements and compositions still move like those of the records preceding it. 

And yet, listen to the title track and you hear the beginnings of something inspired and revolutionary. It’s not quite taken shape, but it’s still remarkable, a rough draft for a revolutionary sound that, to my ears, still sounds perfect. Based on the price tag, it seems to me that this was a Folk Arts purchase from before I left San Diego, circa 2018 or so? Kind of a long delay to have this show up here, but better late than never. Rating: 9.2

Listen: “Filles de Kilimanjaro”

No. 1279: Mulatu Astatke - Afro Latin Soul

Mulatu Astatke is one of my favorite jazz artists—the father of Ethio-jazz, in fact—and while I’ve written about him once (and mentioned again in another post) he actually hasn’t appeared in the AO series that much, if only because his catalog is nowhere near as extensive as, for instance, Miles Davis.

It is growing though—at 81 years old, he’s still making music (I saw him live six years ago!) and he’s released a surprising amount of music in the past fifteen years. All of which is really good. This is his debut, however, and it’s a little bit unusual. Not for the time, but for him. It’s not Ethio-jazz per se, but rather Latin jazz, more aligned with artists like Cal Tjader and the like. And considering I’m a Cal Tjader fan, that’s just alright with me! But you can certainly hear the beginnings of what would become his signature sound, specifically in “Mascaram Setaba,” which he’d re-record for his 1972 album Mulatu of Ethiopia (write-up TK).  

I kind of love albums like this (see also this week’s Miles Davis album) where the pieces are starting to fall into place, and you hear a sound sort of start to take shape. It’s not quite there yet, but what’s here is certainly interesting, and beyond that, it’s simply a highly enjoyable Latin jazz record, and that’s reason enough to give it a spin. I picked this up at Stranded with several other records here, and what’s interesting is that it doesn’t actually say Mulatu Astatke’s name on the cover, it says “Ethiopian Quintet”, but I recognized the cover right away regardless. Good listening for cocktail hour if you’re into that sort of thing. (I am.) Rating: 9.0

Listen: “Mascaram Setaba”

No. 1280: Charles Mingus - Mingus Ah Um

I can’t remember exactly what the first jazz album I ever bought was. It might have been Cal Tjader’s Soul Burst. Or it might have been Kind of Blue (which is ironic if you’ve been following this blog/newsletter). Or it might have been this. And the more I think about it, I think Mingus might have been the one. I’d heard “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” enough times to reach the conclusion that “yeah, I dig this!” Which is kind of a big deal. Up to that point I had pretty much been exclusively a rock listener. I had some electronic CDs but that was all, more or less, still kind of in the sphere of rock, structurally, sonically and so on.

But as a senior in high school, at 18 years old, I started buying jazz CDs, which felt like a symbolic graduation of sorts. Appreciation of jazz felt like a very adult thing to me, and the fact that I was actually genuinely starting to enjoy it meant that, well, I must be growing up!

That obviously wasn’t true but hey, it’s a start. And after all these years, Mingus Ah Um still is a special record for me. It’s long been regarded as a masterpiece, though Mingus himself has about a dozen such masterpieces in his catalog, or more, depending on your view of his overall body of work. This is perhaps the most accessible one, rife with gorgeous ballads and bright, upbeat numbers alike. The opening “Better Git It In Your Soul” is wild and fiery, a joyful and lively track that seems to add a bit of bawdy burlesque jazz to contemporary hard bop along with some gospel fervor. And “Jelly Roll” is something of a tribute to Jelly Roll Morton, playing off of the ragtime style that was his signature. There’s also some satirical social commentary, like on “Fables of Faubus,” which was written with lyrics but is presented here as an instrumental. It’s a critique of Orval Faubus, then governor of Arkansas who refused to comply with the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Political instrumental jazz doesn’t always translate, especially this long after the events in question, but it’s a great song regardless, combining Mingus’ penchant for humor and irreverence with a singular songwriting sensibility.

It took me long enough to get this on vinyl, and it’s a pretty basic copy. In fact, because it’s a public domain pressing of an old jazz record, it doesn’t even have the original artwork, which is kind of a bummer, actually. I love the original S. Neil Fujita artwork, which adorns so many great Columbia Records albums, including Dave Brubeck’s Time Out. He also designed the logo for The Godfather, which is pretty baller. Also on this pressing, “Jelly Roll” is misspelled. Maybe I should look for a Columbia pressing when I get a chance. Hmmm…

This was by no means the highest Mingus would go, and for my money, there’s no greater height in his catalog—maybe even anyone’s—than The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady. But Mingus Ah Um is a masterpiece, and the kind of jazz album I can listen to anytime. Rating: 10.0

Listen: “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat”

No. 1281: Jenny Hval - Practice of Love

So I feel the need to revisit an earlier statement of mine and maybe question the validity of it. Just last week I declared Classic Objects the best album that Jenny Hval has released. Which is true enough—it’s at least in the running. But on closer inspection, her actual best album might in fact be The Practice of Love.

So let’s rewind a bit. Back in the mid-’10s, Jenny Hval was growing in popularity and releasing albums of increasingly bigger production and bigger ideas. I first heard her 2013 album Innocence is Kinky, which was about internet voyeurism or something. And the album was decent enough, in its more upbeat moments reminding me of PJ Harvey in the ‘90s, though some of it felt more sterile and academic. But then she did the sort of anti-masculinity record, and then by the time she released the vampire record, her music was growing more interesting and, more importantly, outside of the intros and spoken word interlude stuff, the songs were actually getting really good.

But then she released Practice of Love, which is primarily an electronics-driven pop record. And well? It slaps. All the intricate conceptual threads in the world won’t help you if you don’t make a record that slaps. And brother, this does. Big time. I didn’t hear it immediately when it came out, in part because I was still a little Hval-skeptic. And I think the review we ran in Treble more or less said, “yeah, I guess it’s pretty good? I dunno.” But then “Ashes to Ashes” became our song of the year. I didn’t see that coming and I’m not sure anyone else did.

“Ashes to Ashes” is, indeed, a phenomenal song. It’s a big, dramatic build into an arpeggiating dancefloor anthem, and god, it’s amazing. “Lions” is an outstanding album opener, building tension and providing a hypnotic pulse, while “High Alice” adds some much welcome saxophone. Plus there’s just bangers all over this thing, like “Six Red Cannas.” This album feels like the roots of what would become Lost Girls, the electronic project that Hval debuted not long thereafter, but with more concise songs and less of a progressive-electronic sprawl. That project is great too, I should note. But this might be Hval’s best. Now I have to rethink everything. Rating: 9.2

Listen: “Ashes to Ashes”

No. 1282: Blonde Redhead - Misery is a Butterfly

In the past couple years I got really into Blonde Redhead again, and it’s been a good reminder of just how excellent a band they really are and have been for three decades (!). In fact, one of the earliest installments of this series was on Blonde Redhead’s 23, which is an excellent kinda-sorta shoegaze record that I still love even now, in a time when the sound’s become a little oversaturated. But the thing about Blonde Redhead is how much evolution they’ve gone through over time, first as a sort of Sonic Youth-y noise rock group and later into a more malleable art-rock group.

Misery is a Butterfly is very much the latter, and easily my favorite album by the group. It’s a little less Sonic Youth, a little more Portishead, but with their usual guitar-bass-drums setup. For the most part. The opener “Elephant Woman” has a kind of elegant chamber pop sound and an air of mystery, definitely in the character of the spy-theme sound that Portishead made their signature, but without the record scratches and drum-break samples. Likewise, “Melody” has a trip-hop groove with spooky keyboards and a bassline played with chords that makes it sound cool as hell. 

There’s a lot of songs worth mentioning here though the most significant is probably “Equus,” the closer, which has a little bit of dancepunk immediacy that the rest of the album doesn’t. It’s also the most poignant, written about an accident that vocalist Kazu Makino experienced while riding a horse, suffering some intense injuries when she ended up being trampled after being thrown from the horse. As such, it’s a song about trying to make sense that trauma and trying to repair the relationship between them. But also, it swings, which makes it more fun despite the pain at its core.

Blonde Redhead’s members were quoted a couple times in the book Meet Me in the Bathroom, which I read cover to cover on a recent trip to Puerto Rico. But the funny thing is that, despite being a New York band during that era in which it really wasn’t all that cool, they’re by all means one of the most enduring independent acts from the city since the ‘90s, and with one of the best catalogs for that matter. Me, I never got into the Strokes. But I’ll play the hell out of some Blonde Redhead. Rating: 9.2

Listen: “Equus”

No. 1283: Fennesz - Endless Summer

Seems an incongruous time to be writing about Endless Summer, but there have been some cold, cold nights in Richmond in recent weeks, so maybe a little bit of summer wouldn’t be so bad? (I’m not a warm-weather guy so one warm day this month is plenty.) But Fennesz’s Endless Summer shares little in common with the Beach Boys compilation of the same name. While there’s a sense of escape and of the kind of uncanny nostalgia that Boards of Canada are so expert at, Endless Summer is far less literal in its approach about, well, anything.

A glitch/ambient classic of the 21st century, when that sort of thing became more commonplace (see also: Tim Hecker), Endless Summer pairs accessible, melodic elements with glitchy edits of samples and the kind of skipping repetitions that Oval pioneered back in the ‘90s. And for a weird, avant garde ambient record, it has a lower barrier for entry than a lot of this kind of music. Quite simply: It’s beautiful. And you really do kind of picture that sunset on the artwork when you hear it, evoking lost summers you may have never had. 

It’s also just quite lovely to listen to, an overdue purchase on a growing list that never ends. Such is my burden. Rating: 9.3

Listen: “Caecilia”

1284: Glassing - Twin Dream

If you’re the type of listener who gets into the nitty gritty of the tropes of genre, then metal is definitely for you. If you want to listen to nothing but lo-fi black metal, death metal, djent, all year and never listen to the same album twice, you can do that very easily. But also, your mileage may vary on how satisfying that really is. For me, it’s not necessarily that far.

Don’t mistake me: I love metal and I love, for that matter, pretty conventional death metal. But my favorite metal albums are always those by bands who color outside the lines a bit. Austin’s Glassing are one of those bands, and the best evidence of this is the fact that nobody knows what to call them. Their 2021 album Twin Dream is, to me, their best, a stunning and expansive hybrid of Isis-y post-metal, searing black metal, shoegaze and screamo. And they’re never better than on a track like “Burden,” which comes screaming in at full intensity, guitars scorching, throat-ripping screams and a pummel that means business. But it’s also an atmospheric epic as well. It’s a lot of things at once, and I applaud them for not sticking to one thing just because it would be the easier thing to do. 

There are shoegazey ripples on “Absolute Virtue,” furious screamo surge on “Among the Stars,” and a kind of inspirational beauty in brutality on “True North.” This album does a lot in just around 45 minutes, perhaps not quite to the level of ambition or majesty of Sunbather, but it’s certainly one of its descendants. Heavy music at its best, and I waited months for the record to arrive because the pressing and digital release didn’t quite line up, but this is nothing. Wait until you hear about the Mizmor/Thou collab!

Also, hey, how cool is that mirror cover art?

Rating: 9.1

Listen: “Absolute Virtue”