Sunday at Bob's #9 - Closing the Shift

Just the once will not hurt: this week's Sunday at Bob's is a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and it isn't even at Bob's, with my apologies. I take this opportunity to add that next Sunday at Bob's will unfortunately be cancelled due to the fact that I took a day off work to enjoy the Roots Festival in Oosterpark that will feature Asmâa Hamzaoui & Bnat Timbouktou amongst other. The coming ones might also be very irregular up until the end of september. Today I am really proud to anounce the release of the magnificent album of a very good friend of mine: Jason Daskalakis. The playlist starts with a very powerfull song taken from his debut album Leaving the Tribe.

Memories from the Sea is the closing song of Amsterdam-based Greek guitar player Jason Daskalakis' Leaving the Tribe, and the only one where you will have the chance to hear him sing. It is a seven minute long composition that I see as a slow development of one theme, almost as if the whole song was an introduction to the last melody that is very much so as to hit the nail on the head if you may. If the song was a video footage, I would compare it with one of these one shot demonstrations of unheartly powerfull zooms that start with a landscape to end on a stone in the moon. The whole album is a gem and I strongly recommend it, here is a link to listen to/purchase the jewel.

After that comes a song from an album I listened to the point of damaging last summer: Moodymann's Black Mahogani. Equally reclusive and prolific, Moodymann (a.k.a. Kenny Dixon Jr.) writes loping, laidback music that burrows into the mind, unfurling deft keyboard flourishes from subtly raw production that has as much to do with jazz and blues traditions as modern house music. (source) And it is precisely for the brilliant way jazz and blues are present in his music that I enjoy Moodymann so much.

It is followed by an interlude recorded at Bob's without anyone's permission (since then obtained). And then the playlist takes a rather melancholic turn with Michael Galasso's take on St James Infirmary. Blue is a song featured in the soundtrack of the great In the Mood for Love from Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai. It is quite slow and sad version of the Gambler's Blues in my opinion but the fact that it is played with violins which I never heard elsewhere gives it a whole new garment.

New turn taken afterwards with the rock couple Judy Henske & Jerry Yester's Raider, from their 1969 album Farewell Aldebaran released on Frank Zappa's Straight ! An album that goes in many different directions and remains exciting and very innovative all along the way. We stay in the same musical area with a song released two years later by the British band Universe, introduced to me by a very good friend in my teenagehood as a secret to keep. The album remained in our gang for a couple of years and would be played here and then between two hardcore french rap songs.

Another interlude I recorded going home after a late shift. Sound of frogs getting down interupted whatever was in my ears at the time and I couldn't resist, it was so loud I had to record it. Round of applause for the Slotermeer Frog Orchestra.

In this playlist you will hear as well the British brothers Mark and Clive Ives' band Woo for a relaxing happy song called AWAAWAA. The usual Brasilian song is by Vinicius de Moraes (his daughter was on the last playlist) & Baden Powell. There is a majestic tribute to Ornette Coleman by Dollars Brand (on the album Underground in Africa that I strongly recommend, would it be only for the first track Kalahari). You will also hear a band I had been boiling to include, Ambiance and their song Atiji that makes me feel like a character of Martin Scorsese's After Hours who didn't appear in the film but was there somewhere, when I paint in my studio at night listening to it. It ends with a very crazy recording of Clydie King rehearsing for the soundtrack of The Long Goodbye and basically trashing everyone in and out the room for 8 minutes straight, I can't get tired of it.

That's it! I apologize again for the delay, I hope I can keep up with the rythm from now on but I will most likely skip a week or two.

However the check out time remains 10h30,

The receptionist.

Playlist:

1. Jason Daskalakis - Memories from the Sea
2. Moodymann - I Need You So Much
3. Interlude - Lydia
4. Michael Galasso - Blue
5. Judy Henske & Jerry Yester - Raider
6. Universe - Cocaine
7. Interlude - Nightshift
8. Woo - AWAAWAA
9. Vinicius de Moraes & Baden Powell - Canto de Xang
10. B1 - Ornettes Cornet (In Tribute To Ornette Coleman) - Dollar Brand
11. Ambiance -Atiji
12. Clydie King - Adlibs Rehearsal