Uploading Sunday at Bob's #15 - Two Birds

We are back after skipping a week, which might happen quite often but it is for the best. For this week's playlist I tried to keep it interesting by going from one genre to the other while borrowing songs that still have some sort of common atmosphere. A bit rough, in a chill way.

We start with a song form a wonderful album that was recently re released but dates back from 1975. I did not know much about Ernest Hood but I sure am glad to have stumbled upon that piece of work. I find in it some poetry but more specifically some sharp reflection about what music is. There is something very odd about having sonor sceneries turned into music and listened to as such, I can't really put my finger on it but it would be something interesting to analyse. Maybe it is the musical pendant to a landscape painting?

"Hood remains an enigmatic and largely unknown figure—Neighborhoods was his only album, and he pressed it himself in limited quantities. He had played in jazz groups with his brother Bill and the renowned band leader and saxophonist Charlie Barnet. But in the early '50s he contracted polio, which resulted in a year-long stint in an iron lung; he relied on a wheelchair to get around. Confined to Portland, Hood started experimenting with field recordings, slowly gathering the material that would imbue Neighborhoods with such indelible sepia tones." (source)

Two weeks ago I went to see the Russian classic Amphibian Man (fun to watch after having seen The Shape of Water) and I chose to include today a piece from its soundtrack composed by Andrei Petrov. I strongly recommend the movie, not only for its music, the whole thing is an alien, the colors and ambiance just stick with you and it is difficult to make sense of it.

Then we have a nice tune of Philip Cohran (who has been featured here already) and the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble in which eight out of nine musicians are his sons. That album they made together is really a brass album like I like them, it makes me want to dance for hours until I bathe in my own sweat and forget if I am stepping on the roof or dancing upside down.

It goes on with a very nice tune I stole from a compilation I listen to on regular basis. It is followed by the greater of the greatest French rappers, MC Solaar. I never get tired of this dude. Seriously, listen to Qui Sème Le Vent Récolte Le Tempo and tell me its not the shit. After that comes a song I find as beautiful as funny, Melody Gardot's attempt to sing in french is extremely cute but also very on point and fit for that song. Bert Jansch was mentioned here last time and now you have an eight minutes long cut to appreciate his guitar talents. After that comes one of my favourite folk songs this time interpeted by Ramblin' Jack Elliott who lets us know he first heard it through the lips of Reverend Gary Davis. A comment on the youtube video suggests that the song was originally an old medicine show song in the 1900s (!). We finish with a gem from Bob Dylan that makes me cry everytime. The last track is for pleasure.

That's it for this week!
The check out time is 10h30, you be warned.

Enjoy,
the receptionist

Playlist:

1. Ernest Hood - At The Store
2. Andrei Petrov - Song from The Amphibian Man
3. Kelan Philip Cohran & The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble - Spin
4. Demba Camara Et Son Groupe - Exhumation Folklorique
5. MC Solaar - Et DIeu Créa L’Homme
6. Melody Gardot - Les Etoiles
7. Bert Jansch - Instrumental Medley 1964
8. Ramblin' Jack Elliott - Cocaine
9. Bob Dylan - Love Sick
10. Harlem Gem - More Than You Can Wish

Sunday at Bob's #14 - A Humid Return

Two or three weeks ago I posted a Moroccan special Sunday at Bob's, started to wrote a long text about it but eventually had to give up. I couldn't finish it on time and I realised it was more than the usual weekly post. The material and informations I gathered during the two months I passed in the Cherifian Kingdom additionned to the lack of knowledge I have of this area of music made a too big obstacle to casually jump over during a sunday shift at Bob's. However you can listen to the playlist here, you might still enjoy it. Today I finally get back to business, the high season is over, the roads are wet, writing warms. I prepared an unusually short playlist in lenght but with as many songs as usual, here it is, let it dry you.

We enter it with an extract from Fellini's Satyricon soundtrack. Composed by Nino Rota (La Dolce Vita, The Godfather...) and named after Jérôme Bosch's painting, which makes sense given how the whole movie feels like walking around an ancient Roman version of one, Il giardino delle delizie is a bit less than a minute long. I heard a connexion with the following song that I found interesting to exploit. Maybe some oddness in it is mirrored in the use of a sitar in The Pentangle's Cruel Sister.

I just recently discovered The Pentangle. After having been smashed in and out of the three dimensioned world as we know it by Bert Jansch's self titled debut album I had to look more into that guy's stuff. I was not disapointed. I find the song Cruel Sister rather impressive, by the way it manages to keep it interesting while having that melody repeated over and over for seven minutes. I also very much enjoy the way the sitar is used to support that melody, while it happens often that sitars sounds like absurd additions to my ears (but who am I if not a modest listener whose brain isn't trained to the subtleties of Indian music, let alone the combinations of that music with a western one?).

Then we have a jazz tune by the Recifense piano prodigy Amaro Freitas, and we go on with the playful Chicken is Nice by one of my favourite folk musicians Dave Van Ronk. It took me some time to figure out excactly what were the Robert's Falls, Cape Palmas, Sinoe and Monrovia (spelled Quepamas, Cyno on google lyrics). I recently found out there is an older version of that song from which Van Ronk got his inspiration. Eventhough I haven't had the chance to listen to it, I know it is on a compilation from Liberian folk songs, those places are in Liberia. It also explains why he finds chicken with palm butter and rice nice since it is a typical West African dish.

I stumbled upon Cécile McLorin Salvant's work about a year ago and am still evenly amazed by the power and rocket science precision her voice hits the right spots each time I listen to The Window. That album is really one of a kind, at least I had never heard anything like it in terms of variety and intensity.

Sullivan Fortner, who played with Roy Hargrove amongst other, does a fantastic job on the piano and gets the space to expand some very cool things.

I started listening to The Village Callers after watching Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood, which has a great soundtrack album where I rediscovered Neil Diamond amongst other. Then we have the recently passed multi-disciplinary artist Daniel Johnston (may he rest in peace). I had the chance to see his exhibition in the Collection de l'Art Brut in Lausanne some years back and was quite impressed by his productivity in both his music and his drawings. We go on with Richard & Linda Thompson, as well discovered very recently as I started craving for folk music after getting back to Amsterdam's life, Champion Jack Dupree who we had in Bob's in the past already.

The playlist ends on a gem that was featured in Floating Point's Late Night Tales. I didn't know the story of Bobby Wright nor his music before and I must say that I can't get enough of it. "Wright, who now goes by Abu Talib, worked as a construction worker and cab driver while moonlighting as a bandleader in New York City. After his band was torn apart by the Vietnam War—two members were drafted, one of whom was killed in action—he recorded two songs with the only remaining member, his bassist. The label says "he self-released the record in 1974, one which holds its own alongside the all-time greats."(source)

That is all for this week! I will do my best to be mor constant from now on.

Enjoy!

Please do check out before 10.30,

The receptionist

Playlist:

1. Nino Rota - Il giardino delle delizie
2. The Pentangle - Cruel Sister
3. Amaro Freitas - Rasif
4. Dave Van Ronk - Chicken is Nice
5. Cécile McLorin Salvant - À Clef
6. The Village Callers - The Frog
7. Daniel Johnston - Favourite Darling Girl
8. Richard & Linda Thompson/Richard & Linda Thompson - I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight
9. Champion Jack Dupree - Ain't That A Hard Pill to Swallow
10. Bobby Wright - Blood of an American