Joe Henderson featuring Alice Coltrane The Elements, Various Artists Frets of Yore
Joe Henderson featuring Alice Coltrane
The Elements
(Concord/Craft Recordings)
For this writer, the vast majority of his music listening is done inside his home or car, but there are a handful of certain albums that have a strong, almost cosmic bond to specific locations apart from those two.
Now if you will, please indulge this critic in his reverie about Chattanooga’s greatest bar—Lamar’s—which closed late last year, causing more than a few people (this writer included) to become inconsolable.
It wasn’t just the ludicrously strong drinks, the life-affirming fried chicken (the best in town!), the undusted textured wallpaper and bartender Gerald’s seemingly clairvoyant abilities to serve; it was a time warp and teleportation portal, taking its visitors to an early ‘70s smoky lounge straight out of a movie.
Your humble narrator, who was raised in a frugal household, figured out that the best bang-for-your-buck on the jukebox at Lamar’s was the 13-minute track “Earth,” from the 1973 album The Elements by saxophonist Joe Henderson with Alice Coltrane.
Beginning with tabla beats, “Earth” has an absolutely killer jazz-funk slow burn, emanating a badass swagger with jazz legend Charlie Haden’s unwavering bass line and Henderson unleashing his penetrating melodic theme, over which he dubs a sax solo.
While Prince’s Purple Rain may have been played there more often, but for this writer, The Elements will forever be linked with Lamar’s.
Concord Music Group’s reissue label Craft Recordings, in the “Top Shelf Series,” has blessed the world with its new reissue of this overlooked classic, available on 180-gram vinyl and as hi-res digital downloads, and it deserves a place in the spiritual jazz pantheon, gelling with distinct identities and taking inspiration from Indian, African and Native American sources.
The opening track “Fire” establishes a strong momentum with Henderson’s bold, echoing sax enhanced with Coltrane’s flowing harp runs; however, the track’s star is violinist Michael White (who passed away in December) who delivers a remarkable solo, with dancing, unfettered notes and octave-separated double-stops.
“Air” melds clattering percussion with Haden’s driving backbone that fuses with Coltrane’s strong left-hand piano patterns, while her right hand purposefully and firmly chimes away with occasional fluttering. “Water” is the album’s most psychedelic track, evoking some kind of ceremony; Henderson’s sidemen lay down an aural tumbling mat, on which he does his gymnastics, sonically resembling at times a possessed bumblebee. This writer may never get to go to Lamar’s again, but listening to The Elements takes him to that magical place.
Various Artists
Frets of Yore
(Spectropol)
Subtitled “a collection of guitART pieces for the immediate past,” the new compilation Frets of Yore is packed with wildly diverse guitar-based tracks and was created by having over 50 musicians react to 26 different pieces of visual art, with each piece being interpreted twice.
The result is an ever-changing, hugely imaginative smorgasbord, in the spirit of compilations such as Guitarrorists or The $100 Guitar Project from 2013 which has a roster that overlaps with Frets of Yore.
The collection’s international line-up ranges from the obscure to more well-known guitarists that often play at music’s fringes, including Elliott Sharp and Fred Frith. Most musicians on the compilation limit themselves and contribute tracks that solely use guitars, including one by Kalahari Surfers that sounds like its percussion beats were generated by striking a guitar’s body; however, a few tracks use additional instrumentation, and Carla Diratz’s number even features vocals.
The album swerves violently in mood, style and approach; for example, the deliciously melodic “Pinguino e la Regazza con i funghi” from Jerry King, with clean and bright electric guitar notes, is followed by the bizarre minute-long “Drunken Alligators Subdued by Snakefinger” from Chris Bywater with heavily manipulated sounds resembling slurping, uneasy pitter-patters and seasick lurching.
Shawn Persinger’s “Mon (Dinosaur) Parc” is one standout, with the track’s first half featuring an unaccompanied acoustic guitar playing an irregular stream of notes, punctuated with harmonics. In its second half, a conversational field recording is added to the mix while the guitar part is repeated, revealing that the guitar’s melody and rhythm were derived by attempting to match the sounds of the voices as closely as possible, in line with that technique previously used by artists like Scott Johnson and Steve Reich.
Frets of Yore is a collection that keeps the listeners on their toes, with its relentless veering from the familiar to the unfamiliar, and if a track sounds unpalatable, one simply needs to wait a minute for something completely different.