Oakland Stroke of Midnight

Tower of Power - So Very Hard to Go

Should old acquaintance be forgot, here's a concert turning 50 to blow your whole dang mind.

Ah yes, Oakland. The other city by the Bay. It gets a bad rap now, but it was once a cultural and sports mecca, you know.

Now all the teams are gone and half the stores are boarded up, but 50 years ago it was emerging from the shadow of San Francisco as its own thang.

Thanks to the American state religion of Predatory Corporate Feudal Subsidy Capitalism, the Athletics are gone to 115 degree Sacramento and the Raiders to the casino climes of Vegas.

The Warriors only went across the Bay but who cares? All of this is now dead to me even though I lived in the East Bay for 20 years and identify as an Oaklander, born in NYC as I might be.

But let's not lament the circuses the Mommy's Money Men left us with as they absconded with the scones, this is a party atmosphere y'all. Speaking of which, I can think of one thing that's still from Oakland that would make any city proud and primed to party.

These cats have been around since sliced bread first appeared, and they still play. How many among us can say such a thing? I'm like Leonard Cohen, I ache in the places where I used to play.

When you get to be my age, all concerts look and sound like this picture, unless you have your in-ear assisted listening device and your trusty, geriatric discount bifocals all in place.

And this is all before the drugz take effect.

Ah, there, that's better. I can almost see the horn section now.

And what could be more justifiably legendary than the horn section of the mighty Tower of Power?

Let's ring in the new at the dawn of winter like they did exactly five decades ago, in the storied SF venue called Winterland. I'm afraid I must insist!

Tower of Power

Winterland

San Francisco, California USA

12.31.1974

01 countdown & Auld Lang Syne

02 Oakland Stroke/Walkin' Up Hip Street

03 It's Not the Crime

04 This Time It's Real

05 Only So Much Oil In the Ground

06 Willing to Learn

07 Don't Change Horses (In the Middle of a Stream)

08 Give Me the Proof

09 So Very Hard to Go

10 I Believe In Myself

11 What Is Hip?

12 Knock Yourself Out

13 You're Still a Young Man

14 (To Say the Least) You're the Most

15 Down to the Nightclub

Total time: 1:17:18

Lenny Williams - vocals 

Francis "Rocco" Prestia - bass

Bruce Conte - guitar & vocals 

Chester Thompson - keyboards 

David Bartlett - drums 

Emilio Castillo - tenor saxophone & vocals 

Stephen "Doc" Kupka - baritone saxophone & vocals 

Lenny Pickett - flute, clarinet, saxophones & vocals 

Greg Adams - trumpet & flugelhorn 

Mic Gillette - trumpet, trombone & vocals

320/48k audio streamed from Wolfgang's Vault

spectral analysis is lossless to 20 kHz, making this essentially equivalent to a preFM source

converted to 16/44 CD Audio, edited, retracked, repaired & remastered by EN, Decemeber 2024
506 MB FLAC/direct link

That's it from me for December and 2024, and I hope you all dug it as much as I dug doing it for you. I've already got a couple of devastating items in store for January, including my first ever foray into the AI stem separation tech that's gonna revolutionize this ROIO stuff, just like I've been saying for eons. It's never easy, but try to take it as a positive Syne, and let's all spread best wishes for a fantastic 2025!--J.

Christmas Music Is the Healing Force of the Universe

 
Mars Williams presents An Ayler Xmas - The Divine Peacemaker Plays Dreidel In Frightful Weather


I'm getting this out-of-its-tree music under the tree for the morning, so I hope you are ready for something to really put the X factor in Xmas.
Today we feature two dearly departed reedmelters, or more accurately we feature one sax god paying tribute to another from the further past, in the process transmuting the ancestor's already-devotional songs into a particularly warped, yet somehow totally appropriate, celebration.
This was a thing for over a decade, but Mars Williams didn't start releasing them as live albums until 2017. There was one issued of several of them up to the 2020 event.

I guess the music of Albert Ayler has a kind of Christmas feel to it in some subsurface sort of way to begin with, but woven into medleys that go from Let It Snow to Divine Peacemaker in seamless, almost unconscious fashion really highlights the territorial similarities.
Don't expect a maelstrom skronkfest where someone is overblowing sheets of sound so savage that they accidentally shoot their reed out of their horn and decapitate the soundman, either, although there are sufficient moments of that. No, not the actual bloodshed. A bit of sheets o'skronk, though.

Some of it is actually quite lyrical and soothing, if you can believe it.
There's a lot of toy and little percussion instruments going on too, enough to make the average Art Ensemble of Chicago concert look paltry in that regard.
Initially I remastered the 2022 one, but since Mars was injured for that and couldn't play saxophone without his face falling off, I added the 2021 one in which he is at full blowtorch.

Unfortunately the 2022 performance of this stuff was the last, as Mars Williams fell ill in 2023 and eventually passed just before Thanksgiving of that year.

He passed from a rare form of cancer after a career backing a million superstars of various aesthetic ilks and doing his own things, like these annual Xmas joints.

It's been 55 years, and nobody still has any inkling of how Albert Ayler -- beyond argument, one of the most influential and singular musicians in American history -- got in the East River, face down.
It doesn't really matter, as the music is forever, there will never be a more individual and passionate player than he anyhow.
These performances are both exceptionally captured and would slot right in to the established, sequential series as official releases, if you ask me.
So fasten your Santa belts, as the sleigh screeches to a halt and we arrive, like a holy herd of acid reindeer, at an Albert Ayler Xmas!

Mars Williams presents "An Ayler Xmas"
Lawndale Art Center
Houston, Texas USA
11.29.2021

01 The Hanukkah-Xmas March of Truth for Twelve Days of Jingling Bells with Spirits In Chicago

02 The Divine Peacemaker Plays Dreidel In Frightful Weather

03 The Angels Sing with the Old and New Ghosts In the Manger

04 Spirits Rejoice/O Come All Ye Faithful/Toy Soldier

 

Total time: 1:08:18

Mars Williams - tenor saxophone, horns, percussion, vocals & toy instruments

Gaika James - trombone, percussion, vocals & toy instruments

Aaron González - bass

Stefan González - drums & percussion

Jonathan Horne - guitar

audio recorded by Don White, extracted from an HD YouTube file of a livestream of the event

spectral analysis goes lossless to 21 kHz, making this equivalent to a preFM source

converted to 16/44 CD Audio, tracked, edited & remastered by EN, December 2024
422 MB FLAC/link below

Mars Williams presents

"An Ayler Xmas: The Music of Albert Ayler & Songs of Christmas"

Martinschlössl

Vienna, Austria

12.21.2022

01 Ma'oz Tzur (Hanukkah)

02 Truth Is Marching In/O Tannenbaum/Jingle Bells

03 Mars Williams announcement

04 Noël Omega/Change Has Come for the 3 Kings Who Lit the Tiny Candles In Chicago

05 Carol of the Drum/Bells/O Come Emmanuel/Joy to the World

06 Bashing of the Bells (based on Ukrainian trad. "Chtschedryk")

Total time: 1:46:02

disc break goes after Track 04

Mars Williams - flute & toy instruments

Thomas Berghammer - trumpet

Jakob Gnigler - tenor saxophone

Knox Chandler - guitar & electronics

Christian Meaas Svendsen - bass

Klaus Kugel - drums & percussion

digital capture of the original 2022 256/48k OEL digital FM broadcast

converted to 16/44 CD Audio, retracked, edited & slightly remastered by EN, Dacember 2024
634 MB FLAC/direct link to both shows

I figure almost three hours of this stuff oughta yuletide everybody over until New Year's Eve, so deck the halls with Free Jazz ornaments and boughs of howling horns, I say!

I shall return as the year ends with one more missive, designed to stroke your smoke straight outta Oakland, but I wanted to wish all a Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukah (they start the same day this year) and acknowledge any other maypoles you might be dancing around. These shows'll help you stay snug in those mangers, so be safe from dangers -- it's OK to talk to strangers --  and soak up some holiday Jazz game changers!!!--J.

 5.29.1955 - 11.20.2023        |           7.13.1936 - 11.25.1970      

A New York City Taxi Stand At Christmas

 

Bob James - Angela (Theme from "Taxi")

Here I am, back to rock you like a hurricane -- or maybe a lightly falling, crystalline snowfall on a quiet Christmas Eve -- with a holiday tale about a December 45 years ago, and a guy born on Xmas Day just about 85 years ago.

I could have done this one on the very day on Wednesday coming up, but I have something way weirder planned for the 25th, so we're doing this on the 45th anniversary of the main concert I'm sharing today.

Today's honoree has had a career that I can only think to describe as wildly eclectic, even though he is almost exclusively thought of for one, specific kind of sound.

I really can't come up with too many other guys who began in Free Jazz, got signed by Quincy Jones, scored TV shows that are still beloved to this day, essentially invented the genre called Smooth Jazz, and also recorded with Slick Rick.

One of the 10 most sampled artists in Hip-Hop history, a lot of his stuff funks way harder than the music with which he is commonly associated.

I guess with him, it all comes down to this one tune he wrote, the one at the top of the page here.

As the theme song to one of the most beloved and imitated TV shows of all time, it catapulted him into the stratosphere and made his 1979 tour - and the record they made of it -- kind of predicated upon the imagery of it all.

If I were to list my candidates for Live Albums That Need A Box Set Containing Every Single Note From The Tour, All Around The Town would be at or near the very top of my choices.

So in December of 1979, Bob James -- accompanied by several different, all-star bands -- played a bunch of concerts at several different iconic NYC venues, with the whole thing vigorously promoted to capitalize on the success of the then-massive sitcom, Taxi.

These included The Bottom Line, Town Hall and the big one you really have to practice for, Carnegie Hall.

The Town Hall stint was more straight-ahead fare, and the other two featured more electric flavors, with those supported on the drums by one of the funkiest cats ever to hit things.

The whole bag is on Wolfgang's Vault, albeit in a pretty lossy iteration.

Luckily I got in touch with the proprietor of the excellent Creed Taylor Produced blog, who apparently procured a bunch of raw mixdown reels that went into the production of the live album awhile back and made some incredibly delicious mixes out of them, almost like additional volumes to the original 1980 double LP.

He was able to supply me some of the raw materials to make this post, so I am guiding anyone reading this towards his excellent page, linked above.

So here we are, let's hail us a cab!

Bob James

Bottom Line

New York City, New York USA

12.18-19.1979

01 piano introduction

02 Night Crawler

03 Scat Talk

04 Diane’s Dilemma

05 Take Your Time

06 Song for My Daughter

07 Angela (Theme from "Taxi")

08 Heads

09 Westchester Lady

Total time: 1:11:32

Tracks 01, 02, 07-09 are from the 12.19 late set

Tracks 03-06 are from the 12.18 late set

Bob James - keyboards

Mark Colby - tenor saxophone & Scat Talk vocals

Wilbert Longmire - guitar

Hiram Bullock - guitar

Gary King - bass

Idris Muhammad - drums

Jimmmy Maelen - percussion

original 24/96 DVD audio of Mark Cathcart's mix from Creed Taylor Produced

converted to 16/44 CD Audio, denoised, edited, repaired & slightly remastered by EN, December 1979
427 MB FLAC/link below

Bob James

Carnegie Hall

New York City, New York USA

12.22.1979

01 Touchdown

02 Blue Lick

03 Big Stone City

04 Women of Ireland

05 Night Crawler

06 Kari

07 Love Lips

08 Angela (Theme From "Taxi")

09 We’re All Alone

10 Rush Hour

11 Farandole

12 Westchester Lady

13 Christmas medley incl. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen/Comfort and Joy/Silent Night

Total time: 1:45:57

disc break goes after Track 06

Tracks 01, 10, 11 & part of 13 are from the early set

everything else is from the late set

Bob James - keyboards

Tom Browne - trumpet

Ron Tooley - trumpet

Mike Lawrence - trumpet

Jim Pugh - trombone

Dave Taylor - trombone

George Marge - woodwinds

Mark Colby - saxophone

Tom Scott - saxophone

Earl Klugh - guitar

Hiram Bullock - guitar

Gary King - bass

Jimmy Maelen - percussion

Idris Muhammad - drums

320/48k audio streamed from the "Creed Taylor Produced" blog  

converted to 16/44 CD Audio, edited, repaired & slightly remastered by EN, December 2024
648 MB FLAC/direct link to both performances

Whatever happens, I'd urge you to not miss out on these shows, which burn with funkatized fire and prove, as if any further proof were necessary, that there simply is no material way in this universe you can possibly miss with Idris Muhammad.

Once again, thanks so much again to Mark from CTP for helping me do this, and dealing with my insistent energy.

I'll be back on the holiday -- coincidentally the 85th birthday of Bob James -- with evidence to suggest that Christmas Music is the healing force of the universe, but I urge everyone reading this to hop in a taxicab and get after these shows while the farebox is set to Complimentary!--J.