Sorry this is late but I had to go carry my laundry around in the black wildfire air, and I'm trying to abandon the mordant shithole in which I live and find new housing, which is harder than fuck, especially on your birthday.
I also apologize for missing Yes minstrel Jon Anderson's 75th birthday today, but I mistakenly thought he was born in 1946 and was thus two turns away from that milestone. I'll get to him another time, promise.
To celebrate this page being 6 and me being 53, we have a short-but-stomping 35 minutes of British Jazz, shared here to complete an officially released record of part of the concert with the remainder.
This one was recorded in 1984, but the issued portion was not released until 1986.
This segment has remained in the vaults, but was aired over the radio in Europe back when it was performed, so somebody snagged it off the FM when it was first broadcast.
It depicts a wild septet outing, with one foot in the Free and one in the traditional, led by a stalwart pianist whose records and contributions to others' albums have always rated high on my list.
He's led a ton of sessions and been a part of two tons more since the late 1960s.
His name is Keith Tippett and he's surely the only Free Jazz guy ever to appear on Top of the Pops.
That was in 1970, when he was a satellite player in the Avant Prog adventists we know as King Crimson.
I guess that's how I was introduced to him, from those early 1970s KC platters like In the Wake of Poseidon and Lizard, the latter surely the weirdest record ever to make the Top 10 and one that Mr. Tippett essentially dominates.
His own stuff -- and he once fronted, from the piano, a 50-piece jazz orchestra called, fittingly, Centipede -- treads the line between Fusion and Free, with a healthy dose of traditional Hard Bop and Modal vibes.
So here comes this one, taped 35 years ago today in the UK.
Keith Tippett Septet
Barnfield Theatre
Exeter, UK
10.25.1984
1st set:
01 Thoughts to Geoff
02 Dedicated to Mingus
03 Sketch 2
Total time: 34:17
Keith Tippett - piano
Larry Stabbins - tenor & soprano saxophones
Elton Dean - alto saxophone & saxello
Marc Charig - cornet & tenor horn
Nick Evans - trombone
Paul Rogers - double bass
Tony Levin - drums & percussion
Hi-Fi VHS capture of the original FM broadcast of the 1st set
Track 03 channel dropout repaired by EN, October 2019
2nd set released on Ogun Records in 1986 as
"A Loose Kite In a Gentle Wind, Floating with Only My Will for an Anchor"
203 MB FLAC/October 2019 archive link
I will be back tomorrow with what might be the last post here for some time. I don't know what the future holds and I can't do this work homeless.
But do enjoy this bit of the Keith Tippett Septet, and of course feel encouraged if not demanded to support these fine artists and buy the released portion right here.--J.
