Dark City Sisters - Langa More

The Dark City Sisters, looking pretty casual, but singing otherwise.

Imagine sitting back and relaxing after a nice strong breakfast, sipping on some coffee or tea, or whichever sort of caffeine-powered refreshing drink floats your boat I must say, and when you're done fantasizing, ask yourself, what's missing in this little portrait?

A little bit of nice musical massage of course, and if you stick around this blog you'll never run out of raw materials.

A gem from the album "Star Time with Dark City Sisters", which was released in 1964 and was -according to my observations- a huge hit in South Africa, this song features the smoothest female vocals I have ever come across. And to my credit, I have lent my ears to many female vocalists before. Those sweet, joyous guitar licks do a noteworthy job of complementing the vocals as the ladies take a break from singing. 

A song so sweet and soothing, that if you could trade it with a pinch of fresh grass (you know, those that are very popular in Amsterdam, for some reason people travel to that city to enjoy some grass without police interruption. Oh how mighty are the fuckeries of the human race!) or a long night of sleep between silk sheets it would be a win-win business affair.

Enjoy.

Asha Puthli - Space Talk

Cool album cover. Drowning in pieces of cloth. And yet she won't give a shit.

Heck, I hate it when some newbie bass players pretend to be interested in, or ehm, become oriented towards funky music, just because it is "bass-driven". Word, dude. Quite inevitably with that kind of purely pragmatical shift of tastes, they end up being a fan of Red Hot Chili Peppers at the very best. Worse is they start to appreciate any crappy song that has a fairly audible bassline. Jesus!

Images of failure deeply saddens me. I'm here to help everybody as a music enthusiast, so here you go my fellow bassist, a good track to help you convince yourself that they did not pick you as a bassist just because you sucked at playing electric guitar.

Big props to Asha Puthli and her backing band for this mellow Disco number, dating back to 1976. Some people say that her voice is more annoying than sultry, but I'm not on the same page with those people.

Talking about pages, I and my blog had to go through a revolutionary phase. From now on, instead of that kickass flash player you'll have to resort to embedded YouTube links. Shame really, they used to make my blog look like a spaceship. Now it looks more like a "spread the God's word" blog with occasional links to fierce sermons. Anyhow, each departure is an arrival, and vice verse.

Oh yeah without further ado;

Antonio Carlos Jobim - Wave

Pretty cool artwork, too.

I gotta be honest with you, I was FAR from being a fan of Bossa Nova before I heard this album by Antonio Carlos Jobim. Actually, I thought Bossa Nova was just a cheap, commercialized branch of jazz, soaked in some warm, radio-friendly samba vibes as a lubrication for the ears of those who are too unsophisticated (in terms of music taste that is) to acquire a good taste in jazz.

(Music snob much? Maybe, but I do think a good taste in jazz is to be acquired, one does not simply walk into enjoying a half-an-hour-long composition.)

Well, tell me about those turning points in life. I had only decided to listen to this album because it was released from one of my favorite labels, namely CTI Records. And again if there's one guy who can weigh your talent and your marketability, and then put you in a place where you can produce all the while not contradicting your own tendencies as an artist and sell records to help fatten a couple of wallets, it's Creed Taylor.

This album, gotta be a prove of that point. Why not get Mr. Jobim to make an album with this label, when you can add the CTI touch of jazz-fusion to Jobim's Bossa Nova and explore new heights? This flash of thought would lead Antonio Carlos Jobim to reach the climax of his career, and give some people something to smoke pot and relax to.

Overall the album is mellow as a walk on a summer morning, with soothing rhythms and catchy compositions, ones that get stuck in your head for a long long time. The dark timbre provided by the string section adds a bittersweet touch to some of the songs in the album though, and I'm alright with that.

But as far as the concept of this blog goes, I don't post albums but songs. So I'll post a couple.

First one is the only song in the album that features vocals. A tune that sounds as blue as you can get. I have looked through the lyrics and after a short conversation with GoogleTranslate I'm guessing it's about saying farewell to the loved one. I wish a Brazilian native would post a comment to help me out with the lyrics, but I'm sure they have better things to do, such as enjoying the weather, and avoiding shitty blogs.

The second one I had a tough time deciding. Eventually I decided to go with my initial favorite. Plus it's the longest song in the album so this is actually superior to other tracks in a certain way. Right now I can't tell whether you'll like it or not cause I have kinda worn it out by having listened to it a million times since the end of the summer, but who cares about what you like anyway? I'm trying to keep this as esoteric as possible so this might actually be a nice shibboleth to determine who's down or not.

This is some "chill stuff" at worst, folks. Sound of cloudy yet warm weather. Something to feed to your cloudy yet warm state of mind. 

Super Biton de Segou - Alioune Sissoko

Super Biton de Segou, what I call a "big band".

Anybody with a slight interest in African music can tell you that there have been many bands from Mali which play the music that carries the essence of traditional Malian music, while complying to the contemporary concept of "groove". That is probably why many musicians from Mali gained international recognition.

The success of Malian music though, can also be credited to the efforts of the government after the independence of the country. You know, normally, the initial intentions of a new government would be to form, or take total control of, a strong armed force that is fearsome enough (who's afraid of the big bad M-16?) to persuade those who disagree with the actions of the administration to avoid expressing their ideas and plotting against them, or simply persuade them to flee to other countries. 

Malian government, though, took a different path and organized competitions between regional bands and created a band for each region. 

Super Biton de Segou, hailing from the city of Segou (this clarification may sound silly for a francophone I know) had won too many regional competitions that it was eventually selected as the national band in 1976. I don't have the slight idea about selecting process, I'm sure they didn't need any electoral fraud. 

This track, having a sad vibe, with vocals and spoken parts that resemble a lament, is indeed "a funeral oration for a son of the country, murdered in Bruxelles" as stated on the back of the LP. 

While it's sad to hear that the namesake of the song was murdered, it's relieving to know that his musician friends did the best they could do to commemorate him; record a memorable song in his name.

Small Island Pride - Taxi Driver

Theophilus "Small Island Pride" Woods (far left) with fellow calypsonians.

Small Island Pride, the seemingly paradoxical, yet catchy moniker belongs to one person, and contrary to initial impressions, not to a band. Having emigrated to calypso-haven Trinidad, from a small island, Granada, Theophilus Woods is one of the pioneers of calypso music whose name is rarely heard of, probably because he left the earth at a young age, in 1961. Considering that it is relatively difficult to find pre-60's calypso records, his underrated status can be tolerated.

"Great use of double-entendre in which the courtship ritual is expressed in automotive terms. The pace of the calypso rises to fever pitch until the young lady and her car both catch fire.This on has an old time sound. Instumentation is limited to acoustic guitar, bass, and maracas. The guitar strums with a pan-Caribbean rhythmic feel reminiscent of Jamaican mento, Guyanese badji [Bhagee], and other related rural west Indian Song and dance styles."

The above commentary, which sums up pretty much everything about the song, is done by YouTube user "movieman529".

"The old time sound" in question demonstrates the essence of calypso music, way before the big bands with horn sections of at least five musicians. The rhythm section on this song is indeed minimal, but in a positive way. It is the bittersweet vibe, the naïvity in Small Island Pride's voice and the catchy chorus of joyful chants that make this song an early calypso masterpiece.

R.I.P Mark "Drac" Hicks

The sad news has just hit me. One more funky cat from Dayton, Ohio has left our planet. The lead guitarist for the renowned funk group Slave, who is responsible for attracting the attention of some rock music fans to some real raw funk music, the great Mark "Drac" Hicks is surely going to missed. Thanks for jamming that guitar to the groove, Mr. Drac. In his loving memory I'm gonna share with you his most famous number, so that we can also commemorate another Slave member who passed away earlier this year, the bass giant Mark Adams.

"They call me the Drac. I ain't gon bite ya, I just wantcha to hang out." - Mark "Drac" Hicks - R.I.P.

Click play to listen to "Slave - Slide"

Fly Guy - Fly Guy Rap

Uptown New York, early 80s. Way before the infamous crack epidemic and way before hip-hop music became an international craze with all those large baseball cap wearing Scandinavian suburban kids and everything, rap music was about rhyming on a funky beat, played by session musicians or amateur funk bands looking for a gig.

A photo taken during the old-school era, trying to set a sound
system in a basketball court.

This song, performed by a rapper called Fly Guy, is a great example of that old-school sound. The rapper's extremely cool and laid-back rapping style is "way ahead of its time" (though that is a rather cliché way to describe something that is different from the standard), and the way he starts off the song by portraying a street junkie has long made me think it was Gil Scott-Heron (R.I.P.) holding the mic. Not to mention the backup band that does a very funky job, not the kinda funky beat that you'd hear on a Puff Daddy song, eh? Or whatever he decided his new name would be.

Click the play button for the "perfect high, perfect high, the perfect high"