Various: The ESP Sampler (ESP)
Purchased at Fungus Books and Records
It's spring break time for me, which doesn't mean I'm heading out for a week of fun. Grading is largely over for me, time for me to do some organization, listen to some records, try to get some composing done.
Anyone who knows creative music of the past sixty years, knows some record on ESP. I think I read there was a slogan for ESP to the effect of, "The musicians alone decide what is heard on ESP Records." (I suppose I could look it up, but I'll be lazy about it.) And from what I understand, the musicians were never paid.
If that is indeed true, I don't like that. At least the positive takeaway is that there's an amazing document of late 60s free jazz. There are so many important names and great sessions on the label, presented here in fragmentary form: Pharoah Sanders, Ornette Coleman, Gunter Hampel, Marion Brown, Albert Ayler, Henry Grimes, Steve Lacy, etc etc etc. This is to speak nothing of The Fugs, The Godz, William Burroughs, and strangest avenue of all, Esperanto. There are bits of Esperanto on many of the records, and there's a small selection of the language on the final cut of this sampler ("Auld Lang Syne").
Listening to this frenetic album, something that becomes clear is the general influence of Ornette Coleman and Sun Ra on this generation of players.
I suppose this was one of those loss leaders; a sampler record sold at or below cost, in order to promote the recordings on the label. Possibly the most famous of these is Zappéd, a Straight Records collection of Frank Zappa-related artists. It does remind me that I should locate more of these recordings. With so many tracks involved (52), it's difficult to remember who is who.
What a time!
No comments:
Post a Comment