'Iron Ant' introduces Muddy World's formula of solid riff construction with sudden rushes of improvisation, the guitar and bass trading places, almost imperceptibly vining around each other. The musicians dance together as much as they play their instruments and it's an approach taken throughout the session, even Yusuke's breathy bossa nova vocals and near-Surf guitar lines, the Brubeck swing in seven minute 'Lilac', and proud meeting of Tango and garage jazz-fusion for 'Fever'. 'Dewfall' is inward and gentle, growing in sophistication from a humble arpeggio into Ipaneman-tinged strangeness and is paired well with 'Muddy Floor', unsettled wanderings of 'Apollo', almost Grateful Dead-like jams in 'Granada' and slow death of 'Neon'.

A divergence in the Math movement and an attempt at legitimacy for a dirty little genre, Muddy World are digging a bit deeper into the calculus of rock.

by Atavachron


MUDDY WORLD Music Online:
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Q: What were your lives like growing up in New Orleans?

Rah Al Milio: We grew up in the real New Orleans. Every day was hell, that bitch is a jungle, it’s a third world country inside of America. It’s hard. We were just trying to survive. I’m totally from the hood and I never thought we’d make it to LA. Cats in New Orleans think about LA as though it were fake and don’t exist. We were so stuck in our own shit out there, we didn’t experience anything. We had to find other diversions to keep us out of trouble, mostly music and sports. Our moms made us join a band when we were 11 or 12 to stay out of trouble. Then Katrina happened and we figured we might as well just do it and move to LA. So we did.

Q: How did you guys go about getting a deal?

Krispy Kream: Mike Caren at Atlantic was the first one who tried to sign us in 2005. We’d already been around for a long time at that point. The fact that people come around and call us “hipster rap” still pisses me off, because we’d already been down for a minute. We did a deal with Atlantic, we had a publishing deal for a while, but we were shopping a record deal because we didn’t want to do business with Atlantic.

Q: Why not?

KK: We didn’t like the way they were handling things over there. We were briefly managed by Matthew Knowles. Beyonce’s dad. He tried to get us our own little imprint so we could put out our stuff on Interscope. He was still up at Sanctuary at the time, but that shit didn’t work out.

Q: Why?

KK: They did some shit that I can’t really talk about. But in the process, Shady Records was calling us the whole time. They were like come to New York, yo we wanna’ sign you to Shady. But we didn’t want to sign to Shady, we said we wanted a manager. Paul Rosenberg and Dart Parker came on to manage us. At first, they wanted to shop us to Jive, but then they concluded that they could get us a better deal at Interscope because Jimmy [Iovine] wanted us. They were like, ‘you ought to be on Interscope.’ We’re like, ‘alright, we’ll take a meeting with him.’ So we did and he asked us what we wanted and we said, ‘we only want creative control.’ He said, ‘that’s it?’ We said, ‘yeah, we don’t want anyone to fuck with us.’

Q: What’d your A&R think of that?

KK: 3H was the A&R. He was like, ‘I don’t want to be involved, if you want creative control, I just want you to turn in that crack.’ So we got the deal. Jimmy said ‘y’all gonna be where hip hop is at for the next five years.’ That’s what it was. Boom, we record the album, get a crib in the hills, parties, drugs, all kind of drugs, drugs with an explanation mark. Girls, hookers, strippers, all of em, all of it, it went down. I can talk about some entertainers that got their dick sucked on my coach. It’s the real deal over here, we was livin’ like Slash and Axl Rose up in ‘87. We were the first ones, for all the people that call this hipster rap…we were the first ones…the first ones…the first with a major label deal… we are the reason that these labels started looking at people like this. Ask Steve Aoki, ask anyone who was there before they had 17 year old kids in skinny jeans showing up the club. We were dressing like this when everybody was rocking backpacks, and college ra shit. We were the first ones to experiment with electronic shit…the first ones.

Rah: It got to a point because motherfuckers was getting it misunderstood, like we came in out of the blue or hopped into a scene. The scene was formed around us. We were the first of that stuff that people call hipster shit, not U-N-I. Fuck, we opened Cinespace for hip-hop, there was no hip hop in there, just electronic shit, dance music in there, maybe Spank Rock, no real hip-hop.

Q: How did you get involved with the Tuesday night Cinespace scene?

Rah: We had a relationship with Steve Aoki and plus, we listen to dance music. We go to dance clubs. These motherfuckers don’t understand any of that shit. They’re latching onto a scene. You hear “Bang Bang,” that’s a small token of what’s on the album. Every song is different than the next; this isn’t no hipster rap bullshit. It’s not just about flat out rapping on shit. The album’s about everything, the song writing, the production, everything. If we couldn’t play instruments and shit, maybe we’d do some rinky-dink beats, chop up some samples and shit, but at the end of the day to put us in a category with certain dudes is absurd.

Q: That’s just what music writers do. They have to invent genres. They do it at parties. It’s weird.

Rah: Who wants to be in a genre? Genres are for pussies. They’re for people who don’t have enough balls to do their own shit and so they latch onto these mini-genres and think that’s it’s going to be a movement…a moving train. We stay away from that shit, I don’t want to sound like anyone else, I don’t want to be in a category with anybody else. That’s not me being cocky, that’s me being real. I just don’t want to be in anyone’s category. That’s not knocking anybody, just that genre shit, yo, fuck that. Cats are wearing backpacks and American Apparel. I’m like fuck that shit. I was doing that shit way before you were supposed to do that. Motherfuckers was tripping, the execs were tripping, they kept on trying to put us into categories, they were like, “oh, they’re like Pharrell, they’re skaters.” I was like I don’t wear skate shit, I don’t skate. They didn’t know what to name it. But we was already in this scene, then to call someone a hipster, we were like what is that?

Krispy: I’ve been doing that for a long time. When Steve was still trying to get put on, Dim Mak wanted us to do an EP with them.

Q: How’d you get hooked up with Steve Aoki in the first place?

KK: We met him through AM, who was managed by Paul and Dart. Steve is cool as fuck and he always had banging chicks with him. We was supposed to be on Dim Mak at first. People don’t know that shit, Things didn’t work out because Interscope wouldn’t allow it. This was back in ‘04.

Q: What do you think about your label situation at Interscope? Has it been a positive experience or the typical major label bullshit?

KK: The labels aren’t expecting triple platinum anymore. We plan on just touring constantly and getting money that way. That’s where the money is…on tour. In the late 90’s no one toured, now people love to see live hip hop.

Rah: We think of ourselves as being in a similar situation to The Strokes. They were in at the beginning of their trend and at first, people were calling them ‘retro bands’ and being like ‘they sound like they came from the 70s.’ Then they came in with the “garage rock” labeling. Shit, we’ve been bumping TV on the Radio since their first EP. We’re not some posers trying to latch on. We know these people, we’ve been doing this shit.

Q: You guys don’t have any guest appearances on your album, which seems almost strange in contemporary hip-hop? Are you guys instinctively opposed to collaborations?

KK: Well, Jay Electronica’s going to be on the next album. He comes from a good hood in New Orleans but he understands where we come from. Real hip-hop dudes respect us. We’re some of the few dudes those guys respect.

Q: I know you guys have talked about playing your own instruments. Which ones do you specifically play?

KK: A lot of our songs have guitar and bass which we play, but we can play everything. We tweak the synthesizers… so much crazy shit. On the album, a lot of the time it sounds like there are two people playing at once…that’s because there is.

Rah: We’re real musicians, our model is the Dust Brothers. You could never pick out what they were doing, whether they were sampling or doing it live, you couldn’t tell.

KK: And of course, we’re heavily inspired by the Rza.

Q: Did you go to specialized music school?

Rah: We know how to read and write music. Our mom put us in band to keep us out of trouble and in those marching bands they make you learn how to write and read music. You can’t make that shit up, We got into jazz band that did that. We always had side bands though and have gigs on the side. New Orleans is a city like that.

Q: What about mixtapes. Is there a reason why you guys never released one?

Rah: We don’t do mixtapes. All the great albums had like 13 tracks. We don’t whore ourselves out like that. We just show cleavage. It’s a wonder that people buy their albums. I love the anticipation of the album. People just stand not being out there at all times. We love being mystery.

[Some random muffled inaudible talk…..tape recorder clears in time for …]

KK: And fuck Mark Ronson.

Q: He’s one of those dudes who it’s just painful to praise. But I do begrudgingly admit that he’s a good producer.

KK: Whatever, he’s just one of those dudes that never got in a scuffle. We’ll knock that dude out.

Rah: The problem with hip-hop is is that no one is inspiring anyone. No one’s switching it up and inspiring somebody. Everybody treats it like a job. We got into so it wouldn’t seem like a job. No one’s doing anything refreshing…they’re not talking about nothing. There’s trash out right now. I listen to mostly old stuff. I didn’t realize until maybe 2006 how dope some of that shit really was. Like ‘93 till Infinity.’ I always liked that, but that shit was so ill. Some of those Domino beats were crazy.

Q: It seems if you actively dislike things today, people just label you a “hater.”

Rah: We appreciate when writers call out shit that sucks. I love being a hater. We need more haters. People need to speak their mind. Tell the truth.

KK: Hip hop is so PC. Or worse, there’s just fake beef. Fake fools with guns but no one’s saying anything and everyone’s leaning on each other. I’m looking at Game and I like Game and I know he don’t like Jay, so he’s going to talk about it. We need more dudes like that. If I don’t like a dude, I’m going to talk about it. That shit is missing in hip-hop. Look, I listen to all the Biggie records. I don’t think he’s the greatest though and I’ll say it. He was great but he wasn’t the best in my mind. I used to think Biggie was better than Pac, but I switched a few years ago. Big would say fly shit just to say ill shit.

Q: Yeah, but then he’d throw in a “Sky’s the Limit” or “I’ve Got a Story to Tell.”

KK: I dunno, but I could barely separate that shit lyrically from the Lox at the time. At the end of the day, Wu Tang is our favorite group ever. But as I get older I see a lot of them wasn’t talking about shit.

Q: Yeah, but a lot of them were. Have you read the Wu-Tang Manual?

Both: Of course, we love it.

KK: We’ll punch people in the face for talking shit about Wu-Tang.

Rah: At the end of the day, when you’re young you just want to hear the flyest, illest shit, that’s how it is. You know what I mean. I love MF Doom actually, even though he kind of bit GZA a little bit. Those concept albums are cool though.

KK: If we featured somebody, it’d be different. If we were going to feature a Jay, we’d bring him back to the street level, not him talking about G4’s. That’s just what the Knux do, That’s the problem, the hip hop game is so pop when they feature people, it’s so corporate, no one’s even in the same studio, no one talks about concepts because it doesn’t matter, it’s like product placements in movies.

Rah: We want to make hip-hop more gritty, like that early Wu shit.

Q: I remember reading somewhere that you guys were big Gravediggaz fans.

Rah: That’s a great album. Of course, their earlier shit was ill but that’s where our mind was at the time. We swayed from what we were into, used to be heavy into Killah Priest and on some traveling to the stars type shit.

Q: The Wu JV was probably the best JV of all time. I just had a post last week about how dope Killarmy were?

Rah: They were dope. I didn’t care much for Sunz of Man though.

KK: No one puts on dope cats anymore.

Q: When was the last time you saw anything like the Juice Crew or the Hit Squad or the Def Squad. And Diplomats don’t really count. Meanwhile, Def Jam won’t stop sending me albums from Blood Raw, Jeezy’s weed carrier.

Rah: It’s the south man. I can explain this to you. It’s just the South. Not all those dudes are this but a lot of them are and they don’t respect the music. They really don’t care where it goes. It’s about money.

Q: But they have swagger. What else do you need?

Rah: Someone needs to retire that shit. It’s like ‘jiggy.’ That shit’s played out.

KK: We’re trying to do us to the furthest extent. We don’t care about our haters. Our haters aren’t going to buy our album. Middle America is disconnected from everything and we’ll probably find some real listeners out there. They don’t follow new trends as much, or new fashion, they’ll just buy the records because they think it sounds good.

Rah: All these rappers would do better stuff if everyone came from their heart. If they did, you’d hear all kinds of shit, not just a few motherfuckers doing interesting things, I hope that we inspire people.

Q: So what are your favorite spots in LA?

A: 101 Café, Swingers on 3^rd, Bossa Nova…we love that place, they even made a racist comment once but we still go. We used to go out to Cinespace a lot but know we hang out more downtown, warehouse parties. One Sunset used to be hot and we’d go there a lot. In general, we don’t fuck with places if we have to wait in line.

Q: What about the future? What are you guys working on now?

Rah: We’re already working on the second album. It’s different and it reflects where our minds are at now. We’re already plotting the next approach.

Video:

The Knux-”Bang Bang”

The Knux “Cappucino”

Download:
MP3: The Knux-”Hard Day’s Night”
MP3: The Knux-”Bang! Bang!”
MP3: The Knux-”Cappucino”
MP3: The Knux-”Cappucino Remix”

This show managed to be informal and off-the-cuff yet virtuosic, like what VH1 seems to be shooting for when they put together a stripped-down, acoustic “Live from Abbey Road” type program. They should have been on hand for this one, considering that Bedsit Poets frontwoman Amanda Thorpe and Serena Jost are two of New York’s top tunesmiths. Oops, they’re not on some huge corporate record label. Better to get Justin Timberlake and John Mayer instead. J-Ti (was that Lou Perlman’s pet name for the moppet?) can play Chopsticks while Mayer noodles innocuously in the background between commercials. All cynicism aside, Wednesday night the few who braved the rain and the construction work going on all the way down Avenue C were treated to a clinic in great songcrafting.

The two women traded off songs, each accompanying the other. Sometimes that meant Jost improvising a slinky bassline on her cello, or Thorpe doing the same on her guitar. Thorpe also played a small synth on one of Jost’s songs. They both sang gorgeous harmonies (even though Jost was under the weather and running on fumes), each lending something of her own personality to the other’s work. It was just beautiful to watch, plain and simple. British expat Thorpe is best known as a singer. Her writing is characteristically terse and direct and has considerable bite. When she sang “There is no mercy this time,” in what could have been the night’s best number, The River Song, a bitter heartbreak ballad, there could be no doubt that she meant exactly what she said. Jost, by contrast, is best known for her work as a sidewoman and multi-instrumentalist (she did an extended stretch in Rasputina). Her songwriting is more opaque, and felt the benefit of Thorpe’s clear, steely harmonies. Likewise, Jost’s playful flourishes added gleam and shimmer to the austere beauty of Thorpe’s songs.

Both women debuted new songs. Thorpe’s was a bouncy, upbeat bossa number. Jost reminded what a fine guitarist she’s becoming on yet another of her disarmingly complex art-pop songs, and did another accompanying herself with warm, loping runs that she plucked on her cello while Thorpe filled out the melody with spot-on harmonies. Jost also played piano on one song. The only thing missing was their pal Mary Lee Kortes, the Mary Lee’s Corvette mastermind who’s been playing with them recently. As fascinating as this show was to watch, one can only imagine how much another great songwriting voice would add to the equation.

Thorpe’s next show is at the Cutting Room on Oct 21 at 7:30 with the Bedsit Poets, playing the cd release to their remarkably multistylistic new one, Rendezvous. Powerpop legend George Usher opens, solo acoustic. Watch this space for Serena Jost’s next performance.

Ok it’s been quite a while since I last posted, pretty much all of summer, but thought it was well about time that I kicked things off again. Over my nice long summer I have been listening to loads of different stuff, and have thourougly gotten into Baile Funk! - If you haven’t heard much before you will now. Today we have an exclusive interview from the head of a masssive Baile Funk Lable Man Recordings - Daniel Haaksman, as well as two lovely tracks for you to enjoy!

So Daniel Haaksman, for those who don’t know, fancy giving a little introduction to start things?

My name is Daniel Haaksman, I’m a DJ, producer and music journalist and I run the label Man Recordings since 2005. Before Man, I ran Essay Recordings, together with Frankfurt DJ and producer Shantel (of “Bucovina Club” fame). In the 90s, I was DJing everything from down tempo to dub, 70´s brasilian music to hip hop and house, since a few years I get my kicks out of baile funk from Rio De Janeiro and other unclassifiable rhythms from around the world. I’ve released the compilations “Rio Baile Funk Favela Booty Beats 1+2″ on Essay Recordings and just released my debut EP “Who´s Afraid Of Rio?” in which I present my interpretation of baile funk.

You worked with your brother on many projects; did you guys ever have any sibling rivalry when you were younger both growing on the decks?

Well we´re six and half years apart, I´ve been DJing since 1990, Felix only started in the late Nineties and we always had similar but not equal tastes, so there´s actually no rivalry. In 2000-2003 we DJed a lot together but since then our musical tastes have differed. Felix is more into disco and boogie and I´m into the whole ghetto stuff.

How did you get into the Brazilian influenced baile music that man recordings is renowned for?

I´ve always loved Brasilian music, in the 90s I listened to a lot of old Brazilian stuff from the 50s to the 70s. At one point I got a bit bored by the whole backwardish attitude that many of my fellow DJs had towards Brazilian music and the lack of access to more contemporary stuff. But then a friend came back from Brazil in 2003, and he brought me a stack of funk CDs he bought on a Rio street market. I was blown away by the music and thought: This is it. At that time I was at a point in my DJing life when I got really bored by hip hop, or house music and the whole electro thing. I couldnt relate to minimal techno or the whole electronica stuff coming out of Berlin, it was not dope enough and it was too formulaic and lacked fresh ideas. When I heard baile funk for the 1st time, I had flashbacks of enthusiasm to when I first heard Def Jam stuff in the mid 80s, LL Cool J, Public Enemy and Run DMC were my teenage heroes, and to me baile funk was this sound reborn, but in a more postmodern, Brazilian version. My baile funk compilations on Essay sold really well  so I realised there was a market for this music so I decided to leave Essay and start my own label, entirely dedicated to the contemporary sound of Brazil.

Who are some the up and coming artists you have really taken an interest to this year? Any new names to look out for in the New Year?

Oh there’s a lot of talent around, lately I have been inspired by various producers from all over the place. In house music I dig Oliver $, Jesse Rose and - still - Switch. I love Maurice Fulton’s stuff, he keeps making mind-blowing and fresh house music, the same is for Zombie Disco Squad from London. In the more bouncy dance areas I think Edu K really has geared up his productions and has started to produce absolute club bangers, Scottie B is on a roll too. The new Basement Jaxx album sounds promising. In hip hop I love the Flying Lotus album, I like Dabrye, Kanye West, Ghislain Poirier, Madlib. I´m a big fan of Angolan producer DJ Znobia. In Rio De Janeiro, there´s some hot new producers coming up, guys like Dedé Mandrake, Fú+Dinho or Marrentinho who bring baile funk to another level. Still strong in Rio are DJ Edgar, DJ Amazing Clay and DJ Sandrinho. One of the big names to watch for 2009 is certainly KU BO a.k.a. Stereotyp´s new project. He is an amazing producer who has futuristic Afro-Brazilian stuff about to be released.

You’ve had many big electro artists produce records under man recordings – crookers, diplo etc., who would you most like to work with in the future?

I´m happy to say that I have worked with many of my favourite producers for Man Recordings. But of course, there’ll always be some people which are still on my wish list, such as Maurice Fulton, Sly+Robbie, Madlib or Pepé Braddock. I hope to release a volume by DJ Znobia in early 2009.

What’s next for Man Recordings? – The new Funk Mundial,  Jesse Rose & Oliver $ release sounds very promising

There’s an EP in the pipeline by London MC ISA GT, produced by Crookers and Edu K. Edu K will release his “Party Munky” Ep in late October, which is a crazy baile funk twist on early 90s rave music. Ku Bo will release his 3rd single in November, which sounds very West-African, followed by a full artist album in spring 2009. Also in spring 2009 I´ll release a compilation of the Funk Mundial series with some exclusive tracks, as well as a “Baile Funk Masters” compilation. I myself am working on an album to be released in summer 2009 and I’m working on a Funk Mundial edition with funk god MC Mr.Catra. 2009 will also see the album release of Deize Tigrona on Man Recordings

You’ve recently released “Who’s afraid of Rio”, what is next for you – your Bossa Nova remix collection, can you spare any information on what this will involve?

My EP will be followed by a remix EP called “Who´s Afraid Of Remix?” with remixes by KU BO, Scottie B, Riva Starr and DJ Beware. Parallely, I´ll release the “Bossa Do Morro” compilation, which I commissioned for Universal Jazz in Germany. It´s a compilation celebrating the 50th anniversary of bossa nova with baile funk remixes of some of the most known Bossa Nova songs. The idea for this compilation was to let the producers from baile funk, a culture emerging from the favelas of Rio (located on the hills of Rio = the “morro”, thus “bossa do morro”= “bossa from the hills”) touch songs of Bossa Nova, which emerged in the late 1950s in Rio´s quarters Copacapana, Ipanema and Leblon (=bourgeois, wealthy quarters). So far, there hasn’t been a similar compilation. A) Because of legal problems as it is pretty hard to get official access to original bossa tunes B) the favelas of Rio and Copacabana are very far apart - culturally and socially. So actually in Brazil no one would’ve ever thought of a remix compilation like this, though both Bossa Nova and baile funk come from the same city. But then I think it just needs a geographical distance to come up with an idea like that. A Londoner also wouldn’t think of London’s East End Grimesters would remix the London Symphonic Orchestra?? But for me, Bossa Nova and funk are both music styles that reflect the various moods and sounds of Rio.

What do you use to create your funk?

I work with Logic, Ableton and a MPC.

If your entire music collection was on fire and you only had the chance to save one song, what would it be?

That´s a hard question. Maybe “Egyptian Reggae” from Jonathan Richman?

And finally top 5 tracks your loving at the moment

1. Oliver $ feat. Deize Tigrona “Ta Com Medo Do Mim?”

2. Ku Bo “Kaggua”

3. Sergio Mendes + Brasil 66 “Day Tripper - DJ Fú+DJ Dinho Remix)

4. Daniel Haaksman “Who´s Afraid Of Rio? - DJ Beware Remix”

5. Chavy Boys Of London “Friday Night Flu’

Thanks very Much Daniel!

and here are the two tracks from Who’s Afraid of Rio?, enjoy…

Jogo Do Bilhar feat. MC Betta - Daniel Haaskman
*unavailable at this time*

Who’s Afraid Of Rio? feat. MC Jennifer - Daniel Haaskman

(onemoredisco download link)

]]> Fri, 03 Oct 2008 11:32:06 +0000 music 90s rave music baile funk compilations baile funk baile music brazilian music funk mundial funk mundial edition baile funk remixes Daniel Haaksman http://www.musicratty.com/article/842dde3067be77d5feca112489959a76 http://www.musicratty.com/article/842dde3067be77d5feca112489959a76

Sour… yea, the last month has left a little bit of a sour taste in my mouth. Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful for so many positive things in my life that overall, I feel pretty good. However, the loss of an old friend and two family friends this month has been a little overwhelming.

That being said, I heard a lyric in a song in this month’s downtempo podcast that yanked me right out my melancholy madness. To quote Matsi… “my cup isn’t half full, it’s overflowing.” I think that is the perfect way to look at life. No matter how tough things might be for you at the moment, I think that it is important to look around you and see all of the wonderful things that you DO have and, to thank God for each and every one of them.

I think a lot of us have been overwhelmed by the darkness that tends to make its way in to our lives from time to time. As Americans, every time we turn on the TV lately, we seem to be reminded of it. A scary economy, a wild election year, loss of jobs, bad weather…WHATEVER… it seems to be everywhere.

In this month’s downtempo podcast, I have really worked to put together a show with songs that just put a smile on my face… I hope it does the same for each of you. Take some time this weekend, say a prayer for someone that needs it, do something nice for a complete stranger, snuggle with the one that you love most (it’s SO good for the soul,) read a book, take a nap, pour a drink, listen to some positive music, and hang out with friends and family. Enjoy a “Happy Hour for the Soul,” be happy, and remember, from darkness… comes light.

This month’s podcast is dedicated to Christopher “Casper” Venuti and the friends and family he leaves behind. I hope angels dig beatboxing as much as we did. I raise my glass of Vodka Soda with a Twist of Lemon… for you. ;)

Download

Here is this month’s tracklist…

01. Beatfanatic- Cookin (Funky 7 mix)
02. Mo’ Horizons- Green Day (Alister Johnson Remix)
03. Sono Rhizmo’- My House
04. Matsi- Free
05. Poncho Sanchez- Watermelon Man (Dan the Automater Rmx)
06. Chairlift- Bruises
07. Flow Dynamics- Bossa for Bebo (Lack of Afro mix)
08. Lefties Soul Connection- Its your Thing- Hey Pocky a Way
09. Jamie Cullum- Frontin’ (Live)
10. Jose James- The Dreamer
11. The Dynamics- Feel Like Making Love
12. Sonny J- Sonnrise

This Podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License to support the interests of the original featured artists.
Are you a downtempo connoisseur? Check out related reviews, articles, and links at http://www.definitivedowntempo.com

Listen to previous episodes of the Chill with The Chola Podcast by visiting my ARCHIVE!

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Back in the early 1970s I loved the take-charge sound of Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis' tenor saxophone so much that I kept buying Count Basie LPs. My hope was that I'd come across one that featured Lockjaw more extensively. On most Basie albums, Lockjaw would have a solo or two, but they were never enough for me. His solos with Basie were standouts, to be sure. They just always sounded as if he hadn't been given enough runway to say all the cool stuff he needed to.

Then in 2001, I came across a CD featuring two Lockjaw albums I long had hoped would be released. I first heard the CD's LPs on New York's legendary and long-gone jazz radio station WRVR. The most revered deejay at the station was Ed Beach, who had one of the coolest late-night voices in jazz radio. It was hip, urban-accented and loaded with euphemism. Words and phrases like "blow the whistle on some blues," "it's a swing thing, "pretty wild sounds, there," and "we're going back into the blues bag" sounded savvy and inside, especially with Wes Montgomery's guitar playing softly behind his easy banter.

In 1974, Beach devoted two of his famed Just Jazz shows to Lockjaw, and the tracks he played off two different albums left a deep impression. These were exactly the kinds of Lockjaw records I had been looking for. But there was a problem. Beach's on-air lingo was so cool that when he came back on the air to announce the songs he had played, I couldn't quite figure out whether the words he used were part of his riff or the real title, and which words belonged to which.

My only clues were the names of the two songs he played: I Wished on the Moon and Midnight Sun. So for years I had these songs listed in a little pocket-sized notebook I carried around to record stores. But I never came across the albums on which the songs appeared.

That is, until 2001, when I was in Tower Records (now also gone) near Lincoln Center. There, in the bin, was a single CD that contained two Lockjaw Davis albums: Lock, the Fox and The Fox and the Hounds. When I turned over the CD, both songs I had been hunting for all those years were listed. I couldn't believe my good fortune. To this day these recordings remain my absolute favorite Jaws albums, and for good reason.

Of the two, The Fox and the Hounds (November 1966) is the cooker and features a monster big band arranged by Bobby Plater. The musicians on the date were Ernie Royal, Joe Newman, Thad Jones, Snooky Young (trumpets), Urbie Green, Wayne Andre, Jimmy Cleveland and Tony Studd (trombones), Bobby Plater and Jerome Richardson (alto saxes), Lockjaw, Billy Mitchell and Frank Wess (tenor saxes), Danny Bank (baritone sax), Hank Jones (piano), Gene Bertoncini (guitar), George Duvivier (bass) and Grady Tate (drums). Now that's a big band.

The Fox and the Hounds opens with rip-roaring renditions of I Wished on the Moon and When Your Lover Has Gone, followed by the ballad Born to Be Blue. People Will Say We're in Love is taken at a medium-tempo gallop, with Day by Day reverting back to the pure high-octane tempo that Lockjaw loved so much. Bye-Bye Blackbird also is up-tempo. Call Me is a terrific bossa nova with mid-1960s swing sensibilities. Jaws is back to a ballad on This Is Always, while I Remember You is medium-tempo. They saved the best for last —Out of Nowhere, which swings all the way down the line.

Lock, the Fox (June 1966) is equally potent, but with a scaled-down group: Lockjaw is joined by Ross Tompkins on piano, Les Spann on guitar, Russell George on bass, Chuck Lampkin on drums and Ray Barretto on conga. Here, Jaws tightens up and drives the group with jaunty melody lines and solos. All of the songs get the Lockjaw treatment—cinderblock-sized runs, dragged notes, bluesy phrases, fearless riffs and powerful locomotive snorts. It's all here on Nina Never Knew, Speak Low, Midnight Sun, On Green Dolphin Street, Save Your Love for Me, On a Clear Day, West Coast Blues, Days of Wine and Roses, The Good Life and Oh! Gee!

These two albums feature Lockjaw at his very best and were recorded as he began recording more frequently in non-Basie settings. Lockjaw had become increasingly fed up with Basie's seemingly endless stream of painfully commercial recordings. Why Basie made some of those albums for Verve has always been something of a puzzle to me. Part of this mystery was solved last night when I re-read Cadence magazine editor Bob Rusch's magnificent two-part interview with Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis from 1986:

CADENCE: You were In the Basie band for such recordings as Basie Meets Bond, Basie in the Beatles Bag. What was that all about?
LOCKJAW DAVIS: Money. It's always money.

CAD: Somebody telling him what to do?
LD: That's right.

CAD: Roulette Records?
LD: No. That joker Willard Alexander [the renowned big-band booker]. Basie was in tax trouble.

CAD: Because of gambling?
LD: No. Road managers, people like that.

CAD: Which road manager?
LD: They had 2 or 3 of them. Each one took a little more, to the point where the accountant got in trouble. Instead of sending the money, he was beating it. In fact, 2 or 3 years ago, they gave him some time.

CAD: The accountant?
LD: Yeah. The (Basie's) wife found out who was really beatin' him all those years. All they got was tax trouble. I know way back then when I was in the office as an agent, the Internal Revenue sent all the agents a list of different audits. If you had any of the audits below, [the list said,] notify us first. So they could garnish the income. And Basie's name was on [the list]. In order to get him out of this bind, he took a lot of funny, funny jobs, funny recording dates. We did a tour with Tom Jones. It had nothin' to do with jazz, nothin'. But the kind of money they gave Basie, it made it worth it for Basie. But not looking ahead at his future, Basie in jazz. Now they couldn't do that with Duke Ellington.

CAD: Because he controlled his own thing?
LD: But with Basie they could. That's what caused [those albums].

Yet another interesting and lesser-known factor that helped diminish jazz's status and power in the 1960s: Prime artists facing tax troubles. Owing the IRS money certainly forced many jazz artists to take on uncomfortable and corrosive projects just to pay the bills. Which in turn undermined their reputations and left listeners with subpar albums.

JazzWax tracks: The two-fer CD that combines Lock, the Fox and The Fox and the Hounds is available here from Collectables Jazz Classics. This CD is a must-own. Lockjaws' soaring confidence and beautiful lines are hair-raising. Lock, the Fox is available as a stand-alone from RCA Spain, but you're better off with the two-fer. You really don't want to miss The Fox and the Hounds.

I Am (Musaraña Records, 2007)

German musician Thilo Martinho fell in love with Spanish and Latin American music while living in Spain. He traded his steel string guitar for nylon strings and flamenco guitar. Martinho spent severely ears doing work as a Flamenco guitarist in Sevilla and Cadiz.  His life changed drastically in 1995. A debilitating disease kept him hospitalized for a long time and he ended up hemiplegic, sitting in a wheelchair. His doctors told him that he might not be able to walk again. He was given no hope of resuming guitar playing; the motor activity of the right half of his body was lost.

During the following years, he learned to heal himself and he started to sing. Martinho sings in Spanish, Portuguese, English and German, accompanied by top notch German and Latin musicians. Thilo Martinho's latest CD, I Am, shows the scope of his musical influences. There are jazzy bossa nova pieces and a great Flamenco meets salsa piece sung in German.

Even though Martinho performs songs by many bossa nova and Andalusian songwriters, he is more interested now in developing his own material, with lyrics in German and English.

Buy the CD:

• In North America: I Am
• In Europe order from Amazon.com or CD Baby

More information at http://www.myspace.com/thilomartinho .