Cheap Tricks E.P. - Thea Gilmore

Track list:

2. It All Gets Buried In the End
3. Let the Blue Sky In

Running time: 6 minutes
Released: 2006

Another shorty. Cheap Tricks was probably my favourite track off Gilmore's Harpo's Ghost. It has an urgency and energy to it that I liked, hints of the indignation that drove her songwriting earlier in her career - the bits I always loved about Thea Gilmore records. I still have a definite penchant for punchy, strident music from intelligent female vocalists. The barrier isn't even very high for that - a simple, purposeful bass is often enough.

I was long past singles by this point,  though I do have  few physical Gilmore singles - freebies from another order I seem to recall - just not this one. I don't remember ever buying these things digitally so I am not sure where I got these two tracks; the title track is not here, because I have the album version.

It All Gets Buried in the End is a slow, deliberate song, with a soft focus on the vocal - a bit of an open room sound - slight echo, but intimacy as well. The music is staid though, and the song is of a repetitive form, the title making constant appearance. I find it pleasant but tiresome - in that I like the way the vocal is recorded but the lyric and the rhythm both leave me cold and unengaged.  The second track has a brighter sound in the guitar, a cleaner, happier tone - lighter sound. Not exactly carefree though - its a worn out, tired kind of joy. It appeals to my rather worn out brain - I have been snowed under in people these past two days, and am enjoying some welcome quiet time as I prepare for the new week.

The chorus is a bit flat and I can definitely see why neither of these tracks made it past being B-sides. After setting up the intro to this post, Cheap Tricks got embedded in my brain and I have snatched listens to Thea songs over the weekend, before and after guests. Sitting through these now, these two are not amongst her strongest.

The Charm And The Strange - Simon Wilcox

Track list:

1. Les Yeux Sur Toi

Running time: 3 minutes
Released: 2007

Odd singleton here. No clue where it came from - or whether this should, in fact, use the English version of the title, Eyes On You, which is also a song on this album according to my search results. This Simon is female - maybe that isn't uncommon in non-anglophone locations.

It is a Wedding Present-esque riff that opens us up. The singing is definitely in French (well, Quebecois I guess) so that settles the version question.

It has a very 2000s indie vibe to it over the pretty stark guitar base. The higher piercing notes that ring out behind the vocal are reminiscent of a whole string of tunes whose names escape me in the moment, lending the track a familiarity despite my long-latent French (I have a reasonable A level from almost 2 decades ago) not being up to the task of following the lyrics.

The song is alright, I guess. That familiarity perhaps offering it more appeal than it merits in and of itself. I see no compelling reason to keep it around though.

Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus - Charles Mingus

Track list:

1. Folk Forms, No. 1
2. Original Faubus Fables
3. What Love?
4. All the Things You Could Be by Now If Sigmund Freud's Wife Was Your Mother


Running time: 45 minutes
Released: 1961

Uh, what? Seriously, that title is shocking, and it makes my post title even worse. You present yourself? Good for you.

The other opening comment I have is that I am not sure where this particular album came from. I have had Mingus Ah Um for a long time, and remember explicitly buying that as an entry point to the man's music but I don't recall what I thought of it. I am shocked, then, to find no fewer than 6 Mingus discs in my library. Lets hope I like his work!

We open with a spoken intro, so I guess that's where the Presents comes in. This was performed live at some point, it seems. The first musical sounds are bassy, tense, then more strutting. This opening number builds nicely, then recedes from a peak in a nice organic way. It is a promising start, unlike my progress on the project in 2017. Too many factors - some genuine barriers, others more imagined than real - have conspired to prevent me doing anything here for more weeks than I like to think about. One significant one was that I wasn't in a "jazzy" mood - I am still not, really, but my guilt at not progressing things here finally caught up to me and prodded me into action.  Still, I find myself liking the staccato nature of Mingus' bass here, an attribute that seems to transcribe itself to the playing around him. Each line sounds a little disjointed as a result, but in a most disarming way.

There is a cacophonous joy to things. A barely-coordinated freshness to the sound. It's not all good - there is the almost inevitable drum solo which I could really have done without - but it is nicely crafted. One interesting aspect is the occasionally audible vocalisations from the band, encouraging each other and keeping things on track. This is a really cohesive unit, despite the way the jumps and pauses in the individual efforts lend the more carefree, improvisational vibe. I have to say though that by the time the 13 minutes of the opener are done I am rather glad for the change. The wawing of the trumpet was getting quite wearing by the end.

Another introduction - Wikipedia suggests this is an affectation borne from months of working on these tunes in performance, so I guess I was right earlier - and a smooth sound straight from a noir soundtrack. There is a lovely but sleazy air to the horn on Original Faubus Fables, a very resonant and redolent sound. The bass and drums here feel much more understated, more standard. This is not to denigrate them - there is a well grooved nature to the play, making it silky smooth in places.

Then it all goes a little more challenging.

The horns become sharper of tone, piercingly loud and more than a touch disharmonious. It scratches at my ear drums a little with an insistent and demanding edge to the play. The smooth tune is gone and a more broken piece emerges from the play. The bass and drums are still there, still solid, but the top end and tune loses me entirely. The other stand out characteristic of the second tune is the discussion-like vocals that come and go, most noticeably at start and end of the number. I don't manage to make out the words but it certainly does something to the piece from the tonal point of view.

Though this was recorded in 1960, the sounds to me are so much more associated with the 40s and 50s America as depicted in films of the era (or those harking back). This style of jazz, horn led mood pieces, conjure a very cliched view - almost always of LA, and almost always of the sorts of folks that James Ellroy would write about. What a warped view of the world film and TV are wont to give us.

What Love? is a rambling piece, with noticeable pauses and quiet moments. A prolonged bass solo typifies this. I have lost any sense of narrative from the tune - though I suppose as it runs 15 minutes that really isn't a surprise. This section - in the middle of things by my guess - is a hodgepodge of sounds with little to endear them to the listener. The slow, meandering mood piece can work, but it needs more than this - single voices popping up for unstructured noodling is not an interesting listen. This is more frustrating than anything else - the first couple of tracks had their faults but both also showcased some really tight synergies between the players. Here it is each in turn squeaking, squawking and spluttering through far too long of dead air. The sounds they produce are not even pleasant in places - quite apart from being without much context and disjointed. This pain lasts the best part of 8 minutes (possibly more), going from when I really cottoned on to what was happening to when more sense of cohesion returns to the tune. By that time the 15 minutes are almost up and I have lost the positive impression that I found myself enjoying during track 1.

The final piece is the shortest of the four numbers, except in the titling sense. Wow. All the Things You Could Be by Now If Sigmund Freud's Wife Was Your Mother is a very odd title - it doesn't scan well, the length is unusual, and it lacks particular context to offset the very strange word choice. Why not just say "if you were Sigmund Freud's child"?

In any case, this is a pacier piece, which is nice, though I find myself rather inured to any charms it may have. My lack of jazzy mood has returned with a vengeance. That the piece gets repetitive - a particularly blaring horn wavering between two notes is a key perpetrator here - further alienates me, pushing the composition further from my appreciation with every see-saw between those tones.

I think jazz of a certain age walks a fine line between caricature, genius and cacophony. Here it spills into the latter with a sizable serving of the first and not enough of the piece in the middle. There were moments where the playing came together perfectly, but they were outnumbered by those where it all fell apart, or pulled in a direction that made me wince. This one was not for me.