What's your latest "Discovery"

Recently I decided to pig out and get every Walker Brothers/Scott Walker (solo through early 70's) import reissue CD that I didn't already own on original vinyl, rendering my compilation CD redundant and filling in all the previously missing album cuts and bonus-track single-only sides. An acquired taste maybe, and perhaps a little excessive indulgence even for those who have it, but like eating potato chips once you've gotten hooked. If you can tolerate deep and exagerated male vocal stylings, and enjoy overblown Spector-ish pop consisting mainly of heavily orchestrated ballads, lyrics that wallow in pathos, and that big British studio 60's sound - and think every time you happen to catch "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore" on oldies radio that it beats the hell out any Righteous Brothers you've ever heard - there's lots available now.

Siliab - I've loved the Daktaris disk ever since I stumbled across it a few years back, but I've never heard that backstory about who was responsible. In fact, not only does the jacket list all those African-sounding names of the players, but also specifies it as having been recorded in Lagos, Nigeria. Although it states it was mixed in NYC by the same guy (who doesn't have an African name) credited as recording producer, I kind of wondered - since the topic isn't addressed elsewhere - whether this really was supposed to mean remastered for CD. But there were more seeds of doubt: not all the players' names sound genuinely African or even real, no year of recording or original release is listed, and the liner notes and cover photo of a lion with vultures chowing down a kill on the savanna seem a bit arch and fakey. And why don't I see the Daktaris on any Afro-funk comps? But the sound - how could that deliciously dirty voodoo soul stew (to quote one of the song titles) not be authentic? It fairly screams 'vintage'. Could that have been achieved synthetically? And the tunes are too great not to strike me as being the real deal straight outta mother Africa. But at the end of the day the record's just so damn good I decided not to worry about where it really might have come from and simply enjoy it. Still somewhat of a mystery, but I heartily second the recommendation.

Some recent CDs buys we've been digging: vintage soul packages on the British Kent label including collections of the Knight Brothers (60's singles originally on Checker) and the Ikettes (Ike recorded them in the 60's without Tina for singles on Modern), and collector Dave Godin's "Deep Soul Treasures" vols. 1 & 2. Also no-label comps of Alvin Cash & The Crawlers ("Twine Time", 60's singles originally on Mar-V-Lus) and The Detroit Emeralds (late-60's/early 70's sides on Ric-Tic and Westbound).

Some recent vintage vinyl finds include the film soundtrack LPs from "The Swinger" (Ann-Margaret), "Charade" (Mancini), "Thunder Alley" (V/A including Davie Allan & The Arrows of "Wild Angels"/"Devil's Angels" biker-flick fame, though producer Mike Curb, who frequently used them as his house rock band, doesn't credit them here, as he often did not), and an beautifully authentic-looking Japanese '81 gatefold reissue of the '66 swinging London classic "Blow-Up" (Yardbirds, Herbie Hancock).

Also original press jazz LPs including: Harold Land (tenor) "West Coast Blues" [Jazzland, with Wes Montgomery, Barry Harris, Sam Jones and Louis Hayes]; Milt Jackson "Born Free" [Limelight, with Jimmy Heath, Cedar Walton, Mickey Roker and Walter Booker]; The Jazz Crusaders "The Thing" [Pacific Jazz]; Kenny Burrell "The Tender Gender" [Cadet]; Freddie McCoy (vibes) "Peas'n'Rice" [Prestige]; Mose Allison "Takes To The Hills" [Epic].

And as always many old 45's, including the hyperkinetic original version (pre-Little Richard's hit) of "Good Golly Miss Molly" by composer Bumps Blackwell's band The Valiants [Keen, '57], and Wilson Pickett's first band The Falcons' "I Found A Love" b/w "Swim" [Lu Pine '62, backed by The Ohio Untouchables, who later evolved into The Ohio Players], which is signed by its presumptive original owner, one Paul Simon, who of course I'd like to think is *the* Paul Simon... :-)

Speaking of guitar fusion music -- a genre I'm not generally all that big on myself -- recently I got acquainted with one of the founding fathers, Sonny Sharrock, when I picked up his swan song "Ask The Ages" (Axiom '91, with Elvin Jones and Pharoah Sanders) because I spotted it cheap at a thrift store. It grew on me steadily and now I'm glad to have belatedly discovered a guy whose name I'd only read in passing before. Sharrock's compositions and playing seem to inhabit a space of their own, conforming neither to usual rock nor jazz conventions, but one of the neat things about this disk is that the backing group is most definitely post-bop acoustic jazz in spirit, instead of the funkified electric rock-based excesses typical of the 70's fusion heyday. Sharrock himself is 100% electric of course but no avatar of soulless technique, calling to mind Neil Young and The Allman Brothers as much as Hendrix and Coltrane. Spiritually way beyond mere grooving and wanking (and assiduously avoiding overt references to the blues), this stuff is highly thematic and uniquely personal, clearly intended to be transcendent and succeeding at almost every turn. (Here's a link to the Allmusic review I read for the first time just now; they rate this album as Sharrock's masterwork.)

Synthfreek: Unless I've seen "Space Ghost Coast To Coast" -- whatever that is -- and don't know it, I'm afraid you misoverestimate me...

No kids, and don't really watch the Cartoon channel (with the sometime exception of early morning vintage Gigantor reruns -- love that no-fi spy-jazz, even if the dialog [such as it were] is half unintelligible). But they don't seem to show the vintage Tex Avery or WB (or even Hanna Barbera) 'toons I might actually sit still a few minutes for. The newer, snarkier stuff doesn't interest me by and large, so I usually skip right over the channel without glancing. I do however enjoy myself a little Spongebob on Nick from time to time :-)

So Synthfreek, do you have Sharrock in your collection?

Sounds like Mystery Science Theater 3000 or What's Up Tiger Lilly? for cartoons...

I've heard some Marc Ribot, including some of the title you mention, and actually have a friend who knows him, but I don't own any of his albums. What I heard was good though, and I do own an Ellery Eskelin (tenor) disk that Ribot plays on (Ellery I knew personally myself many moons ago).

Here's 6:41 o' fun if you dig Latin jazz: Go to young pianist Alex Brown's website and check out his composition "The Wrong Jacket", a positively infectious, multi-tempoed, acoustic bass/drums+percussion/electric piano workout (you can preview it in lo-fi, and the hi-fi download don't sound bad thru the big rig, but it's not yet released on CD).

Kenny Drew "Undercurrent" (Blue Note, 1960) All devotees of the great vintage BN 'hard bop' house style need this album! Other than his sideman turn on "Blue Trane" I didn't know much about pianist Drew, but picked this disk up when I saw he wrote all six tunes, and had a frontline of Hank Mobley and a young Freddie Hubbard. Turns out this set is just as fine (and concise) as it got -- equally archetypal as any more famous Blue Notes of the period. (And featuring very inviting sound to boot -- and my copy isn't even the new RVG remaster...Sorry, don't know about the availability of audiophile vinyl.) Drew's accessibly moddish tunes are ace, the confidently probing horn tandem simply kills, each man pushing the other to make every note count, and the group as a whole (with Sam Jones on bass and Louis Hayes on drums) sounds as if they've been playing together forever, with the nominal leader (who in no way dominates the proceedings) displaying light and lithe articulateness and swing. According to AMG, the late Drew, who'd been active as a sideman and occasional leader in the 50's, became an ex-pat after this, his second date for the label, and didn't record again as a leader until the 70's. If classic Blue Note is yer bag and you don't own it yet, take it from me, this one here's a winner.