Stretching out with other worldly and US jazz influenced music

I'm down with the Delta blues- I'm partial to Skip James -the original tracks, not the re-do's once he was re-discovered. I know Revenant/John Fahey did a huge retrospective of Charlie Patton-won a slew of Grammys for it, not that awards are a measure, but it was notable when released. I find the young "blues detectives" who hunted down some of the original bluesmen to be fascinating-- they weren't all accredited scholars, but they knew the music from the '78s. 

@tablejockey 

How about  Jazz Harpist Dorothy Ashby? Way ahead of her time.

Dorothy Ashby - Wikipedia

I have a couple of her LP's including what's considered her magnum opus- "The Rubaiyat of Dorothy Ashby.

Wow! I couldn't agree more. What an unknown hidden jewel (for me) of a find. Completely, way off the beaten path, undiscovered and way, way ahead of its time. Simply an outstanding piece of music. I checked to see if this was available in cd form on Discogs and it was not at this time, only on LP. Nice post, and this is exactly why I started this thread. Thank you @tablejockey. 

@whart, 

I find the young "blues detectives" who hunted down some of the original bluesmen to be fascinating-- they weren't all accredited scholars, but they knew the music from the '78s. 

You're making me think of the time I was a little kid and found my Dad's old 78's. And funny enough, they were mostly 'old blue eyes' Frank Sinatra's recordings from, about the time of WWII.

@tablejockey @tyray 
I'm streaming The Rubaiyat of Dorothy Ashby as I write this.  This is great stuff!  Reminds me a little of Alice Coltrane.  In any event, I did find the cd version of this recording on Discogs and Amazon.

@devinplombier,

I took a listen to Bohren und der Club of Gore - Tief gesunken (Live @ Teatar 78) last night and what impressed me about the music the most, from my point of reference is it sounded (to me) like a German jazz band playing their renditions of the Blues. And at/from my point of reference(s) it didn’t seem to or sound ’dark’ at all, to me.

And the skull? Didn’t bother me at all either, as Funkadelic - Maggot Brain - Westbound Records 1971 had a skull on the back of it’s album cover. Been there done that. Now, if you wanna hear something dark, check out Funkadelic’s - Maggot Brain - Westbound 1971

The album opens with a spoken word monologue by Funkadelic bandleader George Clinton, which refers to "the maggots in the mind of the universe".

^[7] According to legend, the opening title track was recorded in one take when Clinton, under the influence of LSD, told lead guitarist Eddie Hazel to play as if he had just learned his mother was dead; Clinton instructed him "to picture that day, what he would feel, how he would make sense of his life, how he would take a measure of everything that was inside him and let it out through his guitar".^[7]

^[8] Though several other musicians performed on the track, Clinton de-emphasized them in the final mix so that the focus would be on Hazel.^[3] Hazel utilized fuzz and wah effects, inspired by his idol Jimi Hendrix, on the track; Clinton subsequently added delay and other effects during the mixing process, saying: "I Echoplexed it back on itself three or four times. That gave the whole thing an eerie feel, both in the playing and in the sound effects."^[7] Critics have described the solo as "lengthy, mind-melting" and "an emotional apocalypse of sound."^[9]