recommend for me: jazz + early synths/musique concrète/the studio-as-instrument

i've been listening obsessively to herbie hancock's albums (from mwandishi through mr. hands)w/ arps and moogs and jon hassell's treated trumpet sounds and cut-up ambient loops, and it seems impossible to find anything in the same vein (searching for jazz + electronics/jazz w/ synths only brings up crap about squarepusher or bad 'nu-jazz'). what else is there?

http://cageian.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/61dbiryzgsl.jpg

^some people don't like it, but i think it's great!

bit more recent but

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ZFeQWDDNaD8/TQKbov7_LjI/AAAAAAAAFTE/Os5tu4WzE9g/s200/Rafael+Toral+Space+Elements+vol.+II.jpg

http://www.freejazzblog.org/2010/12/rafael-toral-space-elements-vol-ii.html

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ZFeQWDDNaD8/TEI4VshtiiI/AAAAAAAAEhs/S5Zru4ksnYE/s200/ALLEN+SHIPP+MORRIS.jpg

http://www.freejazzblog.org/2010/08/marshal-allen-matthew-shipp-joe-morris.html

and of course sun ra himself

I like that record a lot! First one I ever bought by either Hubbard or Mimaroglu.

Anyway, how about Gil Melle's "Tome IV" (1968):

This record, made 18 months or so after the Andromeda Strain soundtrack,is the first jazz record to incorporate, an electro acoustic element, with additional live processing by all the musicians as they improvise, a practice which is now common place among European, and American free improvising musicians,notably Evan Parker, Barry Guy , Acid Birds and Many others.

Musically its an effective fusion of Modal to free jazz,with some modest modish psych rock elements, quite good overall if not quite as fresh and urgent as his peak output from the 50's..(some of which is currently available on CD)

Whole thing is up on youtube, didn't know if you wanted embeds here.

uh put an XP at the start of that.

Terry Riley's music for "The Gift" would be kind of a crude forerunner, too, right?

Andy Haas' Taballah is live processed saxophone and reed instruments, electronics and an Indian drum machine and is pretty crazy:

https://soundcloud.com/taballah

He's played with Keiji Haino, John Zorn and, uh, Martha and the Muffins in the past according to Other Music.

it's not quite as slick as Herbie but you should check out Annette Peacock & Paul Bley - Dual Unity

search: Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvh7xN1ADYE

joe mcphee & john snyder, pieces of light -- love this record

http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_400/MI0000/494/MI0000494559.jpg?partner=allrovi.com

hey, this is new but try it out: http://babel-label.bandcamp.com/track/archaic-nubian-stepdub

Speaking of Annette Peacock, she's got several on her site, incl this, described recently by nytimes' Ben Ratliff:

I BELONG TO A WORLD THAT’S DESTROYING ITSELF

“This is my first record,” runs Annette Peacock’s 14-word present-day liner note to a recording of music made in 1968 and 1969. “It was the right album, in the wrong century.” She is referring to a long out-of-print record called “Revenge,” released under the billing of the Bley-Peacock Synthesizer Show. Here it is again, retitled “I Belong to a World That’s Destroying Itself,” and she has released it on her own label, Ironic, under her own name. (It is available at http://www.annettepeacock.com.) This is as it should be. Ms. Peacock’s husband at the time was the jazz improviser Paul Bley, who plays on some of the record, alongside others, including the bassist Gary Peacock (her first husband), the drummer Barry Altschul, the clarinetist Perry Robinson and the pianist Mike Garson, who later played on David Bowie’s “Aladdin Sane.” But this is her sandbox. She wrote all the songs, sang them in a wide-range voice with humor and anger and streety edges, sometimes through Moog synthesizers, making wild sculptural streamers out of long vocal tones. But the gear is not the point. This record contains a rare order of creativity, ambitious and scruffy and hardheaded. (“Don’t tell me that you see nothing wrong,” she sings on the title track. “Let me scare you: We don’t have that long.”) It goes in several directions without establishing a hierarchy among them: blurry funk, free jazz and her slow, long-form, composed songs, which are dark and liquid and totally gripping, a kind of zero-gravity redefinition of the ballad.

You might check some albums by and involving Richard Horowitz, who studied music in North Africa, plays flutes as well as synthesizer, cyberseeded Gil Evans' cosmic orchestras, live and on record---There Comes A Time, OMG---also toured and recorded with Jon Hassell and singer-dancer Sussan Deyhim (for instance).

Anthony Braxton's Open Aspects (Duo) 1982 (with Richard Teitelbaum) is beautiful. There's a couple of other Braxton records Teitelbaum's on, all highly recommended.
http://img13.nnm.me/0/9/9/1/3/46d41eee84dbbfca0e1207d8041.jpg

Sorry, I was mixing up Richard Teitelbaum and *David* Horowitz, who did play on several Gil Evans albums.

(But Richard Horowitz is good too.)

(He's the one who worked with Hassell and Deyhim.)

evan parker & lawrence casserly's "solar wind" is still winsomely martian ( it is just parker's seagull/coltrane circular breathing sax & signal processing, tho, so no rhythmic framework, other than what that can provide )
i've been won over by the moritz von oswald trio, who offer a simulacrum of the gauzy rhythmic beds you'll find on prime hassell cuts. unfortunately without hassell (although i think they're now recording together) - minamalist - so don't go expecting owt to happen.
arve henriksen's chron/cosmic creation is awesome droney haunt & blip with henriksen's high-lonesome scandi hasselist trumpet not making too many appearances - it's worth ming through henriksen's back catalogue.
weather report's "sweetnighter" makes it because of the monster grooves, zawinul's moog abuse, shorter playing through an octaving thing. and "mysterious traveller" just for "Nubian sundance" alone which is celestial prog-fusion of the highest order.
close erase - "dance this" & "sports" best white-hot w.rep / hancock-style scandi fusion
anthony braxton / richard teitelbaum - "time zones" - h.p.lovecraft in the bbc radiophonic workshop with contrabass sarrusophone.
supersilent - get the first 6 albums & no.8 - they'll keep you busy awhile - old dudes say "these guys need to stop listening to bitches brew" somehow i don't think the old guys hear the electronics, and miles' band PLODDED in comparison.
toshinori kondo's "silent melodies" is perhaps a little cartoony for a solo trumpet/electronics record. yknow - harmonizers, eastern scales. a different perspective would say it's kinda "pure" in that respect. he also appears on herbie hancock's "sound system" which is herbie's 80's fairlight afro-fusionism effort for breakdancing to.
arve henriksen / tatsuhisa yamamoto / giovanni de domenico have done 2 GREAT cds together as a trio - hassellesque with more variety & a "martian" vision of hassell's more tropical "exotica"
rafael toral's "space" - "forbidden planet" soundtrack soundalike w/ some brass instruments & retrofuturist "lost in space" blooping.
george duke - "faces in reflection" - still under the influence of zappa, a natty trio recording with wacky tape-echo, samba rhythms & white hot noodling.
thundercat - "the golden age of apocalypse" - a contemporary take on that with a few spiffy leftfield hip hop production touches. mutron bliss.
i'll probably have some more thoughts later

If you love the Mwandishi albums, I's sure you like this one:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/517Dhx8EAzL.jpg

It's more organic than Herbie (no synths), but it has some interesting studio effects, and in general is more loop/drone-based than most jazz of that era (hence the similarity with Mwandishi).

Mwandhishi alumnus Julian Priester released an album on ECM that's, if possible, even more ambient and droney than the Mwandishi records, it's well worth checking out:

http://ecmreviews.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/love-love1.jpg

And then there are the two Eddie Henderson albums, where he's accompanied by most of the Mwandishi band (only Priester is missing), but I'm sure you know those already?

oh yeah, haven't listened to those as obsessively as the trio of mwandishi-crossings-sextant but those are good!

no-synths is cool too; like teo macero's production on some of the miles albums is rly unusual and cool

uh, i seem to have a limited vocabulary

Feel like I should have more recommendations for this thread, but right now all I've got is Roland Young - Isophonic Boogie Woogie.

If you want to hear an odd case of synth experimentation by a jazz player, try this one out:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AmiZJhs6uZ8/U3beqoQa__I/AAAAAAAADyc/CP2kOUIpRsI/s1600/front.jpg

It's a soundtrack album to a nature documentary about Zebras, I think. DeJohnette doesn't play drums (his regular instrument) at all, rather he uses synth riffs and drones and drum machine rhythms to create an electronic post-African sound. Besides the electronics, there is only Lester Bowie's haunting trumpet on two of the 5 tracks. It's a really peculiar album, even in DeJohnette's eclectic oeuvre; I'm not sure if I'd call it great or anything (though I do find it evocative and pleaasant to listen), but I've never heard anything quite like it.

Sorry, this is the cover:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AmiZJhs6uZ8/U3beqoQa__I/AAAAAAAADyc/CP2kOUIpRsI/s1600/front.jpg

And I'd like to second Massaman Gai's George Duke recommendation. Duke was like a bit funnier & more optimistic version of Herbie Hancock, and all the records he released in the mid-70s for MPS Records (most of which are handily available on this comp, though you need this one also) are well worth acquiring, loads of cool synth freakouts and other fun experimentation on them. When he moved to Epic in 1977 he started doing more populist records in the jazz-funk/disco vein, but those too are pretty great, if that's your cup of tea. He was certainly better at doing disco than Herbie.

"zebra" is great if you can pick it up cheap ( because there's only five tracks on it a couple of which are quite similar, and depending on your luck, you might only find it at collector's prices )
bennie maupin's "jewel in the lotus" is a great example of i think what they call "quiet storm" fusion. synthless ( although i think herbie has mild echoplex), not so wild, but mmmm celestial.
also synthless but an amusing proto-fusion rumblatum is wayne shorter's pre-w.rep "super nova" which is pretty wild and woolly and on an affordable reissue right now.
it might be worth surfing to hear some tom heasley as well - not jazz, but tuba played through delays & reverbs - some of the warmest amniotic drone i know. i even give him a free pass for didgeridoo one one of his albums he's that good.

this isn't really the same kinda thing but i'm gonna put it here anyway. it's newer. sax + computer. cool album. he makes more normal modern jazz too with small and big groups.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZqSaZP0UuY

i love this album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2WUNkO1rfM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGJYEwTrRw0

this hubbard/mimaroglu lp is cool

excellent thread, will be looking into some of this

I definitely think the right LP cover was chosen to display every time this thread opens

Bob James - Explosions (1965)

http://www.espdisk.com/official/catalog/1009.html
http://www.allmusic.com/album/explosions-mw0000618404

Review by "Blue" Gene Tyranny
Probably the first recording of improvised jazz combined with electronic music, as well as playing inside the piano and other new music techniques. Contains lively and often humorous compositions by Bob James and Gordon Mumma ("Peasant Boy"), Bob Ashley and Bob James ("Untitled Mixes"), Bob James ("Explosions"), Barre Phillips ("An On"), and a version (not the full one for voice and electronics found in Source magazine) of "Wolfman" by Bob Ashley and Bob James. With Bob James (piano), Barre Phillips (bass), and Robert Pozar (percussion).

Recorded May 10, 1965 at Bell Sound Studios, NYC

This is (probably) the earliest one I can think of that actually came out at the time.

As mentioned upthread Terry Riley's "Music For The Gift" with Chet Baker was broadcast by Radio Paris in 1963 but remained unreleased until 2000.

http://www.allmusic.com/album/terry-riley-music-for-the-gift-bird-of-paradise-mescalin-mix-mw0000582672

"The Gift" is the work that opens the album, a jazz piece performed by Chet Baker with his quartet, and featuring tape manipulations by Riley using a delay mechanism through two looped tape recorders. All of it performed live for French radio. Over five sections the jazz quartet is eventually displaced and becomes part of a unit of sound that repeats itself, over and over again, whether it be the trumpet, a vocal, or the rhythm section, creating -- unintentionally, of course -- the precursor to the work that would become "In C," and create the entire minimalist movement.

Yeah, and Riley (especially when he's playing sax as well as keyboards) did a number of LPs which might fit this thread. Speaking of one with no synths but an electronics-infused aesthetic, what about Devotion? McLaughlin and organist Larry Young feed on and to stellar effects, even get Buddy Miles into orbit when appropriate (of course he's always generating the planet waves). Shorter's Super Nova was mentioned: never have listened to it all that much, but his avowed interest in mysticism and and out-there fiction comes through; distinctive line-up as well:
Bass – Miroslav Vitous
Drums, Kalimba [African Thumb Piano] – Jack DeJohnette
Drums, Vibraphone – Chick Corea
Guitar [Electric] – John McLaughlin, Sonny Sharrock
Guitar [Classical] – John McLaughlin (tracks: A2), Walter Booker (tracks: A3)
Percussion – Airto Moreira
Producer – Duke Pearson
Soprano Saxophone – Wayne Shorter
Vocals – Maria Booker (tracks: A3)

what an awesome thread - thanks for the j priester tip !
here's one i forgot:
dedalus: 70's italian prog fusioneers who got tired of that & went down a sparser path. i have a super comp on the elica label which is "pezzi inediti & materiali 74-76" which is one LP & most of another together. it's kinda like in a silent way meets starfuckers (the italian pre-sinistri starfuckers not those other namesake clowns).
also humcrush (or stronen/storlokken as tehy call themselves on their first CD) i prefer to supersilent (stale storlokken) is their keyboard player. they're less epic, much itchier whipcrack fusion with joe meek organ noises and kbd playing that's much more inventive than storlokken's jon lord / zawinul aping in the rollicking and excellent elephant9)

http://olewnick.blogspot.com/2011/11/greg-kelleyolivia-block-resolution.html

Jérôme Noetinger/Will Guthrie - Face Off -- I was thinking of this release, heavy on electronics and percussion with bits of music concrete (rain falling, room sounds etc.), but both releases sort of apply.. The Olivia Block/Greg Kelley heavier on atonal percussion/room sounds.

And a lot of the music in this lotsa-music doc seems to fit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNhuwkmmzak

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R70XhXyDDuY

Material, especially this one:

Memory Serves

Bill Laswell – 4, 6 and 8 string basses
Michael Beinhorn – synthesizers, tapes, radio, guitar, drums, voice.
Fred Maher – drums, percussion, guitar (except "Silent Land")
Sonny Sharrock – guitar (except "Square Dance" and "Silent Land")
Fred Frith – guitar, violin, xylophone (1,4,5,7)
Olu Dara – cornet ("Disappearing", "Upriver")
Henry Threadgill – alto sax ("Disappearing", "Unauthorized", "Square Dance")
George Lewis – trombone ("Memory Serves", "Square Dance", "Silent Land")
Billy Bang – violin ("Upriver", "Unauthorized")
Charles K. Noyes – drums, percussion, bells ("Memory Serves", "Silent Land")

The only cover is "For A Few Dollars More."

there is also this single-track curiosity. this version is from 1960; there is an earlier version from 1952 available on the 'Studio GRM' 5 CD box; it's the same piece, using the same tape edits, but the live jazz band is recorded in much lower fidelity, so the tape part doesn't stand out as much as on the 1960 version.

http://www.discogs.com/Andr%C3%A9-Hodeir-Jazz-Et-Jazz/release/1425615
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzU6UShO9HU

This is a very French version of Jazz closer to the weird international vibe of Else Popping's 'Delirium in Hi-fi' (one of my all time favorites) - http://www.discogs.com/Andr%C3%A9-Popp-Delirium-In-Hi-Fi/release/1995773

'Delirium in Hi-Fi' is on Spotify and man is it worth taking in as a whole album, but

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6YPp0uLSnY

Electronic Sonata For Souls Loved By Nature (recorded in 1969) is an early example of 'jazz concrète' -- the performances are interspersed with manipulated tape recordings from various sources. some of the tape sounds are recognizable as music (like the Ugandan field recording at the beginning of side b), but there are also a lot of abstract droney passages playing the the background, and from time to time the instruments drop out so that all you can hear is the tape loop. he first recorded the piece in 1969 with a bunch of ECM guys, but there's a 1980 version (with different personnel) that I haven't heard.

(that's George Russell's Electronic Sonata For Souls Loved By Nature)

again on a scandi tip - "great curves" by rotoscope - andreas mjös & various musos we might recognize from jaga jazzist (i think mjös is their deathprod equivalent) assemble some glitchy / live fusion atmos/song/groove/extemporisation collages. i'm doing christine sandtorv an injustice to say she sounds like stina, but ye get the picture.

Been meaning to check out that George Russell record...most of his records, in fact (other than Ezz-Thetic, which I love). Seems like a pretty underrated figure.

i know a lot of this probably isn't on spotify but any chance of someone throwing together a best-of playlist with what is there?

http://open.spotify.com/user/bradcahoon/playlist/1R9iR2xYkZMXZnH8MNU0LG

Not a best-of obv

You guys should check out The Feed-Back, a 1970 album by The Group, which was a pseudonym for Il Gruppo di Improvvisazione di Nuova Consonanza, an avant-garde Italian collective that included Ennio Morricone (he played trumpet). It's like jazz-funk meets modern composition, all laid over an insane funk beat; honestly, it reminds me of On The Corner, but recorded two years earlier and slightly less dense, but also weirder at times. I'm actually writing a review of it that'll be on Burning Ambulance tomorrow; in the meantime, here's the title track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKIvS2AI5O4

"Seems like a pretty underrated figure."

george russell was kinda born to be underrated. there are liner-notes going back 50 years about how underrated/underheard he is. maybe it was just meant to be.

i guess morricone's "gli occhi freddi della paura" OST would fit here as well (that's kind of of a gruppo di improv... effort)

hasn't 'the feed-back' album just been reissued ?

seem to have seen a few of my dj/collector friends on FB mentioning they have got copies recently.

^here's hoping. niente, the till recently unreleased followup to the feed-back lp, is worth checking out too...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiIT7K4A6rU

rabih beaini's "albidaya" would fit here, too - better than much it has been compared to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3dur47Ywlg

this album is cool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-04Dey1SzQ

Thanks for the George Duke recommendation, really enjoying the MPS box

Cool! It was one of the best record purchases I've made in recent years.

do other folks rate this one?

http://beingsubstance.blogspot.com/2013/08/george-lewis-chicago-slow-dance.html

it's not musique concrete in the strong sense but it achieves something similar, i think

George Lewis' Voyager is a landmark piece for live improvisation and realtime interactive computer music. Pitch analysis and response. Your mileage may vary with the Yamaha FM synth sounds he chose to deploy the interactive computer responses, but it's still an amazing thing to see live, and he's revived / updated the piece recently with modern technology. Very impressed with the last few performances of his I've seen.

Don't know 'Chicago Slow Dance'.

i've been exploring george lewis's stuff recently, it's always interesting

Lewis' Homage to Charles Parker is really gorgeous, I wouldn't have gotten into it had Cook not given it 5 stars in Penguin Guide to Jazz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cd44vTL4Qc8

this has already become one of my favorite threads ever.

man, i haven't pulled that homage to charlie parker album out in a while. so beautiful.

sometimes i like the idea of chicago slow dance a bit more than the music itself. but it's still really inventive and unusual.

That youtube is the entire Homage to Charles Parker album, btw. The first 17:50 is the first track, "Blues." The rest of it is "Homage to Charles Parker" itself -- absolutely one of my favorite pieces of music ever, such raw naked emotion in the solos.

hasn't 'the feed-back' album just been reissued?

It has. I got the reissue in the mail, which is what sparked my review.

note to Spotify compiler: there are two Supersilent tracks available on compilations

Soft Machine - Six (studio half) and Seven

that feedback reissue is so friggin' pricey everywhere i look. if you ever want to sell your promo, phil, lemme know.

Spotify playlist spottily updated

Too bad Gil Evans' There Comes a Time is not available there, but there's quite a bit of synth on Svengali.

that feedback reissue is so friggin' pricey everywhere i look. if you ever want to sell your promo, phil, lemme know.

― scott seward, Thursday, September 4, 2014 11:24 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i saw it on amazon for like $14...

cheapest on amazon right now is 27 bucks including shipping. which isn't horrible i guess...but i can't remember the last time i paid that much for a cd...

vinyl on amazon is 40 and up.

whole thing's on youtube, via Mr. Ambulance's review:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHpumFSr6t8#t=105

Good call re pre-On The Corner and especially the Canny use of crisp beats, which def. kept me listening, but overall preferring the actual OTC and actual Can, esp. much of what they're doing in that mostly-performance documentary I posted upthread.

yeah i only know it from youtube really. i'd like to have a hard copy.

Miles Davis' "Great Expectations" to fucking thread.

ha, someone must have bought that $14 copy. oh well.

this Jean Guérin track is pretty cool

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgLnLdBp5TQ

although it leans more toward jazz-inflected electronic than electronic-inflected jazz, and nothing else on the album is quite so jazzy.

that's sweet