sonny sharrock, including but NOT limited to "Ask the Ages"

is Seize the Rainbow good? i passed on a vinyl copy of it last week because i was on my bike and didn't have a bag to carry it in. hoping it'll still be there (small store sorta off the beaten track)

yes that one is good!!

Monkey Pockie Boo is my favorite. The recordings with Pharoah and Marzette Watts are also excellent. I don't really care for the disc with Nicky Skopelitis, and something about Guitar has always left me a bit cold.

Paradise (w/ Linda) has its charms.

I went back to Guitar not long ago, and it felt really...freeze-dried and '80s.

downloaded Seize the Rainbow to give it a test drive. halfway through and it's good, but i'm glad i didn't buy it. too much heavy metal, not enough spiritualism. reminds me tons of Scorch Trio on rune grammofon (and other bjorkenstein stuff.)

http://img11.nnm.ru/2/3/5/7/e/2357e88af03e84edbf0b331b28d8ec51_full.jpg

I*s there any early 60s interaction between Sonny and Miles Davis? I've just seen credits listed for him being on the box set Seven Steps Complete which is the full Miles recordings from 63-64.
I thought they only recorded together on that Jack Johnson session.
So is that credit totally wrong?

There is no credit for Sharrock on the Seven Steps box. Are you thinking of Sam Rivers?

The only time Miles and Sharrock played together was Sharrock's Echoplex stabs on the A Tribute To Jack Johnson soundtrack.

Obviously somebody torrenting it has picked up the credits from a dodgy source which I had suspected.

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

live on French tv in 1970 I think with Beb Guerin (b) and Famoudou Don Moye (dms). & footage of Linda singing or whatever.

having a very electric guitar time of things and Sharrock is absolutely the man for me right now

I was wondering who had come along 'in the school of' Sonny. Did anybody of note or is his style too idiosyncratic.
Don't think I've come across a load of black noise/free guitarists outside of him, Hendrix, Pete Cosey and presumably Vernon Reid (since he was part of the Decoding Society I'm assuming he had leanings in that direction . Oh yeah James Blood Ulmer possibly. Think I should be better versed. Did Dr Know do much outside the Bad Brains who had started out as a jazz fusion group.

well Sharrock is so harmonic compared to a lot of the free and wild guys -- you get so much sparkling major key joy -- I think Dustin Wong and Matt Papich, as Ecstatic Sunshine, were a mathier version of that energy, I suspect there's people in that sort of noise world doing this stuff but I don't know their names. I bet Whiney would.

Don't think I've come across a load of black noise/free guitarists outside of him, Hendrix, Pete Cosey and presumably Vernon Reid (since he was part of the Decoding Society I'm assuming he had leanings in that direction . Oh yeah James Blood Ulmer possibly. Think I should be better versed.

Check out Brandon Ross, who's in Harriet Tubman as well as Breath Of Air, who have an album on my label. It's guitar-violin-drums improv:

https://breathofair.bandcamp.com/album/breath-of-air

Some of the Tisziji Muñoz albs like Auspicious Healing are the closest thing I know to Ask the Ages (Muñoz was in Pharaoh Sanders' band for a while, and Sanders plays on the Muñoz alb Divine Radiance (along with, of all people, Paul Shaffer on keyboards)).

unperson otmon Ross & compatriots, will check out these others too, thanks!

A barely adequate P&J comment of mine on a guy def worth hearing, dazzling at tymes:

Omar Khorshid and His Group
Live in Australia 1981
Post-surf electric Eastern modal clarity in waves, wires (duh), and other forms.
Sound quality doesn't bother me at all, though if I knew his studio, suppose it might. Can always turn it up. The excitement of music and audience def cuts through. This Egyptian guitar star recorded a fair amount (see YouTube), died young. Rec to fans ov 60s-early 70s John McLaughlin and the Turkish psych masters.

Thamks Unperson will check them out.

Interesting to see Omar Khorshid turn up. I initially compared him to Link Wray when I came across a couple of his records in my local 2nd hand record shop in the late 80s. This was my first I think
//e.snmc.io/i/300/w/ba69c136212cace87aee9197c7745c00/2161340

I picked up the Sublime Frequencies compi when it came out 11 years ago
//e.snmc.io/i/300/w/9ec77a3cf6edc34b43b8d18504ffe81b/3055342

I just checked out one track by Ecstatic Sunshine which was pretty interesting.
I had been thinking that there might be artists who started out as near clones or seriously inspired by the artists I mentioned in the way that George Benson started out as a Wes Montgomery inspired guitarist and Sacha Distel as a Django Reinhardt inspired one. Before finding their own style and moving out on their own. I don't know many black jazz/free guitarists though I assume there are a load I don't know. Couldn't name the guy who I notice with Sun Ra in the deep space electric era from the turn of the 80s offhand which is an oversight . Presumably Skeeter McFarland or Taylor Richardson

You might also like James Carter's Layin' In The Cut, with rough-riding guitarist Jef Lee Johnson alongside Marc Ribot, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, G. Calvin Weston---and there are several albums involving guitars among all the others that I need to check out here: https://jamaaladeentacuma.bandcamp.com/music

And another ballot note, with a guitarist I hoped to hear a lot more---

JASON MORAN: Same Mothers (Blue Note). Unlike many young jazz pianists, Jason Moran is less influenced by the emphatic lyricism of McCoy Tyner than by the mercurial speculations of Andrew Hill, who also co-composed some of the tracks on this album. Here, hellhound-chasin' Jason introduces his agile (and hip-hop savvy) trio to the acoustic and electric blues guitars of Marvin Sewell (previously and more sedately employed by Cassandra Wilson).

N.B.: Brandon Ross was also in Cassandra Wilson's band for several years and did a lot of the arranging on her big albums.

guy from the band sunwatchers gets to a similar place sometimes. i think they are underrated and a must-hear for horse lords fans.

i see that he (jim mchugh) has more recently collaborated with eugene chadbourne, so i'll have to check that out.

Love the Sunwatchers' Oh Yeah?, that was my gateway. On their other 2020 release, the Brave Rats EP, my faves are "Blind Willie" and "Ptah, The El Daoud," which is live. They have a whole live set among the earlier things on Bandcamp, which go back to 2014 now, I see--it's all happenin' here: https://sunwatchers.bandcamp.com/album/oh-yeah

I saw that Sunwatchers' Brave Rats e.p. had a cover of Blind Willie on it. I know the song from Sonny Sharrock's Guitar lp. I think it was something he played a lot with different backing groups. JUst had it come on and it is the song I was thinking of.

This one's getting a reissue this month — pretty great late 60s session w/ Sharrock. Has a kind of folk/jazz feel at points, mixed in with freer moments.

https://www.superiorviaduct.com/products/byard-lancaster-its-not-up-to-us-lp?_pos=1&_sid=80544ea89&_ss=r

^ one of the best records ever imo

also "ask the ages" fans owe it to themselves to check out "it's not up to us" because there's an early version of "many mansions" here called "john's children"

I remember getting a live set by most of the players from the Ask The Ages recordings live , I think it was minus Charnett MOffett if I'm thinking right. NOt seen it in a while but I have a load of the hard drives I filled with torrented sets disconnected. So there is at l;east one live set from then around.

maybe the same one that's on youtube, with Pheroaan AkLaff instead of Elvin Jones?

Yeah, that Byard alb rules. Play me some "Dogtown"! (Also became name of his label.)

Any Sharrock head would probably dig Ray Russell's late 60's/early 70's records Dragon Hill, Rites and Rituals and Live at the ICA. He was a British guitarist and mined a pretty heavily Sharrock-influenced sound on these recordings. They rip! He also played some guitar on Bill Fay's Time of the Last Persecution.

Oddly he's later known for theme tunes and jingles.
BUt yeah pretty great, his work in Running Man which was more of a song structured prog band or protoprog band was very interesting in places too. One of the guitar solos reminded me heavily of a current band I'm trying to think who, maybe Comets On Fire. Like way ahead of its time.

I'm still really intrigued as to black artists working on guitar verging on noise influences because it seems like something heavily pioneered by several that I'm not sure is still populated/practised by many. Like not to be monolithic and what makes the area interesting is the level of idiosyncracy. Plus I'm not as up on post 60s jazz etc as I'd like to be.

Harriet Tubman is the one I immediately thought of as well -- didn't realize Brandon Ross had a new album out this year, so I'm looking forward to checking that out. Unfortunately my knowledge doesn't go much deeper than that.

Yeah, I need to get into some more Russell; I only know him with Gil Evans, on The British Orchestra, which does have its own bonfires.

Here's Breath Of Air's s/t: Ross with Warren Benbow's drums, Charlie Burnham's violin, melting down moments live---https://breathofair.bandcamp.com/album/breath-of-air

always thought there was a spot of sharrock in joe morris's playing. orcutt fans may also find something to love in his solo recordings like "No vertigo" & "singularity". "symbolic gesture" from '94 would be my pick of his trio/Qt stuff, but there's an embarrassment of riches to choose from

O hell yes Joe Morris--so prolific, but seems like this is a good gateway, considering his colleagues here in particular:

Geometry of Distance (Relative Pitch): Kyoko Kitamura, Joe Morris, Tomeka Reid, Taylor Ho Bynum

The Geometry of Caves (Relative Pitch) w/ Taylor Ho Bynum, Tomeka Reid, Kyoko Kitamura

David S. Ware - Théatre Garonne, 2008 (Aum Fidelity) David S. Ware, Joe Morris, Warren Smith, William Parker

Also, I'm so far not as sold on Halvorson (as soloist, rather than accompanist or album auteur) as are a lot of other ilxors, apparently, but Morris has a duo set w her, which I haven't heard: Traversing Orbits (not even the title appeals).

I've got a 60-minute Walkman-inside-fall-jacket-quality recording of portions of Sonny's Oct '91 Toronto gig (spoken of upthread) in a storage locker a half-mile north of where I sit; the cassette also documents a 3-minute between-sets chat I had with the man (asked about Albert Ayler ("a very sweet cat") and how long the "Ask The Ages" Canadian release was due, and requested an autograph, which appears on the back of the gig flier the tape is wrapped in.) I gotta get that digitized someday.

I'll pay you to do it! Message me if you're interested :)

Thanks for the offer!

I've actually already got one of those radio/turntable/cassette players that burns CD-Rs, but it's temporarily in the same aforementioned storage locker. I'll get around to these things some day...