It is a beautiful album. I am drunk and am gonna blast it through the headphones when I go to bed.
― Damo Suzuki's Parrot, Thursday, 27 June 2013 23:47 (ten years ago) link
This is pretty great:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3kDvw2VBGY
― Naive Teen Idol, Friday, 28 June 2013 03:48 (ten years ago) link
my favorite ornette album
― Treeship, Thursday, 27 June 2013 22:27 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
You ridiculous hipsters.
- ― Jimmywine Dyspeptic, Thursday, 27 June 2013 15:40 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― Ward Fowler, Friday, 28 June 2013 07:58 (ten years ago) link
what is the ornette album of choice for non-ridiculous hipsters?
― Treeship, Friday, 28 June 2013 15:10 (ten years ago) link
Jazz:
Change of the Century
Prime Time Fusoid:
Of Human Feelings
― Naive Teen Idol, Friday, 28 June 2013 19:36 (ten years ago) link
Listening to the PT version of "Mothers of the Veil" on In All Languages, it sounds like Sting's Bring on the Night band doing a soundcheck in Chile. The way the drums come in and out of a big stomp and the guitars are meandering around while Ornette plays that heartrending melody is just perfection. I love it.
In related news, IAL has some of the most digital production of any record in the 80s – all those chilly digital reverbs. Even the quartet stuff sounds like it was recorded in a meat locker. Somehow it seems...appropriate and alien.
Think I might be about to go on a big PT run. Help me.
― Naive Teen Idol, Thursday, 14 September 2017 12:33 (six years ago) link
from an old interview in the wire I was reading:
"The 1984 disco-fied version of Dancing In Your Head" that appears on Jamaaladeen Tacuma's Renaissance Man offers a tantalising glimpse into how Ornette might sound if he opted more directly for the funk market. Supported by congas and a DMX drum computer plus Jamaal and Charlie Ellerbee (the funkiest Prime Timers) Ornette puts more of an R & B spin on the melody. Terrific, frankly.
Anyone heard it?
― artdamages, Thursday, October 18, 2007 7:45 PM (ten years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
comes on like early Whodini right down to the DMX & slap bass intro and then and then everyone starts right in
added as a bonus track to a bootleg CDR edition of 'Of Human Feelings' I found used, 'Times Square' ended and this electro track came on and I couldn't have been less prepared
― Milton Parker, Friday, 20 July 2018 01:29 (five years ago) link
It’s great- totally agree with the descriptions
― Scam jam, thank you ma’am (Sparkle Motion), Friday, 20 July 2018 01:40 (five years ago) link
Classic.
Shannon Jackson is the only drummer listed, but that can't be him playing all of that unless it's overdubbed. The out-of-time stuff sounds like it's on an inflatable plastic kit, and there are, like, shaker bells separate from what sounds like two drummers.
― WmC, Sunday, 21 August 2022 22:51 (one year ago) link
i recently found a nm copy of “renaissance man” for $5. it has a cool catalogue inside of weird corporate-looking new age jazz. tacuma looks quite corporate too, but the music is anything but. there’s nothing disco-fied about it except maybe the instruments. it’s weird fast-paced herky-jerky prog jazz jamming. i don’t really know how to describe it. it’s not super far from zorn’s 80s stuff or griot galaxy, but there’s none of the skronky blowing. anyway, it’s great. check this out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0_LJYychQ4
― the late great, Sunday, 21 August 2022 23:50 (one year ago) link
maybe imagine the herbie / laswell band trying to make a james blood ulmer album, that’s what it sounds like
― the late great, Sunday, 21 August 2022 23:57 (one year ago) link
that sounds great actually
I'm trying to stop being such a spotify parasite but it's frustrating how so much of this stuff is not so easy to hear. I do enjoy calvin weston's "of alien feelings" quite a bit although parts of it get more proggy than I tend to go for
whatever you call music in this lineage it seems to get brushed over far too often given its quality and influence, compared to both younger ornette and the more miles-adjacent electronic stuff. the relative lack of availability of much of it can't help
― Left, Monday, 22 August 2022 11:33 (one year ago) link
I always assumed denardo was the other drummer/percussionist but I guess there must be overdubbing unless the personnel list is incomplete. doesn't sound overdubbed to me (unlike some later stuff) but what do I know about recording
― Left, Monday, 22 August 2022 11:40 (one year ago) link
xp It's on Bandcamp (hopefully legitimately??)
https://jamaaladeentacuma.bandcamp.com/album/renaissance-man
― Sonned by a comedy podcast after a dairy network beef (bernard snowy), Monday, 22 August 2022 11:50 (one year ago) link
awesome thx
― Left, Monday, 22 August 2022 11:54 (one year ago) link
No joke, I get this Jamaaladeen Tacuma track stuck in my head all the time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ekyz6IDQlY
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 22 August 2022 11:55 (one year ago) link
The tambourine and other rattling must be overdubbed; what sounds like "out-of-time stuff" might just be a product of a weird mix on different parts of the kit?
― Halfway there but for you, Monday, 22 August 2022 14:35 (one year ago) link
Also, the core of Prime Time worked with poet-performer Jayne Cortez, Ornette's ex-wife, Denardo's mother. She wrote several books, founded Bola Press, made an album with awesome bassist Richard Davis for Strata-East, and then
The first Bola Press recording, taped in October 1979, was called Unsubmissive Blues and included a piece "For the Brave Young Students in Soweto." Cortez delivered her poetry backed by an electro-funk modern jazz group called the Firespitters, built around a core of guitarist Bern Nix, bassist Al McDowell, and drummer Denardo Coleman. For years, the Firespitters and Ornette Coleman's Prime Time coexisted with Denardo as the axis and various players participated in both units.During the summer of 1982, Cortez delivered There It Is, an earthshaking album containing several pieces that truly define her artistry. These include: "I See Chano Pozo," a joyously evocative salute to Dizzy Gillespie's legendary Cuban percussionist; a searing indictment of patriarchal violence called "If the Drum Is a Woman",[10] and, "US/Nigerian Relations," which consists of the sentence "They want the oil/but they don't want the people" chanted dervish-like over an escalating, electrified free jazz blowout. Recorded in 1986, her next album, Maintain Control, is especially memorable for Ornette Coleman's profoundly emotive saxophone on "No Simple Explanations," the unsettling "Deadly Radiation Blues," and the harshly gyrating "Economic Love Song," which is another of her tantrum-like repetition rituals, this time built around the words "Military spending, huge profits and death."
During the summer of 1982, Cortez delivered There It Is, an earthshaking album containing several pieces that truly define her artistry. These include: "I See Chano Pozo," a joyously evocative salute to Dizzy Gillespie's legendary Cuban percussionist; a searing indictment of patriarchal violence called "If the Drum Is a Woman",[10] and, "US/Nigerian Relations," which consists of the sentence "They want the oil/but they don't want the people" chanted dervish-like over an escalating, electrified free jazz blowout. Recorded in 1986, her next album, Maintain Control, is especially memorable for Ornette Coleman's profoundly emotive saxophone on "No Simple Explanations," the unsettling "Deadly Radiation Blues," and the harshly gyrating "Economic Love Song," which is another of her tantrum-like repetition rituals, this time built around the words "Military spending, huge profits and death."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ii3_MBXqAqU
― dow, Monday, 22 August 2022 19:47 (one year ago) link
And I think maybe all or several tracks from Bern Nix's Alarms and Excursions are on YouTube. He uses harmolodic elements in several ways, for inst:
While he was growing up Nix heard blues guitarist Freddie King play “DrivingSideways.” Nix drew on the song's title to develop his harmolodic concept on “DrivingSideways Backwards.” Employing his own melody, Nix juxtaposes his dark single lineswith bright playful refrains to develop motives, melodic paraphrases, and permutationsthat give “Driving Sideways Backwards” a dense, rhythmical feel. Hopkins's bassrumbles underneath Nix's scalar runs and the trio repeats refrains turned forward andbackward before restating the opening theme and slowing down at the end. “The tune hassome harmonic free association even though there was no coke or cigars on the date,”laughs Nix.Both “Pat's Theme” and “Ballad for L” were written from 1975 to 1976 when Nixwas living in a loft with Ornette Coleman on Prince Street in New York City's SoHodistrict. “I dedicated 'Pat's Theme' to a friend who's been supportive of my artisticdevelopment over the years,” Nix says. The trio plays out front before stating a melody,with Hopkins's arco bass and Nix's pitch variations and bent notes. Nix combines singlenote lines against scalar refrains and chordal strumming. The tone of the piece darkens,punctuated with bright notes and descending chordal refrains. Baker's cymbal roars like a gong. “We play off the chord changes. It's a simple straight-ahead tune. We extendmelody and harmony. I like to integrate harmolodics with tradition. The song itselfsounds like an introduction to something. So you could think of it as an intro within anintro,” Nix says.
― dow, Monday, 22 August 2022 20:04 (one year ago) link
oh yeah, here's the whole thing:http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lF9Glu71ODlSTI09RkwQqJ7TUuGUfTuJ4
― dow, Monday, 22 August 2022 20:07 (one year ago) link
My dad had Dancing in Your Head when I was a kid. I found it absolutely hypnotic. When I found it years later, in a used record store in Boulder, I was beyond delighted.
100% classic.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Monday, 22 August 2022 20:14 (one year ago) link
I need to go back and listen to this record again. It's kinda always been my least favorite Prime Time album — Of Human Feelings is my favorite, followed by Body Meta, followed by the utterly bizarre '80s slickness and Fairlights of In All Languages. Even Virgin Beauty is pretty good. (I've never heard Tone Dialing.)
When I went to Ornette's apartment to interview him for The Wire, I saw the real painting that's on the cover of Dancing In Your Head. It was leaning against the wall on the floor of his rehearsal room, which had a heavy sliding glass door and a drum kit and keyboards set up inside.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Tuesday, 23 August 2022 00:49 (one year ago) link
Wow. Would like to see that.Tone Dialing has some variety that the previous PT albums don't (and vice-versa, like Body Meta's bluesoid moves); anybody who likes them will prob like this. Opening the Caravan of Dreams is a rough-edged live album: not the one to start with, but good of its kind. Yeah, Vigin Beauty, with Jerry Garcia the guest whp earns his keep, is a relatively mellower side of Prime Time, with some good tunes. Tune dialing.
― dow, Tuesday, 23 August 2022 01:49 (one year ago) link
*Virgin* Beauty, geez. *who* earns his keep.
― dow, Tuesday, 23 August 2022 01:51 (one year ago) link
Naked Lunch was my gateway.
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 23 August 2022 01:54 (one year ago) link
Yeah, that was good, with Howard Shore's scoring, and maybe OC wrote some of the string parts too? Anybody heard Prime Time/Prime Design, with Denardo and a string quartet? I've never even seen it. Enjoyed Skies of America, with the London Symphony Orchestra; one of the themes became the basis for Dancing In Your Head.
― dow, Tuesday, 23 August 2022 02:10 (one year ago) link
There's a CD of the Naked Lunch score on Howard Shore's own label, Howe Records, with a bunch of extra music included in the film but not on the original soundtrack release. It's worth picking up if you can find it.
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81Jc+igfBpL.jpg
― but also fuck you (unperson), Tuesday, 23 August 2022 02:31 (one year ago) link
I've spent all week listening to Prime Time, Shannon Jackson, Blood, and Tacuma. I feel like we need a catch-all Prime Time tree thread.
― Naive Teen Idol, Friday, 23 September 2022 14:13 (one year ago) link
Looks like this one is growing that way, but go ahead if you wanna, NTI.
― dow, Friday, 23 September 2022 14:16 (one year ago) link
(Tacuma mentioned recently on Twitter that he taped a bunch of his Prime Time gigs: noisy tapes, but he still listens.)
― dow, Friday, 23 September 2022 14:19 (one year ago) link
(Think it was his Walkman!)
― dow, Friday, 23 September 2022 14:20 (one year ago) link
That's so awesome. It's possible I mentioned this upthread or elsewhere, but bunch of years ago, Tacuma mistakenly emailed me asking if I could engineer a recording of his because he had flown a bunch of dudes out to do a record and the studio had double-booked with John Zorn. I told him he had the wrong me (I have kind of a generic email address) but that I knew who he was and was a big fan. He seemed kind of both shocked and touched.
Re. the thread, I may do that ... or not. I just feel like the harmolodic funk scene is on some level an important body of work that hasn't really gotten the full-on critical reassessment other records of the era have (I still remember John Litweiler in A Harmolodic Life hilariously describing Prime Time's drummers "emphasizing the two and the four" as if using terms like "4/4" or, gasp, "funk" was verboten).
― Naive Teen Idol, Friday, 23 September 2022 20:27 (one year ago) link
(Maybe he got some pushback for describing, I think it was Of Human Feeling, as an amazing disco record in The Freedom Principle?)
Great story! Yeah, do the thread!
― dow, Saturday, 24 September 2022 19:51 (one year ago) link
Or not---no pressure---but at least we got this one.
― dow, Saturday, 24 September 2022 19:52 (one year ago) link