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

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...