Rearview Mirror (5):
Happenings and Adventures
by Tom Hull
Eddie Gale
Eddie Gale's Ghetto Music
1968, Water
Eddie Gale
Black Rhythm Happening
1969, Water
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Eddie Gale played for Sun Ra in the early '60s, and following up on
the notices he got for his work on Cecil Taylor's Unit
Structures, he cut these two albums for Blue Note; he's still
working, but there's not much else in his discography. Ghetto Music
and Black Rhythm Happening are so specific to their era that they're
startling today -- 1968-69 was a time, after all, when black jazz
musicians were still tied to a ghetto that was surging with black
pride if not necessarily black power. The German label Trikont's pair
of Black & Proud comps (2002) give a taste of the times
from the pop end of the spectrum; on the other end, free jazzers like
Albert Ayler (Music Is the Healing Force of the Universe) and
Archie Shepp (Attica Blues, The Cry of My People)
fortified their attack with gospel singers. Gale, too, rounded up a
choir, but he made it much more central to the music, which was driven
forward by rolling rhythms (Ghetto Music) and funk chants
(Happening), while his trumpet, bright and frisky as a
bebop-addled mariachi, carries the day. The first album is a tour de
force: the sort of grand gestures that AACM might have had in mind
when they coined the term "Great Black Music -- Ancient to the
Future." The second is funkier but runs into some strange ether when
the lyrics start channeling Sun Ra.
Earl Scruggs
The Essential Earl Scruggs
1946-84, Columbia/Legacy
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When Mike Seeger cut his encyclopedic Southern Banjo Sounds, he
started in the 19th century and closed with an example of
"Scruggs-style." Bill Monroe is credited with inventing bluegrass, but
his mandolin and whine were only half of the formula. The other half
came from Lester Flatt's finely picked guitar and Earl Scruggs'
driving banjo. Monroe's Blue Grass Boys split in 1948, with Monroe
going higher and lonesomer while Flatt & Scruggs played harder and
faster. The first disc starts off with three Monroe songs and then
follows Flatt & Scruggs up to 1957, focusing sharply on Scruggs,
who turned 80 this January, and it's all you really need to know about
bluegrass banjo. The second disc is dicier, with Flatt vanishing after
the overexposed "Ballad of Jed Clampett," replaced with Scruggs'
progeny and random guests. The best, no surprise, is Johnny Cash, who
starts off with a story.
Television
Marquee Moon
1977, Elektra/Rhino
Television
Adventure
1978, Elektra/Rhino
Television
Live at the Old Waldorf
1978, Rhino Handmade
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By the mid-'70s, rock's newfound intelligentsia was worried. The
golden age of hard-rock expansion had decayed to dull heavy metal. The
golden age of black pop had fractured into rote funk, disco, and
crossover pabulum. The industry was awash with lame "me decade"
singer-songwriters. Gram Parsons gave way to the Eagles. The very
notion that good and popular correlate in any way had become
suspect. Critics scoured the land for any sign of salvation, and in
New York many embraced a cluster of new bands working at a Bowery dive
named CBGB. The major CBGB bands (Television, Blondie, Talking Heads)
were as differentiated as the major pop-art painters of the '50s; what
they had in common (aside from time, locale, and audience) was how
they aestheticized the idea of pop. Television was the first of the
CBGB bands to get notices, and after two albums adored by critics and
ignored by everyone else, it was the first to fold. People tend to
pigeonhole Television as a harbinger of the punk and new wave just
around the corner, but they don't sound like anything that came
later. If anything, with their grand gestures they recall classic
rock: Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd were worthy successors to the
twin-guitar attack of Eric Clapton and Duane Allman on Layla, but
darker and more demotic, which was pretty much where progress seemed
to be heading. Marquee Moon was their debut and masterpiece. Adventure
was their swan song, softer and more songwriterly, in retrospect a
stepping stone to Verlaine's solo career. The bonus tracks are more of
the same, except for "Little Johnny Jewel" -- an early,
Velvets-influenced single that might have pointed them in a different
direction. Live at the Old Waldorf is a welcome complement to the two
studio albums: a newly released 1978 San Francisco concert, spanning
both albums plus "Little Johnny Jewel," revving up the guitars and
encoring with "Satisfaction." Too bad it's being sold as sucker-priced
collectorama.
Seattle Weekly, May 5-11, 2004
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