Optimistics: If I Could Influence Man , You Put Something New In My Life and Man
From: Optimistics [All Platinum, 197?]

So, first off thanks to Jazzsucka who kindly shared a copy of this out of print album over on the ‘Strut.

I don’t know an awful lot about this group beyond the basic facts: They were from Baltimore, they were formed by Billy Butler in the late sixties, and, most importantly, they were produced by George Kerr – the man behind the more well known Whatnauts sound.

Taking the above into account, it’s no surprise that the album sounds fantastic, with a mixture of strings, beautiful falsetto vocals and funky percussion throughout the LP.

There were a number of tracks I was dithering about posting from this but in the end I’ve gone for If I Could Influence Man, with it’s hypnotic guitar lick and Temptations style funk, and You Put Something New In My Life with it’s gorgeous blend of sweet harmonies and absolutely stellar production.

As an apology for the break in posting and as the album doesn’t seem to be looking to be reissued anytime soon I also couldn’t resist including the funk track Man which is just waaaaaaay too good to be ignored. The kind of track that comes roaring out the gate, it’s full of blistering energy with heavy percussion and wild falsetto vocals. This is dynamite stuff my friends.

Enjoy and maybe one day they’ll actually reissue it for us all to get our hands on a copy…….

Frederick Knight: I’ve Been Lonely For So Long and Take Me On Home Witcha
From: I’ve Been Lonely For So Long [Stax, 1973]

So posting has been slow again but at least I have a genuine excuse in that we’re currently in the early stages of moving to a new home. However, the lack of spare digging time has allowed me to go through music that I hadn’t explored to it’s fullest. One of the first i picked up was Frederick Knight’s I’ve Been Lonely For So Long.

Now, hand on my heart, I actually thought I’d posted this about a year ago so it came as a shock to find I’d never actually highlighted how great this album is.

While never a major star, Frederick did enjoy success with the title cut from this, his first album on Stax. A lovely lilting soulful breeze of a tune, it highlights the light touch that Knight brought to his music, the guitar hook carrying the tune with Knight’s voice which is full of real emotion that shines through.

Take Me On Home Witcha starts in an almost modern soul vibe before unleashing a great great feel good hook that seems to stay rolling round my head for days after I play it. Funky enough to dance to while soulful enough to play while mellowing, I adore this song.

Lovely soul music that deserves far more recognition than it has received. Don’t Sleep.

Fables of Faubus – Charles Mingus
from the album Mingus Ah Um on Columbia (1959).

Original Faubus Fables – Charles Mingus
from the album Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus on Candid (1960).

Many thanks to Junior, floodwatch, b, and the gang for holding down the site so well while I’ve been swamped over the last month. Lots of posts have formulated in my mind and soon they’ll be beaming out toward you via fiber optic.

April 22nd of this year marked the 85th anniversary of the birth of my favorite composer of all time: the late Charles Mingus. 2007 also marks the 50th anniversary of the civil rights milestone of the integration of Little Rock Central High School by the “Little Rock 9.” That cat being interviewed in the image above is Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus, who became rightfully infamous by using the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the integration of LRCHS after the Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education Supreme Court decision that segregated schooling was unconstitutional. In response President Eisenhower sent the US Army to enforce integration and quell a crowd that can without hesitation be said to have been building towards lynching the black students. Imagine tanks and a riotous mob on your high school’s lawn in any circumstance and you see the surreal aspect of this moment. And the topic of all the calamity was the forced subjugation/separation of some members of society. It is an incredibly ugly incident in US history. This seems largely unreal to me, but this happened only 50 years ago. My father was 10 and most of our family lived in Arkansas at the time. Lots more can be read here and summarized at wikipedia

And now I’ll come back to Mingus. Never at a loss for opinion especially on racial issues, the “Angry Man of Jazz” recorded a song remembering the Little Rock 9 and denouncing Governor Faubus. The song “Fables of Faubus” appears on perhaps Mingus’s most acclaimed album Mingus Ah Um, one of his 3 big-ticket Columbia releases. However, the Columbia executives demanded the vocals stripped from release. The tune itself is has a largely jaunty, swinging air that belies the serious nature of the material. Or perhaps Mingus felt the situation so absurd as to transcend “serious” or “sober” comment. Regardless the brass heavy octet moves in and out of free expression with great skill always returning in lock step to the theme. As always, Mingus and his right hand man drummer Dannie Richmond are in impeccable unison as the many horns get their turn (I particularly like Shafi Hadi’s sax and Jimmy Knepper’s trombone) and Horace Parlan plays some excellent atonal piano shifts.

For comparison, a year later on Candid’s Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus, the vocal version did come out. In Mingus’s quartet of choice at the time (Curson on trumpet, Eric Dolphy on sax/clarinet, with Richmond and Mingus) Richmond and Mingus speak-sing the vocals originally meant to go with the song. Despite the smaller group, the sound is still very full and Richmond shines even more. The jaunty tone of the music makes much more sense with the mocking and sardonic words. I vastly prefer the vocal version (hardly ever true for me), but this is beautiful and inventive stuff either way.

Happy Birthday, Mingus. Everyone be kind.