Steven Bernstein – Diaspora Suite (Tzadik, 2008)
The vast gulf between what Sex Mob and Radical Jewish Culture sound like when spoken as phrases don’t really reflect the music. While Bernstein led Sex Mob, and they were quite gritty, the hard bop and free jazz influences were apparent.
The label, Tzadik, working with Bernstein, has created a trio of recordings that collect various Semitic scales, melodies and general Jew ephemera while combining each with a junky jazz feel that more easily recalls coffee shops than schul.
It’s hard to gauge the interests gentiles may have in this series. The line-up here does include guitarist Nels Cline, which should draw a few uninitiated listeners. Despite this recording’s obvious market, the entirety of the affair is well structured and played.
Every track is seemingly (I’ve been remiss in studying the Torah lately) named for the disparate Tribes of Israel. And perhaps that’s the only distinction that these tracks need. “Yis May Chu” is present in a funk-rock manner and is probably the most recognizable melody on here to those who attend temple on Friday’s.
Beyond that though, these songs are structured in a fashion that increases the Semitic influence as each ensues. To begin the album, a guitar squeal flowers into the melody adding a ghostly texture to the traditional sounding progression and moving improvisational solos.
The improvisational aspect to this, and every Bernstein outing, pushes each track forward as the listener knowingly awaits whatever freedom the players can muster. That alone should be an incentive to listeners, but if not, just wait and Bernstein will probably be involved in another project not involving these particular religious or cultural aspects.
The Gladiators – The Studio One Singles (Heartbeat, 2007)
To comment upon this group in an unbiased manner is ostensibly impossible for me. To extricate the sounds that I hear – the harmonies, the rhythms – from a time that, in my mind, is linked to them, simply can’t be done.
Whatever period of one’s life gets replayed incessantly in the mind, if you’re a music devotee at least, there’s a theme song that goes along with the images. I know others have made this same heartfelt and exuberant connection. But that just points to the fact that this music possesses the power to hold a literal and emotional meaning.
The reason that these meanings are possible most likely stems from the intense belief that this trio, whose only consistent member was Albert Griffiths, had the ability to enrich a mass of people who felt marginalized. Touching upon secular and spiritual life, Griffiths worked to give voice to points of culture that he felt were either misunderstood, ignored or exploited.
Since this disc is made up of singles, as the title clearly states, a quarter of the tracks represented here are versions, or dubs. Being arranged in such a fashion as to have each dub accompany the vocal track serves to exemplify a showcase style that Wackies exhibited, in contrast to a relatively recent reissue of the Mighty Diamonds’ Deeper Roots, which separates the versions.
Every vocal and every dub – save for “Don’t Fool the Young Girls” and its version – is rootsy and free from blemishes. The one exception wouldn’t be as blatant a departure from quality if it sat along side other artists or lesser tracks. Basically a weak Gladiator’s workout still surpasses a great deal of other Jamaican music.
If the listener is familiar with either the group’s first studio effort, Trenchtown Mix-Up or their Live at Sunsplash - split with Israel Vibration – these offerings occasionally sound a bit slower than the later recordings. It’s not a re-tread; it’s just a re-arranging of classics that might not have been heard in any other way.
Tracklisting:
01 – Fling It Gimme
02 – Sonia
03 – Solas
04 – Dub Ina Babylon
05 – Version Ina Babylon
06 – A Prayer To Thee
07 – Version Of Prayer
08 – Boy In Long Pants
09 – Part Two
10 – Bongo Red
11 – Bongo Version
12 – Beautiful Locks
13 – Sufferation Version
14 – Roots Natty
15 – Rearrange
16 – Mister Baldwin
17 – M. Baldwin Part. 2
18 – Big Boo Boo Day
19 – Version
20 – Pretending
21 – Don’t Fool The Young Girls
22 – Version
23 – Happy Man