#18: And When It's Time For Leaving
Goodbye Dickey Betts, Legendary Free Jazz Label Black Saint Hits Bandcamp
Hey folks. Happy Friday (or whatever day it happens to be). I hope all is well with you.
Just checking in with fresh radio jams, some killer live videos, a farewell to brother Dickey Betts and a legendary free jazz label opening up shop on Bandcamp.
I had a catastrophe in my secondary system with the left channel of my beloved Adcom GFA-545II amplifier going silent. Thanks to the goodhearted nerds in the Adcom Enthusiasts group on Facebook, I was able to determine it was just a blown fuse on the rail and we’re back up and running with its affordable solid state goodness.
I also want to mention how awesome it is to have supporters reaching out for advice for their home stereo systems. I love talking gear and hearing about your systems, so please never hesitate to reach out if you’re a paid sub. On that note, I’ve topped off the Tidal playlists that we unveiled last week for supporters. If you missed those, DM me and I’ll hook you up with the linkage.
We heard some great new music on this week’s Trailhead. Leading off was a jam off the new collaborative EP between the artist Olma and ambient lap and pedal steel player Michael Grigoni, who caught my ear via the sublime beauty of Mount Carmel, his debut LP on 12K from 2019. We then heard a stunner from the always awesome Inner Islands label in the form of a piece off Willow Skye-Biggs’ forthcoming Dreams In Suspension, a new piece from Hudson Valley artist Early Fern with the bubbling and Terry Riley-esque ;Caterpillar’ off their Aural Canyon debut Memory Garden, something from Brian Lucas of Dire Wolves’ Old Million Eye project on Feeding Tube and we topped the first hour off with some third eye opening Environments from MV & EE’s Zebulon Residency in 2012.
Set two saw more jazz action, starting with a classic from Horace Tapscott & the Pan African Peoples Arkestra before hitting the very first ECM release (Mal Waldron Trio’s Free At Last), an unassuming killer from Lee Konitz on Milestone and a tour de force from Bill Evans with Eddie Gomez and Tony Oxley from a special live release on Enja.
Listen to the show here and view the tracklist below.
1. Olma & Michael Grigoni - Mesic - Tusk I (Nettwerk, 2024)
2. Willow Skye-Biggs - Suspension 2 - Dreams in Suspension (Inner Islands, 2024)
3. Early Fern - Caterpillar - Memory Garden (Aural Canyon, 2024)
4. Reign of Ferns - Gita - Mirrored Hope (Aural Canyon, 2024)
5. Old Million Eye - Fronds - Quartz Hive (Feeding Tube, 2024)
6. MV & EE - Environments - Zebulon Residency (C.O.M., 2012)
7. Horace Tapscott with the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra - Desert Fairy Princess - Live at IUCC (Nimbus West, 1979)
8. Makaya Ntshoko / Heinz Sauer / Bob Degen / Isla Eckinger - Suspension - Makaya & the Tsotsis (Enja, 1974)
9. Lee Konitz - Satori - Satori (Milestone, 1975)
10. Mal Waldron Trio - Rock My Soul - Free At Last (ECM, 1970)
11. Bill Evans / Eddie Gomez / Tony Oxley - Nardis - Live at the Festival (Enja, 1973)
We continue to lose artists from my parents’ generation and it’s not getting any easier to handle. This week we say goodbye to Forrest Richard Betts aka Dickey Betts. The Allman Brothers Band co-founder has rambled off at the age of 80.
Hardly a life cut short it’s nonetheless a gut punch loss as his fluid guitar playing and jazz doused songwriting loom extremely large in my musical love life. Betts’ was a talent I felt was always unfairly shadowed by the premature exit of his dueling partner Duane Allman and later day inter-band squabbles and harsh exits. There are those who cast the Allmans as a southern rock band and a more misleading label has never been applied. They were a band that, at their best, traveled swampy roots and pools of blues with a jazzy stride and made something completely unique and exciting.
And a lot of that was due to Dickey.
“In Memory of Elizabeth Reed”, “Les Brers In A Minor”, “Jessica”, “High Falls”—these are great pieces of American art, not Budweiser swill songs. Betts wrote with a complexity and a lightness of touch that no other denizen of denimland could dream of.
I urge you to head out on the next sunny spring day you get where you are and play Jessica as loud as fucking possible and try to love everyone and everything this life sends you for at least a few minutes.
Thanks to Seattle-based music writer Dave Segal for the tip that legendary Italian free jazz label Black Saint is now on Bandcamp.
There are only about 30 titles up there now and, unfortunately, they aren’t streamable but it is nice to have a chance to legally buy some lossless free music from the likes of Billy Harper, Jimmy Lyons, Andrew Cyrille, Muhal Richard Abrahams, Julius Hemphill and tons of others.
For starters, I’d recommend checking out Enrico Rava’s Il Giro Del Giorno In 80 Mondi, David Murray’s Interboogieology, Karl Berger, Dave Holland and Ed Blackwell’s Transit, and Julius Hemphill’s Raw Materials and Residuals.
Maybe if we buy a lot, the label owners will put more stuff up. Looks like they’re selling some deadstock vinyl as well but it’s gonna be pricey for us here in the USA.
Sometimes the algorithm isn’t completely evil as evidenced by this recent serving up of this incredible live document of Joe Henderson with Kenny Drew (piano), Albert “Tootie” Heath (drums) and Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen (bass). Recorded at the Molde Jazz Festival in Norway in 1968, the performance is, I think, the only one ever by this quartet. We only get two tunes—the standard Chelsea Bridge and Henderson’s Isotope—but they are so gorgeously rendered and inhabited that we must be appreciative of something over nothing.
Finally, via Jay Babcock, we have a ripping performance from my absolute favorite Italian prog rock band Premiata Forneria Marconi. Recorded in 1975 for the late night American music TV show The Midnight Special, the performance is incendiary to say the least. The band tears up “Alta Loma Five Till Nine”—a jam that only appeared on their 1974 album Live In U.S.A. This is not the delicate, folky and intricate PFM from earlier in the decade but it’s still great. Apparently these guys were very well received in states around this time and yet they barely register with younger heads now. If you’re uninitiated, check out their made-for-English-speakers album Photos of Ghosts as fast as you can.
I would argue that great American art can also be for Budweiser swilling! Once again, thanks for the column and for all you do.