Summer of Soul: Thawin' Out

Can you believe it?  Another winter come and gone.  Spring had its moments, but too often served a somber post-script to winter.  Truth is it was a hard one.  After a deep freeze receded, pot-holes in cities and towns all over the country proved a testament to our failing infrastructure.   What does this have to do with soul music?  Think of Summer of Soul as warm sunshine for your heart.  Yes the snow melts at 0 degrees Centigrade, but what of the ice in your soul?  Meteorologic summer is merely related to the position of our northern hemisphere with respect to the sun, but if you experience summer fully it is also a state of mind.  Most of us have had jobs in the summer since high-school, it is no longer the time of running free among the grass meadows or playing some b-ball outside of school.  Despite this when one is sitting outside, cool drink in hand, the right tune on the radio can elevate the moment and encourage us to bask in the moment.  Of course for the full experience add a few friends to the mix.

Music is meant to be shared.  Our societies have systems like scales specifically to clarify and ease the transference of musical messages.  Thusly you should consider this my easing the transfer of bitchin' music to all your homestead social activities.  Dinner? Party? Game night? Just stopping by? Sure, why not put on Summer of Soul?

You may notice I moved away from the keg model for my playlist, preferring this six pack of hard hitting funk.  The theme of the music is Thawin' Out.  This refers to the progression of the music and its uplifting themes throughout.  The music progresses roughly from old to new but also the timbre changes from rougher old live recordings to polished modern digital music.  It opens with an inviting Odetta number and transitions into a familiar surprise.  Later  a little Dianna Ross gives you a clear idea of the uplifting Thawin' Out feeling that typifies this mix.  Heavy on the guitars, steady but dripping in syncopation, soaring lyrics laden with warmth.   Later on we encounter musicians like Disclosure and  Thundercat blurring the lines of live and electronic sounds.  Because all good things must end, this one does it with some gospel and a delightful retro number both tunes made exclusively of a little sunshine and a little soul.

NOTE: A friendly reminder to use the adblocker extension for the best streaming.

 

Summer of Soul 5: Keg of Soul

After an ill advised hiatus SOS is back. This time in bulk form. 3 hours of pure hard hitting non-stop funk. No politics, no bullshit, just good tunes to jam on. This was originally made for a house party but many hours of effort later I realized that it was worthy of Summer of Soul. Likewise you, dear reader, are deserving of a Summer of Soul as well. I hope it has been a summer of soul for you (in addition to a summer of love, happiness, and progress), as it has for me. My many apologies for the delay. So without further ado, I give you... A Keg of Soul.... Check it out on my spotify page.

Coming Soon... The Summer of Soul Pt. 4: The Funky Freerange Chicken

During preparations for my favorite time of year I realized that I never actually posted last year's Summer of Soul mix(unofficially titled "The Long Form Funk Certificate"). It was a very special one for me. It was SOS' first all vinyl mix, comprised of mostly 45s I had dug up around just the year before. Resurrected from old boxes and suitcases I think of each track as being given new life, seeing the day the humble vinyl would never come: Not just being cherished once again, but being picked up by some white hipster and digitally streamed around the globe. In retrospect it seems quite unlikely at the time of their production. Disclaimer: There is some surface noise, especially in the first track. This was intentional at the time (I am thinking of the first track here Gypsy Woman by The Impressions), I though it provided a invitation to relish in nostalgia (isn't that what summer is partly about, remembering the summer freedom of our grade school days?). Also I don't have the big bills to drop on pristine vinyl, which is increasingly hard to find as serious collectors have grabbed up a large portion of it by now. Some of the records used were reissues, which I have noted below for the sake of transparency. Anyway I hope you enjoy it like I do! There is more on the way!!



Tracklist:
Gypsy Woman - The Impressions (1961, ABC Paramount)

Key to My Happiness - The Moments (1971, Stang Records)

Whispers (Getting Louder) - Jackie Wilson (1966, Brunswick)

We Did It - Syl Johnson (1972, Hi Records)

I've Come to Save You - 100 Proof Aged in Soul (1969, Hot Wax)

More Than I Can Stand - Bobby Womack (1970, Minit)

La La For You - Al Green (1972, Hi Records)

Light My Fire - The Soul Merchants (19??, Weis)

O Pica Pau - Erasmos Carlos (1974, RGE)

The Mule - James Boys (1968, Phil L.A. of Soul)

There it is Pt. 1 - James Brown (1972, Polydor)

Unwanted Love - The Montclaires (1973, Paula Records)

Montego Bay - Bar Kays (1970, Volt)

Money Won't Save You - Boscoe (2007 Reissue, Numero Group)

Blowing in the Wind - Walter Jackson (1965, Okeh)

Let the Children Play - Unknown (2010 Reissue, Numero Group)

Shout - Trammps (1974, Golden Fleece)

Jiro Dreams of Sushi: In Chicago April 6th

Since many of you have forgotten that this blog exists (myself included), I am also assuming that you forgot it was about food, in addition to music.  Well here is some food to remind you.  On the menu today: Sushi, stoic old people, and stoic old people who are really good at making sushi.  I am talking of course about the recently released documentary on the world foremost sushi master and 3 star Michelin chef Sukiyabashi Jiro.  Buzz about this movie has been fomenting since its premier at some big festival I don't particularly care to be accurate about mentioning.  But the reviews are great, so great that every time I even see a headline referring to this movie, I get hungry.  Premiering in Chicago April 6th.  More info at Sushimovie.com

At Long Last: The Kon Edits

"A world pre-premier..., A world-world-world premier-premier-premier" - Anonymous

This guy... This fucking guy... He gets the master tapes for these pristine, timeless, near perfect songs, and then somehow someway makes them different, more modern, dare I say... better? Thats what Giles Peterson dared to insinuate when he first dropped this new batch of edits from Boston DJ and crate digger Kon on his acclaimed show BBC Radio 1 over a year ago.  I forget whether he was referring to Kon's rework of Chic's "Good Times" or Cerrone's classic disco tune "Hooked On You", or maybe it was George Benson's "Give Me the Night" I don't remember they were all that amazing.
Since then the tracks remained unreleased. Only a few choice DJ's around the world have been given full copies of the songs.  But now, they are slowly starting to trickle out. There have been a few to come out so far (Staying Alive, Sunlight, and maybe one more I'm forgetting about).  The latest is released tomorrow. It is an edit of Sylvester's "Mighty Real" and the Light Touch Band's "Chicago", and its Hot.  With a capital "H".  Just check out this tight music video...

P.S. Also look for collaborations of his w/ Boston based the Whiskey Barrons, under the guise of Nite Time

Required Reading:




References:

Rich Medina and Tatyana Fazlalizadeh's Get Angry

The Kiss, oil on canvas, 2011

To support and articulate the extrodinary political struggles of common peoples across the world, painter Tatyana Fazlalizadeh has teamed up with East Coast man selektah Rich Medina for a new project.  The product is "Get Angry" which is a zip file of a special politically themed mix from Medina along with pdfs of Fazlalizadeh's paintings. More information can be found at Fazlalizadeh's blog


Tracklist:

Public Enemy - Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos
Syl Johnson - Concrete Reservation
Bilal - Robots
Mos Def - War
Dorothy Ashby - Soul Vibrations
Gil Scott Heron - The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Syl Johnson - Is It Because I'm Black?
El Michels Affair - Heaven & Hell
Common - The Corner
BDP - 30 Cops Or More
Fred Wesley & The JBs - Damn Right I'm Somebody
J Dilla - Fuck The Police
Marijata - No Condition Is Permanent
Aquil - For The People
Gang Starr - Words Manifest
Charlie Dark & Roger Robinson - Prayer For Angry Young Men
Miguel Atwood Ferguson - Stakes Is High featuring Posdnous & Talib Kweli

Daryl Hall and Sharon Jones: ... What elses is there to say???

This video is ridiculous.  I'm on a roll... I think its because I am not writing much under the guise of  "the music speaks for itself".
Live From Daryl's House ep. 34: Sharon Jones

ATTENTION: Daryl Hall feat. Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings is coming to Chicago!  Tickets on sale tomorrow!!

Sounding Out, Once Again: Quantic and Alice Russell

So I thought I left this blog behind me.  Its been well since a year from when I last posted. But, fortunately, there are so many exciting things going on with music and food, I would can't fight the urge to share.  This one comes from one of my favorite musicians working in the biz today: UK born, Columbian transplant, Quantic aka Will Holland.  This multi-instrumentalist, composer, DJ, and producer extraordinaire chooses his collaborations wisely.  He has worked with singer Alice Russell for many years. Russlle has a voice as penatrating as Adelle and as soulful as Amy Winehouse, whose pairing elevates Hollands talents in the club and in the studio. With their first full album collaboration due out this spring, backed by Quantic's Como Barbaro, this record is on the top of my 2012 anticipation list. 

Charlie's Feburary Ambient Roundup

What is Ambient Music? (Ambient Music will henceforth be referred to as AS, for Ambient Sound) Is it music without a beat? Is it just a really long song without any words? I do not plan on answering any of these questions.

I had plans today. I was going to record my Helen Keller album—an aural interpretation of Helen Keller’s thoughts—but my producer bailed on me. I’m not mad or anything, usually these projects don’t get far off the ground unless someone’s throwing some money at someone else, and I haven’t thrown a penny.

So instead of contributing sound to the canon of AS I’ll contribute to it with a written blast of hot air.

(Speaking of which, while I was doing some rough prelims for this article I came across a pretty terrible Pitchfork review. http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/190-here-comes-the-indian/ Were I a responsible editor I’d rewrite the entire article thusly: Good album sober. Great album tripping. Excuse me; I am going to go buy some drugs with all the money I just saved from firing a writer.)

Usually I put on some AS when I try to be productive, when I decide to use my free time wisely. When I am hurried and chasing after a fast moving deadline the application of AS is usually an afterthought. I put this kind of music on like a bathrobe. I drink from the sacred chalice to get drunk.

In my studies of Chinese philosophy I’ve become infected with a pretty nasty case of chronic doublespeak. I say something is good, and then I say that something is bad. (I am willing to concede that the nuanced nature of 无，为，无为，and the less popular 无无为 probably went over my head, but for the sake of this article’s observation I’ll let my understanding stand.) So please consider the attached playlist when I say that AS is meant to be heard and not heard at all.

If one is engaged in writing or reading or sleeping or studying it is easy to forget the music is there. It fades away like a broken sentence in a short parag

Brian Eno is attached to the Ambient genre like someone’s hand onto someone else’s hand after a hand-graft. I think Eno is associated with AS in the same way Mozart is associated with classical music. In composing the playlist below it was really hard not to put in more than one Eno track. In composing this playlist I had a good time going over music that I consider AS that I had not considered AS before. I always regarded Zone and The Diamond Sea as pretty loud-volume tracks—something to be blasted out of a car or an empty house. I really tried to put some of Yo La Tengo’s longer hits into this list, but my YLT collection—or so I’ve just learned—is entirely M4A, which is cool, I like the boost in sound quality, but it is a bitch to get into playlist form. Instead of placing them into the list I’d like to suggest to the reader that The Story of Yo La Tango and The Glitter is Gone should be wedged in there somewhere if you have them already.

Sincerely,


Charles Harper

Newweatherorder.blogspot.com

Click here to download the playlist.

Tracklist

1) The Sinking of the Titanic --Gavin Bryars
2) Pastoral Symphony_ I. Dominoes II. Infinity Room --ARP
3) He Loved Him Madly --Miles Davis
4) The Colour of Three --Fennesz
5) Fullness of Wind (Variation on the 'Canon In D Major' By Johann Pachelbel) --Brian Eno
6) Wind Coda --Lou Reed
7) Bend Beyond --Woods
8) Two Sails on a Sound --Animal Collective
9) Zone --Lightning Bolt
10) The Diamond Sea --Sonic Youth

Sounding Out Loud: A resolution and winter tunes

Happy new year! Whoa that was slow, I thought that one was gonna take forever!! An oil spill, an annoying little internet gremlin airing our dirty laundry, North Korea actin' a fool, and the European financial system resting on the head of a pin this year was one for the books.  And as all this was going on I had the gall, no the nerve, I had the nerve to not update this blog regularly.  I know the only joy in your fickle hopeless days of endless labor, rests on the insight and aesthetic principles dependably dosed to you by yours truly.  Yes, the impact of SoundOutLoud on its vast readership in incalculable,  and being aware of the needs of my followers, I somehow did not think it kind to update you.  In addition to the infrequency of my posts I feel as though the quality has suffered as well. Single link Youtube videos and not a recipe in sight, the sincerity was seriously lacking. Is this what the dedicated followers of SoundOutLoud deserve?? I think not.

I have been cooking many interesting new dishes and picking up some great music from a few new spots. Between backyard barbecues (thought most certainly not in this weather) and a new cast iron skillet I have many adventures and tips to share with you. I no longer scour the blogs as much as I used to but I have been finding some vinyl gold in my new Chicago diggs. The Maxwell Street Market every Sunday has been quite prosperous. I've picked up some Teddy Pendergrass, Chic, James Brown, Kool and the Gang, Tyrone Davis, The Impressions, Smokey Robinson, Michael Jackson, and others. Chicago is a funky funky town indeed...

So be sharp and stay light on your feet young readers!  I hope that this third year of blogging will be just as good as the first and better than the second, maybe even better than the first two entirely. Who knows?I certainly don't, but I do have a feeling about it... Exciting things. So to cap off this apology and I guess what is now a resolution, I will leave you with a mix of winter jazz.  Some cool music to fit the wintery scene and provide a relaxing backdrop for nights quietly reading at the homestead, for fear of some horrible blizzard outside. Jazz fits the scene so well. The dark windy nights, that tumbler of whisky sitting next to your computer, and that copy of War and Peace that has been taking you FOREVER to read.  So enjoy. If you are inside you might as well surround yourself with great music.


Cheers, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year, Peace, and Goodwill Towards Men/Women, Etc..

SoundOutLoud

Click Here -->Winter 'o Jazz Mix 2010-2011

Tracklist:

01-Black Narcissus    4:52    Joe Henderson    Power to the People 
02-07.Black Beauty    3:25    Ahmad Jamal    The Legendary Okeh & Epic Sessions
03-Smoke Gets in Your Eyes    5:01    Bobby Broom    Bobby Broom Plays for Monk  
04-Negro    2:35    Geraldo Vespar    Samba Nova Geracao   
05-06 If I Should Lose You    5:13    Hank Mobley    Soul Station
06-C.T.A.    5:07    Lee Morgan    Candy
07-02 Love for Sale    7:05    Cannonball Adderly    Somthin' Else
08-Deception    2:48    Miles Davis    Birth Of The Cool
09-Dance Cadaverous    6:46    Wayne Shorter    Speak no Evil
10-Star Dust    10:16    Donald Byrd And Pepper Adams    Motor City Scene
11-Mack The Knife (German - Lotte Lenya)    3:07    Weill, Kurt    Three Penny Opera

Watermelon Seed: A Poem

Here is a poem about a watermelon seed I found on the ground of my brother's room.  I thought the find was quite evocative, but I wasn't sure of what, so I made a poem to help me figure out.

Enjoy!
SoundOutLoud

Watermelon Seed

I found you, lying,
on the floor, spit and forgotten,
from some sweet moment, gone and forgotten

I could put you in the soil,
but I know I never will.
Watch you grow, lush and ripe
entangled vines brushed with dirt,
basking in sun.

Summer of Soul... Spotted!!: Baden Powell or Tony Clifton?

I love Baden Powell, but the similarity is a little uncanny.



?

Summer of Soul: Socialist Healthcare Jammin'

So here it is.  Finally.  The moment  that I've deluded myself into thinking you've all been waiting for, my official Summer of Soul mix, coyly declaring this third funky summer as the summer of "Socialist Healthcare Jammin'".  The title implicates some of the political aspects of the mix, but more so I think it really just captures the feeling of this past year-- the fear, the tragedies, the neuroses, and the challenges that beg for some uplifting jams as well as compassion.  Much of it gleaned from the Blog-o-Sphere, Summer of Soul may be steeped in nostalgia (for summers past and such) but this and the S.O.S. Electric Boogaloo mix are both a product of the present.  Present tastes in soul music are themselves current interpretations of the past, and in their collection and presentation I have always tried to capture the feeling of the year for me as well as the world at large.  This mix is dedicated to all the wonderful friends in New York I have had in the past four years, and will be leaving shortly.  A reminder of the time we shared, and the strange history that has framed that time.  That being said I will leave you with a poem by Wallace Stevens.... cause I've been jamming on  that of late too.

Jasmine's Beautiful Thoughts Underneath The Willow -Wallace Stevens

My titillations have no foot-notes

And their memorials are the phrases

Of idiosyncratic music.

The love that will not be transported

In an old, frizzled, flambeaud manner,

But muses on its eccentricity,

Is like a vivid apprehension

Of bliss beyond the mutes of plaster,

Or paper souvenirs of rapture,

Of bliss submerged beneath appearance,

In an interior ocean's rocking

Of long, capricious fugues and chorals

FOR THE GOODS, CLICK HERE!!!

01-Intimate Friends    5:48    Eddie Kendricks

02-Earthquake Shake    3:04    Undisputed Truth    Comic Truth

03-Back in the U.S.S.R.    2:56    Ramsey Lewis    Mojo Club - Dancefloor Jazz Vol 08

04-Could it be I'm Falling in Love    4:10    The Spinners    Smash Hits

05-Good Old Music    3:17    The Parliaments

06-California Soul    3:01    Marlena Shaw    The Spice of Life

07-beggin' (pilooski edit)    5:34    Franki Valli and the Four Seasons

08-Plenty Action    2:52    SOFT TOUCH    Bay Area Funk

09-Lady Day and John Coltrane    3:31    Gil Scott Heron    Mastercuts Bar Social: The Early Hours  10-Tightrope (Feat. Big Boi)    4:23    Janelle Monáe    The ArchAndroid

11-Who is He? (And What is He to You)    3:10    Bill Withers

12-Mercy Mercy Me    3:16    Marvin Gaye    What's Going On

13-I'm Controlled by Your Love    3:07    Helene Smith    Eccentric Soul: The Deep City Label          14-Call Me    3:05    Al Green    Call Me

15-That's the Way it is    2:26    Eddie Bo    Eddie Bo's Funky Funky New Orleans

16-Donde    3:27    Bronx River Parkway    An Introduction to Truth & Soul Records

17-Up Against Tha Wall (Getaway Car Mix)    4:34    Group Home    Livin' Proof    

18-What You Won't Do For Love    3:25    Bobby Caldwell 

19-Come in Out of the Rain    2:45    Parliament    Osmium

Summer of Soul: Some Like it Hot, Others think it's too Hot.

I think its too damn hot...

Reflection Eternal: Black Gold

This is the first video off of the new Reflection Eternal album Revolutions Per Minute.  This is Talib Kweli and DJ Hi-Teks first venture since their eminent 2000 album Train of Thought.   This video is a timely release done by director Sam Ellison.  I really like the way it is done, mixing stock footage with images of everyday people draped in oil.   I think the message the video has is especially important now with the current BP fiasco.  The visuals only serve to bring the post home.  I love the shots of the shots of the smoking drum, a speaker spewing oil, Mobutu, the stock exchange; just great.  Black Gold is one of my favorite off of the album and I am really happy to see the video done so well.  Great job Sam!


p.s. If you pause it at 4:17 at just the right moment you get a surprise on the right side of the screen ;-)...


Reflection Eternal "Ballad of the Black Gold" from Sam Ellison on Vimeo.