Claire Austin – I’ll Never Be The Same
Claire Austin – My Melancholy Baby
Claire Austin – This House Is Haunted
Claire Austin – Can’t We Talk It Over

As I think I’ve mentioned previously, over the past year I’ve been buying many more vocal albums than normal, seemingly one of the many strange unintended consequences of my separation and soon to be finalized divorce. More so than just getting vocal albums I haven’t owned, I’ve been tracking down vocalists I hadn’t heard before. I found this album on the same trip to Groove Merchant that netted the Ensemble Al-Salaam album. The cover design was absolutely a drawing point, the stark photo, the strange greenish hue to the black and white image, the pensive woman, clearly melancholy and slightly out of focus. But what was most intriguing was the fact that there was no artist information on the cover, a very rare thin indeed. Only “When Your Lover Has Gone.” Without hearing the music or knowing who the artist was, I would have likely bought the album, solely on the strength of that cover, which is one of the most distinctively beautiful ones I’ve ever seen.

Quick flip over, identified the artist as “Clair Austin sings ‘When Your Lover Has Gone’ & other songs of unrequited love, with Bob Scobey, trumpet, Barney Kessel, guitar, Stan Wrightsman, piano, Morty Cobb, bass, Shelly Manne, drums.” I’d certainly heard of Kessel and Manne, Scobey’s name rang a slight bell, but Clair Austin was someone I hadn’t heard of. Part of the reason for that is that she really didn’t record much or for very long. Austin began singing some time in the 1930s, but WWII meant that she was separated from her drummer husband, Chuck Austin, while he was fighting. After the war, the Austin’s became accountants and settled into suburban life in Sacramento. But, at some point in the late 1940s, Austin began singing again and landed a recording gig with Kid Ory, and this one with Bob Scobey, before largely fading away again into obscurity.

Austin has a really distinctive and slightly unsettling style of singing. There’s something about her voice that sounds both wrong and right. Though I’ve seen writers compare her to Peggy Lee, I don’t hear that at all. Her phrasing is straight out of the 20s or 30s, as a strange mix of Bessie Smith & Billie Holiday with just the slightest of Swedish accents. I’m not sure if Scobey chose these songs or Austin chose them, but it’s an interesting mix, and another drawing point for me, since the majority of them are ones that I’d never heard or rarely see on other vocalists albums from this period of time. My copy of the album isn’t pristine, so my favorite songs, “This House Is Haunted,” and “My Melancholy Baby” have some assertive pops and clicks, but I share them nonetheless solely because of how lovely they are.

Cheers,

Michael

Ensemble Al-Salaam – Peace
Ensemble Al-Salaam – Optimystical
Ensemble Al Salaam – Circles
Ensemble Al-Salaam – Music Is Nothing But A Prayer

I always like to start the new year with a bang, and this is one I’ve been holding on to for just this moment for a couple of months. Back in April I made the pilgrimage to the Mecca of record stores, Groove Merchant, with the mindset that I was only going to trade records, of which I had quite a few. Cool Chris wasn’t there, but B-Cause (who released the essential Soul Boulders series with the one and only, Matthew Africa) was and he was able to get a hold of Chris on the other side of the country at the WFMU Record Swap. While there were maybe 7 or 8 records that I’d had my mind on, this album, one I’d never seen before, was by far the one that I simply had to have. The trade knocked off $100 from the price, but it still cost me a pretty penny, though as you can tell from the sounds, it’s absolutely worth it.

The Ensemble Al-Salaam was a spiritual jazz septet from the New York area. From the pictures on the back of the album, they all look to be very young, likely no one above 21. The music on this album is so exceptional, so singular, that even though it very easily fits into the “spiritual jazz” genre, it still defies a bit of explanation. Records like this are what I like to call, “Just Listen Records.” You tell someone that you’ve heard something amazing, and they ask, “what does it sound like?” or “what makes it so special?” and the only answer of consequence is “just listen.” This is not a record you play for just anybody, but one that you protect. Not in a snobbish way, but in the way that you protect a friend that is so sensitive and sincere that you know everybody won’t appreciate them or “get them” the way you do. Interestingly, the band themselves seem to be aware of the special vibe created by their sounds, as they discuss on the back cover:

Someone may ask you, or you may ask yourself, “What type of music is this?” Well, it is music played by the Ensemble Al-Salaam. Therefore it is salaam (peace) music. Peaceful, but not weak, firey and yet non-violent. The music is greater than the sum of our collective beings. But then there are the Kafir (non-believers) who will hate this music, those who will lie about it, try to steal it or even deny it’s existence, those who will try to define and label it, thereby limiting its ability to soar, to fly above the minds clouded by pseudo intellectual reference marks. The music will survive all of this because it is truthful. It is dynamic. In fact, our music is God’s purest breath of life – expressed each time we touch the wood and metal of our musical instruments.

As someone who spends an awful lot of time talking about music, describing, categorizing it, I really can’t improve on what the band has to say about their own music. It is a powerful experience hearing these songs, whether you have before, or this is your first listen. Records like this are why I started this blog, why I continue to share music through it and why I continue to keep searching for connections between newer and older sounds. The beauty of “Peace,” “Optimystical,” “Circles” and “Music Is Nothin But A Prayer” is hard to describe fully…just listen.

Peace,

Michael

The Main Attraction – Everyday
The Main Attraction – If I’m Wrong
The Main Attraction – Jonathan

Not sure why I haven’t posted this, I’ve had this record for three or four years and thought I would have by now. The Main Attraction might not have even drawn my attention if not for the all-world sample of their song “Everyday” by the Avalanches on their track “Since I Left You” (which as you can tell, reimagines a love song as a kiss off song). Their sound is very much the norm for this bubblegum pop period of time and aside from the three songs above, there’s nothing much to write home about. But there are moments, in “If I’m Wrong” and “Jonathan” that seem to show that there might have been something special here if the band had been able to branch out a bit more. Hell, I might have liked even a regular cliched kind of 60s “Baby Don’t Leave” kind of lyric instead of “Jonathan” since the arrangement is one that would have made all three Walker Brothers smile. But “Everyday” is brilliant and beautiful and since you probably can find this record for $2 or less, well worth the price of admission on it’s own.

Cheers,

Michael

Nina Simone – The Backlash Blues
Nina Simone – Do I Move You?
Nina Simone – Blues For Mama

Though I’ve had a hiatus here and there, this is the first Sunday since 2010, that I don’t have my show on Sunday. Melting Pot has moved to Fridays from 8-10pm and it definitely feels a bit weird, somewhat like the discombobulation that occurs at the beginning of daylight savings time for us in the US. I’ll work it out, and probably end up posting Friday’s shows on Sundays, so it’s almost like it’s still on Sundays. Today thought, during the time I used to be doing my show, I’ll be watching the new documentary on Nina Simone, Liz Garbus’ “What Happened, Miss Simone?” 2015 has been a pretty great year for documentaries, but this one in particular I’ve been waiting for. I’ve been a fan most of my adult life of Miss Simone. When Simone passed away, I was lucky enough to host a tribute show with Oliver Wang on KALX to celebrate her music and life. Hell, even my dog is named Nina, after Simone. Strangely though, until fairly recently, I had a lot of music from Nina Simone, but not actually a lot of records from her.

That all changed when I saw a beautifully rendered dance routine to “Do I Move You?” My admiration for the dancer and her dance was one thing, but part of the effect it all had on me is that it was like I was hearing this song for the first time. The album that “Do I Move You?” is from is one of her biggest. Released in 1967, it was her first album for RCA, and contains several of her signature songs, including House Of The Rising Son, Put A Little Sugar In My Bowl and Backlash Blues. All of those songs I knew well and had digital copies, but for whatever reason, I’d just never bothered to get this record. When I was blown away by that dancer and that song, I knew I had to rectify that situation immediately. The experience caused me to redefine a number of things and led to a couple of months of tracking down classic albums that should be in my collection because of how much I treasure the music, but like this album were not in my possession.

Over the past year, as we’ve seen greater civil unrest, related to police brutality and racism, the music of Simone has remained as relevant as when it was originally recorded in the 1960s. With the week we just had here in the US, I feel it’s a particularly apt time to reflect not just on Simone, but especially her song, “Backlash Blues.” Written by the legendary poet Langston Hughes, “Backlash” takes a very different tact as a protest song. There’s a defiance here, that’s not always present in songs like this, and something that of course really comes through in the performance of Simone:

Mr. Backlash, Mr. Backlash
Just who do think I am
You raise my taxes, freeze my wages
And send my son to Vietnam

You give me second class houses
And second class schools
Do you think that all colored folks
Are just second class fools

Mr. Backlash
I’m gonna leave you with the backlash blues

When I try to find a job
To earn a little cash
All you got to offer
Is your mean old white backlash

But the world is big
Big and bright and round
And it’s full of folks like me
Who are black, yellow, beige and brown

Mr. Backlash
I’m gonna leave you with the backlash blues

Mr. Backlash, Mr. Backlash
Just what do you think I got to lose
I’m gonna leave you
With the backlash blues

You’re the one will have the blues, not me
Just wait and see

When you look at the amazing changes that have happened in the last week, the stunning quickness with which Southern states have begun the process of removing the Confederate battle flag from public grounds after the Charleston Church Murders and the Supreme Court’s decision that legalizes gay marriage throughout the country, it can feel like Nina & Hughes song has prophetically come true. But it should also be a reminder, that in moments of change, which was very true of the turbulent 1960s as it is for this moment, what is positive for one group is often viewed negatively by another, and the backlash can sometimes be severe. It’s worth noting that this week we’ve seen at least 5 churches set on fire throughout the South, and this summer has only just now begun. But when you’re on the right side of history, you keep fighting, because you know eventually, we’ll leave the inequality, oppression, discrimination and the backlash in the past. And when we do, we’ll still be marveling at the music and majestic of Nina Simone.

Cheers,

Michael

P.S. If you haven’t seen it or heard about it, here is the trailer for “What Happened, Miss Simone?” the new documentary on the life and times of Nina Simone: