1969 music
Debuts: The Stooges
Events and trends: Stonewall incident
Music: Je t’Aime Moi Non Plus - Serge Gainsbourg
Stooges (1969) - Stooges [Amazon.com]
Everything the peace and love vibe of the '60s wasn't the Stooges 1969 debut record was: dangerous, violent, chaotic, mean-spirited, and sex crazed. Iggy Pop's monotone birthday lament, "1969" ("War across the U.S.A. / Another year for me and you / Another year with nothing to do"), pretty much sums up the band's coldly disaffected outlook. --Percy Keegan
Music (singles)
- Iggy and his Stooges - 1969
- James Brown - Give It Up Or Turn It Loose
- Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin - Je T'Aime Moi Non Plus
- Wallace Collection - Daydream
- Marlena Shaw - Woman of the Ghetto
- Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin - 69, Année Erotique
Venus in Cancer (1969) - Robbie Basho
Venus in Cancer (1969) - Robbie Basho
[Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Product Description
"His voice is from another world. Robbie is special" - Pete Townshend, 2006
Robbie Basho released Venus in Cancer in 1969 on the Blue Thumb label. After five albums for the Takoma label in the 60's, Basho had cemented his reputation alongside John Fahey and Leo Kottke as one of the most brilliant guitarists of his generation. His wide range of musical influences from around the globe set him apart from other blues-based players, incorporating Arabic, Himalayan and Indian themes; Japanese and Chinese scales, and classical and European folk music. All are on magnificent display on this sprawling, spiritually-charged album. Released on CD for the very first time, the album has been remastered from the original tapes. The package includes origi- nal album artwork and new appreciations from Windham Hill label founder Will Ackerman, Basho college friend and fellow Takoma recording artist Max Ochs, German guitarist Steffen Basho-Junghans, and Pete Townshend of The Who. Twenty years since his death in 1986, Basho's legend continues to grow, having strongly influenced a new generation of guitarists including Jack Rose, Ben Chasny (Six Organs of Admittance) and James Blackshaw, among many others. The first ever live recording by Robbie Basho, a version of "Kowaka D'Amour" from Venus in Cancer, can be found on Tompkins Square's recent compilation, Imaginational Anthem, Vol. 2. --Amazon.com
--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbie Basho [Sept 2006]
Teo Macero and Bitches Brew (1969)
Bitches Brew (1969) - Miles Davis [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Teo Macero is a jazz saxophonist and record producer.
He began his career as a performer, recording a few albums, and briefly joining Charles Mingus.
Macero found greater fame as a jazz record producer for Columbia Records. He had a long and especially fruitful partnership with Miles Davis.
Recently, Macero returned to performing, playing saxophone on DJ Logic's Project Logic. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teo_Macero [Feb 2005]
Versions in Reggae
Around 1969 Kingston-based reggae producers started to issue singles with instrumental "versions" on the flipside of vocal releases, which were actually the basic riddim tracks. To these "versions" one could add further instrumentation or deejay accompaniment. Within a year the inclusion of instrumental versions on the flipside was common practice among the majority of Jamaica's producers.Kool & The Gang
In 1969, on the basis of their tight live act, they were signed by Gene Redd's then-new De-Lite Records, and their first record, a funky instrumental called "Kool and The Gang," became a substantial hit.Cloud Nine (1969) - The Temptations
Cloud Nine (1969) - The Temptations [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
When this album was originally released in early '69, it was a gamble. Could the Temptations, known as smooth melodic crooners of love songs, successfully reinvent themselves as contemporaries of Sly and the Family Stone, Jimi Hendrix, Parliament, and the Chambers Brothers, with their psychedelic rock and soul sounds? The answer was YES. CLOUD NINE, this masterpiece by produced by Norman Whitfield, the most soulful producer to ever come out of Motown, is one of my favorite CDs by the Temptations. --blackprincess for amazon.com [...]
More CDs
- Led Zeppelin II (1969) - Led Zeppelin [Amazon.com]
[FR] [DE] [UK]
Riff rock had been what Jimmy Page's former band, the Yardbirds, were all about, and on Led Zeppelin's second album, released, like its predecessor, in 1969, the inventive guitarist demonstrated that he'd indeed learned his lessons well. Witness "Whole Lotta Love," a woozy epic based on one simple, head-banging-friendly guitar riff. Or the mock-dramatic "Heartbreaker," propelled by far more intricate but similarly effective note squashing. Between Page's sonic wizardry, John Bonham beating his drums into submission ("Moby Dick"), and the juice running down Robert Plant's leg ("The Lemon Song"), Led Zeppelin here just about succeeded in raising rock & roll excess to an art form. --Billy Altman, amazon.com - Bitches Brew (1969) - Miles Davis [CD, Amazon US]
[FR] [DE] [UK]
Miles Davis and producer Teo Macero produced by assembling bits and pieces of recording sessions with looped drums.
The revolution was recorded: in 1969 Bitches Brew sent a shiver through a country already quaking. It was a recording whose very sound, production methods, album-cover art, and two-LP length all signaled that jazz could never be the same. Over three days anger, confusion, and exhilaration had reigned in the studio, and the sonic themes, scraps, grooves, and sheer will and emotion that resulted were percolated and edited into an astonishingly organic work. This Miles Davis wasn't merely presenting a simple hybrid like jazz-rock, but a new way of thinking about improvisation and the studio. And with this two-CD reissue (actually, this set is a reissue of the original set plus one track, perfect for the fan who's not so overwhelmed as to need the four-CD Complete Bitches Brew box), the murk of the original recording is lifted. The instruments newly defined and brightened, the dark energy of the original comes through as if it were all fresh. Joe Zawinul and Bennie Maupin's roles in the mix have been especially clarified. With a bonus track of "Feio"--a Wayne Shorter composition recorded five months later that serves both as a warm-down for Bitches Brew and a promise of Weather Report to come--this is crucial listening. --John F. Szwed for amazon.com
- In The Court Of The Crimson King [1 CD, Amazon US]
When King Crimson released In the Court of the Crimson King in 1969, a year after the band formed in London, the world discovered a music that has never gone away. At times, it is a rush of raw energy that mutates into an impossible balance of light and shade. This was the stuff of musicians who had no fear of stepping boldly into the unknown. Led by crafty guitarist Robert Fripp, who later added his own magic to Bowie's Heroes, King Crimson got big fast with this release. --Paul Clark [...] - The MC5 - Kick Out The Jams [Amazon US]
Kick Out The Jams still sounds astonishingly powerful after almost 30 years. Recorded live at Detroit's Grande Ballroom in 1968, this relentless, aggressive set offers the frenzy of politicized garage punks blasting through giant stacks: a blitzkrieg of hard rock ignited from the dueling guitars of Wayne Kramer and Fred Sonic Smith and of the throttled vocals of Rob Tyner. The Stooges with barricade-busting ideals, the Five turned the Motor City into a Mecca of sonic excess and shattered the dazed dreams of hippie America. From the pounding of the title track to the eight-and-a half-minute weirdout of "Sun Ra's "Starship,"" Kick Out The Jams will rip your head to shreds. --Barney Hoskyns [...] - Pharoah Sanders - Karma[1 CD, Amazon US]
Although introduced as a protégé of John Coltrane and touted by many as his heir apparent, reedman Pharoah Sanders quickly proved his own man. His shared interest in the "cosmic" music of Coltrane's final period belies the fact that Sanders frequently plays with an unhurried sense of peace and satisfaction rarely found in his mentor's music. His use of space, African and Asian motifs and instruments, and simple, repetitive melodies also pointed the way for jazz, rock, and new age musicians in the '70s and '80s, while his sometimes raucous use of harsh, shrieking runs influenced many of jazz's most adventurous saxophonists.
The centerpiece of Karma is the marathon half-hour octet recording "The Creator Has a Master Plan." Although the track features a warm vocal by Leon Thomas, its true feature artist for almost the entire length is Sanders, who carries the melody, feel, and improvisation firmly on his shoulders. All of Sanders's key elements--Afro-centric spiritualism, sweeping use of mood from long, relaxed intervals to frenetic cacophony, and a deep sense of melody and rhythm--are in evidence. The album's religious feeling is cemented by the album's closer, "Colors," which serves as a deeply felt invocation. --Fred Goodman [...] - Captain Beefheart - Trout Mask Replica [1 CD, Amazon US]
A colleague of Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart (aka Don Van Vliet) and his Magic Band produced some of the most eccentric music of the late 1960s--or, for that matter, ever. The high water mark of Beefheart's bizarre career, this double album of freeform "Dada rock" features such daunting tracks as "Pachuco Cadaver," "Hair Pie (Bakes 1 and 2)," and "Neon Meat Dream of an Octafish," all of which actually sound as unusual as their titles. Between Beefheart's mind-bending lyrics and cavernous voice, as well as the twisted playing of guitarists Zoot Horn Rollo and Antennae Jimmy Semens, bassist Rockette Morton and drummer The Mascara Snake, this album fully explains the expression "far out." --Billy Altman [1969...] | [Free Jazz...] | [No Wave...] - Stooges - Stooges [Amazon US]
Everything the peace and love vibe of the '60s wasn't the Stooges 1969 debut record was: dangerous, violent, chaotic, mean-spirited, and sex crazed. Iggy Pop's monotone birthday lament, "1969" ("War across the U.S.A. / Another year for me and you / Another year with nothing to do"), pretty much sums up the band's coldly disaffected outlook. Producer and Velvet Underground second banana John Cale lends the proceedings an appropriately ominous feel, although his attempt to transform the Stooges into V.U. clones on the 10-minute-plus "All Fall Down" is the band's weakest studio moment. But Iggy Pop and company more than make up for that misstep with the mind-numbingly ugly-and-great "I Wanna Be Your Dog" and the distortion-drenched "Real Cool Time." --Percy Keegan for amazon.com
Cover Art Joy of a Toy, 1969, Kevin Ayers
As the Soft Machine's first bassist and original principal songwriter, Kevin Ayers was an overlooked force behind the group's groundbreaking recordings in 1967 and 1968. This, his solo debut, is so tossed-off and nonchalant that one gets the impression he wanted to take it easy after helping pilot the manic innovations of the Softs. Laissez-faire sloth has always been part of Ayers' persona, and this record's intermittent lazy charm helped establish it. That doesn't get around the fact, however, that this set of early progressive rock does not feature extremely strong material. Ayers' command of an assortment of instruments is impressive, and his deep bass vocals and playful, almost goofy song-sketches are affecting, but they don't really stick with the listener. It's no accident that some of the tracks recall early Soft Machine: Robert Wyatt drums on most of the songs, and "Song for Insane Times" is virtually a bona fide Soft Machine performance, featuring actual backing from the group itself. A likable but slight album that is at its best when Ayers is at his folkiest. - Richie Unterberger, allmusic.com