Billy Martin's Amulet Records continues with the tradition of "introducing the world to the art of percussion, avante-garde and beyond" with the release of Love Animal and Drummingbirds.
Bob Moses'
Love Animal is a historical recording that was recorded between1967-68 in New York City. Moses, a then 19 year old up-and-coming drummer, set out to record
Love Animal as his first solo album, but it never ended up coming out due to his "distrust of the music business". Moses called upon some then little known musicians that were still honing their jazz chops on the path to becoming legends, including Larry Coryell on guitar, Keith Jarret on piano &soprano sax, Jim Pepper on tenor sax and Steve Swallow on bass.
Love Animal features a fusion of styles as Bob Moses and crew set out to push the boundaries of jazz, blues and rock. What resulted was a somewhat messy, yet undeniably raw and exciting blend of music. Tracks such as "Wholy Moses," "Nowhere," and "Dancing Bears" offer spacey and sporadic musical moments in what might be best described today as "free jazz." More focused songs such as "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes," are more in the standard jazz realm, as "Smoke" is highlighted by tasteful comping and a great piano solo from Jarret. "The Worms Crawl in Blues" is an exciting old-school blues tune led by Moses' steady drum beat and Coryell's soaring guitar solo, while "Rock Fantasy Duet" and "Slum Funk" are high energy jazz/rock songs with extended improvisational "free for all" jamming between the musicians.
Although some of the playing on
Love Animal is a little sloppy at times, it instantly transports you to images of a smoke filled jazz club in the late 60's listening to the beginnings of what would become a large jazz/fusion movement.
Drummingbirds features ten original percussion compositions from Bob Moses and Billy Martin (Medeski, Martin &Wood) that was originally recorded in Martin's New Jersey 4-track basement studio back in 1986. Using a wide array of instruments, including drums, a drum machine, keyboards, gongs, congas, a talking drum, hum drums, agogo bells, vocals and more, Moses and Martin provide a landscape of interesting percussion filled tracks.
"Mozamba," the album's second track, features tight and exiting African rhythms and is an indication of things to come on the album. In "Weildin for D Sharpe," Moses and Martin create intense, almost trance-like percussion sounds that would be difficult for a 10-person drum circle to match. "Rumble in the Jungle" features the use of a drum machine as Moses and Martin inventively play around the programmed beats. Vocal beat-box type effects are dispersed throughout the album, including a very creative vocal jam at the end of "Jabba The Hut Strut," which is one of the album's highlights.
Drummingbirds is a solid example of what stong musical communication and two great drummers feeding off each other's energy can produce.
These and other Amulet Records releases can be found on amuletrecords.com.
