Hotel X >> Flute routes

Hotel X - "Iqbal"

(SST Records, 1997)

I wrote most of this post in 2012 or '13 but never posted it.  I got this album, Routes Music, on used CD in '97 for 2 bucks on a whim and found myself smitten by its haphazard blending of styles into a cohesive subtropical gumbo.  This was not long after I had spent a year at the University of Richmond in Hotel X's hometown.  The name of their first album, A Random History Of The Avant Groove, sums up their aesthetic quite well.  I once did an internet search for the band name (pre-Google... I have no idea what search engine I used back then), and I remember that it was a reference to some movie.  This piece is presumably named after Muhammad Iqbal, who helped create the 6th-most populous country on earth, Pakistan.

The coolest thing in my opinion was that SST signed a band like this.  I'm sure the SST logo is the reason I even picked the CD up and inspected it in the first place.  I only ever got one other album by Hotel X, Residential Suite (1994), but didn't like it very much.  Post-1997, the band is still sporadically together, but they seem to only perform live, not release new music.  Based on the insanely huge amount of people who have done time in the Hotel (62, says their website), it must've been some sort of revolving-door collective, apparently always led by Tim Harding.  To see the full list, click here.

Time to cut and paste...  On this album the band was:
Tim Harding: alto sax, bass
Ron Curry: bass, guitar, trombone
Chris Davis: drums
Pat Best: guitar, bass
Eric Ungar: guitar, flute

With guests:
Billy Fox: timbales, percussion
Steve Matthews: vibes

According to their website, "Hotel X toured regionally and nationally between 1992 and 1997, received reviews in Jazz Times, The Washington Post, Option, The Wire and Alternative Press among others; was nominated for Best Jazz Group by NAIRD (National Association of Independent Record Distributors) in 1996, and participated in the JVC Jazz Festival in NYC, 1997. National Public Radio selected soundbites of several songs from the Hotel X CD Engendered Species for use between news stories during Morning Edition in 1994. Richmond Magazine awarded Hotel X with the Pollack Prize for Excellence in Arts in September of 2005."
And "Hotel X has shared the stage with Bern Nix (Ornette Coleman and Primetime), Greg Ginn (Black Flag), Balla Kouyate (Super Rail Band), Papa Susso (Gambian kora master),The Roots, Gary Lucas (Captain Beefheart, solo), Harvey Sorgen (Hot Tuna), Yellowman, Medeski, Martin and Wood, Ran Blake, Hasidic New Wave, Marc Ribot, Plunky Branch, Wayne Horvitz and Pigpen, Amy Denio, John Bradshaw and Bazooka, just to name a few."

Their website has a photo titled "The Routes Music line up" at the URL http://www.hotelxband.com/page12/files/collage_lb_image_page12_13_1.png, but it won't load.  Oh well.  I prefer to not see what bands look like anyway.  So here's the highly memorable, primitivist album cover:

Here's a great pic I found on Tumblr recently.  If anyone knows what it's from, let me know:

Planets with similar climates: Frank Zappa - "Peaches en Regalia" (1969), maybe some Yusef Lateef (R.I.P.) due to the flute, Gil Scott-Heron, Fela Kuti, '70s Miles Davis, etc.

Christian Scott >> Fear the whisper

Christian Scott - "Litany Against Fear"

(Concord Records, 2007)

Here's another track from my piano-favsies list.  It's the epic opening track to trumpeter Christian Scott's 2007 album Anthem.  (His 2006 album Rewind That also had an epic opening track, which I will post in the future.)  He's been on my radar for many years now, but I've only seen him live once, at Jazz Fest in 2010, where he was in the lead role in a tribute to Miles Davis called Tutu Revisited, accompanied by Marcus Miller and an all-star band.  It was the only reason I went that day, and yeah, it was pretty awesome.  (Update, 8/16/11: In response to the comment this post received about NOLA shunning C. Scott, I will point out that I have never seen any musician receive as many ovations, or ovations of such volume/fervor, as Scott got during that Jazz Fest '10 performance.  And it was even more impressive considering Marcus Miller was technically the headline artist of that group.)  Aside from that, he essentially never plays live here.  I have no idea why he has shunned his hometown so blatantly.  Can you at least give us an explanation, Christian?  In the meantime, I'll just be over here having my soul stirred by whatever the first song on your latest album is.

All About Jazz said:
"Anything but predictable, Anthem opens with Scott's dramatic "Litany Against Fear." The track takes on the characteristics of a Sunday sermon, starting off with penetratingly introspective blue notes, rising to rebellious anger, and then ending with a moment of peaceful resolution. The percussive playing of pianist Aaron Parks, the muscular sound of drummer Marcus Gilmore, the resonant bass lines of Esperanza Spaulding* [sic], and the explosive riffs of guitarist Matt Stevens blend masterfully with Scott's brooding lyricism.
Very much like his idol, Miles Davis, Scott has a very laidback style, but as is the case with so many players from New Orleans, he definitely possesses the ability to swing."


*Yes, the Esperanza Spalding, surprise winner of Best New Artist at this year's Grammys, the first-ever jazzbo to win it.
To understand how Scott gets those cool hushed tones on his trumpet, arguably even cooler and more hushed than those of, say, Miles Davis or Chet Baker, read this paragraph about his "whisper technique".

April 2010 issue.  I saw him this very month, and I would've bought this ish(ue) if I had known about it at the time.

Speaking of trumpeters with cool, hushed tones, I mentioned getting a Chet Davis CD retrospective last month.  Here's the luridly effective opening page from the essay section of the booklet:

Hopefully Scott won't go down the road to drugs / ruin / mediocrity the way Chet and Miles did soon after their primes.  Maybe that's one of the reasons why he ditched NOLA in the first place?

A photo I took today of my Agave bracteosa (Squid Agave), which I've had for about 5 years, meaning it's about 7 years old:

It's in a 12" diameter pot.  This species is one of the few agaves (tequila plants) without vicious spines, and it's allegedly hardy down to 10º F, making it one of the hardiest agaves, hence everybody should own one.  It looks very wimpy, but the leaves are actually leathery and tough.

Planets with similar climates: Stanley Clarke - "Black On Black Crime" (from Boyz N The Hood), John Coltrane Quartet - "Wise One" (1964), Isotope 217 - "Beneath The Undertow" (2007), David S. Ware - "Aquarian Sound" (1992).

Isotope 217º >> Birth of the molecule

º.º.º Isotope 217º - "Kryptonite Smokes The Red Line" º.º.º

(Thrill Jockey Records, 1997)

You can tell by now that in addition to tremendously stealthy basslines, I love & require splashy, trebly, off-kilter ("syncopated"), jazzy drumming, even in non-jazz music.  You don't need a big Neil Peart-size monster drum kit do this, just a little jazz-oriented one like a Gretch Catalina Club.  Look back at old pics of the innovative jazz drummers and they were almost all playing Gretsch, except for a few who were paid exorbitant sums to use other brands.  I have no idea what this track's name means, though another standout track on the album (The Unstable Molecule) is named "Beneath The Undertow" in homage to Charles Mingus' 1971 autobiography Beneath The Underdog... So I assume this one has some clever meaning behind it too?

Jeff Parker & Rob Mazurek, Nov. 2000 issue

This snazzy group was comprised of John Herndon (Tortoise, 5ive Style, The For Carnation), Dan Bitney (Tortoise), Jeff Parker (Tortoise, Chicago Underground Quartet), Rob Mazurek (Chicago Underground Trio/Quartet/Orchestra, solo career), Matt Lux (Heroic Doses).  Several Isotopers went on to form a group called Exploding Star Orchestra, though Tortoise continues to be their mothership.  Despite being the only non-"famous" member of Isotope, Matt Lux really steals the show with his drumming, full of shading and restraint, often sounding right on the verge of breaking out into pre-emptive strikes.  If your jaw is not near the floor during this song, then you have a lot to learn about drumming, my pal, or you just have no soul.  Lux has an amazing knack for playing like a hybrid of a human and a machine, drifting into rigidity and then breaking back into loose, funky stuff.  This album is only 35 minutes long, but is flawless and is simply beyond essential.  I got it on LP in March '98 while dying to hear the new Tortoise LP (which I got at the end of that month through mailorder, a little before it officially hit stores) and was pleasantly stunned by it.  To this day I still marvel at all the cool little details in it, and once I try to listen to one song I invariably end up playing the whole album at least once or twice, feeling like I'm being transported in time to a much cooler era either several decades behind ours or several centuries ahead of it.

In early '05, this guy Colby who owned a record store called Rocks Off RPM in New Orleans told me he had just gone out to eat with his old pals Tortoise while they were in town for a concert; he knew them from when he lived in Chicago.  He asked them about the status of Isotope and was told that they had no plans to get back together.  I remember sort of shrugging and thinking about how anticlimactic the breakups of one's favorite bands can be, when those bands fly so far under even the indie radar that they don't even bother to put out a press release to tell people they're done, and then their fans have to find out months or years after the fact.  I guess most bands just sort of realize that it's time to move on once the momentum is dwindling.  No one wants to be the band that hangs around for a few decades after its prime.... well, Sonic Youth do want to be that band, but they're Sonic Youth, so they can.  And everyone always cites R.E.M. and Neil Young, but they never even had a "prime," in my opinion, just some random great songs, usually an average of one per album, but I digress.

Note: This album came out in Japan with two lengthy bonus cuts, and in Poland with just one of them.  I'm trying to acquire those tracks (the 7-minute "Ode To Philophony" and the 23-minute "Expedition Rhombus") for possible posting on here.

I just found out about 5 minutes ago that Osama Bin Laden is dead.  America, fuck yeah.


Planets with similar climates: Jack DeJohnette - "Dream Stalker" (1978),  David S. Ware Quartet - "Aquarian Sound" (1992), Miles Davis - "Bitches Brew" (1969), Super E.S.P. - "Everything Seems Prescribed" (1998), Nicholas Payton* - "Velvet Handcuffs" (2003).


Currently wondering if: Marky Mark's mom called him Marcus Mark when he acted up as a kid.


*Might finally get to see him live this weekend, at Jazz Fest

FCS North >> Ride the darker wave

FCS North - "1222"
(Pacifico Recordings, 2000)

This track is probably the most epic achievement since Homer write The Iliad in one weekend on the backs of some napkins at his local Olive Garden restaurant, which was literally just some tables in the middle of an olive grove at the time.  FCS North (pron. "Focus North," often abrv. FCSN) was a jazzy / post-rock-y / electronic-y group from Seattle, featuring some former members of the impressive post-punk band Satisfact.  I say "was" because I think nowadays they stick to doing DJ sets, remixing, and general electronic(a) stuff, rather than the complex organic recipe on their debut album.  Andy Sells of FCSN is my favorite or second-favorite drummer ever (probably only second to Jack DeJohnette), and he has literally been a drum teacher for many years as his day job.  The way the bass (played by Josh Warren) stealthily enters the song reminds me of the way the T. Rex walks up to the campsite(?) in Jurassic Park, with the viewer only able to see a glass of water trembling with each of its footsteps.  Who says great cinematography can't be found in the most unlikely places?  I didn't even know what cinematography was when I saw that in a tiny theater on Hilton Head Island when it came out, but I'll always remember that scene.
"1222" is preceded on the album by an untitled recording of 3 whole minutes of waves crashing... Top that, "chillwave" bands.  This tidal action fits in perfectly with the CD cover, which is just a photo of the ocean, devoid of any writing, though the cover of the LP version apparently does have some writing.  I've always thought of the album as having a "sky blue" feel to it; to top it off, the band's record label was called Pacifico.  I remember listening to this CD on a sweltering September night in 2003 while driving over to see The Sea And Cake, who also have one of the most insanely great drummers ever.  Before heading out that night, I watched the premiere episode of a show called One Tree Hill, haha.  Man, talk about a cutting edge evening of entertainment... I also used a car phone for possibly the only time in my life, one with a cord attaching it to a '95 Chevy Suburban which I inherited a few years later after my car was lost in Katrina.  Anyway, the way the keyboards swell up and envelop the listener in the beginning of this track will never cease to fascinate me.  There is also a great contrast of speeds -- the fast, crisp drumming vs. the slow, eerie keyboards & bass -- that gives a disorienting overall feel.  (I keep saying "track" rather than "song" because a song must, by definition, have vocals, you know.)  "1222" was also released as a 12" single/EP, backed with "Police Laughter" and "High Rize"; I will be posting the latter on here someday.

Pic: Can't think of one now, though I did plant an olive tree last week, so I should probably show it here. (See first sentence of this post.)
Update, 7/21/11 - Here's a pic of the top of that olive tree, which is about 5 feet tall and is named Gregg, taken right after I planted it on April 1st:

Planets with similar climates: Tristeza - "I Am A Cheetah" (2000) & "Halo Heads" (2005), Miles Davis - "Rated X" (1972), The Mercury Program - "Tequesta" (2002), Fela Kuti - "Confusion" (1975), The Orb - "Star 6 & 7 8 9" (1991), Macha - "Light The Chinese Flower" (1998).