Gil Melle

[mjzee]

Available on Record Store Day 2017:

Gil Melle – The Andromeda Strain (Soundtrack) [LP] (Hexagon Shaped Vinyl, silver foil die cut jacket, limited to 1500, indie-retail exclusive) LP

[Dmitry]

9 hours ago, mjzee said:

Available on Record Store Day 2017:

Gil Melle – The Andromeda Strain (Soundtrack) [LP] (Hexagon Shaped Vinyl, silver foil die cut jacket, limited to 1500, indie-retail exclusive) LP

Cool. I'd like to see the packaging. I have the original in stone cold mint condition, bought it sealed at a WFMU fair about 15 years ago.

[JSngry]

GIL MELLE VIDEO!

Thanks to Rod for calling this out!

[Teasing the Korean]

42 minutes ago, JSngry said:

GIL MELLE VIDEO! Thanks to Rod for calling this out!

Holy @##$  !!!!!!!

[Joe]

I would totally have hired Gil Melle to so some VO work.

[jazzcorner]

Some early work of Gil Melle on Bluenote

BLUE NOTE 5020 New Faces-New Sounds/ Gil Melle Quintet And Sextet Eddie Bert (tb) Gil Melle (ts) Joe Manning (vib) George Wallington (p) Red Mitchell (b) Max Roach (d) Monica Dell (vo -2/4) Rudy Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, March 2, 1952 Eddie Bert (tb) Gil Melle (ts) George Wallington (p) Tal Farlow (g) Clyde Lombardi (b) Joe Morello (d) Rudy Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, January 31, 1953

Edited December 13, 2019 by jazzcorner
wrong formatting

[Joe]

In case anyone missed this recent reissue... perhaps the first official CD reissue of all of these rare titles?

https://alphastate.nyc/products/gil-melle-the-andromeda-strain

Gil Mellé; The Andromeda Strain, Tome VI, Waterbirds +

May 2022; due to numerous requests, and in the spirit of celebrating Creel Pone's 17th Anniversary with a bang, here is a completely revised replica edition of this time-tested title, with the original Kapp 10"/LP issue of "The Andromeda Strain" OST augmented with Melle's two other relatable issues of Jazz-Electronics from the vinyl era: "Tome VI" & "Waterbirds" across two discs (plus a short bonus track of a "Demo" of the Percusotron III!)

Creel pone of one of the most legendary Early Electronic music film scores (right up there with Bebe & Louis Barron’s “Forbidden Planet”, Bernard Hermann’s “The Day The Earth Stood Still”, and Oskar Sala’s Trautonium sound design for Hitchcock’s “The Birds”) - mainly due to the scarcity & production values of the original release: a Hexagonal 10” record housed in a six-fold flap-system affixed to the cover of a metallic 12” sleeve which opens up to reveal a set of photos from the film & the liner notes.

All well & good, but the attraction for me to this suite of pieces by jazz composer Gil Mellé has always been the bizarre invented electronic instrumentation (like the Percussotron III - a primitive drum machine) and lo-fi / distorted Musique Concrète techniques (the first piece alone consists of ten tape-transformed piano parts and the ambience of a bowling alley). For early 70s Hollywood film-score material, this stuff is pretty damn far out ... most of it sounds like a more free/European take on the Patrick Gleeson collabs on Herbie Hancock’s “Sextant”, other parts sound like the weird Finnish jerry-rigged electronics of Erkki Kurreniemi or even the more far-out segments on the first two Kluster records.

No matter how you slice it, this is an important set; rife with sound-research oriented takes that situate it well within the Creel Pone canon.

[mjzee]

What is Creel Pone?  Sometimes the “p” in pone is capitalized, sometimes not.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention.  I’ve yet to hear a bad Gil record.

[JSngry]

Certainly snapped up one of those Melle sets, thanks, Joe! Also on that site (on sale!) are single discs by both Olly Wilson (most of which I have just on LP) and William S. Fischer (Circles, + one called Omen of which I have never heard). No-brainer picks for me!

Also this https://alphastate.nyc/products/ilhan-mimaroglu-complete-finnadar-atlantic

Five CDs (CD-Rs?)for $40.  which if not for what I had just bought from them(!) would be a no-brainer, but...discip[line is needed, except when it's not. But right now, it is.

 

 

22 minutes ago, mjzee said:

What is Creel Pone? 

https://www.discogs.com/label/44976-Creel-Pone

Bootleg record label that "re-issues" early electroacoustic & experimental recordings in CDR fromat. Currently operating out of Melbourne, Australia, via KFW's Broken-Music distribution outlet (previoulsy Mimaroglu Music Sales). Each release is a limited facsimile edition (50 or 100 units) with a silver foil-stamp on the crystal-clear resealable polypropylene compact-disc sleeve. Originally the label was run by Fullerton Whitman using the pseudonym Pieter Christophssen aka Mr. P.C./C.P (also associated with DJ Hekla through an email address) with a claim that it was based in Iceland. He now openly admits his involvement in the bootlegging venture.

So I need to buy the next Olly Wilson CDs, it looks like. And the reissues of Omen. Or anything similar. And the surely just-around-the-corner official issue of Andromeda Strain/etc.on CD.

Hey, if they build it, I will come.

 

 

[Joe]

Ah, Keith Fullerton Whitman continues to do his thing!

Interesting musician in his own right.

https://keithfullertonwhitman.bandcamp.com/music

[Late]

 

[mjzee]

OK, bootlegs.  Not an "official CD reissue" at all.  I do appreciate their manufacturing and distributing this.  

[Bluesnik]

On 5/11/2009 at 0:12 AM, Joe said:

Recordings of Cinderella apart from the Melle group are not exactly plentiful

He also recorded with Tal Farlow as his backing guitarist. There was no piano as I remember. Parts of it are on the Mosaic.

[AllenLowe]

Cinderella was a great guitarist; I had a few conversations with him at one point and he was a very nice man. Melle's jazz work, on the other hand, doesn't, in my opinion, hold up so well. He was not a very good soloist, to my ears. Compositionally he had more going on, and when I talked to him a few years before he died (I think he was working as an artist at this point) he was very proud of his pioneering electronic compositions. I don't know, I'd have to go back and listen. He was also an unpleasant guy, so I have to admit that that also had a negative impact on my attitude toward him. But I recently listened to some of his '50s work and I found it uninspired.

Edited August 4, 2022 by AllenLowe

[Larry Kart]

I like all of Melle's Blue Note and Prestige recordings. And don't forget Louis Mecca. Melle's pieces had an atttractive "crunch" to them. One of them, "Threadneedle St." has a coy ambling melody that I can't get it out of my head. His solo work was quite distinctive, like Stan Getz translated to bassoon.

 

[Gheorghe]

I only have that one Blue Note album which is from the 1500 series. I had not ever heard his name, but he spoke some stuff on the BN documentary film. 

Maybe that was the reason I bought the album (japanese cardboard edition). 

Well, it sounds somehow a bit "cold", and seemed to bore me. I think the solos was somehow weak, too many repeating phrases and somehow unsure to get a good groove. 

This, and maybe the Montrose album. Well on the Montrose album things were better with a rhythm section with Horace and Philly J.J., but the horn doesn´t have the thing that I usually want to hear. 

Anyway it seems that they were exotics in the BN catalogue....

[mikeweil]

On 11.5.2009 at 0:12 AM, Joe said:

Recordings of Cinderella apart from the Melle group are not exactly plentiful,

Has anyone here heard this one, for which Cinderella also wrote the arrangements?

https://www.discogs.com/release/5337377-Tony-Argo-Jazz-Argosy-The-Jazz-Accordion-Of-Tony-Argo

Edited August 4, 2022 by mikeweil

[AllenLowe]

21 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

I like all of Melle's Blue Note and Prestige recordings. And don't forget Louis Mecca. Melle's pieces had an atttractive "crunch" to them. One of them, "Threadneedle St." has a coy ambling melody that I can't get it out of my head. His solo work was quite distinctive, like Stan Getz translated to bassoon.

 

This is one of those rare occasions, Larry, when I will disagree with you. His tone is so weak, he can barely intonate in the upper register, and the solo is just so bland.

[Larry Kart]

1 hour ago, AllenLowe said:

This is one of those rare occasions, Larry, when I will disagree with you. His tone is so weak, he can barely intonate in the upper register, and the solo is just so bland.

Your points about Melle are well taken, but there's still something about him that gets to me. For better or worse, he sounds like no one but himself.

[danasgoodstuff]

1 hour ago, AllenLowe said:

This is one of those rare occasions, Larry, when I will disagree with you. His tone is so weak, he can barely intonate in the upper register, and the solo is just so bland.

His playing here sounds fine to me, and I know weak sax tone, I hear it every time I put my horn in my mouth.

[JSngry]

It's wonky as fuck, which I tend to like. Not forever, but for a while. 

[Joe]

I've always assumed this is a tribute to / portrait of Herbie Nichols. Even if it's not, a nice tune given a fine reading by this BORTH OF THE COOL-sized ensemble.

 

Edited August 5, 2022 by Joe

[clifford_thornton]

On 8/1/2022 at 9:20 PM, mjzee said:

OK, bootlegs.  Not an "official CD reissue" at all.  I do appreciate their manufacturing and distributing this.  

yeah, the things Creel Pone reissues generally won't see a proper reissue otherwise. I applaud KFW for doing what he does.

[romualdo]

On 31/07/2022 at 4:54 AM, Joe said:

In case anyone missed this recent reissue... perhaps the first official CD reissue of all of these rare titles?

https://alphastate.nyc/products/gil-melle-the-andromeda-strain

many thanks for the link Joe - what a wonderful site

ordered the Melle (3 LPs on 2 CDs), Kirchin (Worlds Within Worlds, Vols 1 & 2 - both LPs on one CD) & Fischer sets

Looks like Keith Fullerton Whitman recently lived here in Australia for a while

[Teasing the Korean]

In 2019, La-La-Land released for the first time Melle's 1977 score for The Sentinel.  It is a limited edition, but still available.

https://lalalandrecords.com/sentinel-the-limited-edition/

Edited August 6, 2022 by Teasing the Korean