Barney Wilen - DEAR PROF. LEARY

[JSngry]

Ok, imagine if Fathead & Herbie Mann both heard New Grass before it was even recorded and had the same thought - "hey, let's make a Fathead version for Vortex!" So they get a time machine, go forward in time a few months to the New Grass sessions, and Fathead, ever the master metaphysician, periodically take over Albert's mind, body, and band. And calls the tunes, mostly hits of the day, but he doesn't really tell anybody, so the band just jams along seemingly oblivious to the tunes that they're really playing, but still following close enough to make the point. Then imagine that Fathead & Herbie Mann both say, "hey, that was a good idea, but it'll never sell", so they sell the tapes to Barney Wilen, who says, "hey, pourquoi non?", takes the tapes to MPS and cuts a deal.

Just imagine that.

And if the that sounds like a plan to you (or sounds like it could be a plan to you), then hey - THIS is the album for you!

[king ubu]

Ha - you ought to check out "Moshi" then - that's the real thing!

[jazzbo]

I've been enjoying this one for a few years and then recently bought the new reissue.

Pretty trippy, yes. Flurin is right, get Moshi posthaste!

[king ubu]

I'm still doubtful about buying the Leary one - it's cool, ok, but these reissues cost almost twice as much here as on dusty (but dusty charge a helluva lot for shipping to yurp) - as crazy as rare japanese reissues... funniest is the George Duke one - it costs almost as much as the 4CD box that Universal put out themselves, which includes six more albums...

[jazzbo]

Yeah, well don't let your girlfriend go hungry for it! It's a fun listen but . . . wait and see if it gets a European relase if you have to pay that much.

[king ubu]

Yeah, well don't let your girlfriend go hungry for it! It's a fun listen but . . . wait and see if it gets a European relase if you have to pay that much.

Yeah, I've heard it...it's fun, but not deep (Moshi is! It goes all the way!)

I thought these WERE european releases, i thought that whole label was german or something... even crazier what prizes are asked for these releases!

[clifford_thornton]

Ok, imagine if Fathead & Herbie Mann both heard New Grass before it was even recorded and had the same thought - "hey, let's make a Fathead version for Vortex!" So they get a time machine, go forward in time a few months to the New Grass sessions, and Fathead, ever the master metaphysician, periodically take over Albert's mind, body, and band. And calls the tunes, mostly hits of the day, but he doesn't really tell anybody, so the band just jams along seemingly oblivious to the tunes that they're really playing, but still following close enough to make the point. Then imagine that Fathead & Herbie Mann both say, "hey, that was a good idea, but it'll never sell", so they sell the tapes to Barney Wilen, who says, "hey, pourquoi non?", takes the tapes to MPS and cuts a deal.

Just imagine that.

And if the that sounds like a plan to you (or sounds like it could be a plan to you), then hey - THIS is the album for you!

Sangrey's spot on. Cool little record; I have also heard some nice rehearsals with an expanded lineup from around the same time.

Still, my favorite "later" Wilen is Le Nouveau Jazz with Francois Tusques.

[Son-of-a-Weizen]

Is this ths LP that has "MK-ULTRA, Party All The Time" on it?

[JSngry]

Yeah, but you have to play it backwards to hear it.

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

wait i thought barney wilen was that mobley disciple who played w/ miles davis- u mean he made a DOPED OUT PSYCH JAZZ LP!!!??!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!? oh hell yeah! in the 70s did he make just this one, or 14 of em

[clifford_thornton]

He got into playing "out" in the '60s. In addition to Dear Professor Leary, there's Moshi (Saravah), Auto-Jazz (MPS), and Le Nouveau Jazz (Moloudji). You may dig Moshi in addition to the one that started this thread.

[king ubu]

wait i thought barney wilen was that mobley disciple who played w/ miles davis- u mean he made a DOPED OUT PSYCH JAZZ LP!!!??!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!? oh hell yeah! in the 70s did he make just this one, or 14 of em

I never thought of Wilen as a Mobley disciple - in fact I never thought of him as anyone's disciple... maybe a tenor sax disciple? (But don't forget his wonderful soprano piece on the "Liaisons Dangereuses" Blakey album! He was one of the first modern jazzers with full grasp of and technical ease on the bitchy small horn.)

Barney is hard to pin down (but maybe that was one of the things he wanted to achieve), almost chameleon like... he did way out free stuff (with Tusques), world/free fusions (with Irene Schweizer's trio and Indian musicians), classic hardbop (Blakey, Miles, also as a leader with guys like Kenny Dorham and Duke Jordan in his band, or again as a sideman with George Lewis and pre-singing Sacha Distel), and then later on he played with mainstream guys such as Kenny Barron or several good French pianists (Alain Jean Marie, Michel Graillier), yet in between he did weird things like that album with Marie Möör or that Barry & the whatevers thing, where he's just doing some r'n'b honks and obbligatos, mostly... I love Barney!

Here's the main >>Barney thread<<

[clifford_thornton]

Right, still looking for a nice vinyl copy of Jazz Meets India.

[king ubu]

a c'mon, you can do better...

[king ubu]

yeah, I don't doubt your being serious - but you could let us know why you're of that opinion... also the word "legit" strikes me as weird (not sure I understand it in this context at all... I guess it was up to Barney to decide if his albums were legit statements of what he wanted to tell)

[clifford_thornton]

I haven't heard Moshi in a while but like it. Same with Brute Force and with the Leary rec.

[king ubu]

Hm, maybe I haven't just heard enough music yet... couldn't say I know many other albums who did better takes on what Barney did on "Moshi" - it's quite a singular album in my opinion...

[jazzbo]

I'm not sure I understand who or what Brute Force is. . . but I really like Moshi, I think it's a "real deal."

[clifford_thornton]

Brute Force was a Ted Daniel band with Tim Ingles, bass; Richard Daniel, Fender Rhodes; Sonny Sharrock, guitar and others. They had one album on Embryo and another archival release will be issued soon on Porter Records.

Ted Daniel interview at AAJ

TD: ...In that time, though, I formed a band with my brother called Brute Force. Sonny had been working with Herbie Mann for a while, and they came out to play a concert at the college. He heard our band and wanted to record us, and he ended up recording us [for his label, Embryo]. That was all in that year, '68-'69.

AAJ: Wasn't that record actually made in Ohio?

TD: No, it was recorded in New York. The photo on the cover was taken out there, but it was recorded here. I got back to New York in '69 and didn't leave until '89. And so that's why I hadn't recorded before '69, because I wasn't here.

AAJ: That makes perfect sense. It probably also allowed you—well, maybe not in Vietnam, but at least in Ohio—some time to get your chops together.

TD: That's exactly what Ohio was for me, because I didn't have any chops. I was in the band in the service, but that wasn't what I was doing—mostly guard duty and stuff like that. Anyway, I didn't have the chops that I thought I needed, so I went out there and worked on them and played in that band. It was about a year before I came back to the City. The first big gig when I came back was with Sunny Murray. I did work with him some before in the Lower East Side and the Village, and he got us this gig at Newport Jazz Festival. In '69 I went up to Newport with Sunny, Alan Silva, Dave Burrell, Luqman Lateef on tenor, Carlos Ward on alto, and Sirone also on bass. Lateef, I don't see him around anymore, but he was a mellow tenor player and played really nice.

AAJ: It seems like there's an esthetic disparity between Brute Force and working in Sunny's ensemble, between the avant-garde or free thing, and something decidedly funkier—or, well, I don't really know what the words are to describe Brute Force.

TD: See, nobody was able to describe it—maybe that's why it never took off! It's not a disparity—I don't see it as one, anyway, it was just something else that I could do. I preface that with the fact that I grew up hearing doo-wop and so that wasn't that big a leap from where we were. That group did play for dances out there; that's what it was for, I could do that and was an integral part of that group at the time. I'd loosened up Brute Force by my free jazz experience, because I had New York roots and I integrated that into what we were doing. But the main thrust of what I wanted to do was in New York with people like Sunny Murray and Archie Shepp, so that was where I came to.

[jazzbo]

Okay, thanks.