Mystery tune (by Johnny Dyani) -- where all is it from?

[Rooster_Ties]

(This thread started as a sort of mystery tune I heard, and recognized -- and tried to have folks here guess where else I knew it from, but under a different name. Then it turns out it's been recorded a bunch by Dyani.)

OK, join me -- if you will -- on a journey I just took over the last 24 hours, figuring out where in the heck I could have heard this tune before (hint, the version I know -- which I suspect a bunch of people here probably own -- *does NOT have the same title*).  Here's the tune...

 

Edited September 22, 2018 by Rooster_Ties

[mjazzg]

I don't know the answer but I do know that that compilation is a treasure trove

[Rooster_Ties]

4 minutes ago, mjazzg said:

I don't know the answer but I do know that that compilation is a treasure trove

Do you happen to have a physical copy?  (On CD?)  I've been looking for *Vol 7* specifically (on CD) for about 6 months, and I'm not 100% convinced it ever really came out.  I've already got vols 1-6, and vol 8 too -- all fantastic.  Just don't want to miss out on vol 7, before they become even more impossible to find than they are now (apparently).

[sonnymax]

 

Makulu-Kalahari by Johnny Dyani, appearing on Johnny Dyani/Mal Waldron Some Jive Ass Boer, Live at Jazz Unité 1981

[ep1str0phy]

This tune appears a lot throughout Dyani's discography--this version and the version on Together (which features Dudu Pukwana) came to mind first. The piece is credited to Dyani on both albums, fwiw. 

[Rooster_Ties]

Wow, not one -- but that's *TWO* different versions of the tune I wasn't aware of!

Where *I* figured out I knew it from -- under a different title -- was as this LONG bonus track from Dyani's Song For Biko, where it's called "Lonely Flower in the Village" (the only version of the tune I'd ever heard before).

It's a 21 minute bonus track from this date with Don Cherry, but honestly -- I've always thought it was the best track on the whole CD!! (and the whole CD is really great).

(Anyway, I was glad I was able to figure it out, even though the titles were totally different.)

 

[ep1str0phy]

Wow, that's a huge one that I forgot about--I knew there was at least one more version with Dudu. Thanks for the journey. For the longest time I'd just thought of this tune as a kind of leitmotif stringing itself across Dyani's discography--I'd never really connected the dots before. 

FWIW I know a few bass players who swear by the Song for Biko version. I don't know if it was omitted for time or what, but it's a really heavy performance--both energy-wise and in a literal sense, in that the bass is so forward and dominant. The hookup with Ntshoko in interesting in that Dyani seems to be the anchor point; though I wouldn't necessarily call Ntshoko a light drummer, he's not allergic to either eliding the beat or spreading the time--and the cymbal-dominant afro-latin feel on this particular performance changes the shape of the groove a ton. 

It's an interesting point of comparison with the more-or-less contemporaneous Blue Notes performances, since Louis Moholo-Moholo is a lot more unpredictable. Sometimes, as on Blue Notes for Mongezi, Moholo-Moholo is content to let a minimalist beat ride, and Dyani's tempo/meter/groove shifts dictate the flow of the rhythm. There's also a live recording from '79 called Before the Wind Changes on which "I Wish You Sunshine" appears, and it's kind of disarming just how different the tune feels with Moholo-Moholo's obstinate pseudo-martial cadence underpinning the form. Elsewhere, as on Blue Notes in Concert, Moholo-Moholo's drumming is pure maverick abstraction--full of aggressive double-time and chaotic expansion/contraction of the beat--and (as on "Lonely Flower") it's Dyani who is providing a sense of stasis and cohesion. 

This isn't the sample (below) I would have chosen (can't find the album's version of "Now," which is really fucked up in the best possible way), but it goes a long way toward demonstrating just how liquid that band was--in and out of grooves, tonality, etc. with maximum freedom. The Song for Biko band is almost there--and that album has a ton of really beautiful features and compositions, no question--but it's lacking the mercurial, often contrarian push-and-pull that underpins the Blue Notes.

I think it goes unnoticed that both Dyani and Moholo-Moholo were both exceptional time players and surpassing free improvisers--Dyani playing this wild post-prog stuff with Witchdoctor's Son, Moholo-Moholo participating in some wild art rock/prog in the cohort of Keith Tippett and Julie Tippetts--and still getting sampled for the intro to "Telephone Girl," etc. etc. The breadth of those guys was unreal. 

[Rooster_Ties]

OK, so here's the PRIZE --(which is just auditory)-- though not as easy as an embedded YouTube video. Go here...

https://johnnymbizodyani.bandcamp.com/track/kalahari

Then click the big (graphical) "play" button (just the individual track "Kalahari") -- and the entire track will play (all nearly 10 minutes of it).  It's from this double-CD (cover below), which I also just discovered yesterday (actually, I already had it in my 'want list' on the Dusty Groove site - but hadn't ever decided whether to actually get it or not).  Whole album (double CD) info here, which will also let you listen to all the tracks.  (Full-length play too, not just samples -- but you have to select each track, one by one, and then hit play):

https://johnnymbizodyani.bandcamp.com/album/rejoice-together

ANYWAY -- please, please, please listen to this heavy-duty ELECTRIC GUITAR version(!!) of this very same tune!!

Honestly, I got major goosebumps listening to it for the first time last night.  What a MONSTER track!!!  Here's the album cover for the 2CD set...

Edited September 22, 2018 by Rooster_Ties

[soulpope]

10 hours ago, Rooster_Ties said:

 

👍👍👍!!!

[mjazzg]

14 hours ago, Rooster_Ties said:

Do you happen to have a physical copy?  (On CD?) 

No, I have it on vinyl (or my friend who I lent it to has, reminder to get it back)

[Rooster_Ties]

The infamous and searing 'Electric Guitar' version of "Kalahari" that I mentioned a couple posts above, is now on YouTube (wasn't before).  Here 'tis!  Does this ever smoke!!