Tony Williams Lifetime - EMERGENCY

[Milestones]

Bitches Brew was my first jazz record, and Inner Mounting Flame was not far behind.  Also, I became a huge fan of Tony (pre-fusion) right away.  In those days Lifetime was just a rumor.

I did wind up buying a two-record set (vinyl) that contained most of the first two records.  It was tough to get into...and it still is now. I'm a bit McLaughlin fan, and this is way down the list when I want to listen to him--not that there aren't good moments. 

There is group chemistry, but the best thing is Tony's drumming.

   

 

[JSngry]

I too experienced a lot of "fusion" before getting a copy Emergency (and just the first volume at that), and, yeah, I was a bit befuddled. This was NOT Mahavishnu!!!

But it's a lot later now. So many things that I didn't know then I know now, and the chronological gaps no longer exist for me that once did.

So revisiting it today (and with Schapp's mix to assist), just clicked in a way that hadn't happened before. There's a group "howl" (for lack of a better term) that I hadn't picked up on before that just thrills the hell out of me, the rawness of discovery and of leaping headfirst into the more-or-less unknown.

Too bad about the truly unfortunate recording, but at this point, if I can get thrilled by some really craickly Bird bootlegs, the I can get thrilled by this.

I have heard the one real-time live recording of a club date, and it's....I'm not ready for THAT rough a recordding just yet. But you know, time marches on, so never say never.

[Milestones]

Nothing is rougher on the ears than all of the vocals on these records.

 

[JSngry]

There's not as much of it as I remembered. A LOT more playing than singing! 

[BFrank]

12 hours ago, sidewinder said:

I’ve got the Polydor/Schaap CD and the 2CD compilation mentioned above. Music great, recording diabolical. Having said that, all that distortion does have a certain appeal.

Yes, that was one of the highlights of the Verve 2CD series for me. Covers all the releases through to ‘Old Bum’s Rush’, which gets a lot of stick but which I rather like.

I like Old Bum's Rush, too. Tequila has some great vocals!

[mikeweil]

13 hours ago, BFrank said:

I like Old Bum's Rush, too. Tequila has some great vocals!

Same here. Has it ever been on CD in complete form?

This was the album that made me appreciate Williams more rockish drumming. He plays very intelligent long phrases on that album

[JSngry]

And Tony's "first" phase of "rock" drumming is nowhere near copiously documented. By the time he got back with Believe It...that was a different game altogether.

All the more reason to dig down to the bottom of a mix like this beautiful bashfest:

 

[BFrank]

11 hours ago, mikeweil said:

Same here. Has it ever been on CD in complete form?

This was the album that made me appreciate Williams more rockish drumming. He plays very intelligent long phrases on that album

According to Discogs, it was released on CD in Japan in 2005

https://www.discogs.com/release/8097611-The-Tony-Williams-Lifetime-The-Old-Bums-Rush

[JSngry]

Any thoughts on Ego? Ted Dunbar seems the most counterintuitive replacement for McLaughlin  possible, but it works, imo. Totally different too!

[mikeweil]

I love the Ego album, and think Ted Dunbar is great in that band.

[jazzbo]

Ted Dunbar is a great player. Period. IMO.

[mikeweil]

Tony made deep black music starting with EGO. 

 

[ep1str0phy]

On 2/27/2023 at 1:39 PM, JSngry said:

I too experienced a lot of "fusion" before getting a copy Emergency (and just the first volume at that), and, yeah, I was a bit befuddled. This was NOT Mahavishnu!!!

But it's a lot later now. So many things that I didn't know then I know now, and the chronological gaps no longer exist for me that once did.

So revisiting it today (and with Schapp's mix to assist), just clicked in a way that hadn't happened before. There's a group "howl" (for lack of a better term) that I hadn't picked up on before that just thrills the hell out of me, the rawness of discovery and of leaping headfirst into the more-or-less unknown.

Too bad about the truly unfortunate recording, but at this point, if I can get thrilled by some really craickly Bird bootlegs, the I can get thrilled by this.

I have heard the one real-time live recording of a club date, and it's....I'm not ready for THAT rough a recordding just yet. But you know, time marches on, so never say never.

There's a thesis waiting to be written about how the rapid evolution of jazz in the 1960s produced a slew of musically innovative, improperly recorded albums. One could argue that part of the "problem" is that jazz culture as a gestalt has not (classically) incentivized the use of the recording studio as an editorial tool. I use the word "incentivized" carefully here - it's not as if the artists, producers, and engineers of the 60s were as a rule averse to making records that did more than simply "document" a live event. I do feel, however, that likeminded collaborations like Miles and Teo are the exception rather than the rule, and our cultural preoccupation with live performance and instrumental mastery has meant that jazz has seldom had to rely on the kinds of technical conceits that rock, hip-hop, etc. have ultimately found most durable.

I actually prefer Turn It Over to Emergency - but I'll qualify that statement by saying that I think that both records sound poor. I've read a handful of articles - and have even had a number of in-person exchanges - relating out the Jack Bruce era of Lifetime was prohibitively loud. At the same time, I can't imagine that Lifetime was any louder than Cream - the difference being that Lifetime was shunted into jazz clubs and recorded without the assistance of a George Martin or Felix Pappalardi. Turn It Over was recorded by Ray Hall - if I have my info straight, dude was working with crossover fare like Gary Burton and Nina Simone. That band needed someone who could record the fucking Who.

Ego sounds a little better, and (notwithstanding the change in concept) I imagine that at least part of that had to do with how studio techniques had evolved to better capture the band's sound. I maintain, however, that some aspect of jazz's cultural habitus continues to pace other genres in terms of utilizing constructive understanding of new technologies - it's just that in the 21st century, we're dealing with home recording, Ableton, live samples, etc. The most fruitful work in this regard is probably being done in jazz-inflected hip-hop, electronic/noise music, and other experimental genres, but we're now talking about variable cultural priorities vs. one genre being savvier than the other. (There are exceptions to everything, of course - I don't think you could level these criticisms against Shabaka Hutchings's stuff or Kassa Overall's studio work, for example.) 

[mikeweil]

I for one think that rough sound fits the unpolished quality of the music, like on a live gig, where you rarely have perfect sound. A too clean sound cuts the edges. 

[JSngry]

I don't see where Jack Bruce added anything other than a display of an interest in even a slightly more predictable outcome.

The original trio had more than a few moments where it sounded like batshit crazy was on the way, and nobody cared to stop it if it did. Because if you don't know what NOT to do, you don't really know what you WILL do, never mind what you probably SHOULD do. 

I love that about it 

2 hours ago, mikeweil said:

I for one think that rough sound fits the unpolished quality of the music, like on a live gig, where you rarely have perfect sound. A too clean sound cuts the edges. 

Dude, it's an organ trio, right? Does an organ trio EVER sound better with the edges cut? 

[ep1str0phy]

7 hours ago, JSngry said:

I don't see where Jack Bruce added anything other than a display of an interest in even a slightly more predictable outcome.

The original trio had more than a few moments where it sounded like batshit crazy was on the way, and nobody cared to stop it if it did. Because if you don't know what NOT to do, you don't really know what you WILL do, never mind what you probably SHOULD do. 

Turn It Over does Bruce a disservice, I think, in that he's clearly peripheral to the trio dynamic. The quartet on that record is not a "band" so much as a "trio + guest" - which is a reality that seems to have been rendered by decision rather than fact. The Laswell reconstruction/remix of the album is far more comprehensive than the original LP, and even that project is hedging between Young and Bruce.

There is an unrecorded (or possibly unrealized) version of Lifetime with a fully integrated Bruce that is just as interesting as the Emergency trio. I think that Williams was looking to hook into that liminal space between electric Miles and Cream, which would require that both Young recalibrate his role and the music lose some of its rhythmic dynamism. This semi-imaginary version of the band might have lost the mercurial energy of the trio, but it would have gained something that virtually all of the fusion projects of this era lacked: density of attack. It's not that Bruce was a better technical bass player than, say, Rick Laird - it's just that was arguably a better rock bassist than most of his contemporaries. 

In terms of audio quality - I agree that the crappiness of the original Lifetime recordings feels correct and oddly necessary, but the Laswell remix changed my mind on everything. It is actually a better album IMO - it's just lacking the original LP's brutal brevity. The improvisations are are more complete, the mix is better, and Bruce at least makes a little more sense:

 

[JSngry]

Just sayin'...

 

[JSngry]

On 2/25/2023 at 11:24 AM, JSngry said:

Pretty sure there's parts where McLaughlin is playing multiple parts.

I would like to withdraw that statement. 

[JSngry]

This is the greatest music in the history of records yah! 

[Rabshakeh]

Hadn't listened to Turn It Over before. It is really good. Chaotic and with too many vocals but still really strong.

[mjzee]

Emergency! is being reissued in Japan (SHM-CD format) on June 21.

[JSngry]

With which mix? 

[mjzee]

11 minutes ago, JSngry said:

With which mix? 

Someone who reads Japanese will have to answer.

[unitstructures]

Larry Young - Love Cry Want is like Emergency's cousin who did a bit more acid and doesn't always seem *quite right* but says something every so often that makes you really stop and think.

[Bill Nelson]

When Tony Williams broke from MIles to launch Lifetime, his first mistake was hiring Miles' late-40's buddy Monte Kay as manager.

At this time, Monte had been managing Flip Wilson and would be producer of The Flip Wilson Show on NBC-TV in 1970.

In Melody Maker (January 15, 1972), John McLaughlin had this to say about Lifetime's state of affairs:

"Everything except the music was incredibly bad; management, economics, administration, organization... incredibly bad."