So it is the time of year for reflections on the recent past. At Highlife Records this means choosing your favourite album releases of the last 12 months. For me this is always a complicated process. I of course have found a number of newly discovered sides that make my life more interesting and tuneful. The problem for me is two fold. Firstly – every year – a good chunk of the releases I want to list are not new. They are only new to me. Secondly, some of these new releases are very difficult to obtain, and therefore of questionable use on a record shop’s top albums list for customers.
Let me explain. I am always on the lookout for new music. Music enriches my life in a way that keeps me vital and engaged, and so I remain curious and always searching. I read magazines and books about music. I ask my friends for tips about things they have recently heard and liked, and I search online. I search out and listen to music that musicians I admire quote as influences, and I ask customers at the record store (that I am fortunate to work at on Saturdays) for tips. The good news is that the world is full of beautiful, interesting, exciting, and soothing music that I currently know nothing about. Every year it turns out that I have found a bit more of this previously unknown (to me) magic.
So, finding exciting new music is a good thing, right? Well of course it is good to have a wider range of choices to refer to when you want to match each new day’s mood with the specific appropriate sound. It is however, at the same time, embarrassing to list – as one of your favourite new album of 2024 – a 1973 Bob Dylan soundtrack. I mean …. Bob Dylan?! How could any self respecting record store employee not know about Bob Dylan?! Well, it turns out that there was lots of music around in 1973, and I arrogantly thought I already knew about Bob Dylan’s most important work, so what did I care about some throw away soundtrack? How wrong could I be? Anyway, I digress.
This post is my attempt to deal with my contradictions – for this year. Oh you will still see my name on the sheet of paper in the shop, with a list of newly released musical treasures, but you will also get a heads up about the following musical treasures that are either simply new to me this year, or difficult to get. They are, as always in no particular order of rank.
New to me:
Bob Dylan – “Pat Garret and Billy the Kid” OST. (Columbia 1973), this soft and beautiful (mostly instrumental) soundtrack is an outlier even in a discography as large and diverse as Dylan’s. The record features the guitar playing Dylan and African American 1960’s studio guitar legend Bruce Langhorne. Half of it was recorded, by Dylan and Langhorne, in Mexico City, with Mexican studio musicians. Interestingly, the still formally unreleased, full sessions for this album also included the song fragment “Rock Me Momma” that was eventually tweaked – years later – by Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show to create the mega hit tune “Wagon Wheel”.
Joe Henderson – “Power To the People” (Milestone 1969), re-issued this year by Craft Records. This album has been out of print for a long time, and perfectly captures the spirit of the times when the power and technique of free jazz (through the playing of visionary icons like John Coltrane) was being welded, through the lens of social conscience and political activism (by artists like Henderson), into the expanding genre of soul music. A true classic !
Harold Land “The Fox” (HiFi Jazz 1959) – re-issued by Contemporary Records in 1969 and then re-issued again by Craft Records – this year. This red hot bop date features the vastly under-rated aggressive and modal improvising of Harold Land, a west coast tenor player whose strong playing often sadly fell between the cracks. This LP also includes the playing of Dupree Bolton and Elmo Hope, and is one of Land’s best.
John Berberian “Middle East Rock” (Verve Forecast 1969) – re-issued in 2022 by Modern Harmonic. This 1969 recording by Armenian oud player John Berberian and the Rock East Ensemble is an amazing example of the power of some musicians to mix traditional sounds with modern energy using their imagination. This record would have been on my ‘desert island – hope to find it – one day’ list, if I even knew that it existed. An astounding set of tunes unlike almost anything I have ever heard. Thanks for bringing in Kevin.
Hard to find:
Joe Harriott Quintet “Movement” (Columbia UK 1964) – re-issued this year in a limited edition vinyl release on Decca. One of the rarest and most crucial albums ever by this Jamaican-British jazz saxophonist of African heritage. Seen in the early 60’s as the UK’s parallel to Ornette Coleman, Harriott brought a singular voice to the music with a simultaneously free and melodic approach similar to Eric Dolphy.
Saltwater Hank “Siip’nsk” (self-released 2024) – this 9 song EP was released this year by the amazing Indigenous musician Jeremy Pahl – who was born in Txalgiiw (Hartley Bay) and is a member of the Ts’mysen nation. While he can play a number of instruments, this final release under his stage name “Saltwater Hank” features his powerful, thrashing, cutting edge, rock and roll guitar playing. All of the songs on this album are sung in the Sm’algyax language (that he has worked to learn from his elders) and the record also features two spot on covers, of classics by Howlin’ Wolf and Link Wray.
John Leventhal “Rumble Strip” (Rumble Strip Records) – it is hard to believe that this album is the first ever released under the name of Roseanne Cash’s 71 year old guitar playing longtime partner, musical collaborator – John Leventhal. Clearly he has waited far too long to do this. This collection is astounding! Composed of mainly original acoustic guitar instrumentals, it brings to mind the guitar chops of Norman Blake, John Fahey and Bill Frisell, and suggests musical influences from Mississippi John Hurt to Aaron Copeland. We need more albums like this, please !!!
Mal Waldron “Rat Now – Paris 1970” (Sam Records 2024) – This latest release from this small but dynamic Paris based Record shop (Sam’s) continues their stellar track record of finding and issuing or re-issuing lost jazz treasures. This trio recording was made in March of 1970, after Waldron’s 1969 set for ECM – the first album that label ever released – and his first of many visits to Japan in February of 1970. The driving, dense, rhythmic, but still melodic playing – that was to become Waldron’s hallmark – was just becoming solidified at this point in his career and we can clearly hear the power this fusion creates.
