Witch: Herbie Hancock/Witch Fire

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Herbie Hancock? ... I had a vinyl copy of one of his albums way back at the end of 60's. It was so long ago that I have a hard time remembering which one it was (I certainly no longer have a copy)
Wait ... does anyone even know his name today, let alone still have vinyl copies of this stuff?

The man has come up with 41 live albums, 12 studio, sixty-two compilations, five sound-tracks, thirty-eight singles ....I can hardly continue. Oh yeah ... he's also got a song that fits our current theme. Well, .. actually more than one (considering the above lengthy repertoire): the man has credits on <Witch Fire> as well on <Witch Hunt>. The titles sound awfully similar, no?

Witch Fire, from the Smoking Keys album, is credited to - can't find anything. There's relatively little online about this album. The first Google link takes you to a site in Asian/Chinese characters and not much else. The Google images link includes a screen shot of an album of the same name, but the trail seems to peter out about there. Except that that link resolves to give you a list of songs on said album. And another link (if you enclose the album title in quotes, leads you to (WTF): a link about Blue Cheer (now that's history for you) - "Peterson is at the wheel *smoking, keys* in the ignition but the motor is silent"

There's more online info about Witch Hunt, credited to Wayne Shorter from his '66 album <Speak No Evil>, which includes a number of ECM studio alumni: Shorter, Freddie Hubbard, Ron Carter, and Herbie Hancock. (ECM going back to the end of the '60s and a major jazz publishing influence throughout the 70s and still thankfully going today)

But .. back to the story line (witches, Herbie Hancock)...
Herbie Hancock makes Rolling Stone's list of top "Stoner" albums, but not for this one (although that should come across as slightly auspicious - Halloween, anyone?)

Witch Hunt/James Easter:

GEMS & STONES: AMETHYST/LOW

Well, my tried and tested has again come up trumps, the old my i-tunes library search model. This at least has the advantage of knowing the songs shown, rather than a pretence based on some song that just happens to have amethyst otherwise mentioned, culled from '100 Best Songs with Gemstones in Their Title', those lists forever propagated in the once venerable Rolling Stone magazine. OK, I had a false start with Jade: Wayne Shorter being perhaps too old school for this site, and Opal: Bicep, which is maybe too new. And Lapis Lazuli brought nothing forth, even though I swear it is in a lyric I can't quite grasp right now, perhaps a Jim Morrison. (Answers to me in comments, please, it is too hot a day for me to be researching.)

I really rather like Low, the husband and wife team from Duluth, famously Mormons. Although they have been around for yonks, it is probably only within the last 5 - 10 years I have become aware of them, in part through the promotion given them through the patronage of others. (Robert Plant is a prominent fan, including 2 of their songs on his 2010 album, 'Band of Joy', saying, at the time of this, possibly, given his back catalogue, unusual choice:

"It's great music; it's always been in the house playing away beside Jerry Lee Lewis and Howlin' Wolf, 
you know. There's room for everything." 

Often slow and sombre, with sparse and understated arrangements, they have a mesmerising vocalist in each of Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Turner, otherwise guitar and drums respectively, but it is in duet harmony that the gem surely sparkles. I am sometimes minded of Richard and Linda Thompson's less cheerful moments in many of the arrangements, the voices melding both equivalently and equally melancholically. Bass duties have been provided by a variety of bassists over their 24 year recording history, but with Steve Garrington for the past 8. Keyboards, swathes of choral synthesised sound, are provided also by Garrington. As well as their own material they have also produced quite a selection of unlikely cover material, from Neil Young to the Smiths, Joy Division to the Trapp Family Singers(!). 'Amethyst' is from 2013's 'The Invisible Way', possibly my favourite of their output. Here is what UK online hipster resource, 'The Quietus' had to say about it.

I won't go on, the music says more than I possibly can. By way of a sign off, here is another song from the same album, 'Just Make It Stop', just to make me stop.

Amethyst, the song: here!

Joni Covers: Jazz Saxophone Tributes

Herbie Hancock, ft. Wayne Shorter: Both Sides Now

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Paul Desmond: Song to a Seagull

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Joshua Redman: I Had a King

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Let's check out some jazzy Joni covers, yeah? Here are three that focus on the saxophone. I used to play this amazing instrument, but sadly, none of the songs I ever learned were nearly as cool as these. It may seem counterintuitive to feature songs of a remarkable lyricist that have been stripped of the lyrics, but this allows us to focus on the melodies. Which are also remarkable, as we'll see.

I'll start with the low-hanging fruit. Herbie Hancock, the genius jazz keyboardist who's played with everyone who's anyone in the jazz world, released an entire tribute album to Joni in 2007, called "River: The Joni Letters." To everyone's surprise (except those of us who, you know, actually listened to it), Herbie's tribute ended up as the Grammy Album of the Year. How could it not? I'm going with one of the few instrumentals on the CD, but even then, it features Wayne Shorter, who is every bit as awesomesauce as Herbie. If you're a Steely Dan fan, you've heard him on "Aja". If you're a jazz fan, you know him from later Miles Davis, Weather Report, and, um, other Herbie Hancock recordings.

If you've ever listened to "Take Five," that idiosyncratic, arrhythmic, and classic ode to the 5/4 time signature, then you've heard Paul Desmond's alto saxophone. His was a defining musical voice of West Coast (aka Cool) Jazz. Here's his 1973 take on one of Joni's earliest songs, recorded before even Joni herself began to follow the jazz muse of her later work. And if you pay attention to these sorts of things, Grammy winner Don Sebesky is the arranger.

Another west-coast jazz musician, this one a son of saxman Dewey Redman, gives us our last saxophone tribute to Joni. Joshua Redman has other credits to his name, including the PBS TV shows Arthur and Reading Rainbow, and, and, and OMG he's the saxophonist on the anime series Cowboy Bebop, an oeuvre from which I'll try to work in songs in future posts….oh, where was I? Oh, right. Here's a 1998 Joni cover.