Customer Reviews

Cab Calloway Stands In For The Moon

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Long ago a friend gave me this definition of poetry: "the marriage of meaning & music!" I have no idea how literally he meant that, but I don't think he apprehended anything this specific, this swinging, this funky. What we have here is a seamless, peripatetic meld of contexts, word and tune, spirit and ensemble.

This is not a sequel but a full-fledged complement to the earlier album, CONJURE: MUSIC FOR THE TEXTS OF ISHMAEL REED, likewise an eclectic jazzy, bluesy, toe-tapping nuptials of musical compositions and arrangements especially crafted by Kip Hanrahan to embrace the NeoHooDoo peregrinations of that linguistic shaman, Ishmael Reed. And Hanrahan doesn't skimp on assembling a legion of adept musical accomplices.

This stuff percolates along your nerve tracks. Reed's acerbic wit and skewed observations ("No one's ever seen a dead crow along the highway") eagle rock over, under and through Hanrahan's wicked tracks. One of my all time favorites, especially for the opening track, with Bobby Womack's ballsy baritone setting the stage. Defies categorization. Go ahead and check it out, you won't be sorry.

I found the fruits of this Hanrahan/Reed project superior to the first Conjure CD featuring Taj Mahal. The songs are much stronger, and the cast more varied and versatile. A desert island disc, for sure.

A remarkable compilation of talents from this period. Very pleased to find this on amazon.com as not easily sourced in UK. Has an all time favourite of mine, Don Pullen's My Brothers, featuring some deft and grooving hammond. May not suit everyone's taste being somewhat raw in the production but to me this is a plus as you get to hear what is being played. Also may seem a bit wierd and self indulgent for those looking for elevator jazz, but to me it is a window on a time and viewpoint that although alien to my home culture (very English bloke in quiet domestic environment) is really enlightening and is another sort of home, having been brought up on US music of this rare kind.