krossie
Well-Known Member
Radio Neuromantek
Tuesday nights Raidio Na Life 106.4 fm 10.00 pm - 12 am
For de truly crazy repeats Friday Night/Saturday Morning 4.30 am!
Something a bit different tonight a "free Jazz" (snagceoil saor!) special mostly focused on the work and fairly strange life and times of Giuseppi Logan who did two mega famous albums on the ESP label - more or less disappeared for many, many years and is now back playing at the age of 75.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppi_Logan
Says our guest Fergus Cullen:
The show is mainly about Giuseppi Logan to celebrate his 75th
birthday. Its a wonder he's still alive. Everybody pretty much thought
he was dead having disappeared in the 60s or early 70s. He took way
too many drugs and flipped out. Ended up in and out of psychiatric
institutions (jail too I think) and landed himself homeless on the
streets of NYC. Before all this, his style of playing was unique in
that it was very experimental. He prided himself in melodically using
the highest possible notes of the sax. Even on his earliest records he
sounded just plain weird in an outsider kinda way. His chops came
across as lazy and loose as if he was entirely self- taught. I found
him interesting also because he ventured into multi-instrumentation
taking up flute, bass clarinet, Pakistani oboe and piano. B-side of
his second album is one big long piano solo.
Roswell Rudd trombone player with New York Art Quartet took a liking
to him, even covering one of his tracks on his Impulse LP 'Everywhere'
on which Giuseppi plays bass clarinet and flute. I've included a track
of his on the show.
Another outsider who disappeared seemingly without a trace in the 70s
(I think) is bass player Henry Grimes. Discovered by The Wire mag
living in a hotel in LA William Parker raised funds for a new bass for
him and he quickly got back into the free jazz scene. He was in fact
one the most successful 'out' players as he got alot of releases on
bigger labels like Blue Note with Sonny Rollins, Cecil Taylor,
etc..The track here is the only ESP Disk release with a straight ahead
clarinet-playing leader (Perry Robinson).
Giuseppi was 'rediscovered' by a Christian Mission but the person who
got him back playing again is bass clarinet and trumpet player Matt
Lavelle. He's quickly become one of the most active players in New
York right now and he's on the new Giuseppi Logan Quintet cd on
Tompkins Square label along with Pianist Dave Burrell and bassist
Francois Grillot. Actually funny story, while living in Tompkins
Square park, Giuseppi's sax was robbed on him so his sister bought him
a trombone (?). He traded this in for a sax and started playing again.
I couldn't have a show about the ESP Disk label without mentioning
Albert Ayler. The track on here is 'Spirits' from the first ever ESP
album 'Spiritual Unity'. Of course Ayler had his own troubles and was
found dead at the bottom of New York's East river.
He was a huge inspiration to John Coltrane among 100s of others. His
style was straight out of the church... more like 'free gospel' music
more than plain old free jazz.
I've also included a track by Sun Ra from the Heliocentric World Vol 1
album because he was also an outsider. Totally different buzz to
Giuseppi but none-the-less an outsider who was way ahead of his time.
Paul Watts will also be on hand with even more free jazz - I'll be doing a bit of talking and DJ Welfare is up at 12 with dubstep, drum and bass of a high standard!
