Search this Blog

Pageviews

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

My desert island record



... all considered, if push comes to a shove, I guess I know the title of My Desert Island Record... its "CoDoNa", the first effort of Collin Walcott, Don Cherry and Nana Vansconcellos' supergroup, recorded in analog in September 1978 at Tonstudio Bauer in Ludwigsburg, Germany.
It's a record I always owned, as I remember, so I'm imbedded in this music... it's not a sing-in-the-shower kind-of record, but the music in the grooves has a very ancient yet an always new, untiring patina... I'm never tired in listening to Nana's berimbau, Don's trumpet and Collin's hammered dulcimer and sitar... and their voices, of people who spent their whole life, 'til death which sadly arrived for 2 of them far too early, on the road... they walked all the paths, musically... jazz, ethnic, world-music, folk and they mixed in a very special way, very seldomly so successful.
Sonically, with 301 Shindo in the new slate plinth and B-60 tunable VTA & bronze armpod, with Schick Type A (long version) and Lumiere Type A (short model), ALL the layers created by musicians are so well "here", the trumpet is simply AWESOME, like the bells and voices... despite I own "some" records, I don't remember I ever listened to a better captured series of bells and small percussions, with a superbly true to life decay and right weight, also in a rain stick, where you clearly hear every grain moving inside the wooden tube... the attention is captured for the whole record duration, while the mind easily "see" landscapes: Brazil, India, NYC... skies, woods, grass in the wind and other nature beauties, and yet it's as urban as hinting of countryside.
It's sound I'm talking about, yes, BUT I'm referring to Sound, like the grandfather of Music, echoing nature power and several voices, from thunder to a waterfall to rain to wind and birds and animals...
It's a GREAT record by GREAT musicians, sincerely involved in this timeless sounds, ancient melodies which owns to the Earth itself.
ECM recently reissued the three discs in a triple disk set, "The Codona Trilogy"... so, no apologies at all in not owning them all;-)
Satisfaction guaranteed.

No comments: