Derek Bailey – Explanation & Thanks (2005)

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Recorded 2005, Barcelona, Spain.

It’s a bit difficult to understand how, after more than four decades of playing guitar, Derek Bailey developed a debilitating case of carpal tunnel syndrome. It’s not like holding a pick was something new to him, but the condition (fortunately confined to his right hand) made it such that he was no longer able to hold a “plectrum.” This fact comes out in “Explanation & Thanks,” the introductory piece to the album entitled Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, an audio letter dictated/played by Derek to someone named “Carol.” [source]

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Derek Bailey: Audio Production, Engineer, Guitar, Producer /

Kazunori Sugiyama: Assosiate Producer / John Zorn: Executive Producer

 

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Fred Frith – Step Across The Border (1990)

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Step Across the Border is a 1990 avant-garde documentary film on English guitarist, composer and improviser Fred Frith. It was written and directed by Nicolas Humbert and Werner Penzel and released in Germany and Switzerland. The film was screened in cinemas in North America, South America, Europe and Japan, and on television in the United States, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and France. It was also released on VHS by RecRec Music (Switzerland) in 1990, and was later released on DVD by Winter & Winter (Germany) in 2003. [source]

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Charlie Parker – Relaxin’ at Camarillo (1947)

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In December 1945, Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker made history by bringing the frenetic sounds of bebop—then primarily an underground scene for in-the-know musicians—from the East to the West Coast for a two-month residency at Billy Berg’s Hollywood jazz club. It was the beginning of a harrowing and occasionally productive two year-stint for Parker bumming around L.A., showing up at jam sessions, crashing on people’s couches, causing havoc in public places (like stripping naked an walking through the lobby of the Civic Hotel downtown), and once in a while standing still for recording dates.

Dope sick from his prodigious heroin habit, Parker could barely function on the lightweight skag circulating along Central Avenue; called “mud,” it was a ghastly concoction of unrefined opium with twigs and dirt still in it. He took to drinking gallons of cheap wine and popping or smoking anything that came his way. Local fan Ross Russell, owner of the Tempo Music Store on Hollywood Boulevard, was a bebop fanatic; he started Dial Records in 1946 specifically to record Parker’s music.

“Relaxin’ at Carmarillo” – Considering the genesis of this tune—Parker wrote it while playing in the Camarillo State Hospital jazz band—this is one of Bird’s airiest and most relaxed performances. That’s L.A. guitarist Barney Kessel on the solo.

Miles Davis, Robert Glasper ft. Erykah Badu – Maiysha (So Long) (2016)

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“I think Miles would’ve loved Erykah,” pianist and producer Robert Glasper told Rolling Stone recently, during a conversation about Everything’s Beautiful, an upcoming album on which he reworked snippets of Miles Davis’ studio recordings to create entirely new tracks. One of the highlights of the release, which stemmed from Glasper’s soundtrack work for Don Cheadle’s audacious Davis biopic, Miles Ahead, is a simmering bossa nova version of “Maiysha” – a song originally released on 1974’s Get Up With It – featuring lead vocals from Erykah Badu.