RhoDeo 2033 Grooves

Hello, the heatwave is finally abating tomorrow here, back to comfy temps no longer bare-chested posting that said musically we still have some steamy tunes here today..



Today's Artist leads the band, and doesn't really play, but Kip Hanrahan is a forward thinker and an incredible organizer of all-star progressive bands. The founder of the American Clave label, Hanrahan has released Tenderness, Exotica, Darn It!, Anthology, All Roads Are Made of the Flesh, and Desire Develops an Edge. His style is a blend of Latin rhythms and avant-garde. His band has included Jack Bruce, Don Pullen, Leo Nocentelli, Robbie Ameen, and Alfredo Triff. .........N Joy

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Kip Hanrahan was born on december 9, 1954, in the Bronx, New York. His grandparents were irish and russian-jewish immigrants. At the age of fifteen he receveid a grant for study of art. Beginning with sculpture, he switched to film studies. At the age of seventeen he moved to Mahgreb, India with the poet Paul Haines, where he studied Islamic architecture for one year. In 1972 Kip Hanrahan travelled to various West African countries, such as Algeria, Mali and Mauretania, becoming familiar with their music and culture. Back in New York, he worked as a promoter with the Jazz Composers Association. In 1979 he founded the American Clavé label. His approach is often compared to the one of a filmdirector. Coordinating and integrating the musical contributions of various artists, he his totally involved with the music, while continously maintaining the detached view of an outsider. This critical distance, typical of Kip and his work, allows him to explore and experiment in unexpected directions, resulting in a unique body of work

Kip Hanrahan has constructed a career and history of recorded music and concerts as complex and unruley as he understands the human heart : an explosively productive creative relationship with Astor Piazzolla, resulting in the recordings Piazzolla was vocal about declaring the "best records of his life...."; a relentless evolving recordings of new music, and new ways of recording (iconoclastic masterworks, say some, many....), under his own name as well as "Conjure" (rooted in and framed by the American Black "Magic Realism" griot words of Ishmael Reed); a complex but musically awe inspiring, and impossible without Hanrahan, method of producing other artists like Silvana Deluigi, and Horacio El Negro Hernandez and Robby Ameen, and his lifetime friend, Milton Cardona, and records involving Paul Haines, Allen Toussaint and others... and tours with Hanrahan's own band which at times have included Jack Bruce (of course), Don Pullen, Allen Tou ssaint, Charles Neville, Fernando Saunders, Giovanni Hidalgo, Horacio el Negro Hernandez, Robby Ameen, Carmen Lundy, Little Jimmy Scott (on his first European tour!), Alfredo Triff Charles Neville and many others... Also, in the 25 years of living, Hanrahan has continued his need to make records that are among the most uncompromisingly MUSICAL and personal made in the world, and of playing concerts, both his obsessively loyal band of musicians - those that appear on his records as in his concerts - Bruce, Pullen (well, not now, he's deceaced...), Toussaint, Cardona, Hernandez, Ameen, Gonzalez, Neville, etc... During the late 1990s, through 2001, Hanrahan formed, recorded ("recording" sounding comically passive for something that's directed to the last note.....) and toured with a project called "Deep Rumba". A band, "Deep Rumba", formed from the absolute best Cuban (including Buena Vista players, like Amadito Valdez), Cuban American, Puerto Rican and New York percussionists and singers. With encouragement from Horacio El Negro Hernandez (Cuba's best trap drummer before his jump to Italy in 1989) as well as from Xiomara Laugart (Cuba's best singer? Yeah, REALLY!), Changuitio, Heila Monpie and Dafnis Prieto, and others, the band toured and recorded, with Charles Neville and other guest stars from 1998 through 2001, as the most creative and exciting band formed from the possibilties of Cuban and Latin US musics in the air.... Great, obsessively greeted tours of Japan, the US and (briefly) Europe encouraged more.... and more.... But, for Hanrahan, it was time to move on: it seemed that the audiences were intoxicated by the quality and vertuosity of the drumming, and the difficulty of the personal words was covered by the fact that they were sung in Spanish, not English, so..... Anyway : If an overused, but still accurate analogue of Mr. Hanrahan's studio work to that of a movie director still holds, the analogie of Mr. Hanrahan's stage work to that of a theater director might be in order. But during a tour, it's not another performance of the same play he directs each night. ...so.... So! With Hanrahan's new band, there were two nights in Vienne last October, and a new record on the way, following up, completing the heart music started by "Beautiful Scars". And Hanrahan's still "impossible", and the audience that shows up to see "how" Hanrahan struggles with Music and Making the Heart heard each night is still there... And anyone who's confused by what happens on stage is still open to becoming a lifetime Hanrahan fan...... FAN....... But, each night on stage, whether it's breathtakingly tanscendental, or a mixture of blindingly brilliant passages with minor train wrecks, each night / concert with the Kip Hanrahan band is always a project in making the heart's music (of that very night) audible, even in it's frustrations, and should NEVER sound like an excersize in just reproducing, QUOTING music that's been made and heard before, on other nights.Mr. Hanrahan often spends the concerts wandering among the musicians, giving new cues, whispering new musical parts and approaches, and changing the music (and sometimes the words) each night, directing, and redirecting the band in an unorthodox manner, disconcerting and distracting to only those who are unable to hear the music. It's a method of conducting (what's he going to do? As a conductor count out the time to the best percussionists in the world?) that was suggested by a vocal fan, Gil Evans, who originally suggested that Kip do what he does, start the concert PLAYING, then move to the pen and paper as the Night defined it's music during the concert. Kip, of course, took it further, by not even starting by playing or singing, as Gil had suggested. Each night makes itself heard, in both clarity and confusion, through Kip and the band members in it's distinction each time.

A producer, a composer, a percussionist and facilitator, Kip Hanrahan has an uncanny ability to assemble remarkable musicians and apply their talents in interesting ways. The results are often magical. His records are as enigmatic as he is, and maybe that heightens the attraction and expectation. The results of his American Clavé productions have garnered a cultist reputation, yet a lot of people have heard them or at least of them. He chooses to remain in the shadows, an obscure figure that turns the knobs and brings it all together. Hanrahan’s recorded legacy speaks volumes of his knowledge and abilities to bring out the best of musicians that accompany him on his fantastic sojourns. Kip Hanrahan started out as a percussionist, a fairly left-field occupation for an Irish-Jewish boy, even if he did grow up in a Puerto Rican neighborhood of the Bronx, New York. “I don't know where I am in a sense. People tell me that I am a Latin musician. But at the same time, it's not my music. I grew up with it and through it, and I learned it at the same time as everyone else around me learned it. And I think of Latin music as being my first music. But I'm not a Latin musician. I'm not from that culture.” After gaining a fellowship in sculpture at the Cooper Union Arts, in New York, Kip began collect several musical hats, those of producer, director, writer/arranger and conductor. However, his most apt headgear would be one of 'facilitator', for Kip has the knack of being able to connect up people and music together. Kip Hanrahan now has numerous albums to his name. His discography reads like chapters of a book, or betters still, an anthology of short stories, each album reflective of a different phase in his life. “All Roads Are Made of the Flesh,” (1995) is probably his best known work, a compilation of musical vignettes from Jelly Roll Morton to full on avant-garde. Kip has also produced three albums for the late accordion master Astor Piazzolla, the best known of which is “Tango Zero Hour.” Drawing from a rich vein of rock, jazz and blues influences, as well as the Latin influence of his formative years, he has devised a distinctive meld of music, a dialogue between the two hemispheres of north and south, which is informed by the American Clavé. (The clavé is the internal rhythmic pulse around which all Latin music is based.) Kip works with class. Several of the finest Latin jazz percussionists in the world have toured in his band, notably the Puerto Rican Giovanni Hidalgo, who left Kip to work with Dizzy Gillespie, and his protégé Richie Flores, not to forget Milton Cardona, and Anthony Carillo. There is always a fine supporting cast of Cuban players in a variety of roles and instruments. Hanrahan’s musical associates are far too numerous to list or mention here, but on preferred sessions he worked with bassists Jack Bruce, Andy Gonzalez, and Sting, pianists Don Pullen, John Beasley, Edsel Gomez, and Allen Toussaint, sax man Charles Neville, and trumpet man Brian Lynch. More endeavors have included drummers Robby Ameen, and Horacio ‘El Negro’ Hernandez, along with the usual all star line up of top tier percussionists as Paoli Mejias. On his “Deep Rumba/A Calm in the Fire of Dances” (2000) project he featured the vocal of Xiomara Lougart, who shines on her selections. Salsa superstar Ruben Blades does a bilingual version version of “Sympathy for the Devil,” on the “Robby and Negro at the Third World War” (2004) recording. He did the soundtrack for the movie “Piñero,” in 2001, and covered the NuyoRican poetry of Piri Thomas in “Every Child is Born A Poet,” released in 2006. One of his latest projects, also in 2006 has been “Conjure: Bad Mouth.” Bottom line for the musical trajectory of Kip Hanrahan is for the adventuresome listener to dive and explore the profound depths. Kip Hanrahan’s worldly and highly artistic approach provides a road map for ongoing success. Most importantly, Hanrahan paints vivid portraits of life, love and reality without becoming self-absorbed or overbearing. Overall, his productions are generally accessible and entertaining while maintaining that perpetual touch of class.”

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Without Jack Bruce Hanrahan takes a big leap forward into the pure essence of sex and relationships. Even more daring than on Blue Luck Inverted his musicians (first among the many Leo "The Meters" Nocentelli, Fernando Saunders, Robbie Ameen and the wonderful Carmen Lundy)create the atmosphere of the hottest summer night in a city full of loneliness. Hanrahan's poetry matches with the maze of percussion fabrics more beautifully than it ever did before. This music is not jazz, rock or avantgarde. It's "the most complicated wine I've ever tasted". It is the best music I've ever heard.

 Kip Hanrahan - Tenderness  (flac   419mb)

01 Faith in the Pants, Not in the Prick (Vallejo's Folk Song) 5:37
02 When I Lose Myself in the Darkness and the Pain of Love, No, This Love 5:36
03 She Turned So the Maybe a Third of Her Face Was in This Fuckin' Beautiful Half-Light 4:31
04 At the Same Time, as the Subway Train Was Pulling Out of the Station 4:28
05 I Told Him 'I Don't Have to Be Beaten to Be Understood' 6:01
06 Look, the Moon 5:05
07 Half of Sex Is Fear 6:26
08 Gillian's Folk Song 3:46
09 History 5:15
10 There Was Something About His Anger That Was So Inaccessable to Me 5:44
11 If I Knew How to, If I Knew What Muscles to Relax 3:13
12 You're No Pimp, and I'm Certainly No Whore 1:31
13 Deep Summer 4:13
14 Look, the Moon 5:44
15 In Place of an Epilog Lullabye for My Daughter 3:04
16 In Place of a Moral: Geography 5:04

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Awesome latin/jazz/funk gumbo. The best post-Vertical's Curreny Kip Hanrahan album. This is set above by Don Pullen's amazing piano and organ which is omnipresent on this album. The bass is great and I assume is Jack Bruce. The players are named but it doesn't say who plays what. Bruce sings throughout and his voice is nectar as always. The lyrics are leftist polemics and pretty good, although they're too Trotskyite for my tastes - not anti-imperialist nor anti-zionist enough. The drums are good and propulsive: probably mostly Robbie Ameen. Alfredo Triff has some good spots on violin. Saxes by David Sanchez and Mario Rivera. Etc. Just an excellent album!

 Kip Hanrahan - Exotica    (flac   359mb)

01 You Can Tell a Guy by His Anger 7:45
02 The Last Song 3:34
03 As in Angola (Red Star in the Morning Sky) 3:35
04 Red Star 6:53
05 You Can Tell Someone Who'll Never Fullfill Their Potential by the Way They Measure the Evening 1:28
06 What We Learned That Night in Vera Cruz and How We Applied It 2:36
07 G-d Is Great 10:34
08 As in the Bronx (You Can Tell Where Someone Comes From by What They Laugh At) 4:27
09 You Can Tell a Moment of Clarity by the Digital Trace It Leaves 6:01
10 As in the Red Morning 8:00
11 The Last Song on the Album 3:24

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All Roads Are Made of the Flesh occupies an unusual place in the discography of producer Kip Hanrahan. Rather than being a unified musical statement, the album is a collection of pieces that didn't fit into other projects. Among the highlights are a Jelly Roll Morton cover featuring Jack Bruce (vocals) with New Orleans legends Allen Toussaint (piano) and Charles Neville (tenor sax), as well as a luminous piano solo by Don Pullen and two versions of Hanrahan's signature tune "The First and Last to Love Me" (one vocal, the other instrumental). All works on All Roads Are Made of the Flesh feature members of Hanrahan's fiercely loyal core group of musicians, providing the album with a consistent sound and consistently fine playing. The album is a deeply satisfying introduction to the range, if not the depth, of Kip Hanrahan's work.

Kip Hanrahan - All Roads Are Made of The Flesh (flac   256mb)

01 Buddy Bolden's Blues 9:45
02 ...At the Same Time as the Subway Train Was Pulling Out of the Station... 5:19
03 The First and Last to Love Me (4, December) 10:26
04 The September Dawn Shows Itself to Elizabeth and Her Lover on East 18th Street in Manhattan 7:36
05 The Same Dawn, At Almost the Exact Same Moment, Smiles on Don in Passaic 5:04
06 Within an Hour, in New Orleans, Charles Knows the Light's in the Room Without Even Opening His Eyes 0:57
07 The First and Last to Love Me (2, October) 5:57

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The percussive notes that begin "Busses from Heaven," the opening track on percussionist , composer, and musical auteur Kip Hanrahan's gorgeous Beautiful Scars are packed with the complexity, emotion, pathos, and raw yet seductive elegance of his sensually charged musical "films." The place might be Havana, but then it again it might be Miami, Algeria, or Bogota. A bassline, a whispering hi-hat cymbal, Latin rhythms on congas and timbales meet a violin, chanted backing vocals, sampled dialogue, and marimbas with acoustic guitars before Brandon Ross begins to sing: "Here in heaven/a bus will take you anywhere British Leyland take us away/Put your hand in mine/my tongue in your mouth again/Here from Leyland will take us today..." It seems it's Havana after all, the home of the imported busses from Great Britain's Leland company, and Fidel's government couldn't be bothered to change the destinations on their fronts. So no matter where you picked one up, or where you were going in those early heady days of the Revolution, your destination might be stated to be Leicester Square, Liverpool, Birmingham, or perhaps Cairo, Beijing, Jerusalem, Athens, or Delhi -- because Leyland exported their busses everywhere. In a nutshell, this is Hanrahan's desiring machine universe. His music comes from the hopes, dreams, rage, and ruins of cultures largely unknown to White America, makes its own detour through vast soundscapes provided by expatriates and refugees who happen to be musicians and poets, and comes out a new world order of the lost, the beautiful, and the beaten who have access to pleasures most of us wouldn't dream of, simply because of their displacement.

Hanrahan hasn't really issued a record under his own name since his brilliant and gorgeously difficult, two-volume A Thousand Nights and a Night sets in 1998 and 1999, respectively (though two records have come out under his American Clave rubric: 2002's Pinero by poet Piri Thomas, and the Ishmael Reed/ Conjure collective's Bad Mouth in 2006). Beautiful Scars was more than worth the wait. His cast, is, as usual, full of all-stars: Steve Swallow, Robby Ameen, Horacio "El Negro" Hernandez, Milton Cardona, Fernando Saunders, Ron Blake, Alfredo Triff, Yosvany Terry Cabrera, Dafnis Prieto, Pedro Martinez, Bryan Carrott, and himself of course. His guest vocalists are an amazing, unlikely batch who work together in many ways: Ross, Xiomara Laugart, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Leijia Hanrahan, Lindsay Marcus. Some friends help out in various places: Billy Bang, Anthony Cox, Richie Flores, Mario Rivera, and the great guitarist Leo Nocentelli. The music is, for lack of a better word "Exotic": here, jazz meets many Latin rhythms, meets organic breakbeats and folk musics from all over the world in this heady stew of lyrics born of raw eros, politics, spirituality, and art-poetry. The entire set is wonderful, but "Busses from Heaven," the languid title cut on which we hear Ross' most gorgeous recorded vocal; the slippery, sex groove of "Carvaggio/A Quick Balance," with killer sax work by Blake, he moody tone poetry of "One Summer Afternoon (For Gil Evans)," and the moaning percussion jazz-blues that is "Salt in the Mozambique Night (Glasgow, for Jack Bruce)" are highlights. Hanrahan's records are not so much easy to listen to as they are obsessive, addictive. Once this album is heard in full, nothing can be played after it -- unless it's another record by him. Beautiful Scars is the most elegant, graceful, steamy record Hanrahan's released yet. You'll have to hunt for it, but it is worth whatever you pay for it.

 Kip Hanrahan - Beautiful Scars (flac   376mb)

01 Busses From Heaven 6:17
02 Real Time and Beautiful Scars 6:12
03 The Girl That Won't Resolve 2:35
04 Caravaggio / A Quick Balance 6:37
05 Night Columbia 4:30
06 One Summer Afternoon (For Gil Evans) 3:38
07 Xiomara Wears the Heat Beautifully 5:22
08 Paris Through Tears 2:58
09 Montana 4:22
10 Leijia Heads to Brooklyn 0:50
11 Milton Cardona 2:20
12 Salt in the Mozambique Night (Glasgow, for Jack Bruce) 4:35
13 Rumba of Cities 4:44
14 The Accountant of Morning 5:19
15 Winterscape With I.M.F. 1:18
16 City of Gold (Palestine Blues) 4:18

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