Hello,
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.”
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Four years in the making, this odd follow-up to Hanrahan's equally peculiar "A Thousand Nights and a Night" finds the composer getting even more ephemeral. It is intriguing to try to follow the meandering thread that runs through obscure recitations, loose jazz passages and wild percussive jams; Lest anyone miss the point that the albums that comprise Kip Hanrahan's A Thousand Nights and a Night series are all of one piece, this installment, volume two, picks up at literally the moment where the previous album ended. Volume one's closing fade out is indeed the same lovely Steve Swallow bass solo that opens the present work. The same elements present in volume one are at work here: half spoken, half sung narrations loosely based on the Thousand and One Nights over dense rhythmic structures and deft instrumental breaks, most notably from pianist Don Pullen. Kip Hanrahan calls this album a Shadow Night, meaning that it recounts alternate versions of the stories told in its predecessor. A Thousand Nights and a Night's greatest strength lies in the depth that it adds to what preceded it. Its principal frustration is that, true to its intended purpose, it sounds more like a long excerpt than a completed work.
Kip Hanrahan - A Thousand Nights And A Night (Shadow Night 1) (flac 381mb)
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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The bad news: Kip Hanrahan uses volume three of his adaptation of the Thousand and One Nights as a statement on economic powerlessness, reducing his narrative voices to rote Noam Chomsky sound-alikes. The good news: Shadow Nights, Vol. 2 features one of the hottest percussion sections since Max Roach and Gene Krupa recorded together. Particularly on "Commerce" (be warned, the title is typical of this album), drummers Negro Horacio Hernandez, Roby Ameen, and J.T. Lewis play together with an extraordinary mix of precision and abandon. Shadow Nights, Vol. 2 is mostly for Kip Hanrahan diehards -- but don't miss those drums.
Kip Hanrahan - A Thousand Nights And A Night (Shadow Night 2) (flac 257mb)
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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It is said that a master perfects technique in order to transcend it. This deeply satisfying disc, which merits a presence on 1998 best-of lists, applies the theory to rumba and proves it. Steeped in the tradition of voice- and percussion-based music, the members of Deep Rumba allow their talents and spirits to soar. The players are enormously sensitive to each other at all tempos. Most instructive is their "Sunshine of Your Love." Typically, a Latin jazz band would simply play the tune with a different beat; here the familiar rhythmic underpinning provides the basis for inspired percussion improvisation, and one doesn't notice until it's over that the melody never made an appearance. Also of note is Jerry Gonzalez' contribution on "The Bronx With Palms Trees," where his dreamy trumpet vamps weave in and out of the complex of sound, reminiscent of the tone and texture of early electric-era Miles Davis bands. Least satisfying are the couple of vocal ballads toward the end of the disc, essentially generic Latin pop fare. On a program of over 63 minutes, they were not needed as filler. The percussion section is extremely tight throughout (Amadito, El Negro, Richie, Milton...) and Andy González' bass is very prominent, which I think is one of the strengths of the album. Kudos to Kip and Puntilla for creating an innovative, if not fully satisfying, record.
Kip Hanrahan - Deep Rumba – This Night Becomes A Rumba (flac 382mb)
01 Vallejo 0:22
02 Cuentale 4:21
03 Columbia Dos Santos 6:18
04 Una Noche De Verano Comenca 8:46
05 Yambhoracio 2:14
06 Sunshine Of Your Love 2:49
07 The Bronx With Palm Trees 4:45
08 Negro And Andy Run This Very Night Into The Rumba 3:56
09 Calma, Morena 0:54
10 Yambu Chevoret 7:08
11 Si! No! 9:34
12 I Wish You Love 9:51
13 Vallejo (Reprise) 0:43
14 Distancia 1:33
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Another page is written in rhumba history, New York chapter. Kip Hanrahan's ever inventive, ever experimental (sometimes to their own detriment) American Clave label offers a follow-up to their first deep rhumba release, This Night Becomes a Rumba. In very much the same spirit, the percussion is thickly layered and pulsing, the arrangement ideas are out of the box, and the emotional tone is at times melancholy and searching, at others fierce and impassioned. With truly the very finest percussionists in the business at his disposal, including drummers Horacio "El Negro" Hernández and Robby Ameen, congueros Richie Flores, Giovanni Hidalgo, and Paoli Mejias (to name just a few), and timbalero Amadito Valdes, there is an overabundance of percussive talent. At times, the blanket of rhumba-funk can be so thick as to stifle the tune, but when used in more sparing measure, it's glorious. The unexpected standout of the record is the vocal styling of Haila Monpie, a former member of the Cuban vocal group Bamboleo. Her tone and improvisational talent are heart-wrenching and inspiring. All in all, there's enough variety and nuance in this record to captivate even those who are not rhumba obsessed. For those who are, say goodbye to friends and family for at least a week. You're going to be glued to the stereo. This album is a real joy to hear with some good headphones.
Kip Hanrahan - Deep Rumba - A Calm in the Fire of Dances (flac 408mb)
01 Cubana 2:18
02 Medley: Robby And Negro Opening Time - Pensamiento 4:18
03 Bom Bom Bom Bom 3:08
04 Prelude To Un Golpecito Na' Ma 2:58
05 Kip Quest 1:58
06 Quimbara 2000 7:52
07 Carlos And Andy Discuss The Science Of Voodoo And The Voodoo Of Science 4:26
08 Besame Mucho 1:37
09 Tradicion 2:18
10 Sugar And Cotton (Black Hands In White Labor) 4:37
11 Cantar Maravilioso 4:58
12 Giovannito 2:05
13 Arabian Nights 5:29
14 El Solo Nino 4:27
15 Yamba De Las Cocas 8:25
16 Work And Play (Real Life Dramas) 5:56
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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
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
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.”
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Four years in the making, this odd follow-up to Hanrahan's equally peculiar "A Thousand Nights and a Night" finds the composer getting even more ephemeral. It is intriguing to try to follow the meandering thread that runs through obscure recitations, loose jazz passages and wild percussive jams; Lest anyone miss the point that the albums that comprise Kip Hanrahan's A Thousand Nights and a Night series are all of one piece, this installment, volume two, picks up at literally the moment where the previous album ended. Volume one's closing fade out is indeed the same lovely Steve Swallow bass solo that opens the present work. The same elements present in volume one are at work here: half spoken, half sung narrations loosely based on the Thousand and One Nights over dense rhythmic structures and deft instrumental breaks, most notably from pianist Don Pullen. Kip Hanrahan calls this album a Shadow Night, meaning that it recounts alternate versions of the stories told in its predecessor. A Thousand Nights and a Night's greatest strength lies in the depth that it adds to what preceded it. Its principal frustration is that, true to its intended purpose, it sounds more like a long excerpt than a completed work.
Kip Hanrahan - A Thousand Nights And A Night (Shadow Night 1) (flac 381mb)
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
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
The bad news: Kip Hanrahan uses volume three of his adaptation of the Thousand and One Nights as a statement on economic powerlessness, reducing his narrative voices to rote Noam Chomsky sound-alikes. The good news: Shadow Nights, Vol. 2 features one of the hottest percussion sections since Max Roach and Gene Krupa recorded together. Particularly on "Commerce" (be warned, the title is typical of this album), drummers Negro Horacio Hernandez, Roby Ameen, and J.T. Lewis play together with an extraordinary mix of precision and abandon. Shadow Nights, Vol. 2 is mostly for Kip Hanrahan diehards -- but don't miss those drums.
Kip Hanrahan - A Thousand Nights And A Night (Shadow Night 2) (flac 257mb)
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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It is said that a master perfects technique in order to transcend it. This deeply satisfying disc, which merits a presence on 1998 best-of lists, applies the theory to rumba and proves it. Steeped in the tradition of voice- and percussion-based music, the members of Deep Rumba allow their talents and spirits to soar. The players are enormously sensitive to each other at all tempos. Most instructive is their "Sunshine of Your Love." Typically, a Latin jazz band would simply play the tune with a different beat; here the familiar rhythmic underpinning provides the basis for inspired percussion improvisation, and one doesn't notice until it's over that the melody never made an appearance. Also of note is Jerry Gonzalez' contribution on "The Bronx With Palms Trees," where his dreamy trumpet vamps weave in and out of the complex of sound, reminiscent of the tone and texture of early electric-era Miles Davis bands. Least satisfying are the couple of vocal ballads toward the end of the disc, essentially generic Latin pop fare. On a program of over 63 minutes, they were not needed as filler. The percussion section is extremely tight throughout (Amadito, El Negro, Richie, Milton...) and Andy González' bass is very prominent, which I think is one of the strengths of the album. Kudos to Kip and Puntilla for creating an innovative, if not fully satisfying, record.
Kip Hanrahan - Deep Rumba – This Night Becomes A Rumba (flac 382mb)
01 Vallejo 0:22
02 Cuentale 4:21
03 Columbia Dos Santos 6:18
04 Una Noche De Verano Comenca 8:46
05 Yambhoracio 2:14
06 Sunshine Of Your Love 2:49
07 The Bronx With Palm Trees 4:45
08 Negro And Andy Run This Very Night Into The Rumba 3:56
09 Calma, Morena 0:54
10 Yambu Chevoret 7:08
11 Si! No! 9:34
12 I Wish You Love 9:51
13 Vallejo (Reprise) 0:43
14 Distancia 1:33
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Another page is written in rhumba history, New York chapter. Kip Hanrahan's ever inventive, ever experimental (sometimes to their own detriment) American Clave label offers a follow-up to their first deep rhumba release, This Night Becomes a Rumba. In very much the same spirit, the percussion is thickly layered and pulsing, the arrangement ideas are out of the box, and the emotional tone is at times melancholy and searching, at others fierce and impassioned. With truly the very finest percussionists in the business at his disposal, including drummers Horacio "El Negro" Hernández and Robby Ameen, congueros Richie Flores, Giovanni Hidalgo, and Paoli Mejias (to name just a few), and timbalero Amadito Valdes, there is an overabundance of percussive talent. At times, the blanket of rhumba-funk can be so thick as to stifle the tune, but when used in more sparing measure, it's glorious. The unexpected standout of the record is the vocal styling of Haila Monpie, a former member of the Cuban vocal group Bamboleo. Her tone and improvisational talent are heart-wrenching and inspiring. All in all, there's enough variety and nuance in this record to captivate even those who are not rhumba obsessed. For those who are, say goodbye to friends and family for at least a week. You're going to be glued to the stereo. This album is a real joy to hear with some good headphones.
Kip Hanrahan - Deep Rumba - A Calm in the Fire of Dances (flac 408mb)
01 Cubana 2:18
02 Medley: Robby And Negro Opening Time - Pensamiento 4:18
03 Bom Bom Bom Bom 3:08
04 Prelude To Un Golpecito Na' Ma 2:58
05 Kip Quest 1:58
06 Quimbara 2000 7:52
07 Carlos And Andy Discuss The Science Of Voodoo And The Voodoo Of Science 4:26
08 Besame Mucho 1:37
09 Tradicion 2:18
10 Sugar And Cotton (Black Hands In White Labor) 4:37
11 Cantar Maravilioso 4:58
12 Giovannito 2:05
13 Arabian Nights 5:29
14 El Solo Nino 4:27
15 Yamba De Las Cocas 8:25
16 Work And Play (Real Life Dramas) 5:56
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Thank u sugar.
ReplyDeleteThis is great stuff, thanks for the enlightenment!
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