Everything Is Connected....

How a search for jazz pianist Kirk Lightsey wound up in Peru's experimental underground.

Unexpected side benefit of avoiding Spotify as a source for audio reference: The massive collection of unusual clips and artifacts sitting in the dusty attics of YouTube.

The holdings are vast. YouTube has its own streaming operation, so there’s an official database of titles. On top of that, the platform hosts a massive archive of audio and video material, much of it live, that allows listeners to explore beyond the established discographies. This is the part of YouTube that troubles intellectual property lawyers, because there are (often) unresolved questions of ownership and copyright, and – of course – questions about whether the artists approved a release, or even knew of the existence of a clip.

In the past, I’ve avoided linking to YouTube because I believe artists should be paid for their work, full stop. But as Spotify’s streaming operations have sprouted problems beyond unfair compensation for artists (see: Joe Rogan), I’ve warmed to one common journalistic rationale for these links: Educational use. As in: Here’s a bit of music that might lead someone to a new obsession, and a string of future purchases. It’s why we’re here.

Here's a short recent pathway. Last September, those who follow the New York jazz club Small’s were treated to a live-streamed (and now archived) set featuring Detroit-born pianist Kirk Lightsey, bassist Santi DeBriano, guitarist Mark Whitfield and drummer Victor Lewis. This was a chance to encounter the imaginative Lightsey, who lives in Paris, in an intimate extended conversation with keen, quick-witted New York musicians.

Watching it recently sent me back to Lightsey’s 1986 release Lightsey Live, a beautifully recorded solo performance that showcases the pianist doing expansive and methodical transformations of jazz themes like Wayne Shorter’s “Fee Fi Fo Fum.” It’s on Bandcamp here:

That made me wonder about Lightsey’s back pages. The pianist has made a bunch of interesting records and contributed to projects by several legends, including Chet Baker and Woody Shaw. For this search, though, I wanted something I knew nothing about. Didn’t take long to find this:

It’s a 1985 recording included on a compilation from the Peruvian independent Buh label, featuring vocalist Corina Bartra. Lightsey and DeBriano (what are the chances?!) are credited but are inaudible; most of the accompaniment is percussive. Singing wordless syllables and occasionally layering her voice, Bartra visits a range of moods, from playful haunted-house games to more solemn trancelike processionals that could be part of some ancient ceremony.

It was arresting, and not at all expected – especially because I landed there hoping to hear more Lightsey (who apparently appears on the remainder of Bartra’s 1985 album). Pretty soon that didn’t matter: The Land of Echo: Experimentalisms and Visions of the Ancestral in Peru (1975-1989)  offers passage to a series of ear-stretching audio environments, some choreographed and others improvised. Just after the Bartra track, there’s an extended entreaty to the orisha Elegua from percussionist Julio “Chocolate” Algendones and a spiritual piano-and-synth-and-percussion drone by a figure from Peru’s avant-garde scene, Arturo Ruiz del Pozo.

That led me to a very recent Buh compilation, Mensajes del agua: Nuevos sonidos desde Perú Vol 1/Water messages: New sounds from Peru Vol 1. 

A survey of works from contemporary young Peruvian artists, this anthology avoids the steady machine whir of electronic dance music in favor of atmospheres in which acoustic tones (from strings and percussion) interact with swirling, endlessly moving analog and modular synthesizers. Though there’s lots of pleasant consonance and lots of echo, these pieces are hardly ambient sleep-aids. Check the gorgeously pulsating “Caracter Transitorio” from Mauricio Moquillaza, a dense, cinematic work that manages to sound boldly original while celebrating the influence of Steve Reich and other minimalist composers.

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Speaking of unsolved mysteries, how about the entire Cuban recording industry of the 1950s and ‘60s? Where are those early works by the legendary blind pianist and composer Frank Emilio Flynn? The streaming services are fairly comprehensive on Flynn’s later output, but the groundbreaking stuff, with Flynn’s Havana quintet, is missing.

It’s been intermittently elusive on YouTube as well, but I did find a few examples last week, using a variety of search terms. They’re flat-out spectacular: From the piano, Flynn creates a discourse that glances at the Afro-Cuban jazz of Machito and others – within a crisp, more angular small-group context. This is from a studio recording of Flynn’s Grupo Cubano de Música Moderna.

And this is the same suitelike tune, from a live performance in 1964 with many of the same players:

Modern viewers might scoff at the saturated lighting and the inky black and white image resolution. Whatever. The audio isn’t perfect either! But it’s plenty good enough to accurately render the details of Flynn’s rhythmic concept, and the interlocking indestructible groove that flowed, effortlessly, from it.

Why yes, we have a fancy digital suggestion box. Share your favorite Underloved/Overlooked records here: echolocatormusic@gmail.com.

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