Updates/Elaborations On the Hunt for New Discoveries

Celebrating Excavated Shellac and some threads from recent weeks

It’s just the way of things: As soon as I hit Send on a playlist, instantly I run across more possibilities, other avenues to pursue, long forgotten works that deserve inclusion. Echo Locator is geared toward short, relatively focused “walking tours” – playlists that offer a quick, not-too-deep dive into a world rather than comprehensive representation. That inevitably means leaving stuff out.  

Case in point: The Hermeto Pascoal playlist from last week could have been three times longer. Maybe 6 times. Even given the incomplete nature of Pascoal’s discography on streaming services, it’s possible to go further – say, by charting how his performances grew more expansive over the years. (One artifact for that is the highly recommended Au Vivo, from the 1979 Montreux Jazz Festival.)

To keep the playlists tight, I steer away from tribute projects, and anything not involving the artist under discussion. In Pascoal’s case, that meant omitting several amazing titles from what’s become a growing industry of homages from younger artists, from Brazil and elsewhere, focused on just about every phase of his career.

One of the best of them is Viva Hermeto, the expansive 2014 recording by pianist Andre Marques and featuring the locked-tight rhythm section of bassist John Pattitucci and drummer Brian Blade. Seek it out. Marques comes to this date with a rich harmonic foundation – in his chord voicings are traces of McCoy Tyner and glances at Thelonious Monk, touchstones that turn out to be useful for stretching Pascoal’s tunes. But Marques is wired for samba, and on “Bebe,” a famous Pascoal tune from the Quarteto Novo project, he pulls off an unlikely collision. Atop a brisk but wonderfully unhurried processional rhythm, he loosens up the linear melody with clever bebop half-steps and sudden detours into faraway key centers. The piece starts out at a simmer and ramps up from there; like so much of Pascoal’s work, it’s brainy and delightful at the same time.

THANK YOU FOOS

A postscript to the piece a few weeks back about the riveting experience of bands changing tempo together, in real time. The example I gave was Astor Piazzolla’s New Tango quintet from a 19xx recording. There are countless other examples from live and studio records across the history of music – Blood, Sweat and Tears, Miles Davis ‘60s quintet circa ESP, the beatmaking gyrations of D’Angelo and the Soulquarians, and on and on.

It’s one of many performance-practice aspects of music that we hope never becomes a relic – though it has certainly receded in the digital age. Magically, just weeks later, an example with a 2021 datestamp just appeared, and it’s tremendous – track 4 on the Foo Fighters’ disarmingly strong Medicine at Midnight.

“Waiting On A War,” which turns on some cinematic string writing (credits MIA, alas), looks at conflict and the way we’ve become conditioned to a threat level that would have been considered “high” just a few generations ago. All of the typical Foo Fighters stuff is on board – the big banner-flag refrains, the tastefully abrasive rhythm guitars, the pummel of war drums. There’s a breakdown in the middle, and right after it, as Dave Grohl asks the musical question “Is there more to this than that?,” the rhythm section begins a gradual pulse-quickening accellerando. It’s a surge, or maybe (to continue the war imagery) a blitz that eventually deposits the band into a thrashy Minutemen-style breakneck tempo that rides off into the sunset. Though the episode doesn’t last long, it has a thrill-ride intensity about it that just screams for a skillfully drawn-out extended version in a packed arena. Someday soon that will happen.

SPEAKING OF CREDITS….

Lots of labels could learn from the archive masters at Dust To Digital about how to properly acknowledge artists and, where possible, sidemen. The label has just issued Excavated Shellac – a 100-track trove of world folklore gems that were initially issued on 78-RPM discs. The audio, downloadable via Bandcamp, is supplemented with context-rich and musically informed essays on each track from curator Jonathan Ward, whose blog of the same name is super-smart and accessible.

The collection covers a staggering range of music. There are drones from Iran and songs about police brutality from South Africa; an ode to work and persistence from Jamaica and a tune from Madagascar enlivened by multiple bird-calling flutes.

78s from long ago usually have the fidelity of junk boxes being rattled under pillows. These do not: Careful restoration gives Júlio Silva’s “Fado Melancólico” an almost disarmingly modern clarity, and brings dimension and richness to the typically screechy sound of ancient violins on tunes like  “Lenggang Mak Inang,” from Malaysia.

Not everything on Excavated Shellac could be considered “essential listening” -- even the most curious explorer will find some of these selections ordinary, or an acquired taste, or otherwise less than riveting. Still, just the fact that such a collection exists – and was assembled with such a broad mandate and reverence for history – is an inspiration.

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