"Sugar Cane's Got the Blues" re-released
ZapRatz
Transitory
Written by Mike Newman
Published October 12, 2008
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2008/10/12/135305.php
From the outer worlds of rock & roll, jazz, and funk, I have a couple
70’s-era fusion gems to tell you about that German label, Most Promising
Sound has once again made available to the ears of all of us musical
adventurers. One is a 1972 Don “Sugar Cane” Harris album called Sugar
Cane’s Got The Blues and the other is a 1974 Pork Pie album called
Transitory.
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Don Harris's Sugar Cane's Got the Blues
Some of you might know Don “Sugar Cane” Harris from his electric violin
performances on Frank Zappa & The Mothers' albums Hot Rats, Burnt Weeny
Sandwich, and Weasels Ripped My Flesh. One of the most notable of his
Zappa album performances is his lead vocal and blues violin solo on the
Little Richard cover, “Directly From My Heart To You”. Seek it out if
you haven’t heard it! Unfortunately, Harris passed away almost ten
years ago in 1999, but Most Promising Sound has done us the favor of
reviving some of the best music that Harris ever recorded, in the
smokin’ live document, Sugar Cane’s Got The Blues.
Harris’ band displays some serious talent and includes ex-Soft Machine
drummer, Robert Wyatt and the amazing German jazz fusion pianist,
Wolfgang Dauner. The band starts cooking with steam from the get-go and
jam with fantastically-controlled frenzy over the next nine minutes of
“Liz Pineapple Wonderful”. The next three tracks slow the pace a bit
and is capped off with a smokin’ blues tune (“Where’s My Sunshine”),
displaying the depth and beauty of Sugar Cane’s playing, and furthering
the case that ‘Jimi Hendrix of violin’ was a pretty accurate moniker for
Don “Sugar Cane” Harris… and I’m sure Jimi would’ve been flattered.
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Pork Pie's Transitory
The other fantastic fusion release, Transitory, is by Jasper van’t Hof’s
band, Pork Pie. Van’t Hof is a Dutch jazz pianist and keyboard player,
and is one of the most active jazz players on the European jazz scene.
In 1974, Van’t Hof assembled an amazing collective of musicians
including guitarist Philip Catherine (who was named ‘Young Django’ by
Charlie Mingus), saxophonist Charlie Mariano (who’s also played with
Mingus as well as Embryo), and drummer Aldo Romano and bassist
Jean-Francois Jenny Clark (who provided Don Cherry’s rhythm section
early in their careers).
The sheer talent and musicianship of these players is evident and, like
the Sugar Cane album, the band wastes no time ripping into a serious
groove with the first song, “Epoch”. The album continues on to break
down the barriers between rock, electronic, psychedelia, and free jazz
elements, and never relents. This may all sound like it's a difficult
listen, but it is far from it. Pork Pie manages to combine all of these
far out elements with a repeat listenability.
In fact, both of these excellent 70’s fusion re-releases manage to pull
off that difficult task. And the sound on these remasters is perfect.
Most Promising Sound’s motto is “to make music lovers happy’ and they
have done just that to this music lover. I will be sure to keep an eye
on the interesting material that they choose to release next… it’s sure
to be 'most promising'!
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