Forgotten Monsters Of The Electric Guitar Dept. - Jerry Hahn
Jerry Hahn sez
he ain't give a shit yez ain't heard a him - he ain't heard a youse
neither, pally. He's what you might call an early fusion guitarist - go
ahead - he can't hear you. Hey - check out the swell cover to his first
album [left - Ed.] and guess what year! 67? Damn right! It's
raga-tastic! That's Jack De Freaking Johnette on drums, Michael White on
violin, Ron McClure on bass. Noel Jewkes on sax? Who he? And more to
the point - how come you don't have this album?
Note Jerry's ahead-of-its time insurance salesman look, top center! We can only guess (pretty accurately, I reckon) what caused his overnight change of style to Wild Man Of Borneo [left - Ed.].
Fast-forward to '70 for The Jerry Hahn Brotherhood [left - Ed. Hey, Farq - can you give me something more demanding to do maybe? My education is going to waste in these parentheses] which answers the question on nobody's lips - what would country jazz rock sound like? Nothing like that first album. They wrote some swell songs, sang them in sweet harmony, then got bored with the whole deal and played what the fuck they wanted. Sometimes they didn't all want the same thing at the same time but went ahead anyway. There's a kind of good-natured berserker vibe to this. Three-quarters of the band wear glasses and are bald. There is wah-wah guitar. It is swell.
You want these. You know you want them. I know you want them. Let's stop kidding ourselves, right? It's only natural. You're flesh and blood.You have your needs! Nothing to be ashamed of.
ReplyDeleteOK, these are deep cuts; consider me even more impressed than I was already... then I was already? those two....
ReplyDeleteWe take drugs seriously at our house, Eric.
DeleteQuestion: can liquid acid go bad in the bottle? Or just lose its potency?
DeleteIt won't go "bad" in that you'll come down with Botulism, Salmonella, Norovirus etc. etc.
Potency might be an issue, depending upon its age and what stabilizer was used.
I used to know someone, in the 1980s, who had a small bottle of a special hallucinogenic mixture that Fela Kuti's Queens made for him. The manufacturing process was said to involve plant material being chewed up and spat out. It's probably still sitting on a shelf in her front room, as everyone was far too scared to try some. I'm pretty sure nothing that could be described as a stabilizer was involved in the production.
DeleteI have the distinct pleasure of owning every album recorded by Fela.
DeleteThe liquid was made by a professor at MIT for his own use, and this friend of mine, who has rediscovered the dropper bottle with the tiny amount remaining, hasn't tried it for ten years (with pleasant effect), and it may have been made ten years before that.
DeleteFela Kuti > any kinda hallucinogen ever...
Delete"Teacher, teach me no nonsense." I play it the first day of one class I teach and can predict everyone's grades with unnerving accuracy.
I was fortunate to see Fela twice, thanks to the good taste and generosity of the folks who ran the Atlanta Jazz Festival. My wife accompanied me the first time, but balked at going again. She accused me of only wanting to watch the gyrations of Fela's wives. I can't deny that the stagecraft was impressive, but the music was transportive.
DeleteA friend of mine was telling me that he started micro-dosing recently after decades of not using to very great effect even venturing into some mini dosing after getting his sea legs as it were. If I were your friend, I'd try diluting some in vodka (maybe 100ug per 10ml) and try what they think should be 10ug and work their way up. OR, in the words of the Pink Fairies, just "DO IT" man!
DeleteJerry was/is very influential, just ask Bill Frisell.
ReplyDeleteWorth searching out: Gary Burton Quartet's "Country Roads & Other Places" with Jerry Hahn, Steve Swallow and Roy Haynes.
My best guess as to the cause of Jerry's overnight change of style to Wild Man Of Borneo, is cube of sugar. Four Or Five Guys of a certain age know what I'm talking about.
Honey slides.
DeleteAlso, here's a link to that fine album
Deletehttps://1fichier.com/?ob7xe4apvq
Thanks pmac!
DeleteHave this on vinyl, and never got around to digitizing or getting the CD.
And it's FLAC!
SWEET!
Glad to assist. Not the biggest Burton fan, but that is a very fine album. And, yes Farq, we can discern that its a higher res recording. ;-)
DeleteThanks for the long-player, pmac! I'm putting it thru th' K-Tel Econo-Sound© Audio Enhancer right now!
DeleteAs an aside, If you can think of anything that better expresses the concept of “land of the free and home of the brave” than this video of someone rollerskating naked on the freeway, wearing a plushie head and carrying a golf club - https://twitter.com/i/status/1339340726249852941 - I’d gosh darned like to see it.
ReplyDeleteThis is a swell comment, and please make some more!
DeleteThanks, old bean. I keep meaning to ask, are you the same Farquar Throckmorton who used to perform as Farquar The Fakir at the Gargoyle Club, in the glory days of Soho? Such determined flexibility, and on a bed of nails, to boot. I am, to this day, transported by the odour of joss sticks, or germolene ointment, back to the heady night I caught your dhoti, tossed into the sizeable baying crowd, and was invited to assist you onstage with your "act". I, sadly, refused and ran screaming from the club. An act of cowardice I regret, to this day.
DeleteAlas! No. We are often mistaken for each other. That was Farquar Throckmorton of the Eel Pie Island Throckmortons, a distant and frankly disowned branch of the family who have no genealogical rights to the name, copying it from a bottle of Throckmorton's Liniment during an interview with the constabulary after a fracas. You may be interested to know that it was FT1 who made his fortune with the liniment before migrating to the USA and setting up the Acme Pop Rivet Company whose millions I am set to inherit on the passing of my stepmother, Hortense Throckmorton, at present Governess of the Acme Pop Rivet University And Steam Baths, Gowanus NY.
DeleteAh, yes. The eye watering stench of Throckmorton’s Liniment. Now, that odour brings back memories of the Russian Vapour Baths in dear old Hackney. Patronised entirely by east end villains and cab drivers, they were always rubbing away with the Throckmortons, guvnor. However, it was a widely held belief amongst those chaps that FT1’s migration was precipitated by the angry, pitchfork and flaming ember carrying, crowd that had turned up at his digs. Something about a lingering bioluminescent side effect of that early recipe?
DeleteThat was a libelous claim by the Eel Pie Island Gazette, for which they were successfully sued and made to issue an apology. There was in fact very little radium in the patented nostrum, which was lauded by the (then) Prince of Wales for its beneficial effect.
DeleteThanks to this, I just discovered that the Mighty Mike Finnigan sings lead vocals and plays Hammond organ on the Brotherhood album. What a man - I nearly met him once but it was another bloke.
ReplyDeleteCheers, Peanuts Molloy.
He-e-ere's Jerry!
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteThanks for giving props to Jerry.
ReplyDeleteI took some lessons from him 25 years ago that opened up the guitar into new dimensions I didn't know existed.
His work on John Handy's 2nd Album (the name of the album) covers pretty much every single type of jazz guitar playing imaginable in 1966 done at an incredibly high level of execution.
He's on the same plane, if not higher, than Coryell and a lot of other cats who are better known.
Has anybody gots this album? Color me anticipatory ...
DeleteThe Coryell reference is salutory. Hahn is more fluid, nimble, and fun than Coryell (although I won't have a word said against Lar). Hahn's discography is meager, Coryell's satisfyingly fat. Why? Beats me. Personal life? Bad luck and trouble? Hahn's playing goes places even he wasn't expecting.
DeleteHere's a link to the 2nd album in a 3 cd set of Handy's recordings done by Mosaic, which has the Handy 2nd album, plus out-takes. I can post the others, too (which also feature Hahn, including the heralded Live at Monterey album).
Deletehttps://1fichier.com/?ns4oi5rs7g
Thanks, pmac, on behalf of th' 4/5 Guys!
DeleteActually, use this link instead. It has the Live At Monterey disc (only 2 songs, but the album had been incl on top 100 most influential jazz recordings list), and a better list of the songs on the 2nd album (none of the out-takes):
Deletehttps://1fichier.com/?nh9wnjmy75
I went to high school in the early seventies with one of Jerry Hahn's cousins. A bit of an oddball, but we were all oddballs in our clique. We had a jug band that played Holy Modal Rounders, the Carter Family, the Dead, Lovin' Spoonful, and our favorites The Youngbloods. He volunteered to go into the Army so he could "kill gooks," but the Army had other plans and sent him off to Spain, where he made a bundle smuggling stereo equipment to the States and eventually worked at and retired from the postal service.
ReplyDeleteOutstanding. Thank you.
DeleteFarquhar, is there a link you could share?
ReplyDeleteThank you for all you do.
Mynd
Stealth Link embedded in my comment December 18, 2020 at 4:13 AM (careful with that cursor, Eugene!)
DeleteBrilliant. Many thanks.
DeleteEpic exchange between Farq and Muzz on the Throckmorton family dynasty! Laughter, applause, tears, brassieres, dollar bills and roses rain upon the stage.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds great! Can't wait to throw it into the digital abyss and have that fuzzy warm feeling of knowing that some bearded glass wearing dudes from the 70s playing country-jazz with wah-wah guitar awaits me some day. Just looking at those album covers makes me feel better already.
ReplyDelete