John Corbett Goes on Record
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Those who’ve listened to his radio shows are familiar with Corbett’s impossibly deep record collection. The Unheard Music Series–inspired in part by Dexter’s Cigar, the now-defunct reissue label David Grubbs and Jim O’Rourke ran when they were still in Gastr del Sol together–will give him a chance to release out-of-print favorites as well as some of the more fascinating obscurities he’s come across over the years. The label will focus on the 60s and 70s, and in particular has a mission to beef up the catalogs of Anderson and Chicago free-jazz icon Hal Russell–one of the first four releases will be a collection of previously unheard Russell recordings culled from nearly 200 tapes spanning several decades. The other three will be Nation Time, the second album by Poughkeepsie jazz legend Joe McPhee; Waves From Albert Ayler, a postbop collection by the little-known Swedish unit the Mount Everest Trio; and a never-heard mid-70s solo saxophone recording by Evan Parker.
Though he plays on more than half the album, Corbett’s primary achievement is the assembly of these elements into exhilarating, sometimes challenging collages, many of which recast familiar texts in jarring new settings. On “Cold Sweat,” for example, he manipulates multiple recordings of his fiancee, violinist Terri Kapsalis, enunciating trademark James Brown phrases like “Give the drummer some” and “When you kiss me I break out in a cold sweat” until she sounds like a lost member of the Residents. The Heavy Friends’ version of “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning” frames the lyrics of the pop standard–crooned by the Texas Rubies’ Jane Baxter Miller–with monotonous acoustic guitar plucking, chirping birds, and morose organ swells sampled from a 78 and heavily tweaked. But not everything here relies on words: on “Ready Kilowatt,” Drake’s rimshot-crammed reggae backbeat propels abstract, extroverted free-jazz solos by Gustafsson and trombonist Jeb Bishop.
Kumar is also starting an Indian classical record label, Sumani Music. His first release, Passage Through Dawn, by violinist Kala Ramnath, should be available in stores shortly; three others should be out by March.
Her Name Was Danger, a new Lookingglass Theatre production previewing Wednesday through next Saturday, November 20, at the Steppenwolf Studio Theatre, features an original funk score by Rick Sims of the Gaza Strippers (see Spot Check). Sims also has a sizable role in the play, about “the adventures of a James Bond-like heroine determined to renounce her extremely profitable, if larcenous, past.”
