Songs From Ward 6 - Self-Titled -198X- (Cassette, Slang Tapes), US

 

So I've posted something before that was on the mysterious Slang Tapes label, a US cassette label that was dedicated to strange humorous free-jazz and improvisation. That live improvisation cassette fell a little flat amidst all the home-taping music on this blog, but it was strange enough to share. I actually try to redefine that eternal crescendo of music posts of which one thing should be constantly better than the previous. In all actuality all of this musical output knows its own historical context, in its own place and time. There are different musical styles or approaches but a lot of it shares an underground ontology or a deviancy to whatever the dominant culture has been pushing. That's why it remains important that different types of music are represented on the blog. 

In any case, the previously shared Slang Tape release is very different from this one. That cassette came from Allentown, Pennsylvania, so I assumed that the label was based around that area as well. However there is no real confirmation. Also I don't know which musicians were actually part of the Songs From Ward 6 project.

Songs From Ward 6 is a stunning piece of American avant-garde music. It sort of balances on the minimal music tradition within modern composed music, jazz or other more trained musicianship traditions, but at the same time it's far out in its experimentation while displaying absurdistic lyrics and vocals. It also presents amazing crystal-like cosmic ambient synthesizer manoeuvres with a deep sound, creating different hypnotizing grooves. It eventually even ventures into some self-explored ethnic sounds. Not too far fetched from some of the more unclassifiable acts that were included on the NWW list.

I'm pretty sure that this was made in the early years of the 80's, but it clearly has some ground in the weird 60's or 70's music traditions too. From Silver Apples to Cromagnon and from Care of The Cow to the Los Angeles Free Music Society, the music by Songs From Ward 6 once again emphasizes the endless eclectic creativity and inventiveness of musical output that existed within the fringes of American underground music culture during the second half of the 20th century.

A great piece of lost music! Also any additional information on this would be highly appreciated!

Kindly donated by the Y Create Archive

Get it HERE

Lehr, Latzgo, Bauer, Hassay, Whitman Quintet - Donny's Hot For... -1983- (Cassette, Slang Tapes), US

Here we have an obscure cassette by an American free-jazz and improvisation quintet comprised of pianist Donald Lehr, saxophone players Gary Hassay and Todd Whitman, Tom Latzgo on horns and electric guitar and Tom Bauer on bass. Apparently the outfit came from Allentown, Pennsylvania: the same city where these live recordings were done in 1982 and 1983.

Donny's Hot For... consists of some nice spontaneous live recordings of improvised jazz sessions that took place within intimate settings in Allentown. Surely these musicians played more often with each other. Their free-improvisation sound contains theatrical elements and humor instead of a deep and serious avant-garde attitude.

For the rest I can't find much information on the different musicians included here, except for Gary Hassay, who seems to have collaborated quite often with the Japanese impro percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani during the 90's. The label of this tape Slang Tapes is a mystery to me, but seems to have been closely connected to the musicians as we can hear a jolly interview with them at the end of the first side of the tape showing their light-hearted approach to this release.

In the middle of all the post-punk, wave and home-taping cassettes I've been posting to the blog, here's a moment of unknown jazz improvisation from the US, surely finding its way to some interested listeners on that particular side of the musical spectrum.

Kindly donated by the Y Create archive

Get it HERE / Mirror



PS.
So what are we doing with Zippyshare? Is half of the world still not able to get the files? I started mirroring some links on Sharezynga, is that working? Is there a better free alternative? Feel free to say something about file-hosting or share ideas to help out.