REBEKKA BAKKEN · WOLFGANG MUTHSPIEL — Daily Mirror (2001) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

If you found Daily Mirror, the avant-garde jazz song project of singer Rebekka Bakken and guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel, to be just a bit too abstract, then you might want to take a stroll through this album, which consists of sometimes drastically remixed versions of songs from Daily Mirror. Many of these reworkings are no less challenging than the original songs. Ashley Slater and Tom Gandey's treatment of "Wonders," for example, takes bizarre electronic liberties with Bakken's voice and creates a strange digital collage using delay and a cheesy beatbox rhythm; "Emotions on a Lazy Day" is given a trip-hop setting by Gregor Hibe in which Muthspiel's guitar lines are torn to pieces and then thrown into a vortex of jungly breakbeats while Bakken sings sweetly above the fray. "Drawing Lines" gets a jazzy house mix at the hands of DJ Jeremiah, while the "Air of Decay Beatbox Mix" of "Angela" comes out sounding like an outtake from My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. Avant-garde dance music simply doesn't get much better than this. Rick Anderson
Tracklist :
1.    It's OK    4:22
2.    Emotions On A Lazy Day    6:53
3.    Nowhere    4:25
4.    Wonders    2:07
5.    Day After Day    5:30
6.    Smack Of Dogskin    4:39
7.    Angela    5:58
8.    Drawing Lines    7:47
9.    Sister    6:35
10.    Jesus Song    5:17
11.    Love Of Another    4:05
Credits :
Guitar – Wolfgang Muthspiel
Vocals – Rebekka Bakken
with
Saxophone – Chris Cheek
Bass – Scott Colley
Drums – Brian Blade

CHARLIE HADEN | LIBERATION MUSIC ORCHESTRA — Not In Our Name (2005) FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

Charlie Haden brings another incarnation of his Liberation Music Orchestra to tape. This intermittent project began at the height of the Vietnam War in 1969 and was recorded for Impulse. Carla Bley has been the only constant member of this project. She plays piano and does the arranging of these eight tunes. Other members include trumpeter Michael Rodriguez, Curtis Fowlkes on trombone, guitarist Steve Cardenas, drummer Matt Wilson, Miguel Zenon on alto, Chris Cheek on the tenor horn, Joe Daley playing tuba, and Ahnee Sharon Freeman playing French horn. The music is a lively and diverse set of covers, except for the title track -- composed by Haden -- and "Blue Anthem" by Bley. The seamlessness with which Bley melds her aesthetic to Haden's is remarkable. The tone and timbre is warm throughout. The reggae-fueled "This Is Not America" -- written by Pat Metheny, Lyle Mays, and David Bowie -- dryly quotes from "Battle Hymn of the Republic" at its end. The hinge piece of the album is the nearly-17-minute "American the Beautiful" that contains a wondrous, stately, if somewhat dissonant, read of Samuel Ward's famous tune, bursts into post-bop before a fine solo by Zenon, and then slips into Gary McFarland's jazz opus by the same name. The tune travels -- with solos by virtually everyone -- then to the African-American gospel church where it stops at "Lift Every Voice and Sing" by James Weldon Johnson, and winds up at a cross between the original tune and Ornette Coleman's elegiac slipstream dream anthem "Skies of America" before returning full circle to the original theme. The Liberation Music Orchestra goes even deeper into the national consciousness with a bluesy, New Orleans brass band-inspired version of "Amazing Grace." Then they dig into the gorgeous "Goin' Home," Antonin Dvorak's largo theme from the New World Symphony -- with jazz liberties taken, of course. The set ends with the adagio from Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings." Again, Bley's arrangement is stunning, understated, and finessed, yet full of dynamic reach. This is a beautiful album, one that makes a case for vision, creativity, and concern. Not in Our Name pulls together a wide range of aesthetic possibilities that all reflect the American consciousness and simultaneously mourns the passage of it while resisting with a vengeance that nadir. While a jazz recording, this album crosses the boundaries of the genre and becomes a new world music, a new folk music: one to be celebrated, perhaps even cherished.
-> This comment is posted on Allmusic by Thom Jurek, follower of our blog 'O Púbis da Rosa' <-
Tracklist :
1. Not In Our Name 6:17
Charlie Haden
2. This Is Not América 6:39
David Bowie / Lyle Mays / Pat Metheny
3. Blue Anthem 7:48
Carla Bley
4. America The Beautiful (Medley) 16:53
Katherine Lee Bates / Samuel A. Ward
5. Amazing Grace 7:12
John Newton / Traditional
6. Goin' Home (from Dvorak's New World Symphony) 7:49
Antonin Dvorák
7. Throughout  8:54
Bill Frisell
8. Adagio (from Barber's Adagio For Strings) 7:20
Samuel Barber
Personnel :
Michael Rodriguez, Seneca Black – Trumpet
Curtis Fowlkes – Trombone
Ahnee Sharon Freeman – French Horn
Joe Daley – Tuba
Miguel Zenon – Alto Saxophone
Chris Cheek, Tony Malaby – Tenor Saxophone
Steve Cardenas – Electric and Acoustic Guitars
Carla Bley – Piano, Arranged and Conducted
Charlie Haden – Bass
Matt Wilson – Drums