McCoy Tyner Quintet - Jazz Jamboree, Warsaw 10?/74 (DVD)
My heart nearly went out when I heard this existed and then for some reason I completely forgot about it and when I remembered again, nearly ran to watch it. I’ve seen Tyner on at least five occasions in recent years and I’d seen video footage dating back, erm, maybe a decade, but this show from 1974, well this is something entirely different. I’m not a huge fan of the band he’s with here, Azar Lawrence etc., and I felt a bit justified with that as everyone but Tyner felt a bit flat. But Tyner as a player was as incredible and fierce as I’ve ever heard him, leaving his band far away in the dust on several occasions, interspersing grand, beautiful Ellington-esque playing with spitfire free runs. I just drank it up, almost dreading the moment when the band would come back in after a Tyner solo, and I found it weird to even be feeling that way. But this was a much more assured player, even than the capable backup man that helped Coltrane become the legend he was.
Cardiacs - Rare Videos 1 (DVD)
For a band who has been around about 30 years in various formations, the Cardiacs still have to be one of music’s best kept secrets. This collection includes a fair quality, pro-shot concert from Surbitan Assembly Rooms on April 18th, 1985 as well as a smattering of videos. From the very minute this band launched their set, I was totally enchanted, almost unable to do anything else. I mean by 1985, I think the band only had a few cassettes out, yet on stage they’re one of the tightest, most professional acts I’ve ever seen, spinning music out from a genius mind, a sound that combines progrock complexity with punkrock energy but also completely surpasses such a banal sounding combination. For one thing, the band churns out chords and key changes in bunches, meandering melodies that never go where expected. But most of this construction is driven at a jackrabbit pace, infectiously danceable and completely bonkers. Even keeping up with these songs for a first bunch of listens would be difficult, but all of it is breathtakingly impressive, musicianship of high quality but never pretentious in the slightest. After a while I just wanted to stand up in cheer, since it was a bit late to be pogoing like the crowd was. And the videos, at much better quality, just stamp in what an impressive, completely assimilated web of musical influences go into this stuff. Yeah, I could have just said “I’m converted,” but only Cardiacs fans have any idea what that means. I’ve got some album catching up to do.