Could you ask for a better trio, not at all.

In 1962, Duke Ellington’s period with Columbia Records was at an end and this allowed Duke to work with musicians on a multitude of labels. This includes great sessions with John Coltrane and Coleman Hawkins, both which were released on Impluse, but the grand-daddy of them all is Money Jungle.

Each of the three performers are at the top of their game; the Duke’s composing and musicianship is marvelous as usual, Charles Mingus was only a year away from releasing his historic album, The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady and Max Roach had just recently released his magnum opus We Insist! – Freedom Now Suite, an artifact both of jazz and the civil rights movement. Along with being an album by an amazing trio, Money Jungle, is also somewhat of a reunion session. For Duke Ellington is playing with the man (Charles Mingus) whom he fired after an altercation in which Mingus pulled a gun on a fellow band mate. But, Mingus also had a rich history with Max Roach for they were both part of and recorded the historic Quintet at Massey Hall, that also included Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, and Dizzy Gillespie, on their short lived Debut label.

Money Jungle starts off with an aggressive self-titled romp, in which you find the Duke playing a complex form of bop more reminiscence of free jazz than the work of Charlie Parker. The next track you’ll hear the rhythm section (Mingus, Roach) sparsely as Duke Ellington takes over on the beautiful and somewhat eerie, “Le Fleurs Africaines”. The rest of Side A is less adventurous with one upbeat blues piece and lovely ballad.

The opposite side starts off with “Wig Wise” another piece with an angular melody that Ellington initially wrote in the 1950′s. This song and another revamped rendition “Caravan” both find there way on a Blue Note compilation of Ellington’s work (which is strange considering he never recorded for Blue Note, but the major label owning the work EMI released it under Blue Note for sales purposes). Sadly the album, ends all too early with the sweet, but somber “Solitude”.

Though only a little more than a half an hour, this album is a lovely display of Duke Ellington’s non-big band prowess and 1960′s revival. That is not to forget the wonderful work of Charles Mingus and Max Roach, but throughout the entire album they seem timid in comparison to their performances on other albums . Nevertheless, Money Jungle is an absolute gem and I am a lucky man to have found an original United Artist’s copy. It might be too cerebral and complex at first listen, but if you take your time and give the album a fair chance you’ll fall in love with it.

In 1978 Brian Eno came across this New York sub-genre and decided he wanted to put out a compilation of artists on Island Records. Considering that nearly everything Brian Eno touched in the late 70′s became a hit (Devo, David Bowie, Talking Heads) Island Records decided to release the record on one of it’s sub-labels Achilles. Now, No New York is unlike most compilations because instead of doing a single track from numerous artists, this album plays more like a series of EPs of four artists performing four songs.

The first of the four bands is James Chance and the Contortions and this group has probably been the most successful of the four artists after the release of this album. For they were the only group to release a full length studio album before breaking up and this success is not undeserved. The Contortions play an eye-opening aggressive funky form of free form punk, which is probably best described by AllMusicGuide as the bastard child of James Brown, Albert Ayler and the Stooges. I know this sounds like a muddy mess of genres, but James Chance’s saxophone playing is top notch and the rhythmic drumming makes me want to dance around with the grace of a furious tornado. Just check out “Dish it Out” for it has been my favorite song of the past two weeks.

The next group Teenage Jesus and the Jerks do not inspire such feelings from me. I find their four songs to be much more droning and simplistic any track from the three other bands. The repetition of the stop and go structure of their TJ&J’s songs makes the tracks sound nearly identical at times. Though many find Lydia Lunch’s vocals off-putting, I truthfully just find myself bored with the instrumentation on the longer tracks like “The Closet” leaving “Red Alert” the half-minute song the lone enjoyable track from this foursome.

Chaos, my beloved, returns with the first band on side two, Mars. And the first track of their quartet is not only a gem, but the guitar part just shows the influence that these no wave groups had on one of indie rock’s biggest heroes Sonic Youth. Though, Mars does not repeat the strength of “Helen Fordsdale” in the rest of the set they do not leave you empty handed, you’ll will still get an interesting listening of abstract if not alien noise.

The final act on No New York is D.N.A. a trio, which includes drummer Ikue Mori, who is also known for her work with Mike Patton, John Zorn, and Kim Gordon. Along with her was a keyboardist and guitarist Arto Lindsay who made his guitar screech and wail like no other. With all of these elements D.N.A. put out the most challenging music on this record, which is a compilation of confrontational artists. D.N.A.’s “Size” ends this album which is one of the only full length artifacts of this short lived New York music scene that ended up disintegrating before the mid-1980′s. Though this sub-genre lasted only a few years and produced little recorded material, it has influenced many including myself to look at music differently and to never fear experimentation.

Mort Garson was an innovator when it came to composing music for the moog, for he strayed from the norm of using the instrument solely for exotica and pop covers and ended up creating soundscapes that displayed the dynamics of Robert Moog’s device. Now, you might be asking yourself why the death of Mort Garson is being reported in a review for Lucifer’s Black Mass. Actually, Mort used an array of different pseudonyms to release various concept albums; one being Black Mass. Some of the other pseudonyms are; The Wozard of Iz (released a “hippie” satire on The Wizard of Oz), “Z” (released an album based off the best-seller The Sensuous Woman), Ataraxia (another look into the occult), and Mother Earth (under which he released Plantasia, an album that helped house plants grow). I know that this collection of bizarre pseudonyms make Mort look like someone who has lost all aspects of reality, but actually he was just a musician taking his instrument, the moog, past it’s preconceived limits.

Now the first aspect of the record you need to know is that it won’t allow you to call up demons to complete your murderous goals; you will just have to make due by your lonesome. Secondly, Black Mass isn’t going to be an overly horrific listen, it indeed is filled with dark and creepy moments but I feel time has made this piece less shocking than it originally was. Nevertheless, there are times within this album where you will get goosebumps and imagine a hell with monsters that are part machine. And this is where the true beauty of this work is found. For Mort Garson’s (aka Lucifer’s) compositions take the listeners to places using the moog, when most moog performers were using the instrument as a gimmick to sell albums. This is where the legacy of Mort Garson lies, in creating unique pieces that couldn’t be replicated with traditional instruments. Though Mr. Garson will be missed, his obscure but enjoyable albums will live on.

Lucifer – Voices of the Dead (The Medium)

For in the late sixties aspects of the “hippie” fashion and music were being co-oped by “The Man” (The Man is always capitalized). I know near to nothing when it comes to fashion and considering this is a music blog I should probably talk about psychedelica’s bastard child, bubblegum pop. Bubblegum pop really took hold in about 1968, coincidentally this was only a year after many seminal psychedelic albums were released; like Da Capo, The Doors, Surrealistic Pillow, Are You Experienced?, and The Piper At the Gates of Dawn. Bubblegum pop acts, especially those from Buddah Records, started compiling contrived pop songs using elements from psychedelic groups, like echo and reverb, to give tracks an illusion of creativity (some songs were basically knock-offs of classic hits). This didn’t go unseen though, for The Zig Zag People, a mysterious band, decided to take bubble gum music to a place it hasn’t been prior or since, the underground.

The Zig Zag People Take Bubble Gum Music Underground is an album that truly baffles me, not the music itself but the fact that it was actually made. This record is almost entirely covers, covers from bands that they insult throughout this album and sometimes with some venom (they insult Buddah Records on “Sally Goes to the Dentist”). But, don’t be afraid though for the Zig Zag People give each of these songs some well needed soul, which was an item that the original artists forgot. Along with the passionate performances, an array of numerous diverse influences can be seen throughout the entire album ranging from jazz, blues, and r&b to acid rock and the more experimental aspects of psychedelic music. The reason the Zig Zag People can touch upon so many genres is that they are extremely talent musicians, the guitarist wails on each and every song. And with everything the Zig Zag People take songs that I would avoid like a genital disease and turn them into tracks that I really enjoy. For the Zig Zag People turned the table on the world, for they took a cookie-cutter corporate form and turned it cool. But, my childhood has still been stolen.

The Zig Zag People – Peel It Off Your Face