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epulse "COMPILATION OF THE WEEK"--January 22, 1999 "Blend," the opening song on the new compilation 'SANDY BULL: RE-INVENTIONS -- BEST OF THE VANGUARD YEARS' (Vanguard, 1/26), begins with a skeletal Bull acoustic guitar figure that slowly escalates, string by string, riff by riff, into an intense Indian-inspired raga drone workout while jazz drummer Billy Higgins adds a dancing beat and ear-catching fills. Over the course of 21:55, "Blend" rises and falls, lulls and jolts and takes the listener on a mesmerizing musical journey -- the kind of trip that in certain decades past would have been accompanied by copious bowlfuls of green bud. In 1963, when the song was recorded, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Bull was one of the few mixing world influences into his largely improvised music, and 'Re-Inventions' testifies to his eclectic interests during the years up to '72: There are songs by Brazil's Luiz Bonfa ("Manha de Carnival"), Carl Orff (that film trailer staple 'Carmina Burana,' here rendered afresh on five-string banjo), Chuck Berry ("Memphis, Tennessee") and Guillaume de Machaut, a 14th-century French composer of polyphonic music ("Triple Ballade"). Bull wrote unique and thoughtful arrangements for each song, picking like Pops Staples one minute (the self-penned "Gospel Tune") and Earl Scruggs the next (on the banjo tune "Little Maggie"), letting the music ebb and flow, sometimes for nine or 10 minutes. This is music for listening, not background (although it can work that way, too, albeit less powerfully), requiring open ears attuned to the performer's wide-ranging travels. It's a journey still worth taking. E-MAIL epulse FOR FREE WEEKLY MUSIC REVIEWS BY PULSE! EDITORS |