I went out for a brief walk this afternoon. It was raining, but not so hard you needed an umbrella (I hate umbrellas anyway). And so very strong, the smell of rain. I remember once reading out a poem of mine and having someone come up after the reading and note that I'd used the phrase 'the smell of rain'. I couldn't tell if he liked it or was simply taking the mickey (the latter, I suspect, as he was a very 'cool' poet and I am, manifestly, not). I wondered about the smell. To me it's always been obvious. But today I decided to go and find, and here , via the ABC and CSIRO, is some hard data. The common rain smell comes from a gas called petrichor. Apparently, volatiles evaporate from plants and are absorbed by rocks, concrete etc. When the rain hits the rock, the volatiles are released into the atmosphere. That's why I can particularly smell it wandering along concrete paths and past sandstone walls. If it's good enough for CSIRO, it's good eno...
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Chris Murray
Have you seen the hateful reviews it got when it came out? Maybe the biggest jazz backlash in history?
On the Corner, man, what a tremendous album - all those electric Miles albums are good
are you familiar with Agharta and Pangaea? recorded live in japan on the same day in 1974, the last recording he did before the hiatus
Agharta is the matinee performance, Pangaea is the evening performance
except for the reed player (Sonny Fortune at his soulful best, playing his ass off) the band had been together for about 2 years, and the fractured funk has morphed into rock that grooves so hard and heavy that it can be uncomfortable - bassplayer Michael Henderson has this monster honking sound
guitarist Pete Cosey takes Hendrix, Sonny Sharrock, his own experience as a Chess session player (that's him doing the wacka-wacka on Electric Mud) and his experience playing with chicago free jazz musicians, and turns it all into one of the most massively blistering guitar attacks ever
not to mention Al Foster on drums and Ndugu on percussion... man, it just piles up in there
of course, these being Miles Davis albums, there are moments of great vulnerability and tenderness - Miles' solo that starts about 8 minutes into side 3 of Pangaea (disc 2 on CD), for example, so simple and lovely, and that sound of his!
the greatest thing about these two albums, and this on no way diminishes the delectability of Jack Johnson, On the Corner, Bitches Brew, Get Up With It, and all the others, is that it is all live, and, because the band had been together for a good while, the music turns on a dime - the studio albums are all highly edited...
well, they're both incredible - chris daniels says check it out