Dreamticket #2

Ta Papa, it's been gratifying to have you listening so many of these.

I'm going to be checking out more of your Future Sound Of Nibley sets because the last one that I played (#8) was one of the best things that I've heard on Mixcloud all this year.

Any more of yours like that that you'd recommend? Or other sets than the FSONs that you think would be up my street?

the thanks are all mine Brett; your Dreamtickets all have proved very much just the ticket: educational & super enjoyable selections.
really gratified again that you like FSON#8 so much 🙏. in those venn terms, would certainly say please be my guest and take a walk through the other FSONs first. ...you might find some things to like in this playlist too: https://www.mixcloud.com/papamango/playlists/messages/
most of my other 'things' on mixcloud are different sorts of house/techno flavoured, but you might at least try this that was lucky to be invited to guest on some months ago:
https://www.mixcloud.com/s_ben/secret-sun-society-49-papamango/

Isn't it? Love a bit of Cal Tjader.
The Davy Graham version of The Fakir is worth a listen as well.

Nice! Am also intrigued by Larry Stabbins; you've played a couple of tunes and I've never heard that name before. Thanks for lots of new listenings.

Full disclosure: I'm old enough to have recently qualified for free public transport in the London area! So Larry Stabbins has been turning up in different contexts all through my life. He was in his early twenties when he appeared on "Septober Energy", the cult UK jazz LP by Keith Tippet's massive Centipede project. Then I came across him playing free improv gigs around the turn of the 70s/80s so it felt like a bit of a left turn when he showed up in Working Week later in the decade. He slipped off my radar for decades after that until a stint with Jerry Dammers' Sun Ra inspired big band Spatial AKA in the late 00s. Then he made an album "Transcendental" with the rhythm section of Spatial AKA, which I always think of as a neglected UK jazz classic - there's some inspired playing by Zoe Rahman on that album as well. Last thing I heard, he'd called it a day for music. Fair enough at age 82! He once said that his favourite sax players were Pharaoh Sanders and Junior Walker, which pretty much sums up what I like about his playing.
I'm picking stuff up from your shows as well so...each one teach one.

One Larry Stabbins project that might interest you is the late 00s album "Stonephace". It's an FX heavy psychedelic electro-jazz affair featuring Adrian Utley on guitar with the kind of production that would segue easily in and out of dub or electronica. Some of the tunes sound like a hybrid of 70s Soft Machine and Fila Brazillia to me. Gilles Peterson, Michael Ruetten etc picked up on "Wedgehead Gets Lucky" at the time so that might sound familiar - groovesome but with Stabbins channelling pue Pharaoh on the intro.

Wow mate! Great information, thanks. Two things spring to mind: firstly, the best thing about aging (I'm only a decade or so behind you) is connecting the dots, but secondly wisdom is in knowing you know nothing!

Anyway, Centipede - brilliant! Am a big fan of Robert Wyatt and Keith Tippett has attracted my interest having been an Emma-Jean mentor. Thanks for pointing to Stabbins' involvement, so off down the rabbit hole I go with Stonephace - what an LP. Listened to half of it earlier. Damn good call, sir!

And yes, agreed Jerry Damners is vastly underrated. The Spacial AKA is a kind of myth to me though rather than a reality - on the 'to listen' list but I need to get that sorted.

Had to retype this comment as I wrote the earlier version in haste & the typos were haunting me.

Typos at this end as well - Stabbins is 72 now rather than 82.

More joining the dots...

This conversation sent me off to listen to Centipede on YouTube for the first time in ages. I'd just been listening to you playing Don Cherry's Relativity Suite in COS#16 and it made me wonder how much Centipede was a parallel development or a response to what JCOA were doing in the States with LPs like Liberation Music or Relativity Suite.

Wyatt / Soft Machine / Canterbury scene was my door into jazz as a teen in the mid-70s. Keith Tippet was an early exploration once I'd figured out that was his crazy piano on King Crimson's "Cat Food", and that Soft Machine had nicked his entire horn section for the Third album. The first time I saw him play was a solo improvisation in a basement at Covent Garden in 1977. It was extraordinary. Pop culture history dictates that I should have been around the corner in the Roxy but I was conflicted - I bought both A Love Supreme and the Clash's first album that year. Next year I'd see Dammers onstage for the first time, third down the bill to Clash and Suicide in the Coventry Specials.

One last dot to join. Have another listen to Stabbins' version of "Africa" (in the Dreamticket#4 set). Hear those boiling, bubbling congas? That's Spry passing through on the long road from Galliano to Emma Jean Thackray's band.

I was obsessed with The Clash as a youth - guess that was probably my road into dub.

Spry - that's another worm hole you've sent me down. You are a mine of interesting musical avenues and diversions. Brilliant stuff, thanks.

Thanks for coming along!