Sonny Sharrock - Ask The Ages

Here's one to open the year, a year I'm committing myself to being nicer, cheerier, less stressed. A nicer me. Doesn't help I'm opening the 09 season with a case of the trendy flu that has my joints aflame and other parts aching and angry. But 09 is also about dealing with adversity better.


When I listen to and think about this record I think of someone who has found what they needed ~ some peace, some calm, some wisdom, some ecstasy or something. (Please refer to Bays earlier post offering Sonny in his last go-round in support of "Ages.") So it's a variety of painkiller for me, spilling over with hope and removing that self-conscious anxiety that prevents many of us from just settling in and going with the scene.


So there's my sermon. Play this one a lot. Please.

__________________________


Allmusic: Ask the Ages is Sonny Sharrock's masterpiece, and sadly it was also the last album he would record before his premature death in 1994. It's the most challenging jazz work he recorded as a leader, and it's the clearest expression of his roots as a jazz player, drawing heavily on Coltrane's modal post-bop and concepts of freedom. To that end, Sharrock reunites with Coltrane's old cohort, Pharoah Sanders, who featured Sharrock on his wild Tauhid and Izipho Zam LPs; what's more, Coltrane Quartet drummer Elvin Jones is on hand, as is young bassist Charnett Moffett. It's far and away the best, most adventurous, and most jazz-oriented backing group Sharrock recorded with during his comeback, and the results are breathtaking. The compositions are all Sharrock originals, and all six have utterly memorable themes that often recall the sweeping lyricism of Sanders' most spiritual '60s works. For his part, Sanders responds with some of his most ferocious playing in years, and Sharrock sounds vitally energized by the tenor's screeching passion. There isn't a wasted moment on the album, but particular highlights include the fiery, majestic opener, "Promises Kept," the searching ballad "Who Does She Hope to Be?," and the awe-inspiring blast-fest "Many Mansions," where Sharrock and Sanders both reach a blistering pinnacle. Listeners coming to Sharrock from rock & roll or his Space Ghost Coast to Coast soundtrack might find that Ask the Ages isn't the nonstop skronk-fest they expected; it's his overall musicality that's on display, but there's still plenty that will scare the bejeezus out of timid jazzbos. It's a tragedy that Sharrock didn't get much of a chance to expand on this achievement, but thankfully it exists in the first place.


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Sonny Sharrock - Live at the Lounge Ax: 19 Sept 1993

Another Greatest Show of All Time. I pull this document out about once a year or so, just to refresh my criminally fading memory. This was recorded by myself on my third or fourth Aiwa stereo lav mic/tape deck, and has since been digitized courtesy Processed at PCJV Studios. Do not expect to be overwhelmed by high fidelity. There’s some fierce surface hiss here and there, the drums and bass are a little thin at points. But please don’t let that deter you. For the guitar of Sonny Sharrock cuts through it all as clear as the voice of YHVH on Day One. If you give this 45 mins of your time, you will have a beatific smile on your face for the rest of the day. You will tell all your friends how fucking amazing this guitarist is. You will experience a new-found sense of peace. This remains one fine and unique testament to a genius guitarist at the peak of his powers.

Sonny was touring in support of "Ask The Ages". I’d only become acquainted with his work a year or so earlier, via Johnny Machine DJing/bartending at the Rainbo (where we lived). We were in a booth. It was early in the day and the place was empty. I was probably high. What the fuck is this shit, I said. Who is this mind-blowing guitarist? Dimi! Mr. Herndon smiled and handed me "Highlife". I went out the next day looking for all the Sharrock wax I could find.

When we heard Sonny was going to be in town, we were there hours early. Patient. I remember having a cigarette out front when the band pulled up. And I remember that Mr. Sharrock was one devilishly-intense looking mother. Seriously mischievous.

But, alas. tempest fucking fugit, and all that. The Lounge Ax is no more. Sonny himself died less than a year after playing this date. All I can offer is a few fading memories, and this dusty bit of history...

Per a fantastic remembrance by Margaret Davis: Sonny's music, when heard in person, always left audiences scorched and trembling, excoriated, flabbergasted, stricken, ecstatic, shocked, thrilled, enraptured, flayed, and ennobled. And screaming for more.


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Sonny Sharrock - Black Woman

Trouser Press: On Black Woman, presumably an ode to Sharrock's wife, Linda, Sonny and crew whip up a hell of a maelstrom. Sharrock's most obviously avant-garde statement, the album also contains a kind of theme song in "Blind Willy," here played solo (later to re-appear in Last Exit sets and almost two decades later on Guitar). What is striking about this version of "Blind Willy," ostensibly a tribute to Blind Willie Johnson but perhaps also to Blind Willie McTell, is Sharrock's audible breathing throughout the piece, pacing his phrases as a reed player would. The effect is intimate (and mildly unsettling) but entirely part of Sharrock's conception and approach to his instrument.

The remainder of Black Woman is entirely of its era, a slab of ESP Disk-like free jazz, including a stellar performance by the oft-cited but little-recorded drummer Milford Graves. Also notable is Linda's contribution, especially on the title track. The range of emotion — praise, worship, jubilation, eroticism, horror, torture — present in her wordless vocals is remarkable and entirely connected to the rest of what's going on. Much as Abbey Lincoln would do for Max Roach, Linda Sharrock's vocal lines accent rather than detract from the music, an integral part of the overall sound rather than a focal point in and of itself. Inexplicably re- issued with Wayne Henderson's soul-jazz statement, People Get Ready, in 2000, Black Woman is a vital item in Sharrock's catalogue.


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