Art Blakey - Holiday for Skins (1958) [rapidshare/jazz/mp3 download]

Art Blakey - Holiday for Skins (1958)
MP3 ~ 320Kbps ~ RS.com ~ 85mb + 81mb ~ Covers + Booklet

Chris May, @ Allaboutjazz.com:
An unpleasant odour of Eurocentric condescension has hung over Art Blakey's drum choir projects ever since they were recorded in the late 1950s. Orgy In Rhythm (1957) and Holiday For Skins (1958)—both originally released as two LPs and both now packaged on single CDs, the latter newly available in this Connoisseur edition—have been viewed by some in the critical fraternity as no more than a bit of inconsequential and unchallenging fun in which Blakey crashes around, more at less at random, with a posse of unschooled, non-jazz musicians.

But Blakey was serious about these projects. He was a drummer, and he believed drums were the bedrock of jazz. And of course he was right. He also had first-hand knowledge of Latin and West African drum and percussion music, obtained by hanging with Cuban and Puerto Rican musicians since the mid-1940s and travelling in Africa for about a year in 1948-49, studying and jamming with tribal musicians. Blakey was no dilettante, and—despite its jokey title and sleeve art—Holiday For Skins is a serious disc.

Supported by two other traps drummers, Philly Joe Jones (most often heard on tympani) and Art Taylor, Blakey approaches the music much as an Ashanti or Yoruba master drummer would—dropping interjections, goads, counterpoints and cross-rhythms into the grooves laid down by the ensemble, signalling changes in rhythm or tempo, and bringing individual soloists forward. In general, he sounds more like an African musician than an American one.

The grooves themselves are a collection of Latin and West African rhythm patterns, from highlife and sakara to mambo and bolero, creatively orchestrated, cross-pollinated, shaken and stirred, with plenty of dynamic light and shade. Most of the material, including the choral chants which introduce some of the tunes, was collectively composed in the studio (all the music was recorded during a single all-night session in November, 1958).

Only three tracks make overt gestures towards the American (as it then was) jazz tradition, and hard bop in particular: “Otinde” and the two originals written by Ray Bryant, “Swingin' Kilts” and “Reflection.” Donald Byrd steps forward on these tunes only.

The sound is surprisingly good for its time—and, curiously, much better than engineer Rudy Van Gelder would achieve six years later on Solomon Ilori's African High Life, featuring a similar instrumental ensemble.

Don't believe the ignoramuses. Holiday For Skins is a great album and contains some culturally adventurous, top-dollar Blakey.

Steve Leggett, All Music Guide:
Art Blakey, who visited Africa several times, has been cited as saying jazz couldn't have happened there, that it could only have happened in America when and where it did, but Blakey was also fully aware of where those polyphonic rhythms and call-and-response patterns that underscore all of jazz came from. In the mid-'50s he began experimenting with large drum ensembles that slid African and Latin rhythms beneath hard bop horn and piano structures, resulting in a kind of worldbeat jazz hybrid years before the idea of worldbeat became codified as a musical concept. Holiday for Skins has an even larger drum ensemble than the one that Blakey used for 1956's similar Drum Suite, consisting this time around of three jazz drummers (Philly Joe Jones, Art Taylor, and Blakey himself) and a host of Latin and African percussionists, including Ray Barretto and Sabz Martmnez, as well as Donald Byrd on trumpet and Ray Bryant on piano. With the exception of Bryant's two compositions, "Swingin' Kilts" and "Reflection," all the tracks were worked out during one long studio session which ran from 11 p.m. until 5 a.m. the next morning. The end result sounds very joyous, tribal, and ceremonial, helped along in that regard by interspersed vocal chants, yelps, howls, and whistles with occasional bursts of straight jazz texture from Byrd or Bryant. The lengthy session was originally released by Blue Note as two separate LPs labeled Volume 1 and Volume 2, and this CD reissue combines both into one seamless sequence running a little over an hour in length. As one might suspect, there isn't a whole lot of melody or harmony being worked on here, but the rhythms are extraordinarily interesting, with the various bongos, congas, and trap kit formations constantly responding to each other in ever expanding and overlapping circles. It may not be everyone's idea of jazz, but jazz it most certainly is, and many of the rhythm experiments Blakey was trying out at the time in albums like this one, Drum Suite, and 1962's African Beat are now standard approaches in contemporary jazz and pop, which is why all three of these drum-centric releases sound so eerily current years later.

Personnel:
Art Blakey (chant, drums);
Philly Joe Jones (chant, drums, timpani);
Donald Byrd (trumpet);
Ray Bryant (piano);
Art Taylor (drums, gong);
Ray Barretto (congas)

Tracks:
1. The Feast -- Blakey, Art 8:54
2. Aghano -- Blakey, Art 6:05
3. Lamento Africano -- Blakey, Art 8:23
4. Mirage -- Blakey, Art 10:28
5. O'Tinde -- Blakey, Art 6:15
6. Swingin' Kilts -- Bryant, Ray 8:51
7. Dinga -- Blakey, Art 8:58
8. Reflection -- Bryant, Ray 9:06

Code:

http://rapidshare.com/files/52513414/6aa4fc.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/52505777/6aa4fc.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/52497079/6aa4fc.part3.rar

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