VALENTINA PONOMAREVA LP LEO-JOAN LA BARBARA-MEREDITH MONK-GANELIN TRIO-KURYOKHIN
$
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Description
VALENTINA PONOMAREVA
FORTUNE TELLER LP
Leo Records
Rare british original of experimental vocalist Valentina Ponomareva's first personal vinyl album, where she shows her emormous vocal abilities through experimental techniques.
Some info on the release: A quartet from Leo Records, that most unpredictable jazz labels. Pianist Marilyn Crispell's duo with drummer drummer Doug James is Harsh austerity, her playing angular and urgent with plenty of buoyant swing like an early, uncluttered Cecil Tailor, while James is subtly personified, shimmering but insistent in the background. Light does sometimes break through, most beautifully on the gentle, sun-filled treatment of Coltraine's "After the Rain". In contrast to the homogenous sound of Crispell, the three Russian albums scoop up virtually any music you care to ham. Valentina Ponomareva is a Russian gypsy whose mix of scat, avant-garde and classical singing leaves you gasping in stunned surprise rather then wildly applauding with pleasure, all guttural clicks and echoing gales of sound heavily dosed with some creative recording techniques. She transforms hackneyed "Michelle" into eerie disembodiment and creams trough "Ain't Misbehavin'", but away from strong themes, her voice another instrument to colour the overall wash of sound. "Con affetto" is predictable superb, a 28-minute suite "Semplice" recorded live in Moscow with two encores and loose percussive version of "Mack the Knife" thrown in for good measure. The music advances the Ganelin's "deliberately polystylistic" approach and is a kaleidoscope that conjures up numerous images and styles bumping and grinding together in unlikely juxtaposition yet cohering with unifying sense of swing. But best of all is a series of fragments recorded with all the flawed panache of an early field recording by a six-piece band from the Arkhangelsk, a port on the White Sea (up near Finland and not far from the Arctic Circle for those of you without Junior School Atlas) where it snows for nine month of the year and probably contains more polar bears than people in the local phone book. But no Nordic-stile icy introspection here - this music has all the warmth of a large shot of vodka and sounds like a looser Art Ensemble or a smaller Sun Ra Arkestra out on the razzle. And any band that can mix Georgian chanting with a full-tilt "Rock around the Clock" deserves some attention.
The daughter of a gypsy violinist and a professional pianist, singer Valentina Ponomareva was born in 1939 in Moscow. After studying vocal and piano, she performed with Soviet jazz bands during the 1960s. In the 1970s, she joined a Moscow gypsy theater named Romen Theater and became extremely successful and popular performing romantic gypsy songs and romances with the Romen Trio. In the 1980s and 90s, Ponomareva played with Russian avant-garde musicians, including free-jazz group Arkhangelsk, Serguey Kuryokhin of Popular Mechanics, Vladimir Chekasin of the Ganelin Trio, as well as with Boris Grebenshchikov’s Aquarium avant rock band. British record company Leo Records published her Fortune Teller LP in 1985, with which she gained a global recognition as a radical singer. At the end of the 1980s, Ponomareva recorded 4 LPs for state label Melodya: Intrusion (1988), At Parting, I’ll Tell You (1989), Temptation (1989) and Terra Incognita (1990). In the 1990s, she sang in The Goose, her trio with Tim Hodgkinson and Ken Hyder, and later formed a duo with Siberian singer Sainkho Namchylak. She also performed with John Zorn and Japanese free-jazz players (kind courtesy of Continuo blog, thanks Ricardo).
Condition: Vinyl lies in mint- condition, looks super clean and plays nicely, while cover lies in very good+ shape, with minor age wear, but with a tear on the back cover -would be excellent without this- (see picture).
Tracklist
A1 Ain't Misbehavin' 7:42 A2 Michelle 4:42 A3 Sheptalki (Fortune-Telling) 10:00 B1 Invocation Of Spirit 8:50 B2 Spontanous Composition 16:40SHIPPING & PAYMENT
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Packaging: I am a collector too and i know
