A few other threads have prompted me to start this one...
I'm wanting performances where the artist seems to transcend him/herself and tap into something/someone greater than themselves to create an almost mystical experience...almost channeling something else or someone else with Music flowing out of them almost without their ability to resist it. I"m talking about more than just virtuosity here...but soul. Usually it's somewhat spontaneous...so perhaps live performances more likely...but also a few studio recordings. Few artists that I know have done this.... I would say probably Coltrane on "A love supreme" and maybe Miles Davis. Some would say Hendrix did it on occaision. As for women...help me here.. Who are some others? What are the albums? Irrespective of genre.
Issabre - you and I are thinking alike. A few tracks for you to try: Vienna Teng - Homecoming (Warm Strangers) Patricia Barber - Too Rich for my Blood (Cafe Blue) Alison Krauss - Jacobs Dream (A Hundred Miles or More) Eva Cassidy - Fields of Gold (Songbird)
1. JORDI SAVALL performs the "Fantasias" of Orlando Gibbons (17th century) 2. JOHN COLTRANE "Live at the Half Note" 3. Robert Wilkins "Complete recordings 1927-35" (Yazoo) 4. Louis Armstrong Hopt 5's and 7's 5. GLENN GOULD "French Suites/English Suites" of JS BACH
Oh, I think that that Richie Haven's peformances that kicked off Woodstock were nearly mystical...I think that's what set the tone for the entire festival. Also, Santana's Soul Sacrifice....
Creedence Fortunate Son ....
Woodstock was filled with these performances...maybe it was the "performance enchancing substances!"
oh...one more... Usi Letela Uxdlo (Nelson Mandela Brings Us Peace) - The African National Congress Choir on the CD Amandla... recorded the day Mandela ascended to the Presidency of South Africa. If that doesn't bring tears to your eyes, either you don't know the story or your deaf.
try shelby lynne "just a little lovin'" it is an album of covers from dusty springfield. better recording values, to me, than any of dusty"s originals and it will make any woman your with sit and listen for the entire album.
When I think of mystical, jazz fusion comes to mind first. Artists like Chick Corea, Flora Purim, Herbie Hancock and Weather Report. Saw many of these bands live back in the day, some of the most mystical musical experiences in my lifetime! Some jazz purists hate the stuff, I love it.
I also think of Frank Zappa and obscure psychedelic music from 60's, stuff from artists like Music Emporium, Sagittarious, Trader Horne, Eclection, Gandalf, Kennelmus, Chrysalis and Silver Apples. These are very experimental bands, some very elementary, yet they all evoke a feeling of reverence. It may also be some won't get this music, perhaps you had to have lived in those times to get the feeling. The initial awakenings of the counterculture and mass drug use were a pretty strange time in human existence.
I think I get where you're coming from and would certainly echo Meeting by the River as a good example. In a similar trance-like way I'd point to some of the collaborations of the oudist, Anouar Brahem. My favorite being, "Le Pas du Chat Noir," but many of his ECM recordings achieve that for me - they come to mind in reflecting on Meeting by the River as a brilliant fusion of talented musicians just finding that groove together that sucks you into their magic. These are the kind of recordings one can never tire of. Good thread subject!
VHS Tape: Mark Knopfler's Night In London concert Cut: Sultans of Swing - Mark's guitar riff toward the end of the piece - I'm mesmerized every time I view it and, unfortunately, it was left off of the DVD version.
Jeff Buckley - Grace, from album of same title. Also Hallelujah from same album. Kula Shaker - Temple Of Everlasting Light and Govinda. Sufjan Stevens - John Wayne Gacy.
Lyle Lovett: North Dakota (Joshua, Judges, Ruth) Bruce Cockburn: Use Me While You Can (Breakfast In New Orleans...) Peter Gabriel: I Have The Touch (Security) Dire Straits: Telegraph Road (Love Over Gold) Richard Wagner: Almost ALL of his Operatic Overtures
Timrhu - thanks for that...I've been trying to get into Sufjan's music and find I'm hot and cold with it and have a hard time getting through his albums start to finish. I read your post and cued up the Gacy cut and really enjoyed that (from an album I otherwise had not listened to much). You might enjoy the first cut from Damien Jurado's CD, Where Shall You Take Me, titled "Amateur Night". Hypnotic and creepy in a different way than Stevens..similar subject matter....I don't know if I'd put it as a response to the OP's query though..it is hypnotic though, but I don't know if I'd put it in the company of those he listed. "Virtuosity" perhaps is not a word that would otherwise come to mind when I thought of that cut, but it is a very expressive use of music nonetheless.
Jax2, maybe "mystical" would be a stretch but the "John Wayne Gacy" but I have played it for a lot of people and have yet to have some say it did not raise the hair on the back of their neck. The first tome I listened to that album I was going along with attention flowing in and out. When the Gacy cut began I said "whoa, what was that." I was transfixed through the haunting vocal until the end when Stevens lifts his feet from the piano pedals. The ending makes me think of detectives lifting the floorboards of Gacy's house during their investigation.
Alanis Morissette - Jagged Little Pill U2 - Achtung Baby Supertramp- Breakfast in America Leonard Bernstein NY Philharmonic - William Tell Overture Miles Davis - Kind of Blue Jennifer Warnes- song "And so it goes" from album "The Well"
Timrhu - you definitely need to listen to the Damien Jurado cut I mentioned. It will also raise some hairs. It is mixed with some very odd, phase-swapping ambiance that almost sounds like it is being performed in a bathroom. Contrary to what one may think, it very much works for that song. Also, like the Stevens cut, the last words in the song really drive it home and leave your imagination reeling.
Jax2, just ordered the Damien Jurado from Amazon. Never heard of him so looking forward to it. Said it before and I'll say it again. Finding new music through threads like this one is my favorite thing about Audiogon.
Although it may have become cliche from being over played, i think you got to include Bob Marley's "Songs of Freedom"....the version on Legend...ie the sparse guitar, acoustic version.
I think probably quite a few of Bob's tunes would qualify as mystical...though few of the well known ones.
Timrhu - I agree; I've also been introduced to some really great music through these threads. Hope you enjoy the Jurado - that's my favorite of the few CD's I have from him.
Superwolf - Right on! That one just runs a shiver down my spine. That last line in the lyrics sticks with you long after the music has stopped.
Other greats in the same (creepy) genre that come to mind:
Tori Amos breathy, whispery version of the Emenim song, '97 Bonnie and Clyde off of "Strange Little Girls" - It does not even remotely have the same impact as sung by Eminem. From Amos it is chilling.
Tom Waits utterly brilliant poetic soundscape, bristling with razorwire wit and mastery of language in the spoken piece, "Circus" off of Real Gone. Not the same subject matter, but has that very unconventional stick-to-your-ribs hypnotic ticket into a dark world most of us thankfully only visit vicariously. Think Tod Browning's '32 film, "Freaks". Another Wait's spoken piece that comes to mind in light of the previous topical matter is, "What's He Building in There?"
These selections definitely are not for everyone, but for the benefit of those moved by the likes of Jurado and the Gacy cut from Stevens...
OK, since I'm digressing a bit from the OP's intent to some degree, let me go back on track with a very unconventional yet brilliant piece of music that is a very natural segway in the realms of not-for-everyone. Yet this piece just wraps me up in its strained and pained poetic spell, even though the singing may make some want to run from the room it fits so perfectly with the content, and I've actually come to love his vocals: Neutral Milk Hotel, "Oh Comely", from In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.
Back to more easier, universally pleasing listening - Yes, Issabre, "Le Pas..." is classic and haunting and beautiful and I never tire of it. Brahem's other collaborations are all worthy of consideration as well. Each is rather unique in that he chooses such diverse musicians to play with, yet the thread of his impeccable taste remains throughout. Great stuff.
"Alleluia, Behold the Bridegroom" by the ST. Petersburg Choir on the Album "Russian Easter" (Philips) Composer Unknown. Conductor Nikolai Korniev.
Actually, all of the songs on that album are mystical..but you have to have a really good system to hear them well because alot of the feeling is in the space in which they are performing...it must have been an old church.
"Alleluia, Behold the Bridegroom" by the ST. Petersburg Choir on the Album "Russian Easter" (Philips) Composer Unknown. Conductor Nikolai Korniev.
Thanks, I'll check that one out. Looks like it gets some great reviews on Amazon, and choral music can be so powerful. Arvo Part's new piece, In Pricipio is quite good if you enjoy his music.
Back to jazz, and appropriately titled for this thread, the cut titled, "The Spell" off the ECM recording, Achirana, is superb in every respect and fits in here.
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