Favorite Recordings Featuring Odd Selections of Musical Instruments.


I do a fair job of spoiling my inner child. One area is collecting CDs where the choices of musical instruments are other than main stream.

 

An example might include the Modern Jazz Tuba Project. Their CDs include 2001 “Live at the Bottom Line” and 2003 “Favorite Things”. Howard Johnson & Gravity also had a tuba jazz trio and may have done it first with 1996 “Gravity” and 1997 “Right Now”. In all four CDs they select music to optimize the fun of a tuba trio, yea it is just great fun. Exercise your sub woofers. 

 Somewhere I have CDs of upright bass trios, I’m having trouble remembering who and where? Sometimes I get half-heimers; it is expected at my age now that I am middle aged.  Found it!  Ray Brown 1997 “Super Bass” (Telarc) and 2001 Super Bass, Vol. 2” (Telarc) both highly recommended. The Vol. 2 has a trio of upright basses playing “Papa Was Rolling Stone” in parts that will kill ya. It is all good. Might leave your sub woofer with stretch marks.

 Brent Lewis seems to get more out of percussion-only than one might reasonably expect.  Start with his CD 2004 “Drum Sex” because it is entertaining to listen to. He is worth looking up on Youtube so one can try before they buy. I like his stuff.  Find a pair of #2 yellow pencils so you can play along on your desk. Oh, Brent Lewis has a percussion Christmas concept CD named 2000 "Jungle Bells"  that is a riot. It is actuality done very well.  I own his whole catalogue.

 Somewhere I picked up 1991 “An Organ Blaster Sampler” from TELARC which has some nice demo organ cuts.

 Short of howitzers for the "1812 Overture" do you have any recordings featuring out of the ordinary musical instruments that you can highly recommend?


timothywright
The first ’odd’ example that pops into my head is on Zappa’s Yellow Shark, performed by the highly respected Ensemble Modern. On a piece called ’Welcome To The United States’ he had oboe player Catherine Milliken play a didgeridoo stuck in a bucket of water (I believe coffee was also used for more ’texture’). The ridiculous bubbling sound, nicely amplified over the orchestra, is ’something else’.

But the master of weird musical instruments is probably Harry Partch, who designed and built his own. ’Delusion Of The Fury’ (a 2LP set on CBS) is a great introduction.

Not really "odd" instrument, but years ago I found a sealed copy of this. 1968 press!
https://www.dustygroove.com/item/564267

I suppose anyone under 60 or so, the Moog synth is odd!

Actually a fun listen. I think the choice of compositions and execution is entertaining.