Word Jazz

Ken Nordine - Word Jazz

This is the original Word Jazz LP.

Liner notes by Ken Nordine:

Some years ago, when I first started fooling around with free association, with letting my mind wander with wonder, I had no idea that my joyful experiments would wind up on this unwinding album. But now, happily, that they have, I'd like to explain what I'm up to. Of course, what's on the record inside should explain itself and I hope you find that it does, but curiosity requires explanations of explanations, so here goes.

Imagine the imagination as a jazz instrument wailing words, verbal riffs that swing from images to ideas to images, a kind of oscillating curiosity creating far-in far-out fantasies on some fact, a going in any direction that seems to make some sense: up or down, in or out, here or there, now or then, for or against, etc. It can be sad or glad or an ambivalent blend of both. Oxymoronic. When it's glad-sad, it has something of the wry tension of humorous blues. It's also out-loud day dreaming that may be of interest to psychiatrists, amateur or otherwise. Let's say that it's something my unfree free will has to do, a necessary something that helps me belong to something larger than myself. Maybe it's a rebellion with cause, and maybe there are a lot of other maybes I don't know anything about and never will. Motivations are like an impulsive child, like the unselfconscious conscious skipping across a pretty muddy puddle. So what do you say we get our four feet back on the ground.

About the recording itself: I'd like to thank a special few. First, there's the genius of Fred Katz, the swinging beginning with his score. Freddie (who works from a very high shelf as cellist, pianist, conductor and composer) has four of his and jazzdom's best friends working with him to make up a group that deserves all the stars it can get and then some. The flute, piccolo, clarinet and sax have the pleasure of Paul Horn's sensitive company; the guitar is likewise pleased by John Asano; the bass has a ball with Jimmy Bond; the drums, bongos, timpani, gongs, and bells are treated the way they like to be by a great drummer named Forest Horn. The sound patterns are the creation of Jim Cunningham (of Robert Oakes Jordan and Associates). Utilizing engineering techniques and five Ampex Tape Recorders, Jim superimposes sound on sound to achieve an abstraction that you have to stare at with your ears. Magnified raindrops, IBM machines, 17-year locusts, reverberant delay, loop tapes, and a little bit of and so forth. Really, there's no way to describe it, it just kind of is.
Maybe, after all, that's the best description of "Word Jazz," too. Anyway, I do hope you enjoy hearing it.
Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. What Time is It? {3:46}

2. My Baby {2:33}

3. The Sound Museum {7:07}

4. The Vidiot {5:29}

Side 2

1. Roger {5:03}

2. Hunger is From {3:48}

3. Looks Like It's Going to Rain {3:29}

4. Flibberty Jib {4:45}

(1)