A vis­it to William Faulkner’s house once con­vinced me I’d seen his ghost. Mil­lions of peo­ple com­mune with Elvis’s spir­it at Grace­land each year. Some lucky per­son will end up with Toni Morrison’s per­son­al library, and maybe also her Tribeca con­do. No mat­ter how well we think we know a favorite artist, there’s noth­ing like con­nect­ing with the spaces and things they left behind. Since 2016, Jimi Hen­drix devo­tees have been able to make a pil­grim­age to the Lon­don apart­ment he shared with his girl­friend, Kathy Etch­ing­ham, between 1968 and 1969.

The flat on 23 Brook Street has been set up the way it was when Hen­drix lived there, thanks to Han­del & Hen­drix in Lon­don, who also main­tain the house of George Frid­er­ic Han­del just next door. The only oth­er con­nec­tion between the two artists is Hendrix’s own­er­ship of two copies of Handel’s Mes­si­ah, “both of which show signs of wear and tear,” the foun­da­tion notes, and “which would have been uncan­ny lis­ten­ing so near to where it was com­posed.” Jimi taste­ful­ly dec­o­rat­ed the apart­ment to his tastes, and told Etch­ing­ham it was “my first real home of my own.”

Hendrix’s home was made com­plete by a 100-plus col­lec­tion of LPs and a high-end audio sys­tem that has recent­ly been recre­at­ed in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the mak­ers of the orig­i­nal com­po­nents: Bang & Olufsen, Lowther, and LEAK sup­ply the same or sim­i­lar mod­els of turntable, speak­er, and ampli­fi­er, respec­tive­ly, on which Jimi lis­tened to Han­del next door to the ghost of Han­del. Hear­ing those records in Jimi’s space, the way he heard them, says Nabi­hah Iqbal in a video that debuted on Hendrix’s birth­day, Novem­ber 27th, is “a time-trav­el­ing expe­ri­ence.”

Iqbal choos­es her favorites from the collection—Bob Dylan, Ravi Shankar, Mud­dy Waters, Djan­go Reinhardt—discussing them as they qui­et­ly play in the back­ground. For the full Hen­drix expe­ri­ence, we’d need to crank the vin­tage ampli­fi­er to 11. He liked to lis­ten loud. Etch­ing­ham “recalled that they had to ‘stick a ha’penny with sel­l­otape onto the turntable arm… oth­er­wise it would jump up and down the loud­er it got.” He would occa­sion­al­ly blow the rein­forced speak­ers dur­ing par­ties and have to take them in for repair.

The flat also func­tioned as a com­po­si­tion room, and Hendrix’s friends stopped by to jam. (Richie Havens debuted his “anti-war anthem ‘Hand­some John­ny’ to a small par­ty in the flat on Hendrix’s Epi­phone acoustic gui­tar.”) Han­del & Hen­drix in Lon­don have revived the prac­tice with their Hen­drix Flat Ses­sions, invit­ing musi­cians to play in the space. Above, Mar­cus Macha­do talks about what Hen­drix means to him and jams a ver­sion of “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” while sit­ting on Hendrix’s bed.

See sev­er­al more Hen­drix Flat Ses­sions here. The records in Hen­drix’s col­lec­tion “cov­er blues, jazz, folk, rock, psy­che­delia and even a hand­ful of clas­si­cal LPs.” See Iqbal’s selec­tions, with anno­ta­tions from Han­del & Hen­drix in Lon­don, here. The Hen­drix Flat is cur­rent­ly open to the pub­lic on Sat­ur­days.

via Vinyl Fac­to­ry

Relat­ed Con­tent:  

Watch Rare Footage of Jimi Hen­drix Per­form­ing “Voodoo Child” in Maui, Plus a Trail­er for a New Doc­u­men­tary on Jimi Hendrix’s Leg­endary Maui Per­for­mances (1970)

How Sci­ence Fic­tion Formed Jimi Hen­drix

Behold Moe­bius’ Many Psy­che­del­ic Illus­tra­tions of Jimi Hen­drix

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

John Coltrane released “more sig­nif­i­cant works” than his 1960 “My Favorite Things,” says Robin Wash­ing­ton in a PRX doc­u­men­tary on the clas­sic rework­ing of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Broad­way hit. “A Love Supreme” is often cit­ed as the zenith of the saxophonist’s career. “But if you tried to explain that song to an aver­age lis­ten­er, you would lose them. [“My Favorite Things”] is a defin­i­tive work that every­one knows, and any­one can lis­ten to, and the fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ry of its evo­lu­tion is some­thing every­one can share and enjoy.” The song is acces­si­ble, a com­mer­cial­ly suc­cess­ful hit, and it is also an exper­i­men­tal mas­ter­piece.

Indeed, “My Favorite Things” may be the per­fect intro­duc­tion to Coltrane’s exper­i­men­tal­ism. After the dizzy­ing chord changes of 1959’s “Giant Steps,” this 14-minute, two-chord excur­sion pat­terned on the ragas of Ravi Shankar announced Coltrane’s move into the modal forms he refined until his death in 1967, as well as his embrace of the sopra­no sax­o­phone and his new quar­tet. It became “Coltrane’s most request­ed tune,” says Ed Wheel­er in The World Accord­ing to John Coltrane, “and a bridge to a broad pub­lic audi­ence.”

Coltrane’s take is also mes­mer­iz­ing, trance-induc­ing, “often com­pared to a whirling dervish,” notes the Poly­phon­ic video above, a ref­er­ence to the Sufi med­i­ta­tion tech­nique of spin­ning in a cir­cle. It’s an unlike­ly song choice for the exer­cise, which makes it all the more fas­ci­nat­ing. The Sound of Music, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s final Broad­way col­lab­o­ra­tion, was an “instant clas­sic,” and every­one who’d seen it walked away hum­ming the tune to “My Favorite Things.” By 1960, it had become a stan­dard, with sev­er­al cov­er ver­sions released by Leslie Uggams, The Pete King Chorale, the Hi-Lo’s, and the Nor­man Luboff Choir.

Hun­dreds more cov­ers would fol­low. None of them sound­ed like Coltrane’s. The modal form—in which musi­cians impro­vise in dif­fer­ent kinds of scales over sim­pli­fied chord structures—created the “open free­dom” in music explored on Miles Davis’ path­break­ing Kind of Blue, on which Coltrane played tenor sax. (It was Davis who bought Coltrane his first sopra­no sax that year.) Coltrane’s use of modal form in adap­ta­tions of pop­u­lar stan­dards like “My Favorite Things” and George Gershwin’s “Sum­mer­time” from Por­gy and Bess was an explic­it strat­e­gy to court a wider pub­lic, using the famil­iar to ori­ent his lis­ten­ers to the new.

The video essay brings in the exper­tise of musi­cian, com­pos­er, and YouTu­ber Adam Neely, who explains what makes Rogers and Hammerstein’s clas­sic unique among show tunes, and why it appealed to Coltrane as the cen­ter­piece of the 1961 album of the same name. The song’s unusu­al form and struc­ture allow the same melody to be played over both major and minor chords. Coltrane’s mod­i­fi­ca­tion of the song reduces it to the two ton­ics, E major and E minor, over which he and the band solo, intro­duc­ing a shift­ing tonal­i­ty and mood to the melody with each chord change.

Neely goes into greater depth, but it’s over­all an acces­si­ble expla­na­tion of Coltrane’s very acces­si­ble, yet ver­tig­i­nous­ly deep, “My Favorite Things.” Maybe only one ques­tion remains. Coltrane’s ren­di­tion came out four years before Julie Andrews’ icon­ic per­for­mance in the film adap­ta­tion of The Sound of Music, evok­ing the obvi­ous ques­tion,” says Wash­ing­ton: “Did he influ­ence her?”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Jazz Decon­struct­ed: What Makes John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” So Ground­break­ing and Rad­i­cal?

John Coltrane Draws a Pic­ture Illus­trat­ing the Math­e­mat­ics of Music

John Coltrane Talks About the Sacred Mean­ing of Music in the Human Expe­ri­ence: Lis­ten to One of His Final Inter­views (1966)

Stream the “Com­plete” John Coltrane Playlist: A 94-Hour Jour­ney Through 700+ Trans­for­ma­tive Tracks

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

How’s this for fusion? Here we have The Sachal Stu­dios Orches­tra, based in Lahore, Pak­istan, play­ing an inno­v­a­tive cov­er of “Take Five,” the jazz stan­dard writ­ten by Paul Desmond and orig­i­nal­ly per­formed by The Dave Brubeck Quar­tet in 1959. Brubeck–who would have cel­e­brat­ed his 100th birth­day today–called it the “most inter­est­ing” ver­sion he had ever heard. Once you watch the per­for­mance above, you’ll know why.

Accord­ing to The Guardian, The Sachal Stu­dios Orches­tra was cre­at­ed by Izzat Majeed, a phil­an­thropist based in Lon­don. When Pak­istan fell under the dic­ta­tor­ship of Gen­er­al Zia-ul-Haq dur­ing the 1980s, Pakistan’s clas­si­cal music scene fell on hard times. Many musi­cians were forced into pro­fes­sions they had nev­er imag­ined — sell­ing clothes, elec­tri­cal parts, veg­eta­bles, etc. What­ev­er was nec­es­sary to get by. Today, many of these musi­cians have come togeth­er in a 60-per­son orches­tra that plays in a state-of-the-art stu­dio, designed part­ly by Abbey Road sound engi­neers.

You can pur­chase their album, Sachal Jazz: Inter­pre­ta­tions of Jazz Stan­dards & Bossa Nova, on Ama­zon and iTunes. It includes ver­sions of “Take Five” and “The Girl from Ipane­ma.”

For good mea­sure, we’ve added Sachal’s take on “Eleanor Rig­by,” some­thing George Har­ri­son would sure­ly have loved.

Note: A ver­sion of this post first appeared on our site back in 2013. But as enchant­i­ng as it is, it seemed worth bring­ing back.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

How Dave Brubeck’s Time Out Changed Jazz Music

Watch Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Voodoo Chile’ Per­formed on a Gayageum, a Tra­di­tion­al Kore­an Instru­ment

Talk­ing Heads’ “This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)” Per­formed on Tra­di­tion­al Chi­nese Instru­ments

An Uplift­ing Musi­cal Sur­prise for Dave Brubeck in Moscow (1997)

Ultra Ortho­dox Rab­bis Sing Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” on the Streets of Jerusalem

Sun Ra died in 1993 (or he returned to his home plan­et of Sat­urn, one or the oth­er). Twen­ty-sev­en years lat­er his Arkestra is still going strong. “No group in jazz his­to­ry has embod­ied the com­mu­nal spir­it like the Arkestra,” writes Peter Mar­gasak at The Qui­etus. “Their hard­core fans are the clos­est thing jazz has to Dead­heads.” We could fur­ther com­pare Sun Ra and Jer­ry Gar­cia as bandleaders—their embrace of extend­ed free form play­ing against a back­ground of tra­di­tion­al­ism. Folk, and coun­try in Garcia’s case and big band swing in the work of the man born Her­man Poole Blount in Birm­ing­ham, Alaba­ma in 1914.

But (all due respect to Jer­ry, and he earned it), Sun Ra had a vision that was wider than his ded­i­cat­ed fan­base. He har­nessed the pow­er­ful sym­bols of ancient Egypt and oth­er African king­doms to form the base of his Afro­fu­tur­ist mes­sage, a blend of “Black Nation­al­ism, ancient spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, and sci­ence fic­tion” for the jazz mass­es. Ra fleshed these themes out ful­ly in his 1974 film Space is the Place, a sci-fi fan­ta­sy in which he bat­tles his adver­saries in a plan to trans­port Black Amer­i­cans to a new plan­et.

What seems like a call for sep­a­ratism is real­ly an alle­go­ry cri­tiquing what schol­ar Daniel Kreiss calls the “ter­res­tri­al com­mu­ni­ty pro­grams” of the Black Pan­thers and the ills of pover­ty, racism, and exploita­tion. “Only the band’s use of tech­nol­o­gy and music will lib­er­ate the peo­ple by chang­ing con­scious­ness” the film sug­gests. Space, and ancient Egypt, are also places in the mind. Sun Ra had his own con­scious­ness changed a cou­ple year ear­li­er when he vis­it­ed the real Egypt for the first time in 1971. The result­ing record­ings—new­ly released—stand as “one of Sun Ra’s major works” Edwin Pouncey writes at Jazz­wise, and “would lead him to oth­er worlds of inner dis­cov­ery in the future.”

Film of the 22-mem­ber col­lec­tive at the pyra­mids (top), tak­en by Arkestra mem­ber Thomas Hunter, cre­ates “an audio-visu­al tele­por­ta­tion into their inter­stel­lar uni­verse,” The Vinyl Factory’s Gabriela Helfet remarks. Pre­vi­ous­ly unpub­lished pho­tographs of the Cairo con­certs com­plete the image of the band as a psy­che­del­ic pan-African space­ship made of music. Where will it take you? Wher­ev­er you need to go. In a record­ed Q&A held dur­ing one show, Sun Ra tells the audi­ence that his adopt­ed name is “my nat­ur­al, vibra­tional name,” his true iden­ti­ty.

Each per­son, Sun Ra sug­gests, has to find to find their own fre­quen­cy. “Pro­gres­sive music is keep­ing ahead of the times, you might say. In Amer­i­ca they call it avant-garde music. It’s sup­posed to stim­u­late peo­ple to think for them­selves.” The mes­sage and the music res­onat­ed, and the band would return to Egypt two more times in the com­ing decade after their first vis­it, as Brad­ford Bai­ley notes:

Beyond per­son­al appeal, the trip proved cre­ative­ly fruitful—introducing the entourage to fig­ures in Cairo’s grow­ing jazz scene. The most notable was Salah Ragab—founder of the sem­i­nal out­fits, The Cairo Jazz Band and The Cairo Free Jazz Ensem­ble, with whom they would col­lab­o­rate on their sec­ond and third vis­its, record­ings of which came to light on the 1983 LP, The Sun Ra Arkestra Meets Salah Ragab Plus The Cairo Jazz Band ‎– In Egypt. 

Hear “Watusa” from that LP, above, lis­ten to the full Egypt 1971 ses­sions at Band­camp (or below), and see sev­er­al more new­ly pub­lished pho­tographs at the Vinyl Fac­to­ry.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Col­lec­tion of Sun Ra’s Busi­ness Cards from the 1950s: They’re Out of This World

Sun Ra Applies to NASA’s Art Pro­gram: When the Inven­tor of Space Jazz Applied to Make Space Art

Stream 74 Sun Ra Albums Free Online: Decades of “Space Jazz” and Oth­er Forms of Inter­galac­tic, Afro­fu­tur­is­tic Musi­cal Cre­ativ­i­ty

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness