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Thread: FEATURED CD : The Beat Circus - Ringleaders Revolt

  1. #1
    Moderator Duncan Glenday's Avatar
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    FEATURED CD : The Beat Circus - Ringleaders Revolt

    Credit for this featured CD : Firth

    Based on a CD received from the collection bequeathed to Progressive Ears by the late Chris Buckley (Winkersnuff)

    Firth's comments:


    Quoting a review from :
    https://www.allaboutjazz.com/ringlea...vier-aq-ortizz

    If one were to cast Howard Stern's Wack Pack as the band members of the traveling carnival of the outstanding HBO show Carnivŕle, the music on Ringleader's Revolt could be envisaged with some ease as a soundtrack. Hell, even the cover art offers an inkling!

    The Beat Circus operates on a musical boundary hardly ever performed live or even heard on record. Their performances on this release, however, have a jumping dramatic flair with a clear—almost visual—goal that corresponds with the individual titles, as well as the overarching subject matter, which stands for salient moments during a circus show. As such, longer compositions are intersped with shorter ones. Both, however, have an important effect in a work that must be heard in its entirety. Perhaps one way of recounting this oddly entertaining music would be as dissonant avant-jazz circus music with a tellingly aged approach nonetheless—as readily illustrated by the alto sax solo in "Mandalay Song, the banjo playing throughout the record, and the lunatic wistful discordant melodicism of "Big Top Suite Part 2: Clowns.

    Because of its jazz era "oompa-oompa swing core, "The Mack might very well be one of the most readily decipherable cuts, although it's hardly predictable. It features an energetic and engaging series of solos from sax and banjo, as well as a slurred tuba solo, which has a verbal quality. Its coda is a free-for-all counterpoint.

    Ringleader's Revolt, one of my preferred releases of 2004, is a premiere example of musical wittiness and unpredictability. After all, where else are you going to hear the metaphorical use of phrases such as "...aphids on a martini shaker... or "...Like an army of living pogo sticks, they jack hammered their way to a new life... but in a performance of "Escape From the Big House ?
    Regards,

    Duncan

  2. #2
    That's Mr. to you, Sir!! Trane's Avatar
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    First instalment of a conceptual trilogy based on amusement park's (Dream Land was its name) destruction after a fire in 1911 on Coney Island. Apparently the group had changed fairly drastically both sonically and personnel-wise for their next two album, a few years after.
    As you might guess, the music is very circus-like and can present similarities with some Gypsy/klezmer jazz music (namely Emir Kustica's music on the Underground and Time Of Gypsies films of the mid- 90's) but coupled with a good dose of Appalachian folk musics.

    I never heard the last (third) chapter (Boy From Black Mountain), though
    my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.

  3. #3
    Member thedunno's Avatar
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    Oh, thats the only album by them I do not have. Love the other 3.

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