DJ Alex Corton – Good Looking Records

Good Looking Records

Big Bud – Late Night Blues

2001

The last of the four plates in this album, heads our way today and it’s a plate that places the glistening cherry, on the icing, on the cake. Take down the fence and let the whistling winds carry you across unrestricted landscapes for this record of unparalleled creativity and joy.

    Side G has two tracks. The first is ‘On The Six’. I’m not certain, but I believe the title of this has something to do with the added string in playing a chord on a guitar? Or it’s the sixth part of a scale (3/4 of the 8 bar)? It sounds like it’s the change up, on the sixth bar though..I’d love to know more about the title of this one, Robin? 

   Big Bud spins out a really tropical stroll with this one, mixing those live elements with help from Les Lyons breathing out those tasty sax notes. It’s tracks like this that serve the ace that Robin sliced gracefully through the air with his music writing. Vibrant, bursting with flavour, setting the Good Looking sound bar at a surreal height. 

    Next up is ‘Baby’, featuring Ellen Causey on the vocals. Having this fourth plate of Big Bud’s diverted sounds from the drum and bass path was essential in this package. This calm and thoughtful drop in the smooth, deep house pool is beautiful. I’d have loved to have heard him issue some tunes on this ilk, on Deep Rooted, as part of the Good Looking Records stable. It’s almost as though GLR had this incredibly diverse tree of musical styles growing and then chain sawed it down. Things could have been so different. Sit back and relish this amazing piece of music as it’s one of my favorites of Big Bud’s, on a level other than D&B. Let your mind capture this in its full glory. 

    The last side is Side H with the last two tracks on this superb album of Robin O’Reilly. The real essence behind this side though, comes from the late, great American, Weldon Irvine. We did cover the track he wrote with Robin from Earth Volume 4, ‘Amigo Mio’ back during those Earth reviews, however he deserves another mention here. 

      Weldon was a legendary jazz-funk musician, black arts movement beacon, and was behind 100s of tunes and more than a few theatrical scripts too. He led Nina Simone’s jazz group and helped work with, and promote a vast number of today’s renowned jazz musicians. The man was beyond the voice and musical talents of what we are about to hear. To have had him join Robin so close to his leaving our world, was precious. How did you manage to hook up with him, Robin? What a skin pinching moment! 

   Up first is ‘Persian Blues’ with Weldon on the keys, stings and vocals. He also wrote both tracks on this side. The cultural diversity within this track sums up how both Weldon and Robin were incorporating old and renovating new sounds from across the globe. There’s a taste of the full course banquet of sounds filling every molecule of music here. If you don’t travel through nearly every continent while listening to this, you need to pick up that needle and drop it back to the start. 

   Last up is ‘Return Of Spiritman’ which gets Weldon narrating the words of a true jazz don. He brings a heartbeat that pulses a chain of emotions you can’t honestly put words to. Fucking insanely good. 

   Robin, you must have felt the luckiest guy alive to have finalized this album and have it sealed with Weldon’s unique and core awakening presence. “We got the drum and the bass and the funk!” 

  R.I.P Weldon Irvine – 1943-2002