Various Artists – Havana Jam 1 (1979)

Havana Jam was a three-day music festival that took place at the Karl Marx Theater, in Havana, Cuba, on 2–4 March 1979. It was sponsored by Bruce Lundvall, the president of Columbia Records, Jerry Masucci, the president of Fania Records, and the Cuban Ministry of Culture.

The festival included, on the American side, Weather Report, the CBS Jazz All-Stars, the Trio of Doom, Fania All-Stars, Stephen Stills, Billy Swan, Bonnie Bramlett, Mike Finnigan, Kris Kristofferson, Rita Coolidge and Billy Joel. The Cuban acts included Irakere, Pacho Alonso, Zaida Arrate, Elena Burke, Orquesta de Santiago de Cuba, Conjunto Yaguarimú, Frank Emilio, Juan Pablo Torres, Los Papines, Tata Güines, Cuban Percussion Ensemble, Sara González, Pablo Milanés, Manguaré, and Orquesta Aragón.

In 1977, US President Jimmy Carter and Cuban President Fidel Castro started to loosen the political tension between the two countries and opened Interest Sections both in Havana and Washington. It was the first time in almost two decades after Castro’s rise to power that there was a real interest in establishing a normalization of diplomatic relations and the lifting of the United States embargo against Cuba.

With a real crisis in the music industry in the United States and the start of the salsa boom, in April 1978, CBS Records director, Bruce Lundvall, saw an open door to probe Cuban music and together with a group of the company’s music enthusiasts made a four-day trip to Havana, where they were overwhelmed by the sound of Cuban music, but especially by Afro-Cuban jazz band Irakere, one of Cuba’s most highly regarded and virtuoso musical acts.

After months of talks, Lundvall managed to sign Irakere and in July the group traveled to New York to perform an unannounced guest set at the famed Newport Jazz Festival-New York. Rave reviews led to an invitation from the prestigious Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland.

A few months later, Irakere won their first Grammy with the album Irakere, recorded at their Montreux Jazz Festival and Newport Jazz Festival performances, and Lundvall wanted to try his luck with other Cuban bands too. So, in the Fall of 1978, he joined forces with Fania Records director Jerry Masucci and convinced the Cuban cultural authorities to organize a three-day festival in Havana with the participation of Cuban and American musicians. The event would be recorded and televised for the enjoyment of both the Cuban and American people.

So they all agreed to set a date for the festival, spontaneously entitled Havana Jam. March 2 through 4, 1979, were the days earmarked for this historical step toward establishing a cultural exchange between the two enemy nations. In order to carry out the Herculean task of planning, Lundvall brought aboard Jock McLean and Phil Sandhaus, of Columbia’s artists development department. Both veterans of major concert promotion, they knew the festival needed professional production of the highest caliber, and enlisted Showco (a Dallas-based concert production company) and Studio Instrument Rentals for the task.

At this point in time, Lundvall was diligently “feeling out” select members of the Columbia artist roster, all of whom were honored to accept the invitation to perform in Cuba. By early February the talent was confirmed. Representing the U.S. would be Billy Joel, Stephen Stills, Weather Report, Kris Kristofferson with Rita Coolidge, the Fania All-Stars and the CBS Jazz All-Stars. The latter group was conceptualized by Lundvall and scheduled to feature more than 20 top jazz artists on the label.

With the festival within grasp, other CBS Records personnel were summoned into the picture-rehearsals were set up for the CBS Jazz All-Stars, travel accommodations were made, equipment was rented, a wide cross-section of media was invited, and both recording and videotaping plans were confirmed.

Record producers Bert deCoteaux and Mike Berniker flew down with a crew from the CBS Recording Studios along with a support team and mobile 24-track Recording Studio from Record Plant NY.

Engineered by David Hewitt with Phil Gitomer and Michael Guthrie. McLean, Sandhaus, Freston and various other people were already busy working in Havana’s Karl Marx Auditorium when the musicians landed at the José Martí airport on March 1.

Havana Jam was an invitation-only event, with mostly cultural personalities and members of the Communist Party and their children in attendance, though some students from different art and music schools were also invited.

The festival was hardly mentioned on the Cuban press, and thirty years later not many Cubans know it ever existed. (by wikipedia)

In 1979 many of Columbia’s top recording artists made a rare visit to Cuba where they performed (and recorded) at a series of concerts with some of the top Cuban groups. This double LP (unlike the strictly jazz Havana Jam 2) covers a wide range of music from Weather Report, the CBS Jazz All-Stars (an allstar group with Dexter Gordon, Stan Getz and Woody Shaw) and The Trio of Doom (John McLaughlin, Jaco Pastorius and Tony Williams) to Irakere, Stephen Stills, Kris Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge. There is enough worthwhile jazz on the two-fer to make this set worth picking up (by Scott Yanow).

What a great jam recording !

Recorded live at the Karl-Marx Theatre, Havana, Cuba, March 2-4, 1979

Personnel:

CBS Jazz All-Stars:
Willie Bobo (percussion)
Arthur Blythe (saxophone)
Stan Getz (saxophone)
Dexter Gordon (saxophone)
Jimmy Heath (saxophone)
Percy Heath (bass)
Bobby Hutcherson (marimba)
Hubert Laws (flute)
Woody Shaw (trumpet)
Cedar Walton (piano)
Tony Williams (drums)

Cuban Percussion Ensemble:
Frank Emilio Guillermo Barreto, Changuito, Tata Guines, Los Papines (percussion)

Irakere:
Jorge “El Nono” Alfonso (percussion)
Carlos Averhoff (saxophone)
Armando Cuervo (percussion)
Paquito D’Rivera (saxophone)
Carlos Emilio Morales (guitar)
Enrique Pla (drums)
Carlos del Puerto (bass)
Arturo Sandoval (trumpet)
Jesus “Chucho” Valdes (piano)
Oscar Valdez (percussion)
Jorge Varona (trumpet)

Stephen Stills Band:
Bonnie Bramlett (vocals)
Mike Finnigan (keyboards)
Joe Lala (percussion)
George “Chocolate” Perry (bass)
Stephen Stills (guitar, vocals)
Gerry Tolman (guitar)
Joe Vitale (drums)

Trio Of Doom:
John McLaughlin (guitar)
Jaco Pastorius (bass)
Tony Williams (drums)

Weather Report:
Peter Erskine (drums)
Jaco Pastorius (bass)
Wayne Shorter (saxophone)
Joe Zawinul (electric piano, synthesizer)

And now, I´m too lazy to search all other musicians … sorry …

Tracklist:
01. Weather Report: Black Market (Zawinul) 8.59
02. Irakere: Concerto Para Flaut y Adagio de Mozart(Rivera/Mozart) 9.48
03. Stephen Stills: Cuba al Fin(Stills) 7.48
04. Sara González: Su Nombre Es Pueblo (Gonzalez) 3.54
05. CBS Jazz All-Stars:  Project “S” (Heath) 8.36
06. Orquesta Aragón: Que Barla Mionda (Valdés) 7.37
07. Kris Kristofferson: Living Legend (Kristofferson) 4.29
08. Rita Coolidge: (Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher and Higher (Smith/Miner/Jackson) 3:33
09. CBS Jazz All-Stars: Black Stockings (Laws) 6.24
10. Mike Finnigan + Bonnie Bramlett: How Wrong Can You Be (Gronenthal/Grace) 4.46
11. Fania All-Stars: Juan Pachanga (Blades/Ramirez/Masucci) 4.41
12. Trio Of Doom: Dark Prince (McLaughlin) 3.54
13. Cuban Percussion Ensemble: Scherezada/Sun Sun (Rimsky-Korsakov/Traditional) 7.41

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Various Artists – Hotels, Motels and Road Show (1978)

Southern rock is a subgenre of rock music and a genre of Americana. It developed in the Southern United States from rock and roll, country music, and blues, and is focused generally on electric guitar and vocals. Although the origin of the term Southern rock is unknown, “many people feel that these important contributors to the development of rock and roll have been minimized in rock’s history.”

The Allman Brothers Band played blues rock with long jams. Loosely associated with the first wave of Southern rock were acts like Barefoot Jerry and Charlie Daniels from North Carolina. In the early 1970s, another wave of hard rock Southern groups emerged. Their music emphasized boogie rhythms and fast guitar leads with lyrics extolling the values, aspirations – and excesses – of Southern working-class young adults, not unlike the outlaw country movement. Examples include The Marshall Tucker Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Molly Hatchet, and Blackfoot. Bands such as Drivin N Cryin, Dash Rip Rock, and Kentucky Headhunters emerged as popular Southern bands across the Southeastern United States during the 1980s and 1990s. The Georgia Satellites also had some widespread popularity in the mid to late 1980s.[citation needed] Some rock groups from the South, such as Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and The Fabulous Thunderbirds incorporated Southern musical and lyrical themes.

The 1990s also saw the influence of Southern rock touching metal. In 2001, Kid Rock went from a rock/rapper to a southern rocker/country singer. Southern rock currently plays on the radio in the United States, but mostly on oldies stations and classic rock stations. Post-grunge bands such as Nickelback have included a Southern rock feel to their songs.[clarification needed] Additionally, alternative rock groups like Kings of Leon combine Southern rock with garage rock, alt-country, and blues rock. Several of the original early 1970s hard rock Southern rock groups are still performing today, such as Lynyrd Skynyrd, ZZ Top, and Canned Heat.

Bonnie Bramlett

Rock music’s origins lie mostly in the music of the American South, and many stars from the first wave of 1950s rock and roll such as Bo Diddley, Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, Fats Domino, and Jerry Lee Lewis hailed from the Deep South. However, the British Invasion and the rise of folk rock and psychedelic rock in the middle 1960s shifted the focus of new rock music away from the rural south and to large cities like Liverpool, London, Los Angeles, New York City, and San Francisco. But Sir Douglas Quintet, Tony Joe White and Dale Hawkins issued nice albums. In the late 1960s, Blues rock band such as Canned Heat (from Los Angeles), Creedence Clearwater Revival (from El Cerrito, California), and The Band (Canadian, though drummer Levon Helm was a native Arkansan) were under the influence of Southern blues, boogie and country music.

The Allman Brothers Band, based in Macon, Georgia, made their national debut in 1969 and soon gained a loyal following. Their blues rock sound on one hand incorporated long jams informed by jazz and classical music, and on the other hand drew from native elements of country and folk. Because a certain type of blues music, and essentially, rock and roll, was invented in the South, Gregg Allman commented that “Southern rock” was a redundant term, like “rock rock.”

The Allman Brothers were signed to Capricorn Records, a small Macon label formed and headed by Phil Walden (former manager of Otis Redding) and partner Frank Fenter, former European Managing Director of Atlantic Records. Similar acts recorded on Capricorn included The Marshall Tucker Band from Spartanburg, South Carolina, Wet Willie from Alabama, Grinderswitch from Georgia (and composed of Allman Brothers’ roadies) and the Elvin Bishop Band from Oklahoma.

Loosely associated with the first wave of Southern rock were acts like Barefoot Jerry and Charlie Daniels from North Carolina. Charlie Daniels, a big-bearded fiddler with a knack for novelty songs, gave Southern rock its self-identifying anthem with his 1975 hit “The South’s Gonna Do It”, the lyrics of which mentioned all of the above bands, proclaiming: “Be proud you’re a rebel/’Cause the South’s gonna do it again.” A year earlier, Daniels had started the Volunteer Jam, an annual Southern rock-themed concert held in Tennessee. The Winters Brothers Band from Franklin, Tennessee was a band Charlie Daniels helped to get started with “Sang Her Love Songs”, “Smokey Mountain Log Cabin Jones”, and more. They still perform and hold an annual festival in Nolensville, Tennessee every year.

In the early 1970s, another wave of hard rock Southern groups emerged. Their music emphasized boogie rhythms and fast guitar leads with lyrics extolling the values, aspirations – and excesses – of Southern working-class young adults, not unlike the outlaw country movement. Lynyrd Skynyrd of Jacksonville, Florida dominated this genre until the deaths of lead singer Ronnie Van Zant and two other members of the group in a 1977 airplane crash. After this tragic plane crash, members Allen Collins and Gary Rossington started The Rossington-Collins Band. Groups such as Ozark Mountain Daredevils, .38 Special, Confederate Railroad, Outlaws, Molly Hatchet, Blackfoot, The John Lee Walker Band, Point Blank, Black Oak Arkansas, and the Edgar Winter Group also thrived in this genre.

Not all Southern rock artists fit into the above molds. The Atlanta Rhythm Section and the Amazing Rhythm Aces were more focused on vocal harmonies, and Louisiana’s Le Roux ranged from Cajun-flavored Southern boogie early on to a more arena rock sound later on, while the Dixie Dregs and Allman Brothers’ offshoot Sea Level explored jazz fusion. At Southern rock’s peak The Allman Brothers and other Capricorn artists played a part in Jimmy Carter’s 1980 campaign for the presidency (by wikipedia)

Capricorn Recording Studios in Macon

And this is the the ultimate live compilation from Capricorn. Two LPs featured live tracks from Stillwater, The Dixie Dregs, The Marshall Tucker Band, Bonnie Bramlett, Grinderswitch, Elvin Bishop, Wet Willie, Richard Betts, Gregg Allman, and The Allman Brothers Band. Enjoy the power of Southern Rock !

(This entry is dedicated to Phil Walden: Hereá picture of Walden with The Allman Brothers Band in the studio)

Tracklist:
01. Stillwater: Out On A Limb (Walker/Hall/Causey/Spearman) 5.05
02. Stillwater: Mind Bender (Walker/Buie) 5.07
03. Sea Level: Grand Larceny (Larsen) 8.00
04. Dixie Dregs: Refried Funky Chicken (Morse) 2.55
(Recorded At The Fox Theatre, Atlanta, Georgia, May 1978)
05. The Marshall Tucker Band: Fire On A Mountain (McCorkle) 4.35
(Recorded At The Palace Theatre, Manchester, England, December 1976)
06. Bonnie Bramlett: Superstar (Russell/Bramlett) 6.16
(Recorded At The Apollo Centre, Glasgow, Scotland, December 1976)
07. Grinderswitch: You’re So Fine (Schofield/Finnie) 3.28
(Recorded At The Hammersmith Odeon, London, England, November 1976)
08. Elvin Bishop: Travelin’ Shoes (Bishop) 7.22
(Recorded At The Roxy, Los Angeles, California, October 1976)
09. The Marshall Tucker Band: Take The Highway (Caldwell) 7.55
(Recorded At Uhlein Hall, Performing Arts Center, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 1973)
10. Wet Willie:  Teaser (Duke) 4.05
(Recorded At The Roxy, Los Angeles, California, March 1976)
11. Richard Betts: No Hard Times (Rodgers) 4.28
(Recorded At Winterland, San Francisco, California, December 1974)
12. Gregg Allman: Are You Lonely For Me, Baby? (Berns) 4.22
(Recorded At Carnegie Hall, New York, NY, November 1973 )
13. The Allman Brothers Band: Statesboro Blues (McTell) 4.26
(Recorded At Fillmore East, New York, NY, March 1971)

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