Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » John Medeski / Mathew Shipp: Scotty Hard's Radical Recon...

117

John Medeski / Mathew Shipp: Scotty Hard's Radical Reconstructive Surgery

By

View read count
John Medeski / Mathew Shipp: Scotty Hard's Radical Reconstructive Surgery
One of the strengths of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey was the employment of silence. Yet if any piece of music could successfully accompany the image of Frank being "severed" from the space-pod by HAL, then the spacey, sinister intro of Scotty Hard's Radical Reconstructive Surgery could be it.

This is an album full of halucinatory noises and unearthly voices, swirling Moog and Wurlitzer atmospherics, and stabbing piano, all carried along on a deep funk beat. "Operation Chance sounds like rats trapped inside a piano which is being tuned while the workmen are in laying down floorboards. "St. Clare's Hospital is for the most part, more earth-bound, with Nasheet Waits' drums and William Parker's bass plotting a funky course through swathes of keyboard sounds; a catchy Mathew Shipp piano riff warms up, but just when you want or expect it to go somewhere, it disappears. This music could never be accused of being predictable.

It works best when Waits and Parker get into a groove, as on "The General, where Parker's deep bass and a slow Billy Cobbham-esque beat swing the tune along, or on "Eclipse, where John Medeski breaks out of the shackles. The pure armospherics of "Joint Disease could perhaps have been left on the cutting floor.

It all comes together beautifully, however, on the final track, "Round 2, which begins slowly, but with Shipp's piano providing great tension, it builds cosmically until it fades away when it should perhaps have died like an exploding star.

Scotty Hard has worked with a great group of musicians here and has orchestrated adventurous, challenging soundscapes from their work. His Radical Reconstructive Surgery will no doubt infuriate as many listeners as it delights.

Track Listing

Intro; Chance Operation; St. Clare's Hospital; Joint Desease; The General; Eclipse; Cocktail; The Peeler; Anatomy of Melancholy; Round Two.

Personnel

John Medeski
organ, Hammond B3

John Medeski: organ, Wurlizter, Moog synthesizer, mellotron, clavinet, piano; Matthew Shipp: piano, Wurlitzer, organ; William Parker: bass; Nasheet Waits: drums; DJ Olive: turntables; Mauricio Takara: drums, percussion; Scotty Hard: drum machines, samplers, Optigan, percussion.

Album information

Title: Scotty Hard's Radical Reconstructive Surgery | Year Released: 2006 | Record Label: Thirsty Ear Recordings

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT



John Medeski Concerts


Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Eternal Moments
Yoko Yates
From "The Hellhole"
Marshall Crenshaw
Tramonto
John Taylor

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.