Recorded at Duke Dixon's, Oxford, Canterbury New Zealand May 2002
Engineered by Duke Dixon & Ian McAllister
Production: Ian McAllister, Jeff Phillips
Carmel Courtney: saxophones, vocals
Redford 'Dread' Grennel: drums & percussion
Jeff Phillips: Steinway 9-foot grand piano, electric bass, shaker egg
with additional tracks by
James Wilkinson: six-string fretless bass w/E-bow
Blake Dyer: trombone, mouthpiece
Spoken Word: from Wisdom Walking series, Barry Brailsford
Cover photo: Jeff Phillips star-trail, Castle Hill, Canterbury, NZ
"This very spatial...I mean, special...piece of music is inapired by and dedicated to 'Te Wai Pounamu', the South Island of Aotearoa, and the ancient Waitaha peoples of Lemuria who once lived here. Originally a jam between three musicians who had never played together before, 'First Ancestor' has evolved into a fully-blown expression of 'geo-sidereal psychedelic-acoustic space-jazz.' After the initial jam, the legendary James Wilkinson returned from Melbourne and added an often-brilliant bass-line; later I filled in some simpler parts, and Blake 'boned' us. I've added such sonic anomalies as galaxy sounds from Dr. Fiorella Terenzi, environmental acoustics from David Dunn, and songs of the hump-back whale. Barry Brailsford tells us that 'stone is the first ancestor.' There you have it. Enjoy!
"THE WHITE ELECTRIC DOG TRANSMISSIONS" The Brink/Jeff Phillips
GRAND PIANO IMPROVISATIONS INSPIRED BY NATURE AND THE COSMOS
"POST-NEW AGE SCIENCE-FICTION ROCK PIANO"
Here in its entirety is my first serious musical recording done in a state-of-the-art studio, my first...and only, to date...recording that I've taken the trouble to reproduce in cd form. I recorded these nine grand piano improvisations on 23 July, the Egyptian New year, of 1998 at Whitehorse Studios ini Portland, Oregon. In the (boreal) autumn of 1998 I had approximately 1000 cd's manufactured and proceeded to get them out to everyone I knew around the world.
I never claimed actually really to 'play' piano in the true sense of people who are really good. I have always just done my own thing with it. My piano playing has never been about technical virtuosity or how many 'notes' I'm playing or what key it might be in. Even though I played trumpet and tuba and read music for several years in bass and treble clef, I never carried that over into my own music. My music for me has always been more about feeling and spirit than technical ability and notes.
So don't expect any Bach...although one person said this reminded him of "21st century Bach'...and don't expect any Chopin...although someone said it reminded them of Debussy's solo piano compositions. It's also been compared to Emerson, Lake and Palmer...but I'm NOWHERE near as good as Keith Emerson. Then there's the George Winston comparison. Once someone over-heard me playing back in the early 1990's and said "Jeff, you sound like George Winston on acid." I liked that, and understood exactly what he meant. Comparisons have also been made with Keith Jarrett, whose playing I admore greatly. I don't grunt when I play, but I'll NEVER be even close to his league of playing piano. By the way, Jarrett was one of two keyboard players who participated in the jams recorded with Miles Davis at the same time Woodstock was happening that went on to become the legendary 'Bitches Brew' album.
As I have time I'll re-type the liner notes above. You can listen to the whole cd as one continuous set thanks to Soundcloud above. You should also be able to isolate and/or down-load individual tracks.
You will recognize several of these tracks as we've used a few in the soundtracks to three of our films so far.
NOTE FROM JEFF: Ian McAllister and I did this intense 'message' experiment in 2002 in the wake of 9/11. The messages concerning denial and awareness are of even greater importance in today's world of scientific dictatorship, 'friendly fascism' and a media-modulated reality inversion of hyper-Orwellian proportion. The tie-in with the Third Reich is also appropriate: Amerika, Inc. is inflicting globalist hegemony, resource theft and high-tech genocide in the guises of "humanitarian aid", "liberation", and "freedom and democracy" at levels that make Hiter and company look like silly clowns. And in the same way that millions of 'good people' in Nazi Germany pretended not to know about the concentration camps and went about shopping while the smoke from Auschwitz drifted over-head, millions of patriotic 'Amerikans' go about shopping while the radiation clouds from Fukushima fill their lungs and chem-trails fill the skies. Indigenous third-world peoples are decimated by U.S. military action, dolphins and whales are fried and exploded, yet many people insist that everything is "as its meant to be." Is humanity's obvious obsession with suicide 'meant to be'?
“Knowledge speaks but wisdom listens”Jimi Hendrix
I’ve had three dreams in which Jimi Hendrix was the focus.All three dreams were in the past two years.In the first one, I was vacuuming a bedroom and Jimi was asleep in the bed.He didn’t wake up.I put a tape of some music onto the stereo, then the whole room started to vibrate as if an earthquake was happening.He still didn’t wake up.The third dream was at a large party of some kind.Jimi and I were there partying, as if we were close friends.No one recognized who he was, except for me.Finally, people started realizing it was him, so he got on stage and started doing this really freaky dance with some kinds of fabric things twirling around.He didn’t sing or play guitar, just danced.If I remember correctly, he suddenly disappeared into thin air and the fabric dropped to the stage floor. And in the third dream, he was just smiling and he had a guitar on which he showedmeIn none of the dreams did he ever speak a word.
These notes concern an experimental piece of music which was done on the austral winter solstice of 2002.It was inspired by the film Judgment at Nuremberg, a 1964 courtroom drama re-enacting the trial of four Nazi judges, as well as by a dream I had in which a smiling Jimi Hendrix was showing me some stuff on guitar!The dialogue in this piece is from former Minister of Justice for the Third Reich Ernst Janning, played by Burt Lancaster.In the middle of his defense he hadenough and decided to give the whole truth on why they fell for Hitler and why even men of honor, who weren’t depraved perverts, sat in silence or participated in the most heinous spree of brutality the world had ever witnessed.“If we didn’t know, it was because we didn’t want to know.”This is a psycho-therapeutic exorcism of denial…and a message to us all here and now:we ALL are responsible for what is going down in the world…because we all KNOW what is going down!
This piece consists of Hendrix’s “The Star-spangled Banner” running normally, along with a “stretched” or slowed-down version of itself;when it reaches the end of the song, it reverses and runs backward from end to beginning, also accompanied by a stretched version;the dialogue is taken directly from the video;in the background is my voice with effects, repeating the mantra “freedom and democracy…greedom and dumbocracy…”And towards the end is my voice sounding like it’s on a loudspeaker reciting the lyrics to “The Scar-Strangled Banter”, a trans-national anathema!
“There was a fever over the land.A fever of disgrace, of indignity, of hunger.We had a democracy, yes, but it was torn by elements within.Above all, there was fear…fear of today, fear of tomorrow, fear of our neighbors, fear of ourselves…only when you understand that can you understand what Hitler meant to us.Because he said to us, ‘Lift your heads.Be proud to be German.There are devils among us…jews, liberals, gypsies, communists…once these devils will be destroyed your misery will be destroyed.’It was the old, old story of the sacrificial lamb.What about those of us who knew better, who knew the words were lies, worse than lies?Why did we sit silent?Why did we take part?Because we loved our country.What difference does it make if a few political extremists lose their rights?What difference does it make if a few racial minorities lose their rights?It is only a passing phase.It is only a stage we are going through.It will be discarded sooner or later.Hitler himself will be discarded…sooner or later.The country is in danger.We will march out of the shadows.We will go forward.Forward is the great password.History tells how well we succeeded.We succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.The very elements of hate and power about Hitler that mesmerized Germany mesmerized the world.We found ourselves with some powerful allies.Things that had been denied to us as a democracy were open to us now.The world said “Go ahead, take it…take it.Take Sudanland, take the Rhineland, rematerize it, take all of Austria, TAKE IT!”And then one day we looked around and found that we were in an even more terrible danger.The ritual began here in this courtroom swept over the land like a raging, roaring disease.What was going to be a passing phase had become the way of life.Your honor, I was content to sit silent during this trial.I was content to tend my roses.I was even content to let counsel try to save my name.Until I realized that in order to save it he would have to raise the spectre again.You have seen him do it.He has done it here in this courtroom.He has suggested that the Third Reich worked for the benefit of people;he has suggested that we sterilized men for the welfare of the country;he has suggested that the old Jew did sleep with the sixteen year old girl after all.Once more it is being done for the love of country….
I AM AWARE!!!!!!!!!
My counsel would have you believe that we were not aware of the concentration camps.Not aware.Where were we?Where were we when Hitler began shrieking his hate and Reichstag?Where were we when our neighborswere being dragged out in the middle of the night to Dachau?Where were we when every village in Germanyhad a railroad terminal where childrenwere being carried off to their extermination?Were we deaf?Dumb?Blind?My counsel says we were not aware of the extermination of the millions.He would give you the excuse we were only aware of the extermination of the hundreds.Does this make us any the less guilty?Maybe we didn’t know the details.But if we didn’t know, it was because we didn’t want to know.”
THE SCAR-STRANGLED BANTER
Say, oh why can’t you see, though there’s plenty of light…
From the tv’s bright glare, and incessant loud blasting.
Whose grim tripe and dull stars of the pre-programmed blight;
“What?So DRY a pale ale!” Dubya belched, he was beaming…
“And with China’s red threat on our vast internet,
Our Nevada test site says new nukes IS a bet…”
Oh!Say, does your Sony Trinitron send brain waves…
O’er the land of those free to become their own slaves!
THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
“I pledge allegiance to the schwag of the New World Order on television;
And to the plutocracy for which it stands, one dictatorship, under Dubya,
Indistinguishable, from imperially-mobilized free-for-all.”
Here are three tracks from my 2002 cd "First Ancestor". Inspiration from Barry Brailsford supplied the title...it's what the Waitaha called rock..."the body of the Earth." The spoken word is from the "Standing Tall in the Real World" volume of his Wisdom Walking series.
Each of these links should allow you to both listen and down-load the tracks. 1) "Walking in Beauty"
The opening track from a jam we did in Christchurch in May of 2002 at Duke Dixon's studio near Oxford, which became the "First Ancestor" cd. Ian McAllister, who co-engineered and produced, had recommended Dukes because he had the nicest grand piano, a 100+ year old Steinway grand, and around $50,000 worth of mikes. I invited sax player and vocalist Carmel Courtney (formerly of Hampster), and drummer Redford Grennel (formerly of Shapeshifter); none of us had ever played together before. Later I added in the simple bass part (in later tracks James Wilkinson put in some 6-string fretless) and some spoken word by south island metaphysician Barry Brailsford. The phrase "walking in beauty" is an English translation of a Hopi word I once knew but cannot remember...but to have one word that meant that is very cool eh?
2) "SONG OF WAITAHA"
This track opens with gentle piano arpeggios that make me think of a Celtic Cat Stevens. Barry's spoken word, from his Wisdom Walking series, 'Standing Tall in the Real World", takes us on a journey into the world-view of the ancient indigenous people of the south island. "The real world is immense..."
3) "RETURN TO AOTEAROALON JAM (SEP TEPI PRE-MIX)"
This is the last track of the "First Ancestor" cd...it's a 16 minute recapitulation of the whole previous jam. At around the 14 minute mark, after James Wilkinson's freaky bass glissando, it takes a turn for deep space...and ends up with time-stretched humpback whale sounds! check it out...("Sep Tepi" is the original world in the ancient history of the Egyptians...the "golden age" or "garden of Eden"...)
"We stand at the greatest cross-roads reached by human kind." Barry Brailsford
