The Ghost is Clear

Sonny Sharrock - Live at the Jazz Festival, Zurich, Switzerland (10/31/87) Part 1
Sonny Sharrock - Live at the Jazz Festival, Zurich, Switzerland (10/31/87) Part 2

Sonny Sharrock is dead! Long live Sonny Sharrock!

Continuing with the "jazz" theme this week - told you there would be themes - this is an awesome set by an awesome player - cosmic Coltrane-esque jazz guitar at its finest! Last Exit, Machine Gun, his solo work - it's all worth your serious ear-time. Especially the near-perfect Ask the Ages with Pharoah Sanders. I had some Machine Gun already, but this is the album that completely made me a drooling psychotic Sharrock fanboy the instant I cranked it up on my little sister's admittedly superior stereo one night right after it came out. I nearly passed out from the bliss! It was his last released album before his death in 1994, too. Get yourself a copy of this - I don't know if it's in print anymore - and Sonny's earlier, more metallic and slightly dated-sounding Seize the Rainbow (the production does not serve it well). You'll be a happier person.

Maybe you only know Sonny's sound from the original opening theme of the Space Ghost Coast-to-Coast show. That's okay, that's cool, that's fine. Shows you got good taste if it's true. Space Ghost rules! But download this one and give it a listen, learn a lesson. Jazz guitar ain't all wimpiness by any means. Along with John Zorn and Laswell, Sonny was a natural progression from punk to jazz for me and probably lots of others like me. Sonny took me there, let me ride along, and I'm eternally grateful for that. Grateful to the dead.

And buy shit! (Yeah, I just checked and there are some few things still in-print. And I remembered that you can hear the great Guitar album on my old blog. Just search for it.)

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