Magnificent, super-soulful sufferers for the ages; full of yearning and hurt, and staying power.

Vibraphone and soprano saxophone.

The four albums — The Birth Of Ska, Latin Goes Ska, The Skatalite!, and Don Drummond Greatest Hits — plus nineteen extras.

The return of Jim O’Rourke’s Moikai imprint, after an interlude of two decades.
‘Threading together twelve distinct episodes into a flowing whole, Spectral Evolution alternates moments of airy instrumental interplay with dense sonic mass, breaking up the pieces based on chord changes with ambient ‘Spaces’. At points reduced to almost a whisper, at other moments Toral’s electronics wail, squelch, and squeak like David Tudor’s live-electronic rainforest. Similarly, his use of the guitar encompasses an enormous dynamic and textural range, from chiming chords to expansive drones, from crystal clarity to fuzzy grit: on the beautiful Your Goodbye, his filtered, distorted soloing recalls Loren Connors in its emotive depth and wandering melodic sensibility…
‘Spectral Evolution is the quintessential album of guitar music from Rafael Toral.’

‘Sidesteps the traditional logic of how to play a song, moving outside the framework with which one would expect a standard to be treated. Three decades ago, in the early years, Toral used the guitar as a generator, to create discreet texture and droning tones. Later, he abandoned the guitar entirely, focusing on self-made electronics to render his music, and the silence from which it came, with a post-free jazz perspective. For the music of Spectral Evolution and Traveling Light, Toral has combined his methodologies, remaining ‘in the tradition’, even as the elongated harmonies seem to alter time and — says Toral — ‘the chords become events on their own.’ At points, the long tones evoke the sacred ennui of liturgic music, the choir or the organ standing in for silent contemplation while rumbling the ground beneath our feet. In addition to Toral’s guitars, sine wave, feedback and bass guitar, each track features clarinet, tenor saxophone, flügelhorn, and flute, by turn. One of Toral’s self-made devices incorporates a theremin to modulate feedback melodies. The spring of the old pours through the new in an unstoppable flow.’

Manuel Villarroel left Santiago in September 1970 to participate in the Contemporary Music Workshop in Berlin. He rapidly decided to remain in Europe, to pursue his musical career. The following year, the pianist formed a quartet in Paris with saxophonist Jef Sicard (from the Dharma Quintet to be), adding Gérard Coppéré (saxophone), William Treve (trombone), François Méchali (bass), and Jean-Louis Méchali (drums). With the arrival of Sonny Grey, a Jamaican trumpeter who had collaborated ten years earlier with Daniel Humair, they were ready.
On May 8, 1971, the Septet Matchi-Oul was in the studio for Gérard Terronès’ Futura label. recording seven of Villarroel’s compositions.

“I had to deal personally with my situation as an expatriate, without disavowing it. I tried not to betray my roots, I tried to translate into my music what was essential to me, to reflect my origins — Latin America, its musical and above all human feelings — while remaining faithful to jazz.”
‘Structured free music’, recorded for Palm in January 1975, with producer Jef Gilson at the helm, and the Chilean pianist Manuel Villarroel leading fourteen musicians, including Jef Sicard, François and Jean-Louis Méchali, and Gérard Coppéré, from the earlier Septet formation.
‘From togetherness to dissonance, we dance to Bolerito and shake it up to Leyendas De Nahuelbuta. As for the finale, it is a serpent which is bedazzling and impossible to pin down. To remind ourselves of this, let’s listen to it again.’