Η περιπετειώδης πορεία του Αυστριακού τρομπετίστα – συνθέτη ορχηστρικής jazz Michael Mantler ξεκινάει στα ‘60s με φιλόδοξα projects και συνεργασίες με μουσικούς όπως οι Archie Sheep, Cecil Taylor, Don Cherry, Pharoah Sanders.
Ακούμε δυο κομμάτια από το τρικυμιώδες άλμπουμ του The Hapless Child And Other Inscrutable Stories. Τα ονόματα των μελών της μπάντας μιλούν από μόνα τους : Robert Wyatt φωνή, Carl Bley κίμπορντς, Terje Rypdal κιθάρα, Steve Swallow μπάσο, Jack DeJohnette ντραμς

The adventurous career of the Austrian trumpeter – instrumental jazz composer Michael Mantler begins in the ’60s with ambitious projects and collaborations with musicians such as Archie Sheep, Cecil Taylor, Don Cherry, Pharoah Sanders.
We hear two tracks from his tempestuous album The Hapless Child And Other Inscrutable Stories. The names of the participants speak volumes : Robert Wyatt vocals, Carl Bley keyboards, Terje Rypdal guitar, Steve Swallow bass, Jack DeJohnette drums

00:00 THE DOUBTFUL GUEST 04:55 THE INSECT GOD

When they answered the bell on that wild winter night
There was no one expected-and no one in sight
Then they saw something standing on top of an urn
Whose peculiar appearance gave them quite a turn
All at once it leapt down and ran into the hall
Where it chose to remain with its nose to the wall
It was seemingly deaf to whatever they said
So at last they stopped screaming, and went off to bed
It joined them at breackfast and presently ate
All the syrup and toast, and part of a plate
It wrenched off the horn from the new gramophone
And could not be persuaded to leave it alone
It betrayed a great liking for peering up flues
And for peeling the soles of its white canvas shoes
At times it would tear out whole chapters from books
Or put roomfuls of pictures askew on their hooks
Every Sunday it brooded and lay on the floor
Inconveniently close to the drawing-room door
Now and then it would vanish for hours from the scene
But alas, be discovered inside a tureen
It was subject to fits of bewildering wrath
During which it would hide all the towels from the bath
In thenight through the house it would aimlessly creep
In spite of the fact of its being asleep
It would carry off objects of which it grew fond
And protect them by dropping them into the pond
It came seventeen years ago-and to this day
It has shown no intention of going away

O What has become of Millicent Frastley?
Is there any hope that she is still alive?
Why haven’t they found her? It’s rather ghastly
To think that the child was not yet five
The dear little thing was last seen playing
Alone by herself at the edge of the park
There was no one with her to keep her from straying
Away in the shadows and oncoming dark
Before she could do so, a silent and glittering
Black motor drew up where she sat nibbling grass
From within came a nearly inaudible twittering
A tiny green face peered out through the glass
She was ready to flee, when the figured beckoned
An arm with two elbows held out a tin
Full of cinnamon balls, she paused, a second
Reached out as she took one, and lifted her in
The nurse was discovered collapsed in some shrubbery
But her reappearance was not much use
Her eyes were askew, her extremities rubbery
Her clothing was stained with a brownish juice

She was questioned in hopes her answers revealing
What had happened, she merely repeatedly said
‘I hear them walking about on the ceiling’
She had gone irretrievably out of her head
O feelings of horror, resentment and pity
For things which so seldom turn out for the best
The car, unobserved, sped away from the city
As the last of the light died out in the west
The Frastley’s grew sick with apprehension
Which a heavy tea only helped to increase
Though the felt it was scarcely genteel to mention
The loss of their child, they called in the police
Through unvisited hamlets the cars went creeping
With its head lamps unlit and its curtains drawn
Those natives who happened not to be sleeping
Heard it pass and lay awake till dawn
The police with their torches and notebooks descended
On the haunts of the underworld, looking for clues
In spite of their praiseworthy efforts, they ended
With nothing at all in the way of news
The car, after hours and hours of travel
Arrived at a gate in an endless wall
It rolled up a drive and stopped on the gravel
At the floor of a vast and crumbling wall
As the night wore away hope started to languish
And soon was replaced by all manner of fears
The family twisted their fingers in anguish
Or got them all damp from the flow of their tears
They removed the child to the ballroom, whose hangings
And mirrors were streaked with a luminous slime
They leapt through the air with buzzings and twangings
To work themselves up to a ritual crime
They stunned her and stripped off her garments, and lastly
They stuffed her inside a kind of pod
And then it was that Millicent Frastley
Was sacrificed to the insect god