Your Heart Out - Presentiment

the trumpet or trombone takes off, in defiance of protocol. Specific solos by George Bohanon on trombone and Oscar Brashaer on trumpet are definitely worth listening out for. And I have to confess I am always swept away on a wave of emotion when hearing the Joe Zawinul-style soul-jazz piano refrain at the start of For Land‟s Sake.

But the great thing about this 2001 Axelrod set is that the opening and closing tracks are the best, and these are the ones he built from scratch at the time.

The opener, The Little Children, begins beautifully with strings and bass, as the choir joins proceedings. This part of the CD comes closest to the astonishing record Axelrod released in 1993, Requiem: The Holocaust. There‟s quite a bit of overlap too in terms of personnel, I think. It‟s funny: Requiem was one of the few Axelrod CDs in circulation in the early years of the new millennium, but it was quite a shock for those of us seeking beats „n‟ breaks „n‟ bass. Now I think it‟s the best, most moving, most startling thing Axelrod‟s composed and produced, up there with the best of Mikis Theodorakis‟ work.

Loved Boy, the closing song, has to be at the end of the record. It opens with a mournful trumpet involuntary, like Montgomery Clift in From Here to Eternity if he was channelling Albert Ayler. The song itself is David‟s tribute to his son whom he lost so horribly young. Lou Rawls, David‟s old friend, sings the words, and if his voice sounds a little cracked, wracked with pain, that‟s the bit that makes it so special. The music is a mix of stately dirge and atonal beauty, and each time I hear it I ache inside for someone loved and lost. As Lou sings: “Here lies a man‟s best work”.

The Little Children features a rap from Ras Kass, serving to remind us that it was hip-hop that pretty much reactivated Axelrod‟s career. Read any article about Axelrod now, and there will be a reference to his beats and breaks being sampled by this producer or that DJ. There‟s no point in asking me about such things, as I can rarely recognise source material. It‟s interesting that Axelrod‟s name came up quite so often in hip-hop circles at the time. I suspect the general scarcity of his records and his commitment to L.A. made his story more appealing to the likes of DJ Shadow and the SoleSides collective.