Sandy Bull - “Still Valentine’s Day 1969: Live At The Matrix” :: No Quarter
The rigorous stages of hypnotic transparency travel through the visceral acoustics of the stampeded subconscious, while weighing down on its subject with great force like something out of an Asimov nightmare. Its fresh bleeding sound waves burst through the atmosphere like a cosmic birth before puncturing the mighty memory of the death of man. It’s without a doubt that the silence of space would radiate something historical and ultimately mystical throughout its cold, calculated landscape of infinity. Maybe John Sebastian Bach’s “Prelude In C Minor, BWV 999”, or perhaps Claude Debussy’s “Clair De Lune, L. 32” would be some of the selected pieces you will hear as you begin your journey towards the transcending of time, mortal memory and boundless exploration into the frozen unknown. Most likely it would be Sandy Bull’s “No Deposit, No Return Blues” from the live, archival release of “Still Valentine’s Day 1969”, as well as his daughter, KC Bull’s film from 2009 that shares the same title, that would reasonably fill your polycarbonate helmet, while simultaneously transporting you back down to earth in some holy effort to regain cognitive control of your disconnected spirit.
Born and raised in New York City just a little over a year after the Second World War had begun, a future musician and master of strings was born Alexander “Sandy” Bull as an only child to parents Harry A. Bull (editor-in-chief of Town & Country magazine), and Daphne Van Beuren Bayne (New Jersey banking heiress, who later became known as a jazz harpist under the name Daphne Hellman). With parents that had already separated upon his birth, he would later be exposed to the fascinating elements of music via his half-sister, the sitar player Daisy Hellman Paradis, and, of course, have later discovered, presumably, his mother’s musical talents. Relocating to Boston to attend BU as a music major, Bull quickly began performing at nearby nightclubs in both Boston and Cambridge before working his way back home to penetrate the highly influential and historical, folk club scene that was happening in Greenwich Village at the time. With Beats like Ginsberg, Corso and Huncke all occupying the spiritual streets and flats of the new America, Bull found himself in the most creatively transcendent place on the East Coast, before deciding to relocate to San Francisco in order to further his journey and alchemy in all things music sometime in 1963. Befriending an Egyptian Nubian composer and often collaborator with the Grateful Dead and Kronos Quartet, Hamza El Din, it was during this feverishly formative period in Bull’s life that he fell in love with the oud and began his esoteric exercises into the instrument’s introspective intelligence.
Releasing his groundbreaking debut, Sandy Bull With Billy Higgins: Fantasias “For Guitar And Banjo” on Vanguard that same year, Bull collaborated with the legendary drummer, Billy Higgins, who by this time, had worked with the likes of Ornette Coleman, Monk, Herbie Hancock, Paul Horn, Sonny Rollins and countless others. Adding an exceptional element of jazz, rhythm and blues to Bull’s banjo and guitar work, it was apparent that the young musician had tapped into something special and monumentally metaphysical. He gave Vanguard three more installments: “Inventions”, “E Pluribus Unum” and “Demolition Derby”, before eventually dissolving into his struggles with substance abuse well into the mid 1970s, prior to his epic return to the sonic settings of live performance shortly there after. But somewhere around the time of the “E Pluribus Unum” sessions, Bull performed perhaps one of his most stellar live performances ever caught on tape at The Matrix in San Francisco on Valentine’s Day and then again in early April.
A revelation in musical metamorphosis, Bull faithfully captures the true essence of his love for the meditation brought on by the patterns and vibrations of stringed instruments. Accompanied by the overdubbing of tape, Bull enters an unpopulated alien landscape, even by the hippies, that many wouldn’t catch on to till in later decades. His trailblazing efforts via the electric/acoustic guitar as well as the ancient oud are eternally transcribed into his talented DNA and this can be forever heard through his esoteric efforts on the phenomenal re-issue of “Still Valentine’s Day 1969” via the Philly-based label No Quarter. Both startling and spatially aware, Bull brings his listeners on a journey via the crystal clear ship of time, where we successfully surf the distant planet rings during the many visited solar systems laced with sacred dogma and retro reverb explosions. With tracks like “Electric Blend”, and a call to home, “Memphis, TN”, “Still Valentine’s Day 1969” is this holy homage to romance, cultural connection and the fever dream of the raging rivers of reality all perfectly articulated in this ancient, analog experience.
