In Praise of the Flute
The flute is the oldest known musical instrument on the planet, when modern humans reached Europe 35,000+ years ago, they were already playing flutes crafted from animal bones.
In Slovenia a flute was dated back 42,000 to 43,000 years, although some question this. In Germany, numerous ancient flutes have been discovered, one from the Geissenklösterle archaeological site is now believed to be about the same age as the disputed flute in Slovenia.
In China a playable 9000 year old flute was discovered, in fact the flute is ubiquitous in human history. Krishna, seen in the photo above, is often portrayed playing the flute.
This post was inspired by cyber-buddy @katharsisdrill who posted a great clip of someone playing the blues on a primitive flute. So, in keeping with my current theme of sharing some gem from the Peace & Love era, I want to share a few clips of my favorite flute music from that period.
Herbie Mann
In the 60s there was only one organist most people could name, Jimmy Smith, and it was similar with Herbie Mann and the flute. He started out also playing sax and clarinet, but was one of the first jazz players to specialize in the flute. Like Jimmy Smith, Herbie was into groove. He was a great soloist with lots of soul. He could get in the pocket and ride any wave to the beach.
The “Push Push” album was one of his personal favorites, he called it the "epitome of a groove record." I interviewed one of the bass players on that album, the “Groovemaster” Jerry Jemmott. This album is also significant because it was the first and only jazz album on which guitarist Duane Allman was a featured session guitarist. He was killed in a motorcycle accident a few months after the sessions.
This track, however, is one of the few without Duane Allman. It's the opening track on the album and is titled “Man's Hope.” This track features another really hot session guitarist from that era, David Spinozza. For example, after the Beatles broke up, McCartney hired him for his “Ram” album, and John Lennon used him on his “Mind Games” album.
Man's Hope Herbie Mann
Yusef Lateef
Yusef Lateef is one of my favorite musicians, I became aware of him when I bought my first Cannon Ball Adderley albums. He played tenor sax, flute, oboe, and bassoon, and a number of instruments from other cultures. I've written about him for AllAboutJazz, he was arguably the first, or one of the first proponents of World Music. If you're interested you can check out my article about the 50th anniversary of his album “Eastern Sounds”
On that album he recorded a track titled “The Plum Blossom” and played a 1200 year old clay Chinese flute he bought at a flea market in NYC. It was limited to five notes, but being the genius we was, he made it work.
Here's another track to give you an impression of him playing conventional flute.
The Fantastic Song “Eboness”
Derek Trucks Band with Kofi Burbridge on Flute
Derek is another of my favorite musicians, born long after the 60s, but keeping that tradition alive. Here is a great song from Eric Clapton's 2007 Crossroads Festival – you can see Clapton standing at the side of the stage watching this. Derek's slide playing was influenced by the music of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, so I thought I would share this because it demonstrates the universality of the flute.
Thank you very much for stopping by!
My wife loves the jazz-flute. I remember how I used to steal my kid sisters flute when we were jamming back in the days as it has pretty much the same fingering as the sax at least in the middle and low register. I tried to sound like Eric Dolphy :)
I haven't gotten to go through the forgotten bands from the sixties yet. Instead I just listened arbitrarily youtube videos Yesterday and actually found some great thinks - this 1 hour concert with Zakir Hussain and a young flute player...! Most incredible soft tone. And perfect for this post.
I also via some Son House found a band called Larkin Poe that I kind of digged the more I heard of them. After a while I had the feeling that I had seen them before and I am sure one of the girls was married to one of the people you wrote about. I mean how many bleached lap steel guitar girls are there out there. Anyway a great evening with new music. Soft Indian flute and heavy roots rock from the US.
What a beautiful clip with Zakir Hussain & Rakesh Chaurasia, a perfect addition to this post. I got a chance to briefly meet Zakir when I was invited backstage to meet John McLaughlin and his Remember Shakti band. Those Indian musicians are true masters of their instruments, simply extraordinary. And when you listen to the above clip, it's clear that the flute connection stretches back thousands of years in Indian culture.
Your Larkin Poe triggered my #morgenseiten post today ;-) Remember after you read my interview with Mike Seal you bought the Jeff Sipe Trio albums on which he plays guitar, and yes his wife in one of the sisters in Larkin Poe.
It was him of course! She and her sister played with Elvis Castello.
Impressive Nordic memory! Must be all the Omega 3 in your diet. ;-)
I should have remembered from the start. Probably lack of vitamin D.
I knew flute when I was still a very little kid, I like it but never able to play it. in my place the flute made from small bamboo with 6 holes to arrange the tones @roused
Thank you so much for your post...nice approach.
I love flute too and had the chance to see in action some good flautists. I would like to recommend you this one :
http://www.rodrigoparejo.com/
Hope it likes you in case you didn't know him.
Cheers
Great article, thanks, I am studying flute at the conservatory.
Didn't know about this musical instrument! This even made me look for more videos of music played with this flaute. Thank you for sharing it and make me discover another beautiful thing of another culture different from mine, greetings!
Thanks for the interesting information about the flute, and sharing some interesting players!
Your post has been supported and upvoted from the Classical Music community on Steemit as it appears to be of interest to our community. You can find details about us below.
The classical music community at #classical-music and Discord.
Follow our community accounts @classical-music and @classical-radio.
Follow our curation trail (classical-radio) at SteemAuto or help us out with a delegation!
You have recieved a free upvote from minnowpond, Send 0.1 -> 2 SBD with your post url as the memo to recieve an upvote from up to 100 accounts!
In india flute is related to god krishna so it very old culture of indian
;-) That's why this post has a photo of Krishna and mentions this in the text: