Robbie Basho: The Falconer’s Arm I [★★★★]

Like the Peter Walker album I review here, this rare disc radiates 1967 eclecticism, spirituality, and wild nature. One look at the cover and you can easily imagine that Robbie Basho was, in fact, adept at falconry, and only came down out of the mountains in the springtime to dispense poetic wisdoms and buy more organic food and guitar strings. Like Walker and Takoma label founder John Fahey, Basho was part of a movement of 60s acoustic guitarists who sought to take the simple, populist instrument and create acoustic symphonies of East and West, world music before the name.

Where Fahey started with folk blues and built intense, detailed structures with classical and gospel motifs, Basho was much more entranced by the East, studying Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan, and the scales of Japanese, Chinese, and Persian music. So while some of his playing seems informed by the classical raga, he was not a strict formalist. And unlike Fahey, whose notes seem carefully chosen, like in a Pointillist painting, Basho is more of an Impressionist, with flurries of notes and quickly strummed passages privileging feel and emotion over precision. And also unlike Fahey, whose songs titles display a preoccupation with American topography, relationships, rivers, and religion, Basho seems obsessed with exotic spirituality and the inner wilderness (in the liner notes Basho refers to the title track as a “rough-hewn piece from my personal forest of recollection”). When I’m in the mood for contemplative/cerebral, I head for Fahey; Basho is better for those ecstatic moments when you need lift-off.

As a sample here’s “Tassajara”, named after the first Zen monastery in the U.S., near Carmel, and featuring Susan Graubard on flute.

MP3: “Tassajara”

The Falconer’s Arm I is one of three Basho albums issued by Takoma in 1967; sadly none is in print, although many tracks do show up on the compilation Bashovia. Robbie Basho died tragically in 1986 after a mishap at his chiropractor’s office.

Robbie Basho: The Falconer’s Arm I (Takoma, 1967)

Side One:

1. The Falconer’s Arm 9:51
2. Tassajara 9:46

Side Two:

3. Lost Lagoon Suite 12:16
4. Pavan Hindustan 6:18
5. Babs 4:35

Similar Recordings

If you like this record, The Falconer’s Arm II is an almost-as-good follow-up, although it features Basho’s singing, which is definitely an acquired taste. Peter Walker’s two excellent late-60s albums tread a similar path, as does Fahey’s 1973 Fare Forward Voyagers (Soldier’s Choice).