''At the Center'' is an album by

Meat Beat Manifesto Meat Beat Manifesto, often shortened as Meat Beat, Manifesto or MBM, is an electronic music group originally consisting of Jack Dangers and Jonny Stephens that was formed in 1987 in Swindon, United Kingdom. The band, fronted by Dangers (the only ...

, released in 2005 as part of the "Blue Series" of

Thirsty Ear Thirsty Ear Recordings is an American independent record label. It was founded in the late 1970s as a marketing company for the then-unnamed alternative music field, and expanded to issue its own records in 1990. Thirsty Ear came to prominence ...

records fusing

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

with electronica. Jazz elements had been featured in occasional Meat Beat Manifesto songs over the years, but ''At the Center'' is the first outright jazz album in the group's catalog, with bandleader Jack Dangers' collaborators being a trio of prominent jazz players. The album is mostly funk- and fusion-oriented, with a few abstract or free-jazz leaning songs. It consists of instrumentals but has some scattered vocal samples, notably on two songs featuring vintage recordings of poet

Lawrence Ferlinghetti Lawrence Monsanto Ferlinghetti (March 24, 1919 – February 22, 2021) was an American poet, painter, social activist, and co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers. The author of poetry, translations, fiction, theatre, art criticism, an ...

reading newspaper classified advertisements (the album's notes misidentify Ferlinghetti as

Kenneth Rexroth Kenneth Charles Marion Rexroth (1905–1982) was an American poet, translator, and critical essayist. He is regarded as a central figure in the San Francisco Renaissance, and paved the groundwork for the movement. Although he did not consider h ...

). ''At the Center'' earned mostly positive reviews from critics of both jazz and electronic music. However, Dangers opted to not continue his exploration of jazz on subsequent Meat Beat Manifesto albums.

Credits

Musicians *David King (of

The Bad Plus ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

): Drums, percussion *Peter Gordon: Flute *

Craig Taborn Craig Marvin Taborn (; born February 20, 1970) is an American pianist, organist, keyboardist and composer. He works solo and in bands, mostly playing various forms of jazz. He started playing piano and Moog synthesizer as an adolescent and was ...

Steinway Steinway & Sons, also known as Steinway (), is a German-American piano company, founded in 1853 in Manhattan by German piano builder Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg (later known as Henry E. Steinway). The company's growth led to the opening of a ...

grand piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

Fender Rhodes The Rhodes piano (also known as the Fender Rhodes piano) is an electric piano invented by Harold Rhodes, which became popular in the 1970s. Like a conventional piano, the Rhodes generates sound with keys and hammers, but instead of strings, th ...

electric piano,

clavinet The Clavinet is an electrically amplified clavichord invented by Ernst Zacharias and manufactured by the Hohner company of Trossingen, West Germany, from 1964 to 1982. The instrument produces sounds by a rubber pad striking a point on a tension ...

Hammond B3 Hammond may refer to: People * Hammond Innes (1913–1998), English novelist * Hammond (surname) * Justice Hammond (disambiguation) Places Antarctica * Hammond Glacier, Antarctica Australia *Hammond, South Australia, a small settlement in South ...

organ *

Jack Dangers Jack Dangers (born John Stephen Corrigan, 11 January 1965) is an English electronic musician, DJ, producer, and remixer best known for his work as the primary member of Meat Beat Manifesto. He lives in San Francisco. Career Prior to founding ...

: Bass,

Bass flute The bass flute is a member of the flute family. It is in the key of C, pitched one octave below the concert flute. Despite its name, its playing range makes it the tenor member of the flute family. Because of the length of its tube (approximate ...

Bass clarinet The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B (meaning it is a transposing instrument on which a written C sounds as B), but it plays notes an octave bel ...

, "everything else" (i.e., samples, synthesizer, shortwave radio, percussion, etc.). *

reading the want ads recorded by Henry Jacobs for

KPFA KPFA (94.1 FM) is an American listener-funded talk radio and music radio station located in Berkeley, California, broadcasting to the San Francisco Bay Area. KPFA airs public news, public affairs, talk, and music programming. The station sign ...

, 1957. Courtesy of Henry Jacobs. Technical personnel *Artwork and Album Design: Robert Beam *Producer and engineer: Jack Dangers

Track listing

#"Wild" – 5:18 #"Flute Thang" – 4:47 #"Murita Cycles" – 4:13 #"Want Ads One" – 4:27 #*Voice: Lawrence Ferlinghetti Kenneth Rexroth#The Beat Generation #"Blind" – 5:16 #"Musica Classica" – 3:34 #"Bohemian Grove" – 5:20 #"United Nations ETC. ETC." – 3:57 #"Want Ads Two" – 4:25 #*Voice: Lawrence Ferlinghetti #"The Water Margin" – 6:34 #"Shotgun! (Blast to the Brain)" – 4:59 #"Granulation 1" – 3:51

References

Meat Beat Manifesto albums Thirsty Ear Recordings albums Albums produced by Jack Dangers {{2000s-house-album-stub