Sandy Bull, E Pluribus Unum (side A)

The first two Sandy Bull albums from 1963 and 1964, are both fairly diverse in content.  While some material on them is original, covers and interpretations range from Bach and Orff to Chuck Berry and Luiz Bonfa.  Billy Higgins drums on some tracks on both albums, and each album includes a long track plus a series of short ones.  After a five-year hiatus, he returned in 1969 with the more personal and daring E Pluribus Unum.  Each side of the album is a single composition, and Bull plays all of the instruments including any percussion.  The tracks themselves have limited compositional arrangement, emphasizing drone and variation as their underlying structural premises.  Their palettes are both narrow and diverse— within guitars and oud, Bull juxtaposes acoustic and electric instruments, and tremolo provides a defining effect for many of the electric sounds.  Bull's minimal percussion complements his guitar and oud playing to help provide movement, but it's never a foreground element — the tambourine sizzle provides nice brightness to an otherwise slightly-murky mix.  The cover photo of Bull appearing to record his oud playing hints at far less creative and distinctive contents than the open-ended explorations of E Pluribus Unum.