ep1str0phy

Man, I'm always out of town when this stuff happens! Pharoah is a godsend to the LA concert scene... I'm going to be seeing Billy Harper at Yoshi's this coming weekend.

Sonny Boy Williamson Bobby "Blue" Bland Albert King

I went a little ballistic at SF Amoeba yesterday (and got lucky): Dizzy Reece: Blues in Trinity (TOCJ) Gil Evans Orchestra: Blues in Orbit Johnny Dyani w/John Tchicai & Dudu Pukwana: Witchdoctor's Son Dwight Trible: Living Water Billy Harper Quintet: In Europe David Murray Octet: Ming and: Arthur Doyle Plus 4: Alabama Feeling (! CD not LP--but that was still like 1,000 copies, right?)

I've not been disappointed with the four I bought: Dave Burrell - After love Clifford Thornton - The panther & the leash Roswell Rudd - Roswell Rudd (The best!) Frank Wright - Uhuru Na Umoja In fact buying these led me on to discover further releases by the same and similar artists including one I have taken a great shine to : Sonny Simmons. Aaah, but that's a different story! I really, really like "Black Gipsy," but it requires some concession to period tastes (aggressive as all hell, but really fist-pumping... in a '60's' sense). However, I think most would agree that the Art Ensemble of Chicago's "Phase One" is one of the finest in the America series--just blisteringly intense, joyful, compelling... heck, fun... one of the best in the AEC's whole catalogue, I'd argue.

No doubt. What the hell happened to Augustus?

I, too, am a fan of Hiseman's playing on the Lemer album (surprisingly flexible), but he plays far too metronome-groove on a lot of his stuff. I think it fit in pretty well with Colosseum, but only because that band could never be mistaken for 'jazz'--or even 'fusion'... they were as much an improv/blues-rock outfit as anything that came out of post-swinging 60's England, jazz chops be damned. Conversely, the rhythm section utterly confounds "Things We Like"--and, as a fan of both Jack Bruce and (in certain contexts) JH, it pains me to think that that combo couldn't carry off a frighteningly effective jazz-rock/free album... perhaps Heckstall-Smith and John McLaughlin are just a little too (timbrally, if not intellectually/spiritually) lightweight to 'compete' with an arena-ready drum/bass combo, but a little less metrogroove/rock intensity could've benefited the overall effect (I still enjoy a lot of it, though).

I do enjoy "Orgasm" more (that quote is going to come back to haunt me), if only for the reason that it's a more fully-realized, conceptually "coherent" album. Although "Tes Esat" has a lot in line with the BYG/Actuel school--explosive blowing, long-form composition, very free jazz-based improv--it's thematically and theoretically unintelligible--it just kind of goes. I would argue that "Tes Esat" is as much a 'leader's' album as "Orgasm" is--fully reliant on the idiosyncrasies of the 'top billing.' The difference is, the America session has less psychological nuance--it's practically mania from start to finish. It just grooves on 'daft.' That being said, the band kicks it in; although Shorter's horn is very much the nonentity (it's his spirit that shines), Windo (to quote a fitting description) "goes apeshit," Augustus provides some supple support, and Johnny Dyani is (typically) mind-blowing. I'll say it now and every day hence: Dyani was/is the 'New Thing's answer to Charles Mingus. There. Summary: fun and involving but but often impenetrable.

It's a favorite of mine (esp. among the Shepp discography). I 'feel' it a lot more than the majority of his more revolutionary dates (which can come across as overwrought and histrionic). I'd put it above all the BYGs, actually (although I have a soft spot for "Yasmina...").

A tragic loss--he truly was a light on the improv scene. Many thanks (to somewhere else) for the time he spent here.

Ah, cartoon violence.

Leena was great when I saw her with Parker a few years back. Beautiful and powerful voice that was unfortunately teamed with Amira Baraka rants. The grooves on that Parker album are just so tough the vocals do get a little obtrusive. Again, wonderful voice, great band--but everyone seems a little stifled by the ten minute+ hypno-rants. I love listening to Parker ride on the rhythm, but harmonic stasis/poetry reading is a little tedious after a while.

It's far, far subtler than "Dusk"--and more oblique, I'd say (it reminds me of "Blue Black" at times). Like JSngry said, "beautiful" is the functional term--it's got a lilting, lyrical quality, far less exigent than much of "Dusk" (there isn't that mutch straight-up "barn-burning" here).

I've got some family flying in this weekend so I'll try to get the book. I think the lineup may have been a little more "Ornette-centric" (It may have been Moffett on drums, Haden on bass, something like that), but--whatever it was--I was kind of floored when I saw it.

Professor Xavier Mr. Clean Lol Coxhill

Thanks. My ass has been kicked.

Charles Tolliver Freddie Hubbard Woody Shaw

Sounds like you got some really, really good shit. Wanna share? Honestly, I'm positive this info is in (some) widely circulating book--maybe not a discography--maybe a brief in-text mention. I'd scan the Litweiler book, but (again) I don't have it handy. Unless I was hallucinating again (and this thread started up months ago).

I'm pretty shocked that no one feels like talking about this one. Then again, this is hardly groundbreaking material--which isn't to say it's bad. Andrew's couple-decade-or-so holding pattern has allowed for a series of personal innovations, the communion of which has culiminated in a wholly original post-bop style (heck, Andrew might qualify as a "sub-genre"). That being said, the essential musical characteristics of what we're hearing on "Time Lines" have been gestating since as far back as the later Blue Note sides. It's become increasingly apparent that the tensile, explosive style of the early BNs was (more or less) a larval stage--very much a product of its time and (the artist's) personal circumstances... which is not to say that the "mature" Hill can't produce urgent, powerful works (I think the Japanese sides are a testament to this)--only that we'll never again hear the same sensibility that characterizes those "classic" 60's albums. I appreciate "Time Lines" as yet another showcase of just what a mature, venerable artist can produce--nothing monumental, but beautiful nonetheless. Leave the blood to the hungry, I'd say... it's nice to hear that the cat has "settled" into a groove.

Wha?!? This is listed in some book, although I don't have access to my library (at the moment). I forget the rest of the group, although I'm pretty sure it included Jimmy Garrison (and probably either Bobby Bradford or Charles Moffett on 2nd brass--after Don, of course).

John Williams Howard Shore Ennio Morricone

Lars Gullin Lemuel Gulliver Jonathan Swift Wally West Barry Allen Jay Garrick

That's what I've heard. Touche. Frankly, I'm surprised this AOTW hasn't incited more discussion. I'd contribute more, but my copy of "Far Cry" is stuck in LA somewhere (although it's really just a couple of postage stamps away). I might call "Far Cry" a prototypal ED date, but there are just so many unique edges. Again, Dolphy's Prestige/New Jazz sides were startlingly consistent... invoking one album just implies the next. The first cut is played on bass clarinet--a fragmented, loping chart... anticipating "Out to Lunch," perhaps? It's touches such as these that lend a great deal of coherence to Dolphy's recorded legacy, as sparse and contracted as it is--he was always sort of "out there," wasn't he?

Although Spedding is certainly among my favorite guitarists in brit fusion, I find his more self-effacing work to be just as enjoyable as his "explode over the wall" episodes. He can be a terrifically nuanced session man--ala "Harmony Row" or "Songs for A Tailor"--without ever really stepping out... although that stuff is almost always gold (I'm a big fan of the Battered Ornaments albums). On John Marshall: a favorite of mine, especially w/Graham Collier and Jack Bruce--remarkably rhythmic, in the pocket where necessary. At the same time, I get this sense that the majority of these prog rock percussionists have a difficulty extending the beat; even with a guy like Jon Hiseman (who had a lot of the Elvin Jones stuff down pat), there's this pervasive sense of "metronome time." I guess "groovy" is the operational term, but it can be a drag sometimes.

I can't even begin to comprehend how wrong all of this is. No--"wrong" isn't the word--I'll go with "perverse."

(Take this or leave it.) I have seen exactly 1 mini-LP copy of "Here & Now" at either the Berkeley or LA Amoeba locations. That was a while ago (my memory is shoddy) and the CD has long since been purchased... but if any pseudo-major chain store can get you a copy (on the WC, at least), Amoeba may be your best bet. The mini-LP of "Eternal Rhythm" isn't that rare, and the decent-but-could-be-better jewel-case MPS reissue from somehwere over a decade ago makes the rounds in the used bins (I'm happy with mine). Good luck!