Nate Dorward

Mid-1980s. Yeah, I'm somewhat ambivalent about this kind of music, but, hey, I found myself enjoying this more than I thought I would the most recent time I pulled it out for a listen, & it's certainly got rarity value, so I thought, hey, let's put it on the BFT...... -- You have any clues to the saxes? I was wondering what your thoughts were on the tenor in particular (who's spoken of respectfully in these parts from time to time). Starts out very Wayne-ish, and goes from there. Good use of space too. Is this a Laswell thing?Sounds like him, but...not Last Exit, surely? Not Laswell, but it's indeed Sharrock on the guitar.

Like another track here (Bonus #2) this is included partly because I actually saw the saxophonist in concert (though of course not this particular performance, which was way before I was born). Not a big name, though I think he recorded a disc or two for Concord near the end of his career. The pianist took his life a year or two after this recording was made, & remains something of a "what-if?...." A shame. to be continued.... Fraser MacPherson? Yes, that's him. It's an all-Canadian group, in fact.

You're right to hear the west coast vibe here, & yes that's Lanny Morgan--there's a particular Birdish lick he tends to play every 8-16 bars that gives him away! Shew is in the band but isn't the trumpet soloist. Not Christlieb. I included this in part just because I really like listening to these kind of dazzling workmanlike players who really feel the music. I was reviewing this album at the same time that Dave Holland's first big band album was getting a lot of press & I was thinking how the Holland album sounded like it was the work of players who really had very little big band experience mostly & how much it sounded like that. & while, yeah, the chart's not anything that speaks to me, I still like the panache with which it's delivered, especially the trumpet solo. Definitely not a player you know, so I guess he's just got good taste! Yeah, this is such a great track--it's a shame that Young's work for Blue Note gets so piecemeal after the trios/quartets with Green & Jones. I mean--Unity is such a lonely peak, there ought to have been so much more like it.... & though this album & the other post-Unity albums are kind of uneven & sometimes even lousy (the vocals), it would have been great if Young could have done a lot more with these guys. Reminds me that I really do need to hear Washington's sole leadership album for the label.... Young was a big obsession with me back in the 1990s (it was a period I was trying to make a go of it playing piano, & my main listening at the time was Young's "Monk's Dream" and Pepper's Meets the Rhythm Section and Intensity). The Young was the first & for a long time only Mosaic set I owned, because NOTHING of his was in print beyond that pathetic one-CD compilation. Yep, all veterans, playing very much on-the-hoof. (Not Mover, though.) It's a bit messy & everything, but there's just so little on disc of the alto player that this will have to do..... He spent time in the 1960s NY scene but ended up teaching in a real musical backwater. & then just as he was thinking of getting back into a more productive musical scene, he was hurt in an accident & his embouchure was wrecked. He's been struggling to recover since--I haven't heard him for a few years, but hope he's on the road to recovery. This date is from the early 1990s, & I was present for the concert. Yeah, judging from the responses I don't think there were too many true believers on this one! But really, I wasn't expecting a high like/hate ratio with any of this stuff--some of it's music that means something to me for a variety of reasons but might not to others. Really, it's nice if anyone gets something out of just two or three tracks.... Great--always a pleasure to hear people riffing on the music....

Hey Jim--thanks for the comments! All very interesting, & some spot-on.... You're right that these are all guys who can/could swing both ways, as it were. Kenny Wheeler on trumpet, as someone noted above, & his presence should help i.d. the rest of the players.... I guess for some of them this is a growth exercise, in that since the period of the recording (1970s) some have gone on to "mainstream" themselves; in fact neither alto player does a lot of free playing any more. relyles spotted this earlier--it's Fred Hess's most recent disc. He's never said anything explicitly about a Cool School influence, but I find it hard not to think he's done a lot of listening to Marsh in particular. The short, tight arrangement & brisk round of solos was intended, he says in the liners, to be a tribute to Shorty Rogers' charts. Mid-1980s. Yeah, I'm somewhat ambivalent about this kind of music, but, hey, I found myself enjoying this more than I thought I would the most recent time I pulled it out for a listen, & it's certainly got rarity value, so I thought, hey, let's put it on the BFT...... -- You have any clues to the saxes? I was wondering what your thoughts were on the tenor in particular (who's spoken of respectfully in these parts from time to time). It's an oldster on the sax, I think the rest are all young guys. Yep, it's Derek, paying tribute to his hero Teddy Bunn. He doesn't usually reference jazz so explicitly. Aside from the bursts of chording, one reason I like this particular album is that you can actually hear an implied time-feel in a lot of the tracks--you can actually tap along to long stretches of it. Like another track here (Bonus #2) this is included partly because I actually saw the saxophonist in concert (though of course not this particular performance, which was way before I was born). Not a big name, though I think he recorded a disc or two for Concord near the end of his career. The pianist took his life a year or two after this recording was made, & remains something of a "what-if?...." A shame. to be continued....

Yes, that's the album. It's an undeservedly obscure outing that is a rare example of Willie Dennis's solo work, among other things. At one point there were about 10 jillion cutout copies of this available in the bins at Sam the Record Man's, & I bought a stack of them to give to friends--unfortunately, they're all gone now, as is Sam's. Haven't got the album here (writing from work) to doublecheck the solo order, but, anyway, yes, Ornette's a big influence on the altoist in question (& indeed the album is in some ways a response to Ornette's music). The other alto player is best known for more mainstream work, including non-jazz studio work. Yep, strings, but you're right to think there's something unusual about them....... These are all fairly uncelebrated, "local" players. You are right to think this is not American, though it's not European either. It's early 1960s, a tape from a radio broadcast that was recently discovered & released on CD. The pianist is the main reason I included this. The saxophonist later made a name for himself in more of a retro swing style rather than the Getzian idiom here. No, neither player's here. The trumpeter is the leader, a veteran of big bands from over the years. Yep, you've got this one. The alto player was a student of Lee's in the 1960s. something for everyone in this track...... Thanks for your thoughtful comments!

Hm, not a bad guess, but it's actually Dutch. Probably one of the harder items to i.d., even despite that hint, though the presence of the guitarist should help narrow things down substantially (as there aren't a lot of guitarists on that scene, at least in this area of the music).

He's got a new solo disc out, by the way, Resonant Spaces, which continues the vein of his last few solo records in that the pieces are recorded in unusual locations--in this case a tour of Scotland, including some work in outdoors locations (with a stiff wind blowing!).

Summary of progress so far (one star for partial i.d., three stars for the fully i.d.'d tracks) 1) Everyone spots the Tristano vibe, no-one's i.d.'d the players though they all know it's not Tristano, Konitz or Marsh. Shouldn't be too hard to figure this out from process of elimination..... *2) RDK correctly spotted the inimitable Kenny Wheeler, the rest's up for grabs. ***3) relyles got this--Fred Hess's new album. *4) Thom Keith (2nd guess) and John B (dead-on) figured out who the much-maligned guitarist is here, the late Sonny Sharrock. So, since there aren't a lot of albums in his discography, this shouldn't be too hard to pin down now, right.....? 5) No i.d.s yet 6) Ditto ***7) relyles named Derek Bailey, & John B pinned down the album: Drop Me Off at 96th. 8) A mystery track 9) ditto 10) ditto 11) ditto--this is a nice patch of obscurity 12) ditto * Bonus disc: ***1) Half the posters spotted this one (well, I didn't put it on in expectations it would be that obscure... maybe in some circles, but not on a board full of organ fans & Mosaic collectors!): Larry Young, Contrasts, "Tender Feelings" by the elusive Tyrone Washington. 2) This one will defeat people, I think. I'll give a big hint & say that I included it largely because I was in my teens & present for the concert, one of the first formal jazz concerts I attended in fact. Put that together with some basic biographical facts & you can nail this. The only player anyone will know here is the drummer. 3) Ah, the BIG ONE......... No one's got close to this one yet! Tips (recapped from above): a. the bassist is present elsewhere on this BFT; b. one of the players (at least, maybe more?) is Welsh; c. the instrumentation is more or less unique so you can i.d. this easily from that & a little Google creativity, I think. Happy hunting!

Yeah, it's a damn shame it's so hard to find. Can make you a copy if you like. I should ask Karen Brookman if the revived Incus might reissue this...... The contemporary Lace is nearly as good but this one has the edge, not least because of the more focussed (shorter) tracks & the dips into "straight" jazz guitar playing. Everyone notices the oddity of the strings.... There's a reason for this, but it's not because they're prerecorded. Let's just say I'm waiting for mikeweil's verdict on this track with great interest............. -- Someone here should be able to i.d. the pianist, he's a big name. Yes, early 1960s, but it's a previously unissued recording sourced from a radio broadcast. The pianist's untimely passing was much-mourned because he was an adventurous thinking who was clearly destined for big things but never recorded much. This is a nice memento. A hint: a music-crit friend of mine picked this for his disc of the year for 2008. Glad you liked it! Nope, not Weasel. I should note that these players are all usually associated with the free-improv scene, rather than this kind of music.

Thanks for the comments! Yep, Sharrock's on #4. Anyone nail the particular album? He's a sideman on this date. The Bailey solo track is off Drop Me Off at 96th on Scatter (recorded in the 1980s, released in the 1990s). The title is "Bunn Fights", which is a reference to Bailey's hero Teddy Bunn (of the Spirits of Rhythm). -- I couldn't follow the link to the allmusic page but I'm guessing you were linking to Ballads or Standards. I have the former, & like it a lot, but I think that Drop Me Off is one of his real masterpieces.

A tangent, but: it's actually nice when people play the "real" intro to the tune (I think I only have one or two recordings of it with the verse).

Thom--thanks for the comments--as you'll see, a few bullseyes....! You have the date wrong--this is from the 1970s--but yes, it's Kenny Wheeler as a sideman; he's played in a lot of freeish settings over the years aside from the more composerly stuff on ECM. Why, what's wrong with bass guitar? -- Anyway, your 2nd guess about the guitarist is much better than the first....! It's a Sharrock sideman appearance from his comeback period in the 1980s/1990s. Not a young guy here--this is a veteran. I think the reason he's not better known is that he's mostly stuck to his homebase. He's a sideman on a several of a notable singer's albums, which is probably the only place you would have heard him before. I think the goofy track numbering is due to my using 2 discs to make the compilation--I renamed the files to the correct numbering but somehow it seems to have still carried over. Anyway, you have the numbering correct. Not Zappa--it's actually (as I mentioned above) a player who's better known for his work on a different instrument entirely. The album is actually a tribute to the arranger (who had died--he's not on the track). Yeah, the alto's got that Bird line going like McPherson but it's not him. Yeah, I figured a lot of people would have this via the Mosaic set. It's actually only one of two Mosaic sets I own (the other being the Reinhardt set). The mastering is a little dim--it could use an RVG--but anyway it's nice to have all this stuff, even if this album and Of Heaven and Earth are both very uneven. This is one of the standout tracks, of course. If both LPs were put together on a single disc (maybe dropping the vocal tracks if they would push it over 80 minutes) that would make an excellent release, but I guess that the days of plentiful Blue Note reissues are over. Nope, not Ortega--this guy has recorded very little outside of a little sideman work on Latin dates in the 1960s. A Konitz protege, incidentally. You'll have the drummer in your collection, but not the bassist (whose intonation really irks me here, but I didn't put it here for his sake). Yep, there's electronics, but some of the more unusual sounds are from the percussion...... If you i.d. the instrumentation it shouldn't be hard to figure out who/what this is. Thanks for your thoughts!

Hm, wonder what's up with the numbering problem. You seem to have sorted it out correctly, as your descriptions all match the music. Strings, but not a standard quartet.... -- Nothing atonal here, I'd think, but the trumpeter does have a very interestingly worked-out harmonic language which he draws on for some of his recordings. Neither of them--actually, I've never heard Cheshire at all.... Glad you found the compilation of interest! Thanks for the comments.

Think of it like this: there are some films that seem to be common currency--you may enjoy them very much, but it's not like it's an intensely personal experience enjoying them (sometimes you can feel like you've "seen" them even if it's only the people around you who have!). There are others that seem to speak directly to you, & precisely because of that you know they will annoy or pass over the head of a lot of other people. Same story here, making allowances for the fact that jazz itself has a smaller community of listeners to begin with.

Seek out Rodney Kendrick's Verve/Gitanes albums (all o/p now, alas). He's on most of them (well, not the trio date, obviously), & contributes some excellent solo work.

Yes, it's DB himself, but untypically in a Hot Club mood..... I should note that the guitarist here is actually better known for playing a completely different instrument. But I think he sounds just fine on this ax! Thanks for listening--yes, probably this will be a curate's egg for most people! What can I say... I'm generally more interested in the kind of music that will always have a "specific" audience rather than a "general" audience. I'm still waiting to see who can i.d. the much-maligned guitarist on track 4.... You almost certainly have his work as sideman in your collection, on some pretty notable albums. This is one of his harder-to-find appearances.

I can assure you that if it were Golson there'd be about a zillion more notes! This guitarist isn't usually known for playing anything that resembles jazz, so the bits of 1930s swing here (not in 7/4, surely) are unusual, & I think effective. It's one of his more hard-to-find solo albums because the label is no longer around. It's 1960s, a tape of a broadcast recording. You might know the saxophonist (who later went on to develop a rather different style from the Getzian player you hear here), definitely none of the others. Yes, valve trombone. The pianist never recorded any commercial recordings & died young; he's the main reason I put this in. No, but it is the same bassist as on one of the other tracks. Not sure how "modern"--the pianist is young, but the alto and trumpet are grizzled veterans. I was surprised to hear the altoist on a past BFT playing tenor in a sharply modern manner, very different from the Birdish alto here. Well, sorry to put you through such agonies! You should have heard the stuff I left off..........

Yes, I took it from the Mosaic, as far as I know the only CD reissue of it thus far. It's a very mixed album (ditto the following one, Heaven on Earth), but there are about half a dozen excellent tracks on it (the main duds are the awful duets with Althea), & I thought that some BFTers might like a taste of one of the best tracks. It's a Tyrone Washington composition. This one went on the bonus disc after some hesitation. It's not by ANY means a successful track--aside from the untogetherness, there's the bass player's intonation problems--but I included it for personal reasons: it was one of the earliest jazz concerts I attended, & it happened to be recorded & released on CD. I primarily value it as evidence of the saxophonist's work, as he's recorded very little. The only player you'll know here is the drummer. Hm, I'll be interested to see who actually likes this track! Just the one saxophonist, playing multiple instruments. You may have come across these players--one is Welsh, in fact. Tenor, not alto, though this school of playing tended towards a "light", Prez-influenced sound. The tune is based on "Pennies from Heaven", in minor. -- Not a lot of recordings by this trombonist, & I'll have to beg to differ here--he's a pretty extraordinary player, I think, & I wish there were more of his work around. No, not Branford; this is from when he was still knee-high. Two alto players, you'll definitely know at least one of them though maybe in a very different context. The trumpeter is a big name, usually more mainstream but in this period he was doing a lot of more avant-garde work too. Well, they do teach a little..... but the oldest guy here is in his 80s, not fresh out of college! This isn't necessarily a great track, but like the Young track is one that is hard to find, & there are collectors of the tenor player & the guitarist (both of them died a little too young & recorded rather little) who I thought might like to have this. Real strings, but you're right to think there's something funny about them.... (continued in next post)

[tumbleweeds....] It's not that bad, is it?

That's very sad to hear. Once Upon a Summertime is one of my favourite vocal albums ("Tea for Two" and "Manhattan" especially).

Well, I knew that that track (& a few others) would get mixed reactions..... but if you want to give it a shot I do recommend simply listening to the long track continuously, as I can't imagine it'd make much sense if you simply jumped into the middle. It evolves through about four or five distinctive episodes. -- Probably it'll be tough sledding for anyone not a fan of, say, mid-1970s Miles Davis, though.

Thanks for the comments, relyles--a few notes below: Yep, Tristano's very much in the background here, though it's not him on piano. Any guesses as to the players? One of the reasons I included this is that none of the frontline players is particularly well-documented on disc, which is a shame. Yes, early 70s, & a strong Ornette influence, though it's not anyone from his immediate circle. I used to have this on vinyl & it was marred by a serious print-through problem, which kind of wrecked the long pauses at the opening. So I was overjoyed to find it on CD, nicely remastered, though it seems to have fallen out of print again. Shouldn't be too hard to i.d. one or two of the players here. Yes, you have guessed right here. The track was actually intended as an homage to Shorty Rogers, according to the liners. I'm not sure that I'm all that taken with this track as a whole either, to be frank, but I included it because it's off a pretty obscure album that features a lot of excellent, underrecorded players. A pity you don't like the guitarist, that's really the main reason the track's here! (he only takes two solos on the album, of which this is by far the better of the two, so that's why I went with this rather long track). Ah, but listen carefully to the strings..... there's something unusual about them. & dig the pianist!

Nope, not Dutch! Though there's one track elsewhere on the compilation that comes from the Dutch ambience. -- The bassist on the incredibly long track on the bonus disc also turns up on one track elsewhere on the BFT, by the way.

"high on drugs" ???

Ah, hadn't known that the length might present a problem for some players! Yeah, the music develops in several different directions after the opening. Definitely less sedate after a while...! Nope, it's not Brötzmann & the Chicago guys. Just one horn, but yes, two percussionists. If you identify the very distinctive instrumentation it won't be too hard to figure out what band this is, I think.