Nate Dorward

Hm, interested to hear what folks say about the 4-bass disc. I was at the concert & found myself largely wishing that I could hear them perform in solo & duo formations rather than some free-improv equivalent of the Three Tenors. It wasn't bad, just overkill. Incidentally, the best recent Victo disc I've heard is Wing Vane from a couple years back--the trio performed last year at the same festival as the four-bass thing. Yes Monoceros is one of Parker's better solo discs: great stuff. The other Chronoscope reissue of his first two solo discs, doubled-up, is also fascinating stuff, & barely resembles anything else of Parker's I've heard (long, gruelling passages of harsh, sustained tones, slowly worked-over). It's some of his most visceral playing, very different from the twiddly ethereal bagpipe music of the later discs.

Lately I've been often playing None but the Lonely Heart, a duo album by Charlie Haden & the little-known pianist Chris Anderson released on Naim. It's a disc which may not be for all tastes: it's very latterday-Hadenish, i.e. all standards, no drummer, low-volume, medium- to slow-tempo, romantic, quietist. But basically Haden's just first on the billing because he's famous & Anderson's not--it's Anderson's disc, & he's an extraordinary player. He's now quite elderly; he's blind, & suffers from glass-bone disease (a la Petrucciani). His technique is homemade--delicate, rhythmically very distinctive (nearly rubato, a bit fragile), not "swinging" in a conventional sense--& his procedure is typically to unfold a tune at great length, restating it again & again (a la Monk) with different inflections & according to a very personal harmonic language (in the liner notes it says he's as influenced by film-music writing as by "jazz"). The tunes are all bittersweet jazz standards--"Nobody's Heart", "The Things We Did Last Summer", "Good Morning Heartache", "The Night We Called It a Day", &c.--plus a short blues improv for good measure. Anyway, was wondering where to go next. Does anyone know anything about Alsut, who released his "solo ballads" discs? I tried to order them through Cadence/North Country but they were out of stock, & Slim at North Country said that they didn't even have a current address for Alsut to reorder them. Joe Milazzo tells me Anderson recorded as a sideman in the 1960s with Frank Strozier; he's on a live Charlie Parker pickup-band recording of the 1950s that I haven't heard; other than that I know little about him other than what's in the liner notes to this disc. He was apparently Herbie Hancock's teacher at one point, though it's hard to hear any connection between the two men's styles.

Jeesh, why do they keep changing the cover art? Especially when the original cover-art (with its echo of Tristano's first Atlantic album) is so nice.

The "Volume 5" is because it was released in a series of CDs from Power Bros. Don't confuse it with vol. 10, Astigmatic in Concert, which is a (I gather very poorly-recorded) live gig from Copenhagen with a rather different band. I got my copy with no trouble from North Country/Cadence. They were asking $16 for it, a little better than Jazz Loft.

Bent Axen, Bent Persson, & Ole Kock Hansen. Masabumi "Poo" Kikuchi. John Gruntfest.

Yeah, that Threads review is memorably grotesque; but I didn't specifically have it in mind--virtually everything he writes is equally drooling (he barely reviews anything without giving it at least four stars out of five). -- There are also other things that are equally inane on the site by other contributors; e.g. the wacky piece on Sunna Gunnlaugs' Mindful, which is evidently by someone whose knowledge of modern jazz is nil (the review suggests it's wild & way-out avantgarde jazz; suffice it to say, this would only be a fair description if you thought Keith Jarrett & Bobo Stenson avant-garde). Jeez, I'm still thinking about what other Blue Note discs of the last 5 years I'm terribly keen on. I've heard plenty but truthfully it's not a label whose new releases really mean a lot to me all that often.

So's anyone discussing this one?

I've never heard a nice thing said about Thesis even among ardent Morris & Shipp fans. The Penguin Guide, FWIW, gives it the lowest rating of either musician's albums (two & a half stars). Just don't try associating Morris & Bailey in front of Morris! He tends to see red at the idea, to judge by interviews. Incidentally one mildly interesting discographical oddity is the disc Registered Firm on Bailey's Incus label: the Hession/Wilkinson/Fell trio with special guest Joe Morris. Frankly, it sounds like a good H/W/F date with a superfluous guitarist.

I've mostly disliked the Joe Morris I've heard--he just doesn't know when to stop--but I do recommend the disc Prophet Moon by Whit Dickey, Rob Brown, & Morris (on Riti). It's great stuff. -- Illuminate is OK but it's very episodic--the longer compositions don't really make much sense as wholes, though there's good bits in all the tracks. I don't seem to have stumbled on many good Morris discs--acquired & then got rid of No Vertigo, Many Rings & the dumb Eloping with the Sun. Probably not the world's best sample of his work, but after having heard 7 Morris records at last count & seen 2 concerts of his, & only really gotten a lot out of Prophet Moon I think I've cut him enough slack. I've never really warmed all that much to the Maneris either, though I've gotten much keener on Mat since he ditched the electric violin & switched to acoustic viola--replacing the ponderous sound of the former with a greater featheriness on the latter. He does have a curiously bitty way of phrasing his solos which is certainly individual, irritating or pleasingly different depending on my mood. -- Haven't heard any of Joe's recent stuff--only have Let the Horse Go & Three Men Walking from the 1990s, both of them quite interesting but sometimes hard going (TMW is very, very dry in places). Yes Mahanthappa is excellent; I don't know Black Water but Iyer's Blood Sutra was one of the major discs of the past year.

Take a look at the liner notes by Thomas Cunniffe & Will Friedwald to the Stash reissue of the Dial sessions (from 1993). There they state that "Yardbird Suite" is based on "What Price Love?" & that "Dewey Square" is indeed based on "Rosetta". I don't know "What Price Love?" at all so can't judge whether that i.d. is accurate. I remember reading somewhere that Dewey Square was a place to score drugs at the time, hence Parker's memorial to it. The only Parker tune I know of that doesn't seem to be based on standard changes is "Confirmation"--or is there a source I've missed?

AMG's reliability depends on the reviewers. If it's an entry by Scott Yanow, Brian Olewnick, Dan Warburton, &c then it's fine....but if it's Thom Jurek, for instance, run for the hills. The Penguin Guide is the best single reference book, yes, despite a few off-the-wall notions (e.g. that Sign of 4 is worth 4 stars).

Just got a new one from David Berkman on Palmetto, Start Here, Finish There; the personnel are Berkman on piano, Dick Oatts on alto & soprano, Ugonna Okegwo on bass, Nasheet Waits on drums. Haven't really decided what I make of it yet--so far it sounds nice enough, but not grab-you-by-the-lapels. Nine originals plus a cover of--believe it or not--Woody Guthrie's "Mean Things Happening in This World". -- I hadn't heard Berkman before, though he has a couple earlier discs out on the same label. Anyone heard those ones & might venture a comment?

Sure, sign me up.

You can also hear Schoof play free jazz (rather than free improv) on Mal Waldron's discs of the 1970s--I like Hard Talk a lot.

Oh jeez, I was trying to forget about that one I think. I've heard it once (a friend with the LP lent it to me). Speaking of arrangements of Monk, who exactly was Hall Overton & what else did he do?

I tend to be a bit cautious about IAI discs because they're from a period when Bley was often using rather dated-sounding synthesizers. But there is a much more recent disc with Konitz & Bley on Steeplechase, called Out of Nowhere. I haven't heard it, though. There is also one track by Konitz, Giuffre, Bley & Peacock on Konitz's Rhapsody (a 20-minute themeless improvisation on "All the Things You Are").

Been a little while since I listened to this one. I wonder how often the title-tune has really been covered all that successfully since the original recording was made--I've heard various stabs at doing it "straight" which haven't worked for me all that much (don't know the Spaulding): in many ways the best version I know is the remarkable two-take presentation on Georg Graewe's Monk album on Nuscope, which totally reconceives the tune as delicate solo piano. -- Am I right to think the piece was never rerecorded by Monk? I've always thought it a great tragedy that Monk seemed disinclined to play more than a handful of his own compositions with any regularity. Incidentally re: the fineness of Pettiford: notice that when Monk drops half a bar in the middle of his solo on "Brilliant Corners" Pettiford almost instantly corrects for it. (This isn't the result of splicing: you can hear Pettiford play one bar out of sync before he gets back in sync.) -- It's surprising how compelling & logical the track is as a continuous performance despite its being pieced together via splices.

Got two of the Westbrook releases, On Duke's Birthday & the live Rossini 2-disc set. Hm, both are OK--I'm keenest on the Duke tribute--but neither have become favourites with me. I like the opening track on ODB a lot, but some of the later ones less so, & the lyrics Kate W. sings are atrocious, though fortunately it's mostly an instrumental disc. The o/p Hats I hope most they'll reissue are (1) Blake's Gershwin disc & (2) Cecil Taylor's Garden. I have the former but not the latter.

I've always loathed Mehldau's solos on Alone Together--I recall there were entire choruses in which he simply shunts the same four-note phrase around the keyboard, e.g. No taste: just listen to the contrast between Konitz's brilliant melodic perversion & improvisation on "Round Midnight", & then Mehldau's completely disruptive solo that follows...... Konitz is in really good form on that date, so I still listen to it anyway. Truthfully, though I've heard many Blue Note releases from the past 5 years, few of them have moved me strongly. I do like Patricia Barber's Verse & Modern Cool, neither of which has yet been mentioned--perhaps a minority taste (she does seem to acquire fans & detractors in equal measure).

What's with it with Joel Dorn, anyway? I've lost track of the number of record labels he's helmed.....

Here's some info on VicissEtudes: http://www.shef.ac.uk/misc/rec/ps/efi/labe...ndom/ra002.html I don't know if it's still in print, though. Highly worth obtaining, though.

Sun Ship & Interstellar Space are the most "accessible" of that batch of material. But basically, just give it a close & persistent listen. Still not sure after all these years what I think of Ascension, really.

Geoff--those are all fine albums: rather than creating a thread specifically devoted to your tastes, simply post individual threads for each album. I think much of the skepticism was prompted by the word "neglected" in the thread title, also--though none of the albums you name is as famous as, say, Kind of Blue, Mingus at Antibes or Live at the Village Vanguard, they're virtually all albums much cherished among serious jazz fans. I'm sure that many of the members here would be delighted to talk about them, but maybe on an album-by-album basis. I really don't understand the problem with multiple posting in a variety of forums, though it might be a good idea to include a mention that you've posted it elsewhere too (just something like "Here's a review I've been working on lately; I've posted it on another board too but I thought people here would enjoy reading it also."). It's always worth mooting an album like Komeda's Astigmatic--despite its legendary reputation (& a crown in the Cook/Morton Penguin Guide) I wonder how many jazz fans have heard it still. (For that matter, how many people have heard Jan Allan's remarkable 70, another Penguin Guide enthusiasm?) Though if you feel it's genuinely embarrassing to have the thread kicking around, I'm sure you can try asking one of the moderators to remove it, I'd strongly suggest leaving it to stay, especially since there are many posts by others on the thread, including some quite useful ones (e.g. Jim Sangrey's comments on Moncur).

As long as you replace one of those with one of the sessions with Larry Young (my vote: Street of Dreams) that'd be my list too.

Jeez, that's ugly & petty. My apologies, Geoff, for inadvertently touching off one of those by posting the link. I'd not posted it out of malice. That said, I think the threads were probably asking for trouble with their titles, which come across as overweening & as obvious ploys for attention. Enthusiasm is one thing, but setting up shop as a tastemaker & connoisseur with his own soapbox is quite another. But I'd assumed this was simply due to the forgiveable rhetorical tone-deafness of someone still learning to write & who is genuinely enthusiastic about encountering this music for the first time. Oh, did he say something about Monk's attire & onstage dancing? If so, I think I missed that, & can't be bothered to hunt through the three threads in question to find out.