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Guest Chaney

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So brownie--is Grachan simply a featured artist in this film (encompassing, for example, many of his peers), or is this joint generally centered on him?

The film is with and about Grachan. Being shot by the person who made that documentary about Gary McFarland...

So is there any footage of Grachan jamming with McFarland (possibly on Bacharach or Beatles tunes)? :crazy:

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What I want to know is when the official website will begin selling merchandise. If we can't get long OOP albums (Echoes of a Prayer? Please?), then we should at least have shirts--I mean, who wouldn't wear a tasteful Grachan shirt?

An evolution shirt? You might be taken for a darwinist and get stoned (well yes, that's what it meant *before*, I guess) by some re-born again messiases :crazy:

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I'm a pretty trim guy, but the shirts fit well. These aren't those bigass novelty store jazz shirts, to be sure--they fit like your average "hipster" band T-shirt (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, 'cause I've held for years that jazz shirts are almost uniformly unflattering).

-Another issue: anyone have any opinions on certain improvisation philosophy texts? I'm a reader/guest lecturer for a improv history course this semester, and I think I'll be getting the "kids" to be reading George Lewis (Gittin' to Know Y'all) and Cardew (Towards and Ethic of Improvisation)... I've been looking for something to bridge the gap between the AACM and the early Europeans--particularly the gulf between perspectives on shared/cultural identity--but few papers address the topic directly (Lewis's certainly does, Cardew implicitly).

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The Improvisation book is, indeed, a thoughtful philosophical/historical primer on improvisational approaches. Certain folks have criticized it for being a little facile--and there's very minimal theoretical underpinning contained therein--and it is, to be fair, somewhat generalized in its approach to certain topics. What's remarkable to me, though, is that Bailey--as a sort of doyen of non-idiomatic improvisation (and a progenitor, although hardly the most strident practitioner, of the sort of anti-culturalist approach that cats like Lewis criticize)--remains generally nonbiased and apolitical throughout the main text. Bailey's (conspicuously) dispassionate documentary/heuristic approach is probably the book's biggest draw for me (as both a primary source and as an instructive text), but that same attribute is also why it's difficult to shoehorn the tome into the sort of divisive identity debate that crops up in modern improv talk...

On Bailey--now and always among the illest of the illest of the old school free improvisers, and (agreed) a fascinating mind.

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FR is like a bar, and, well, only a few of us are willing to get drunk right now (tho clifford's proclivities are well documented on other parts of this board...). Then again, we are talking about fashion.

That Wadada larger group disc is fine, although I haven't had time to dig into it yet. I've had both of the others in mind--I'd like to hear your thoughts.

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FR is like a bar, and, well, only a few of us are willing to get drunk right now (tho clifford's proclivities are well documented on other parts of this board...).

:w

well, you have my sympathy there, of course... although usually I don't drink while posting or vice versa (or I stop posting after a # of beers...) :P

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I'm also not quite in the mood to listen to "One Too Many..." or similar sort of stuff at the moment.

What I did listen to with pleasure recently was:

I get more excited about new Rune Grammofon (a label co-owned/sponsored by ECM) than new ECM recordings.

Have any of you heard Maja Ratkje's debut album 'Voice' on the Rune Grammofon label?

The most amazing vocal album ever.

Yes, if you are into extreme vocal techniques. I am. Recorded in various inappropriate places (elevators, roofs, basements, etc.). You want a cover? Here is the cover:

voice.jpg

just spun this one - IMHO one of the most bizarre things i have ever heard.

:blink:

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I've never heard her solo album but I have really enjoyed Ratkje's work in the duo Fe-mail. Their album with Lasse Marhaug is excellent, if not for the faint of heart.

32638296.jpg

I saw Fe-Mail in concert twice last year. Fantastic stuff in a live setting, even better than their recordings. Ratkje has great musical instincts.

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For those of you interested in eai erstwhile is having a fairly nice sale:

"I'd like to announce a sale on all Erstwhile titles through the end of February, details as follows. please note: this does not apply to other items I distribute, just the Erstwhile catalog, although I'm happy to pack ErstDist purchases together to save shipping charges.

all single CDs are $10, doubles $17, the AVVA DVD $16, plus my shipping estimate. buy any 5 releases, get an additional single CD free. the AMPLIFY 2002: balance box set (which is starting to run low) is still $100 plus shipping, but you also get two single discs of your choice included for free. the EL005 box is $28 plus shipping, and if you buy EL005 plus two other discs, you get one more free. double CDs count as one item for the purposes of getting free additional discs.

sale ends last day of February and is only good for all-Erstwhile orders. no preorders will be accepted; this only applies to releases out now. please e-mail me your orders (erstrecs@aol.com) before sending money so I can tell you the correct shipping charges to include.

the full catalog is listed at the link below, 004, 010, 012 and 015 are OOP and EL004 is down to the last dozen or so. 007, 014, 016, 024, 033-040, and 042 are all into their last 100 copies, some of those will be reprinted eventually, others will not (the box set will not). everything else I've got in ample quantities for now...

http://www.erstwhilerecords.com/catalog.html

Edited by John B
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