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Thanks Chuck, will do so!

I can't seem to find Uehlinger's latest mailing - he sounded not that confident, stating that the future release schedule was dependent entirely on the financial states of his business - also it seems he does suffer from wars like the Dubya feghing shitte in Iraq - fegh it even more, then!!! - since the US is one of his biggest sale areas, and sales seem to go notably slower in war times.

There still seems to be hope, though, and I like to stick with that. Would be too sad to see hat dying, so let's hope he'll manage - and let's support him by buying his releases, not just bitching around about what he holds back, for whatever reason that may be (again, I assume he'd be able to do more reissues AND more new relesases IF sales went better...)

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Dear Friend,

The following CDs have been shipped to our distributors. Please contact your local distributor for promo copies.

hatOLOGY 627 : Manuel Mengis Gruppe 6 · Into The Barn

by Manuel Mengis-trumpet, Achim Escher-alto saxophone, Christoph Erb-tenor saxophone, Flo Stoffner-electric quitar, Marcel Stalder- electric bass and Linonel Friedli-drums

(new release)

Born in the Swiss canton Wallis in 1972, trumpeter and part-time mountain guide Mengis probably is virtually unknown to most people. It thus comes as a surprise that his first release is for a label

that has not pledged itself to promote and encourage local young talents but to track down adventurous and ambitious music of our time. Which,however, is another sign that the world of jazz has been undergoing fundamental changes for the past couple of years. Whoever still believes that New York is the hub of the jazz world is on the wrong track. Unfortunately many influential CD producers, festival organisers and music critics are still barking up the wrong tree (even in Europe), thus it will take some time for innovative impulses from regions which so far have been regarded as the periphery to be duly recognised. Globalisation, which has often been demonised, could turn out to be a truly positive force in this respect. - Tom Gsteiger

Que ce premier album - que la plupart considèrerait

> comme une partition vide - d'un trompettiste né en 1972 dans le Valais

> et ainsi guide de montagne à ses heures, paraisse sous un label dédié

> non pas à la promotion de nouvelles générations locales, mais bien à la

> découverte de musiques explosives, actuelles et exigeantes, est certes de

> prime abord surprenant. Il faut toutefois y voir aussi l'indice (plus large)

> que le monde du jazz se trouve depuis quelques années en pleine mutation

> fondamentale. Ceux qui considèrent encore aujourd'hui New York comme

> l'épicentre du monde de jazz, font fausse route. Ceux-là même comptant

> malheureusement au grand nombre des producteurs de CDs, organisateurs de

> festival et critiques influents (aussi en Europe), il s'écoulera encore du temps

> jusqu'à ce que les impulsions innovatrices des régions perçues jusqu'ici comme

> périphériques, soient connues comme il convient. La globalisation, souvent

> diabolisée, pourrait s'avérer à cet égard une force principalement

> positive. - Tom Gsteiger

hatOLOGY 628 : David Liebman · The Distance Runner by David Liebman solo live Willisau Festival 2004 (new release)

Here's Dave Liebman with his saxophones and a woodenflute in his very first concert of unaccompanied solos. It didn't happen until his fourth decade as a working jazz artist, even though he had recorded four solo albums down through theyears. Once again we hear his brilliant sound and technique, and there are his devotion to spontaneity combined with

his high instinct to shape improvisations. What Liebman offers most of all is a

personal quality of adventure, the result of his endless musical curiosity. This music has so

much vitality. - John Litweiler

Erst im vierten Jahrzehnt seiner Karriere als Jazzkünstler, die ihren musikalischen Niederschlag unter anderem auch in vier Soloalben gefunden hat, bestreitet Dave Liebman mit seinen Saxophonen und einer Holzflöte sein allererstes Solokonzert. Einmal mehr überzeugt er mit seinem brillanten Ton und seiner virtuosen Technik, mit einer bedingungslosen Hingabe an die Spontaneität des Spiels, verbunden mit einem untrüglichen Instinkt für den formalen Aufbau seiner Improvisationen. Was Liebman jedoch vor allem auszeichnet, ist eine ihm eigene Offenheit für das Unbekannte, die inseiner ungezähmten musikalischen Neugier gründet. Diese Musik strotzt vor Vitalität.

- John Litweiler

Best regards,

Werner X. Uehlinger

wxu.hathut.com@bluewin.ch

HAT HUT RECORDS LTD.

Box 521,

4020 Basel, Switzerland

Phone +41.61.373.0773

Fax +41.61.373.0774 (on request only!)

http://www.hathut.com

The 30th Year

Since 1975, an ear to the future

Depuis 1975, une oreille vers le futur

Seit 1975, ein Ohr in die Zukunft

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I've heard the Liebman (on radio - there are live broadcasts and later re-broadcasts from Willisau every year - so yes, I've heard the Braxton, too). Great set of music! Liebman plays tenor, soprano, flutes (I think wooden ones, but maybe also the regular?), and drums. A masterly display of musicianship! There's an annual solo set in Willisau, that often was taken up by pianists (Andrew Hill, Matt Shipp, Cecil Taylor - released on Intakt as "The Willisau Concert", a great GREAT set), and in the year before Liebman by Anthony Braxton.

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hatOLOGY 627 : Manuel Mengis Gruppe 6 · Into The Barn

by Manuel Mengis-trumpet, Achim Escher-alto saxophone, Christoph Erb-tenor saxophone, Flo Stoffner-electric quitar, Marcel Stalder- electric bass and Linonel Friedli-drums

(new release)

Just in case: those who got my BFT have heard guitarist Flo Stoffner on the Ayler track finishing the second disc. A pretty interesting young musician, I should think. I am not familiar with the horns, nor the bassist. Friedli plays with ... well, future BFT material ;)

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Can you ask if the Roach/Shepp album the Long march will be reisuued? I saw it listed in Jazzmatazz for a very brief time, then it disappeared. I was wondering what happened, if anything. Thanks.

I'll try to ask - will see how the interview goes and if I think asking for new releases/reissues will not be problematic in any kind... seems he's in a good mood, though, judging from his emails to us!

Adam, is the above mail a new one? I didn't get it, and I think I deleted all earlier hat mailings... (which is why I couldn't quite the one I was paraphrasing above).

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Dave Liebman seems to have assumed to role of Ellery Eskelin for the Hat label.

I'd wonder about the future recording activities with Hat for both these players.

ON THE EDIT: Probably not a wise question to ask but I'd be interested in knowing how well the re-release of Cecil Taylor's One Too Many Salty Swift And Not Goodbye sold. Reason I wonder is, while it was OOP, I made copies of the set for two or three board members and I'd guess that others did the same. I'd hate to think that my action cut into sales of this one but I don't see how it couldn't have.

A lesson learned.

Edited by Chaney
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Dave Liebman seems to have assumed to role of Ellery Eskelin for the Hat label.

I'd wonder about the future recording activities with Hat for both these players.

ON THE EDIT:  Probably not a wise question to ask but I'd be interested in knowing how well the re-release of Cecil Taylor's One Too Many Salty Swift And Not Goodbye sold.  Reason I wonder is, while it was OOP, I made copies of the set for two or three board members and I'd guess that others did the same.  I'd hate to think that my action cut into sales of this one but I don't see how it couldn't have.

A lesson learned.

I'll see if I think asking these kinds of questions is ok or not, but I don't promise I'll ask them!

I did the same with the CT, but the friend in question has picked up the new version soon after it came out - in a perfect world everybody who has burns of the old set would do the same.

Not sure how it came, but all of a sudden Liebman and Marc Copland were all over the new hat releases... maybe that would be a more positive question to ask, rather than asking why Eskelins releases got fewer (or stopped?)...

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Can you ask if the Roach/Shepp album the Long march will be reisuued? I saw it listed in Jazzmatazz for a very brief time, then it disappeared. I was wondering what happened, if anything. Thanks.

I'll try to ask - will see how the interview goes and if I think asking for new releases/reissues will not be problematic in any kind... seems he's in a good mood, though, judging from his emails to us!

Adam, is the above mail a new one? I didn't get it, and I think I deleted all earlier hat mailings... (which is why I couldn't quite the one I was paraphrasing above).

Hi,

I got it last week forwarded to me by my friend George Schmid. He produced The Dark Tree and is in regular contact with Werner. At a jazz listening + dinner session last week, he implied that Werner is at the point where if anyone just had the time to take over the Hat label, he would be open to passing it on.

best regards,

Adam

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Can you ask if the Roach/Shepp album the Long march will be reisuued? I saw it listed in Jazzmatazz for a very brief time, then it disappeared. I was wondering what happened, if anything. Thanks.

I'll try to ask - will see how the interview goes and if I think asking for new releases/reissues will not be problematic in any kind... seems he's in a good mood, though, judging from his emails to us!

Adam, is the above mail a new one? I didn't get it, and I think I deleted all earlier hat mailings... (which is why I couldn't quite the one I was paraphrasing above).

Hi,

I got it last week forwarded to me by my friend George Schmid. He produced The Dark Tree and is in regular contact with Werner. At a jazz listening + dinner session last week, he implied that Werner is at the point where if anyone just had the time to take over the Hat label, he would be open to passing it on.

best regards,

Adam

Thanks for sharing this, Adam.

I guess it's also a question of age. Hat is now 30 and WXU was not exaclty a youngster when he got the label started... all the more big :tup for keeping it going!

I certainly hope he'll find a good solution whenever he'll decide to stop - but then that's possibly not the nicest thing to ask him about, either...

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Flurin: You might ask Werner if Hat will be getting more involved in electro-acoustic improv. (I wonder how well Hat's dabblings in eai have gone; maybe as well as the hatNOIR releases?)

Edited by Chaney
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  • 2 weeks later...

Ok, we met Mr. Uehlinger yesterday for a lenghty conversation (he stayed an hour longer than he said he had time to... a really nice and warm person).

First some facts:

Warne Marsh: ready for two years, should be out next year

more EAI: let's put it like this: he listens to stuff out on Grob and is no stranger to Erstwhile... and he does like electronic stuff more and more, he said, so yes there will be more, but mostly not "pure" EAI, rather than albums/project mixing traditional instruments and electronics, or adding traditional instruments to electronics or whatever.

He said there should be about 3 releases including electronics next year.

McPhee: an album with (by?) Clifford Thornton is ready for being out, too (I don't know if it's the WBAI one or what it could be).

generally: he doesn't look for a successor (rather he thinks selling the label is a better idea than some successor watering it down) and plans to continue as long as he's able to, health-wise. Money seems to be a bit less of an issue, he does other ways of paying his musicians (no big advance payments possible anymore), and many of the musicians seem to be solidaric with him and stick to his label, too. Anyway, I won't tell more about this here.

New releases/Reissues: generally, his goal is to document new music, not to turn his label into a reissue label. He envisions 1/3 reissues opposed to 2/3 new recordings, but costs for reissues are much lower, so he says that if times get even rougher, he may increase the ratio of reissues a bit.

Also he said that if he had the money, he would re-release all his recordings now (so if anyone has a million or so and doesn't know what to do with it, PLEASE send him an email and ask for his bank account!)

CT not "Garden" yet, but the other OOP album will be reissued next year, too, he said.

So, all together, it seems he's in good spirits, still has many many plans and projects and does not waste many thoughts on stopping or cutting down. He does as much as he can, which is great!

Also he's dealing with other (swiss and yurpean) labels to set up some kind of online/mail distribution, since small labels more and more often are not carried anymore by the large stores/chains. Nothing definitive yet, though...

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Did The Long March "reissue" come up?

It was announced, but never appeared.

That's ready and waiting, too - but not remastered, thus no need to replace if you have the old copies (I do).

He gives Peter Pfister his tapes or masters or whatever. Pfister checks them out and decides if there's use/need in remastering or not. With the "Long March" he decided use would be so small that it wouldn't pay.

Some things I forgot: discussion about reissuing one disc of tracks from the two Anderson-Doran-Hemingway discs (nothing definitive, maybe already dead again?), and also he sent some folks asking around for funding of a reissue of that great Urs Blöchlinger LP (he said he remembered the days when Tim Berne was working at one of those stores in NYC - Downtown Music Gallery? can't remember, you guys will know anyway - and hyping about that Blöchlinger album. I heard parts of it in some Swiss Jazz Classics series on the radio, and loved what I heard, so I hope this materializes.)

Hans: this is not our interview, just a few glimpses taken from it! We talked for more than two hours and recorded more than an hour of that.

Funny: while walking from that hotel where we did the interview back towards the railway station, we started talking Definitive/Lonehill/Freshshound/Gamit. Uehlinger said there was talk that Jordi was behing all of them, but that he was out of all of them (even Freshsound) in order not to damage the reputation of his Freshsound New Talent label, which he still heads.

Uehlinger also mentioned just having bought a Gambit disc with some otherwise unavailable Giuffre stuff on it... he's crazy about Giuffre!

Also he told us some funny stories about some of his releases. Seems that each album/disc he did has it's own little history...

One upcoming new release he mentioned also is Chris Wiesendanger's trio set from last year's Unerhört festival, here in Zurich. Wiesendanger is a very good local pianist (also documented on FSNT, btw). He played mainly Carla Bley tunes, in trio with bassist Christian Weber and drummer Dieter Ulrich (who has been involved with many a swiss jazz project over the years, also on hat).

And something else: hat is not a hut. Meaning: "hat hut" does not mean "hut of hats", but simply "hut" is the german word for "hat". Didn't know that, and am aware of at least one (otherwise not bad) article by some local jazz journalist who talked about the "hut of hats" when they celebrated the 25th or 20th birthday.

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That's ready and waiting, too - but not remastered, thus no need to replace if you have the old copies (I do).

He gives Peter Pfister his tapes or masters or whatever. Pfister checks them out and decides if there's use/need in remastering or not. With the "Long March" he decided use would be so small that it wouldn't pay.

Thanks for that info king ubu!

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some sorta of Braxton box set. i know the mfg costs will be a bit higher & it wouldn't be complete; however, there are a # of viable, exciting subsets that'd be GREAT & sucessful too i think. i know, except for the pizza box-era, Hat's never pursued this but i think it's worth considering.

c

Hell yeah I'd go for this!!

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Yes, Tony, it's Hat Hat, exactly :)

He explained it that way: in those days, everything had to have some name implying a tangible/concrete thing (like "Table Records" or "Fork Records", those, albeit in German, were his examples). They went with Hat Records, but a friend of his (I think the guy who designed the very first sleeves) thought since WXU was of german language, "Hut" should be in there, too, thus they ended up "Hat Hut".

Braxton... he didn't want to talk about what he does reissue why and when... but as I said, if he had the money he'd reissue all there is... I assume that Braxton *is* a selling point (that's why on his recent release hatO 614, a Roland Dahinden release, the name of Braxton, who only is composer of the music, but does not actually play, is mentioned on the front cover...)

He gave us copies of hatO 613-17, 619 and 621 and will pass us on a copy of 627, too, plus he gave us two hatNOWs - will be interesting to listen to all of these! Not much electronics there yet, but as he said, more will come.

Tony: you are aware of the eRikm/Fennesz release, are you?

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Tony: you are aware of the eRikm/Fennesz release, are you?

Yes.

My asking if Hat was heading more in the direction of EAI was less for my interests (as I'm not greatly interested in EAI) but more out of curiousity; I'm just wondering if EAI sells better than what Hat is traditionally known for offering. (I doubt that it does.)

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Tony: you are aware of the eRikm/Fennesz release, are you?

Yes.

My asking if Hat was heading more in the direction of EAI was less for my interests (as I'm not greatly interested in EAI) but more out of curiousity; I'm just wondering if EAI sells better than what Hat is traditionally known for offering. (I doubt that it does.)

I would doubt that, too. But Uehlinger is still selling what he likes and thinks he can sell. Very refreshing! The only thing he would do if the financial situation gets difficult, as I understand, would be to have more reissues vs. new releases.

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clem, I think you may be right about the EAI thing - I have some stuff on small labels, and indeed hat's usual run of 3000 discs (that's cheaper to do than doing smaller runs, he realized, after having done a few smaller ones early in the hatOLOGY series) may be way too much. Also I remain sceptic about the whole EAI stuff to some extent. I have two erstwhile releases and a couple of other discs, but never got fully into EAI. However, as you said, if WXU digs it, he digs it... As it seems for now he will not have any pure EAI releases on his label, but rather releases combining traditional instruments with some electronics.

As for Frank Martin, I remain clueless... I just had a look at the Martin website - any recommendation(s)?

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New announcement, short:

From: hathut [mailto:wxu.hathut.com@bluewin.ch]

Sent: Thursday, November 17, 2005 1:30 AM

Subject: Website updated on November 17th, 2005

Dear Friend,

The website is updated:

http://www.hathut.com

Including now also a section upcoming releases!

Best regards,

Werner X. Uehlinger

wxu.hathut.com@bluewin.ch

HAT HUT RECORDS LTD.

Box 521,

4020 Basel, Switzerland

Phone +41.61.373.0773

Fax +41.61.373.0774 (on request only!)

http://www.hathut.com

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New announcement, short:

From: hathut [mailto:wxu.hathut.com@bluewin.ch]

Sent: Thursday, November 17, 2005 1:30 AM

Subject: Website updated on November 17th, 2005

Dear Friend,

The website is updated:

http://www.hathut.com

Including now also a section upcoming releases!

Best regards,

Werner X. Uehlinger

wxu.hathut.com@bluewin.ch

HAT HUT RECORDS LTD.

Box 521,

4020 Basel, Switzerland

Phone +41.61.373.0773

Fax +41.61.373.0774 (on request only!)

http://www.hathut.com

Thanks for posting this, Adam.

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