anyone familiar with 'n Session by Michael Session?

[felser]

If I love Horace Tapscott/Nimbus West/Nate Morgan music, will I love this? Any feedback on this session?

[JSngry]

Yeah, it's good. You might love it, might merely just like it a lot.

[felser]

Ordered it, thanks!

[optatio]

Cassette - no Catalogue Number

[clifford_thornton]

never encountered this one. Huh.

[sidewinder]

Isoardi's 'The Dark Tree' mentions it as having been recorded late 1987 on return from Germany. Hence side A track 2 'Bavarian Mist', I guess. 'Quagmire Manor' was apparently Sessions' nickname for the second of the UGMAA houses, apparently.

[JSngry]

never encountered this one. Huh.

I've only seen it the one time, when I bought it, in the used bin one of the last-days-of-Wherehouse Music stores, in Carrolton, iirc. $7.99 on the Pacific ITM label (how that tied into ITM itself, I don't know). The Wherehouse inventory barcode sticker shows that they added it on 12/04/2000. The CD has a copyright date of 1992 and gives recording location date as Stage and Sound Recording Studio, Hollywood, 24.03.90.

[felser]

I've been scoping it for awhile, since reading about it in 'The Dark Tree', and it's price came way down on Amazon Marketplace (to about $11 + shipping), so I went for it.

[ep1str0phy]

I bought this one from Michael Session a few years back--there are some really thrilling moments (especially on the tunes with Horace), but it doesn't really compare to just how exciting Session was (and is) live.

Back in my college years, I would spend summers with my family in Los Angeles, and I would catch incarnations of the Session band whenever possible. Much of this was either at LACMA or somewhere near Leimert Park (which was in the midst of a bit of a renaissance at the time)--I even hit some sessions at the World Stage, though I was never around long enough to visit regularly.

For all the talk about live jazz being in a downward spiral since the 80's, there was a ton of "classic" legacy music going on in Los Angeles in the early 2000s--Gerald Wilson was still leading his big band, Charlie O's was still open in the SF Valley (saw a killer set with Azar Lawrence and Lorca Hart--:45-1hr version of "Impressions," just scalding music), the Jazz Bakery was bringing in Andrew Hill, Sonny Fortune/Rashied Ali, and so on, Bobby Bradford was regularly visible, and, of course the Session band. Of all of the guys I saw back when I was a resident, I now (even in LA) only really see Vinny Golia, Steuart Liebig, Alex Cline, and a handful of other guys who commute to the Bay Area for gigs.

I will never forget the handful of occasions I actually got to sit through full concerts of the Session ensemble with Steve Smith and Nate Morgan, because that music was formative for me. That band stood in outright defiance of the notion that the shredding inside/out jazz of the 70's was a lost concept with the advent of Wynton. I've still never seen another live band that played gutsier music in this particular mode--the energy was insane, and much of that had to do with just how tapped into the community these guys were. I'd heard stories of the UGMAA in the old days, and this was exactly that: music happening among and feeding off of the people, participating in the performance of socialization rather than cloistering itself off into some hallowed realm.

Every day seems to be a new RIP on the Artists page, and it reminds me of just how much of this stuff I can take for granted. It's easy to view this music as distant and historical, but it never really stops happening--jazz fights to the last man, and he's still there (if you're willing to look for him).

[sidewinder]

the Jazz Bakery was bringing in Andrew Hill, Sonny Fortune/Rashied Ali, and so on,

The short btime I was there in '99 I remember seeing Jackie McLean and Cecil Taylor there. Wilson's Big Band in town as well. A very active and stimulating scene !

[felser]

I will never forget the handful of occasions I actually got to sit through full concerts of the Session ensemble with Steve Smith and Nate Morgan, because that music was formative for me. That band stood in outright defiance of the notion that the shredding inside/out jazz of the 70's was a lost concept with the advent of Wynton. I've still never seen another live band that played gutsier music in this particular mode--the energy was insane, and much of that had to do with just how tapped into the community these guys were. I'd heard stories of the UGMAA in the old days, and this was exactly that: music happening among and feeding off of the people, participating in the performance of socialization rather than cloistering itself off into some hallowed realm.

Amen, and the urgency comes through even in the recordings on Nimbus West. There is just so much LIFE to those recordings, they reach out, grab you, and shake you. The more I hear Nate Morgan, the more I think he was a spectacular musician. And Curtis Clark and others did some great stuff in that context. And of course, Tapscott, wow.

[ep1str0phy]

The only credibility I can lend to these sentiments is the fact that I was there and am there for the "tail end" of this particular moment in the music. There's a phrase that I heard Evan Parker use that really sticks with me, and it's something to the effect of (I'm paraphrasing), "There are things that happen live that will not travel down a wire." There is some recorded music that is more magically live/alive than others, and the Nimbus West stuff must be counted in that number.

Listen to the PAPA at Live at I.U.C.C.--you hear this simultaneity of rawness, passion, and rhythm. This is that "West Coast Hot" thing that is discussed more often than heard. The Giant Is Awakened has this, too--the music may not always have the finesse or casual virtuosity of contemporaneous East Coast stuff, but it has this rhythmic vitality and dark momentum that is both undeniable and irreplicable.

There is a lot of music in and around this lineage that is happening these days, and much of it to very minimal fanfare. I haven't seen Sessions play for a while, but he must still be up to this. Vinny Golia, Steuart Liebig, the Cline brothers (though Nels is in NY now), Phillip Greenlief, GE Stinson, Ben Goldberg, Francis Wong, Jon Jang, Dan Clucas, Lewis Jordan, India Cooke, Ross Hammond--it is all very heavy music that doesn't hew cleanly into any narratives about free v. mainstream, in v. out, modern v. postmodern, and so on. And those are just some of the cats who have been around "for a minute."

[romualdo]

Isoardi's 'The Dark Tree' mentions it as having been recorded late 1987 on return from Germany. Hence side A track 2 'Bavarian Mist', I guess. 'Quagmire Manor' was apparently Sessions' nickname for the second of the UGMAA houses, apparently.

I've had the CD on my wants list since reading "The Dark Tree"