colinmce

I've been digging back into Blue Note lately after a relative hiatus from listening to this stuff for a couple years. I've been filling in some of the (many) holes in my BN collection and have been pulling old favorites off the shelf. I grabbed Components yesterday and gave it a listen for the first time in a bit. Holy shit, this is a great record. Dialogue gets the lion's share of attention as Bobby's best and most avant garde date, and rightfully so-- it's brilliant and quite possibly my favorite Blue Note ever. But man, don't sleep on Components (Hutcherson, James Spaulding, Freddie Hubbard, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Joe Chambers). It's an incredibly diverse and intensely musical set, split dramatically between two sides. The A side, which seems to be the one that people remember (see Morton and Cook): four tunes penned by Bobby: Components, Tranquility, Little B's Poem (in its debut performance) and West 22nd Street Theme. These are marvelous tunes that do a lot to set the stage for soul jazz in the early 70s: light, melodic, soulful, and funky with flute, vibes and piano dominating-- a lot of Herbie Hancock's music flows right from this source, and some of Freddie's CTIs to boot. But then there's the B side, composed by Joe Chambers-- only Unit Structures is freer Blue Note jazz than this. The four pieces-- Movement, Juba Dance, Air, and Pastoral-- play with space, tone clustering and instrument groupings much like Unit Structures and also "Anthony" Williams' Lifetime and Spring. We know Herbie and Bobby can do free like a motherfucker, but Spaulding, Hubbard, and Carter hold their down as they were wont to do. This is incredible stuff and is not to be underestimated. The melding of composition and improvisation, melody and atonality is truly prescient; very few people besides Joe Chambers were thinking quite like this is 1965. And dig the part on Air where Bobby produces an organ-like modification on his vibes and Hubbard blows some cool, quiet, cutting tones over it! Straight out of Live-Evil. If you have it, pull it out. If you don't try to track is down. This was among the first Connoisseur CDs and is now OOP and not cheap on Amazon. But it's worth it. It doesn't quite topple Out to Lunch!, One Step Beyond, Point of Departure, Conquistador, Dialogue, or Lifetime but it deserves place among them.

This one sounds like a keeper: http://jasonadasiewicz.com/living-by-lanterns/ BTW the tape was of Sun Ra, Gilmore & Boykins. I'd love to hear that.

Funny, I spun JI a couple weeks ago and almost made a thread about that solo. It blew my hair back. Also, FWIW the versions of "Rose Room" and "Royal Garden Blues" with Goodman are probably two of my 10 favorite jazz performances ever.

I was planning to make a note in the other thread-- I'll wait for the vinyl. Sounds great.

I have copies of Aaron Parks - Invisible Cinema and Clifford Brown - Memorial Album RVG available to anyone who wants. The former is good, just not something I'd listen to again. The latter is spare. Both are in good condition.

Braxton always makes me feel better about my wildly unsophisticated taste in food. If Anthony invites you to Red Lobster, that means he likes you!

Yes. Worth having (or the LP obviously) for that reason, in addition (obviously) to the Legacy edition.

I have an LP reissue of Pete LaRoca's Basra and I'm not sure if it's one of the recent Scorpio reissues, or one dating from the mid-90s Conn series. Any way to identify the latter without the wrapper?

Alright, I'll just go ahead and cop to my young age (28) with this one: when Al Gore stopped by my Iowa high school during his 2000 campaign he brought along none other than surprise guest Herbie Hancock who treated us to about 50 choruses of "Watermelon Man". I knew Herbie and knew the tune (albeit from Headhunters) and was excited for him to be there but I sure didn't appreciate it as much as I do in hindsight.

I like it, too.

Joe McPhee w/ Eli Keszler - Ithaca (8mm) Italian LP limited to 250 copies; a magnificent 2010 performance.

The Sandy Bull is great. A marriage of Indian drone, proto Derek Bailey improvisation and folk music. I like Inventions but much prefer Fantasias for Guitar and Banjo which features Billy Higgins(!)

How is Flute Fever coming along, Jonathan?

Thanks, I'll keep an eye on that. As a side note, this seller has been pissing me the fuck off for the last year and a half clogging up my Anthony Braxton and Cecil Taylor searches with their ludicrously overpriced CDs. The price for the Oxley, obviously, is a shade more reasonable. But if no one has paid $150 for your Dortmund (Quartet) 1976 CD in the other 50 times you've listed it, what makes you think they would now? And why are you asking $80 (initially $200!!) for Willisau 1991 when you admit your copy is missing a slipcase and disc 3 is unplayable? End rant, sorry. I spend too much time on ebay.

I liked what I heard on NPR. I plan to check it out as well.

I steadfastly believe in limiting the length of mix tapes. When I make a tape of non-jazz music with a 90 min cassette I think in two 45 min blocs. When I make a nonjazz mix CD I try to stay around 60 minutes, or 12-15 songs Jazz, of course, tends to go on longer so I think 70-80 minutes is about ideal. If you're dealing in pre-LP era jazz, I say stick to track limits: 15 or so. As per the poll I do get weary after a certain length or certain number of cuts.

Well, first off DG often buys bulk dead stock from labels; they have the same deal with Cecma, Hatology, Black Saint, About Time and others. Second, I think we can rightly infer from the discontinuation of the RVG series nearly 4 years ago and the almost across-the-board cuts of EMI jazz label CDs that started in 2008, as well as the lack of any visible commitment to archive releases in this same time frame that these albums are done. Many have disappeared from active sale at Amazon. Also, we're talking about records that sell in the dozens to hundreds a year (for the most part) but were printed in the thousands. So I don't think we'll run out anytime soon.

I meant original to the set, not available elsewhere.

Doubtful many people will need any of these records at this point, but if you do in fact, Dusty Groove has a huge bloc of RVGs & Conns sealed & all for $6.99-7.99. It really is the end.

I've been looking for Day Will Come and Oxley's Baptised Traveller for a reasonable price ever since I first picked up the Penguin Guide. Still no avail ...

It was good! All original material.

I would hope no one would pay $50 for this CD. I wouldn't give a delusional seller like that the validation.

Huh, good to know. Anybody have recommendations for good sources beyond the original LP?

Seconded!

Maybe this necessitates its own thread but can anybody reasonably explain the A/D B/C thing that was oh so popular in the 70s? I've wondered this for a very long time.