colinmce

Wonderful short documentary featuring DG playing, teaching, talking and painting with a cameo from our own Jim Sangrey:

I bought these Relative Pitch albums, and agree that Crying In Space and Blue & Sun Lights are both fantastic. The former in particular is one of the best blowout albums I've heard in quite some time. Everything just locks in perfectly, it's really something special. I'll spend more time with Fata Morgana but that was really nice as well. This label is on a roll; the last couple years there have been a lot of underwhelming solo albums and not many I've wanted to spend time with since the earlier days of the label. Now nearly every one is a must-hear for me. I can't think of a better contemporary imprint right now. -Want to also give a special shout-out to the new Rempis disc SIROCCO with Mark Feldman & Tim Daisy. It's just incredible, high-level playing from the jump that never flags. -Taborn/Léandre/Maneri - hEARoes on RogueArt is predictably great -Some phenomenal things on the horizon from Not Two: a 3xCD Steve Swell box, Zlatko Kaucic/Elisabeth Harnik duo, and a Joëlle Léandre bass duet with Vinicius Cajado: https://www.nottwo.com/new-releases -A friend recently pointed me towards this one. Three very strong sets of free improvisation across 3 CDs, which I'll definitely be grabbing at some point: https://newwaveofjazz.bandcamp.com/album/live-at-plusetage-volume-1 -Really enjoyed this Caroline Kraabel/Neil Metcalfe duo album: https://carolinekraabel.bandcamp.com/album/march-cd -The Infrequent Seams label is really heating up lately. I really love the Elliott Sharp/Richard Teitlbaum/Andrew Cyrille album and the Roper/Streb/Feeney tape; looking forward to checking the JD Parran/Mark Deutsch duo: https://infrequentseams.com/music -Lastly for now, I've been digging into the offerings from this newish UK imprint. The Beresford/Angharad Davies album in particular is great: https://shrikerecords.bandcamp.com/music

To be clear, the quote was about Ran Blake, not Jordan. I think he was pretty far past 27 at that point. Not sure who the other players on that session were, but my money would be on NEC students, possibly Jon Hazilla on drums. There is a Ran Blake bio coming out soon (that deserves its own thread, and to keep this conversation on topic) that will have a full discography, hopefully including unreleased sessions.

From the notes to the Clifford Jordan CD: "His discography now numbers 27 records, with two more waiting to be released-- including another Mapleshade, Ellington's Attic, a piano-trumpet-sax-guitar-drums session"

Got the disc today. very nice, thick booklet with comments from several participants. There’s an unreleased Ran album in the Mapleshade coffers btw …

Really looking forward to this one.

I got a little inside info last year about this one (and one other one not involving John), exciting to see it finally coming. https://www.npr.org/2023/05/31/1179098682/john-coltrane-eric-dolphy-village-gate-1961-lost-album

Yep, placed an order this morning and already have a tracking number.

They also have a CD of Glass Bead Games in stock. Not sure what the status is now but for years that was real tough to find.

There are some Coleridge Perkinson type things on a couple tracks, and a couple featuring recitation by David Smyrl. So there's not a lot of soloing on it, no. But still a cool artifact and a good listen imo.

It somehow flew under the radar that this unissued 1974 Strata East session has been released by Clifford Jordan's widow, Sandra Jordan, who assisted in transferring the original tapes. lineup as follows: Clifford Jordan, tenor Dick Griffin, trombone Bill Hardman, trumpet Charlie Rouse, bass clarinet(!) Bernard Fennell (a.k.a. Muneer B. Fennell/Muneer Abdul Fataah), cello Stanley Cowell, piano Sam Jones, bass Bill Lee, bass & arrangement Billy Higgins, drums Donna Jordan Harris, Kathy O'Boyle, Denise Williams, Muriel Winston, and David Smyrl, vocals & recitation you can buy the CD from the Mapleshade website. it's also on streaming services. https://shop.mapleshadestore.com/Clifford-Jordan-his-Friends-Drink-Plenty-Water-CD_p_1498.html

In my experience, Forced Exposure and Wayside get the RogueArt stuff first. Squidco and Dusty Groove are usually a bit behind them.

I wouldn't argue with that. The form has been worked through and the possibilities have been exhausted, it took about 50 years all told.

Good news, both of those albums should always be in print.

This is a pretty obscure one, there's is also a Fresh Sound 2xCD of 1981 live recordings called Live At Carmelo's Jazz Club with a decidedly more all-star band including Sal Nistico and Shelley Manne. Have you heard that? If so how would you rate it against Steppin' ?

The great and rather mysterious alto player Claude Lawrence has a wonderful youtube channel that features his playing and painting. He has only a few recordings with The Last Poets, Sirone, William Hooker, and an underheard trio date on CIMP with Wilbur Morris and Denis Charles. https://www.youtube.com/@clawrencemx/videos

Finally got my copy in hand. The sound is great, less airless 80s sounding than the LP, the balance is perfect and very natural. Denis Charles' drums sound fantastic but it's especially great to have such clarity on Rafael Garrett, whose mature playing is far too sparsely documented.

Got this the other day and have been listening to it quite a bit. It's a really substantial document, clocking in over 150+ minutes. Sound is quite good. The music is very expansive in scope and dynamic for being a club date. No blowing exercises, everything seems rehearsed and worked over and the band plays as a band, not Marion plus. And 2,5 hours of Steve McCall is always going to be welcome. Above all it's great to have this much more music from Marion's early European period, I think this is when his playing was at its peak (i.e. Porto Novo, Le Temps Fou, In Sommerhausen, Gesprächsfetzen). He was always a personal player with a quiet confidence, but I think this is when that confidence was at its strongest, and when he's beginning to take in some new concepts and techniques that will eventually come to flower on Afternoons of A Georgia Faun, Sweet Earth Flying, and Geechee Recollections-- namely the amount of sheer space in this music. It really breathes. Can't recommend this enough, if you're on the fence at all, get off it.

Sounds amazing, very much looking forward to the album.

Great news, and congrats. I'm looking forward to digging into this. Shipp is a reminder that history is still happening in this music, and so it's important to keep a document.

ha, just saw, right after I already placed my Marion Brown order that shipped out! thanks for the heads up!

Excited to hear this one.

Nice stuff. It can still be had for $15 or less, I paid about 10 several years ago. Wouldn't pay more for it, but nice to have.

Change of the Century and Evidence.

Andrew Hill's Smokestack certainly fits the bill with Roy, it's an unusually interactive album for Blue Note. Ditto Destination: Out!. Now He Sings, Now He Sobs is another one where Roy goes off with Miroslav Vitous on one of the most intensely focused albums there is. RE: the Elvin question, some of my favorite Art Blakey playing is on the Herbie Nichols stuff, which definitely shows a different side of his playing. The bass in that music is a little more in a timekeeping role, but Blakey is hyper-responsive. Mingus & Danny Richmond on Trio. Obviously a lot of this in Paul Bley's early music. Keith Jarrett's standards trio seems maybe too obvious an answer (when they weren't overplaying, which .... is most of the time.) I can't say it's understated by *this* definition, but one of the best examples of this in Cecil Taylor's music is Student Studies; Silva and Cyrille are on another plane. It's hard to describe what they're doing. It's not holding back, but it's not playing out either. It's just deep deep deep, a whole other thing. Another standout in the free-ish realm is the Giuseppi Logan albums on ESP with Milford Graves and Eddie Gomez/Reggie Johnson. Ditto Graves on the Lowell Davidson LP alongside Gary Peacock. The classic Joe Maneri recordings are the definition of "deceptively quiet". Randy Peterson does things nobody else has ever done. The music in front of him burns with an understated intensity but he is always playing LOUD and at the same time, I think you can call it understated in some mystical way. Plenty of examples from the world of free improvisation, but I don't think that's really what you're looking for. In terms of "understated" playing, TR!O with Mats Gustafsson, Gunter Christmann, and Paul Lovens were always remarkably keyed in.