ep1str0phy

Thought someone here would appreciate it, but last night attended this concert: Chris Brown (piano, electronics) India Cooke (violin, etc.) Fred Frith (guitar) Roscoe Mitchell (reeds) Pauline Oliveros (accordion, electronics) Zeena Parkins (electric harp, etc.) William Winant (misc percussion) One of the most surreal nights of my life. Studying directly with Ms. Parkins and Mr. Mitchell right now, and it's a real experience.

Considering the credits also list Abdullah Ibrahim and Charles Victor Moore (who died in 1992) as producers, my guess is that, in typical AMG fashion, these are just mangled credits for samples--Rudy included. Blue Note and Abdullah are ripe for the beats, after all...

I think I bought this one on the steam of the guests, but it's quite good for the Brubeck moments--and a lot more meat there than I was expecting. Alan Dawson worked really well against Brubeck, being a precision drummer with a flair for what one might otherwise consider hazardous flourishes. Re: clifford's post on the first page--inappropriate, but I'll be damned if I can't agree somehow. ( )

A quick scan of this thread convinced me to listen to some of Concha's stuff, and, well--I like what I hear. In a more abstract sense, I appreciate it when board folks initiate discussion about "discoveries" like this, because many folks would otherwise miss the boat (myself included)...

Good going, papsrus. I'm a former student of Myra's, and I'm hoping to catch one of the release concerts for that one...

Goddamnit, DMG frustrates me to no end. If you ever walk into the shop, it's nigh-impossible to figure out what is and what isn't a legitimate issue--BUT it's one of the most convenient spots (mail order or otherwise) for many legitimate issues. I thought for a while that the blog craze would cut into the whole bootlegging bit, but DMG just keeps trucking along (outlasting some of the more active elements on the blogosphere, apparently). -A strange and tangentially associated issue: Chris McGregor pops up on Nick Drake's Bryter Layter--well-recorded and distinctive as ever, but all the Brotherhood and solo recordings in the world making you think Chris could do a lot more than unload fills on a track that might have been better off sans frills.

Ju-Ju is one of my favorite Shepp blowout dates, maybe my favorite. I think the regularity and density of the rhythm reigns Shepp in a bit, whereas performances with looser conglomerates (the BYG sides, Three for A Quarter...) tend to develop a little more haphazardly, and with substantially less dynamic flexibility or internal cogency. For all the talk about Shepp going all neo-traditionalist on us, I think he really does work best in ordered contexts (although by ordered I'll always favor Four for Trane or Fire Music to stuff like Splashes--which is probably as good as it gets for that vintage, anyhow).

Born 1926. You called it, Steve--I saw the thread title and forgot it was 2007! Still spinning some Trane today, though...

Honest Jons Records. Indie joint, but they managed Steve Beresford for the liners.

Yeah, Moholo is listed on the reissue as "percussion", but there are scarce few sounds on that album that would require more than one percussionist (I'll listen again--there may be lots of assorted hand percussion in places--but there are certainly castanets in there, which someone may have thought to put Moholo to work on(!)). Listening now to Archie Shepp's Coral Rock (Prestige), which isn't for me the most interesting of Archie's "blowout" dates. The "pluses" for me here are the killer groove on the title track--a typical Alan Shorter joint (but I do miss the apeshit mania of a Gato Barbieri or Gary Windo, who could've built a little more steam)--and some very eloquent rhythm section playing (Bob Reid, Bobby Few, and Mohamad/Mohammad/Muhammad Ali).

I *finally* got this one yesterday from Honest Jon's. I've only played it 3 times but I'm loving it. Thanks for the recommendation. Yeah - this is a nice one! Lots of great Dudu. And some fine Caribbean drumming! I'm glad y'all dig this one, because it's about as far on the periphery of Funny Rat territory as any Funny Rat-interest album could be. It's interesting to consider just how advanced some of the folks on this album were at that time (Dudu, Chris McGregor, Ronnie Beer), recording what is for all intents and purposes a specialty pop album. Having listened to the Brotherhood, the Blue Notes, and Dudu and Chris's leader work, Mbaqanga Songs is so inside it's outside ( :rsly: ).

Man, I've spent so much time with that album. I f'in love Sam & Dave.

Happy to see folks heading out for some of the leader material--it's really quite good. Lord knows Ogun is doing what it can, but I would be thrilled to see more of Ozzie's appearances on that label come "back" to light. And ubu--the Miller/Moholo team could and did play in about every "sort" of modern context, so expect the unexpected (nothing like the Brotzmann trio or large groups, actually really dissimilar to Harry Miller's groups--to say nothing of Keith Tippett's large-scale ensembles--and a bit more intimate, though I'm not sure I could say "more" or "less" flexible, than their Brotherhood work). Interesting about the quartet date clifford and relyles mention--Brian Abrahams was Chris McGregor's trio man after the latter's move to France and the dissolution of the first Brotherhood. He's also one of two drummers on Brotherhood #2's Yes Please, an OK album that, despite a stellar lineup, is regarded a few marks down from Brotherhood #1--in large part, I think, because those two percussionists have a hard time (it's partially a recording thing) managing a fraction of Moholo's energy. I'm looking forward to hearing what he brought to MO's music...

80 is a big one--I'd forgotten... happy birthday to a truly inspiring musician (a spin is in order)...

I had not heard about the Cuneiform release, and it's apparently not up on their website yet. That is kick ass news. Re: clifford--are you saying that the FMRs are available via Ogun? I recall hearing that the FMR reissues weren't legit (but, hell, I want them to be!).

Border Crossing is the shite--pretty tough-sounding freebop with a modal bent, featuring the unbeatable rhythm team of Harry Miller on bass and Louis Moholo on drums. It's still available from the Ogun label, paired with a fine but (IMO) lesser date, Marcel's Muse. Now that was an awesome sax trio, and very special dynamic... Osborne had a very muscular tone and a deliberate air about his phrasing--a true architect, in other words, who somehow managed to evade (or is that cut through?) coming across as self-conscious or workaday. What's interesting in the pairing with Miller and Moholo is that that rhythm duo had a strong personal magnetism, a propulsive capacity that might at times verge on chaos, Miller a hard-toned, rhythmically daring melodicist, Moholo--wildly grooving but at the same time abstract, tricky to disorienting with his accenting, but always crystal clear... a very welcome role-reversal as far as sax trios go, with the body in the horn and the lightness, the destabilizing factors coming out of the rhythm section. In a word: supple. That trio did things that weren't Border Crossing, but I think that's the best one presently available. Other stuff that's out there (and, IIRC, somewhat illegitimately--did clifford say this?) are the FMR reissues of Outback and Shapes. I have the former album, which augments the Osborne/Miller/Moholo trio with Chris McGregor and Harry Beckett... the record is comprised of two long compositions, both texturally dense and, I think, requiring a strong degree of concentration to really delve into. The Brotherhood rhythm section works wonderfully in the dangerous context of severe harmonic stasis, and the horns solo with gusto (special mention to Harry Beckett who just kicks it here like I've seldom heard elsewhere). (I don't have the second disc, which clifford might be able to comment on, seeing as it features at least one of his favorite bassists...) And--there's that Ric Colbeck album that seems to never get reissued, which features some of Ozzie's most unhinged playing (an element that never really got across in the Brotherhood, where counterpoint to Dudu sort of meant providing some solid foundation)--some false register stuff that is just insane. Sadly, I think most of Osborne's output is OOP, maybe to reappear from the admirably-getting-along Ogun CD program, maybe in the ether (who knows?), probably very expensive, but most of it, I'm sure, worth tracking odwn.

Ozzie's been out of the limelight for a while now, but this is still a huge blow. I JUST got a copy of the John Stevens Live at the Plough disc on Ayler, and the alto just smokes on that one... Osborne just had this tremendous integrity of tone--dark, thick, and bloody, unlike many of his peers in the modern alto camp. It's one of the truly individual sounds for me in European jazz (hell, all jazz)--this Bird-ish kind of piquancy, with so many of the rough edges waxed over and un-jumpy, resolute. I mean, the alto can sound really skittish... Ozzie could and sometimes did play in that angular mode, but for my money he had a most appealing smoothness to harshness ratio--really unique. ...and with his passing the sun really sets on one of the all-time, A1, baddest companies of alto players (Dudu and Elton Dean, too, in my mind, thinking in terms of the Brotherhood). Thinking about the era and ethos that Ozzie comes from (conducting the ever-uphill battle of forming research on the Blue Notes/Brotherhood, I am), there's so much sadness and so, so much beauty in there. RIP to a real border crosser.

Sad news--I've been a fan of his playing. Maybe I'll spin The Wire, too... RIP.

Especially free jazz.

1) thing--"one" might be hard-pressed to name any significant number of hard/post-bop dates, in the BN/early-Spaulding vein, that Lake has made as significant impression with than Spaulding did on Solid, Breaking Point, Components, w/Shorter, and even the later material with Tolliver (and I've always sworn by the New Wave version of "Plight" on Impulse--for me the most compelling thing on the compilation, abbreviated version of "Nature Boy", probably overlong Moncur--and I love Moncur--and all). -And Lake is a fine technician and emotional player in the proper context, but I've been far less impressed with his contribution to many dates on which he appears (even thinking WSQ with this) rather than the fact that he is on them. Opposite Spaulding's problem, I find Lake most compelling on some of his "weirder" leader sides than where he appears as a sideman, because, honestly, I think Hemphill, and maybe even Luther Thomas, did the "spare BAG horn" thing a lot more excitingly than Mr. Lake. -When Sonny Fortune is at his most "ripping" he's really just a stone Trane disciple--but in a way that I would consider sincere and gripping before I would just virtuosic, which is just fine with me. He's been fine with Rashied Ali recently, anyway. -But--the point is more on the merits of Spaulding rather than whether or not he holds up against Lake, Fortune, etc. I appreciate some of the more committed responses on this thread because, frankly--and like what happened on the Murray thread--it's easier to rip without giving due consideration--and probably just as easy to not offend when the forces of nature (JSngry, clem) are having their say. I've been really moved by Spaulding in the past and present, but I do think that some guys have taken Spaulding's bag and done more with it over the years, and, moreover, I don't really see that there's any reason--the Larry Young date, Sun Ra, and Components excepted, I think--to believe that Spaulding would have shifted his potential into overdrive some time after his iron got hot. The better proportion of what Spaulding has registered on record and live hews more toward a fairly exhausted bag that, for what it is, he can make hay with. I would expect an Out to Lunch from Dolphy, Mitchell was unheralded when Sound rolled along, but Spaulding was never all that creatively ambitious on his own, anyway. Better for me to love his skills for what they be.

Fuck. One of the most gracious musicians I've ever spoken to, and a tremendous presence on the bandstand. His music has been a light. RIP, Paul. We loved you madly...

Yes, strange we haven't heard anything official, but the guy who reported this one also reported on Mosca and Dallas. Hopefully some news will turn up soon.

Thanks for the recollection, Adam. In the past years the LACMA concerts have provided what, in light of the seeming fragmentation among the LA camps, has proven a valuable educational and artistic service to this community. I was unfortunately unable to see Tapscott or Davis perform live--especially back in the day--but I can revel in the history of my complicated but strangely beautiful (I mean, home is home) LA hometown. I'm glad to know someone got a little closer to these wonderful souls in the midst of all the isolation...

Reports (another forum) has it that Sonny Dallas died on the 22nd of July--I didn't see any other threads, so I thought I'd open one up. I'm not as familiar with Dallas as some others on this board may be, but I've enjoyed his playing where I've found it (thinking Motion here, which merits some serious historical footnoting as one of the great trio albums(?!)). My understanding is that he's been teaching and walking in and out with Konitz over the past few years--playing to the end--RIP.

Reports (one of the other boards) have it that Art Davis died this past Sunday. I'll be spinning some Trane, and definitely Life some time in the immediate future... a fine bassist and a pioneer, I'll sure miss his playing... RIP.