ep1str0phy

I'll be on the lookout for The Exchange Sessions (I've definitely seen them around, so I'll try to pick them up). I read up on Reid's history--the whole spectrum of his achievements (from "Dancing in the Streets" to "Rhythmatism") feels like a piece. Whatever he's playing with Hebden, he's had it all of the way.

-I think I posted a response, but it got lost in the shuffle... -Like to note that it was probably donald's post in an earlier thread that got me to check out Amalgam in the first place... Prayer for Peace is perhaps my favorite, maybe the most successful of the acoustic Amalgam dates. There's of course some composition duplication (three versions of "Judys' Smile"), but it doesn't get monotonous; it's a conceit here employed after the fashion of some of Ornette's albums (Dancing In Your Head, Three Women/Hidden Man)--a lot of things "done" with very little thematic material. Watts rouses the ghost of Albert Ayler, although Watts's phrasing is more plain--dagger-direct where the earlier innovator was ethereal, eldritge. Stevens is a stone dynamo, Barry Guy is fine on his (brief) appearance, and Jeff Clyne is excellent here (always excellent in the Stevens stable, I think). I have the first Konnex twofer donald mentions, and the Ayler tribute, despite some interesting harmonic and rhythmic textures, comes across as largely monochromatic. The freebop sides that occupy the second half are far more interesting--derivative, but Stevens really shines in this context and the horns dig straight in. I also have 1.2 Albert Ayler, which, based on personnel, looks to be part of the other Konnex joint donald mentions. It's really an SME-type affair--"pointillistic", to borrow an Evan Parker term, with an emphasis on coloristic group interplay and extreme dynamic contrast. I like Tippetts and her wacky guitar here--it's not virtuosic, but I don't think that this sort of ensemble work demands that caliber of talent--and she blends beautifully with Watts's soprano. This album reminds me of the Quintessence stuff that's been in and out of Emanem circulation. Oh yes, and Over the Rainbow is a bitch--Of Human Feelings-vintage Ornette mixed with 80's Sonny Sharrock and some Material-ish dub. Keith Rowe here is much more the Sonny-type skronk-and-melody man than the texturalist from AMM. Watts sounds like he's swallowed some acid. Still intending to buy the Bradford/Stevens sides, but I'm not quite there yet...

Love that one, though the second date gets my blood running a little faster. For me: Craig Harris: Tributes (OTC) -I've heard nothing about this date, but it boasts a killer Don Moye/Billy Higgins drum line. Harris is always a pleasure--especially in this slightly more "advanced", combustible context--and the rest of the ensemble, Olu Dara and Dave Holland included, is fine.

The new format is a little easier on the eyes, IMO--always a good thing, granted how much time you can spend here... Thank you staff... and a hearty "welcome back" for the board!

Oh yeah--Brute Force isn't that good, though Sonny is a bitch as always. And that Pullen album, I think, is Tomorrow's Promises. There's a long take on a "Freedom Jazz Dance"-ish track called "Big Alice". I sat in with a student ensemble this past spring--the line (mainly a sixteenth-note thing) was hell at the "proper" tempo and there was a lot of stumbling, but it was great fun and a blast in terms of ensemble work. I'll mention again Dudu Pukwana's awesome solo work here. My favorites, In the Townships, Ubagile (Diamond Express), and Cosmics Chapter 90, are just drenched in South African freegrease--mbaqanga meets Booker T & the MGs meets BAG. Dudu's sax was about as rhythmic as you can get with a tempered instrument--harsh, pumping, and visceral, like a sub-Saharan Julius Hemphill. All the aformentioned albums have the usual, bad suspects in tow (Mongezi, Harry Miller, and Louis Moholo-Moholo on the first, adding later-Brotherhood of Breath bassist Ernest Mothle and guitarist Lucky Ranku on the second, Ranku and vocalist Pinise Saul appearing on the third).

I haven't look at this thread in a while, but there's some discussion of this topic on there: Free Funk Oh--and in response to Clifford: Nation Time. It's Nation Time.

I've been getting increasingly involved, in a listening sense, with the music of this duo, recently. The character of the collaborations between these two--drummer Stevens and reedman Watts--are widely varied; between the two musicians we have at least a couple major innovations/transformations in European improvisation (pointillistic--to borrow an Evan Parker adjective--dynamically and texturally-oriented group improvisation with the Spontaneous Music Ensemble; rock, soul, and funk-based freer improvisation with Amalgam). Stevens and Watts have appeared in too many different environments to really encapsulate here, but a lot of it makes interesting room for discussion, I think... A couple of months ago, I picked up Mining the Seam- The Rest of the Spotlite Sessions--Watts, Stevens + similarly versatile European stalwart Barry Guy--having not heard the original album that was culled from these sides (No Fear), I'm fairly impressed (though there's a lot of duplication between these albums--and within Mining the Seam, which would make for some tedious listening, were it not for the quality of the improvisation). The trio works excellently together--Watts sounds like a rock/R&B saxophonist on a tear--not quite so abstract with that vocabulary as Ayler was, far more rhythmically "in the pocket", but extremely energetic--Barry Guy's playing, especially his pizz, has a phenomenal rhythmic poise, and Stevens--something like a less chaotic, but equally propulsive, Elvin Jones. Innovation, recorded under the Amalgam appellation, is an entirely different affair. A lot of it sounds like a perverse riff on a Stax or Hi Records sound--four-square rhythms juxtaposed with melodically angular, sometimes very abstract improvising. Watts shines in this context, rough and sharp, like corroded plastic. Stevens is a little more reined in here, but he gets his moments to shine. Of special note, I think, is the presence of pianist Keith Tippett--as florid as one might expect but very well placed.

Thanks to Freeform) I pulled the trigger on Monk Hughes & The Outer Realm's A Tribute to Brother Weldon (really a Yesterday's New Quintet Joint). I'm extremely impressed. It's freer, darker, more indirect than Madlib's other albums in this vein, at the same time a tighter album construction than these affairs tend to go. Whereas Shades of Blue falters toward the final few tracks, and where the somewhat more rhythmically simplistic Angles... seems to meander, A Tribute is surprisingly cohesive, unified by the sheer density, the ambition of it all. I think the root of it is--although you can generally trace Jackson to the most obvious sources--and where obviousness falters, anonymity seems to substitute--A Tribute sort of sounds like an album of improvisation, a jazz side. It's like a less virtuosic, a less focused, but decidedly present take on Sun Ra--shambling polyrhythms, keys, corroding "sounds" and all. ...and I think he samples Ed Blackwell's work on Mu, which is just tremendous. I also picked up a Kieran Hebden and Steve Reid collaboration--Tongues, their most recent--and I'm similarly bowled over (or maybe I've just been listening to too much "traditional" free music recently). Reid is very in the pocket on these cuts, seldom the rough dynamo that I'm familiar with (from his work with Charles Tyler), but then he preserves the sort of stone groove, simple as it appears here, that I really value in his playing. Hebden is a fine electronic musician--harmonically unintricate (and you can go nuts, really nuts, with technology of this nature) but rhythmically involving. I almost feel as if Reid has had to sacrifice his polyrhythms here, taking backseat to Hebden's work, but the end result is just fun enough for me to go looking for more...

No opinion on Carter as a man, running hot and cold on his playing (though I've often found Carter, especially in the presence of a "polite" drummer, dense but unjovial, frequently indifferent), but that Adams/Sims date is great. A lot of that, of course, is due to Elvin, but Sims and Tommy Flanagan, in particular, come across in the album's harmonically adventurous territory surprisingly and uncharacteristically (in the best sense of that term) well.

There's been a stroke around my close circle recently, so I can imagine what it's like in your atmosphere. Best wishes to you and those closest to you--and hope you're better soon!

An article in this morning's LA Times used the words "out of the hospital" with regard to Ornette's case, so it seems as if he's recovered on some level (with whatever recovery entails at 77 in heat--yeesh!).

Geez. Hope Ornette is recovering. And a fan died! I hope the officials are taking the weather seriously enough.

Had to comment--Bunky looks thrilled on that Latinization... cover up there.

Happy birthday! I'm a big fan of the Detroit scene, Belgrave and Buzzy Jones included. Speaking of Jones, I was perusing my collection yesterday when I came across some John Sinclair and the Blues Scholars sides--some fine writing on those dates, a lot of motile and articulate freer improvisation, and a hell of a lot of motor city muscle. Nice to have these guys out there...

I got the sense of 60's Blue Note with Equilibrium, too, 83. When the ensemble is running at full blast and pushing a little harder rhythmically--not so involved with the conceits of the technology or the "groove" of the Blue Series format--it has the "feel" of, if not the essence of, the Andrew Hill-Bobby Hutcherson collaborations. Now, I invoke that comparison haltingly--when I first hit this board I gut into a rustle with then-akanalog over the merits of the Thirsty Ear axis, and on some level I still apprehend and will, on occasion, praise the merits of the best of that label, but it is more or less apparent that many of the apparent "innovations" of that clique aren't really innovations at all, or are at least repackagings masquerading in attractive aesthetics. Shipp < or at least not = Andrew Hill--with full due respect to both skill sets. I enjoy Optometry here and there, but a lot of the album comes off as plodding and monochromatic. What attracted me to Spooky's work in improvisation in the first place was the practice of spontaneous interaction with real-time sampling (it works here and there on the album in question), but I've since come to terms with the fact that other people (particularly the European EAIers) have been doing it for decades and to somewhat more focused, compelling effects. I hear the traces of something genuinely new on Optometry, but it's really not quite there with Spooky and crew. I had not attacked A Tribute to Brother Weldon after hearing enough people rag on it's formlessness (and I'm all for formlessness, but I've heard enough Madlib to know that it's not always a good think with Mr. Jackson), but hearing 83's comments I'll give it a try. I like the Strata-East connection--it's an interesting source of inspiration for a (now) relatively mainstream producer, when everyone seems to reach back to Ohio Players-level banality. Welcome, by the way, 83...

As it's always a concern with anything related to ESP--how is the sound?

Chiming in to add emphasis to Donald's recommendation in the last post. The Willisau Concert is some heavy stuff--it has some Makaya Ntshoko on it (drummer for the Jazz Epistles, Abdullah Ibrahim, some Johnny Dyani...) , too, which ties together the electronics and skronk quite eloquently. A lot of McPhee's music, dealing as it does with both deep groove and noise/sound exploration, operates along the lines of contemporary electronica (and the free epigone as well--i.e., Thirsty Ear if you follow this thread, although I'm fond of at least some of Shipp's more improv-centric Blue Series sides). Any mention of Madlib yet? I suppose the elements that really distinguish his production work hew more toward matters of source material (i.e., Otis Jackson as more strictly, baroquely "jazz-centric") than the mechanisms and results of his efforts per se. I find myself listening more the Untinted compilation than I do Shades of Blue--the former a glorified mix tape, the latter his much-ballyhooed let's-raid-the-Blue Note-archives album from a couple years back--although I've derived enjoyment from both at different points in time. I'd say that his somewhat more esoteric Yesterdays New Quintet albums, which mine similar sonic territory, are ultimately more mysterious, creatively (production-wise) "swinging", and satisfying--if only because the experimentation is more aggressive and the project isn't tethered to any sanctified repertoire, if you catch my drift (though if you listen hard enough, you can still hear samples from the same old sources).

He seems to be listed as either Khalil Mhrdi or Khalil Mhridri on Blacknuss, dependent on what source you're using. Whatever the case, I'm sorry to hear this news.

No doubt. Especially as his most readily available material (European Echoes) is some ways away from a lot of what's on those quintet sides.

John Stevens: Freebop (Affinity, 1982) -First time spin, but I've heard nothing about it and the Stevens disco on the efi website fails to mention Jon Corbett's presence on trumpet. As far as first impressions go, and even for a Stevens album, it's good.

I have one or two of their sides--definitely the one with Berger (and Sharrock, for that matter). I like the Zorn comparison. The group sound on these albums is surprisingly skittish, granted that it supposedly takes after Brotzmann and co. Now, granted, I haven't pulled out these recordings for a while, but I do recall thinking that there's less wollup for your buck on the self-titled than the ensemble might suggest--that one recalls the sparser, less dynamic moments of Last Exit--especially with Sonny in tow. Not what I suspected at all, and certainly not the stuff I might reach for when starving for a skronk fix, but not without its interesting moments in a jumpy, Downtownish sort of way.

Ah--that explains why the info got out on the Bay Area scene early. I regret never having the chance to see or meet him (got on the scene way too late...). Thanks for sharing the info/confirmation, J.H.

Stick-Up was my introduction to Herbie, but, aw man, I love Here and Now. Thankfully, I'll be reunited with the main body of my collection tomorrow--off to do some tribute listening!

I heard at a gig yesterday that bassist Herbie Lewis has passed away. I can't find any confirmation at the moment, save a brief tag on his Wikipedia article--and there's been no discussion on any of the major boards, as far as I can tell. A tough, beautiful sound--he will be missed.

Eric Dolphy: Here and There Siegfried Kessler Trio (Barre Phillips/Steve McCall): Live at the "Gill's Club" -Nice to hear some Dolphy I hadn't run into before--and more material from the Five Spot gigs is always good, although it's unfortunate how the form disappears right at Booker Little's solo on Stratus Seeking (beautiful composition, executed better elsewhere--but hey, there are things to enjoy...). -The Kessler is a phenomenal duo recording, from a prime vintage (the English scene, of which Phillips was a part, bustling with creativity, Europe and America on the verge of massive creative changes--and hey, Steve McCall is here!). Eldritch, rhythmically oblique, and tremendously moody; it could be a lost ECM gem--and it certainly has that level of experimental aggression, of mystery.