ep1str0phy

I just got a copy of District Six's To Be Free. Frankly, I didn't even know that this one existed; my understanding is that it's not Chris McGregor's band, although he features prominently on the recording (doesn't compose for the group, though). There's some good playing here, especially by reedman Harrison Smith (his sax solo on the "Songs for Winnie Mandela" suite is hard, tough, and measured in the John Gilmore tradition), but all in all it feels like a tamer Very Urgent. It's certainly nice to hear McGregor play a little more "open" so late in the game, though.

The John Carter Quintet: Night Fire -Being one of the few early Carter/Bradford albums I've heard, I'm very much impressed. There are elements here that surpass Dauwhe, although they're very much in the same atmosphere. I think the big difference is the smaller ensemble; some among the group, including Roberto Miranda and William Jeffrey (who have continued to play with Bradford, and in fine fashion), are much better served by the reduced environs. Fine writing, powerful, aggressive playing all around--and so much detail.

Nice video!

That's really strange, because I'm spinning Tauhid right now (not as nice as your copy, but synchronicity, geez...).

I've heard Trible perform that one live a few times. The dynamics he gets out of his voice (and that tune) are unbelieveable.

I found a copy of the Roulette Uhuru Afrika/Highlife twofer not too long ago. These are all-star sides (the Uhuru Afrika large group, for example, features--impossibly--Clark Terry, Benny Bailey, Richard Williams, and Freddie Hubbard), and the playing is generally stellar--even if nothing pans out as the all-star melee that opportunity would suggest. The pan-African overtones are very strong on both sides, although the music really teeters between crafty hard bop and timely rhetoric in the Max Roach mode (he appears on here). It's very worthwhile for fans of Weston and the Candid clique, although it may be difficult to find.

I haven't heard the duet recordings, but I'm becoming increasingly fond of his work. I enjoy his contributions to the blogosphere--it's nice that there's a hub of improvisers industrious enough for regular reporting to the community. Bynum did a nice bit on the Olu Dara/Phillip Wilson hat duo on Destination: out a while ago.

Red: I didn't even know that they had recorded on that tour. That must be killer. Interesting that, when I saw him, Rutherford had the better part of his recent catalog in tow; I purchased a copy of Chicago 2002 myself. Funny--he had a pretty "in jokey" sweater on: it said something like "Great White Honky Music" (a nice nod to the Americans...). I like Ho Bynum, too--a phenomenal player, and there's no doubt that he's mastered a lot of the vocabulary. I had sort of a mixed reaction to True Events (a recent duo w/Tomas Fujiwara, who's a great player as well)--one of the rare brass/drum duos. Bynum and Fujiwara get along well, although I feel as if the album mines obvious territory a little too much in spaces. Regardless, Ho Bynum is a total scholar, and it's nice to see someone who's really studied and sought to apply the "often talked about but seldom confronted" lessons of the past couple of decades.

Damn, Red. Sounds like things are moving along for you... Somthing else: I heard Eisenstadt with Paul Rutherford and Torsten Muller something like a year ago (I sprung for Sam Rivers's Vista not long afterward). He's an interesting percussionist, to say the least--not overpowering, but very propulsive. He's got a balance of transparency and power that remind me of Louis Moholo-Moholo a bit.

The Rastacan website really doesn't offer that much information. A packed release, to be sure--but I'm always up for seeing the Braxton ensembles in action. For that matter: I'm a total neophyte in the way of Ghost Trance Music, but I'm digging into Four Compositions (GTM) 2000 (on Delmark) right now. What the ensemble lacks in "tightness" (a necessary element of the music, as the group really wasn't familiar with the compositions in advance) it compensates for in the way of aplomb and daring. I can think of few other musicians so given to the struggle against complacency and predictability, and it's certainly recognizable in the theory of this performance context. Now, I still think it's possible to split the difference (e.g., the Crispell/Dresser/Hemingway group), but those groups are once in a blue moon. I think it's just as fun, if not more fun, to hear musicians struggle to think through a performance (as with GTM (2000)). These days, anyway, I'll gladly trade riskless craftsmanship and calculation for a shambles of an experiment...

Marion Brown's Le Temps Fou is in digital circulation! The wonders of the blogosphere never cease to amaze.

Count me among the fans. What a powerful, personal voice. (A shame his stuff is so difficult to track down; I picked up the box on a lark--it changed some things for me.)

Hey, it's Ornette's 77th today. Break out those copies of Science Fiction and Soapsuds, Soapsuds.

Didn't know that about PR. In a similar vein, I always find it remarkable to hear Phil Minton's stuff with Westbrook! I heard him play in Oakland a few months back (really unlikely that you'd see one of the masters of European improv playing in a garage in California, but we were lucky that day... class act, and a total gentleman), and it really drives the point home. To know who came out of those groups--John Surman, Mike Osborne, Harry Miller, Nisar Ahmed Khan, Kenny Wheeler, Barre Phillips, Harry Beckett--what a time it must have been to musically grow up in the UK!

I kept waiting for something to buy--long enough, so I just put some in. It won't be the last time.

Just put some in the pot--not much, but I hope it helps...

Rutherford, too--he was with the Westbrook camp (remarkably, granted his penchant for total and nigh-total abstraction in later years). As far as weird radio tapes--talk about free improv: there's a Pukwana/Brotzmann concert in circulation, and it's pretty hard core (not that horrible-sounding, with maybe enough time for a release). With intermittent excursions into the radio tape realm--as well as access to FMP material--I'd say that UMS is (regardless of what you'll say/have with Corbett) a pretty great hope for future reissues in this music. Balancing criticisms and positive elements, it's like the RVG series of European Free Improv.

Knowing how dour Bruce can get, that clip really kicks my ass.

Agreed on Mangelsdorff. I think he's pretty important as both an early voice of "modernism" over there (and as precedent for his more patricidal peers). I have yet to hear his earliest dates in the free-ish/modal mode (again, an availability issue), though his presence in later decades is certainly felt.

Mingus was also into Harry Beckett's stuff. CT - I'm not sure I would be able to distinguish 'Britjazz' from the improv scene, especially at this stage...Evan Parker? Sure - maybe the MIC recordings (on which tack, also Iskra 1903)...but I don't know...But look at all the SME (great call on Karyobin), early Oxley, etc. records... Some historically fascinating recordings from the UK - The Joseph Holbrooke Trio...Miles' Mode!!! I think the Brotzmann FMPs would have to figure in this discussion too. By that measure, virtually all of the early FMP's play a role here. Important to a discussion that hinges upon music that is more often "talked about" than "heard" is the fact that, barring the every-so-often UMS reissue, the better part of these albums remain unavailable. The present state of CD availability is skewed toward a very narrow understanding of who/what was important. Talk about Mingus--there's an anecdote about when Charles Mingus met Johnny Dyani. Mingus said something to the effect of, "Do you read music?"--Johnny said, "No." Mingus replies--"I read music". The bassists proceed to play, after which Mingus goes--"You sounded sharp." Dyani, in typical, badass fashion, replies, "You sounded flat." I think there was a lot of respect there.

Mercifully, I don't think I've ever seen a Sinatra debate. But all the other stuff--isn't it a general board thing as well? Jazzcorner's debates about Wynton, from what I can tell, are substantially more violent than ours.

Has anyone read the Harriott book? I think history is starting to hip to him (more than a few modern reads are figuring him into the UK equation). As far as American recognition (of any sort)--IIRC, Mingus wanted Harriott for his group (?)--that's going somewhere (never materialized, apparently).

Yeah, reading that one right now. It's as muh a sociological study as it is a musicology book, and I sometimes feel as if the more concrete theoretical observations are just shoehorned into the text. You can deal with free music on manifold political and social levels, but--more often than not--you're left describing the "feel" of the sound in the same set of nebulous adjectives and italicized terminology. It's definitely one of the most comprehensive English language texts we have right now. The micro-history of European Free Improvisation is a piece unto itself--and we'll deal with American influences all we like, but--in the long run--it's the same set of influences that the contemporary US folks have been grappling with (barring, of course, art music reference points--e.g., Schoenberg--that the mainstream of American improvisation only touches in passing). I think the similarities are there, but not through the usual avenues--i.e., it isn't so much a matter of divining influences as much as drawing parallels. There's an involved case, for example, in the relationship between the AACM and the European schools; despite the obvious personal discord (George Lewis's Gittin' to Know Y'all essay is an intelligent, if aggravated, study in free musical culture clash, despite the obvious exceptions to the rule--Lewis and, most spectacularly, Anthony Braxton among them), there's something to be said for the expanded rhetoric and ideologies of the Americans post-Civil Rights/co-cultural nationalism and the practically concurrent, dyed-in-the-wool revolutionism of the Brits, Dutch, Germans (West and East), etc. It's most interesting when you take into account that the AACM, BAG, CBA (and their ilk) didn't really interact with the Europeans that much over the period that Late sets apart. Like Clifford suggests, it comes down to "music"--and it will come down to "politics" to, as there's something going on pretty much everywhere in the late-60's/early-70's (and it's not just an American thang). Among the dozens and dozens of specific groups that bear notice--there's the South African Blue Note axis (w/regard to which we've discussed, at length, elsewhere) and the Japanese free improv guys (Abe, Takayanagi...)--contemporary to the "major" European experiments. On the latter note (and Clifford can add to this, as I know he's coming down the same track)--there's been a "little glut" of reissues lately in the way of historical Japanese free improv albums (expensive, but from what I've heard--particularly Takayanagi's Eclipse, from what seems to be the upteenth improv label/organization called "Iskra"--it's all extremely prescient and sometimes shocking).

Wasn't the Quartet just Greene, Grimes, Price, and Brown? (knew that, right...) Killer appearance by Frank Smith--who is nowhere these days, but was (IMO) going somewhere as an energy player--and by Tom Price, too, whose association with Grimes was sweet but all-too-short lived.

That gig sounds terrific. So Dave Young is still active, then? And Baker was on cello, I assume?