ep1str0phy

Myra Melford told me about touring with Bennink... he'd walk around before shows looking for new things to play on; whatever was at hand, he'd incorporate into the performance. As much has been said about Bennink's more jocular side (and other 'multi' guys, as Chuck mentioned Joseph Jarman), there's a lot to be said for musicality.

(another tangent) What do you guys think of Han Bennink's sax work? He's not exactly a virtuoso, but it's shocking how proficient he is (and not just in the "shock" and "wail" category--I mean articulation, phrasing, etc.).

The jury may be out for a lot of folks, but I'm a fan of the "critical mass", wall of sound BYG thing. I spun Echo for the first time a couple of days ago and it's a joyous, raucous session (it's the Sunspots reissue, and it doesn't sound much better than Luna Surface... clean as it gets for this stuff, I suppose). There's more than a tinge of reckless abandon to the late-60's free thing, and--in many ways--there was nowhere else to go but in some lateral direction or, as with the more constructivist music of the 70's downtown guys, back "in". Wish I coulda been a Paris barfly back in those days...

Just got a copy of Willem Breuker Kollektief: Celebrating 25 Years on the Road (a booklet w/a 2CD compilation). Although I'm generally unfamiliar with Breuker's solo material (I enjoy his sideman work with the Globe Unity crowd), I'm a fan of what I've heard. It's nice to hear all this material in a single shot--really drives home the delirium of it all... although there's only so much "evolutionary mobility" with this sort of aesthetic--it's an orgy of cultural convergence, and you can only do so much with a finite set of infinite materials, dig?... As difficult as it is, this material begs to be examined on its own merits--it's not "free improvisation" or "jazz" or even improvisatory music per se--it's a sort of ethos in sound, and it doesn't transcend its materials... This is the sort of music that's as much prefabricated for the used record bins as it is live theatre--and (although something's clearly lost outside of the performance context) I'm not sure it makes too much of a difference how this stuff is packaged, dispersed, played, or replayed. It's just there--not that there's anything wrong with that. That being said--any one of you (I know Clifford has his art history thing together, so I'd be interested in hearing some perspective...) have any thoughts on the group? It's not quite forbidding to the relative newcomer, but the "air" of it all (if not the sound) is pretty daunting all the same. Also--that Saga of the Outlaws cover is mark. Are we any closer to seeing a reissue?

Bennink/Chadbourne/Kondo: Jazz Bunker Rolf & Joachim Kuhn: Music for Two Brothers Terry Riley: A Rainbow in Curved Air

Considering that our tastes tend to overlap, and how certain threads seem to have lapsed into all-out gang warfare, can't be no harm in seeing--at the very least, we got some good recs.

So we've finally reached Sounds of North American Frogs... (on a marginally more serious level, that has to be the most infamous curiosity of curiosities--if we're doing better than frogs, than things aren't the worst.)

(I'll field this however I can) I know that, with the card (at least), the person at the counter will tell you what the discount is before ringing you up. Without the card, I suppose you can always ask.

I think I'll leave it there--for hilarious posterity. Tangent (and random thought)--what's up with the rights to all the JCOA albums? Communications got reissued on ECM, but that was a Mantler-centered date... any reason why we haven't seen the others? Oh, and EDIT about the love thing--not talking about the music, per se (that's the realm of opinion), but rather comportment (that's the realm of diplomacy). I'm with Clifford on the notion that we don't need another Bagatellen thread on here (tho it's a little late...).

(Respectfully disagreeing--Organissimo's avant threads could use a little love, now and again) Not Marion's most involved date--not by any stretch of the imagination--but it's as fine a post-bop duet album as I've heard. Knowing Waldron and Brown (not personally...), this date could have gone in a million other directions... as it is, I think it makes for beautiful, pleasant listening that doesn't lapse into the sort of pandering and faux-pas that a lot of "good natured", "modern" jazz does. In other words, it's a standard bag... but the spirit is still there, IMO.

Have any of you guys gotten that Borders Card thigamabob? It gives you an automatic discount (and it's free)--usually the discount that they throw up online. Sign up at the counter, like a Safeway Card.

OoooOOOooohh... (hey--music is the healing force of the universe, right?)

-and no real discussion of the Euro free improv cats, either. If the purpose of this thread is to trace the narrative of American free jazz (Black American in origin) into the modern day, then there are a number of tangents we could probably move into (EAI being one, perhaps the most creatively viable of several... regardless, I'm wary of any linear narrative conception that positions free jazz on the furthest, earliest end and progresses into Euro free improv, then EAI--the gradients are a little more complex, although I don't suspect that anyone here thinks otherwise). -J Abbey introduces a legitimate issue, however-- just how narrative is our conception of this music? We may be running in circles about the free jazz mill where the spirit of the music has passed elsewhere (creatively, if not socially... there's a stark imbalance in the ethnic demographics of Af-Am on the one hand and EAI on the other, but that's another story). I, for one, am more than enthused about the potentials of EAI, although I'm not sure that it's our sole, saving grace; there are some starving, dying traditions out there.

My proclivities in the way of "putting in the work" overlap with JS's on a number of levels (and it frustrates me enough, as a guitar player--and, in effect, instant anathema to a number of ossified "idioms" that I fall into--watching cats make a lotta noise without the bill-paying skills, so to speak), although I can't agree on Doyle (that's just me). That being said, Doyle is an enigma (to some a cipher) and I'd like to hear someone (Blowsitt?) flesh out a bit more of his background (it's a talking point, no doubt)... Baraka/Jones has done some f'ed up shit, but it's difficult to totally ruin that Ayler ensemble. -Finally: it's been brought up here and before--there are hundreds of other albums that might have fit onto this list. Now, as list averse as Organissimo is, I would like to hear what some of our more senior members (the "been there" folks) might rank as essential or favorite listening of this vintage (from the over or underground, as I'm not sure what the "free jazz underground" actually is).

Brandon Ross is still doing some interesting, vital work (working with MMelford right now, and the band is pretty kickin'), although there's quite a bit of poety-singer/songwriter in his bag. A great, if somewhat atypical Marion Brown record that has been making the rounds is "Songs of Love and Regret" (a duo with Mal Waldron). Now, this is not a Funny Rat record, but it features some fine Marion blowing (very in the pocket the entire set--which is to say "inside", I guess--but, yes, "mellow, warmly lyrical, sparse").

I'm an LA boy, raised in what became the ethnic slums (tho my family is now living near Fabio--seen the guy around, and he wears that damn button-down shirt all the time... my Dad cracked some jokes about birds slamming into faces... I think he was buying yogurt and "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter," but I digress... we got out of that part of the SF Valley after one-too-many police raids on porn complexes). I've been in Berkeley for some time, however, so now I'm sort of Bay Area, too... Straw men, yeah. Perhaps I harbor far too much rage toward forces I can't control/forces I shouldn't control, but there's a sort of bravado and entitlement about the noise/hipster set. This goes back to the 'Ageing/Aging avant-garde' thread: there's a gulf between coming into the music and imposing oneself upon the music. It's one thing if it's racial (I'm Filipino myself, though I pray I haven't abandoned my heritage... it's complicated enough that I generally listen to and have associated with a Black American idiom)--it's another if it's ideological (e.g., now "we're the tradition"--which is really presumptuous, though maybe I'm just raging against some excesses and successes). That's something to come to terms with on a personal level. As far as the Doyle debate is concerned: maybe we're all looking for different things and arguing in parallel. Amateurism is a big issue in this music, and it can certainly irritate where money and iconology (etc.) are involved... just out of curiosity ('cause I came into this music late)--and for those who were around back then--who did the "can he play? yes/no" debates revolve around? Doyle is easily identified... but who else? Giuseppi Logan? Also--JSngry: what do you think of Peter Brotzmann?

Edit to say I was a little off-base on that last statement--bad mood, being a brat, etc. That being said... Caught me on that one--the speaking for someone else bit (i.e., assuming one cat is bourgey while the other isn't). To clarify: my issue isn't so much with Thurston the man (who has produced some fine music and has done some fine things for the 'free' whateverish community) but more with the extended noise-rock ethos that seems to follow in his wake. As far as differing life experiences are concerned--Thurston and SY have certainly reached heights of acceptance that Cecil, etc. (certainly Arthur Doyle) will never scale (and yeah, that is, in large part, a race thing--it's also a genre thing, an idiom thing, a historical thing...). It's not an issue of holy--it's just irksome... there's a little resentment there when a list like this can get tossed out (maybe not flip, but it really sounds like it) and your well-dressed noise-rock cat in the corner won't give you the time on Eric Dolphy.

(edited for emphasis, in typical Kofsky fashion) That's always been my problem with the Thurston list--while I love much of the music, the article just reeks of cliquey, ultra-hip posturing. It tweaks my stomach a bit (tho my bowels are not so extreme as Chuck's)... some good upshot in getting the music out there (as I mentioned in FRat, a good proportion of those albums have been reissued in the period subsequent the publishing date of the original piece), but it feels like a hipster co-optation--bourgey talk for a decidedly un-bourgey music, which is wrong on some deep, if perhaps unintentional level. That being said, I'm a huge fan of Arthur Doyle. No doubt the cat had some problems (some of his solo sides are flat-out disturbing), but I'll be damned if that sound doesn't get to me in some powerful, profound ways. Then again, I seem to be one of the few guys on this board who really likes Albama Feeling...

Hell Yeah. I'm a fan of Seeking, tho Dauwhe is the one that really knocks me out...

It's late, but that summoned a chuckle.

I have no illusions, but I'm still fresh enough (mired in the relatively idealistic atmosphere of DT Berkeley) to feel the sting. Doesn't mean the young folk don't appreciate the tough love. As for living: I don't plan on dying anytime soon--and I'll wear my lungs proudly. -Apologies, btw, to CJ Shearn, whose thread has spun off into a million tangents. Good luck!

Yeah, all three places I've lived. Strange, eh? Agreed, some on my list are pushin' it. Didn't know Rob was an ex-roadie. Nice. The big (national) names on the "AG" scene are generally somewhat older than the big names in the mainstream, if I'm not mistaken. I'd think folks would be hard pressed to compile thoroughgoing lists of interesting, thought-provoking young improvisers under the age of, say, 35, but the cats are out there and, more often than not, paying their spiritual (if not always economic) dues. I didn't know about the fertility of the Chicago avant scene until Larry's enlightening post (above), and nothing about the pastie situation until clem brought me 'round. Thirded on Christoph Gallio--I'm a fan of the great, if unlikely Tiegel reissue.

I love this one--turned me on to Rene McLean. I sense less gloss on this one than on some of the other live Woody albums--perhaps it's the ensemble, but there's just something 'rougher' about this album. Regardless, the arrangements are terrific, and there's some killer blowing. Interesting to compare this version of "Hello to the Wind" with the one on Bobby Hutcherson's Now--totally different approaches.

I was really excited about the news blurb that's been popping up all over the place--really exicted, that is, until I found out that we're only at microwaves. Leave it to my jaded, sci-fi-raised mind, but total invisibility can't come fast enough. And flying cars.

Well, that's my quote of the day. On a whole nother level--and something clem brought up--there's the idea that a lot of interesting modern improv (in the last three or so decades, in particular) was almost vehemently grassroots before getting globalized. The upsetting component to all this is how parochial those microcosmic scenes are--and elitism, even (or maybe especially) among the guys doing the "new stuff," is truly and obstinately out there.