ep1str0phy

Who's in the lineup on the NJO album? I'm only somewhat familiar with the ensemble, but I recall several 'faces' in the group (Carr, Lowther, Heckstall-Smith...?).

Man, I would have loved to have had those rhythms, tones, and timbres swirling all 'round--they must have been hard, hard core in a small club. Now Prime Time is generally restricted to festivals and large venues. There was that SF Jazz performance a while back that featured live body piercing and acrobats in bondage gear...

Whoa--nice bringing that Barron up. Re: Osby/Cyrille--they've got a duo album circulating for relatively high prices (~$20), but it seems like it may be worth it. Also worth mentioning is Cyrille's work with John Tchicai (quite a bit, as of late)... Tchicai's darker tenor sound goes great with AC's skittish rhythms. Also: has anyone heard the Cyrille/Braxton collaborations? Any good?

'Old Yeller' Grant Green Michael White

Cyrille is invaluable to the BYG/Actuel sessions he's on. He is beyond belief on New Africa (Grachan Moncur III session, presently available as a twofer with One Morning I Woke Up Very Early--some involved, powerful drumming there: dynamic, technically complex, and sensitive. The track 'When' is, for me, one of the greatest of the 60's.

Good call on Life, felser. The sound does suck, but there's some hardcore Pharoah on there. For the more 'inside' bent, this is probably one of his better sides.

The Luna Surface CD reissue that has been circulating is a Sunspots reissue, and it sounds like crap (much, much worse than the Sharrock or Seasons), so I personally doubt that there's too much of a sound quality difference among the various reissue programs.

Ask the Ages is, AFAIC, the best Pharoah on record since the earlier 70's. It contains some of PS's most powerful, focused energy playing in a studio setting--and in the 90's, too! The rest of the cast (Sonny, Charnett Moffett, Elvin Jones) ain't bad either. Also--it's probably the least obtrusive Laswell production on record (and the most well-integrated overdubbing on a free jazz album I've heard).

The Theresas are pretty inconsistent, but I'm a big fan of Rejoice. Some beautiful duets on that one--not the fire 'of old,' but Pharoah's tone is true and beautiful.

Keith Rowe Rob Lowe John Doe

pistro-i think you and i pretty much have the same favorites though i don't care for karma in that i don't think i ever have to hear it again. how would everyone rate izipho zam with the impulses? i like it a lot and would give it an A. I've never heard Izipho Zam--I was waiting, for some time, for a copy at the local record shop to drop in price (happens sometimes). Guess someone beat me to it. A crappy reason, I know, but when you've got to budget your cash... I guess I still like Karma the best--or somewhere near the top--due to sentimental reasons. Pharoah was actually the first 'jazz' concert I went to--not too long after, my Dad bought me copies of Four for Trane and Karma. It was mindblowing hearing for the first time (back when I thought that Pharoah was Coltrane and that everyone should scream on every recording).

The similarities between "Hum-allah..." and "The Creator..." never really bothered me. Maybe it's because I like that archetypal Pharoah vamp so much, but the dynamic differences between the two (the Jewels of Thought cut moving straight into the groove, whereas "Creator..." takes some time to settle; "Hum-allah..." has a descending figure tacked onto the end of the what is essentially the "Creator" chords, IIRC) were always enough for me. The only Pharoah Impulses I like as much as Karma and Jewels are Black Unity and Elevation...

Well, I certainly hope they don't "do it", if you mean "follow those rules"! Can anyone give a rational explanation for why one should avoid passive voice or a verb like "is"? It's like telling people to tie their hands behind their back then play tennis. Plenty of useful ammo against boneheaded stylistic prescription at the Language Log site, if you're curious: e.g. http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog...ves/003380.html Yeah, poor word choice on my part. I'm just surprised, sometimes, at the grammar (or lack thereof) that I run across... and I'm not talking fast-talk, hypercondensed like clem or hyphen-happy or conversational--all stylistic choices, to be sure (like the whole be verb thing which, outside of educational habit, really doesn't make a difference in the long run)... I mean that folks can't write. I'm all for streamlining the writing process--and rules can sometimes help with that--but there's a threshold beyond which you fall into complication. In other words: I've seen the "to be" rule do some good things and some bad things. At this level, though, I'd think we'd be past the point where telling really makes a damn (though I've often ignored the telling and worked out swell).

I'm never in LA when this stuff happens...

You Are Here, I am There - Polydor, 1969 Dean, Charig, Evans, Clyne, Marshall, Tippett Dedicated to You, But You Weren't Listening - Vertigo, 1970 Dean, Charig, Evans, Whitehead, Babbington, Gary Boyle, Tony Uta, Wyatt, Howard, Spring I like both of these quite a bit. He was doing a lot more than I was at 21! I had forgotten how young Tippett was at the time... damn! Great compositions, some good spots--but I get the feeling (just hear the first one) that the band is really holding back. It may have something to do with how it was all recorded, but I've certainly heard more powerful music from these guys. Surprised at the reaction to the A&M though--everything else I've heard has been positive... though we take all opinions into account, and I'll keep an open mind when I hear it. (we now return to your regularly scheduled FR...)

I've seen but not heard Blueprint. I've been fairly unimpressed with the Tippett I've heard--a little to clean, polite--but I love him on the sideman stuff I've heard (Spirits Rejoice and Isipingo somewhere at the top). As for A&M--just sorta came up. Like a lot of stuff in this thread(?)... the Hart album is topic appropriate at least (Redman, Lake, Pullen etc.).

Has there been a CD issue? I'm fond of the A&M reissue packaging--little gatefold digipacks, really colorful (hard to read though, and maybe just obfuscation in the way of distracting from the music... pretty consistent material, though, from what I've heard). Another (tangential) topic: what do you guys think of Septober Energy? I've heard nothing but terrible things and, granted the cast, the album isn't entirely remarkable--a lot of droning, anonymous rock grooves with some caterwauling far into the mix. That being said, there are some great spots here by the likes of Elton Dean, Paul Rutherford, Dudu Pukwana, Mongezi Feza... Also: got a Taku Sugimoto album recently (Guitar Quartet)--extremely minimalist... I'd be tempted to call it EAI, but it's modern improv in it's own piece--minute-or-so long intervals between brief, splintered harmonics. There's a review on Bagatellen from a while back which nails it--Sugimoto is incorporating the acoustic environs into the music, toying with blocks of silence. I'm nowhere near equipped to give an extensive analysis on this one, but it certainly seems as if the quartet is taking precedent (the AMM extended family being one) to some new places.

Ouch.

The vendetta against "to be" verbs and passive voice is fairly common practice in educational institutions these days. They're high school rules, but... I mean, it's shocking how many people don't do it. That said, I've had only minimal editing on my AAJ pieces--no all-out hatchet job, and the staff is pretty understanding. It's one thing to bash the institution, but my experiences with the editing crew has been congenial. On a completely different level, my writing is generally pretty overblown...

Eggaahhhhhh...ugh... (retches, hopefully in an explicitly non-sexual manner)

Extremely congenial staff out there--it's a pleasure doing the contribution work. Good luck!

After reading some interviews, I wouldn't be surprised if Peter Brotzmann and Peter Kovald [sic] were on the other end of the camera.

I still can't get over this. I mean, that was fast.

13-17 for me was spent listening to this stuff, so I guess I'm fortunate in that sense. It doesn't always occur to me, but my salad salad days pop up now and again (my girlfriend, sympathetically receptive to modern improv--had her dancing to Steve Reid not too long ago--went nuts when I went into my early-90's singer-songwriter mode yesterday). I'm speaking from the perspective of youth and inexperience, though--I'd like to know just how much of it sticks with, how much changes... oh, thirty, forty years down the line.

Laswell per se is a can of worms, but his whole ethos is part of what has happened to the legacy of early jazz-rock (and electric Miles, for that matter). I'd agree that Laswell never "went electric," though, 'cause he had nowhere to go from. It's interesting to hear Tony Williams in that context though--especially that late in the game. Arcana was essentially a more pissed-off Lifetime.