ep1str0phy

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.

Agree with you there, B. A lot of MEV stuff (I'm thinking of United Patchwork right now) could pass as Euro-American free jazz in a Lacyish, post-BYG vein. As with Ra, a lot of this music has electronics without being straight-up, jazz-rock "electric." Now, if we want to get into pseudo-funky free improv--about as free as it gets without losing that "rock" feel in so much of the later Miles stuff--then we can mention Arcana's The Last Wave. That's even less accessible than the crazier Lifetime moments, and with Bill Laswell to boot.

"Songmy" is kind of off on its own, all things considered (it's not just electric stuff on there, right? Some wild things going on...). The Living Time stuff, though, is pretty stridently electric, although not always in a funky or rocky way, certain soloists notwithstanding--it's still very Russellish in the long run.

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that it's so difficult to get inside Ornette's head. I do my best to subscribe to the conceit that he's completely conscious of the materials and idioms within which he functions and, on that level, it's easier to bypass the smell of bull... Pulled this one out of a Downbeat interview I ran across: Howard Mandel: We're talking about the word jazz. I know you've written about yourself as being a jazz artist. Is that really the categorization that you find keeps you from being able to perform in other contexts? OC: Yeah, I think those terms existed before I existed and I can't quite outdate those terms, but I've outgrown them... I have to find out how I can get what I do where I would like to have it done. WHat do I need to do that? In the Western world your success is based on how many people you reach, and in the music called jazz up to now it's only people who've made money from other levels of music who are allowing people that have a jazz background to integrate, to increase their financial status by mixing with other kinds of music. <snip> Mandel: Do you feel you're co-opting an audeince by having electric guitars there with you? Ornette: ...It's not the same thing as having an electric band, having two guitars. That's really what I have, two guitars. I don't call it an electric band. The terms that pepople have had to play their music under! Categories and the ways in which the musical world allows musicians to survive, usually are much more about the selling and buying than the creating and performing. (typed quickly and probably messily) There's a general sense of ambivalence about Ornette's ideology in this period--jaded by industry dealings, Skies of America and the Columbia situtation had gone bust, economic hardship, etc. I presume that there's some sense of obfuscation regarding Ornette and his public face, but I'd be damned if he isn't struggling to maintain the classic "no labels" optimism at this point. I love him to death, but I think it's a lot more fun--and Mandel sort of nails it--when he suggests that Ornette was co-opting an audience. Of course, the musical drive of the Prime Time group was disco guys--Ellerbee, Tacuma, (later) Weston--with some more jazz and free oriented cats mixed in--but Ornette has never had trouble fitting people into his musical conception. The idea that Ornette not only knew what he was doing (and there are all those quotes about wanting to reach a bigger audience and whatnot) but did so through a willful co-optation of indsutry-driven jive is not just subversive--it is, in my book, brilliant. Ornette was pissed and upset enough to refuse to wink, but Prime Time is one fantastic wink, in my book. When I hear the more strident Prime Time sides Dancing In Your Head, Body Meta, etc., I hear, among other things, "fuck you and I'll have fun doing it." I don't think it necessarily makes it as great funk, let alone free funk (and the BAG and AACM guys were all over that as, as many of the senior group here can attest), and it's really not just electric free jazz. BUT it sounds like Ornette music to me, and it's no more deluded or fake, AFAIC, than The Empty Foxhole (which was more or less the same thing in a jazz trio context).

Now that Billy Hart needs a reissue (Enchance--not the guy).

I'm familiar with those garish looking 1201 reissues--is this the same program? (they did Silent Tongues...). If so, I'm surprised (and glad) to hear that the program is still up and running. As for solo Cecil, I'm fond of Air Above Mountains myself...

Looks like a revolving door: BOGR

I'd argue that late-70's Sun Ra stuff like Sleeping Beauty and Lanquidity is about as sonically/technologically reactionary as any one of the founding fathers of free jazz got without losing a sense of edge. For my money, both Prime Time and the disco-Ra sides are mindf'in brilliant, but so long as we're talking catering to (or in, or with) the times, might as well bring that up.

Seasons is some hard, hard shit. Nice to see some love for the Brotherhood, and I'm glad that someone (Quincy) picked out that solo Monk--it's always been a sentimental favorite of mine.