ep1str0phy

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.

Note to FR people: Selwyn Lissack is playing DMG on December 12th... too bad I'm in Berkeley. Maybe we'll get that album reissued, sooner or later...

Morbid as it is, talking about death is as much about remembering--so I'll throw Mongezi Feza in here... died in a sort of sanitarium and, if I recall correctly, he was actually suffering from pneumonia (exacerbated by the doctors' poor diagnosis and treatment). F'in tragedy.

I haven't been on the scene long enough to know whether or not the price escalation for stuff like Alabama Feeling and Black Ark preceded or followed the canonizing practices of the free jazz community. I mean, as much as I love Arthur Doyle, I'd have to contend that the gushing superlative of cats like Moore and Rudolph Grey was what got him where is in the 'pantheon,' so to speak.

I can see it now: "2+2=5"

Bruce Wayne George Duke Bix Beiderbecke

Just got a copy of Khan Jamal's Drumdance to the Motherland (I know there was some talk about this one a while ago). It's as spacy and edgy as everyone says (and quite melodic, too). Don't know about Shaw (although I'm also a fan), but Banana is, apparently, not quite the scorcher that Donkey is.

Uhuru Na Umoja is probably my favorite Wright-related session (although the ESP trio grows on me with each listen). Concise, focused, and intense. It's really a Noah Howard album (I was shocked to discover that the final two cuts on Black Ark are actually the same compositions as the first two cuts on Uhuru), but all the musicians are on on that one. Art Taylor, for where he comes from, is really a stunner in a freer context.

Just want to say that the CBS twofer not only looks legit--it also sounds relatively good. I've been enjoying it for ages now (the strings/trio sections call to mind what Skies of America might have been...).

I've seen some of the Bleu Regard albums up and about, though they're always extremely pricey.

Naw, it's not so much the music--which is almost uniformly worthwhile--as it is various aspects of the presentation. Not all of this is Atavistic's fault--we have deteriorating tape, poor recording, etc. At the same time, the UMS hits some high peaks (I've been thrilled by the reissues of Pleasure, the GUO, Brotz, McPhee...) and certainly throws in a few oddballs (e.g., the Tiegel album--good as it is--the excellent, if horrendously recorded Lacy mixes that have been surfacing, and the second Luther Thomas UMS, which was totally unexpected). The UMS tends to oscillate between lost classics and esoterica/zaniness, which is where the opinions of fellow board members can come in handy... Now, rights issues notwithstanding, there are a lot of classic, seldom-heard albums that I'd like to see meet the light of day (again): Babi Music, Black Ark, The Sun is Coming Up, the non-Ogun Blue Notes member albums, the Dixon-Shepp Quartet on Savoy, the Marzette Watts album on Savoy... but those are 'UM' of a different sort. By the way--has anyone noticed just how much of Thurston Moore's 'Free Jazz Underground' list has gotten reissued? Off to rehearse and (probably) buy some Otomo Yoshihide...

This reminds me of that Ornette story about the Town Hall concert--the flyers were posted up saying "free jazz concert"... that is, free jazz concert--and not free jazz concert. The commonfolk were miffed. I enjoyed Bern's CD with Fred Hopkins (can't recall the name right now), and he's easily my favorite of the Ornette guitarists (Ulmer notwithstanding). I'm looking forward to hearing this one.

Yeah that's what I meant. It's interesting to see where he pops up--and to great effect, too (have yet to hear a session of his--leader or sideman, outside of the AEC--that I don't like). Akanalog brought up the Bluiett twofer as an AOW a while back--that one scorches.

By the way, if you google the Shinjuku scene you'll hit a Yahoo Asia article--brief at it is--documenting some thoughts by the survivors and new blood (Yoshihide Otomo's straight in there). Like we'd get that kind of press here... http://asia.news.yahoo.com/060313/kyodo/d8gadgr05.html Weird, wild stuff.

I really don't hear nearly so much about this segment of early free improv--here or anywhere else, and that includes the major 'avant' boards--as I do the Americans and Europeans. Modern Japanese improv is a popular topic, yeah, but this angle in the music is ridiculously obscure granted the historical resonance of it all. I'd be interested in hearing a more detailed history of the Shinjuku scene, any way.

As perhaps the least well-documented AEC member (notwithstanding the players from the formative days--e.g., Phillip Wilson, Charles Clark...), Don Moye really got around in the Loft Days.

(woozy) ugh... hungry again... I think Sunburst is the only Mwandishi family album I'm not too fond of--I was expecting something a little weightier. However acute the ensembles are, there's something unnervingly fluffy about the whole affair. Next to the other albums in the group, it's disarmingly straightforward and, indeed, dated... which isn't to say that Mwandishi isn't at least a little tethered to the times--just that the sensibility of the group had the capacity to transcend the trappings of instrumentation, genre, etc. Sunburst is just that much of a period piece by comparison. Of course, the Mwandishi group doesn't play on the better part of the album, so...

This sorta reminds me of how I don't like Sunburst...

Speaking of Dennis Charles: did anyone pick up the Sirone UMS CD (DC's on that one, right?)? I'm somewhat wary of the UMSs (inconsistent in quality)... but I'm buckling on this one.

I'm getting a copy of "Last Date" in the mail soon. Will report!