B. Clugston

"One Up, One Down," "One Up and One Down" and now "Down One, Up One." "One Down, One Up" may well be the most mistitled song in jazz.

I wonder Braxton's "aversion" to totally free improv may have been a phase at the time (1974), since he went to do many totally free projects (ie. Company). His susequent duo albums range from compositions to improvisations, with quite a few having a mix of both. Moment Precieux sounds like they may have agreed on a strategy beforehand. Mind you, they were very familiar with each other's playing by this point (1986).

Ornette Coleman Crisis Anthony Braxton’s Arista albums (only Creative Orchestra Music and 3/4s of Montreux/Berlin were ever released on CD) Anthony Braxton Live at Moers Festival (and all the other Ring/Moers releases) Willem Breuker Live in Berlin (FMP) Jimmy Giuffre’s Ad Lib, Seven Pieces, In Concert (Verve) Roscoe Mitchell Duets with Anthony Braxton (Sackville) Sam Rivers Black Africa! Perugia (Horo) Archie Shepp & Philly Joe Jones (this may be out there in some dubious version) Sun Ra - various Edward Vesala Kullervo And how about a widely-available release of Charles Mingus’ Live at Monterey? There’s a few other Mingus dates from the mid-1960s that have made little or no appearances in the digital era.

Here's some articles about him: http://vancouverjazz.com/billsmith/03.shtml http://www.rickmcgrath.com/al_neil.html http://www.bruntmag.com/issue1/neil.html

Great choice for Album of the Week. For some reason, this one rarely gets discussed. I agree with Penguin about the earlier duos being a dialogue of the deaf (though in some circles the duo encounter on Emanem is highly regarded). The 1986 encounter is much different. I’ve always been curious what Braxton’s and Bailey’s “game plan” was entering this concert. They dovetail quite nicely over the first part of the concert; I love the way Braxton’s alto soars over Bailey’s jagged chords. Besides Company 3, 5, 6 and 7, the two also recorded an Incus LP called Royal Volume 1, recorded a couple of days after the aforementioned duo on Emanem. An interesting comparison is Braxton’s duo with Fred Frith, recorded 19 years later at the same festival.

He's a Marxist all right.

There's also Everette Harp doing What's Going On and George Howard's There's a Riot Goin' On. Haven't heard them.

If it's the Ben Watson I think it is (author of tome on Derek Bailey), I'm surprised he didn't bring up class war and attacks on the bourgeois.

Parker and Bailey split under bad terms. I never got the sense Parker was the "dick," though hopefully someone with greater familiarity of the personalities involved could further enlighten.

If you have kids, they'll probably say the same thing about you one day. :-)

It's a North American thing. I've heard the odd German will tart up a kristallweizen with lemon. I never put lemon in German-made hefeweizen, but it goes well with the local knock-offs.

A lemon wedge with hefeweizen is acceptable, but I'm not big on chunks of citrus in my suds. What I really hate is places that serve English-style cider (such as Strongbow) with ice and lemon or lime like it was some fruit cooler. I always send it back and tell him to pour me another one. Also, Unibroue in Quebec makes a delicous fruit-flavoured beer on lees called Ephemere. Depend on the season, you get cranberry, apple (the best) or others.

Also by not using original covers, Mosaic saves money on colour printing costs.

I agree. Instead of going to penalty kicks they should switch to overtime 'sudden death' like they do in hockey. Soccer played at the highest level is a great sport, but it's not without some serious, systemic problems. Inconsistent to downright shoddy refereeing, penalty kicks, shootouts, diving etc. Hockey realized that they had some of the same kind of problems before last season and with the impetus provided by one of their own, ex- Red Wing, now Ranger Brendon Shanahan, went to the mattresses and reinvented itself. Is soccer so tied to tradition that it considers itself above some serious, introspective self-evaluation? One would hope not. Up over and out. One idea where soccer could learn from hockey is in calling diving penalties. Last season, the ref's arm would go up after a falling player would do a Swan Lake manouevre on the way down. Said player would get up only to learn he was the one getting the penalty. It has really improved the game. Sometimes both the tripper and the diver get called.

I agree. Instead of going to penalty kicks they should switch to overtime 'sudden death' like they do in hockey. I don't like penalty kicks deciding a game, either. But with sudden death, the game could still end on a successful penalty kick.

Trav'lin' Light, Atlantic 1282 is Giuffre, Hall and Brookmeyer ~ no Atlas. I believe the Original Trio release has some Atlas tracks. I have about 95% vinyl, so I don't really pay attention to cd re-issues. He cut the same tunes with Atlas and Hall shortly before re-recording them for the album with Hall and Brookmeyer. Two were on the Atlantic CD reissue of The Jimmy Giuffre Trio, the whole shebang is on Mosaic.

There's still a lot of Verve recordings out of print, such as Ad Lib, Seven Pieces and the Jimmy Giuffre Quartet in Person. Don't know if they've ever been released on CD. Lonehill or someone will soon take care of that. For those who missed out on the Mosaic set, almost all of the music is now available one way (Collectables) or the other (from the Andorran hills). The one session I haven't seen yet is the music that became Travellin' Light, with Jim Atlas on bass instead of Bob Brookmeyer.

Talks and Plays is the same label as River Station, but a different album. It's not a great release, but worth having if you are a completist like me. As I write this, "So Low" just started playing on the iTunes party shuffle.

A rare example of a Lonehill release that actually is complete. Funny they didn't say complete in the title. There's also a couple of extra tracks on the Lonehill from other concerts. The fact Verve only reissued the tracks on the original album is not a good sign.

Giuffre has not been doing well health-wise for quite some time. This article is from 2003: http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=901 Western Suite is an incredible album. The Jimmy Giuffre 3 even more so. Then he went on to record the great Fusion and Thesis. It's amazing to chart his progress from the quiet clarinet and foot-tapping of the Jimmy Giuffre Clarinet to going off the deep end in Free Fall. It is a shame he went un-recorded for so many years. I find his post-1960s recordings enjoyable, though not as great as the four mentioned above. In regards to info on Giuffre, CELP released a Talks and Plays 2-CD set a few years back with 1 disc of Giuffre's recollections and another of solos and duos with Andre Jaume.

Is Santoro's book the one that is full of errors? Like the description of Mingus at Monterey where he gets the personnel really wrong and describes solos by musicians who do not even appear on the album. nr: The Count of Monte Cristo, Dumas

If it's Alarm you are referring to, this is from the Atavistic site: "The story is simple. We were touring with this band, and the reason I could put the band together in the first place was a radio gig in Hamburg. Michael Naura, chief of the jazz dept there, was setting up a series of on-air concerts in a 200-seat studio, so we performed the first piece, which I called "Alarm." I used the graphic instructions for a reaction to a nuclear emergency, a series of waves and straight tones, repeated in a certain way. We had planned two more pieces, one by Willem Breuker and one by Frank Wright. My piece took about 40 minutes, the first half of the concert. At the end of the performance, Naura came to me – while we were still on the air – and whispered that the house got a bomb threat and had to be evacuated. So I had to bring the piece quickly to and end and the audience was asked to leave the hall. We also had to pack and leave. Police and special forces showed up with all kinds of equipment, gear, dogs – we know all that better now than then. That was the end of the concert and that’s the 40 minutes we have on tape. -Peter Brötzmann, Chicago, October 2005

I checked the book included with Holy Ghost and it didn't have much on her, just that she's always been active in church music and continues to sing and gives lessons. It doesn't say where. Reading between the lines in the book, it implies she exerted a lot of influence on Ayler. She has kept a low profile since Ayler died. Other than the article by Mike Hames, you see few references from her. There's a little bit more info on her in Val Wilmer's book. I've never heard anything about Parks changing her story regarding Ayler's death, which she said was a suicide. A couple of recent releases shed new light on her contributions to Ayler's music. Some have blamed her influence for the debacle that became New Grass, but it now appears some of her lyrics were changed and she may not even be on it. The demos on Holy Ghost are far superior to New Grass. The Live on the Riviera release on ESP last year also has examples of her sax playing. Besides "Music is the Healing Force of the Universe," I'm not a big fan of her contributions to the final session.

She got the songwriting credits on The Last Album for some copyright reason I can't remember, but I believe on Music is the Healing Force of the Universe and The Last Album Ayler wrote most of the music and Parks wrote the lyrics. Henry Vestine got a few songwriting credits on the tracks he appeared on.

It's in the same 'family' of Ornette tunes that includes 'Theme from a Symphony' (i.e., 'The Good Life' from Skies of America), 'Dancing in Your Head,' and 'School Work.' It always varies somewhat, but the common thread is that insistent eight-note, diatonic line at the beginning (repeated ad infinitum--Ornette seems pretty loose with it). It's probably his trademark theme. Ornette got a lot of mileage of that ditty, but the version on the Italian boot ("Tutti") is spectacular. Too bad about the awful sound.