king ubu

Many of Ornette's early tunes and solos have what I'd call a "tonal center"... in fact I've seen a transcription of a solo from "The Shape..." and it was mostly in C Major - with some liberties of course, as is to be expected.

Just in case... 1969 has not yet been quite 50 years ago, so these are boots even here, as usually - to my knowledge - the radio stations just had the rights to broadcast these concerts ONCE. There were the INA/Esoldun CDs 20 years ago that originated from the radio vaults in France, but they had to be pulled and are to be considered bootlegs just because of that. I assume more or less the same applies to the "Pour ceux qui aiment le jazz" / Trema / now mostly LaserLight releases, and also to some of Dragon's radio vault releases (Miles, Rollins, Blakey...). I don't know if any particular releases have been legally cleared though, I'm just guessing...

Late again... joyeux anniversaire!

Happy Birthday, Jon!

Barbar chris.marker Daniel Cohn-Bendit

I bought quite a few when they were around cheap a year ago (Al Cohn, John Lewis, Milt Jackson, Blossom Dearie, the Dixieland set, Harry James), but the one that really looks great to me (I have it but haven't started listening so far) is their Hoagy Carmichael box. It's one of those cardboard boxes with the CDs packed in thin sleeves and a little booklet added. I guess the sound there will be lacking as well, but then where else can you find ten discs of Hoagy?

Gee - I hope they're asking a bit less for CD-Rs!? Quite a bad surprise! I ordered all the Lyons discs a couple of months back (except "Nuba" which I had to get used from amazon marketplace) and added a George Russell one to that order, luckily it was all real CDs.

I got started with the Atlantics and then went backwards to the Contemporary albums later on. Finally I just bought the Gambit edition of the Hillcrest Bley recording - fascinating stuff! But somehow to me it still feels as if the "real" Ornette kicks in with "The Shape of Jazz to Come"!

This is the website of CAM Jazz, the current owner of the Black Saint/Soul Note catalogues: http://www.camoriginalsoundtracks.com/site/index.php?site=&path=home There's nothing about the boxes there yet, though...

Threadgill is cool! Will be looking for it! The Haden is weird... mostly sideman or collectively led stuff, no? A bit of a hodge-podge!

Coq au vin Turducken Turk van Lake

scored a clean-looking copy of "Ornette at 12" yesterday - for around 20$ or 12-13€ or whatever - of course it has a drill hole through the cover... found "Crisis" in the same price range a couple of years ago... very cool to have them both now!

Fine disc, which I have in my collection thanks to brownie's huge generosity

She did a concert here with the Billie programme and got a fine review... but honestly, isn't she all that Billie never was?

I heard Vijay Iyer and Rudresh Mahanthappa in duo last night. They kicked off a short European tour in a nice jazz club outside of Zurich, where I fail to go nearly as often as I should, just because it's a quarter of an hour train ride... The first set was highly virtuosic, the opening meandering free improv was amazing, how Mahanthappa flexes and bends the tones and how he catches up straightening out his lines just before it gets too weird was truly masterful! Then they mostly seem to go on autopilot, creating quick-fingered and -minded music that was amazing but ultimately failed to convince me. After the break they returned for a shorter set, and now they were PLAYING! Wow! They did just two long tunes, first a bluesy kind of 5/4 thing that went into a great groove immediately. Both did amazing things on that one, and in spite of all the craftsmanship and artistry involved, the music sounded simple, direct, and was of great beauty! That went on in the second tune, which almost got into a kind of Abdullah Ibrahim vibe, Mahanthappa playing with an almost overripe sound on his alto. Truly great music! The encore though was back to autopilot (and a good example why after a fine concert, encores often are a nuisance...)

The old man and the plastic saxophone... may he live forever, his music certainly will! By coincidence I just found "Ornette at 12" yesterday, for a pretty humane price (about 12-13€), of course with a small drillhole, but the vinyl looks flawless!

Will try and catch him in Zurich on March 30th. It's been around 15 years since I saw him (for the only time so far), playing unamplified in a huge hall, with Steve Swallow and Paul Motian. That was an impressive concert!

gee, no, I guess though thinking of politics just makes me angry these days, no matter if it's the US, them silly Switzers, or anything else...

I love her Philips recordings! Started a thread about her when my discovery of her music began:

And I already got my discs! Wow, that was fast! And they're cool enough to put a wrong value on the custom slip so I don't have to pay any friggin' taxes - very nice!

I finally got "Soul Sisters" last fall - fine album! Rest in peace

Ok, ok, I gave in and ordered

Kind of weird... about 1.5 discs worth spread on 3 (fine with me), for 40€, and coming from Lithuania? I must say I am tempted, though...

Well thanks everybody for the education here... will know better next time, but I guess I was kind of lucky this time around!

And one more note, Chuck: these series - at least the best of them, they achieve something that US mainstream films have given up several decades ago: they build complex plots with many characters, they even explain the motives of less important characters, they challenge the viewer and demand attention, or you'll get lost soon. This may be a big point in why they're successful, as most of what Hollywood's been producing for the past two or three decades is aimed at teenaged boys going to the movies on the opening weekend, while they have mostly abandoned doing films that hold up for a slighty more demanding (and mature) crowd. These TV series bring that back again, which is not a bad thing.