king ubu

Your post makes me think... I have Paris, time to play it again, and maybe time to check out the others, too, if I see them somewhere. It's been years, and while I have and enjoy several of Wilson's albums, the encounter with Jacky didn't strike me as successful, but as I said, it's been years since I last tried it...

Let's bring this one back up! I interviewed Schweizer a few months ago, both for a radio show celebrating 20 years of Intakt records, as well as for a portrait of Schweizer that my friend did on his own, then. Wasn't that overwhelming an experience, but I guess it's simply a fact that not all musicians are able to put into words what they want to achieve in their playing... they might have turned into writers otherwise ;-) Anyway, I picked up a few discs since this thread was up last time. Willi the Pig is indeed a very nice one, as has been said, and contrary to Hans and others I enjoyed the Piano Solo discs quite some. Vol. 1 I enjoyed more. Then there's Ulrichsberg, and that one may be my favourite disc of her, next to Chicago Piano Solo. Also very good in my opinion is her latest solo effort, another concert, this time on a good piano, in a great hall (Jean Nouvels culture & congress centre in Lucerne, Switzerland), and professionally recorded (sort of opposite to the Chicago disc...): She starts out freely improvising (#1 and #2), then goes into a great Standard, "Ballad of the Sad Café", some of her own tunes, and then some Monk, too (the CD includes only "Oska T.", but a live broadcast with much of the same material also included two more short Monk tunes, as well as Ornette's "Broadway Blues" which she performed as a 1.5 or 2 minute encore). Highly recommended disc! Then, the trio with Fred Anderson and Hamid Drake seems to have been released on Intakt, paired with some Schweizer/Drake duos from an earlier (1998) encounter... weird enough I cannot find any trace of it on the Intakt website - maybe it was withdrawn? Anyway, I heard both concerts on the radio and if the disc appears again, I'll pick it up! Then there was a special "Portrait" release, together with the film about her (seems to be mediocre, but I haven't seen it). That one includes tracks from most (all?) her single Intakt discs, from the first to the latest. It also holds a thick book with Intakt discography of her, as well as some writings about her: Definitely recommended to anyone not yet familiar with her, or only slightly familiar. (The film is also on Intakt, DVD 121) ******************************* So I wonder: does anyone here happen to know why the Schweizer/Anderson/Drake disc disappeared? Thinkign of it, I don't think I ever saw it in a store, but I definitely saw it on the website (including an ugly cover scan whcih I posted on this board, probably in the funny rat, but I assume if it's been taken down it won't show any longer...)

I heard about it in December 2005 when Prevost did his 3 hour Solal special on France Musiques (or was that in January 2006 and the solo concert they broadcast took place in December?) - sounded intriguing then and even more so now! Guess I'll try and fight my way through a French book again, for a change!

Lon, maybe I was a bit too negative on Terrasson... the "rapturousness" is for sure not something that puts me off in his music! I enjoy "Alive" quite a lot, and I also have the first one (I think it's called just "Jacky Terrasson") and "Reach Out". Only after that I started to be less and less interested. "A Paris" is too much of a patchwork for me, for instance. Oh, and his album with Cassandra Wilson is awful - or at least there are enough awful things on it (Autumn Leaves with kitschy e-piano? no thanks!) for me never to buy it...

"Rush Hour" is great! Will check this out, too. But what an ugly cover!

On a related issue, I saw this film last year, "The Weather Undergound": http://www.upstatefilms.org/weather/main.html Here are the respective Wiki articles (including one about the film): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_Underground For anyone interested, the film is definitely worth seeing. Interesting to note is that bare one of the interviewees, most of these people have by now reached comfortable positions in today's USA, being professors, teachers etc. And their lines of arguing are very reasonable (unless you're a conservative status quo thinking person, that is, of course). Anyway, for me this was one of the most fascinating political documentaries. Came to mind because the panthers are referred to a few times in the film...

Good move, Jim! I use amazon.de rather often! I'll try to think of searching via big-O!

Happy Birthday! This is the only leader disc of his I own, but I like it a lot:

Ok, now the good things: Kuhn has done a few nice things in recent years, so that's good news. Also I enjoy the one Lovano/Jones disc I know (though I think I like some live gigs I have better...). Kenny Werner on BN is definitely nice - he's terrific, probably one where "underrated" at least with regard to the audience/market does fit. Tolliver and Burrell sound interesting, too. And it's nice that Jacky T. is still on the label. His Paris disc wasn't that great, the one with Pahud didn't interest me any, but I still like "Alive" quite some. Anyway, somehow I lost interest in him three or four or even five years ago. A live gig late in 2000 or 2001 was the last thing of his that I really loved.

Some nice things in there... sad to think that by 2008 or 2009 all of them will be OOP again... Not to spoil the party too much, but Blue Note does reissue stuff in their RVG Edition that was reissued as regular BN reissues or Connoisseur Series reissues as little as four or five years ago, while most of their 80s/90s catalogue of young, still living, artists, to whom it would mean something to have their albums available, are long gone. I find that sad, not only with regard to the market, but also with regard to Blue Note, the label.

Niko, just to add a few infos regarding Monk Prestige and Rollins Freelance: musically, both are great, but the Rollins is probably a bit better (just my opinion - some of the very best Rollins in there, for sure). Both are originally packed in sturdy (3-4 mm thick) cardboard boxes, both contain a booklet of the size of a jewel case - half as thick, probably. These have discography, one lenghty essay, and small original covers, as well as some photos and prob. additional stuff like an alphabetical list of tunes. Anyway, with booklets, they'd be nicer than without, but for that prize, get them in whatever way they're around!

If only she had been allowed to do a few more really good films like the one the following pics are from, Conn's question wouldn't need to be asked! I wondered, too, but by now I don't ask it any longer, myself. True what Berigan says, about the annoyance factor. Heard some interview snippets on radio, and her voice is just plain stoopid, but on screen she can do no wrong! The second is a on the set photo by Eve Arnold. Stunning one!

Got this some days ago, played it twice so far and enjoyed it a lot. It's rather different from the two JiP discs, Peiffer went places from where he was in the 50s... recommended to anyone interested!

Downloading right now, thanks Dan!

Thanks for checking, John!

Here's all my best wishes, Lon! Keep going strong!

Is that so? But then you re-formatted them and all, yes? Anyway, same here, if I typed it up already... ***************** Got me my Mingus box yesterday! GREAT! Thanks again tjobbe for letting us know about it! Only played half of disc 1 when I came home late, but had a look at the book and it looks marvellous! Also I gladly noted that several non-Mingus things are in the Debut Story box, which would have been hard to part with, since it's another very nicely done package!

In July, he toured Europe (with Wallace Roney, Steve Turre, Donald Harrison, Eric Alexander, Charnett Moffett and Eric Gravatt), so I guess it can't be that bad...

fasstrack, I enjoyed reading your longer post a lot What Lazaro said was that they (you know what it refers to) are more valid than they're given credit for - that's totally (and sadly so) true, isn't it? Sure, maybe Ornette isn't a very easy character etc, but hey, he's a giant, he's among us - who knows, who cares? Even many people posting here consider Jimmy Smith and Grant Green and Hank Mobley more important still today... not that that's not ok, but there's more than that... Maybe innovations building upon (challenging something is at the same time building on it, isn't that true in almost all cases?) basics, rules, roots, whatever, are more valid than sort of museum-like recreations of past achievements (Wynton etc.)? I'd say yes, but even that is debatalbe, I assume. And one more point: the "rules" and "foundations" may be somewhere hidden very early, in the dark (myths? or at least being mythologized?), but then what's considered by many to be "foundations" or "rules" haven't been there from the beginning... what today's mainstream (which hasn't evolved muchly since around 1960) is built upon is a fundament that was revolutionary, too, in the 40s, wasn't it? So maybe the "set of rules" itself is evolving, too? Most likely...

I see it's starring Rooster!

I want all of those... (have the others, Slime on CD), except there are doubts about the Berigan and even more the Prima/Manone... slight doubts, too, about Venuti/Land, Bix/Tram/Tea and Condon Mob, but I am pretty sure I'll eventually end up owning them. It's more a question of: do I need so many discs of these artists, rather than if I actually want it or not. But for now, I spent so much at zweitausendeins I'll definitely have to pass this time!

Hey, I share your feelings, but please keep Koller out of there! He's one of the most important european jazz musicians, I think, and it's great that his albums are out again! And some of them may even please you, too... if not, there's still another recently issued one, "Jeanneret Tapes", featuring Manfed Schoof. Give him a chance!

Yeah, I remember that. Nothing seems to have come of it, according to AMG at least. The few titles that were out several years ago are all I see. I thought Afrodisiaca was reissued, but no evidence here... Wow, is that several years already? The latest ones I saw in stores were all even more mainstream (Oscar Peterson, mainly, some with Ray Brown and/or Milt Jackson) than the earlier ones (Mangelsdorff, the Koller ones, Dauner, Jankowski etc.). Haven't heard of anything or seen any new ones since those.

Oh man, I wish I could afford this!

huh? want to torture Mel a bit?