Alexander Hawkins

Enjoyed watching this very much. Leroy Vinnegar is very well recorded, and is awesome! LA All-Stars

That's a lot of gig to take on gigs. Face it Jim, it's all about pianos

My thoughts exactly! His solo break and first chorus are just distilled genius.

Never seen this...but roughly on topic - I have the Yusef Lateef book, and think it's absolutely great. And I'm DEEPLY sceptical of this type of book!

Great - thank you for posting! What an awesome rhythm section. I love the arrangement of the Bacharach tune as well.

Yes, that would be great to hear him talk about the music. Actually, I have to see, the more I hear of him, the more LUCID it becomes, rather than anything else (I think there are some genuinely brilliant examples of conveying complex ideas succinctly in the documentary accomapnying the recent Firehouse 12 release, for example). In fact, there will be several candidates to write some very interesting notes on this, I would have thought.

Heard a little bit of the forthcoming Nicole Mitchell album on Firehouse 12 on the radio a couple of days ago. Sounded really great. Very strong composition, the one I heard. Looking forward to it a lot. FWIW - I think Mitchell adds a great voice to the Braxton 12+1 tet stuff from the Iridium.

I'll try that - thank you!

p.s. can anyone suggest why I might have a broken link instead of the image on the homepage??? I can't figure it out!

A nice double review at AAJ of two recent releases. And a couple more here and here of the 'Barkingside' CD.

Never came across him, but of course knew him as a name. RIP.

Definitely as to 'Subject to Change'. I'm afraid I don't know 'When Was That'; but I've been fascinated by every Threadgill I've ever heard, so I'd say the odds are good! A personal favourite - 'Song Out Of My Trees' on Black Saint.

Dave McRae organ. One of the comments says that he also played with Matching Mole, and how's that for contrasting gigs? Re: the "sweating brow syndrome jazz" thing, yeah, I heard that, and after time goes by and you hear/play/get propagandized by enough of tht stuff, it becomes less and less attractive. But in retrospect, it's hard for me to just flat-out deny the validity of it, at least as practiced here. I saw the Rich band once, somewhere in 1975-74, and the impression that they left and that still lingers is that these guys came to play hard. Not flashy or dramatic or anything, just hard. Now, me myself, hey, at least some lightness is essential, but all I'm saying is that Rich & Co. always (in those days anyway) seemed to play what/how they did out of principle, and out of belief, so far be it from me to deny that they should have. Yeah - and I can imagine that they'd have been really quite something live!

Have just updated this a bit...still rudimentary, but a little tidier maybe!

Butcher is a master! For those not up on his thing, there was a nice lead article in the last Wire.

Really enjoying these clips...sort of 'sweating brow syndrome jazz', but... He's really 'musical' on that Oslo clip though IMHO, especially behind that organ solo. p.s. who's playing? He's a piano player, right? Very cool arranging at the 3'35" mark as well!!!

Not to mention 'The Recedents' - Lol Coxhill, Mike Cooper, Roger Turner - another very fine group!

I think I'm right in saying it's the complete Braxton solo piano music, played by Genevieve Focroulle (who played a side of material on the recent Ulrichsburg 4 CD box).

I know nothing about the reliability of the site, but I have just been sent this link by a friend - which suggests the Braxton Arista for October!

Just having a listen. Interesting stuff! I don't think 'Amazing Grace' hits me quite as it hits you - I really don't like the vocalist. I have no problem with the operatic thing (absolutely not, in fact!), it's just I don't think she sounds that great. However, Wiley is quite shocking in some ways - sounds in some ways very 'unhinged'. I think the effect is heightened by the otherwise quite shiny production...such an unreconstructed solo really takes you (or at least me!) by surprise in the context! Agree, I don't hear any Murray influence on Wiley.

There's a great one called Live in Berlin IIRC, with Betsch, Kowald, and Billy Bang. Relatively early for Crispell, but she already has a clear take on Cecil Taylor's language in particular. I enjoy it a great deal.

Not at all! Actually, there's a ton of great AEC stuff on there. Search for 'Cecil Taylor' and 'Art Ensemble' and there's a real gem!

A great clip of Mitchell here!

The Potter thing is simper than that...Craig Taborn is just ridiculously BAAAD...