Alexander Hawkins

Thank you for all the help. I've been kindly helped out, so am really looking forward to listening soon! [p.s. My 'For Trio' and 'Duets' were also £3-4 - but the others do seem to be prohibitive!]

I don't want to speak out of turn about Jarman's current 'powers' - I've only seen him the once, around 9-10 months ago - so I've got little to go on. But, someone said (maybe even here) that he's relatively frail these days. When I saw him, he was very convincing musically, but he was battling physically with his tenor. His percussion was very musical, and he played some beautiful alto flute and melodica, but his tenor was very weak. [How hard on him anyway to have to follow the intensity of his peak!]. This may well have been hard for him, especially given that Mitchell was on absolutely incendiary form, and showed no signs of being anything other than completely on top of his game. Don't know how, if at all, that bears on this, however!

Much cheaper. Take a look!

I think these must be extraodinarily hard to come by...the only copies I've seen are up near, or above, the £100 mark...but does anyone have any leads on any of the Braxton Arista material (CD or LP)? I only have 'For Trio', but would dearly love to hear the Creative Orchestra Music (1976), the Five Pieces (1975), or the Montreux/Berlin Concerts. In hope but not expectation, thanks!

bit loose with my idiom there. Mind you, not as impressive to say 'I'd send satchels of money if I had them to make a record'

As a younger member of the BB who wasn't around to catch many of the masters in their heydays, this is an amazing prospect: a supergroup of 1) compatible (and how!) musicians who 2) are all on top of their games. What I wouldn't give for a live record as well...

Count me in as a Perkins fan. Just thinking earlier how much I enjoyed his stuff whilst listening to the trio session.

It's really exciting - Muhal is hardly *ever* over here.

Works for me. Hell, a 20CD standards box works for me if those two are on board.

Absolutely. That Derek/Cecil thing is astonishing. The first track especially - how many other musicians could, by sheer force of personality, seemingly, have kept Cecil from the keyboard for half an hour or so (that's roughly how long he spends inside the instrument and/or reciting poetry, IIRC)?

This is just getting amazing. Braxton and Cecil, and then a post later, this! I'm there. Wherever 'there' is!

Yeah - can't figure out how it'll sound. I'm sure that two guys with such vast musical personalities and integrity, however, will produce something at the very least completely fascinating. In some ways, musical success would be a happy by-product of seeing/hearing the two of them work something.

Anyone else checked out the quartet 'Frequency'? Nicole Mitchell is absolutely breathtaking on this. The other three members are Edward Wilkerson, Harrison Bankhead, and Aveeryl Ra. But Mitchell - wow.

Presumably it's like many of these things - Braxton and Cecil say 'let's do something', and then offer it to a promoter to get gigs...Don't think there's anything sinister in the fact a promoter's offering it!

I love the way the cat looks around beyond the piano, but decides he's actually quite intrigued by this thing making noise under his feet...settles down again, only to be returned to the world of cat by his friend! Is this the footage that's on the new ICP DVD, I wonder (which includes Brxton guesting with the ICP orchestra!)? p.s. with the sound of the piano, if it's not a missing Candid take, it's from the Nefertiti gig!

It's a great film, isn't it??? [You get the feeling it would have got out of hand if Han was around. Can a cat be played..? Sure he'd find a way.]

Oops - brain's working slow. [it's late here! - ]

Anyone see the talk on the Yahoo! Braxton list of a Braxton/Cecil duo? The mind boggles. Can't really imagine how it would sound, but the thought alone is pretty astonishing!

[Many also think I'm crazy for having law degrees and working as a musician... ] Ironically enough, last month I worked two different gigs with two different bassists, both of whom were practicing lawyers. They acted like they didn't need the money... Bass player lawyers? Adds insult to injury. Bassists are the guys who can't move for the gigs, right?

[Many also think I'm crazy for having law degrees and working as a musician... ]

Thank you!

Yeah - you just beat me to it by a few days!

Thanks - I'm completely out of my depth with all this stuff, but think I've managed!

...I just launched my website. It's fairly rudimentary (still figuring out how to build the things, etc.), but it has some sound samples, a nascent blog, etc. Would be great if anyone fancied taking a look!

Does anyone know of any free software which enables conversion of .rar files into some kind of more manageable format? Thanks in advance!