xybert

It's a solid album, a solid recommendation. For me, over the last few releases Jen Shyu's vocals and Marcus Gilmore's drumming have been two key components... they've loomed large for me so their absence makes Functional Arrhythmias feel, as much as i like it, like a bit of a transitional record, the start of a new phase. Not that that's necessarilly a bad thing and it may just be some classic projecting on my part... I guess for me it's just a less exciting album than the earlier albums on Pi... more refined but more dry... any thoughts?

Hi Ligeti, as a newbie myself it's probably not my place to welcome you here but welcome anyway! I also used to post on AAJ, funnily enough joined here not long before the AAJ BB went down. They had mentioned that changes were coming at some point in the future but there was no warning that the board would be going down when it did. Would've been nice if only to have the opportunity to PM a few regulars... i guess most would know that Organissimo exists and will hopefully make their way over here too (thinking about it they may already be here under different handles). Cheers.

I really like it. I have a soft spot for solo sax albums for a few reasons, one of which is that i simply find them to be great background music. There's a relaxed intimacy about them; i love having a solo saxophone album playing while i pot around the house from one room to another. Almost feels like the artist is chilling in one of the rooms of your house. In particular with this Steve Coleman album i'd always loved his playing but found the production on his eighties and nineties albums to be really off putting. An album with him unaccompanied really laid his playing bare. I'm not sure what it is but his playing really speaks to me so i found this album to be really engaging. I also really dug what i'd heard of him on his albums unaccompanied (for example track one of Weaving Symbolics) and thought "yeah i could dig a whole albums of this". That's pretty much what you get. This thread made for interesting reading. Just like with any artist YMMV but you can't really judge recent Steve Coleman by his eighties or nineties stuff. Sometimes i feel like Steve Coleman's career is on the reverse trajectory of Miles'. Judging current Steve on albums like Tao of the Mad Phat would be like judging Miles purely on Tutu. In Marcus Gilmore he found a drummer that could be funky without being stuck on a grid. Jen Shyu's vocals will be a deal breaker for some, but for me her voice adds a wonderful surreal edge and some amazing colours (i also really dig Irene Aebi's vocals, so... )

I've always disliked 'The Sidewinder', never been able to get past it and get in to what is by many accounts a classic album. Also used to hate all the Sidewinder-esque tracks i encountered on other Blue Note albums of the time... have somewhat gotten over that but i still cringe right from the opening notes of The Sidewinder.

I don't know man... with this particular style of tray/teeth pushing down in the middle didn't seem to fulfill any sort of 'release' function; it just hurt my fingers as the teeth are sharp and sticking straight up. It wasn't like "la di da di da lets rip this sucker out... SNAP!"... i was wrestling as delicately as possible with the CD for a while. Was actually quite surprised at the time as i didn't seem to be exerting the amount of force it would require to snap the disc... i was very, very conscious of not wanting to do the CD any damage while taking it out. Any amount of rotating it back and forth can't be ideal for the disc... I would say Mosaic has possibly opted for the lesser of two evils in that if the disc was relatively easy to get out it you would probably get a lot of discs coming loose in shipping.

I might have to get this just for the sake of doing an A/B comparison and see where you are coming from with regards to clean feed sound quality once and for all! Cheers.

I experienced similar Halvorson-fatigue... she appears on the albums of so many artists that i dig but her sound is so dominant that she is almost a co-leader by default. I rate her very highly but I was starting to go off her leader dates too... would put on an album and take it straight off... forced myself to put on Bending Bridges last night though and it was just such a pleasure being immersed in her sound world. I've cleansed my palate on a Jeremy Pelt bender recently so i'm more than ready for something a bit more Halvorson-esque.

Have just seen that there is a new Claudia Quintet album coming out on September 24th. John Hollenbeck is one of my favourite artists, absolutely cannot wait for this. http://www.amazon.com/September-The-Claudia-Quintet/dp/B00E334JAW/ref=pd_sim_sbs_m_4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzQCVpb3eqg edit to add video

Sad to hear this, RIP.

Will be keeping an eye out for a release of this recording... great band but i love what i've heard from Aram Shelton, in particular. Nordesen is a great drummer. Check out the AALY trio recordings or Exploding Customer You will die for those recordings, Xybert I'll do my best to check it out... I did borrow 'I Wonder If I Was Screaming' from the library a while back and thought it was excellent, always meant to try and get that for my collection. I know you're not the biggest clean feed fan but i really dug Nordesen's drumming on this one (also featuring Shelton)

Will be keeping an eye out for a release of this recording... great band but i love what i've heard from Aram Shelton, in particular.

I would be interested to read Burton's autobiography... might have to see if my local library has a copy... Doesn't look like it's been discussed here so FWIW: Burton has been releasing some top notch stuff in the last few years. Hot House with Chick Corea is quite possibly my favourite album from the duo. The two albums he's recorded with Scott Colley, Julian Lage and Antonio Sanchez, Common Ground and Guided Tour, are both fantastic, IMO.

On the subject of Downbeat polls, in the Critics poll can anyone explain to me what the criteria are to qualify as a Rising Star versus a non-Rising Star? Not trying to beat up a soft target or be facetious, genuine question.

Deeper posts? Aside from the "What are you listening to now?" thread, the other "discussion" that gets the most attention here (with 10,480 replies and 485,129 views) is . . . "sexiest album covers". Sad. I guess the (slightly flawed) analogy would be a motorcycle club. The club forms around people's mutual love of motorcycles, but a lot of the time when they gather they just have a beer and shoot the shit about random stuff. Every now and again some one will ride in their new bike and then that'll spark an in depth discussion about the merits of this type of wheel or that brand of muffler etc. Or there'll be a controversial article in Motorcycle Monthly... i guess it would be the same on a bulletin board dedicated to motorcycles as it is here... the 'album cover/what are you listening to' threads/posts keep the embers burning... The way i think that facebook and twitter have affected bulletin boards is that there are people that really just want a bit of interaction online... they might realise that their love of jazz has been keeping them coming here, but really they hardly actually ever discuss jazz. They realise that they are perfectly happy scratching that 'online interaction itch' via their facebook friends and quietly withdraw from showing up at the 'jazz club' regularly.

Yeah, there are very few, if any, contemporary artists that are universally loved but i find Moran in particular gets the cold shoulder from the jazz internet massive quite a bit. I rate him pretty highly. I really dig his flavour; it's distinctive and it's instantly recognisable. It's been three years since Ten... i'd love to see another leader date from him. Will have to check out Modernistic by the way...

It's a given that it's hard to judge an album by the track snippets on Amazon (or in this case Amazon UK) but the samples for the Trio 3 + Jason Moran sound really promising. Nice to see that people are seemingly open to Jason Moran around here... i usually encounter ambivalence.

Cheers, good to know it's still on the horizon.

I managed to snap one of the discs of The Complete 1932-1940 Brunswick, Columbia, and Master Recordings Ellington set. Had just received it and was in the process of ripping the discs to my computer as per my ritual... i had been looking forward to the arrival of the set for a while, had saved up and gotten myself all hyped up... i don't have many Mosaic sets so it was pretty momentus for me... to go from the joy of having the package arrive at my home to that moment where i was unbelievably holding a snapped disc in my hand = shit. The customer service that followed was excellent.

Does anyone know if/when this is coming out or if it's out already? It's not showing as being for sale on Allen Lowe's website, as far as i can see. Cheers.

Unhelpfully i don't know whether individual BS/SN CDs purchased directly from CAM jazz would be cdrs or not... just to throw my two cents in, i'm very hesitant to buy any 'new and sealed' CD from any source if it is also showing on Amazon.com as being available as a cdr on demand. It's the kiss of death for an album for me in terms of me buying it as a CD online, just can't be bothered taking the risk. Have had a couple of albums turn up as cdrs when there was no indication in the seller info. Would rather just seek out a second hand copy in decent condition... come to think of it, wouldn't it suck to get a second hand cdr?

The Andrew Hill composition Erato http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8e6TBOMqf8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVpodFwYseo

I've had a hard time getting in to this one, having really enjoyed (Put Your) Hands Together. Objectively it's a top notch album, but i'm just not enjoying it. Would be keen to hear the thoughts of any one else that's spent any time with it... not sure if i just need more listens or if i need to shelve it and come back to it at a later date with fresh ears.

I'm definitely in the 'wouldn't mind getting this if i had money to burn' camp on this one.

I'm definitely a fan of Halvorson, but i'm finding that her flavour is so strong that it's putting me off albums that she appears on. I've been really enjoying Jonathan Finlayson's Moment & The Message, and looking for other records that feature him i thought about finally pulling the trigger on a Tomas Fujiwara & The Hook Up album. Listening to the samples though Halvorson's sound is so unique that it just tends to dominate... wouldn't be a problem if i couldn't get enough of her but i'm finding that i can and have had enough of her, at least for the time being. I haven't had this problem with the Braxton records she appears on for some reason or other stuff i've heard in the past... anyway, just thinking aloud... maybe i just have Halvorson fatigue... i think i'll stick to her leader dates for the time being, i love her compositions.

The two Rites Quartet albums with Marty Ehrlich, Things Have Got to Change (2009) and Frog Leg Logic (2011), feature excellent playing from Zollar. Jeremy Pelt was mentioned earlier in the thread. I'd never heard him before but picked up The Talented Mr Pelt from a bargain bin today on a whim. Really enjoyable unashamedly straight ahead type stuff. Might even end up getting another album from this quintet (features JD Allen and Gerald Cleaver, among others).