Nate Dorward

That's terrific news about the reissues. Long wanted to hear this music, not to mention the previously unreleased stuff...!

Just got this promo flyer. Great news, even if it's unlikely that I'll be going to Switzerland for it! --N * CONCERT ANNOUNCEMENT Stadttheater, Schaffhausen Mittwoch, 21. Mai 08 20.15 h To all our friends, colleagues, journalists : Please reserve your tickets as soon as possible and bring lots of friends too. This is a very special event. After a ten year “rest” the London Jazz Composers Orchestra gets together again for a one-off performance in Schaffhausen With guest star Irène Schweizer and guest percussionist Lucas Niggli. Première of the new composition “Radio Rondo” by Barry Guy - and the famous “Harmos” will be performed. We would be very happy to meet many of you on Wednesday 21. May in Schaffhausen. Kind greetings from both of us Maya Homburger and Barry Guy BARRY GUY. LONDON JAZZ COMPOSERS ORCHESTRA with IRENE SCHWEIZER Jazzfestival Schaffhausen, Switzerland, Barry Guy, bass, director Irène Schweizer, piano Evan Parker, reeds Mats Gustafsson, reeds Trevor Watts, reeds Simon Picard, reeds Pete McPhail, reeds Conny Bauer, tmb Johannes Bauer, tmb Alan Tomlinson tmb Henry Lowther, tpt Herb Robertson, tpt Rich Laughlin, tpt Per Ake Holmlander, tuba Phil Wachsmann, violin Howard Riley, piano Barre Phillips, bass Paul Lytton, percussion Lucas Niggli, percussion http://www.intaktrec.ch/LJCO_Schaffhausen.html http://www.jazzfestival.ch/ http://www.maya-recordings.com/

Well, they are sometimes heavily edited, though. I found the most surprising thing was Green's lowly rating of the BB King track, actually.

Thanks for the music!

edc: I think you're talking about the feature on Jeff Schlanger in the current Signal to Noise. Weakest piece in the main section, alas (& I can't believe they caved in to Schlanger's demand that a registration symbol appear after every instance of "musicWitness" in the piece, & even on the magazine cover!). Still haven't heard any other of Parker's big band discs beyond Raincoat in the River (which I see I mentioned when this thread started). Certainly that disc didn't suggest much of a talent for big band scoring.

There's a sequel called Corn Meal Dance. If you don't mind the lyrics, it's a very nice album. My review here (originally for Exclaim!): William Parker/Raining on the Moon Corn Meal Dance AUM Fidelity www.aumfidelity.com Corn Meal Dance is the second album by Raining on the Moon, a project helmed by free jazz bassist William Parker that centres on the work of vocalist Leena Conquest. The focus is on songs of consciousness-raising and spiritual uplift; the lyrics’ earnestness requires a willing suspension of cynicism in the listener, but Conquest’s sweet, dignified delivery helps immensely: she sells them, but doesn’t oversell them. Saxophonist Rob Brown and trumpeter Lewis Barnes get off some brief but telling solos, while pianist Eri Yamamoto’s gospelly chords cushion and shape the deep-juju grooves carved out by Parker and drummer Hamid Drake. This is Parker’s most polished and user-friendly CD to date, though there are still enough dizzy free-fall passages to keep it just to the side of the jazz mainstream.

BIS--audiophile classical label with an excellent roster of recordings of Nielsen, Rautavaara, Sibelius, &c. My problem with the packaging is just half the time the discs have scrapes on them. My copy of The Dark Tree skips, dammit.

You mean you don't like dreary B&W pics of urban blight?

I try to avoid the label now after having had many problems with the horrible card sleeves. Though some things I can't resist (like that Giuffre live set).

Just thought I'd add that Gayle's Time Zones is a really, really good solo piano disc which would probably appeal to fans of Jaki Byard & Sun Ra's solo stuff. The man can play some great piano when he wants to, though you wouldn't guess it from some of his more random assaults on the instrument in the past.

My copy of Intensity only has one bonus track, the blues "Five Points". Maybe there's a difference between North American & European issues of the CD?

It's excellent. Not a lost classic, certainly, but solid jazz by players who have their own personal styles.

Re: The Way It Was--Actually none of the outtakes from the various other sessions are on the OJCs in my collection--were they included at a later date? In any case, it's great music, both the Side A session with Marsh & the Side B of outtakes (I remember the fast "The Man I Love" as particularly strong).

Hey Chuck--since I'm not a big user of online CD sources, just thought I'd ask--where does one go for the Vanguard sessions at $50-70? (New or used?) I'd recently seen it for $169 Cdn--too much, but would like it for less.

And what do you think that story might be, Nate? Something 'content-oriented', perhaps? Jeff's passing is a sad loss for his family, friends and fans. And losing his knowledge is like watching a library burn down. Hm, maybe if the article were signed I'd have a better idea what's going on there....

Odd that that Globe & Mail (really, Canadian Press) obit goes out of its way to avoid naming JAZZ-FM. Maybe there's a story there...

Jesus Christ. That's awful news. Rest in peace, Jeff. I think the first time I encountered him was a video of him playing some nifty laptop blues guitar which was in heavy rotation on MuchMusic. But he's most familiar to me for his radio work, as a conoisseur of early jazz & blues.

Why would anyone "want" to like a Eugene Chadbourne recording? It's not like they're rare birds. Half of them seem to be issued with an audience of one in mind (his name starts with "Ben"). It's the rare exception to encounter an E.C. disc actually worth spinning twice, & sometimes you could cut that down to "once" or less. There's about two or three good tracks on the one you mention (the Iraqi rewrite of "The Girl from Ipanema" is a classic), but he deserves to be hanged for what he does to the Marvin Gaye tune. "Be yourself": classic useless advice. Maybe you're a boring, tin-eared person: I'd rather you pretended to be Larry Kart instead. Go ahead & fake it! -- The best advice is "write something that you'd enjoy reading".

He used all of his tools on every recording, that is there is not just one record under his own name where he just sticks to say, tenor. Plase correct me if I'm wrong. I remember that late in life, after the stroke, Kirk did play mostly just on tenor, using one hand. I caught an hour of this material on Ted O'Reilly's old show once, & it was just incredible--& incredibly moving too.

Nice translation of St John of the Cross, too.

The exact quote from Duke is: "If it sounds good, it's good music, and if it doesn't, then it is the other kind." Link to Music is My Mistress here--the context is an interviewer asking him his opinion of "young's people's music", i.e. rock/pop.)

I've heard Tuomarila, in fact just reviewed a CD by him. Eh.

The somewhat earlier quartet with Stenson, Jormin & Oxley is much more exciting than the group with Wacilewski &c--I have The Soul of Things, like it a lot, but don't need any more of it than the one CD I think. -- Bosonossa & Other Ballads on Power Bros is great stuff, a lot spikier than the title would suggest & the rougher sound makes a nice change from the ECM ambience.

Presumably because the repertoire on Have a Little Faith was likely to sell a little more briskly than the all-originals program on This Land. Truthfully, I don't think any of Frisell's albums match his best sideman work or his best live performances; & ever since Nashville I've found him unlistenable.

I was in the record shop the other day & spotted this one--remembered Larry's enthusiasm, & grabbed it. Not much to add, really--I'm glad Larry mentioned "These Foolish Things" specifically because it is truly a performance for the ages. A more general question: any further recommendations for later (postwar) Prez? I've mostly collected the earlier work (I suppose scared away by the generally mixed rep of his later work, & indeed the few recordings I'd heard were pretty sad at times), but obviously I should be remedying that omission.