Nate Dorward

OK, the answers thread is now up..... Link here.

[comments still in progress....] 9. Joey Sellers' Jazz Aggregation, "El Payaso", from El Payaso (Nine Winds, 2005). Sellers, tbn, arr; John O’Gallagher, as, ss, cl, flt; Tony Malaby, ss, ts; Adam Kolker, bari s, bcl, flt; Taylor Haskins, Dave Ballou, tpt, flgh; Joe Fiedler, Noah Bless, tbn; Nathan Durham, b tbn; David Berkman, p; John Hebert, b; Mike Sarin, d. (Solos: Fiedler, Kolker, Malaby.) Brooklyn, 18 September 2001. (image doesn't really do it justice, does it?) My third Nine Winds pick, by a leader rather sparsely represented in the catalogue: just three big band dates and a quartet with Malaby, all for Nine Winds (I can't figure out why no other label seems interested in his stuff). This disc (recorded in New York a week after 9/11) appeared quite belatedly, and didn’t get a lot of press. The classy studio recording is the work of the late David Baker, incidentally. I could have picked a shorter or more conventionally swinging chart, but Sellers' best work tends to involve long structures and luminous, constantly shifting textures that often sound as improvised as the solos. & if you think I was being indulgent including 3 Nine Winds discs, consider that none of them were i.d.'d here! I don't think people pay enough attention to the West Coast scene..... 10. Carl Maguire, "Egocentric", from Floriculture (Between the Lines, 2005). Maguire, p; Chris Mannigan, as; Trevor Dunn, b; Dan Weiss, d. Brooklyn, 2002. A debut for this young pianist; he originally self-released it but waited years for it to come out on Between the Lines. It was worth the wait! Dan Weiss is on the latest Rudresh Mahanthappa album, which may explain why some listeners thought there was a connection (that, & the use of complex/layered time signatures). 11. Albrecht Maurer/Trio Works, "Jour de Fête -- avant" (collective improv), from Movietalks (JazzHausMusik, 2002). Maurer, vn; Wolter Wierbos, tbn; Benoît Delbecq, p. Germany, 1999. The lone European track of this BFT, chosen of course for its brevity but also its charm. The rest of the disc is more composerly, but for this piece the only preparation was Maurer's instruction: "play a fantasy that is like a character in Jacques Tati's Jour de fête".

[comments still in progress...] 5. MTKJ Quartet [a.k.a. The Empty Cage Quartet], "Attack of the Eye People", from Day of the Race (Nine Winds). Jason Mears, as; Kris Tiner, tpt; Ivan Johnson, b; Paul Kikuchi, d. More from Nine Winds! I received a review copy of MTKJ’s earlier Making Room for Spaces before this, and thought it a nice live freebop date, but it didn’t really grab my attention. This very hot studio session (untypical: most of their records are live) grabs me harder. I picked this track mostly for the snappy trumpet solo by Tiner, one of a small army of excellent freeish trumpeters cropping up nowadays (others include Peter Evans, Taylor Ho Bynum....). 6. Respect Sextet, “3 in 2” (Fred Anderson), from Respect in You (Roister). Josh Rutner, ts; Eli Asher, tpt; James Hirschfeld, tbn; Red Wierenga, p; Matt Clohesy, b; Ted Poor, d (all musicians play various little instruments, radio, &c in addition). Young guys who seem to really have the right idea about how to approach "the tradition": with curiosity and appetite, not reverence. They tend to have a huge book of tunes, including a massive amount of Misha Mengelberg tunes (some of the players studied under him briefly) -- the sharp-eared will note a quote from Misha's "Gare Guillemins" near the end -- and Sun Ra is another big influence, which may lie behind the bandmembers' doubling as percussionists and noise-producers when they aren't soloing. I've never heard the original Fred Anderson recording; any Chicagoans here care to comment, if they've heard it? 7. Billy Lester, “Skip’s Bounce”, from Four into Four (Coppens). Lester, p; Simon Wettenhall, tpt; Sean Smith, b; Russ Meissner, d. NYC, 7 Apr 2002. Picked this up on Jason Bivins' or Joe Milazzo's recommendation, IIRC, when I posted asking about Tristanoite players who were genuinely interesting/enjoyable (as opposed to kinda creepy....). Lester is a student of Sal Mosca's, but judging from this album he's not a dogged follower of either Sal or Tristano. Lester writes terrific tunes, mostly over the changes of familiar standards (this one seems to be an exception). 8. Jesse Zubot, "Delirium", from Dementia (Drip Audio, 2006). Zubot, vn. Vancouver, June 2006. The only Canadian musician on the album -- I probbly should have included a few more (the Reveries, Fraser MacPherson & Thom Gossage nearly made the cut). This is one of my favourite solo discs of recent vintage. Jesse can be incredibly lyrical or hot or insane as occasion demands -- I've heard him play in the rather Charms in the Night Skyish band Great Uncles of the Revolution, the prog rock ensemble Fond of Tigers, & the ZMF trio with Joe Fonda & Jean Martin. He also has a duo with Steve Dawson I haven’t heard, which does bent country music they call "strang music". This album is actually quite varied -- this is one of the more hair-raising tracks, as you’d imagine -- and also includes some overdubbing of guitar and mandolin (played also by Jesse). I think there has been a little post-production tweaking here -- there's an electronic “glitch” at two points, which could be produced in real-time but I think may be a little post-performance addition. What do you think?

[comments in-progress] 1. Roy Nathanson, "By the Page", from Sotto Voce (AUM Fidelity, 2006). Nathanson, as, spoken word; Sam Bardfeld, vn, vcl; Curis Fowlkes, tbn, vcl; Tim Kiah, b, vcl; Napoleon Maddox, beatboxing. Brooklyn, 13 November 2005. You either love or hate the Jazz Passengers, & people either loved or hated this track by Nathanson & a bunch of his fellow passengers. That’s Napoleon Maddox with the beatbox vocals -- there's no conventional drummer on the disc. People who hated this track should breathe a sigh of relief that I didn’t include another vocal track that nearly made the cut: I was going to put in something by the Reveries, a Toronto trio that specializes in sweetly ruined jazz standards. Their most distinctive feature is the use of "mouth speakers" -- disconnected cellphone speakers placed in the mouth. 2. Billy Stein, "Juice", from Hybrids (Barking Hoop). Stein, g; Reuben Radding, b; Rashid Bakr, d. Debut record for Stein (a friend of the drummer Kevin Norton, who runs Barking Hoop). He's not young -- he attended Milt Hinton's workshops with Norton in the early 1970s, & later worked in Bakr's ensembles. Reuben told me he was incredibly sick when he did this session, and he avoided listening to the CD for ages once it was released, because he feared he'd ruined the session.... in fact, he didn't listten to it until I sent him my review...! He was pleasantly surprised, once he actually heard it, to find that the music was pretty good. 3. Lindsey Horner, "Green Chimneys" (T. Monk), from Don't Count on Glory (Cadence Jazz Records, 2005). Horner, b; Marty Ehrlich, as; Brian Lynch, tpt; Pete McCann, g; Neal Kirkwood, p; Allison Miller, d; Jeff Berman, perc. Brooklyn, 2003. I would have preferred to include a longer track from this album, especially the title-track with a guesting Uri Caine, but this peppy odd-metre version of a Monk tune seemed to function as a good breather among the heavier/weirder stuff on this BFT. It's an unusually mainstream release for Cadence, and it might have got more attention if it had been on Palmetto or Omnitone, I think. 4. Jim McAuley, "Dark Blooming", from Gongfarmer18 (Nine Winds, 2005). McAuley, Ramirez classical guitar. Jim is a veteran who's been on the West Coast scene for decades. He started out as an enthusiast of classic blues guitar, was involved in the folk & folk-rock scene (at one point was signed to John Fahey's Takoma Records but it fell apart when the label was bought by Chrysalis), briefly spent time doing session work in the late 1960s/early 1970s (he's on albums by Frank Sinatra, Pat Boone, Perry Como...) but quickly decided to concentrate on his own music, and instead gravitated towards the local avant-garde scene. He was a student of John Carter's, and was also involved in the microtonal music scene around Kraig Grady, Ivor Darreg, Erv Wilson, &c. I did a feature on Jim for Signal to Noise that later was expanded into a full-length interview for Paris Transatlantic (available here); it was one of the most enjoyable & illuminating experiences I’ve had in my short career as a music journalist, & do check it out if you liked this track. Jim has released only two albums so far: this solo guitar recital, and a superb trio album with Nels Cline and the late Rod Poole on Incus (one of the mellowest things on the label; I recently played it for an enthusiast of traditional Chinese music & he loved it & noted some similarities...). He has several more recordings in the can (a set of duets with Leroy Jenkins, Nels Cline, Alex Cline & Ken Filiano; & two more Acoustic Guitar Trio albums, one live & one studio), and I hope they are released soon. He's extremely selective about his work--Gongfarmer18 was whittled down from extensive studio recordings and one live date, & the duos album is again a careful selection from a larger collection of material. It was hard to pick a representative track from this album, which ranges from freeform blues to prepared guitar to a gracious waltz to an almost narrative composition called "Eyelids of Buddha". I picked this piece because its diversity of texture really shows what he can do, and because it shows his classical guitar chops nicely. I just talked on the phone to Jim today, incidentally, & he was tickled by all the comments in the thread, esp. the one suggesting the track sounded like a cross of Derek Bailey & Michael Hedges!

Some introductory comments: I'd sworn that this time around I'd make a very different BFT than #14 -- more avant-garde stuff, a wide chronological range, two CDRs rather than one -- but in the end it seemed better to keep it simple. Most of these discs, as in BFT 14, are ones I reviewed in the past two years. I tried to avoid anything too predictable, which would inspire what I.A. Richards dubbed "the stock response": there is barely anything on the disc squarely "in" a particular jazz style. One result of this has been an interestingly varied range of response -- none of the tracks became a consensus favourite or a consensus thumbs-down either, which is all to the good I think. Congratulations to the folks who i.d.'d some of these--I figured that a few of them would be easy (#1 and #3 especially) but was surprised that #2, #7 & #11 got nailed too. -- Incidentally (now I'm ruining any future BFTs I do!) I was slightly surprised both with BFT 14 and 51 that no-one figured out the easiest way to nail virtually everything: simply go to my website & blog & check out the year-end best-of lists. Most of these discs have figured on them or will figure on them. I've actually written reviews of everything on this BFT except the Lester & Sellers. I don't have all the discs here at the moment--some are in Anne's room (she's asleep) so I'll pick away at this tonight & tomorrow. But I will provide basic info; it's just the comments & details that will take a bit. * Pieces are by the performer unless otherwise stated.

I think the only ones I have on vinyl are a very dusty copy of the Venuti/Hines duet (which I should really replace: it's fun music but it fried my needle last time I spun it) & one album not mentioned so far in this thread, Borah Bergman's debut Discovery! I'd actually first come across O'Neal's name because of his efforts on behalf of the elderly, reclusive Djuna Barnes.

Oh, which have you got? The best solo album to sample is the one I mentioned, Drop Me Off at 96th. It's all-acoustic, & while it's basically Bailey doing his thing there are a couple tracks that obliquely work through jazz material--the Bunn tribute & also a track that takes off from "I Didn't Know What Time It Was". I discovered with this album exactly how rhythmically precise Bailey can be--it is possible to tap your foot to long stretches of this one (when he goes off on a tangent, keep tapping & he'll hook up with it again later on). I'm not sure if that's true of other Bailey solo albums... -- Of groups with other people, try No Waiting with Leandre on Potlatch & Dart Drug with Jamie Muir (of King Crimson) on Incus.

Bassman--thanks for the comments! Some of them spot-on, & not so off-base as you might guess..... actually there's a story to the bass player on #2, & while I'm not sure he's in pain he definitely wasn't feeling at all well during that date. He plays very well, I think, but I was wondering if you or others would hear this...

OK, thanks!--would be nice to have a few more under-the-wire responses before the curtain is officially lifted...!

I think the main division in free jazz guitar comes between a "pure" approach (a clean jazz-guitar sound) & a more distorted/rock/FX-laden approach; this guitarist, at least on this recording, follows the clean-toned approach (Joe Morris, Bruce Eisenbeil & Dom Minasi would be other instances of this; also Bern Nix, at least on Alarms & Excursions). -- & then there's a somewhat separate line of playing coming out of Derek Bailey (often acoustic: Roger Smith, John Russell, John Bisset, & to some extent our friend who plays on #4). Just a guitar, no piano! I love how this track ties together a lot of disparate ideas & textures in a very convincing, expressive way; I could have picked a more song-like piece off this album (there are some freeform blues & a composed waltz) but feel this track is an ideal introduction to the guitarist's range & imagination. I think the fade-in is because it's a live recording & this group tends to have long segues between pieces, often involving radios, "little instruments", handheld percussion, &c. I'm sure Mingus was on the composer's mind when he did this--the track's title in fact is the same as a well-known Mingus album (but in another language......). No, not Priester; in fact I'd never heard of this trombonist before. The leader is actually a trombonist, but isn't the soloist on this occasion. * Will post the answers in a few days, so it's last call for any further BFT responses.......! One further hint: tracks 4, 5, & 9 are from the same label; in fact were released at the same time (though #9 seems to have sat in the can for a while, for some reason).

Does it make a difference in what you hear if I mention that the pianist is a student of Sal Mosca's? No, not really...the issue of ongoing Tristanoism is one that pretty much has me looking at it like it's some weird parallel universe that few can enter and even fewer can escape. Yes.... haven't really got with Gorrill, Crothers, &c.--just find their music kind of grimly self-sufficient. This pianist, though, at least, isn't a literalist Tristanoite...! But I was wondering how BFT listeners would respond to his rather bouncy rhythmic feel. I should mention that the leader/arranger on track #9 was a student of Warne Marsh's...!

Yes, that's the disc: it's Stein's debut. It's the first track, though, which is one of the more groove-oriented tracks (with the bass ostinato); most of the others are more freeish.

It's actually just one drummer, I think it's just the way he's panned in the stereo (& his looseness!) that gives the impression of two! The drummer used to work with Cecil Taylor; the guitarist is probably an unfamiliar name because this is his only album (though he's not a spring chicken). Heheheh.... I kinda figured this track might divide people (& put it on here for that reason), because jazz fans tend to have strong opinions about how Monk tunes should sound, & also because (as you note) games with time signatures are getting a little cheesy nowadays. I think they bring this off, but I can see why it might irritate. I'm especially glad you like this. As you might guess, this is the oldest musician on the BFT, & I think the richness of experience & quirkiness of character (& serious dues-paying & concentration on getting inside his instrument) all comes out in his music. (This is in part because I actually know a fair bit about the guitarist, having corresponded with him & at one point interviewed him.) I basically included this for the trumpet solo, so I'm glad you liked that! He's one of my favourite younger players, though I'm not always sure that his recordings do him justice. (I like his range of models too--scat singing is one important influence, another is Hank Williams.) -- Yeah, I know what you mean about the airless bass/drum hookups that seem to afflict a lot of small-group jazz these days: maybe call it the Vandermark Syndrome (because I first really started to get irritated with it when I had to review Airports for Light). It's guys in their 20s. Does that make you think better or worse of the track? (Not a gotcha: I seriously want to know if it alters your opinion of the music.) Does it make a difference in what you hear if I mention that the pianist is a student of Sal Mosca's? Especially glad you like this one, as I think the arrangement is fascinating & very "deep" (in the sense that it has a real mysteriousness that co-exists with an understated wit). & I like how this takes its time & makes it worthwhile. -- I'd not heard of either the trombonist or bass clarinetist before, but the latter in particular is excellent. Glad you liked this one, too--it's the debut of a young pianist, & there is indeed probably a connection to Iyer/Mahanthappa (the drummer works with them sometimes), probably Tim Berne too? Yes: I liked your comments a lot actually, in part because you zeroed in on the tracks that seem to me probably the most important (or at least important to me). What I hope, anyway, is that none of the tracks gave you (or others) that "mehh" feel: "it's all right, but I wish it either were genuinely interesting or on the other hand were at least distinctive enough for me to hate it". -- Putting together these BFTs is always a fine line between putting in stuff that I think will "appeal" (like say the "Green Chimneys") & then things that I think are important but will definitely not please some listeners (like the solo guitar & violin tracks, or the take-your-time big-band track #9). My original draft list had everything from the extreme avant-garde end (Stephane Rives!!) to some archival material (like a recently salvaged Fraser MacPherson pair of CBC airshots with Chris Gage, a very talented Canadian pianist who committed suicide in 1963--his playing's like Hampton Hawes with a selfconsciously "out-there" harmonic sensibility attuned to Monk & Tristano.... pretty out-there for Canadian jazz in the early 1960s!), but in winnowing it down to a disc I decided to try for something that wouldn't be completely disjunctive & would give a mainstream listener a toehold while still presenting a few challenges. Decisions, decisions.....

I imagine that the group on the Knit compilation was probably the Jazz Passengers, in which case, yes, these are the same guys (well, some of them). See above for the exact i.d. of this track... I almost put a Bailey track on this disc, an untypical one where he plays some swing guitar in tribute to Teddy Bunn. This guitarist spent some time in Spain.

Rhymes with star. R.I.P.

No theme, except that it's all recent material! There's a track on the CD from which I took #9 which is I think maybe a Carla Bley tribute, but it's not this track, no!

Well, nothing wrong with all that stuff too....! You'll have to explain that one to me! I would have thought this a zillion miles from Chadbourne, actually! First of all, it's in tune, & second, it's a classical guitar... But I'm sure the guitarist wouldn't mind the comparison! (he has a very wide/eclectic taste in music) A very good guess (offhand that's the only other contemporary trumpet+rhythm album I know...) but it ain't them. Fortunately, if you're curious you can peek at relyles' comments above, as he nailed this one... I wish! I like Spy vs Spy, & also like Ornette's fiddle playing (a verdict that I know at least one violinist--Dan Warburton--shares with me). (The trumpeting never seemed as special, though...) You might have come across this player but maybe not. Lots of interesting fiddlers out there nowadays--another favourite's on track 11, & a track by John Ettinger also nearly made the cut. You know, I never heard Kamikaze Ground Crew.... one of the great bandnames..! -- Nope, not Dutch, it's all-American, probably mostly players you know but not in a big-band context.

OK! Look forward to seeing your comments. I certainly don't mean to guilt-trip anyone (god knows it can be hard to find the time to listen & post in these threads)--just a friendly reminder....

Yes, the track is rather atypical of this album: the other tracks are originals based on favourite standards of the Tristano school--"I'll Remember April", "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To", &c.--but I picked this one because it was not a familiar chord sequence, so it's a little harder to place stylistically. Lester was actually a student of Sal Mosca's. Interesting that Hill was mentioned a few times--I think the main connection to Hill is probably the way that Tristano & Hill both developed styles which involved cutting across barlines--the downbeat is treated almost like a notional marker rather than a strong rhythmic element.

The more you listen, the more surprises you find. That's the short answer, anyway.

>> bump << In tandem with bumping the discussion thread. (I just realized the latter was pointless as people who hadn't yet posted responses to the BFT were unlikely to read to the end of the thread if they were avoiding looking at other responses first.) Anyway, just a reminder that it's halfway through October & there are still many participants who haven't posted comments. Posting a detailed list of responses is definitely not obligatory, but even a few impressionistic comments would be welcome! & if you find the 15-minute track in the middle a bit daunting, have patience--it moves in a VERY different direction after the spacey opening 6 minutes....

>>bump<< C'mon, is it that bad?

Hm..... you could try asking John Butcher, he might have some. I'll send you his address in a PM. If not I'm happy to make you a burn.

You could also order through Verge (& probably DMG & other available sources). As far as I know the disc is still in print. It's a very good one too (very different from the other Butcher/Bailey encounter, Vortices & Angels!!).

No, I didn't review it at the time; actually I think that I purchased the CD because it was recommended in a thread on this board which I started, asking about recordings by Tristano's disciples (Crothers, Gorrill, et al.). I think it was Joe Milazzo or Jason Bivins who suggested this one.