Nate Dorward

The Spotlite stuff is excellent but the label Hi4Head did a truly terrible remastering job to judge by the one I've hears (Application Interaction And). Very unfortunate. One great one is Chemistry which I have on LP but I think is available on CD from Konnex as part of a twofer.

I guess I should clarify that by "difficult" I don't mean stuff that you just don't like or connect with in any way. What I mean is music that even though it is not in the ordinary sense pleasurable (for whatever reason) or that you have serious problems with but which you still can't dismiss. There's a good piece by Stuart Broomer in Coda where he discusses SME's Face to Face, which is an incredibly stripped-down duo of John Stevens & Trevor Watts, & says something to the effect that he's not sure if he enjoys listening to it at all but he thinks maybe it's a good thing to have music out there that is "good for you". -- If posters here have heard the Rives disc or the Erstwhile album I mentioned perhaps it'll be clearer what I'm getting at. (The Mark Turner I had in mind was the last one, Dharma Days, which seems to me music where, while I can sense its virtues, seems like it's taking place in its own rarefied bubble.)

One theme I'd considered (but in the end rejected, for reasons of wanting not to make things too gruelling for listeners) for my upcoming Blindfold Test here was "difficult music": music that for one reason or another I found important or interesting but which required a real leap of faith or understanding from the listener (or at least this listener). Obviously this would have entailed the inclusion of some particularly knotty avant-garde stuff (I had been thinking of Stephane Rives' solo album on Potlatch or Good Morning Good Night on Erstwhile) but also I was thinking of other strains in the current jazz/improv scene--for instance, a Mark Turner album which I'd always found rather intractable, perhaps some Steve Coleman or Vijay Iyer (I found the recent Fieldwork disc Simulated Progress on Pi virtually unlistenable--grindingly machinelike in-your-face stuff with an aggressive, slightly distorted recording style too). But actually in some ways I thought it'd be more interesting to also move backwards & think about other jazz & improv which for whatever reason remains "difficult". I was wondering if people would have ideas here. I would be particularly interested in thinking about how some earlier jazz (1920s, 1930s, 1940s) can still pose challenges for the listener for a variety of reasons.

Hot House is OK (nice pick of tunes) but not one of the duo's best moments (Sempre Amore is much much better for instance).

No chance trying to find an unastronomically priced one for sale..... but if you want a dub PM me.

He did two excellent discs for Denon which are really worth seeking out: Brilliant Corners with Yosuke Yamashita, and The Art of the Improviser which features him sparring with multiple tenor-sax partners. I put one track off Brilliant Corners on BFT 14 a few years back, actually. I really love Wallace's sound & spirit & humour. I think I first heard him doing a blues called "Broadside" on one of those One Night with Blue Note albums. It's a great track & I wish I still owned it (my cassette copy crapped out long ago).

I've heard About the Monks--very good disc. First heard Prieto with DD Jackson & was not entirely sold on him, but since then with the association with Threadgill & his own work he's become definitely a guy to watch.

I've actually never heard European Echoes or any other Schoof albums. He still around? He really sounds good on the few sideman recordings I've heard.....

I was a little leery of this one because I found Workpoints a big disappointment: nice music (esp. the 1st disc) but the sound quality was poor & full of intrusive distortion & dropouts. The new one certainly isn't hi-fi--there is a swishy sound to the drums--but quite acceptable & doesn't get in the way of enjoying what is a really steaming 1983 concert performance by a dream band. The really stunning thing is the powerhouse trumpet lineup: Kenny Wheeler, Tomasz Stanko, Henry Lowther, Ted Curson & Manfred Schoof. Wheeler in particular is in stinging buzzing-bee form, & Schoof (whom I'll always love for his work with Mal Waldron on the great Hard Talk) deserves mention too for his solo on part 2. & John Surman's playing is terrifically aggressive--I can never figure out why he doesn't do more of this kind of stuff rather than the English watercolours that he tends to prefer nowadays. Other delights--a trombone section of Malcolom Griffiths, Conny Bauer (who does one of his distinctive solo features on part 5) & the late Eje Thelin; Juhanni Aaltonen on tenor & alto; the always excellent Art Themen in duet with Ted Curson; a very young Matthias Schubert (underrated player who went one to record the excellent Blue & Grey Suite for Enja with Simon Nabatov)...... Anyway, definitely worth checking out.

Who is Steve Elkins? I'd be interested in screening this at Filmforum as part of a series of such films. I don't know much about Elkins aside from the fact that he's making the film & also that he plays in a rock band. The film is still unfinished, but I gather it's getting closer....... Here's his gallery of stills from the footage he's put together: http://www.elkins.smugmug.com/gallery/599056#25217677 There's a contact email address on the homepage if you want to drop him a line.

A few years back there was talk of BS/SN going under, but it didn't happen (I don't know the details of what saved the labels). Perhaps they had outdated information. Or else (god forbid) the labels are in trouble again.

They take the old recording, feed it through a computer, & they play it back on a brand-new player piano with sophisticated software that's supposed to replicate all the subtleties of touch & dynamics. So what you have is a brand-new recording that recreates the original Gould performance.

Maybe not Jackie (though I haven't heard the sax/drum duo with Michael Carvin), but you're definitely wrong about Andrew Hill....! From Compulsion onwards on various occasions he was recording sessions that were "outside".

Crap. The email to David bounced.

I'll ask David if it'd be OK to repost his letter or to summarize it. No enormous revelations but it does explain a bit about how the session come about (may be info available elsewhere like the Central Avenue Sounds book or the Tapscott book for all I know) & has a few memories of the session.

Only reviewed one of the Muse/32Jazz discs--the one with "Brother Can You Spare a Dime" on it (I forget the title)--plus the Mr Blues Pour Flirter. Both OK but I prefer the Prestige sessions, esp. Sonny's Dream & Portrait of Sonny. I actually had a recent correspondence with David Sherr, who played on the Sonny's Dream session--he had a lot of interesting stuff to say about the session.

It's OK: Braxton plays well; I'm not crazy about Fine but he doesn't wreck things. It's also nice to hear an all-improv session from Braxton; I wish he'd do more of those.

That first colour pic of Derome is pretty funny. Thanks for the shots, & by the way it's "Normand Guilbeault"!

Saddened to hear this news. Hadn't heard much of Lewis's work outside the 1960s, with hte notable exception of Waldron/McLean's Left Alone '86, which captures his big sound nicely.

& by coincidence a CDR of Vignes, an unreleased Acoustic Guitar Trio disc, just popped out of the mail from Jim. Lovely stuff, & I hope it finds formal release sometime soon. (Their first release was one of the overlooked gems of the Incus catalogue.)

Happy birthday, Larry!

Jesus. I felt sick seeing this post. My buddy Jim McAuley (a fellow microtonalist & a frequent playing partner of Poole's) will be in shock. I wish there were more of his recordings out there.

So what's the short story on her take on the death of Haig's 2nd wife?

That's great--every serious Ra fan I know mentions this as a fave session.

Yeah--please do. I wish I could see him but unless my shift changes at my workplace I'll be working that afternoon. A pity. Don't forget Cecil Taylor at the St Lawrence on June 1st, too!