Nate Dorward

Jim--have you heard the recent Jon Easton disc on Cadence? I was wondering what you'd think of that one. (FWIW I liked it.)

Swish; yes, it's on CD.

I think Black Saint & Between the Lines.

That bad, eh? Actually you make it sound almost intersting enough to check out....!

Just a quick bump to this thread to say that I posted a review of Halperin's Cycle Logical here-- http://www.ndorward.com/blog/?p=77 Great disc, if you're a Cool School freak like me. -- & just placed an order for a few things by Lester, Halperin & Mosca at Cadence, so I may have more to report soon....

Yeah, if you're Tom Hull, reviewing a few thousand CDs a month in a sentence or three (check out his website), then you probably don't notice that it's not a very good disc/set at all. For "pleasurable" Braxton I'd go for the Arista/Bluebird Live album every time.

Larry--jeez, thanks for adding your thoughts to this discussion--I find myself really irritated by the way that so much of the discussion around this recording has to do with its circumstances, complaints about sound quality/truncation, &c.... & I find it hard to imagine anyone not finding this a truly remarkable album. Given the way that familiarity breeds complacency, it's been a while since I've been simply floored by a Coltrane record, but this one had a emotional & physical impact which I can't remember since.... hm, probably since I got Impressions as a teenager..?

Picked this one up in Chicago last week & just did a websearch on "John Hines" & it led me here. No surprise that Larry, who was with me at the Jazz Record Mart when I got it, should pick this one for his AOTW! A lovely, lovely disc--I find it hard to believe someone up above was lukewarm on Wilbur Ware's bass solos, since, as with all albums with Ware on them, I find myself often simply listening for him (his work on "Cherokee" is brilliant). Probably my favourite bass player in jazz, period. I got this one in part because I have the slightly later sextet album with Donald Byrd & Pepper Adams added to the band--both of them are superb & should be grabbed while they're still around, given the likelihood that many OJCs are going to be axed.

Watch out with the Hi4Head label. Great music, but the guy who runs it is incompetent at remastering; the one disc I heard from the label had frightful sound, & a specialist in restoring 1970s audio gave me a quick discussion of why (in connection with the weird distorted sax sound on the last track on the disc): In other words, Hi4Head's failure to master the tapes properly quite likely is damaging them further. The music is great, though.

Al Jones once gave me a technical explanation of why sine waves change in sound when you move your head--basically it's the Doppler effect, which is unnoticeable on normally pitched sounds when you move your head but is noticeable on very very high pitched sounds because even a slight compression or expansion of the soundwave will have a discernable effect. Karyobin should be in every collection.

Uh, I'll stay out of the Waxman debate..... Incidentally he did the liners for the new Exploding Customer disc. It shows much more polish & less aimless spew than the extract quoted above. I was puzzled to find (on my return from Chicago today) that there was a mysterious disappearing note in the inbox from D.D. but I think it was an invite to the Six Fuchs discussion? I was disappointed to miss Alessandro Bossetti in Chicago (had a fancy dinner that evening--some truly excellent cuisine at the Tiptons' household)--ah well. Caught Benny Golson at the Showcase, & may post a little on it to the thread on that elsewhere on this board. I went to the Jazz Record Mart & dug around for some o/p CDs: found Sam Rivers' two big-band dates for RCA/Victor among other things & Parker/Bailey's Arch Duo, plus a bunch of OJCs I feared might go out of print.

I think what I'd say is that I have found many supposedly accurate standard reference books to be chockfull of errors or stupidities: it's not just Wikipedia's problem. & with Wikipedia, if you find there's an error, it's simple: fix it yourself. I've written chunks of various articles (the one on Erstwhile Records is still mostly my handiwork e.g., & I tried to make the Philip Larkin & Charlie Parker ones better a while back though they have since evolved considerably).

Anyone heard the new Leo BTW?

John--thanks for pulling teh htread back up--yeah, it's a superb disc. If you like this one, hunt down Chemistry with Watts & Wheeler & the underrated Ray Warleigh; unfortunately I believe it's out of print, though it was available as part of a twofer on Konnex if I remember rightly (under a different name, maybe someone can help here)...

Just possible I may be in Chicago on Friday/Saturday night, & I've never seen Golson play, so this is welcome news.

It was issued as part of a twofer of "The Complete Blue Note 1950s Sessions".

Memoirs is the one Steve means--a very good album, though I think I prefer the trio with Peacock.

Well it's not an original BYG production, but the recording quality was never all that good, to judge by the Denon/Savoy reissue I have of it. Doesn't matter: the music really is superb. Re: the pipes: here's the alternate cover, with Bley smoking a different pipe:

Truthfully, I "appreciate" the 1980s/1990s Giuffre trio albums rather than really like them a lot, mostly. Whereas the 1961-62 albums I could listen to over & over--they're simply endlessly fascinating music. Chadbourne is one of the few competent, interesting reviewers at AMG so I find it odd that people would jump on him! I hope one of these days someone gets a book out of the man--anyone who's read some of his longer liner-notes essays (e.g. the brilliant piece in The Hills Have Jazz) will know what I mean. Not sure I like his music a lot, but he can really write & he must have a hell of a record collection.

Actually I'd be interested in these too--I only have the 2CD reissue of the complete Blue Note session which unfortunately has Melle's recent liner notes, which are (1) uninformative about the actual music and (2) so preoccupied with tooting his own horn they come off as unintentionally comic.

The Chadbourne review seems fine to me, he's simply commenting on the BYG reissue of the album. Is Footloose currently in print? If so, it's an excellent place to start with Bley. Great, great music, & yeah, you can tell that JArrett copped a lot off this album in particular. Another favourite Bley performance is his duet with Bill Evans on George Russell's Jazz in the Space Age--easily the most way-out thing Evans ever did. -- & Bley's performances on that Giuffre 2fer from Hatology are extraordinary, even better than the studio albums.

Sounds like a candidate for a reissue!

Both Five O'Clock Bells & Mo Breau were/are on Adelphi; they're now available as a single CD combining the sessions. My understanding was that Coda had trouble in the past with their distributor; I wish they'd get this sorted out (& get a website going!) as it's no longer on the stands of most non-Canadian shops....

Up... There's a long piece on Lenny Breau in the new issue of Coda, which I found fascinating reading. Here's the cover image: The piece concentrates on his time in Toronto in the 1970s, & really gives a sense of a jazz scene that's unrecognizable in the Toronto of today (all the clubs mentioned there are closed, for instance). The piece is a condensation/extract from a forthcoming bio of Breau. Can't wait for the full version.

Bonnie just sent me Baggerboot but I haven't done more than give it a background listen yet (& it's definitely not a disc to background!). Will report back.... I think that I should bug Dan to change that to "JAMES FINN -- Interviewed by Nate Dorward"..... sounds a little ambiguous as it stands. The rest of the issue's superb too--Dan seems to be attracting a lot of good writers lately.