Nate Dorward

I've actually yet to see a positive review of the Frisell (though I haven't looked at AMG yet ).... haven't heard it myself. The lineup looks good on the face of it but I think I'll give it a skip nonetheless.

It's be a bit ridiculous to have a copyright infringement for "Rhythm-a-ning" given that Monk borrowed the tune from Mary Lou Williams.

I always liked the triumphant climax on "Monk's Dream", which he actually jumps into a little too early I recall (skips one A section).

Yanow certainly doesn't do it for free; I gather he is one of the few jazz critics to actually make a living off his writing. His writing is never more than functional, indeed nothing more than the bare minimum. Given the rate at which he spits stuff out it's impossible that he actually listens to all those releases carefully. But I vastly prefer his terse computer-printout approach to Jurek's spew. I think the best regular writer I've seen on the AMG site is Eugene Chadbourne.

Yeah I found Zapping a bit.... well, I tend to find all the more jolly "rollicking" Italian stuff a bit much, really. I have the new live Leo but haven't listened to it. I have Negri on Bonafede's Splasc(h) disc To Include & he's a very good player.

Hey, Misha's great. Nice to see Yosuke Yamashita pop up in the BFT too. He's had a perceptible influence on at least one player from the Dutch scene, Michiel Braam, I think, so I'm not surprised Misha knows him a little.

Nice lineup. Haven't heard it but his new one on Stunt with Steve Swallow is really good.

John--I started drafting this last week, & then got distracted: here's what I have so far: 1: ouch! that’s quite the sting! OK, let’s turn down the volume... The first thing to strike me is actually the nice sound quality on this one, completely unexpected for an avant bigband (usually the budgets of small labels don’t stretch to nice sound for bigbands). Hey, there’s a little riff from Conference of the Birds as this slips into more “straight” jazz feel, it pops up again at 4:29. Nice how the trumpeter, the first soloist, is as simple as possible (but with some interesting note choices) over the incredibly elaborate arrangement. Two-trombone tag over what sounds like a stretched out blues, & then the pianist is left on his own for variations on the Dave Holland theme – & then we go to Southern climes for a little interlude. The saxophonist’s solo, as with the other solos on here, gives me the feeling of “acting” – like a bit part in a movie or a play, a strongly etched character that slots into a larger structure. 2: Argh, I hate it when I can’t i.d. a standard. The trumpeter sounds nice but so far not strongly grabbing me. Pianist’s solo keeps to the high register, a bit on edge, sometimes maybe not leaving well enough alone for me (i.e. keeps extending an idea rather than finishing it off & starting a new one). His jabby comping on the head doesn't grab me either, though I wonder if that's just an artefact of the recording.... 3: I suppose this could be the famous Gianni Gebbia ...... Really nice stuff, not really all that like any other solo sax approach I’ve heard. 4: It opens like Clusone Trio minus cello, with the drumming very Benninkish, but as it goes on it’s clear it’s not Bennink. There are Marty Ehrlich touches in the clarinet but there are also things about it that makes me uncertain that it’s really him, plus this really doesn’t seem to be a musical situation typical of Ehrlich. Nice track, though not earthshaking. Jeez, some really Ehrlichish moments here, I guess I should go with him, but I'm really not sure who the drummer is at all. 5: Not quite as good sound as the previous tracks. I first thought Willem Breuker, but since the tenor solo at the end is definitely Carlo Actis Dato, this is surely an Italian band: I’m guessing (from the prominence of the alto sax) it’s Gianluigi Trovesi. The brash trumpet is surely Pino Minafra? 6: No idea! Very lovely though. I don’t even know what language she’s singing. 7: The opening sounds like it's off Horace Silver's Song for My Father before the more modern-sounding chords come. The turn towards stentorian free-jazz with the tenor's entry again gives this a twist: I really don't know where it's going. Darn odd percussion/drums on here so far. & then a calmly melancholy Spanish-tinge bit for trumpet.... what's going on? THe rest of the track builds more coherently. I wonder if this is part of a larger suite or something? 8: two clarinets. The first soloist sounds aggravatingly familar but hard to place; it sounds to me like the other player doesn't solo--or is this one player, overdubbed? Pretty sure this is European. 9: Quite a change of pace! No idea who any of the players are or the vocalist. Worth hearing though I find it impossible to think of anything to say about it. 10: Starts off as trad jazz but I get the feeling from even the opening drums that it's unlikely to stay that way.... right, there we go, a weird 10/4 interlude for the drums. More clarinets, something of a running theme on the BFT? No idea who this is. I note that the closing chord seuqnece again reminds me of Dave Holland so I wonder if there's a link to track #1. 11: Tony Oxley, obviously. The pianist is hard to figure out – Oxley has recorded duos with Alex von Schlippenbach & Paul Bley but this doesn’t sound like either of them, though the self-imposed limits on what the pianist’s doing make it really hard to discern what he/she “usually” sounds like. Maybe Stefano Battaglia, whom Oxley did an album with I think; this sounds not too far from Battaglia’s Atem, which I’ve heard (it was one of my favourite discs of 2002, actually). – A little AMGing & I think I have a winner on this one: track 8 here. My guess so far from the two positive i.d.s & my guess at #3 is that the emphasis is on European, or maybe specifically Italian, jazz. I get the impression that, rather like my own BFT, this probably has mostly less-celebrated musicians rather than easily-identifiable players: I only very rarely got that "yeah, this guy sounds familiar" feeling. There weren't any tracks I hated on this. None of them I think would really make it into my personal pantheon, except #3 &, possibly, #6, #8, even #1 in the right mood. But basically this was a very interesting disc & I'll be interested to know who the various musicians are. I doubt any of the tracks date from earlier than the 1980s, & would guess in fact that mostly this is 1990s to the present.

Yes, I think last year it was going at a pace of about once every 3 weeks. But at the moment it's one a month mostly, except #25 which was a month late. You could of course set the drop times 3 weeks apart rather than a month but then it'd require sitting down with a calendar to figure out everything.... once a month is a lot easier to remember & calculate! Re: scheduling: You could do it either way but it doesn't seem a bad idea to have the signup thread start exactly one month prior to the start of the actual BFT thread, & the compiler gets discs out by mid-month. If everything goes according to schedule that would mean things more or less would be the same system already in place (signups for the next BFT get underway as the previous BFT's discussion thread starts up)--my intention is just that if somehow one of the BFT is very late then the other one doesn't get indefinitely postponed.

It's been months since BFT 25 got under way & I still haven't even seen the discs. I'm not that concerned about that--I figure it's time to get on to #26 anyway (I already have it in hand: thanks John!)--but it occurs to me that to avoid this happening again, maybe a good idea would be to have less "flex time" built into the passing of the baton. E.g.: have exactly one BFT per month, & it goes ahead regardless on the 1st of the month, even if the previous BFT gets way off track. That way if one of them falls victim of disorganization, slow post, whatever, then the subsequent BFT doesn't fall vicitim of the bottleneck. -- & that way we'd know: there's exactly 12 BFTs per year, regularly spaced. My 2 cents, anyway. What do people think?

It's in the list, look again.

Well, I'm sure he prefers direct sales rather than giving a cut to a distributor...... I know I do (when I sell my own books).

An informal writeup I did here: http://www.ndorward.com/blog/?p=7

I've only heard the Mystic Trumpeter disc, which is pretty intriguing though it takes a while to hook into it. It's two suites for Scott Robinson/Ted Rosenthal/Greg Cohen/Dennis Mackrel, with Wycliffe Gordon joining for the "Symphony for Sextet". THe harmonic language is derived from Sandke's studies into "metatonality"--the use of chords outside the usual tonal system. It's not out-&-out dissonant but it's certainly got an edge to it. Robinson is often in a Sam Rivers bag on the fiercer pieces. Neat disc.

I'd dropped them a line after Mal Waldron's death suggesting that if they could get the rights to Waldron's 1970s work with Enja that'd make a nice set.... doubt it'll ever happen but you never know. I don't think all of those LPs were ever released on CD, & I suspect Enja has more stuff in the can (the CD reissues sometimes have extra tracks).

The Stephane Rives is great. & the Butcher/Charles/Doerner too. I remember the Phosphor as being hard work. The Agnel/Noettinger/whatshisface is pretty nifty. I've actually never heard the Parker/Rowe--keep meaning to get it. I gather it gets mixed reactions from fans of either man.

Well, a few holes, yes--a thorough listing would run to 100s of labels--but it's a pretty thorough overview on the whole. (The most obvious omission to my eye is Incus, perhaps the result of its relatively low profile in recent years.) Bob Rusch is probably already penning a letter to the editor as we speak, though, re: Hull's comment on the "fussy audiophile engineering"....

I thought all of Byard's stuff on Prestige was reissued? Which albums do you have in mind? All the ones I know of are trio or quartet discs, though. -- I must confess my esteem for Byard never recovered from two godawful latterday concerts of his I saw. Sloppy playing, & a cynical, sour demeanour on the stage. Re: Dave McKenna--of those I've heard I'd nudge Shadows & Dreams ahead of A Handful of Stars. Yosuke Yamashita's Canvas in Quiet is a personal favourite among recent discs. Earl Hines' Ellington tribute on New World is amazing stuff.

Yeaeh, my feelings exactly on The Blueprint Project--listen once, then forget it. A pity, as Jared Sims is pretty hot on the Dead Cat Bounce's Home Speaks to the Wandering. I don't know the guitarist outside that disc though.

Actually did Rowles ever record that tune? AMG only lists the Shorter version & a few others but none by Rowles himself. But AMG is always a little buggy...

Incidentally one of my favourite Rowles tunes is one I've never actually heard him play: "502 Blues" on Wayne Shorter's Adam's Apple. What a great choice of cover.

Zoot Sims/Jimmy Rowles, If I'm Lucky. A classic disc.

Hm, so you can blame this one on me . I've never heard this one.... but I've, uh, always heard it's the dividing line between "good" & "bad" Weather Report. Good choice, I think--in that I think that even thought it's not necessarily a good disc a lot of people have it/have heard it.

Yeah, A New Distance is great--I have the original issue but the new one adds a fair bit of material from a different session (haven't listened to the new stuff though). The Iskra^3 disc I turned off after about 10 minutes, I found it pretty annoying, but will try to give it a fair shake at least. I'm not a big fan of that kind of improv with an acoustic instrument in an electronic hall of mirrors (see my remarks earlier on The Root of the Moment).

Today's tip: Adam Lane Trio (w/ Vinny Golia, Vijay Anderson), Zero Degree Music, on CIMP--hot stuff indeed, one of the more exciting discs to hit my stereo in the past couple weeks. Excellent sound too (I add this for the benefit of CIMPophobes). The other interesting thing to cross my path has been the reissued London Concert by Derek Bailey & Evan Parker--great to hear this date at last.