Nate Dorward

The June Christy is one of her best albums--an astonishing "My Ship" among other things. I have it on a twofer with The Intimate Miss Christy.

Re: Hank Jones, there's an AOTW thread I started on a good Jones album here.

Yes--there's also a couple of continuations of the "story" of the bullfighter available from James himself. Different lineup, with no bassist but a doubledrummer rhythmsection. My favourite of his three releases so far (aside from the two self-released things, which I've only just begun to digest) is the CIMP Faith in a Seed. The sound is quite acceptable (for you CIMPophobes out there ) & "A Weathered Spirit Resolute" is simply one of the best free jazz tracks I've heard for a long while. Opening the Gates is fascinating but I don't think Dickey's quite the right drummer for the gig--Warren Smith is the one. What do you think Jim?

Balliett, two "t"s. Sorry to be anal, but it's starting to get to me. Yeah, the famous diss of Monk's Town Hall Concert (with particular opprobrium for Charlie Rouse) is not in the collected Balliett. Pepper Adams blamed that review for killing the band's chance to tour. Balliett has too much "fine writing" but it is usually fine writing.

The AOTW selector should be aware, yes, that discussion is likely to die quickly unless some actual commentary is injected. On both occasions I've done an AOTW I did a track by track commentary. Neither thread took off like a rocket, but they did OK. -- Not everyone needs to go that far, but something more than "This is a great disc" is needed. I think it'd be nice if occasionally discs were selected with the idea of lending themselves to discussion--e.g. "controversial" discs rather than just ones where everyone nods & says "yeah, nice disc" & that's the end of discussion.

Incidentally the new one with Matt Bauder on 482 Music is worth checking out. Not very "typical" of Braxton, if that word means anything in his case, but quite strong.

Todd--have you seen Ken's own writing? It might, er, make you feel better about his review of the book......

Paul, thanks for the comments! Sorry to hear it's a bit elusive in Germany though......

It's not under my name as I just did the annotations--it's Keith Tuma's Anthology of 20th-Century British & Irish Poetry. But the copyediting was so inept that I ended up being de facto copyeditor. All the OUP copyeditor did was (1) put a capital "H" on "he" & "him" in references to God or Jesus Christ; (2) switch "that" & "which" about (the usual fussbudgeting about restrictive & nonrestrictive clauses--something of an irony in a book of British poetry as in Britain this distinction is largely ignored). Everything else was left unchanged, even obvious typos.

Friedrich von Schelling. FWIW my experience of OUP-USA's copyediting was that it was godawful. Maybe I got stuck with the same person who did Rosenthal's book.......

I'd found the Oliveros incredibly tedious (except for the first 5 minutes, which are untypically eventful) on first release & dumped it quickly. No idea what I'd make of it now. Anyone else heard it?

More like beating one's head against a brick wall, actually.

They're oft-repeated because both of them efficiently shut off intelligent discussion.

Actually I don't like that one all that much. Some overcutesy Ralph Sharon arrangements & intrusive bongos on the first disc. But It does have some of my favourite of her tracks too so it's still worth having--esp. the sublime reading of "Moon Ray". Jim--there are a few previously unreleased live Connor/Ferguson tracks on the CD version of the Gershwin set, which are very much worth hearing. A young, sparkling Jaki Byard on there.

Get Connor's Gershwin set on Atlantic. Great stuff.

I don't play sax or clarinet but my understanding is that clarinet is much harder, especially the jump between the registers (it's not an octave as on saxophone but a tenth, if memory serves). There are plenty of clarinettists from bop & onwards but the original poster is certainly right that it substantially lost ground to the saxophone in popularity.

Incidentally it would be a big boon to the jazz community if some knowledgeable nitpicker actually put together errata for notable books on jazz & posted them on the web.

All I can say is that for all its factual flaws, the actual accounts of the music & its cultural background are enjoyable & stimulating. It's quite well-written, too.

Dancing about architecture? If I could put a stake through that quote's heart (& also Zappa's "smells funny" quote) I would. If anyone has a spare copy of the Rosenthal they'd like to dispose of tell me as my sister's looking for it & it's o/p.

A great primer, though, yes, there are some factual errors--but let's not be too hard on the guy as the MS was published posthumously. A few omissions are odd (Hank Mobley & Grant Green) but by & large it's a very good introduction to the music with an informed list of recommended recordings at the back.

Re: Zoltan: the source according to the liner notes is the march in Kodaly's "Hary Janos Suite".

The book of Kismet makes use of Borodin, including "Baubles Bangles & Beads" & "Stranger in Paradise". -- Then there's Dvorak & "Going Home". Nice version on Bill Mays's Palmetto disc. Art Tatum of course did a lot of stride piano versions of light classical repertoire.

Yeah, the Marx Brothers are great. My 7 year old likes them a lot. But her fave is Buster Keaton--you tried him out on your son yet? Amazing films, still. (I think my favourites are Our Hospitality & The General.)

I was present at the Victoriaville concert (which, perversely enough, is I gather not on Patrizio) & it was actually really good, one of my favourite gigs from that year. The next time I saw Eugene was an excruciating gig in Toronto where he & Han Bennink ganged up on a visibly unhappy Dominic Duval (who eventually just gave up & stopped playing). Didn't help matters that Han for the occasion had an earsplitting fire alarm he could trigger at will, or that Han had a bunch of so-so Toronto musicians sit in (Brodie West & someone else I forget). Prior to The Hills Have Jazz the only Chadbourne album I'd found worthwhile was There'll Be No More Tears Tonight, an album of country tunes with Tom Cora, John Zorn &c. Great stuff. Other than that, there was a Leo disc with various duets which only had one good track (an early duet with Zorn), a mildly diverting disc with Jimmy Carl Black, & a solo disc on Intakt which was almost worth keeping for the closing tribute to Derek Bailey. All of those have long since passed out of my hands.

FWIW a little writeup on an album that may be of interest to the Funny Rat faithful-- http://www.bagatellen.com/archives/row/000891.html Just listening to Eugene Chadbourne's The Hills Have Jazz..... I'm not a huge Chadbourne fan but this one is surprisingly, uh, listenable. No singing, no electric rakes, no mildly-funny-but-not-all-that-funny routines, just a bundle of covers of tunes by Dolphy, Dameron, Sun Ra, &c. Not brilliant but it's just nice to hear Eugene shut up'n play his guitar once in a while.