Nate Dorward

Anything with Michiel Braam on it is likely to be worth getting. I've seen him in concert & heard Colors & Growing Pains: all excellent. The Data label seems a very interesting one. I have Joost Buis's Astronotes & it was one of the best releases last year.

OK, true. Still, it does still sound like you're saying "interesting, not essential" so I think I'll just keep an eye on the 2ndhand vinyl bins for a cheapo copy.....

Hm......yeeessssss, but that doesn't necessarily mean the results are worth hearing. (Not that I'm terribly interested in 1970s Bill Evans trios either, mind you.) & I dunno about later Russell for that matter: I can't get too excited about things like The London Concert & The African Game.

I'll be interested to hear reports on this--my understanding is that it's pretty lousy actually, though perhaps this judgment is based in part on the icky cover. How's the late album with George Russell's Living Time Orchestra, for that matter?

I'm not a huge fan of the box, but others seem to be very fond of it. But if you plump for just one night, get the night with "Bye Bye Blackbird" I think (Friday).

Hm...... the outoftune piano adds to the atmosphere..... but I'm sure the pianists would have preferred a decent instrument. There's a Marilyn Crispell album (the one with Fred Anderson) where if memory serves she's playing an instrument with a broken note.

In other words Bailey & Moore don't play together on the disc. Yeah I never got a lot out of Strong Language. It's fine, just.... She's excellent in the first version of Simon Fell's SFQ, though (13 Rectangles & Four Compositions).

The Montmartre piano is the pits! Listen to Cecil Taylor contend with it on Nefertitie the Beautiful One has Come & then Tete Montoliu has a crack at it on Roland Kirk's Live in Copenhagen. It doesn't sound it's been tuned in the interim between the two discs, actually.........

All ye need to know-- http://www.tisziji.com/

David--hm, by "was 'retired'" I take it there was some pressure brought to bear to make him leave? I'm surprised--my understanding had been that actually it was of Creeley's own volition & that they wanted him to stay. I'd assumed it was part of the general unravelling of the department that started in fact exactly at that time I was in his house (the fact that it was held there was one of the minor aspects of the fallout from Loss Glazier's failed tenure bid, if my memory serves). Bernstein had already left for instance, Susan Howe was only a fleeting presence, &c.

Clem: you're frigging thick as a post: as I said, I don't care whether you dump on Perloff & Kenner, but TAKE IT ELSEWHERE.

Clem--I tend to think that habitually turning threads to abuse of irrelevant targets is either the mark of opportunism or of a cultivated tone-deafness. Start a thread on David S Ware & it becomes a rant about Francis Davis & Borah Bergman; start a thread on Robert Creeley's widely mourned death & it becomes potshots directed at Marjorie Perloff. If you really feel like dumping on someone, start a new thread; a memorial thread is not the place.

Larry--I think many would add Robin Blaser to the list of surviving New American Poets. Whatever, it's a small list... I count myself lucky to have actually been in the famous Buffalo firehall home, when Tom Raworth was visiting (knocking back glasses of gin like they were water--he'd just had some serious medical trouble & was self-medicating)--due to a tangled set of circumstances Raworth's reading was held in Creeley's house rather than at the university. I was talking to Creeley just before the reading started--it was hilarious how he switched from ordinary conversation (we were talking about Charles Tomlinson) to fluent Creeleyese when he had to give the introduction. My copy of the collected poems is as brokenbacked as any reference-book on my shelves.

Well, John Zorn's already been there, done that.

kb88--you'll probably find more sympathetic ears at the Bagatellen site, where Phil Freeman & Jason Bivins write frequently on metal.

Wow, I can't believe they haven't reissued that--what an intriging lineup & those titles are great too! Those guys sound great on Chris Connor's albums of the period.

Thanks for the replies. Yes, "I'll Be Around" I've encountered fairly often (it's also the only Wilder tune to appear in the fakebook I've been using lately). I must confess my question about his own work is in part because I remember his judgments about other songwriters being highly opinionated & sometimes offbeat (in particular, he thought Gershwin somewhat overrated--if I remember rightly he found his tunes "pushy", esp. in their use of repeated notes in the melody). I hadn't come across the biography of him--I'll check it out. Jim: yes, I know what you mean about some good songs being not terribly good potential vehicles for jazz! But I do find myself often think that jazz musicians could dig a little deeper in the backcatalogue of popular song--there's a lot of interesting, neglected tunes out there. (I was recently watching The Pirate with the little'un & wondering why a couple of those songs never made it, for instance--"You Can Do No Wrong" in particular.)

I should probably throw my hat in the ring again here--though it's hard to guess what I'll be doing & listening to several years down the road!

An idle question prompted by the fact that while I've come across the odd Wilder tune on record, have heard the McPartland album of his tunes, & have read his (crochety but very interesting) book on American popular song, it's still very rare you hear someone cover a Wilder tune. Anyone here have opinions on his songs? What are some notable covers? Why is he so marginal to the usual jazz-standard canon?

The recent Power Trio: Live in Chicago is a very good disc.

Jon--well I virtually expect musicians to edit out the negative stuff when it's used in publicity, it's a sad fact of life.... it's just when editors mangle reviews that I go through the roof!

Thanks for the props for the review but that's only part of it! Did you cut it down or did you get it in cut form elsewhere on the web? (Arnal or Eichmann's sites?) Anyway, it runs:

No, I haven't heard any new disc by Trovesi/Coscia--the one I have is from several years back, & features readings of "Django" & some Italian composers' tunes as well as some originals.

Ah, Trovesi. A good player, though it's not a track that really serves as an introduction to his music. I caught him live about the time that From G to G was released. -- The ECM disc is good but a bit dull, I thought, though how often do you get a CD with liner notes by Umberto Eco?

Actually my understanding is that the AOTW lineup was now simply a queue, like the BFT. It's a better system I think because it gives people more time to prepare & a more orderly succession of AOTW threads.