Nate Dorward

Re: Creative Sources-- http://www.dustedmagazine.com/features/348 http://www.bagatellen.com/archives/reviews/000676.html http://www.bagatellen.com/archives/reviews/000644.html http://www.bagatellen.com/archives/reviews/000777.html Shakeup at the bagatellen site in the wake of the Kelsey feature (now binned I note). See the top article.

Well, if you have the latest issues of the individual CDs they're the same remastering or better/more recent I believe. I have the set & it's of course excellent but my impression was that if you're a completist-completist, there's even more material on the latest individual reissued CDs (e.g. of A Love Supreme & Crescent). The set also shuffles the albums up a lot, notably Ballads which is scattered across two discs. I find this a bit irritating.

The Dresser/Uitti disc on Cryptogramophone is excellent, I haven't heard anything else.

Chris is a smart guy, but that's a dumb thread.

Zinnia's available from Cadence (www.cadencebuilding.com). Mark Turner is certainly an interesting guy--I liked the first Warners album but found the latter end of his tenure pretty hard to warm to (Dharma Days with Rosenwinkel is positively cryptic). I'm told the Criss Cross albums are still his strongest statements though I haven't heard them yet. Turner's also on Konitz's Parallels though I actually prefer the tracks without Turner. Haven't heard the recent Savoy disc.

Might as well bump this thread up again to say that Sal Mosca's got a new trio disc on Zinnia, Thing-Ah-Majig. I really like it--his playing is incredibly idiosyncratic, especially the time feel (more like Monk than Tristano in spots). The liner notes report it's his first disc since an enforced sabbatical after a heart attack. He sounds in excellent form, & I'm glad he's still making music.

Gokhan--no rush! Thanks for thinking of me. What happened to BFT24 anyway? I thought I wrote a note to say I was in but am not sure I'm actually on the list..... Anyway, Meniscus/Jon Morgan had a habit of promising discs then sitting on them & then not issuing them or else simply taking so long the musicians gave up & issued the music themselves--an example is Axis of Cavity by Simon Fell's trio, which ended up a CDR release on Bruce's Fingers. It was listed in at least one liner note to a Meniscus release as forthcoming. -- The other promised Meniscus release is one with Dan Warburton & I forget who else. I like Jon Morgan--he was actually incredibly nice, when I arranged to review the Le Quan Ninh & Sealed Knot discs he actually tossed the entire Meniscus catalogue in the mail in addition (saying that if I could afford to pay for some of it then that'd be nice, otherwise not to worry). & they've released some fine discs (the Greg Kelley, LQN, & the Butcher/v.d.Schyff for instance. But it's still hard not to find the label's long periods of hibernation frustrating, & I know that the musicians whose recordings get locked up for years in this confusion often feel frustrated too. Been listening to Cecil TAylor lately, mostly trying to get my head around The Willisau Concert, which I find hard to fathom really.

Well, Jon Morgan resurfaced briefly to issue the Sealed Knot & Le Quan Ninh discs (belatedly--both were in the can for some time); he promised to issue at least one or two other discs but seems to have gone quiet again.

That's a very good, thoughtful review. Just got Larry's book today & am enjoying it very much (though like the reviewer I mourn the lack of an index!). The funny thing about the Bill Evans piece is that I entirely agree with Larry's assessment of the general outline of his career--the fascinating early work with Russell, then things tailing off rapidly after the La Faro/Motian trio, until there's a flawed but interesting upswing at the end with Johnson & LaBarbara. & yet I'm not sure that I feel as dissatisfied with Evans' music as I think Larry is, nonetheless. I think that perhaps the piece is more about the way that Evans has set the agenda for mainstream jazz piano despite the fact that his music can be a dubious influence (if you do any reviewing at all you quickly become appalled at the sheer amount of sub-Bill Evans piano out there......).

Oh, jeez, if you've already got the Monk & Davis sessions, plus you have so many of the original Rollins albums, there's little point in getting the box unless you're getting a great deal. Just buy the original albums separately. Make sure you get Collector's Items under Davis's name, by the way--the version of "In Your Own Sweet Way" on there with Rollins is better than that with Coltrane, I think.

You have the strongest LP-length sessions from the box, yes (though Plays for Bird & Tour de Force are also strong dates you'd probably want to hear, even if I find Tour de Force's two ultrafast pieces offputting). If the box is at a good price it's well worth getting. Though much of the best material on the first few discs is also available under the names of Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Art Farmer or JJ Johnson.

Baars not Barrs.

Maybe, but Schizophrenia is 1960s Shorter (on Blue Note)!

Re: Shorter--heard Schizophrenia? It's got a number of totally "out" tracks. Marsh--there's a 15-minute free improv on Ne Plus Ultra

No, I wouldn't assume that just because something has been released, it's likely to be high-quality, free of mistakes, &c! Plenty of substandard product out there. I wonder what Fonda made of the whole thing--in many ways he's forced into the role of trying to keep things from flying apart (picking up on when the others are out of sync, skipping ahead in the changes if one of the others gets lost, &c).

FWIW, here's what I thought about Mad Six-- http://www.ndorward.com/music/coltrane_mad6.htm

Red--I haven't actually heard the 23 Standards set--I'm just reluctant to spend the dough on such a large & expensive set when I'm not sure I'll be that taken with it. -- My impression from reviews of the 23 Standards set are that it's rather different in approach, in that the rhythm section basically plays "inside" behind Braxton; the Parker project on the other hand is pretty bent all round. As it happens Dan Warburton (whose judgment I generally trust) isn't so hot on that reading of "It's a Raggy Waltz"-- http://www.bagatellen.com/archives/reviews/000592.html

Hey Luke, great news!

Thanks for the props. Never liked it all that much but somehow it's got enough to it that it's stayed in the collection. Holcomb..... feh. Actually it wouldn't be so bad if they were a proper chorus rather than just multiple overdubs.

FWIW I just put the piece I did on We Loved You on my website-- http://www.ndorward.com/music/hewitt_welovedyou.htm & sent in a piece to Cadence on the one with Hayes (so it'll take about 2-4 months to appear, most likely).

Allen--where's Schuller on Taylor? I'd be interested in reading that. I haven't sat down & analysed Taylor but my impression is that his work is by no means atonal: there are lots of tonal implications in his locked-hands patterns, & my impression is that often it's a matter of quickly establishing tonal centres & shunting them around the keyboard (CT does have his pet transposable patterns he relies on again & again). Of course, the pummelling bits where he's hitting alternate swatches of black & white keys are a different matter.

If you don't think of atonality when you think of Schoenberg, then I'm not sure what to say!

Yes, I completely agree: reviewing doesn't require musical training/knowledge. It requires writing, thinking & listening skills, plus honesty, enthusiasm. A big record collection helps too. The other problem with using technical musical terminology in a review is that if you don't goof it up your editor probably will. I recently submitted a review referring to "quartal chords" which was published with "quartile chords".

Sorry Allen--I was referring to the original reviewer's bluffing not you! Sigh. I do get fed up with the amount of quasi-musical terminology thrown around in reviews by people who don't know what they're talking about. Besides, it's simply not very useful since many readers aren't musicians either. It's not a nonsequitur exactly, it's just a sloppy & redundant phrase. I think part of the problem is what Allen's indicated: often "chromaticism" implies the use of "colour notes" within tonal music (e.g. beboppers' using flat-9s & sharp-9s, or the use of the chromatic scale for passing tones), often creating a sense of bitonality, whereas "atonality" is something else entirely. But both words have lots of different shades of meaning depending on the context.

Well as you've probably figured out most use of musical terms in record reviews is just bluffing. This seems to be an instance of that.