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Nate Dorward
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Posts posted by Nate Dorward
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Re: standards: try the Trio/Duo disc on Sackville--limited edition reissue. It has one of the classic Braxton standards performances, of "Embraceable You". I don't own this disc but I used to spin it a lot when I DJ'd & remember it vividly. Ted O'Reilly & John Norris picked this track to represent Braxton when they assembled their marvellous history of jazz for radio broadcast a few years back. -- I'm not a huge fan of AB's latterday standards records. The Charlie Parker set (now o/p) is rather good despite a lot of sloppiness: worth hearing. The same goes for the Monk album. I'm told the new 4CD set of standards is pretty good despite (again) some sloppy tracks.
In terms of recent Brax I'm quite fond of the recent Delmark disc Four Compositions (GTM) 2000. It's kinda funky in spots....
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Yeah the Schuller tracks on Vintage Dolphy are a bit dull; not nearly as good as the versions with Ornette. There's a messy but entertaining encore on there too, a jam on "Donna Lee" which has Dolphy & Don Ellis sparring--worth hearing. But really, the only remarkable music on Vintage Dolphy are the three live tracks with Ed Armour.
I think the Gillespie-plays-Waldron album was called The Cool World. It was a film score I believe.
Lee Konitz's career is full of oddities, of course--e.g. he's on albums with Derek Bailey, John Zorn, Elvis Costello & Anthony Braxton (the Bruback disc which turned up on BFT17); there's that excellent French Impressionist disc; &c. I'm actually rather fond of Once, the Company album with Konitz, Bailey, Teitelbaum, Barre Phillips, &c.--the sound is rather hissy & documentary but the performances are quite effective. It even has an episode of Konitz playing drums.
One oddity I like a lot--One Night in Washington with the Band with Charlie Parker as featured guest. Also the album of Django Reinhardt sitting in with a US army band.
Incidentally, I have always been warned that Bill Evans' 1970s big band collabs (a return bout with George Russell, & the one called if memory serves Symbiosis) were pretty awful. Anyone heard these & care to report back?
Jackie McLean's New & Old Gospel perhaps deserves a mention--surely the only album with Ornette Coleman as a sideman exclusively on trumpet?
That Birth of the 3rd Stream reissue is terrific, but I wish they'd not dropped tracks. I've never heard the Milton Babbitt piece, for instance. But it's a great disc if for nothing else having such an unusual Mingus track, some of Miles's least typical work, & the great "All About Rosie" (nowadays probably a less familiar track than the Gerry Mulligan reading).
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Presumably the other 10% is on soprano not tenor.
Evan Parker's remarkable, even though I've found his most recent work a bit dull for the most part (with some notable exceptions--the duo with Joe McPhee is dark, intense, ornery music). If you haven't heard it the duet album with Anthony Braxton from 1993 is worth picking up, as is the 2CD 50th Brithday Concert. All the solo albums I've heard have been excellent except for the boring Lines Burnt on Light, which probably sounds great if you have never heard an EP solo album before but otherwise sounds like a rehash.
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I've always been curious about that Dizzy Gillespie album with JJ Johnson charts which I gather is much further "out" than anything else Diz did. Available briefly as a Verve limited edition. Maybe someone can describe it further & whether it fits into the remit here. The album with Mal Waldron tunes also sounds kinda interesting & improbable.
Derek Bailey's Ballads & Mirakle might be good "avant" choices (the first has gobbets of old standards on it, the other a harmolodic funk band)
Georg Graewe's Monk album (which despite a little heavyhanded drumming by Michael Vatcher is pretty great).
For some reason lots of people seem to hate Bill Evans' Interplay, his least typical session for Riverside (there's also the companion Loose Blues, which was a problem-ridden session but is also worth hearing). Me, I like Interplay a lot.
Scofield's collab with Mark Anthony Turnage--Scorched I believe is the name.
Frisell & Evan Parker on Gavin Bryars' After the Requiem.
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Nate, the NO George Lewis definitely has a gong in the sixth, but it's a co-listing under Kid Valentine's name.
Ah, there we go--p 1485 of the 6th edition. Nice coincidence that both George Lewises get crowned!
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No: it was the avantgarde trombonist George Lewis they gave a crown to (for Homage to Charles Parker) not the clarinettist, at least in all the editions I've seen (including the 6th).
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Kinda like there's no "there" tehere, like somebody (Dorothy Parker?) once said about someplace.
Gertrude Stein, actually. I forget what town it was she was talking about (I think her hometown).
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Working on this one--will add more later.
1: Mingus, this tune is on Changes, though this is clearly a live version by the Adams/Walrath/Pullen version of the band. Nice to have the rest of the band drop away leaving Adam & Richmond for one episode. Pity about the fuzzy sound on the piano, but nice to hear DP going inside the instrument! Interesting Walrath solo too. A really nice track; in many ways better than the rather restrained version of this on the original studio album.
2: So far the theme seems to be “excellent but poorly recorded live gigs”. Odd to hear this done with such a piping tone, keeping to the simple flavour of the original tune, rather than just reverting to hard bop. The saxophonist keeps tightly to the chords, though when the bass inserts some substitute changes at one point he’s is right on them. No idea who this is, especially the drummer responsible for that very unusual solo.
3: more live stuff, ugh a rather clotted statement of this Monk theme. I think this is an honest to goodness bass guitar rather than just a horribly amplified acoustic bass. I’m finding it hard to care too much about this track during the piano solo; I get a little more interested in the guitar solo. The drummer & vibist sound familiar. Hmmmm.... I would guess Gary Burton on vibes but what’s he doing in this messy blues jam? Swallow on bass. I can’t figure this track out.
4: ugh, the worst sound yet on the comp. Alto, drums and somewhere in there a bassist I guess. “Bye Bye Blackbird” with some quotes of other things like “When Lights Are Low” & “Naima” & Bird licks & whatnot. I can’t even begin to guess who this is. A floating vibe to the alto that oddly reminds me of Konitz (or maybe Benny Carter, considering the “WLAL” quote). Whereas on the previous tracks the shortcomings of the recordings didn’t interfere with my enjoyment, here it does, but even so I just don’t like this at all: very longwinded & somehow despite the changes of pace & direction it comes off as unvaried.
5: geez, some decent sound for once, a nice change. A little percussion then a drum solo. Oh right, this is a Hancock tune, “One Finger Snap”. I really am not getting much out of this pianist who doesn’t seem to know how to shut up & whose solos come in tiny stuttering, endlessly repeated BITS. Maybe DeJohnette on the drums. Probably my least favourite track on either disc of the compilation. Hm, maybe Marc Johnson on bass. Nah not deJohnette. No idea about the pianist.
6: “Speak Low” opening on the bass with piano chords out of Debussy’s “Sunken Cathedral”. Then a fast tune in a 1960s Shaw/Hubbard vein. Maybe Bobby Watson’s Horizon, with BW on soprano for a change? Naaah. The trumpeter gets the 1st (long) solo & it sounds like he’s in charge..... Sounds like hardhitting pastiche of 1960s trumpet, so clean & whipcracking I think it’s a Young Lion rather than a 1960s veteran. Noisy accompaniment, esp. about 4 minutes in. This is basically a kind of jazz I respect but generally avoid: hard, glossy, self-absorbed. Soprano solo, so what. The pianist I like a bit more as he introduces a sense of relaxation into what’s otherwise a pretty ear-bashing track. Good lord that drum solo is noisy.
I think my least favourite tracks on this 2-CD comp are the last three. Oh well. Most of the rest I liked. Thanks for putting it together Tom, & for the emergency airlift of the BFT when the 1st one didn't show up.
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At last got this this morning. So I'll post responses & then rewind & see what you guys said: I imagine by now that the bones have been more or less scraped clean.
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1: elegant opening. Oh, “My Favorite Things”. Nice to hear that done NOT in the Coltrane style. Very nice, thoughtful stuff; no idea who it is, though.
2: “At the Jazz Band Ball”. I’m always spotty on early jazz; probably I should recognize these guys, but I don’t. The trumpeter (or should that be cornetist) is particularly striking here. 1950s or 1960s traditional jazz revival; I’m not sure if it’s old guys or younger revivalists or a mix. A nice track.
3: OK, a strutting piano blues. Horns come in & they sound very familiar, hm. Hm, the tenor: Stanley Turrentine? He has some of the sound I associate with Clifford Jordan. Yeah I think it’s Jordan, especially because the bridge sounds like something he might write. Lee Morgan on trumpet surely. The rhythm section all sound familiar. Tyner on piano? Or someone like Harold Mabern using Tyner licks maybe? Jones on drums: I could only confirm that with the final barrage. Now the track’s over & I haven’t guessed the bassist... oh well, let’s move on. Good track, surely Blue Note in the 1960s, probably a Morgan album.
4: Nice opening. “It’s Only a Paper Moon”. Hm, only piano + drums? Maybe it’s that Bill Carrothers disc? Nice to hear the pianist really take advantage of the absent of the bass by freeing up the harmony a bit. Good track. No idea who it is: the drummer sounds more familiar than the pianist.
5: “It Might as Well Be Spring”. Strange tight vocalized sound on the horn – is it french horn? 1950s or early 1960s. I wish that the recording engineer has made it sound less like horn + rhythm: the piano in particular is WAY back. I’m not wild about the solo, but that’s in part because I find the exclusive focus on the horn oppressive: couldn’t the pianist have got a half-chorus? Maybe Hank Jones on piano; it’s impossible to tell the bassist & drummer from this. Eeeh, this is the first track on the compilation I don’t like much, though it’s alright.
6: Don’t recognize the singer or the verse. Jeez, what’s the last time you heard “whom” in the lyrics of a song? OK, “Something to Live For”. Nice to hear the singer doing this quietly & with a lot of understatement, letting the vibrato & pacing & a few extra touches do the work. Don’t know the singer; the pianist sounds more familiar but I can’t place him.
7: Kenny Garrett. The tune sounds kinda familiar. Boring opening. It remains pretty boring for the duration of the tune. I liked his Triology but this is just dull, with all the musicians given a pretty soporific remit (the guitarist probably is someone famous but how could you tell from this?). People have warned me away from his softer-edged recent work & if this is at all typical I’ll consider myself warned.
8: Greg Osby surely. Not sure who the pianist is though: the natural guess would be Jason Moran but it’s DEFINITELY not him. The tone is a little more intimate, less biting & impassive, than I associate with Osby, maybe this is a little earlier than his Blue Note work, or maybe it’s just miked differently. No idea who the pianist is, but I have a hunch it’s probably someone a little older. It’s an OK track, nothing that grabs me. A few phrases at the end suggest “Isfahan”.
9: The tenor sounds vaguely familiar, other than that I don’t know. He does some unexpected things that keep me interested even though it’s not the kind of jazz that speaks to me strongly. The tune has a Shorterish vibe. No guess as to any of these guys.
10: Solo “Them There Eyes”! Nice way to open. Whoever he is he’s completely memorized Lester Young’s solo on this tune. Hm, maybe those Getz/Barron duets from late in his life? Um, nah, once the pianist gets to solo then it’s clear it can’t be Barron. No idea really who it is, but it’s nice. Two veterans, surely.
11: Yikes that clarinet really leaps out of the speakers: ouch! The alto sax is interestingly scatterbrained. The track seems to speed up at the trumpet solo (splice?). Piano’s OK. The tenor – hm, I think it’s the Hawk, not just a Hawkins imitator. 1930s or 1940s. Too full of caffeine, I wish they’d slowed down a touch & had the chance to stretch out, but I guess this was before LPs.
12: “All the Things” with an odd bashing piano introduction. God, the period sound is wretched on this, esp the too-loud drums, ugly piano sound & ugly bass. Konitz in the 1970s. Not one of his better solos. Not sure who the pianist is, maybe Lou Levy. Bach quotes, eh? Don’t really like his solo either. Ohmigod, Anthony Braxton’s here too. You know: he sounds BETTER than everyone else here. Take that, Lee (Lee’s repeatedly said ugly things about Mr Braxton in public). The double solos plus trading with drums is a bit messy. Just awful. Maybe I’d have a fractionally better response if the track were remixed. This is probably that Dave Brubeck album on Atlantic: the pianist is certainly heavyhanded enough to suggest Brubeck. Anthony takes the honours here: the 1970s WERE his decade.
13: More Prez stuff! No idea who it is but I always like solo sax. A little too much reverb: is this a studio or a friggin’ church? Some young gun. A little too inyerface for my taste. It’s an OK track, but showoffy.
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Actually all recent reissues sound good - SPiritual Unity by Dutch label Calibre sounds great[.....]
Er, really? I have a reissue from that period in the 1990s when a German label put all the ESP catalogue back in print. It sounds better than Machine Gun but that's about all I can say in its favour. Famously, the recording engineer didn't even record the first track in stereo because he thought they were just practicing.
Whatever the case it's wonderful music. I also like Spirits Rejoice a lot. The only others I have are Vibrations & the Impulse Greenwich Village 2fer; Vibrations never quite grabbed me (again, I may have a version with a poor CD transfer--the drums aren't caught very well) but the Impulse is great. It really is high time all the ESP stuff was collected in one spot & remastered properly.
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Paul Plimley & Lisle Ellis are terrific, yes; one hopes Hat Art's reissue program catches up soon to Kaleidoscopes, their marvellous album of Ornette tunes. My one complaint about them is that they can get stuck into familiar routines on their own sometimes--e.g. I've seen Plimley do his "Stomping at the Savoy" partypiece 3 times now in various concerts over the years, & it got a little stale. But that's a minor complaint. Catch Ellis on the new Enedi/Brotz/Ellis/Krall disc too--a great disc.
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np: Ochs/Jeanrenaud/Masaoka, Fly Fly Fly. Which is really nice stuff--one of my favourites so far this year. The cello & koto get a little cross-cultural synthesis going--the cello sounding rather "Asian", the koto often like a harp or the strummed inside of a piano. The first two tracks would please fans of the Tilbury/Morton Feldman school of tonal, minimalist improv; but the last two tracks are a lot more various & sometimes prickly. I like both sides of the disc about equally.
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Urs Leimgruber - Jacques Demierre - Barre Phillips "Wing Vane" (Victo, 2001)
This one looks interesting - let us know about it.
I like this one a lot.
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Boom is very good, yes: maybe not a year's-best but no-one who hears it will be disappointed. Haven't heard Orange. You get to hear Malaby play two saxes simultaneously on a couple tracks, among other things!
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Nuthin' so far. Oh well.
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Isn't Chinampas just Taylor's poetry (no piano at all)?
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There are rumours that much more material exists from these sessions--they were recorded over 3 days--but I guess with all the questionable issues & confusion it's anybody's guess who's got the original tapes or if a "proper" issue will ever be made.
I have only the Iron Man session, on West Wind (another dodgy label). It's wonderful stuff. Much of the material is familiar from the Vintage Dolphy live stuff with Armour, but all the titles are different.
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I remember Filiano's Subvenire as pretty good actually.
One of the champ solo discs is Barry Guy's Fizzles, very much worth geting if you haven't got it already. I'm told Barry's most recent solo disc (which has a couple covers on it!) is not as good.
Simon Fell's Max, only on cassette, is worth hearing too.
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Yeah I ain't got this one either! I do have Bye-Ya & The Holy La by this trio, both very fine (the nod going to Bye-Ya).
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Steve, good to see you here. Could you post details on the personnel? Unless I missed it you only named the drummer.
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Actually I've never seen a handsome SteepleChase cover....
But Bley's terrific. Haven't heard this one but the Bebop album on the same label is tremendous stuff... SteepleChase seem to get him into more "mainstream"ish situtations than the more abstract stuff on say ECM--nice to hear him do standards.
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Chuck--thanks for the info. I gotta chunk of reviewer's credit coming my way from Cadence at year's end so I'll get Serenade then (plus that Air disc)...but might come looking for that Bomba reissue...
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The FME? Dullsville, I thought; but then, I'm not a fan of Vandermark in any guise (though have more patience with other formations where he's not the sole horn). I don't have it anymore to check it (gave it to a friend) but the piece I wrote on it is here:
http://www.ndorward.com/music/fme.htm
The guy I gave it to seemed to like it, though. He even liked the other thing I sent him (Braxton's 2-CD set of string orchestra music from Ljubljana), so draw your own conclusion.....
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Has anyone here heard the now oop Mats Gustafsson / Hamid Drake - For Don Cherry album that Okka released? If so, is it good, great, so so, etc...
John, I don't know it, but it looks intersting. Are you sure it's on Okka? Okka website does not list it (and it does mention its OOP releases): http://okkadisk.com/
Yes it's Okka:
http://www.okkadisk.com/releases/odl10003.html
one of their ultra-limited editions (I've reviewed one of those, the first FME disk, & it was 760 copies if memory serves). I haven't heard it.
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This one worth picking up (cheap used copy)?
I don't have this one, from other 3-4 Bergman CDs I've heard, I've found his playing to be consistently boring.
Yup - I never heard him, so I can't really say ANYthing about him. Other opinions?
Got the new Björk disc, sounds interesting. Will listen over the weekend.
ubu
I had this & gave it away to a friend. Besides the fact that I don't much like Bergman's playing, the sound quality is pretty drab.
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Thanks for the info on the Atlantic/Koch. By the way, is the encounter with Yusef Lateef (I think just called Tenors, on Lateef's YAL label) worth a listen? The pairing sounds intriguing.
Peter Brotzmann
in Recommendations
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Yeah Live at Spruce Street Forum is great! Yep, lots of racket--nice to know Peter's not mellowed hopelessly. Most of the other albums & concerts I've heard of his lately with Drake, Parker &c have been rather too dignified.
Tales Out of Time is interesting but a bit mixed perhaps. It does however have one completely magnificent track, the tribute to Fred Hopkins.