Nate Dorward

You needn't really go into a lot of technical detail about the music's construction, especially if that's not your forte. (Though I think probably most really good jazz critics have at least some experience with an instrument, even if only at an amateur level.) But in any case it's far better to just comment in more open-ended & suggestive terms. To suggest that Herbie Nichols' music is of interest to those who want to hear novel uses of scales isn't going to make too many listeners run out & buy the album......

"The Gift"? Surely "The Gig". & Taylor's first album wasn't a Blue Note album, it was simply reissued on that label years later. I think the reviews are OK, barring a few comma splices, typos & so forth, but don't quite understand why the albums are considered "neglected"--they've received plenty of notice over the years from serious jazz fans & Nichols in particular has been on a (posthumous) hot streak for the past decade or so. -- I don't think, though, you've really grasped what's original about Nichols' music in the last piece--e.g. I don't see what's so remarkable about the use of scales & repeated patterns (basic elements of composition, surely). The liner notes to the various issues (Rudd's & Kimbrough's) point in more fruitful directions--e.g. Nichols' very audacious harmonic thinking ("The Third World", with its pre-Trane use of movement in thirds, is a good example) & his increasing distance from AABA song format--lots of extended sections, half-bars, extra sections & intros, & eventually, in tunes like "The Gig" & "Query", entirely pushing beyond regular song-form.

"You can't trust the critics anymore"? As opposed to some imaginary point in time where they were entirely correct & of one accord? -- The disc has had several pans, yes, but also a few boosts, e.g. from Ben Ratliff in the NY Times. -- Speaking for myself I'm certainly not "an out guy"--the disc I strongly preferred, Line on Love, is a pretty straightahead jazz quartet disc, as you'd expect from something released on Palmetto.

Ehhhh, didn't like The Long View very much; Line on Love on the other hand is the real McCoy--an extraordinary disc. Here's the writeup I did of the pair: http://www.paristransatlantic.com/magazine...dec_text.html#3

Just a note to say that you can listen to one track from the disc on the Pi website, & that two more are available on Ellman's own website. I couldn't judge the recording quality from this, of course, given that the streamed audio wasn't exactly hi-fi- to begin with. -- Truthfully, after listening to those three tracks I decided this wasn't a disc I felt I needed to acquire. I do like Jeff Parker's Like-Coping though--it's not a big-statement kind of disc, but it's got a nice, cooled-out vibe that's very effective. It's indeed pretty similar to Nix's Alarms & Excursions in many ways.

Getting back to his appearances with Sun Ra--one Gilmore item that should not be overlooked, despite some obvious demerits, is the recent UMS/Atavistic issue Music from Tomorrow's World. It's recordings of Ra's band from 1960-61; the sound quality on the last 40 minutes is diabolical, even by the lo-fi standards of the Ra catalogue, & Gilmore isn't featured much on that session, but the first session is an acceptably recorded live date of about 30 minutes' duration with some utterly amazing Gilmore soloing--"How High the Moon" in particular is quite brilliant, performed at a frighteningly fast tempo, & there's also many other great solos ("It Ain't Necessarily So" is sublime too). Anyway, it's worth getting the disc simply for the first date.

No, McPhee isn't actually all that prolific, certainly not like Stitt or Konitz--but in the last half-decade or so he's had the enthusiastic sponsorship of Bob Rusch of Cadence/CIMP, which has meant that he's become much better documented. Most of his Hat Art/Hut/Ology (god help us, I wish Werner would settle on a name permanently) is unfortunately out of print, including Oleo/A Future Retrospective, Linear B & Topology, all of them major albums. Tenor is extraordinary stuff. Last year there were two very notable releases by McPhee--Journey on CIMP is the latest by his group Trio-X, & it's extremely good (split between alto & tenor work, with one soprano track); Chicago Tenor Duets on Okkadisk is a remarkable encounter with Evan Parker. It's dour stuff, as you might expect, but it's great to hear Parker butt heads with another saxophonist of McPhee's stature (& Joe shows that he can toss back at Parker whatever Evan throws him, with a bit extra).

I've only heard three: Reid Anderson's The Vastness of Space (good), Ethan Iverson's The Minor Passions (good), & one by Phil Stockli whose title I can't remember but which is eminently avoidable. I should pick up the Nat Su disc. He's a really, really nice alto player from Cameroon with a light Konitzian sound. He's worth checking out on Fredi Luescher's Dear C: The Music of Carla Bley on Altrisuoni, one of my favourite releases of 2003.

Some less exotic stuff-- Some early-music nuts I knew had an album which was a series of variations on, I think, "La Folia" (if not, it was "L'Homme Arme")--pastiches of every conceivable classical-music style, pop versions, rock version, country versions, jazz versions.....anyway, the set of variations is extended right to the centre of the disc, right under the label, so eventually the arm bumps the label & you get stuck. There's of course various instances of locked grooves--probably the best known jazz album with one is Escalator Over the Hill.

That's an interesting letter, but it does leave still unexplained the difference between Leo & the Leo Lab imprint. Don Friedman is indeed a remarkable pianist. I wish he'd knock it off with the boring album titles--My Romance, Days of Wine and Roses, Waltz for Debby, I Concentrate on You.......it leads you to expect precious sub-Bill Evans romanticism, but actually Friedman's far more bracing than that (Days of Wine and Roses, for instance, includes several "free" pieces). I haven't heard the new one, Waltz for Debby (the brainiacs at 441 Records seemed to think that when I asked them to send me a review copy, I really meant to say I wanted All Love: Grady Tate Sings). But virtually everything I've heard of Friedman's has been excellent.

Sonic Temples is good but somehow I think of it as almost as much the Schullers' album as Blake's. -- Duo en Noir is nice, yes. Two other ones that are very fine are The Short Life of Barbara Monk, a rare instance of Blake in a jazz quartet format rather than a drummerless duo. The creepy, violent version of "I've Got You Under My Skin" is superb. That Certain Feeling, a Gershwin album with Steve Lacy & Ricky Ford. Out of print, but I bet Hat Art will get around to reissuing it one of these days.

I think I agree with the sentiments that "self-indulgent" is too often a way to take something ambitious or risky down a peg. Joyce's Ulysses & Finnegans Wake & Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow & Mason & Dixon are nothing if not self-indulgent (in that one gets a sense that vast tracts are produced by the authors merely because they can or because they're enjoying themselves too much to stop...). I have an ambivalent relation to such books, but I'd be sorry to see them written off. Swinburne, Derek Walcott, Richard Crashaw, James Merrill, certain poems of Yeats, vast quantities of Hugh MacDiarmid..... -- The same goes for the self-indulgences of certain musicians--Keith Jarrett, James Carter, McCoy Tyner, DD Jackson, Han Bennink spring to mind for one reason or another. I find all of them exasperating to varying degrees & on varying occasions, but it's not the worst thing for music to be excessive rather than stiflingly tasteful. Ultimately the question is whether it's music that actually has real substance to it, or is just being put out by the musician or label out of cynicism or indifference to quality or complete deludedness. (David S Ware's Threads is, arguably, an instance of the third option....)

Karayorgis is indeed interesting. I haven't yet quite warmed up to Blood Ballad, a trio disc--it's rather monochromatic & finicky, was my impression--but the more recent quintet disc Disambiguation is great stuff. Unlike the rather dogged use of dissonance on Blood Ballad, the latter is much lighter & fleeter, more Tristano than Andrew Hill.

Well, maybe, but the one I've heard was ghastly: I had the misfortune to receive three discs by Gaudynski in the past year....

Well, I like the Penguin Guide, & it's fairly reliable, but Cook & Morton also unaccountably give high rankings to Metheny/Bailey's Sign of 4, DD Jackson's Sigame & assorted other albums I found unlistenable, so.....

Hm, the review's by Brian Olewnick, who's usually a sensible & trustworthy reviewer (as long as one takes his reviews of Erstwhile releases with a grain of salt). Truthfully, I've been avoiding that one for years because of the presence of Bergman, & will continue to avoid it. Oh, glad to hear Kevin Uehlinger's got a solo disc out. He sounded really good on Anthony Braxton's recent Delmark quartet album.

I like Invisible Hand, though I think Osby could have given the other players more room. Gary Thomas, in particular, is barely used on the album (he gets a single flute obliggato & a brief tenor solo), & in general the whole album is gimcracked around Osby's own soloing, which seems perverse given how extraordinary the band is. But I like the disc's moody vibe.

Yes, Battaglia is a really interesting player--I don't know the duo with Oxley but his most recent one on Splasc(h), Atem, is very fine.

I don't have any firm impression of KVDM's composing & arranging; they seemed all right, if more functional than memorable. Is there something about them that struck you? -- I can't check my impression now of his compositions as I got rid of the recordings I did have, & am not likely to get any more: after having reviewed a few in the past, I've made it clear to my various editors I'm not very interested in reviewing any more KVDM discs. As an organizer? Well, he surrounds himself with some great players, & is very good at the mechanics of promotion, touring, &c. I wish I could say I liked the musical results more.

Truthfully, having heard KDVM twice live & having heard three discs of his, I've yet to be at all impressed by him & am unwilling to spend further time on him. My impression was of a decent if limited R&B-style player, rather than a jazz player per se (the foursquare rhythmic sense & lack of harmonic flexibility suggest as much), though he typically surrounds himself with much better players. His heart seems in the right place, given the obsessive dedication of virtually every piece of his to artists he admires; but that's not enough to sell me on his own music.

Hey, thanks for the kind words on the review.....! Actually, the review I did I'm proudest of on that site is the one of Duos for Doris....it was very hard to write, because I found the amount of critical fuss about the disc distracting (it was like reviewers were competing with each other to praise it more highly than the last). My first impressions of it had been kinda....blank....& so I found I had to, so to speak, clear a space for myself to listen to it intently & without pressure. The resulting review is pretty positive, but with a lot of ambivalence hovering around the edges. I don't think Jon Abbey (of Erstwhile Records) liked it much, as a result. Haven't heard St Louis Shoes....well, nevertheless I think I'll want to hear it, I've found most of Osby's Blue Notes worthwhile. Besides, I'd better do my bit to support him at the home of Norah Jones......they keep releasing discs by him but they also have been deleting even fairly recent ones at a ferocious rate.

Ah yes, the Jurek review..... That appeared before the disc was formally released & a chunk of it (the bit calling for the disc to win a Grammy) was extracted & used in the packaging of the eventual release, I gather. (I haven't got a copy of the formal release; I was sent a bare-bones CD-ROM by Thirsty Ear a few months before it came out.) Actually one of the oddest things about the disc was the repeated postponing of the release date--the earliest review I saw was in July but I think it actually eventually came out in September. On the other hand: http://www.paristransatlantic.com/magazine...oct_text.html#8 http://bagatellen.com/archives/reviews/000156.html et al.

Redman sounds good on Mark Turner's self-titled debut for Warners (which is I guess now out of print or going out of print). I haven't heard any of his discs as a leader. Yaya3--eeehhhh, it's OK, but I don't understand the enthusiasm for it. This is what I said in Cadence.

Looking at the t.o.c. & the page of blurbs it looks to me like the book has little or nothing on free jazz, despite the title--it's largely on hard bop, with a focus on Mingus & Coltrane. I haven't seen the book itself, though. For this particular period I'd also recommend David Rosenthal's Hard Bop. I've read Jost, Spellmann, Wilmer. They're all of use. Derek Bailey's Improvisation is also useful if you want to follow the European thread of free playing--it's not a history by any means, but it gives a lot of information via reproducing interview material with various players. There are also specialized books of course like Whitehead's New Dutch Swing.

Here's what I wrote about it: http://www.squidco.com/cgi-bin/news/newsView.cgi?newsID=259