Nate Dorward

Not sure if this is the right forum for this post--if not the moderators can move it--as it's not a disinterested review but a plug for a project I was involved in somewhat. (I wrote the liners.) Anyway: the guitarist Jim McAuley's new two CD set The Ultimate Frog is now out in the world from Drip Audio. It's a set of duets recorded 2002-2007 with four different musicians: Leroy Jenkins (violin, viola), Nels Cline (guitar, dobro), Alex Cline (drums, percussion), Ken Filiano (bass). Some free improvisation, some structured improvisation, and a few nice tunes that draw on Jim's background in fingerpicked blues & folk music (& his study of the oud). Plus a "duet" between Jim & a rainstorm outside, dedicated to Rod Poole. I won't say a lot about it (you can find the press release on the Drip Audio site if you're curious--most of it is actually stuff I cut from the liners to get them to a single page) except that I think it's truly remarkable music with a lot of soul & honesty. Only the 2nd disc I've done the liners for (the other, by Charlie Kohlhase, hasn't emerged yet) & it's really a pleasure to be involved with such an exceptional record. There are several MP3s on the Drip Audio site if you want a taste.

I always found Heffley a terrible writer, actually. My recollection is that the Radano is OK. Does Lock write on Braxton anymore?

A favourite player; terribly sad to hear he's gone. I did catch him play once, at the Montreal Bistro--he kindly played "Tickle Toe" when I requested it.

I should mention that there will be a feature article on Delmark in the next Signal to Noise.

Incidentally, anyone ever get hold of the Konitz/Haden duos from, I think, the same period (same sessions?). A Japanese-only release I think. I wonder if it'd be a little too sluggish, but given that Lee's disc with Red Mitchell is a winner..........

It'd be quite a nice disc if they edited out all the damn Mehldau solos (some of his most aggravating playing on record) & kept the endings of the pieces.

Oh that's a shame to hear--I've always been curious about this set but the hefty price tag has dissuaded me. Plimley's one of my favourite pianists--utterly AMAZING player who seems criminally underrepresented on disc (the last two concerts I caught by him--at Guelph in 2006 w/ Hamid Drake & Tommy Babin & Vancouver this year w/ Nicole Mitchell--were some of the best concerts I've ever been too, & a trio with Joe McPhee & Lisle Ellis in the 1990s was also memorable). But Oswald..... he's one of those free players who "can't play" (in a conventional sense), & though there are some players in that category I dearly love he's definitely not one of them. (Though I've heard the odd decent thing from him, like that quirky disc with Kimura/O'Rourke/Kaiser.) The New Worlds are my favourite CT discs; haven't really got into the live set from the same time on Hat Art. -- Count me among the few people who don't like the Intakt solo album, just sounds like CT playing his same half-dozen pet licks over & over.

Recent violinists I've heard whom I've really liked: Carla Kihlstedt (terrific duo with Satoko Fujii at the Vancouver fest this year--is Minamo even close to that level? I had a promo copy but it had a defect & I couldn't play it), John Ettinger (anyone else hear Kissinger in Space?), Jeff Gauthier (lovely new disc on Cryptogramophone, including a couple of Joe Zawinul tributes), Canada's own Jesse Zubot (deep-voiced wildman of Fond of Tigers, ZMF Trio, &c). Mark Feldman--amazing player but somehow his favourite licks start to get to me after a while. He was a breath of fresh air in the early 1990s, though, on discs by Thomas Chapin & Marilyn Crispell.

The woman's out in a year?

Well, you're in good company with Evan Parker, a huge Warwick fan........

Are the Roost recordings available elsewhere? They're the main reason to have the Blue Note/Roost box. The packaging's nothing special, the sound has been improved on the RVG releases (though it's fine, all things considered).

Thanks for the legwork, Jim. Hm, wonder what's up with the publishing rights.... I'll see if I can track the publisher down. I don't know exactly what constitutes "fair use" in the case of something like this where I'm not interesting in actually recording the music or reproducing the score in usable form. (I don't want to reproduce the whole thing--just use the last bar or so as the basis for some visual art.) Or what the typical fee would be for permission in this case. I guess I'll have to ask. It's a pretty small magazine (print run of about 250 copies, audience of misfit poetry buffs) so I'd like to avoid substantial permissions fees if possible. But it does seem to be the right image to use for the final issue of the magazine.

According to the credits on one CD I have, "Northern Music Co./ASCAP/adm. by MCA Music Publishing."

Of the Gerard/Sarzin? It was self-published by them (as the Gerard & Sarzin Publishing Company).

A request--would anyone have a chart for Herbie Nichols' "The Gig"? (Is Frank Kimbrough still posting here occasionally?) I recall that there's a chart in Gerard/Sarzin's book of hard bop compositions of the 50s & 60s, but I no longer own the book & it seems not to be in the library system here. I should make it clear that I'm not actually planning to play it (well, I'll probably pick it out at the keyboard anyway)--the reason I need it is actually as a basis for some visual art. (I run a magazine called The Gig; I'm publishing the final issue; I'm not happy with what my designer came up with for the cover; it occurred to me that the simplest & most effective cover would be a blowup of the final bars of the Nichols piece, maybe with a fermata added to the last note.) A good-quality scan would be fine too, or a fax. Drop me a line in this thread or via backchannel & we'll work something out.

In capitalist America, everything is under copyright - don't worry, someone will be there to claim the royalties. The translator, for instance.

Re: McHenry--there's an excellent posting on the Do the Math blog about his albums as a leader: http://thebadplus.typepad.com/dothemath/20...ll-mchenry.html I don't know his music well, but he sounds excellent on Reid Anderson's The Vastness of Space (FSNT), which has Monder, Andrew D'Angelo, & Marlon Browden. Very, very nice CD.

ghost: all I can say is, patience. We got a new cat (a young female stray, from a shelter) a couple years back & it's been a continuously adjusting dynamic in the household as the two (brother+sister) older cats & the new one worked things out. I think we've currently reached a fairly harmonious equilibrium just in the past 3-4 months, with the younger one finally getting accepted by the others as a peer & occasionally worthy of a mutual grooming or cuddling session. -- We simply isolated the new one in the sun room for a week, then gradually introduced more & more contact. Two litterboxes & careful monitoring of the food bowls are musts. There have been plenty of low-level spats but nothing too vicious, fortunately; the older cats are pretty mellow, & the new one has had the rougher edges sanded off her personality over the past year as she finally realized that she had a comfy home & didn't need to be so pushy & defensive.

Aside from copyright issues, at least this policy would cut down on those unwieldy threads where someone just posts article after article about a topic or musician, drowning out any actual conversation.

Hey, there's an art & craft to everything--ever look at Joe Dante's website "Trailers from Hell"? There are links to a couple great YouTube videos here on Jim Emerson's Scanners: http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/2008/09...orld_where.html In particular, check out the "5 Guys in a Limo" video (now I know what that guy who does the unctuous voiceovers for Disney ads looks like!).

Only two Lowe recordings I have are Decision in Paradise (w/ Geri Allen, Don Cherry, Grachan Moncur III) and Exotic Heartbreak (w/ Butch Morris, Amina Claudine Myers). Both recommended--if I had to pick between the two, maybe it's the latter I'd plump for. & Bodies & Souls is excellent despite the sound.

I don't remember the line about Sonny Clark--what was it? Yeah, the Shaw entry is terrible. But I always thought the worst entry in the book was the first version of the Arthur Rhames entry, which (IIRC) had some tastelessly skeptical comments. They considerably revised it in later editions. There's also the notable revisionism about a few discs (compare older & newer editions' entries for Monk's Underground and Miles's Blackhawk records). & in one early edition they make a passing remark that "anything, even a rampaging elephant, would seem subtle next to Hank Mobley" (if memory serves).

The guitarist Jim McAuley sent me a link to the audio & photo documentation of a recent experimental music fest in Boise (!). I haven't sampled everything here but wanted to plug it for the rare documentation of his playing. There are versions of faves off his solo album Gongfarmer 18 ("Blues for Wally Blanchett" is killer--it's on the Friday, part II--& there's a great reading of "Eyelids of Buddha" too), a lovely Renaissance saltarello, &c. Boise clips

Actually the main problem with the photos is that quite frequently they're inserted with no reference to anything in the text at all! I guess it's just because Bob R. wants to use the space & put in a cool photo. I like the change of font & layout--much prettier than in the past. That said, I won't be getting any more issues as I'm no longer contributing (I decided after doing it for 6 years that reviewing piles of often VERY variable-quality CDs was not a great way to spend my listening & writing time) & don't thinking I'll be resubscribing (there just seem to be lots of other places to go for record reviews these days).

I should add that in addition to the excellent The Snake Decides, it's worth checking out the long solo track on Atlanta, called "The Snake as Road Sign". It's not a very well-recorded album unfortunately but that solo track is one of EP's best.