JSngry

Yep. The title cut alone is worth the price of admission.

Imperfect recording, but damn fine playing by everybody.

Eddie Cantor George Gallup John Scott Trotter

She was a nice girl. Alto player actually, not yet really good, & all the guys made fun of her for wanting to be a player. I've seen a lot of different type bootlegs over the years, and some are certainly "unusual". But that Parktec thing is the only one that's given me the shivers.

Yellheah! Well, sorta. There's sythns & electric bass, and some "contemporary"-ish rhythms. It's still pretty much "jazz" but the influence is definitely there. "Fusion" more like "electric jazz", not like "odd-meter chop spewy". 3 Sides on Soul Note - Dragonfly, Quasar & Liquid Dancers. I like 'em.

Oh...my...god... I have seen that record, and there's something very weird about it. First of all, the picture isn't that cat w/Bird - it's a picture of some mentally ill looking cat who put himself in front of a blow-up of the pic of Bird & Billy Eckstine at Birdland(?) & took a picture of that. In the second place - there is no such place as "Rollo, Tx". In the third place, that note is not by Bird. Definitely not. In the fourth place, Dr. Donkke didn't make these recordings. I'm pretty sure that there is no Dr. Donkke. In the fifth place, I'm told that there's something in the occult that has to do with a donkey hoof, some sort of ritual or something. So, "Claude Donkke" could maybe be read as "clawed donkey". Admittedly, this one is a stretch, but everything else about that record is so creepy that I'm alllowing it. Back in college, I met a chick from California who had this side. She was a bit of a Bird buff, had some otehr boots, but thought this one was a little weird. When I looked at it, the "photo" of Dr. Donkke w/Bird immediately creeped me out - the photo's obviosuly a very cheap forgery, the cat really does look mentally unstable, and the "note from Bird" is desperately poorly written. I got a vibe immediately, and set about finding out of Rollo, Tx really existed. It didn't, So one thing led to another, and I found out about the alleged occult ritual (still not fully buying into that one, but...). Anyway, this is not your typical Bird bootleg. Who in the hell would go to the trouble of creating obviously fake photos & forged letters, none of which even faintly suggested the remotest chance of authenticity? Eitehr somebody with a warped sense of humor or somebody who really was a little bit or more off. The whole thing was just....creepy. Anyway, I gave the chick her record back & told her she could have it because it was weirding me out, Bird or no Bird. True story, I swear.

From the website: So I don't think they were looking to buy land as much as aqcuire it through federal grant.

Butcha' know - Free Fall has Paul Bley on it, and Paul Bley gave Ornette his first break - in Los Angeles, where Bley led a house band for a good while. And that gig led to Ornette's recording debut for - Contemporary. So when you hear Free Fall, you're hearing 2/3 West Coast of some sort.

Good god Aric, if Free Fall freaks you out, you for darn sure don't want to hear the stuff from the 80s that sorta kinda sounds like Weather Report...

I've got no idea. But I figure it's better to have it in some form than to not have it at all. Hey - if a better deal comes along, take it!

Hey, I'm just being a "good citizen". I appreciate the numerous heads up I get from y'all, so when the opportunity comes to return the favor, it's a pleasure to do so.

I can vouch for Jazzloft's quick service & reliability. Good folks in all my dealings.

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Would be very interested in learning more about the "secret society" of Ra & Abraham. "Space Is The Place", etc. has never really done it for me in terms of what Ra was really up to. Will an exhibit guidebook be available for sale?

It'll take ou longer to read the damn review that it will to listen to the box...

Had a listen to this one last night, & it got better for me the deeper into the disc it got. At first, I was kinda all eyes-rolling "o....k... more Trane shit" (even though as seemingly unanimously noted, Pharoah plays great throughout. But it's not his album....). Just waaaaaay too much gesture from the rhythm section, and Garrett seems more than happy to meet them on their terms rather than bringing them to his. But the further into it got, the less derivative it seemed to get, and my interest perked up accoringly. Maybe they just wore me down. The voices don't bother me at all. I like voices ok. What did bother me was that too much of it sounded like it should have been a Strata-East side of 30+ years ago. C'mon, that shit was great then, but I know how it goes already, and have for quite a while. Give it a twist. Or something. If I'd not already heard a lot of what this album was modeled on, I'd probably go apeshit & give it rave reviews. In DownBeat language, that's 5 stars. Knowing what I know, I'd give it 3 stars, just because no matter how good it is, and it's quite good, there's still a lingering sense that no matter how "intense" it is, it's more the intensity of effort rather than discovery. To be as objective as possible (and because Pharoah plays really, really beautifully from start to finish), I'll split the difference & give it 4.

Serious music is fun! It's the stupid shit that's a drag.

Un Homme et Une Femme Frere Jacques Soeur Sourire

Come to think of it, you might be right. Please confirm.

C.W. McCall Steve McCall Macaulay Culkin

Well, since its coming from a re-seller, the boot people ain't gettin my money. I still wonder who else is on it. Hey I got no problems with that. How do you think I got to know about the Lotus label in the first place?

Much the same can be said about the stories about Gigi Gryce's alleged mob-threat induced paranoia & withdrawal from the professional music scene, stories for which Mike Fitgerald & Noal Cohn were completely unable to find any corroborating evidence. Although I subscribe to the theory that just because you're paranoid doen't mean that they're not out to get you, and although I fully understand the numerous individual & institutional hostilities present in this world towards the spiritual essence and power of this music, I also know that sometimes cats get a little/lot wacky about it too.

Tightwad Johhny Wadd Harry Reems

Frankie Carle Carl Perkins Don Perkins

Lotus as I've known it was a bootleg label that often issued material from the similarly bootleg Joker label . This is probably a live date captured on tape & then released on the grey market.