T.D.

There's some related discussion on this 2015 thread: http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php?/topic/78166-walter-davis-jr/

I don't know much about Koopman (don't own any recordings I can recall off the top of my head), but he's one of the really big-name HIP conductor/scholar/musicians. Innumerable recordings, incl. complete Bach cantatas (cond.) and organ works (playing). No doubt he has many fans, but likely many bashers as well. Gotta be worth seeing, provided health allows him to appear. [Aside: I recall that the famous conductor Klaus Tennstedt was frequently in poor health; back in the '90s his scheduled NYC appearances were always eagerly anticipated but invariably seemed to get cancelled.]

Agreed on Shades. It's included in the recent 4-disc Black Saint / Soul Note box, which I like but might be a bit much for the OP (also has 2 solo piano discs and a slightly out trio effort). Black Fire was the obvious choice that came to mind.

Ditto. The "bleeps and bloops" material hasn't aged well (Lejaren Hiller comes to mind), but it's a pretty good set overall, and the "Black Angels" is excellent. Sorry I can't help, but OTOH I don't recommend paying overly much for the set, since most of the non-obscure pieces have been recorded elsewhere (surely Cage, Feldman, Wolff are on mode if not others; Wolpe in general has been heavily recorded; there must be non-Kronos "Black Angels" out there; I don't recall digging the Brown; don't recall the Druckman at all; one could probably do without the Hiller). Funny how these recordings age. VoxBoxes were originally super-budget priced, and a lot of them languished at Berkshire for long periods of time. And now they sell at big premiums...The other 2 VoxBoxes in the series ("Early American SQ" with a piece attributed, perhaps spuriously, to Benjamin Franklin, plus "1900-1950") are also worth hearing, though less compelling.

Half.com (worth checking every once in a while) has a copy for $11.99 + S/H. [Disclaimer: I'm happy with my copy and am not a seller...I used to work on Wall St., and in that cynical world people who issue buy recommendations are, more often than not, actually sellers!]

Oh yeah. Very interesting program!

Agreed on the MFQ band. I owned a decent amount of Mingus recordings before springing for the Mosaic, but none with Mingus/McPherson/Hillyer/Byard/Richmond. That lineup's material on the Mosaic was a revelation to me. Especially since until I heard the stuff, I couldn't imagine Hillyer fitting into a Mingus ensemble (I enjoy Hillyer's playing but always get the feeling his technical ability is struggling to keep pace with his ideas).

Over 40 degrees F and raining, may reach 45 F later. Quite a change from -25 Sunday morning - gain of 70 degrees in less than 60 hours. Largest swing I can recall.

Thanks. Not familiar with the Basie, but strongly agree on the McPherson, a long-time favorite. Also agreed on Hillyer's playing which, though seemingly very short on chops, winds up strangely fascinating. Also, Live at the Five Spot is one of those Prestige 2 LP on 1 CD (possibly w. 1 tune dropped) releases that offers a lot of bang for the buck. There are some good Lockjaw/Griffin recordings in that format (The Tenor Scene and Live at Mintons).

Andy Roddick Fearless Fosdick Dick Fosbury

Decent-looking programs. Looks like they're taking the "conservative" approach of scheduling about 50:50 "new music" (composers unknown to me) vs. "safe" established international composers (Bartok, Khatchaturian, Villa-Lobos, Penderecki, Takemitsu). Bear in mind I was attending a lot of NYC events at the time. Needless to say, there were a lot of opportunities, but even then/there I had to be very mindful of announcements, as there was no single good source of a "contemporary" calendar...only one rather obscure and amateurish website (which I forget*) even came close. [Added] *OMG, the site is still around: Soundart calendar of new music in NYC ...and still a bit amateurish - trying to reach the link to the claimed 2/27 performance of Robert Ashley's Perfect Lives (one of my absolute favorite works), I hit a dead end!

Dredging up old memories (holy crap, it was over 16 years ago!), I cut/pasted the program I attended below. Maybe Howl suffered a bit in comparison to the other works: Gubaidulina and Saariaho are significant names, and the Sculthorpe piece, though rather out there, was very cool. November 10, 1999 - 8:00pm - "Howl: Music for Strings" - The Great Hall Cooper Union, NYC Lee Hyla (USA) Howl (for string quartet with tape of Allen Ginsburg reciting his poem) Kaija Saariaho (Finland) Neiges (for 8 celli) ** United States premiere Sofia Gubaidulina (Russia) Silenzio (for violin, cello, and accordion) ** New York premiere Peter Sculthorpe (Australia) From Ubirr (for string quartet and digeridoo)

Jim, I didn't mean to harsh your upcoming experience... That string quartet clip sounds pretty good. From what I recall, Hyla was (he passed away fairly recently) generally well-regarded by the new music community. You'll be hearing the Brentano SQ, which is a better ensemble than I heard. The Howl I attended didn't have a live vocalist; it used a Ginsberg tape and there was video playing in the background. Please post your impressions of the We Speak Etruscan disc with Tim Berne.

Stayed home today in bitter cold, but went out to start the car (successfully!) at 3:30 PM and the temperature read 0, which might be a degree or two high because the car was sitting in the sun. Funny, after a low near -25 F Sunday morning, temp might hit +40 F on Tuesday, with pouring rain.

Eduard Tubin Fee Waybill Mike Oldfield

Pierre Garcon Boy Van Poppel (pro cyclist) Diane Ladd

It's on a Kronos Quartet CD called Howl U.S.A., if you want to pre-listen. Kronos discs are probably available cheaply on Amazon, etc., since they get pressed in large quantities.

I think it might have been -25 F last night, pretty sure -20 (Catskill Mtns, NY). My indoor thermometer, which runs low 5-10 degrees in cold weather, said -32 early this morning.

Jim, I hate to be negative, but I saw a performance of Howl live in NYC (Cooper Union; Hyla was introduced onstage immediately afterward) some 15 years ago and truly, even profoundly, disliked it. And the moment the piece ended, a guy sitting directly in front of me turned to his companion and precisely echoed my impression, saying "God, I fucking hated that!" I had previously heard the piece on CD and didn't particularly care for it, but for some reason the performance affected me a lot more. Disclosure: I was a dedicated "new music" follower at the time (when I lived in the NYC area), attended many events at Miller Theatre, Merkin Hall, Manhattan School of Music, etc., am in no way hostile to contemporary music, and generally like "spoken word" material. I heard a couple of other short pieces by Hyla that I found "OK", but I stopped paying attention to him after the Howl fiasco. YMMV, of course. We Speak Etruscan looks like it might be interesting, with Tim Berne.

I kinda hate to say it (as a J.R. fan) but Moe Howard also comes to mind. Incidentally (though off-topic), contemporary classical violin ace Irvine Arditti rather resembles Larry Fine.

Sal Maglie Brutus Beefcake Julio César Chávez

Excellent! Listening now. Very timely in light of the fairly recent discussion of O'Brien's book.

A lot of the super-budget-priced classical megaboxes contain CDs that push the playing time envelope.

CDs can hold more than 80 minutes, but many CD players I've owned became less reliable as playing time approaches 80 min. My current changer sometimes starts skipping near the end of really long discs. A flaky phenomenon, not strictly reproducible.

For an analytical / sceptical approach (none of which is new), see this LA Times article.