T.D.

Sorry, didn't mean to imply anything. I never know who was behind Other Music, but it clearly had nothing to do with any corporate chain.

And there was the Annex behind the main shop...Other Music, which sold a lot of weird/avant-garde stuff, was almost right across E. 4th St. from the Annex iirc. At the peak of the CD brick and mortar shop craze, Tower also had a massive branch near Lincoln Center (which was particularly strong on classical). J&R Music World on Park Row had a good selection of jazz CDs in those bygone days.

Could be several things (I could look it up, but am too lazy). Might have gone to some kind of prep school to be groomed for a football scholarship. Likely was redshirted for a year. Plus the COVID year. That'd be as many as three extra years. It's not that unusual for such players to have received diplomas and play out their final year of eligibility as grad students.

I'm no less dated than the OP, but back in the day I used to visit Academy Records on W. 18th St. for classical CDs. They're still around, added a vinyl branch (and have an annex in Brooklyn), I've made some online purchases but don't know anything about the current physical shops.

Simon Nabatov also released a CD of Nichols tunes on solo piano. The "Herbie Nichols Project" recorded 3 CDs between 1996 and 2001. But these (esp. the latter) may be in the realm of what Jim termed "projects".

, agreed on both counts.

This is funny...I got a copy of Stopping Time via interlibrary loan (Upstate NY, "Four County Library System"), just finished the book. There was one copy in the system, I expected it to come from a library in the Binghamton area (site of "the best" SUNY college), whence I've received some esoterica, e.g. Sites's Sun Ra's Chicago. To my surprise, it was from the Cherry Valley Library, a small but picturesque town I've visited a couple of times. Of course, reading the later chapters I then learned that Bley and Carol Goss lived in Cherry Valley from approx. 1980 on.

I've already preordered from Dusty Groove. If I got picky about crappy-sounding pianos, my collection would be seriously thinned out.

Thanks, nice article but one thing is not completely clear to me. Is this a list of (a) Your personal top five BNs, or (b) Your top 5 BN recommendations for someone just getting into jazz? I'm inclined to think (b).

The concert was a "celebration" of that release. Michael Bisio (event was held in his apartment complex) has been featured in so many recent recordings that it's difficult to keep up...

Earlier today, Kirk Knuffke Trio w. M. Shipp, M. Bisio.

Thanks for the warning. I've bought several Modern Harmonic Ra reissues with good results. But the sound quality on my recent Omniverse purchase was not up to the standard of the others.

I agree Prayer for Peace is outstanding. Thanks for the tip, the Ogun releases are the main Amalgam recordings I'm lacking. [Added] Wow, I even found Closer to You & Cynosure in stock at a reputable US dealer (Downtown Music Gallery). Ordered.

Thanks. I listened to the whole Lowther release on bandcamp and it's indeed good. I like Amalgam and have almost all their recordings, so am likely to pick up the Watts, but only one of the three tracks was available for audition on bandcamp.

Damn, I was pondering that track and can't believe I didn't guess it. Trouble is, I have the OJC recording of Last Chorus, and this tune is only on the Fresh Sounds Last Sessions, which has extra tracks.

These 2 are new on bandcamp, I'm listening now:

This. For instance, Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall (in 2001) programmed a successful 3-day New York School program (When Morty Met John). https://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/13/arts/music-review-a-carnegie-connection-then-and-now.html I consider that blue chip, and it was definitely well hyped. But there's no effin' way that venue would do anything similar for more difficult/left-field work.

Some prior discussion at http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php?/topic/87639-mal-waldron/&page=3

When I lived in the NYC area I attended many classical music events: opera, orchestral, chamber, "modern". My experience was that "modern" classical music, especially of the non-tonal (the dreaded "atonal") variety, drew very poorly in large venues. The subscription audiences violently disliked it, and the best programmers could do was to insert a token "modern" piece into an otherwise standard repertory program. There were some success stories in smaller venues. For instance, Miller Theatre at Columbia did (and probably still does) extremely well with attractively curated hard-core contemporary programs. But that's about 200-300 patrons, depending on whether the balcony is open (which it seldom was in my experience). When Miller impresario George Steele got hired by the now-defunct NY City Opera, a fiasco ensued. Granted the NYCO's trajectory of failure was in its terminal stage when Steele signed on. Smaller Carnegie Hall venues (Zankel and Weill) can do OK with modern music, I recall an excellent George Crumb 75th birthday program at Zankel, for instance. [Added] Brooklyn Academy of Music successfully programs modern music in a good-sized venue, though I find a lot of their stuff fits into a fairly predictable "hipster" mold. I went to many excellent contemporary concerts where the audience was pathetically small, on the order of two to three dozen people, many of those unpaid. And that's in the Big Apple. Jim and clifford made some good points above.

From "da bastards", including some preorders:

I'm more familiar with classical publications than jazz, and don't pay much attention to print reviews any more (rely more on discussion forums and selected blogs). But I've always suspected a bias / "conflict of interest" in publications reviewing releases on labels for whom they run advertising. For instance the classicstoday web page. Would they trash recordings from big advertisers like Naxos and Hyperion? I seriously doubt it. Don't know whether this is an issue with jazz publications, but it could contribute to the "only review recordings you like" syndrome.

Agreed. The last musical/audio thing this hilarious was the "Joyce Hatto hoax" in classical recordings. A delightfully ironic aspect is that the non-analog nature was not discovered by audiophiles' discerning ears, but by deduction (duh, if the records are being pressed this way, the source can't be analog).

I'll put in a word for the 2-CD (I don't buy vinyl, don't know if it was released in that format) Tapscott / Arkestra Live at I.U.C.C. on the souljazzrecords label.

Many events stay up on Youtube. How about: