sonnyhill

Farmers by Nature - Love and Ghosts (AUM Fidelity) Matthew Shipp Trio - Root of Things (Relative Pitch) Anthony Braxton - Trio (New Haven) 2013 (New Braxton House) Mark Turner Quartet - Lathe of Heaven (ECM) - Great record, but the ECM production values suffocated the music on this recording, especially the contributions of the drummer Marcus Gilmore and bassist Joe Martin. I hope they can do another recording where the music is allowed to breathe. Sean Jones - im.pro.vise Never Before Seen (Mack Avenue) - This was too long at 70 mins. 50 mins. would have been perfect. Jason Adasiewicz's Sun Rooms - From the Region (Delmark) - I have to get the rest of the Sun Rooms catalog. Eric Revis Quartet - In Memory of Things Yet Seen (Clean Feed) Jimmy Giuffre 3 & 4 - New York Concerts (Elemental Music) - The Coltrane at Temple got all of the press, but this was head and shoulders better. Wadada Leo Smith - Great Lakes Suite (TUM) Tyshawn Sorey - Alloy (Pi) Marc Ribot - Live at the Village Vanguard (Pi) Jemeel Moondoc - Zookeeper's House (Relative Pitch) - Favorite cover of the year. If Moondoc does another Kickstarter, I will pony up. *** I still plan to purchase, but have not heard Steve Lehman's Mise en Abime, Mary Halvorson's Reverse Blue, and Tomas Fujiwara's Variable Bets *** Best performance of the Year: Nate Wooley's performance of Seven Storey Mountain at 2014 Winter Jazzfest NYC. It's on You Tube here in four parts.

Thanks. I will try Siri.

It's posted on You Tube, but the pianist is not identified. Thanks. http://youtu.be/0G0lr9yUgJI

Thanks. I will try that next time.

I would like to purchase a copy of Dortmund, but on Amazon it's $60.00. Is it availabe for a more reasonable price somewhere overseas? I will probably pick up the Braxton Mosaic. Is there a dedicated Braxton thread on the board? I tried the search function, but one did not show up. I know the search function does not always work.

Reading Moms's comments in the Classical Bargains thread prompted me to look into some of the composers that he mentioned -- Rzewski, Wolpe, Walker, Flynn, Bowen, Dussek, Bolcom. I had heard of Walker and had read Iverson's post on Walker on his website "Do the Math," but the rest were completely foreign to me. I searched and did not find a thread dedicated to "classical" works published in 1900 and beyond. Who are the interesting composers? What are the interesting works? After Bartok and Shostakovich, what string quartets should I listen to? What should I be listening to in order to get myself oriented? I like piano quartets ( piano with string trio), what piano quartets written from 1900 to the present should I hear -- I have heard and do like Arthur Foote's. Is there a good comprehensive book that is available?

Thanks for the link. Very, very, interesting reading. I didn't have any Braxton in my collection outside of Woody Shaw's Iron Men. I rectified that recently with a purchase of his recent trio New Haven. Does anyone know if the Graham Lock book Forces in Motion is any good? One more question, which would be a better start to explore Braxton's music the Mosaic or the Black Saint set? Thanks.

At $.054 per album play you would have to had played Born to be Blue about 370 times to generate $20.00 of revenue. You must really like that album. At $.06 per song, a ten track album would have to be played all the way through 100 times to make $6.00. There are very few, if any, albums in my collection that I have listened to 100 times. Most jazz albums are considered successful if 1000 - 2000 copies are sold. For musicians who sell that few albums, the economics of Spotify do not make sense. Streaming does appear to be the future, but its proponents in my opinion are being disingenuous when they contend that streaming is great for the artists. Streaming is great for Spotify's principals and its investors. They will get extraordinarily weathly when there is an IPO and sell your listening habits and other information to make even more money. The music business has alway been unfair to artists, but streaming as it is now configured in my opinion makes it more unfair. Maybe the future for jazz and classical artists are Kickstarter campaigns where interested listeners pay for the music before it is even recorded. Jemeel Moondoc used Kickstarter to pay musicians for The Zookeeper's House and the Chiara String Quartet used it for their recording of the Brahm's String Quartets, Brahms by Heart. But then that makes it difficult for artists without name recognition to put out a first album. My concern is whether streaming will make the economics of recording an album too daunting.

I had a Spotify subscription and got rid of it. In my opinion, Spotify is leveraging the hard work and sacrifice of thousands of artists to make very few people very rich. To me, it seems like its monetizing piracy -- $0.006 per play is abysmal. I feel it is unethical. Unfortunately, more artists do not vigorously defend their intellectual property rights. I do not understand why record labels and artists allow strangers to post entire newly released albums on You Tube. If Spotify's head honcho Mr. Ek is so interested in compensating artists, he and his investors should distribute the IPO money that he is positioning himself and his investors for to the artists. He should also take as salary the median income of the artists whose music is offered on his service.

+1

Happy Birthday Sonny Rollins!

A new recording is being released on Tum Records in the fall -- The Great Lakes Suites. The line up -- a quartet: Wadada Leo Smith, Henry Threadgill, John Lindberg and Jack DeJohnette. It appears that it will be a double album. There is also a preview of a track from the album here.

I am listening. Hopefully all of this material sees the light of day as a legitimate release. It would make an excellent Mosaic set.

I was at one of those shows at Smalls with Akinumusire as part of the Turner quartet/quintet also. Akinmusire's playing was excellent and the reasons that he is considered a bright light on trumpet was readily apparent during the sets that I attended. In my opinion, Turner's playing was also particularly inspired at those shows. The Smalls dates -- two sets each from June 16 and 17, 2010 -- are archived in the Smalls audio archive under Mark Turner's leadership with Ben Street on bass and Marcus Gilmore on drums. Akinmusire's name is not listed on the Smalls website. David Virelles joins the group on piano on some of the selections; he is also not listed on the Smalls website. Ben Street has always been a favorite of mine and was superb. Marcus Gilmore's drumming that night was also markedly good. I listen to those Smalls recordings all of the time. I have Akinmusire's latest cd. It's not bad, but it is a bit disjointed and aimless for my tastes; too much going on in totally different directions. I liked the first cd on BN a little better than the latest, but I feel that neither properly represents how uniquely talented he is.

No vocals on the VV cd. Fear of vocals is why I haven't picked up Your Turn.

I haven't heard Your Turn. The new one, which was recorded at the VV, is really good. If you download, there are three extra tracks available via iTunes that are not on the cd. I usually do not download, but in this case the additional tracks were worth it.

Don't hesitate. It's excellent.

Agreed, but what is left to be determined is pourquoi.

Thanks Xybert. Since the issue is not present on the 1994 Conn., I wonder if it is indicative of a) a manufacturing defect or b) damage to the master tapes between the issuance of the1994 Conn. and the issuance of the RVG in 1999. Is Whistle Stop scheduled to be issued as an SHM in Japan? It would be interesting to determine whether this is a source issue or quality control issue.

Thanks JSngry, but the version where I hear the issue is the RVG not the Conn. I have a recording of the Conn. and do not hear the issue on the Conn. that I hear on the RVG.

I have been listening to the RVG of Whistle Stop. At about 1:48 of "Sunrise in Mexico" there is a weird moment where it seems like the phase changes or that the levels for the rhythm section changes; it's subtle, but noticeable when you are listening closely. Years ago, someone burned the 90s McMaster of this album for me. That moment is not present on that version from my listening. Is what I am hearing a defect in my disc (or batch of discs), something inherent in the tapes, an issue brought about during the RVG remaster, or something else? Any help will be appreciated. Thanks.

I have all of his leader recordings except the first one on Red Records. With respect to the trio records: (Sunnyside) is my favorite. He is an artist whose records, at this point, I purchase as a matter of course. I have seen him live many times, usually playing music from the trio records with his former trio of Gregg August and Rudy Royston. I also saw him once in a quartet with Jeremy Pelt, August, and Tyshawn Sorey at the Vanguard -- the music was much "freer" than Allen's trio records or what Pelt usually plays and great, but not entirely "on the outside." I saw him in this setting: http://kadmusarts.com/forum/index.php?topic=1440.0 several years ago. Given the line up, I did not know what to expect. It turned out that the group played entirely "free" jazz. I wasn't expecting that given the personnel at the time, but It was memorable and reminiscent of Interstellar Space with a bassist and with Allen and Roberts taking turns as Coltrane. Royston and Revis were ridiculously good. It would be nice if that performance was recorded and released or if Allen had the opportunity to make a record in the same vein with that personnel. Apparently, he is releasing another record this year called Bloom: https://www.facebook.com/TheJDALLENfanpage.

Darcy James Argue's Secret Society - Brooklyn Babylon Jonathan Finlayson & Sicilian Defense - Moment & the Message Kendrick Scott - Conviction Black Host - Life in the Sugar Candle Mines Jose James - No Beginning No End Atoms for Peace - Amok J. D. Allen - Grace Matt Mitchell - Fiction