Joe

Thanks, all, for the good wishes. I guess I'll stick around for another year after all...

I saw Charlie Haden in a local record store around 1980. Wasn't sure if it was he & checked with the owner after he left. It was Haden and he was complaining that the owner wasn't carrying enough of his records - even though there were several in the store. Sounds about right....... While I was at CalArts (2006-2008), I would occasionally see Haden and Wadada Leo Smith in the dining hall. Not unexpected per se, as both musicians teach at CalArts, but it was still a bit incongruous -- to me, anyway -- to have my first face-to-face brush with each musician involve cafeteria trays and plastic cutlery.

Once ran into Marchel Ivery loading groceries into his car in a Kroger parking lot.

Feel free to share your own. Tony Williams on Public Image Limited's ALBUM / CASSETTE / COMPACT DISC. Yes, a Bill Laswell production, but Tony does not play with anything like a "jazz inflection" here. Rather, its almost as if he's playing a theatrical role, "heavy metal drummer," complete with transformative prosthetic makeup. I.e., this is not quite like Wayne Shorter dropping in to play a sax solo on a Steely Dan record ("Aja").

"The Guitarist (Wes Montgomery & James Clay, Hollywood 1958)" Kendra DeColo It is the look of terror on his face— the glossy flank of an open grand piano untouched & muscled with light behind them—that makes me turn away, the saxophonist leaning into the curve of breath, the arc glinting from his lips, almost unwieldy, thick-limbed, the precision of a volt striking the ground. He is cruel, I think, his lips gripping the brass mouth & wood tongue, because he knows he can’t be touched as the fighter who doubles inside the ring, winged fits of blood & electricity humming like a halo around the near-corpse of the man he’s whipped, fists demarcating notes into the haze between them, the guitarist’s mouth & eyes swollen with knowledge he is ill-equipped, his left hand a culled constellation, flaccid above the strings as if to form the chord of a blistering universe, the first cut into darkness, deliberate chaos of the child who pretends to play lifting the wooden body to his chest, who knows what stirs in his cells has no name, the crook & jag, blue smoke, a bud opening in his abdomen swelled to the size of hope as we become the shape of whatever we hold in our hands when asked to lift up what we cannot bear to touch. (VINYL POETRY, Vol. 5, Summer 2012: http://vinylpoetry.com/volume-5/page-32/) Also, and at the risk of being a being a self-promoting jerk, I'm happy to announce that my first chapbook -- THE TERRACES (DAS ARQUIBANCADAS) -- has just been published as part of the Little Red Leaves Textile Series. You can learn more by visiting this link. Beyond that, LRL is a great small press that makes (and publishes) beautiful books.

Go in beauty. He was -- and remains -- a true original.

Done, although the next opening is almost a year away! You've got June, 2013. Thanks Jeff. It might take me that long to assemble a playlist (believe it or not). Looking forward to it, J

Thanks for the reminder re: MANOS. My recollection of the film's score is foggy, but I'm curious to revisit. Anything I know about this film I owe to MST3K, which made MANOS the subject of one of their all-time most memorable episodes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AJVZuQuD6M& (Also, if you've never seen what they do to a little exploitation film called THE BEATNIKS...)

I ready to assemble another BFT. Please slot me in for the next available opening. Thanks, J

A superb record. Highly recommended... and nice to know there are more tracks from this set to be heard!

Terribly underrated musician... was easily the most convincingly "bluesy" / "jazzy" of the Emerson - Wakeman prog virtuoso types. He'll be missed.

And thanks to you for that info re: Consuela Lee. Also glad to know that my recollections of Lee's role on CHANGE OF PACE (one of my favorite Griffin sessions, BTW) were more accurate than the AMG account. Which tunes on that date are credited to Lee?

No Bill Lee composer credits on Griffin's CHANGE OF PACE (which I find somewhat surprising), but "Connie's Bounce" is credited to Consuela Lee... wife? Sister?

Surely he doesn't mean this Kurt Vile (though he could)... http://kurtvile.com/

A bit hard to track down, but all his collaborations with Lee Konitz are worth hearing, especially this one.

Thanks much.

IS there any way to offer a straight-up donation? (I'd prefer no premium.) Thanks.

The Blue Potato on Milestone, late 60s, never on CD as far as I know. All solo, 12 or so tracks, short, sharp, to the point and wonderful. Does anyone else know this one? No.. have long wanted to hear it, though. His ESP date from the mid-60s has apparently been "suppressed," i.e., it too has not been reissued (and this despite the number of times the ESP catalog has been reissued), for whatever reason. To all the recommendations above, I;ll also add plugs for RAPPORT (Novus, late 70's... hunt the vinyl bins; duets with Ricky Ford, Braxton and Chris Connor, among others), his duets his Jaki Byard (IMPROVISATIONS; SOul Note), the 2 volumes of PAINTED RHYTHMS, and UNMARKED VAN (a Sarah Vaughn songbook sessions with assistance from the fine Italian drummer Tiziana Tononi).

Ah, I seem to recall much the same now that you mention it. A swerve into pure mathematics... fascinating! Thanks for that info. Some interesting ensembles there.

Is this the only documentation of Ameen's playing outside of his work with Cecil Taylor? If so (and probably still so even if not), a major contribution to the discography.

Last I heard (several years now), Charles was still living in Los Angeles, but had stopped playing. He and Billy Higgins were apparently very close, and had continued to play together (privately only?) over the years, but Billy's passing was rather devastating to him. Seems like some or all of this was summarized in a SIGNAL TO NOISE article some years back focusing on Dennis Gonzalez's attempts to reconnect with Brackeen. Don;t sleep on BANNAR or any of the Silkhearts, for that matter.

Sunny Murray: a true original; a master. Best wishes for a speedy recovery.