Rabshakeh

Mal's solo on the second track - Bee Vamp - is a real favourite or mine. I think that's why it sticks in my head as the main session from that "first" career.

Thanks. For some reason that hadn't occured to me. Now that I think about it he does sound really different on earlier records like At The Five Spot.

Out of interest, and I may have missed it, but what is the reason for the 1963 start date?

WM episode coming up on Marc Maron's WTF podcast tomorrow, apparently. I'm keen to hear who out-talks who. (Edit: "Keen" is perhaps too strong a word...)

That's such a great record. If I hadn't rebought it as a download on Bandcamp recently I would.

Definitely. And that Billy Cobham album too. I like Jan Hammer’s early 70s stuff a lot. I’m just not sure that I’d necessarily want to be compared to him if I were a shredding pop metal guitarist, or vice versa.

Sad to see him go. A genuine paradigm shifter. I'm not at all sure who comes out of this comparison better off.

Ein Sof by The Assif Tsahar Trio (1997); Susie Ibarra in full swing. Yankees by Derek Bailey, George Lewis (the younger!) and John Zorn (1983). This is one of the few Zorn performances that I return to, along with News for Lulu with the same players minus Derek. I never quite understood the reason for the baseball theme for this Transatlantic partnership, but it is all fun.

Thanks. That's my evening plan, then.

I don't know that those composers had written for solo saxophone. Are there versions that you'd recommend?

He seems to have decided that his future lies in humiliating himself with vanity gigs. I've got friends who are active in extreme metal circles in London and they are having to put up with much the same from him in their chosen genres. I can see that. He is quite cold. A prowler rather than a shredder.

On Butcher, I'm not sure that solo Butcher is necessarily leagues away from group Butcher - there's just more of him to enjoy. 13 Friendly Numbers and Fixations (14) are good ones to try. The thrill of his playing for me is mostly down to how advanced his technical thinking is - he has all the techniques, emotion and range available to Parker etc., but with a really developed approach to feedback, miking and use of the physical space that he is playing in (presumably an influence from Alvin Lucier). I sometimes feel that the field of free improv is a little overfull, but he is one player who always stands out as attempting and achieving something different.

Interesting! From your description of it I am sure that is one of the two Shipp concerts that I was referring to above. That was a great gig. I remember condensation dripping down everywhere. I for some reason took a bunch of non-jazz fans there that night and they were as absorbed as I was, and still talk about it. RIP the Red Rose.

I agree that Butcher probably plays at his best solo, but I do find myself returning to his trio and quartet work a lot too - he is a player who thrives in different group and physical settings. I wouldn't want to be without Summer Skyshift or News from the Shed or Way Out Northwest: even if Butcher's own saxophone playing is not quite as inventive as on e.g. Fixations (14), he has to find different solutions to apply it. I've seen Shipp live probably more than any other player in jazz or improv, which is weird because I'd never class him as a favourite. Twice though when I have seen him play solo he has been really excellent - starting with a deliberately corny choice of material and then breaking it down and moving into exciting territory that brings to mind early Don Pullen (or possibly CT). But I have never heard him do anything like that on record (DNA with Parker is possibly the closest). A lot of his recorded solo or small group stuff seems too lush - Your Scriabin comparison is very apt - and, as I mentioned above, I found his David S Ware stuff retrograde and a bit boring, particularly in view of what else was out there at the time.

It's quite a change in cover art, isn't it? The vibe of the original photograph is amazing. Then the move to the stark pink/white/black colour scheme of the reissue.

Interesting. Back in the 90s when I was listening to Shipp perhaps more than I do now, I was sometimes frustrated at how traditional his comping was and how much leeway he gave to his front line. On lots of those David S Ware records he seemed to be merely enabling the saxophonist, or at most trying to spin things out and along. Given what other pianists like Schlippenbach, Schweizer or Crispell were up to at the time, challenging their front lines and dictating where the improvisation would progress, I used to think Shipp was too traditional and that too happy to take a subordinate accompanist/soloist role, rather than the new opportunities offered by the more democratic improv models that were then emerging. I had thought he'd improved recently - I really liked Morph from last year with Nate Wooley - but I hadn't heard him playing yet with a saxophonist like Butcher or Dunmall that has less of an immediate stylistic connection with the various American avantgarde jazz traditions. Certainly, I enjoyed this record and would second D.D.'s original recommendation. I've been listening to too much Butcher recently (he's easily among my favourite saxophonists of the last two decades) and it is refreshing to hear him pushed so far out of his usual zone of operations by what Shipp was doing. In place of the usual stalking improv predator was a caged bear that had to dance when Shipp told him too. And, as D.D. points out, the results were ... jazzy.

I like that record a lot. It’s nice to end a weekend with a record like that.

I've listened to this a few times over the weekend. I like it. It is pretty confrontational: Shipp gives Butcher very little space and he has to squeeze in where he can.

Incredible. Thanks so much for the response.

Okay. A work of genius then a work of Butcher and Shipp. I'm going to spring.

What is that shirt?

Crazy how much stuff gets released the day before BandCamp Friday. My phone was going mad with notifications all night.

Frank Lowe - The Flam (Black Saint 1976) Chad Taylor - Myths and Morals (Ears&eyes, 2018) Griot Galaxy - Kins (Black & White 1981)

I haven't listened to the E and F sides yet. How do you rate them compared to the original.