HWright

After having ignored them for years, I checked out XTC's post-"Skylarking" material a few years ago (around 2001, although I can't really recall..)...My favorite is probably "Oranges and Lemons," although I'm quite fond of the rather underrated follow-up "Nonsuch" too. Based on my experience at the time, I think it can be rather hard to find on CD these days. As for the most recent pair of "Apple Venus" and "Wasp Star": I like a lot of the songs but don't find that the albums flow the way the earlier ones did. Perhaps with the group narrowed down to a duo it's just not the same. In any case, I often find myself pulling the two new albums out to play individual tracks rather than playing the albums all the way through. Over all, I like most of "Apple Venus" and my two favorite songs on "Wasp Star" are "You and the Clouds will still be Beautiful" and "Church of Women."

Did anyone else catch the Curtis Fuller 70th Birthday Band at Blues Alley in Washington, DC? They were in town Friday and Saturday nights and I caught the 8:00 show on Friday. I don't know if this is part of a tour or not, but the group included Curtis on trombone, Wallace Rooney on trumpet, Javon Jackson on tenor, John Hicks on piano, a young bassist named Michael Bowie and Carl Allen on drums. They played "The Clan" (tune by Curtis from "Soul Trombone," on Impulse), "Good Bait," "Caravan," "Arabia" (from "Mosaic" on BN) and Hicks played a piano solo which I think was "Passion Flower," but I'm not positive. This was the first time I'd heard any of these musicians except Hicks, who often plays the same club with his own groups (the time I saw him he was with Bobby Watson). I enjoyed the choice of tunes, many of them associated in one way or another with Curtis' days with the Jazz Messengers... In fact, I believe that everyone in the band except the bassist and drummer played with Art Blakey at one time or another. I suppose one could say that Curtis didn't play a lot and that it was really just a pick-up band, but I thought it was great hearing such old style hard bop live, something I'd never really had a chance to do before. Anyone else check this group out?

Since it was mentioned, I'd just like to add that I haven't seen the new book itself in any book store. That was why I started the thread. I did manage to find the table of contents on line, but it only mentioned the big names (the ones I already mentioned), so I really don't know if it covers other lesser well known players. If I find the book and am able to browse it I will certainly report back. I would certainly hope the books does talk about more than the big names and it would certainly make the book more interesting to me. Regarding Leitweiler, I have his book too and enjoy it, although there are places where I have no idea what he thinks about specific albums and musicians that he mentions. Just as an example, to this day I don't know if his comments about Wayne Shorter and Wayne's work with Miles are meant to be taken as positive or negative. Some of them seem to be negative, but it's hard to tell. What I do like about the book though is it has broad coverage of the music and more importantly it was written during the LP era and so he often discusses material which has not come out on CD.

Lately I've been seeing ads for a new book about jazz called "Freedom Is, Freedom Ain't: Jazz and the Making of the Sixties" by Scott Saul. Based on the table of contents, it seems to cover Mingus, Max Roach, Coltrane and some others (Albert Ayler? Cecil Taylor? Ornette?). Has anyone checked this book out and if so what do they think of it? While the book seems to be mostly about the New Thing, I believe there is a chapter at the end about Hard Bop.

I know this may sound strange, but Archie Shepp is one of those artists who I don't like for themselves but for the company they keep. I have most of his 1960's Impulse dates and a few others not on Impulse because his sidemen include Grachan Moncur, Roswell Rudd, Marion Brown, Beaver Harris,Don Cherry, John Tchaicai (spelling?) and other infrequently recorded players from that era. But as for Shepp's soloing itself, it's never done anything for me, although I will grant that some of the tunes he wrote are interesting and the arranging he did on his albums often contains some very nice ensemble work. That said, I would say the two albums I enjoy the most are "4 for Trane," and "The Way Ahead."

The second and third clips sound a lot like a track on Herbie's "Sextant " album, "Hornets," I think. Is it possible that he reused that theme for the soundtrack album? That remark aside, I would say that anyone who enjoyed these samples and does not already have "Sextant" would be advised to check it out.

Just to clarify what I said about Porter's chapter on 1965-67, I agree that the music itself is hard to analyze or talk about either through musicology or poetics, and Porter is a brave and adventerous researcher for having approached that period at all, but as a person who also enjoys a historical/discographical approach (best example of it is Jack Chambers' "Milestones" in my opinion, even if the book as a whole is not perfect in other respects), I like to hear the basic facts, at least as they are known. While it is true, as I said, that all the facts are not necessarily currently known about Trane's work in the studio during 1966-67 (how many times?, what compositions were recorded?, how many are lost?, how many are with the Coltrane family?, etc), it seems to me that Porter could have at least summarized what is known about Trane's recording activities during 1965-67 based on the discography he helped put out and the tracks that have been released in one form or another. It makes for an interesting story, when you think about it...Trane was recording seemingly non-stop in 1965 and then in 1966 he slowed down...Was he sick most of the time? Was he consolidating what he had learned in the previous year? Was he not happy with the results? On a related note, I found it odd that in his essay in the booklet of the double-disc version of "A Love Supreme," John's son Ravi lists the composition "After the Crescent" as coming from its original Lp release "To the Beat of a Different Drummer" without naming that Lp's current CD incarnation "Dear Old Stockholm." That one had me stratching my head for a while until I did some cross referencing of 1965 sessions on David Wild's site.

It has been reported in recent years that Alice and Ravi Coltrane have in their possession master tapes and/or copies of many of the Coltrane Impulse era recordings previously listed in discographies as "lost." Some of this material has come out but she has gone on record (I believe) as saying that she intends to stagger its release and so we can't count on seeing much of it any time soon. One part of this archive that has always fascinating me is the studio recordings from 1966. Although I consider Lewis Porter's book on Trane to be the best to date, I find his coverage of 1965-67 to be somewhat lacking. First of all, he lumps it all into one chapter and while he does provide excellent analysis of some of the 1967 material (no doubt taken from a separate article he wrote on the subject), he glosses over some of the material from that period or just mentions it in passing. He has a chronology in the back of his book which is quite interesting, but, no doubt not wishing to compete with himself (he and a colleague of his whose name I can't recall have published a separate discography), he only says "sessions for Impulse" under each date, which doesn't really help much. Based on what other books and resources (Thomas, Simpkins, Wild) say, this is what I think I know: after Trane died, (in the 1970's) Alice put out two albums that contained much of what he recorded in the studio during 1966. These albums are: (1) "Cosmic Music" (CRC AU 4950): contains "Manifestation," "Reverend King" and two tracks by Alice without Trane: "Lord Help Me to Be" and "The Sun." (2) "Infinity" (IMP A9225): contains "Joy," "Peace on Earth," "Leo" and "Living Space." These two albums are considered very controversial because Alice made significant overdubs to the material. Subsquently, undubbed versions of some (all?) of the tracks did come out on later LPs, but to the best of my knowledge the only track that has come out on CD in the USA is "Living Space." Once when I was in London I saw a Japanese version of "Cosmic Music," but since I assumed it contained the overdubbs (and was costly), I balked. If I saw it again I might buy it, just out of curiosity. In addition, there were other "lost" sessions from 1966 that have never been released in any form. David Wild says they included tracks such as "Darkness," "Lead Us On," and "Call" which have never been heard before, in either live or studio versions. While I always used to wonder why Alice and Impulse didn't put out a CD with the "Cosmic Music"/"Infinity" material undubbed, now it seems to me that they are holding it back so they can put it out along with the "lost" material and so we won't hear any of Trane's 1966 studio material until it all comes out. When that will be, I don't know. Anyone have any thoughts about this or know anything more about it?

I decided I couldn't wait any longer to hear "Agharta" again and bought the current edition of it and listened to it last night. On the whole I like it a lot more now than I did some ten years ago when I first listened to it in the music library when I was in college--it's very listenable, especially when compared to the live recordings from 1970-1973. Michael Henderson's bass playing seems the main improvement over the live recordings from 1973. In addition, the guitarists seem more coordinated and Sonny Fortune seems to be able to assert himself more than Dave Lieberman did (in that respect he reminds me of Gary Bartz on "Live/Evil"). That said, some of the tracks go on a bit long and when I listen to more than one of them in a row I understand why some find this music ultimately boring.

Thanks! Just to put my own views on Miles' electric years, I like everything up to and including "Jack Johnson" (contrary to Tingen, by the way, I think that even if some of the "new" material on the Miles box sets is less than first class, it all merits release and can hardly tarnish the reputation of Miles or anyone else involved in the sessions, no matter what Teo or anybody else says), but have mixed feelings about what came after that. I've been giving a number of the '70's recordings a second chance in recent years but so far only "On the Corner" has been rehabilitated. I bought "In Concert" and "Dark Magus" when they were reissued a few years back (around the same time as the Filmore discs and "Live/Evil") and found them both unlistenable for the most part. I've always meant to pick up "Agharta" (I did listen to it in the library), but put it off so long that now I'm waiting for a new edition.

Greetings. I am the same HWright from the BN Board, the one who very rarely posted...I've been reading this Board for some time but only joined today... Maybe this has been covered elsewhere on the Board, but I'd just like to add that for those interested in the electric period of Miles, I highly recommend picking up a copy of Paul Tingen's new book "Miles Beyond: The electric explorations of Miles Davis 1967-1991" (just came out in paperback in the USA). As much as I enjoy Chambers, Carr and the other older Miles books, Tingen's book is a must because he is the first writer to do new and different research on the most controversial period of Miles' career. Chambers, as far as I know did all his research in the library and Carr only interviewed certain people. Examples: (1) Tingen interviewed people other than Keith Jarrett about the 1970/71 group! (2) He interviewed members of the "On the Corner" sessions and (3) spoke with people in the "Agharta" group as well. It's still a fairly small book and has it quirks (chiefly philosophical), but it's a worthwhile addition to any Miles critical library. Favorite insight from the book: he says that Miles' first solo on "Bitches Brew" (the track) is a quote/parody of Blood, Sweat and Tears' hit "Spinning Wheel." Tingen also has a website for his book, although apart from having better photos, it's no real substitute for the book itself: http://www.miles-beyond.com/ His book went to press just as the "In a Silent Way" box was coming out and before the "Jack Johnson" box was available for preview, so he doesn't deal in much detail with the unreleased material from that period, but he does comment on the "Bitches Brew" box set. On his site he promises in 2004 an updated sessionography taking into account these recent developments.