Д.Д.

I agree. I feel that Hamid Drake has Blackwell's sense of groove, but he does not qite have Blackwell's inellectual rigour and discipline, and his imagination, IMO.

Now there is a new one (and I like it much more): My favorite music is the one I have not yet heard. John Cage

You know that there is another Cherry/Blackwell duo - El Corazon on ECM? I haven't heard it' but it is definitely on THE LIST. Agree with every word you say regarding Blackwell - what a complete musician! I also always tend to focus on his playing - there is so much imagination and beauty in the way he plays. Even his last recordings (What It Is? and What It WIll Be Like?, both on Enja MW), when he aparently could hardly walk, have the same sense of joy and search that his earlier recordings do - and his partners on these two records (Mark Helias, Carlos Ward, Graham Haynes and Don Cherry on one track) are giving their all. This reminded me that I have a CD of a 1958 performance recorded in New Orleans with Blackwell, Alvin Batiste, Ellis Marsalis and some other people. I remember enjoying it a lot - will give it a listen soon.

Good choice, Gary! But a mediocre album, as far as I remember. Haven't listened to it for a couple of years now (I listen to ROVA version pretty often, though ). Will relisten to it when I get home, and will post my thoughts here.

Oh-la-la, thee are some nice releases! I will probbly go for all, except for Eskelin (still haven't cought up with his previous hatOLOGY releases).

Wonderful music! This is the only Jeanne Lee that I own and shame on me! (Recommendations would be appreciated, although it looks like she has few titles from which to choose.) Funny thing about this album is that when Lyons and Cyrille are playing without Lee, I'd swear that this album could have been recorded yesterday, instead of 25 years ago. Once Jeanne enters, you're back in the '70s. There's just something about the style and huskiness / dryness of her voice. Very street. (Meant in a good way.) JIMMY! Man I wish there were more of the Cecil Taylorless Jimmy Lyons -- especially Lyons-led dates. Goog find, friends. Gotta get it. Not a big fan of Jeanne Lee - her duo disc with Waldron is pleasent, but her other disc on Owl (with a lot of star people) is very uneven, with many tracks being mannered, repetative and overdone. Probably will refrain from checnking her works with Ran Blake either - can't stand his style (I actively hate his playing on his duo with Braxton Memories of Vienna; Braxton is great on this one, btw). --------------------------------- Regarding Caplan, I have one of his Knitting Factory CDs (don't emember how it's called... with a yellow cover), and it left me totally uninterestd - sounded like some supeficial pastiche thing (a bit rock, a bit free, a bit oriental), well played, but nothing special... Will check it again. Tony might have heard it as well - any recollections?

No shit. Alphea is highly recommended, as well as the other four Leo Lab titles.

No that looks interesting - I will trz to find htis one. I am not sure Sound Aspects label is still around. There is a disc of Braxton with three more saxophones, though - the last (ever?) Parallactic release of the Anthony Braxton - Sonny Simons - Brandon Evnas - Andre Vida (plus Dave Price and Shamir BLumenkrants on drums and bass, repectively). It's a double CD with compositions by all involved, and I remeber it being quite a noisy affair. Will give it a listen soon, and will report here (and in Funny Rat as well ).

Now, this is curious! I'm guessing that "maren" is actually none other than Herr Brotzmann himself. Welcoe, Peter! Seriously, though. I'd love to know what disc it was. Are you willing to let us know or will we have to go back and search through each page? I suspect maren is Ms. Judy Dunaway, the balloon player.

I thought someone was a Dolphy specialist of sorts It is availabel for $10 directly from Gunter Schuller's label GM Records

I am not too familiar with Tchicai's works, but I did see him live with New York Art Quartet (Tchicai-Rudd-Graves-Workman + Amiri Baraka) four years ago, and they were simply burning. You can check out recent Tchicai on CIMP label (as well as CDs under Lou Grassi, Adam Lane). Tchicai is the musician I've been meeaning to start exploring for quite some time now... I still haven't heard this ESP New York Art Quartet disc! The live performance that I saw was ery moving - Tchicai played something quite simple, stripped off of all embelisments - and very direct. A bit like ethinic music: it might be very simple, even primitive, but it is very real (I am not sure I can explaiin it better, but this is a stong feeling I get listening to ethinc musci - it is real). Will move Tchicai to the top of THE LIST.

Now, this is curious!

Agree totally. But what can I say - I just love badly played jazz...

This one is very nice ideed - in general, I prefer Braxton in duo/trio settings, solo also (don't care too much for his quartet (any quartet) or larger group performances - they are too cluttered and dense, IMO) and in more blowing (as opposed to "composed") mood. Thus, the discs that Gary listed are among my favorite Braxton works.

...which is good, but much less interesting than the other ones be Walt Dickerson IMO (e.g. his absolutelz mesmerizing duos with Richard Davis on SteepleChase). I am not too familiar with Tchicai's works, but I did see him live with New York Art Quartet (Tchicai-Rudd-Graves-Workman + Amiri Baraka) four years ago, and they were simply burning.

I can't wait to hear this one. I don't know when I would be able to play it, though. Perhaps some long car ride when no one is around to be bothered. Track one will clear traffic from the road! You will be very alone. I will have to make photos of Swiss roads - lakes, moiuntains, sunflower fields, herds of cows, and all that - Broetzmann/Eneidi seems just a perfect soundtrack for a long ride (well, till first police car, from my experience). Nice to see such an interest in Broetzmann's ouevre on this board - a further goes to show that it's not just these Funny Rat freaks who listen to this stuff... err.... wait a minute...

Do they have a website? Is there a forum there? - I could post a couple of recommendations there. http://www.musicaconcarne.com/ I was more hoping for a St. Loius elementary school website.

Do they have a website? Is there a forum there? - I could post a couple of recommendations there.

Very much so, IMO! Together with Walt Dickerson (just why the fuck isn't the man recording anymore?!?! I know that he is still fairly active as performer and musician in Philly (correct, Alan?)) Jamal might be my favorite vibist.

Looking forward to hearing the Braxton standards set. The Braxton/Cyrille sounded OK on a first listen (I have only VOl. I, though), but did not grab me too much. Braxton sounded a bit tired to me. Gotta listen to it more. ----------------------------------------------------------- SOme nice new goodies from Intakt, including: Guy-Crispell-Lytton Trio and Hans Koch / Martin Schütz / Fredy Studer Trio, which our friend ubu raved so much about. I hope INTAKT will consider me deserving receiving these releases (they didn't send me the second volume of Braxton/Cyrille, for example), since I am really looing forwar to hearing both of them, particulalrly after seeing Koch live (see ubu's and my raves somewhere above). Deatils HERE.

Hey you moldy fig! Didn't you know that Brötzelmeister has been accepted as an old-fashioned mainstream jazz musician thirty years ago? Even this Hawkins guy stole a lot of Brötzmann tricks!

When we're listening to recordings, we're all looking in the rearview mirror... Bravo, Hans!

You are right of course, ubu - it's Enja Horst Webser, of course. What surprises me about both Enjas is how stylistically close they remained after the split - this slighly out (well, sometimes a bit more than slightly - Cecil with IIO, for example), slightly ethno-jazzish, some exotic female singers... Winkelmann is definitely more active though. OK, so looks lke Takase is skippable. I have her duo CD with Rudi Mahall reéeased last year on Leo, but don't remmeber it too well.

New release on Enja Winckelmann (the label seems to have woken up finally): Aki Takase Plays Fats Waller Just look at the rocking combo: Aki Takase (p); Eugene Chadbourne - (voc, banjo,git); Rudi Mahall (bcl) Nils Wogram (tb); Thomas Heberer (tp) Paul Lovens - (dr) Should be interesting. http://jazzrecords.com/enja/9152.htm

Tony, I udnerstand where your proposal is coming form, but I think The Rat is serving the purpose just fine. If you refer to The Rat being frequented by a close group of 5-6-7 people, I very much doubt it would have attracted more wide attention has it been called "The Avant-Garde Thread" or whatever. Most of the posters at Organissimo make a conscious choise of not being interested in the music beyond 60s bop too much - nothing bad about that; and having no interest in "avant-garde" (what the fuck does it mean now, anyway?), they don't discuss it - and setting up a special forum will not help much if there is no interest. And actually, I do like having it all in the one thread - there are a lot of circularly recurring subjects (how many times have we brouhgt up Brötzmann by now?!) and a lot of logical links - one thinkg awakes another which in turn leads to some other unexpected turn in discussion - may be at some point coming back to the original subject, may be not - but I don't have any problem following the twisted logics of the thread, and I do beleive it gets overall more informative this way, rather than if it were broken up into more confining and narrow topics. And I just love Funny Rat title.