Д.Д.

Listened to it yesterday - makes for good birthday morning listening... but yes, I think I too prefer the one without McPhee. ubu Listened to this one today. I was expecting something more intellectual and experimental from Gustafsson and McPhee, actually. This is esentially a classical free jazz scream-fest - 35 years too late, no? Of course it's fun to hear Gustafsson's mighty baritone wailing (very impressive from strictly lung-power point of view), but we hear it again and again the same way here. And McPhee's trumpet playing is also not particulalry original here, IMO. The best thing for me is Paal Nielson-Love's stunnig drum work - souinded like more muscular version of Rashied Ali to me, and that's good.

His relatively recent solo Passing Waves on nuscope is not too shabby either, but without ping-pong balls inside the piano. Actually, probably even better than Vogel Recordings, he-he.

Maldoror is unbelievable, one of the best releases of 2003, IMO - ubu and I have been raving about it for months now. I think I got it from CDBaby. Gonna do a little solo cello review one day also. But I have very few solo cello CDs: in addition to Maldoror, one by Peter Lewy, one by Matt Turner and one by Dave Holland.

Woo knows, FMP might release the rest of the DUOS material. DUOS II was issued just last year, after all. I actually can't remember a single track on DUOS I that I didn't like... probably the one with Japanese folk musician/singer near the end of the disc... and tracks with Andrew Cyrille (with extensive vocaliazing from both)... the rest range from solid to brilliant! Will listen to DUOS II now.

This is some great music! Listening for the third time in a row. Matthew Goodheart - "Songs From The Time of Great Questioning" (Meniscus, 1997) Solo piano - somewhere in the middle between Cecil Taylor and Paul Bley, with a bit of Ravel and Schumann. Edit: add Mussorgsky and Skryabin as influences as well! Gonna get all GOodheart I will find! AMG review

I heard this band live last year. Boring pretentious bullshit. Bruno Chevillon definitely should record a solo record (actually, that's what I told him after that concert - and he said that solo bass is kinda boring for listeners, I gently argued that the shit he had been playing that night was kinda boring for listeners, but he didn't seem persuaded). Another guy who absolutely should record solo is Jean-Jacques Avenel. Dolphy criticue is coming, don't worry .

"Living Space" is in the Coltrane Impulse! Quartet box. It's post - "Love Supreme", but before "Meditations". I don't have the Village Vanguard box, so my only exposure to these perfomances is from the "Impressions" album ("India" and "Impressions") and I thought Coltrane's playing was pretty limited on those. Given this experience and my ambiguos attitude towards Dolphy at the moment, I'm not too interreested in exploring any further right now.

Inspired by all this Kowald talk around here, was listening to solo bass records for last couple of days. Anthony Cox - "That & This" (Sketch, 2002). The most simple and direct one of the bunch. Short (1-3 minutes each) bouncy bluesy tunes, good wooden sound. Sound like bass solos culled hard bop combo performances. Well played, though. The main merit, IMO is prestine recording quality - you hear every nuance pefectly. Enjoyable, but not essential (EBNE, how about this Tony?). MP3 from SKETCH website Miroslav Vitous - "Emergence" (ECM, 1986). Now we are getting serious. Great stuff! Dark, melodic, lyrical. Fantastic variations on Aranjues Concerto by Rodrigo. ECM sound adds to the overall haunting atmosphere. Sublime. Can be easily played with girlfriends / wives / uninitiated friends in presense. Highly recommended. Barre Phillips - "Camouflage" (Victo, 1990). Well, the things are not only getting serious, but pretty insane as well. Here you get all extended techniques thinkable. Some sounds I could never think were possible to produce on bass. Phillips' technique is stinning, and sound (sounds!) is just ...hmmm....comprehensive. The tracks are diverse - from quite tuneful to extreme atonal stuff. This one is defînitely a more challenging listen than the above two records, but a really captivating one. At this moment this is my favorite solo bass record, and is strongly recommended for anyone interested in possibilites of contrabass and human mind. Ken Filiano - "Subvenire" (9 Winds, 2002). Didn't like this one too much. Filiano is an good musician, with a lot of interesting ideas, but the music sounded not too coherent and pretty monotone. Also, the sound is quite bland (I don't know whether this is Filiano's bass or studio). Will give it a try some other day. Lynn Seaton - "Solo Flights" (OmniTone, 2000). Not bad at all. As far as I understand from liners, Seaton is a hard-bop guy, who played with Woody Herman and Count Basy, but he is pretty creative here. Nice (very traditional - Milt Hinton, Rax Brown) heavy wooden sound, excellent pizzicato (that he displays on particularly on original and respectful reading of standards - "Body and Soul", "How High is the Moon" with "Ornithology" incorporated, "Yesterdays") and strong full-sounding bowing. Seaton stretches a bit on his own compositions. All clever, to the point and sincere without showing off too much. Listening to it now for the second time and hear that some tracks actually don't work out that well: like overdone repetitive rock-and-roll type of thing and some slow boring bowing feature, but still a good stuff overall. A bit too locked in tradition, probably. Jonathan Zorn - "ContraBass" (1998) and "PHYS 111 Book III" (2003) - both on Newsonic. This is some insane bowing stuff with a lot of silences in between... I need to listen more to to form an opinion. Some other discs I've listened to - both left very positive impressions on first listen (and both are vry different from each other), but I need to listen acouple more times to each of them - Joelle Leandre's "No Comment" (Red Toucan) and Mark Dresser's "Invocation" (Kintting Factory). Gotta buy more solo bass! Dave Holland, Gary Peacock, Eberhard Weber, more Barre Phillips and Micjael Formanek are on THE LIST.

Listening to Coltrane's quartet version of Meditations (from the Impulse! Quartet box) - what an unbelievable stuff! Writing this I realized, I don't have much of interest for pre-Mediations Coltrane at this moment - in fact, the only Coltrane I've been listening to in last coupe of years is Meditations (both quartet and sextet versions), Olatunji concert, Love Supreme live version and Interstellar Space, which is my favorite, probably.

5:20-long "Think It Over" (another name for "Grand Wazoo") is most likely an edit... Looks like a teaser indeed... And so was the Halloween DVD-A... and so was "Joe's Corsage"... evev FZPFZ was a teaser, I would say. Only FZ:OZ, and EIHN were done the right way, IMO. Why the fuck would we need a teaser?! But still, having 3 new FZ releases in 4 months is not too bad, and I just ordered them all (gott buy the DVD-A player now...).

Also don't have this one (I do have Bye-Ya on Freelance by this trio, and it's excellent). Will get it.

I have one volume of Duos. I believe it is the Europe volume. I haven't listened to it in a very long time. Today is rainy enough that I can avoid yardwork and get some music listening in, so I'll give it a spin. Both CDs (Vol. I and II) cover Europe-America-Japan. In case you have LPs (I think there were 3 of those), they were devided into territories. DUOS I: http://free-music-production.de/fmpcds/efmpcd021.htm DUOS II: http://free-music-production.de/fmpcds/duo...d_e_fmp_124.htm

And in case anybody's interested: one more Zappa CD release - looks like this is Gran Wazoo out-takes or concert performances. Should be good. Joe's Domage

What label is it on, again?

Jonathan Zorn who did some insane shit on bass on his two solo releases on Newsonic, seems to have his own label now: Set Projects. He plays synth on all three releases...hmmm... I might check them out still. Also from Set Projects website got to Experimental Music Research label -and some good stuff here as well.

Following the Signal to Noise add, checkoing out the samples from the False Walls Records website, and really enjoy what I'm hearing: http://falsewalls.com/releases/releases05.html And this is some powerful stuff! http://falsewalls.com/releases/releases04.html Now if only I could order without this money order bullshit.

Finally some new release from Peter Brötzmann this year (from DMG): BROETZMANN/MANDERSCHEID/SAMBA а Danquah Circle (Konnex 5127) Featuring Peter Brotzmann on alto & tenor saxes, A clarinet & taragato, Dieter Manderscheid on bass and Frank Samba on drums and recorded live at the дLoftе in Cologne in November of 2002. This fabulous trio first played the Loft in February of 1992, before leaving for a tour of West Africa. Their other important gig that year was at the Total Music meeting in Berlin and then they didnеt get together for another decade, when this gig occurred. Although I am mostly unfamiliar with both rhythm team players here, it turns out that Manderscheid has a large discography, from Klaus Konig to Frank Gratkowski to Ekkehard Jost, while Samba appears on one release by Linda Sharrock, as far as I can tell. Well recorded and well-balanced, the trio begin with some sumptuous clarinet, contrabass and cymbals, soon flying high and wide, taking us on their great journey. Erupting intensely, things quiet down for a somber bass and cymbals duo, until Brotzmann picks up his trusty tenor sax and starts wailing, so watch out! The title is actually pretty restrained, yet no less intriguing. The oddly titled вFire in the Zipperг, again starts out quietly and builds to another powerful, flame-throwing conclusion. Another treasure form the great Brotz-man and company!

Was Da Ist for sure. But also Duos on FMP, both volumes. Kowald partners with evrybody you can think of in the Rat land (Brötzmann - Kondo - Leandre -Bailer -Evan Parker - Bennink - Cyrille - Cora - Schweizer, etc.) for a set of short (2-3-4 minute) very diverse duets. Don't remember much humming from Kowald himself, but there is some absolutely amazing vocalizing from Diamanda Gallas. Kowald and Sommer also recorded in a trio with one Gianni Gebbia (Cappucini Klang on Splasc(H)) - and as I remeber it is not bad at all.

"Scream for me Long Beach! SCREAM FOR ME LONG BEACH!!!!" I was listening to Live After Death a few days ago. I saw Iron Maiden in concert 16 or 17 years ago and still have a soft spot for the 1980's albums. Have you heard their latest one? I liked Brave New World quite a bit, even if it is somewhat predctable. COuldn't resist the temptation and ordered the latest Iron Maiden, together with some Tom Waits and Louis Armstrong. ---------------------------------------------------- From the Wallace Records webpage: "New scheduled upcoming on wallace: the trio with LUKAS LIGETI, GIANNI GEBBIA and MASSIMO PUPILLO plays "The Williamsborg Sonatas", jazzy album recorded in NYC. Soon more details....". Yes.

Friends, let me draw your attention to the trading post of fent99 in the Offering & Looking For forum: http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=12522 There are a few titles of ratty interest.

Gotta check out this Eneidi disc I've got - it's on Boticelli records. I think it's called "Disconnected Without Notice". Will do this weekend, and will report here. OK, listening to this one. It's actually called Final Disconnect Notice, he-he. Marco Eneidi - as Karen Borca - bassoon William Parker - b, c Wilber Morris -b Jackson Krall -dr Good stuff! Eneidi has a beautiful sound - out of Jimy Lyons, but more low and with a bit less bluzes but more lyricism (a bit like Paul Desmond, really). Borca is good, and both Morris (what a sound!) and Jackson Krall shine. Not really noisy... a lot of listeng to and supporitng each other... some very effective shifts of mood and texture. Judging from this Eneidi could definitely make a good sparring partner to Brötzmann - gonna get their new one..and some more solo Eneidi.

This is a nice album indeed - nothing particularly groundbreaking, but there is real fire, passion and sense of adventure in this music. Honest stuff. I also agree that the drummer is the most interesting voice here, driving the whole band. If I remeber cirrectly, Exploding Custiemr recorded a new set for Ayler - would be really curious to se how thy progressed.

I think it's tome for Tony to make some highly irrelevant statistical / numerological announcement!

Gotta check out this Eneidi disc I've got - it's on Boticelli records. I think it's called "Disconnected Without Notice". Will do this weekend, and will report here.

I had the same feeling about Gerry Hemingway Quartet “Devils Paradise” (Clean Feed) - excelent musicians (Eskelin, Dresser, Ray Anderson), good compositions (clever post bop, slightly out-ish), strong solos - but I couldn't help thinking - "what for? this has been played already thoudsand times" ... probably just too safe for my tastes.