Д.Д.

Bley/Peacock's "Partners" is excellent (how can it possibly be bad after all?!), the the sound of these new digipak Owl/Universal France reissues is very good (and they are cheap here in Europe!).

Hey Geoff, nice to see you back. To my shame, I don't have Shepp's "The Way Ahead". I guess I should look for the Japanese reissue of it.

Well there are not too many bad Gary Peacock records in general (outside of Keith Jarrett's trio). I cannot thing of any out of the top of my head. Listen, Hans: did you manage listen to all of this stuff today, or you were praparing for this posting attack over the last month?!?!? In any case, keep'em coming, of course. As for me, I listened to just two CDs today - "Sensual World" by Kate Bush, and "Master of Puppets" by Metallica. Recommend both highly, of course.

I like this one a lot! I actually think it's one of the best releases of 2003. I haven't heard any other works by Gratkowski, so I'll be definitely searching for more.

Well, Chambers' playing is not a good benchmark for "straight jazz" bowing (since it's pretty poor) - Richard Davis is the man. David Izenson also. As for After Appleby, I think it's fantastic (and I am not a Crispell fan). Regarding Kowald's growling on Was Das Ist: yeah, it is of limited aesthetic value (for me, at least), but hey, there is so much fantastic music on this disc that these few moments are easily forgivable. I would also highly recommend Kowald's Duos (volumes I and II, on FMP as well) that show not only what aterrific bassist he was, but also what an amazing supportive musical partner he could be.

I quite like this one. The music has a bit of dated '80s flavor about it (synths... el.drums also, I think), but is still pretty original. Nervous music. Thinking about it, this might be one of the first "jazz" musics I was exposed to (heard it on the radio way back when). I assume this CD is OOP by now - so if anybody's interested, you know what to do... Hans, you have to do something - there should be some bowed-bass-hatred-relief therapeutic courses in the Netherlands (you have everything there) - Was Das Ist is one of the most powerful solo bass statement that I've heard (and you know, I am a solo bass freak - I have probably 20 solo bass recordings). Just not recorded particularly well. And hey, regarding - I knew this thread has some internal logics to it: it takes 700+ posts to convince one person to buy Funny Rat CD - so I guess I will be ready to buy one after 1400 posts - and ubu, with his youthful exuberance, will be able to resist till the post #2100. And John B has got his Funny Rat already, hasn't he?

Hans, have you heard the Denzler Cluster Quartet's "Y?" (also on Leo Lab) - I like it even more than nanoCLUSTER duo

And this one is added to "new releases" section as well: Although I already have a lot of Eskelin in my collection (and I am not going to buy any more Eskelin-Parkins-Black releases), I might go for this one. First, I want to hear Eskelin in bass-drums-sax setting, second, I love Phil Haynes - a very original melodic drummer with excellent composing skills - check out his terrific Live Insurgency (Soul Note) with Paul Smoker (now this is one of my favorite modern trumpeters) and Jeff Palmer (an organist, yes my favorite one).

Looks like this one is finally released: Should be a good late-night listening for my neighbours. Regarding Dave Douglas, just as Hans, I find his playing invariably irritating, an just as Hans I cannot really understand why - the guy has superb technique and quite original ideas. The same feeling I have about Raphe Malik, particularly in his solo projects (he was OK with Jimmy Lyons). Now, his technique is probably unmatched (well, there are Hank Robertson or Paul Smoker on the other hand), but his one-dimentional sound... all those overblown high notes, and predictability of his improvisations makes it really painful for me to listen to him.

Agree. This is THE solo bass record. Will change your perception of the possibilities of bass forever.

I have it - it's excellent (surprise, surprise), as most of the hat(now)ART CDs are (check out these Soviet Avantgard solo piano CDs). Solodrumming is very...hmm...disciplined. Excellent sound, also. Make sure you get the hat(now)ART edition of it (hat(now)ART 129, 1999), not the older hatART CD 6023. Just in case.

I knew Tony would do a great job describing the "Pigs...". Tony, of course send me The Social/Science Set - you know, for me the noisier the better. I'll send you something as well. According to The Beak Doctor, Evan Parker at the Finger Palace (a solo performance from 1978) might be reissued on CD eventually. And according to Eugene Chadbourne, this might be the best Evan Parker solo recordigng (see HERE). Looking forward.

Never heard anything by the Revolutionary Ensemble, but heard a lot about them as being one of the most interesting improv groups of the '70s. Looks like something of their output is finally avaialble on CD:

After some previous discussion on Fred Anderson, I dug up some CDs of his I have, and found this one to be absolutely stunning: Fred Anderson / Steve McCall - "Vintage Duets, 1980". It seems to be the very first Okka release (1994), so there is a chance of it going OOP fast, and YOU wouldn't want to be without a copy.

I do, I do - but haven't listened to it yet. Will do, and will report here. OK, I listened to it and it's good, but does not quite have the intellectual rigor, variety and melodism of "Arcana Major". Garth Powell is an interesting percussionist, and is often compatible with Gebbia - can't say the same about bassist Damon Smith. I would probably recommend another Gebbia's trio session Cappuccini Klang (Splasc(H)) with Peter Kowald and Günter Sommer over this one.

This might be a special period for independent labels to get their websites done - Clean Feed have their website up. Interesting catalog. Anybody heard any of those? According to Jazzmatazz there will be many more releases on Clean Feed this year, including Braxton, Gayle, Ivo Perelman, Dennis Gonzales and others. Not bad.

The Beak Doctor label has just got a its website up and running, finally: http://www.thebeakdoctor.com/ Their release They Were Gentle and Pretty Pigs is pretty phenomenal (although not too gentle), but not that easy to describe (Tony could help probably?). They have one more CD in their catalog: The Social/Science Set and it looks very intriguing. Hope they will reissue the rest of their catalog on CD. And excellent packaging (no OBIs though):

Ahem... Not interested? Don't Knit titles come with an obie? Guess I'll throw those away. Throw away OBIs?!?!?! You know this will totally ruin the listening experience for me.

I have H Portraits which is contained within a rather elaborate paper sleeve. It's on RASTASCAN and I believe -- Д.Д., help me out here -- all Rastascan releases are issued in the same type of packaging. Not too much interested in getting into the packaging discussion (OBIs!, OBIs!) but Rastascan CDs I have (Gebbia's "People in Motion" and Rova's "Morphological Echo" ... that's it, I think) are in jewel cases. What's more interesting is how H Portraits is, compared to Arcana Major?

Looking forward to it. Out of curiosity, are all Gebbia's discs in paper sleeves, or just Arcana Major? Only Arcana Major - it is joint Rastascan/ Studio Supremo release, so the packaging is different (and I like it this way).

Good to hear you're liking it, Hans. You'll probably like Ein Sof, too. (No growling! I think that's Kaveman Kowald, incidentally.) Ibarra gives that set quite a bit more space than Ali's (admittedly fine) pulse machine. So "Deals.." will be the fist Tsahar I will start with. I like sax-bass-drums format a lot, and you can't get too wrong with Kowald and Ali.

I do, I do - but haven't listened to it yet. Will do, and will report here.

Sounds good!

Here: http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&u...l=Bq09ds32ba3dg

I'll get the "Open Systems". I don't think I've heard any Tsahar yet.