Д.Д.

D.D, this should be your new user name.

No good, IMO.

I don't have this one, but if you want more tame Cecil, go for For Olim, also on Black Saint / Soul Note - this is a solo disc, and a rather atypical one for Cecil - relatively short pieces, quite lyrical, a lot of striaght melodies. Beautiful piano sound as well.

I have Minasi's earlier trio recording (with Krall and Filiano), and I saw Minasi live once. Nothing interesting, IMO. The guy plays a lot of notes very fast, with pretty sound. Gets boring after 10 minutes.

Good luck with the Pukwana disc. I'd love to buy a copy for myself, but there is no way that seller will be supplying either of you with an actual copy. That is the worst seller feedback rating I think I have ever seen on either Amazon or Ebay. 31% negative, 6% neutral, and many comments that he lists items he does not have in stock. Hmmm...interesting. He was listed as a "new seller" when I bought - no feedback. Looking at the feedback now (all recent), I'd say you are most likely right. We'll see. If it goes bad I'm not worried about getting a refund from Amazon. Sure do want that disc though. Yeah, I guess my chances of getting this CD from this amazon.com seller are remote. But now I got into a hunting rash, so I placed an order for it at amazon.co.uk that is known to be quite a fuck-up when it comes to accuracy of its listings (and quality of delivery, as some of us here could confirm). But I did get Evan Parker's Monoceros from them, when it was already way OOP. So we'll see.

Yeah, I remember also waiting for these Parallactic releases forever, and having a bit of a heated correspondence with Brandon Evans (who used to run the label). Brandon finally got into arrnagement with DMG and they supplied all those who paid for the discs (and who were anal enough to keep reminding Brandon about it) with copies. This was five months or so after the prepayment. ---------------- This Fela is excellent! This is a live recording, really raw and in-your-face and Baker is providign some kick-ass heavy drumming. If you are a Fela fan already, you cannot go wrong with this one. My favorite one is Zombie, though. ---------------- And thanks for the Pukwana hint - I just ordered a copy from amazon. Not sure this will work - it still shows the copy available, although I, I, I just ordered it!!!!

So has anyone picked up the solo CD-R? I have only his solo on Parallactic, released a couple of years back. Haven't spent much time with it yet. It is here in the "to listen-to" pile - but so far it's been pushed back by this little sucker:

I am going to get more Braxton's GTM, and will go for Four compositions (GTM) 2000 on Delmark: http://delmark.com/delmark.544.htm. This is small group (quartet) and I have been enormously impressed by pianist's Kevin Uehlinger's CD (Alchemusic (Vol. 1) on newsonic), so I am interested to hear his cotribution to Braxton's music.

Sonny Simmons website

Today actually I was listening to disc 3 from the 4-CD Braxton's "Six compositions (GTM) 2001" set (on Rastascan/Limited Sedition/Barely Auditable). I have this set since the day it was released (it costed like $15 at CDUniverse, iirc), and never managed to go through the whole damn thing. The first two discs are occupied by a mammoth composition for a large band that would invariably drive me to despair after 15 minutes, so I think never even got to disc 3. And well, it turned out to be really good! It is for a much smaller band (Braxton-Rosenberg-Shiurba-Sperry-Robair), and past the zombie GTM themes (farly short here) the improvisations are excellent.

Check out the samples at the Matthew Welch's web page. What a telent - both as performer and composer! Note that the solo bagpipes piece here sounds very traditional compared to the stuff on Welch's "Hag at the Churn" (on newsonic). There, most of the pieces do not sound like bagpipes at all (and morever, every trakc sounds totally different form each other - from quiet drones to fluid soprano saxophone-like solos to menacing multi-layered pointillistic suites and to some pretty indiscribably stuff). I haven't listened to his Leo disc (with pieces for bagpipes and orchestra) yet. Gotta get all the Welch that's available out there. Anyody heard Braxton's discs with him ("Composition 247" on Leo, and "Compositions for solo bagpipes" on Parallactic)?

This is beautiful one. Has a couple of Carter/Williams duos, and the score is excellent (early Stravinsky-influenced). There is a second soundtrack, without Carter and Williams, with a cello as solo instrument, and it is also some beautiful music.

Another excellent one: The Bach harpsichord album. Robert Aldwinckle (Regis) I am normally not a fan of harpsichord. I tend to find its sound too harsh, lacking any depth or subtlety. Not the case here. Aldwinckle makes it sound much more than merely decorative (or is it Bach's compositions?). Sound is good. For period instrument purists among us, the instrument used is a copy of the XVIII century piece, so I gues this should qualify. Regis is also a budget label, so this one should be available for cheap as well (I think broinc.com carries their releases).

Mac powerbook, sine waves, turntables. Period, really. XVII century vintage. Instrumentlaists are excellent (this is a rather small ebsemble - 12 instuments, and they rarely play alltogether - really sparse orchestration), sound is great. You have a preference?

Monteverdi: L'incoronazione di Poppea (Brilliant, 4CDs) This is an opera. I don't like opera. But this one is good. Even if one soprano is somewhat withered, and tenor is rather bleak. Still good stuff. The set is dirt-cheap here in Europe (€ 10 for 4CDs). This is not some cheapo edition, on the contrary - thick booklet, good artwork, etc. I don't know how Brilliant pulls it off financially.

This Solal disc was released less than 3 years ago!

A lot of what retired van Vliet was illness - he has MS, if I am not mistaken. Vliet got sick way after he retired from music, iirc. I agree, I think we should distinguish between "retired" and, well, "forced to retire". Poeple who can afford making a living by playing/recording but retire volunterely because they feel they are not up to the level they once set, is one thing. I assume it would take a great deal of courage to do it, and probably very few people can (although some should, IMO - has anybody seen Dewey Redman's recent concerts? ... Archie Shepp? Sonny Rollins? Sunny Murray?). People who are forced to retire (often at their prime) becasue they cannot make a living playing the music are a different case. And there are dozens of names. ESP guys for sure (Giuseppi Logan, in particular); Charles Brakeen... many many others, unfortunately.

Can't get it to play on my computer. It's OK, I have a couple of sealed CDs still. As I am now a proud posessor of a CD Stripper (see picture attached), appreciating new music is becoming easier and easier. Why not go for this solo Sonny Simmons on Parallactic that's been sitting around here unlistened for ages? Edit: Simmons didn't go too well. It actually sounded quite good (except for Simmons' piercing tone), but not for this time (it's 2AM and I am working). So I went for this one: And this is exactly what I needed right now. You fellas are also into medieval vocal music, aren't you?

Yes, you will receive an e-mail from Ariel informing you that actually he is routinely performing children's lullaby and Christmas carol music, praised by authoritative music critics for their unprecedented warmth. ------------------------- Have been listening a lot to wonderful Frisque Concordance: "Spellings" (Random Acoustics) recently. Frisque Concordance is: John Butcher - saxophones Georg Gräwe - piano Hans Schneider - bass Martin Blume - drums Beautiful music, with Martin Blume shinining in particular. Martin Blume website. ------------------------- Also, had a first listen to India Cooke: "Redhanded" (Music & Arts). Excellent work. India Cooke is a violinist with gorgeous lucid tone (reminiscent of Micheal White at his best), and the music is clever creative free jazz with monster band - George Lewis, Larry Ochs, Donald Robinson and Lisle Ellis. Everybody plays wonderfully - Ochs creates great interplay with Cooke with his violin-sounding sopranino, and adds a bit of firebreathing tenor (it's amazing how different his approach on two horns is), Lewis is flamboyant and very inventive and the rhythm section is invariably solid. Recommended. Looks like there is not that much by/with Cooke available, but she had a duo release with Joelle Leandre ( ) on Red Toucan, and I am getting it of course (for $12 at indiejazz).

I have Shibolet's solo soprano saxophone disc on Leo: http://www.leorecords.com/lr/w/music/id/CD...142185088M055b/ I listened to it only once and remember being very impressed by technique (Evan Parker+ ), but less so by the ideas. Will revisit the disc soon. Leo site now has .ogg samples for every track.

Sicne we are at it, let me thorugh in a couple more CDBaby recommendations form my previous orders (I think I plugged them all at least once already, but what the fuck): http://cdbaby.com/cd/577records1 - some lyrical stuff, best Danile Carter I've heard so far http://cdbaby.com/cd/erikfriedlander - solo cello, very impressive http://cdbaby.com/cd/marktaylor - excelent post-bop stuff; Taylor plays French hord http://cdbaby.com/cd/klausjanek - solo BASSSSSSSSSS!!! http://cdbaby.com/cd/curableinterns - this is insane guitar planking http://cdbaby.com/cd/thracianrhap - Bulgarian folk music; some insane reeds playing http://cdbaby.com/cd/mackstaller - very pleasant mainstream guitar trio ($5 sale!!! ) http://cdbaby.com/cd/buhler2 - excellent alto saxophone solo. If you like Butcher and early Evan Parker I don't see why you wouldn't like this one http://cdbaby.com/cd/emtpo - oh yes ($5 sale!!! ) http://cdbaby.com/cd/prasant - Indian music on saxophone. Very impressive. I want more. http://cdbaby.com/cd/neilleonard - outstanding collection of works for solo saxophone & electronics ($5 sale!!! ) http://cdbaby.com/cd/antonanddan - smart saxophone/trumpet duos ($5 sale!!! )

I am a big fan of CDBaby - for generous samples (and you can listen to all samples from a disc on one click), for really unique selection, for $5 sale (check out the Pax releases) and for very reasonable shipping rates. No particular search strategy. I do the Browse -> Free Jazz (or Weird Jazz) and listen to samples. Also, each CD (as well as your cart when you start adding items to it) would have a couple of suggestions links and they are suprisingly relevant. But I can save you some time - recent additions to my cart (not ordered yet): http://cdbaby.com/cd/camarda http://cdbaby.com/cd/sfnptp http://cdbaby.com/cd/andregoudbeek (you wanted some accordeon, didn't you?) http://cdbaby.com/cd/meridianae3 http://cdbaby.com/cd/mmgk http://cdbaby.com/cd/kyriakides http://cdbaby.com/cd/michalowski http://cdbaby.com/cd/opsvikjennings As for Trio Caveat, I don't think they are playing microtonal struff - it is just v e r y s l o w. But good.

I like the Absinth design... Talking of design, got the Trio Caveat release: So, the CD "case" is a sheet of dense paper, folded and held together by a string. Inside the liners are printed on a transparent plastic. More importantly, the music is good. Slow slow stuff. Every sound is placed carefully, as if reluctantly. All instruments (tenor - bass - drums) sounding beautiful. Recommended.

Don't worry, Tony - my focus at e-bay is somewhat different.

Agree, Hines is free! I first heard Hines on the radio back in the days when I was just starting getting interested in improvised music, and was thrilled by the abundance and unpredictability of his ideas. Anything could be played at any time - and everything would fit. Very fast mind. Of solo Hines, I have only "West Side Story" (Black Lion) - a Montreux festival recoding from '74 - great exuberant music (and good sound quality - with audience hum-along during "Solitude"). I would actually add another free pianist, who just as Hines (and Cecil) displayed his telents best in solo setting - Jaki Byard (and you can definitely hear Hines in his playing). And probably Cooper-Moore as well. Edit: just checked to confirm - Cecil Taylor's "Silent Tongues" was recorded at Montreux festival on the same day as Earl Hines' set. I assume Hines heard Cecil play (as well as visa versa). Wonder what they thought of each other.