clifford_thornton

Fifteen Saxophones, on Northern Light/Wergo, reissued on Unseen Worlds (w/ liners by yrs truly) Having Been Built on Sand, a collaboration with Lawrence Weiner, which is also going to be reissued along w/ Solos and 4 Cuts Solo (CD from 2006)

Dickie is a longtime friend so it's great to see this stuff coming out again indeed.

there's an 80s repress of the LPs.

yeah, to me this is a level up on Black Bone.

yes. I love the original but having blasted the transfers on headphones, it's ridiculous how good this stuff sounds. I am hopeful that at the pressing stage this good fortune continues.

ah I did not see it on youtube. reissue comes straight from the master tapes and sounds fabulous.

rec. 1975, released '76 b/w, from '84, and excellent:

SOLOS is mid-size ensemble free improvisation (four woodwinds, two basses doubling on brass, drums, electric piano), pretty rollicking. 4 CUTS is one drone-y group improvisation, a solo bass tune (overdubbed), saxophone solos and duos.

Bagpipes are great. I'm all about some traditional highland piping, and Yoshi Wada as well.

my upstairs neighbor, who sadly just moved out, is learning clarinet at 26 inspired by Eric Dolphy. I gotta say I'm pumped and it was cool to hear him practice. He's a very hard worker and a sweet guy, so I'm sure he'll have fun with it. He was already a musician (electronics and guitar, mostly) but had not done anything with reed instruments as far as I know.

He's amazing with Dickie Landry on Chatham Square in the early 70s; that material will be rereleased this year.

Bandcamp also will be stocking them.

just looked online and two of the three leader entries I clicked on had glaring errors (this was the free "test drive" version. I mean, for sure he's got way too many releases to keep track of in there but a search of the BYG and Windham Hill catalogs would set him right. $180 a year is okay, but only if there are fewer glitches and forehead-smackers.

yep, my last order with them was shipped without extra cost.

want it

Nice one. Now: Of A Mesh -- Broken -- (109 Records) obscure mid 80s NY goth rock; the violinist is one of my closest friends.

https://www.cameo.com/v/5de9a8a9b3eec8016a21b6f5?utm_campaign=video_share_to_copy

I'd love to see this published as a book.

yeah -- how's the pressing? I have yet to actually listen to any of their vinyl releases though I preordered the Rendell/Carr and the newest Ray Russell release.

YES. I need to get Jazz of New Cities. Have most of his other CDs and was lucky to see him play a number of times (hope that happens again). The first time, maybe in 2012 or early 2013, I felt like it was the closest I could get to seeing Lester Young in performance.

great stuff; bought the CD version.

definitely in that zone.

I do have this, so... 5?

Awesome. Yeah, fascinating environment it sounds like.

Porter was going to do it but they went under. Lasha owned the masters and I'm not sure what their status is. Regarding Insight, he spoke a bit about it in an interview I did with him many years ago. It's on AAJ but I'd prefer not to drive traffic there. This will be reprinted in some more tangible form in the future. There's more on it throughout the interview but this kind of gives some background. When did you go to England? It was somewhere around '65 to '67. I used some of the Queen's Royal Orchestra for that record. I had a friend named John Hammond at CBS, and he always liked my playing and John Handy's playing. He said “I'm going to set you up a date for CBS in Great Britain” [which resulted in Insight, CBS UK, 1966]. I went over with a friend of mine, the bassist John Hartt, and I lived in Kensington for about a year on Russell Road, and Yusef Lateef used to come over and he wrote some of the parts for the harp. I lived with a millionaire who went on the road with Philly Joe Jones and later lost his life – John was a great bassist and sat up all night playing like Bud Powell on the bass. He had drums and everything, and I used to have Yusef come over because he was playing Ronnie Scott's club at the time. I played a concert in Cambridge, one in Brighton and recorded there. We rode around in Bentleys; they didn't have minks, but chinchillas for their ladies! We were staying at a mansion – the mansion had so much land to it, a great big place, and we had a baby grand piano inside so we'd play throughout the night. We built big bonfires and smoked a lot of hashish, did whatever we wanted. Having an invitation to come to this place, I took Moffett with me and Chris Bateson, and we'd do gigs. I think the family that owned it was out of the country; John was a relative of the owners. We weren't close to anyone, and the music has always been very well-mannered; it's not like rock, you don't hear this next door. We did music inside at this mansion with three or four floors, ten or twelve baths, just all kinds of beautiful areas. When you put that band together for Insight, did that band work at all, or was it just for the record date? It was for the record date; Stan [Tracey] was working Ronnie Scott's as was Yusef, and the other cats were working clubs too. I just went over there for CBS because John Hammond got that together. Joe Oliver was the drummer, and he was the only other brother in the band. He was in New York at some point, I think. Coming from New York to that environment must have been something else. Yeah, because most millionaires live in Kensington. You look at the house and you can see who built it in what year, and we don't do it that way here. Right, we just want things to be thrown away and they're not connected to any history. Right, but they keep up with everything in the European countries. They keep up with the music, and they know.