clifford_thornton

not necessarily. depends on how they were stored and the thickness of the vinyl, etc. Plus, you can usually tell looking at the jacket if the contents will be flat or reasonably so.

Haven't heard the Baystate (wish I had that one) but the Miff is scaled upward with a larger ensemble, poetry, and so forth. It's also quite good.

Charlie Mariano + Sadao Watanabe - s/t - (Victor, wlp) short, oddly-swinging cuts with Kikuchi, Togashi and Harada in play.

Horace Silver's "Lonely Woman" and Ornette's "Lonely Woman." Same goes for "Peace."

Oh I think Ware is great, no question about that. Shipp is a genius too. Wynton is not.

cool, will seek it out. Enjoy his playing for sure!

I only have Comet Ride, but it's excellent and features the superb drummer Rudy Walker. I don't think Willie plays in the city all that much, at least from what the NYC Jazz Record calendar tells me.

Can - Soundtracks - (Liberty, GER orig)

Did eventually get the Horo -- it's a bit monochromatic at times, but good. The 2LP set on Red, on the other hand, is awesome. A sudden death from heroin is possible. People quit using, then come back to it at the level they'd previously stopped using, and subsequently overdose.

My feeling is that he wasn't much of an arranger -- his own records have strong blowing and bouts of steely lyricism but can otherwise be a bit interchangeable. Even the coveted 70s sides, while they feature interesting tunes, don't really get fleshed out the way they could.

Wow.

Great music -- have an early 70s Japanese pressing of the original LP but will pick this up for the alternates and the fact that Tompkins Square is an excellent label.

Not really. I was hoping Inward Fire would get there, but it doesn't. The UK cover is curious.

Though some people are loathe to do it or take it with a heaping grain of salt, I think that in some cases it's worth talking to musicians about their work. Ware is no longer with us but the people who played with him night after night, year after year are and they can speak to his singularity and where he's coming from. Certainly influence/tradition are there but I was responding more to language that these musicians were rehashing the music of the 60s, which is far from the case. I've drowned my ears in thousands of recordings of free music from 1958 forward for many years and have never seen Ware's music as a mere update of Coltrane's classic quartet or even, truly, Frank Wright or Albert Ayler (although Wright is closer). Hell, he's far from a favorite saxophonist of mine but I greatly respect his work.

Bob Bell - Necropolis - (ISM, Canada)

oh for sure.

Agreed. Yes, the Center of the World / Unity Quartet is a closer vibe (I remember talking with Cooper-Moore about that many years ago).

I am with you all the way. I'm also unconvinced by the statements here that Ware is (or was) a modern-day Coltrane-like figure. That's very narrow-minded as well. It really galls me that people can't really accept musicians on their own terms. Sure, there are forebears and influences but when someone has been doing something for like 40 years, you'd think they'd be allowed their own significant identity and body of work to speak entirely for itself.

Can - Delay 1968 - (Spoon, GER orig)

Ralph Eppel/Gregg Simpson/Bob Bell -- Music for the Living -- (ISM, Canada)

Yeah, heard about this -- sad news. He's fantastic.

Ooh that's a beautiful record!

I think the spirit might be there, of walking in the footsteps of those who've come before, but I rightly think that the music of Parker, Ware, and Berne is a LOT different than anything that existed in the 1960s. Parker was on the scene by 1973, yes, but his music has evolved heavily -- HEAVILY -- since then and it is hard to really put it into the same box. To compare what they are doing to what was happening in the lofts and coffee shops of the Village then, or churches and community centers in Chicago, is not really fair to either the 'then' or the 'now.' McPhee was born in 1939 and is a living master, completely beyond category. Yes, he knew the Ayler brothers and their work was/is an influence but I've spent enough time with the man and his music to know that it (and he) goes further than that. Wynton knows who William Parker is.

I dunno, I've heard very little contemporary music that recalls in any way the Free Jazz of the '60s. The blowing sessions in that mold that I have seen performed by younger (slightly) players have not been all that interesting.

Daguri is great. Matrix is pretty cool too; have the Deep Jazz Reality LP reissue, which was quite well done. The music reminds me a bit of John Cameron's "Off-Centre" or maybe certain Michael Garrick pieces, and has less in common with other Kikuchi albums.