clifford_thornton

Great shot... meanwhile, over in BC: http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1501864

Harth's catalogue is really quite fascinating, though much of it falls outside of the specific 'free improvisation' realm that we're talking here. He's made a lot of CD-R samplers and collections of archival material available, which I'm thankful to have been provided over the years. I interviewed Harth for AAJ and have reviewed a number of his releases. You're right - MJQK and FMO records can be pricey. I think Position 2000 was the only one that I paid through the nose for, however. It's a particularly excellent date, though I will say that one problem with these early '70s German private pressings is that they're not as audiophile as one might hope. All of mine are M- visually but have some inherent noise. I'd also pick up Eight Science Fiction Stories if you see it, as the music's feel is certainly quite Dixonian in nature. The first Herbert Joos on JAPO is a cheap LP and certainly worth hearing. That was a gateway drug to MJQK and FMO.

ha, yeah I do have those. They're interesting. I don't have any of Sell's records under his own name but I do have the two Dieter Scherf LPs (not my favorite, but okay). Of the obscure German groups from that period, the Modern Jazz Quintet Karlsruhe is pretty amazing, as are the related Fourmenonly dates. I don't believe any of that material has been reissued. Then of course there's Just Music and EMT, as well as the transitional Alfed Harth Quintet with Nicole van den Plas. Good times.

Joe sounds great on those. Although I'm not sure what the most and least emotive of his recordings are...

yeah, the CIMP stuff is really strong but I can't deal with most Rusch presentations. However, McPhee is so beautiful that his sound tends to override shitty production.

Damn!

hit or miss on Irabagon myself. I've seen/heard him play some stuff I really liked and some stuff that was just all technique - breathtaking, sure, but will I remember it in a few years, much less 30? McPhee, on the other hand, has broken my heart and put it back together again in the span of a few minutes. He IS music.

Looks a little like James Garner there.

Huh. I have the LP and it's absolutely excellent, but have not heard this extra track. I miss seeing him around. He was a nice man.

Unreleased stuff circulates all the time - it doesn't seem that hard to boot something that hasn't been made official.

Harsh, but YMMV.

yeah, I have clean firsts of the Hampel, Schoof and Breuker (although that's technically a reissue of the Relax title) and they're all a bit noisy.

Well, I'll tell you this: he's been doing non-PD (1960s/70s) reissues of records from a variety of labels - Vogue, Metronome, Muza - and the artists and their estates are absolutely not getting paid. I have my doubts that the owners of those catalogs in 2015 care about licensing a Barney Wilen title or whatever, so he's just doing them and they seem to be selling quite well.

me too... while the Wergo is well-recorded, my feeling is that the first pressings of those Wergo-Jazz titles aren't that hot. The only one I have that sounds clear as day is the Favre.

wow. HOWever, I know I'm not wrong in saying that Be! haven't exactly earned any friends in the licensing department, if you catch my drift...

I agree with you, David. I listen to someone like John Dikeman, good player who's clearly done a lot of listening to Wright and Brötzmann, whom I also love, not to mention Vandermark, and it just doesn't hit for me. Michael Foster is another, perhaps less nuanced example among the younger set. Going from zero to nutting in .02 seconds and holding it there for 20+ minutes in 2015 isn't what I want to hear, unless it's from someone who can really make that mean something. Usually that person has been making musical constructions and expressions for far longer than Foster, Dikeman or whomever has been alive. Being a thirty-year-old jazz musician in 2015 also means something different than it did in 1965 or 1975, I'm guessing. The statements one makes carry different weight.

Really looking forward to checking out the Stella retro - his work up through the early/mid 70s I absolutely love. I think the last show I caught was Jurgen Teller at Zwirner maybe a week ago? His photographs mark a tense, quiet relationship between the personal and the political.

That Lacy "Eronel" LP is really nice.

Yeah, I agree with that sentiment.

Hopefully for less than $987...

Saw that band live - it was interesting. Just got the disc but haven't spun it yet. The new Shipp trio disc is lovely, but then again I haven't heard a Shipp CD that isn't just that.

I like Monk's Casino a lot, but not for the same reason I like Monk a lot. I'd like to get that Dolphy tribute disc at some point - looks nice.

Indeed - barnstorming, even. now: Howard Riley Trio - Discussions - (Opportunity, Sawano-Japan reissue)

Right, guess I implied that rather than outright saying it. Pretty rotten scene.

I understand that there are a fair number of musicians who haven't been happy with Jazzwerkstatt (or his other labels) over the years. Maybe that's changed. Several titles ended up with Blobel when Helma Schleiss started running FMP. She was originally supposed to assist with distribution and instead set up a separate production-distribution company under the FMP name, eventually trying to wrest the catalog from Jost Gebers, the label's founder. Legal battles ensued and I believe he got an injunction/cease-and-desist. Anything that Blobel has from FMP is probably what she sold him, likely without the musicians' cooperation.