clifford_thornton

Good call. I recently picked up Arild Andersen's ECM box that collects his his 1970's quartet albums. Aaltonen is on a couple of them, and he really impressed me. I'll have to check out those more recent TUM recordings. Is there a particular one that you've enjoyed most? His quartet recording 'Conclusions' is excellent as is the sextet 'To Future Memories'. Both on TUM Thanks! I'll check 'em out. There's also a recent duo with overlooked Finnish pianist Heikki Sarmanto on TUM that's really excellent.

I need to revisit those.

Damn! I have the LP but who can complain about free?

good one; I haven't heard it in ages. Used to have a dub of it.

Seen the movie several times - I really like it.

I can't even find my review of the Taylor/Oxley though I know I wrote one and it was quite positive. Loss of one hard drive later, it seems...

Netflix has it for rent on DVD and often on streaming (though not presently).

same boat as Paul, and have a lot of this stuff on LP, but others should take heed.

It's been years since I've spun this but I just pulled it out. May give it another whirl; I agree that the sound is not as crystal-clear as it could be, but I don't know if that's something the label could've improved on or not.

Don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but:

Whitney was talented, not so sure about the other two. Addiction is a hell of a thing.

That does look interesting.

I felt like those were really nice issues of the music, though all the ones I would've wanted I had on LP.

Don't know Mayers' music - will have to seek out that UA recording. Seems like Dixon was on call for some New Jazz dates; I know him from Mal Waldron's Sounds LP and his work with Ahmed Abdul-Malik. Have heard English's name and recognize the Vanguard material, but I don't think I've actually listened to him much.

Palladium is excellent. I need to pick up that Guitar Workshop LP one of these days.

Sunny Murray is an odd guy, but a brilliant musician and far from a spaz. Hell, Surgal's drumming looks rather controlled when I've seen it. Of course, fighting the power was part of it, but it was only one part. If "all art is political," well, good, then what?

Only have a rip of this but it's an excellent album. One day...

Nice; last time I saw them was in a big venue and the sound/vibe was super slick - a far cry from the old, beer-soaked days. I like the look of the original foldout cover on the first LP, but have always felt that its predecessor EP/single/etc. were musically stronger.

Thanks Moms; you're hitting on the head the exact nails I had issue with. Guess I didn't want to lay in too hard without a finished product but the vibe harshes my aesthetic and intellectual mellow. It also doesn't help the detractors who consider free music "noise," and there's a tone of fetishized-other in some of the text/talking heads that doesn't go over well with me. I've met Tom a few times and he appears to be a sensible dude, so perhaps this is just a weird way of selling the thing? If so, it's missing more than a few marks... I guess what I'm getting at is that, while I appreciate and agree with the political aspects of this music, I've spent however many years writing about and talking on-air about this music, trying to dispel the idea that it's merely aggressive angry-MAN music by people who couldn't sight read. All that depth, tradition, and interest goes out the window with texts and approaches like the ones exhibited here. The idea that they will be using footage of Bill Dixon in this film (cribbed from Imagine the Sound), when Bill wouldn't have lent his name to some bullshit characterization like this, really pisses me off.

Mudhoney - Hate the Police EP - (Au-Go-Go Australian orig)

yeah, I think my copy was off-condition; can't imagine I would've let it go otherwise...

Used to have that one... it's neat.

Not sure where this should go, but anyway, thought it might be interesting to have a little dialogue on a sight-unseen film called Fire Music, which has been in the works for well over a decade. Tom Surgal (drummer for The Blue Humans and White Out) has been collecting interviews on many of free music's progenitors and hopes to tell the story of the music on film (sort of an anti-Ken Burns but I think this has been filming since before Burns' Jazz aired). Kickstarter link below. Fire Music Kickstarter I'm sure a lot of the interviews are strong, but the text accompanying the project and some of the talking heads rub me a little bit wrong. Surgal is a nice guy and knows his stuff; I'm sure Nels is and does too. But I fear a lack of nuance - that it might focus more on screaming rebellion and less on the continuum, or the idea that much of this music developed as a parallel to the innovations that came out of the 1940s (i.e., bebop) while also signifying a break with traditional structure. Then again, I wasn't there in the 1960s and can only gather what I can from the musicians I've interviewed and the things I hear (and how I hear them). Anyway, curious to hear people's thoughts and of course to see the film when it hits.

Eric Kloss - Essence - (Muse, US) Charlie Rouse - Bossa Nova Bacchanal - (BN, NY USA stereo)