clifford_thornton

I wonder which one came first in terms of release dates? I'd assume around the same time. My UK Polydor/Verve edition of the Shorter, from 1969, has an alternate sleeve image and is titled Parabolic. In the notes (by Richard Williams), it is mentioned that this was the first release of the material, though I thought for sure there was a deep-groove Verve stateside that preceded it. Also, I was under the impression that much of Orgasm/Parabolic was written in the early 1960s without much of an ear towards Ornette's music.

well hey, Dolphy did have a tune by that name - beautiful one at that.

Motian was definitely in the scene during the 1960s; working with Paul Bley, he was part of a couple of different quartets, one with John Gilmore on tenor sax, the other with Pharoah Sanders. Motian may also have played with Albert Ayler at that time, sitting in. He even was in some of the Jazz Composers' Guild Orchestra rehearsals/concerts. Bley's music should help us dial back in to the "progressive" or "inside-outside" music of the mid-60s, as he was coming out of Parker, Powell and Ornette Coleman into a rhythmically free music with an ambiguous tonal center that still swung like mad and had a hefty blues feeling. He could play with Milford and with Motian. The linchpin of the blend between (rather than divergence from) free music, bop, "third stream" and Blue Note progressives is Bill Dixon, who advocated for an inclusion of a variety of approaches in coffee house/loft/underground jazz during the first half of the 1960s. George Russell, Freddie Redd, Albert Ayler and Archie Shepp could certainly coexist in this environment and had quite a bit to share politically, if not always aesthetically. (IIRC Stollman first met Ayler at a Freddie Redd gig)

Yes, yes - those were the days!

Atomizer is great - I didn't keep it but would buy again if it were clean and on Homestead.

I've had a shit time at work this year, so this is my attempt at solace!

yeah, still have most of the Shellac records filed - the split with Mule and The Bird is the Most Popular Finger I let go a while back. Rapeman remain in the collection but I sold all the Big Black stuff years ago. I'd like to get some of their LPs back if they stay on the cheap side... edit for confusing Shellac EP title with Six Finger Satellite record

I have some real nice Hal Singer recordings but not the Prestige...

ep1str0phy knows Gale and may know the story.

This is way more "out" than Fresh, but it sounds great - even the raggedy bits are exhumed in a sparkling fashion.

coming out on CD via Emanem this fall. Lovely.

Transamerica owned UA at that point, IIRC. Almost forgot, on the subject of both underrated and avant-garde, the Eddie Gale Blue Note records. Very good and very strange albums, especially in the context of Blue Note. Quite rare too, at least in their original incarnation.

Black-note Transamerica - yeah, not surprised that exists. I think you're right about Impulse vs BN but I wasn't there so only know this stuff through digging in the bins. My copy of NY Is Now is a blue label UA. Wish it was a Liberty. It's all weird and you're right, regional stock preferences (not to mention greedy record store clerks) in the pre-pre-pre-Internet age made one's experience of what was findable quite variable.

Point being that there were numerous ways to acquire this music over the course of a decade (1967-1977) if you wanted to get your hands dirty, and the labels kept manufacturing it. As for Conquistador, I've seen mono and stereo Liberty pressings, blue label UA pressings, and Japanese issues. Unit Structures: mono/stereo "New York USA," stereo Liberty with a couple of different label shades, blue label UAs, not to mention King and Toshiba Japanese reissues. Oh yeah, and the Burton Greene on Columbia: white label promo and regular two-eye, as well as Dutch and English CBS and Japanese CBS/Sony.

I can't remember who was doing the Impulse record club editions in the '60s. White spine with red print, and non-Impulse catalog numbers. Non-gloss gatefolds. I also saw a Rudd with a glossy gatefold sleeve and a yellow label with black print that was definitely some sort of record club mongrel. It was very odd.

Everywhere came in orange/black (both stereo and mono), black/red, and green. I assume there is a Japanese pressing but I haven't seen one (or a Euro). Can't remember gold stamp specifics but for green or purple/yellow pressings, those did appear, probably sometimes using leftovers from earlier runs. Only reason I know this shit is because I've bought these albums multiple times/seen them when working in or frequenting stores, etc. As for Three for Shepp, I think the black/red did get more than one run because a whole bunch of them got assembled with the inner gatefold slick (liners) upside down! Oh, there are also Canadian and record club editions of Everywhere. Hah.

There are several pressings of Marion Brown's Three for Shepp - orange/black (stereo/mono), black/red, green, and purple/yellow, not to mention Japanese and French issues.

Lovely record. I have it on BYG - used to have a few copies kicking around, now down to one!

Interesting about the Schwann / Liberty deletion. I did read somewhere that you could still buy some Lex and West 63rd Blue Notes in the late '60s for pretty cheap, even some of the 10"s. Yes, I'm of the understanding that Koenig had open ears and liked the music of Ornette, Cecil, Lasha and Simmons, although all of them mentioned that they didn't see much financial benefit from being on Contemporary.

speaking of which, Savoy is a really interesting comparison - they released a handful of scarce avant-garde LPs in the mid- to late 1960s. Surely they weren't thinking of these as a cash cow, as many of them went straight to the cut-out bins. Nobody (or almost nobody) bought that Marzette Watts record when it came out, but nevertheless with Bill Dixon's role as a producer/sorta A&R person, that sub-sector of the artistic market got coverage.

I don't think BN's avant-garde LPs were as easily relegated to the cut-out bins as Savoys or ESPs. They were definitely in a better position to market and sell the stuff.

No need to go hungry! I'm told that they are not made to sell out in a flash and that a couple of years from now, if you want one, it'll be there.

Agreed on Don Ellis, A.K. Salim, and Dizzy Reece - Asia Minor is a great album and showed Dizzy moving in the direction that he'd solidify during the 1970s. On the Teddy Charles front, the Prestige Jazz Quartet album is a killer. The four Ahmed Abdul-Malik LPs are excellent and are virtually un-discussed (rare too!). Lots of nice ethnographic and American folk recordings in the Prestige catalog, all cheap if you find them as used LPs. I particularly like the Ruth Ben-Zvi album.

That makes a lot of sense. I'd be interested to know whether Brilliant Circles was intended for another label than Polydor/Spiegelei when it was recorded in 1969. It is an excellent album. Strata-East had a very diffuse catalogue, from fusion and proto-smooth jazz funk to avant-garde heavies, and it's hard to think of them in the BN bag (even though the Tollivers are decent post-bop). For my money the best things they released are the Pharoah and the Mtume Umoja records. Then again, I suppose BN in their later UA years were pretty all over the map. Those Corea records for example - pretty out, though not often rated very highly by people who either dive into free music or who are BN dedicatees. I really have to go back to those Hutcherson albums - I always thought the more interesting ones were NOT Dialogue and Components, rather Stick-Up, Total Eclipse, San Francisco and the Harold Land years. The first two BNs are a bit "dry" for my taste, though the Webern/Stravinsky thought is interesting - something I certainly think of with respect to SME, Cecil or Bill Dixon, less so with the avant-garde Blue Note crew, though I'm sure those guys were listening to the same composers. Moncur's BART set with Hutcherson, McBee and Harris is wonderful. That 24-minute piece is just sublime. Of course, Hutch and Chambers were playing with Shepp at the time in a very interesting group - not necessarily the most successful, but one I'm glad exists.

The label is very, very above board and those who are due royalties will get theirs. It is I'm sure an expensive set to produce. It looks good but more importantly it sounds as much like you're "there" as an early Blue Note, some of the recent Nessa CDs, or Shellac's At Action Park. Can't stress that rare feeling enough. As for the video footage, it is included on a download card. Actually I wish it'd been included on a DVD but that's my only gripe. The Taylor is good but not great, I agree. The NYAQ is essential. They hopefully will be doing some Bill Dixon stuff down the line, in full accord with the estate.