clifford_thornton

Yeah, that could be interesting. I'd like to hear Joe McPhee's Gardens of Harlem revisitation and Anti-House.

Yeah, every time I see the name I think the same thing, Chuck. Never knew the bassist personally but his playing is/was great.

There are a few things on that list I'd like to see, but for the most part it seems like stuff I can conjure what the experience would be like without ever having to hear it.

I like the early stuff for sure, and Odessa is a classic. Sad to see him gone.

Apologies for posting before lunch.

George Russell is someone whom I'd really like to read a good bio of. I have the Decca vinyl but would jump at a Select.

Having an archive doesn't mean that the public has a right to hear/experience all the material. One has to separate the need for preservation of the cultural record from some sort of hypothetical unlimited public access.

Same here.

I don't know; I had a great dinner with Bill Dixon, Stephen Haynes and Rob Mazurek (along with a couple others). Had a few dinners with Bill and they were hard to top, though I would have liked to have had some more. But these were restaurant meals. Also had a fun/zany dinner where I cooked a sizable Indian meal for Perry Robinson and Burton Greene. Had a great home-cooked brunch with Alvin Fielder one time. I would have liked to have shared a meal with Steve Lacy and Irene Aebi.

It's funny, and maybe this speaks to the people I hang around with/talk to on a regular basis, but Melle doesn't seem too neglected in certain corners of the jazz world. Sometimes it's hard to step out of your own sphere and realize that a lot of people, even in jazz, aren't aware of certain artists.

Speaking of Australia, altoist Bernie McGann's records on Emamem (there are two) are well worth seeking out. Loose and intelligent, 'open mainstream' trio and quartet music. I don't think he's too well-known outside of his home country, though he seems pretty busy there.

Yeah, I've never heard that or Mama Rose. Funny, because I love Shepp and generally dig NHOP and Jasper van't Hof.

Haven't pulled out my Que CDs, but will grab a few for the road tonight. Also, still a favorite (though of a diff. ilk):

Thumbs up to both of those. Thumbs up from here, too. I was really impressed by Satori when I first heard it, and you're right, it's rarely discussed or so it seems. Actually got it in a bulk buy that I was going to flip, and discovered it needed to stay in my house. I have some lo-fi concert bootlegs of MEV + Lacy, though I've never been able to score a copy of the vinyl. MEV and Lacy were a mutually-beneficial combo, it seems. Don't know your #1, but the others are great indeed. Breedlove is a fine player, though I've only heard him with Moondoc and with Khan Jamal.

As an archivist, I still separate physical collections from the non-physical, or "soft" collections of files. Conceptually, it's hard for me to align digital files with literal, tangible objects, whether they're CDs or LPs or pens or stamps, letters, whatever. I understand why you could have a collection of files, but I'm wired old-school. The attributes of a physical object that contains music are far more interesting to me.

I do, yeah.

You're probably right; I haven't heard it in many years and don't have the musical-photographic memory of some around here, alas.

Also, some of the earlier ECMs weren't supervised by Eicher - they were tapes that the artists had produced and were brought to him, deemed worth releasing, and there ya go. At least one of the early Bleys was supposed to be on ESP, the Just Music LP was a reissue of their self-produced album, the Music Improvisation Company material was already extant, and so forth.

Oh okay, that's good to know. Though I may be a little off-base here, what I recall was more than a passing similarity to Valdo Williams' work. Valdo's a little bit of a one-trick pony, at least on the Savoy LP, but it's an enjoyably over-the-top listen.

Yeah, my stylus is probably about 3 or 4 years old, and I'm probably due for a change soon. Then again, I only play clean/NM records, so I haven't really noticed anything.

I'd also say that ECM is far from the only guilty label in terms of promoting an ethereal sterility - if they do indeed do that - I've noticed similarly-rendered recordings on Hat, Intakt, Clean Feed, and a host of other labels.

I have a lot of their 70s output and love it. I feel that the Eicher sound seemed to come into play more in the 1980s (though I could be wrong). Some dates that, were they recorded ten years earlier (the Motian/Brackeen/Jenny-Clarke Trio, for example), might have a bit more of the punch I'm looking for as a listener. But the music contained within is still strong. The ECM sound doesn't totally mar newer label releases from Paul Bley, Marilyn Crispell, Roscoe, and Evan Parker, but sometimes I yearn for more analog overdrive. That's just me. I'm glad they pay the musicians well and promote the hell out of them.