clifford_thornton

Another four-disc set is on the way from Clean Feed, of all people. It's a series of duet improvisations between Braxton and guitarist Joe Morris. Sounds interesting!

Yes, his anti-gay and anti-abortion views aren't really my cup of tea, but I try to view him musically rather than with a raised eyebrow to his "social concerns."

I think you're overstating how much Clement Greenberg forced his hand in artists' careers. That said, he was an extremely generous person and had a rather clear vision of certain types of art and their place in the aesthetic continuum. That comes from a keen eye and careful study. But he'd be the first to admit that his judgements were "taste" before "gospel." It would be great if more critics had conviction in their own taste and a finely-tuned outsider's perspective of artistic process.

I mean, sometimes that stuff is true and if one is lucky enough to be there or somehow obtain a recording of it, well who am I to argue. But there's also a legacy of work to deal with, and if that points in a different direction for the most part, that's what one should base things on for the time being.

I'm not gonna say I wouldn't be curious to hear the session he supposedly taped for ESP in 1973.

Been quite a while since I've been on one of those. It hurt.

No, I have not. That's by chance more than planning.

The whole idea of unlearning or de-learning an instrument or a music is pretty interesting. Then again, I've never been entirely convinced of how much "Little Bird" there truly was in Ayler, love his music and respect him though I do. (Not saying that I don't think Ayler could play - just that his way of playing or concept fell far outside the mainstream, and probably always did.) Certainly, one shouldn't be expected to keep out of improvised music not knowing "time" or the changes - the contributions of musicians who otherwise might be ahistorical are legion.

I like that one of the Amazon tags associated with this disc is "boring." (alongside smooth jazz, easy listening and Norah Jones)

If done by the right DJ/compiler, it could be a nice purchase.

I have not been confident that Gayle knows the lineage of his instrument in the way that, say, Frank Lowe, Joe Rigby, James Finn or a host of other post-Ayler, post-post-Coltrane saxophonists do. I don't hear the quotes, extrapolations or reverent/referent moods that some others are very adept at creating. Though he's singular, I don't feel that he's entirely "original" even in his hardest, most paint-peeling work (somebody like Doyle certainly is, quality or not). Mind you, I'm not a musician and not 1/10th of the listener that some of our non-musician board members surely are, but I don't have much conviction in Gayle's conviction. That said, I would like very much to gain insight that'd help convince me. So Mr. Runt, thanks for the recommendations.

I made a comment in another thread that was curtly dismissive of the saxophonist/pianist Charles Gayle and his work. I was asked to elaborate and so I'll try to here. But more importantly, it'd be great to get others to share their opinions - positive and negative - on Gayle's work and maybe make some recommendations also. As many of you here might be aware, I'm quite a fan of fire-and-brimstone saxophone playing - Arthur Doyle, Frank Lowe, Peter Brotzmann, Kenneth Terroade, Mats Gustafsson et al. Of course there's more than just "fire and brimstone" to those players, and maybe that's why I am not a huge fan of Gayle's work. I've never been able to detect much nuance in his playing and, though certain of his records are undeniably strong artistic statements and singular in their approach, he's not someone I return to often and I've stuck with very few of his albums. Sure, Kingdom Come (Knitting Factory) and Touchin' on Trane (FMP) are relentless, but the one I was struck by as showing some possibility was Shout! (Clean Feed) with Sirone and Gerald Cleaver. The reason? He played - albeit in a sort of sketchy fashion - a couple of "standards." Strangely, my impression of his follow-up was that it's kind of a limp reverting to the previous body of work. I'll add that I haven't followed his piano/performance-art bag at all, so am only firsthand familiar with his saxophone playing and attendant power-trios. Thoughts on Gayle or the area of music he occupies?

Awesome! Happy Birthday, Free!

Night owl here. I'm still on a bit of a grad-school schedule, though I finished in December and am in the job-hunt now. If I "have" to get up at a certain hour, say 6 or 7, I will. When I was in school & working, my classes were mostly afternoon and my work ranged from an 8 am reference shift at the library to a 5 pm. I would generally get up and have a bowl of Grape Nuts about 20 minutes before my morning shift, then get on my bike and sprint to campus.

Interesting. Can I ask what you find troubling with Gayle? I only have Kingdom Come and its enjoyable enough and I wouldn't be opposed to hearning more. Do you mind elaborating? I may in another thread.

With a few exceptions, I try to steer clear of Charles Gayle, period.

I'm surprised, a little, that chewy's into this one. It's pretty free.

Marco Eneidi - Vermont Spring - (Botticelli) w/ Wm. Parker & Denis Charles

This is certainly one of my favorite Ra recordings. I suspect that this was rather influential on Alan Silva - Silva was in the Arkestra as a cellist, but I feel like Strange Strings in particular seems very directly connected to the Celestrial Communications Orchestra.

Stanko is also on the Schoof European Echoes session. That's a fuckin' monster...

I don't have the Gruntz or the Beresford. Both look interesting. UMS certainly do a good job, though I wish more of it was actually "previously unreleased" (like the GUO 67-70, for example, which is real fine). I have a lot of this stuff on vinyl, and these reissues rarely contain extra tracks. In fact, some of them were promised to contain additional material that never, uh, materialized.

It's been mentioned over here: http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=38875 I shall have to get this, but I still also need the other classic BoB albums, first... and there are a couple of other live discs available (Bremen To Bridgewater, and I think one more, also the Harry Miller Isipingo one) Eclipse at Dawn is better than either Travelling Somewhere or Bremen to Bridgewater, IMO. Don't worry about "first" - it's better to start with something unequivocally good. I can say that, for a fact, the Berlin Jazztage performance is the finest BoB live recording I've heard. That goes not only for fidelity, but the quality of musical statements contained therein. I cannot recommend this disc highly enough - it is unreal.

I run 2.25 g on my mmf-5. Unless it's a Music Matters reissue, then it's 8 lbs.

And yet my $50 Antithesis LP is lost in the mail...

Apparently, some Taiwan Dollars.