clifford_thornton

Aww, so sorry to hear of this. You gave her a great life.

oh, Jazz Dispensary is Concord? I had no idea. Concord refusing to license Charlie Nothing his own music for Takoma is peak record company conglomerate bs... "no, we won't license it to you, and nor will we reissue it."

These are of course just my opinions.

Will definitely get this.

With Ra, the Afro-futurist project is interesting, as is creating an environment/language that white people cannot easily co-opt. I get that, and find it important. In addition a lot of the music is good, and the visual aspects of the album covers, chap-books, and surrounding objects are neat. That is something to talk about in a broad overview context. I'm not so into a lot of the sci-fi kitsch myself, however, and the theater I can take or leave -- sometimes it is cool to see, sometimes not for me. The latter aspects to me are extra-musical baggage and get a bit cloying. What I find a bit frustrating also (and this has been my general experience) is that people get very into the idea of this outer-space cat, but leave aside the music, and don't have much interest in the broader continuum. That isn't the fault of Sun Ra, though.

Back in the day, mossy was kind of a catch-all for hippie stuff among friends and I. The plateau implies a restive horizontal field.

Yeah, I think it still holds true. I'm not sure one can totally know what the spiritual leanings of a given artistic creation or composer might be, and a lot of things are called "spiritual" without any research into what actually went into the music. I never use the term unless I know, with someone like John or Alice Coltrane, Pharoah, Ayler, Masahiko Togashi, etc., that their music is intended to be spiritual in nature. And even then, it's imbued in the work while not necessarily being the only talking point.

You need some if you're going to space.

Ah, yes, that is a wonderful album. Love it. The America LP with Lacy seems a bit more "out" in some spots (maybe because of Potts' presence) but the Victor is beautifully recorded.

I taught a class at Bard College the other day subbing for a friend (musician on tour). She teaches an Experimental Music Practices course in their Curatorial Studies department. My focus being on avant-garde jazz, it was a lot to cover in 2 and a half hours! I was asked by the students why I did not cover Sun Ra. My short answer is that he is a world unto himself but that's true for literally everyone I DID cover in the class. In order to go broad we did have to skip some of my favorites, like Mingus, Dolphy, Steve Lacy, Anthony Braxton, Archie Shepp, and the Japanese scenes (mostly for lack of available performance footage). Ra, for me, has a lot of baggage and though I like a large chunk of his music, I feel like it would be so easy to spend tons of time on him, and Cliffs Notes just would not do the whole context justice. Short answer: they just need to give me a semester-long course.

Image isn't showing up for me. Which one is it? He's got a few pretty "free" recordings.

too bad. RIP.

All Downes is strong, though, so I am biased.

No, it's just good.

Deep Down Heavy, yes.

Agreed.

There's also a good Bob Downes LP on MFP.

me either. Decades of treatment-resistant depression and massive doses of jazz.

Understood. But he's not bad! I think it's worth checking out several minutes of his solo music and deciding for yourself. There's also a duo with Mats G (maybe more than one?) that's decent, if flutter-tonguing, harmonics, and key clicks are your thing. There is an ambient-ness to Stetson's music that works well in certain contexts... and I don't mean "new age ambient," but the kind of agitated sound environments that are neither foreground nor background.

Hearing the news that Boston saxophonist and composer (Mark Harvey's Aardvark Jazz Orchestra; Thing) has died. Sad news for the community he was a large part of.

Eggsellent... I have a CDR but would like to pick this up.

Have had this LP for many years -- quite enjoyable.

Yeah, definitely seems to have more appeal in the "avant-rock" world, and he has also done a fair amount of soundtrack work I believe. I don't know that I would sit with an album but he's out there doing his thing, and it is appreciated.

Huh. The Klarwein site says "1963" for Iron Man, which seems unlikely for a couple of reasons. One is that the original album cover was gold with a purple-tinted photo of Dolphy. Also, Douglas issued the music at least a couple of years after the reedist's death (1966 or so). The purple Klarwein cover didn't come out until sometime later in the 1970s.

the Ra was also in lesser condition...