clifford_thornton

Carlos Barretto - Lokomotiv Carlos Barretto - Radio Song Amado/Zingaro/Filiano - The Space Between Ze Eduardo - A Jazzar no Zeca Paulo/Curado/Pedroso - As Sete Ilhas de Lisboa Bernardo Sassetti - Ascent Bernardo Sassetti - Indigos

That is one of the many avatar creations of AfricaBrass, who used to hang here quite a bit. Wish he'd come back, too! Thanks. Now I kinda wish that there was music to go with that hip cover! The font was nicked from Tyrone Washington's Natural Essence, on Blue Note.

RIP Moose. Hope you are able to find a way to honor him that isn't heartbreaking.

Many of Bley's tapes were torched in an apartment fire in the '70s. Who knows what's left...

I saw him once and was hoping he would be better than he turned out to be... oh well.

In regards to the mention of Michel Graillier, I have but one of his LP's - Ad Lib, on Musica, with Aldo Romano and Jean-Francois Jenny-Clarke. It's solid, left-of-mainstream fare with the standout being the title track, a solo piano improvisation. Bernardo Sassetti, from Portugal, is another of the fine younger crop of European pianists. Dig his trio and solo recordings on Clean Feed; they're excellent. Nobody's mentioned the British pianist Howard Riley yet, so I will. Some very inside work and a lot more very outside...

Yeah, that record kicks ass. Clean Feed is a pretty reliable label, imo - especially the early Portuguese improv releases, if you can find 'em.

No-Wave Ornette? Sounds cool to me...

I assume that the high bidders are joking.

David Murray/Johnny Dyani/Andrew Cyrille - 3D Family - (Hat Hut)

I think the Apogee stuff is pretty good, the rest of it... kinda boring to me.

Dickey.

Anyone here familiar with/into Richard Grossman? I've been working on cracking those trio recordings on Hat Hut, slowly, over the past year or so.

I guess this was the week to visit NY, huh.

It's funny, I don't apply the same standards to Bley records that I do by others in the "free" milieu. And I wouldn't argue that Bley, as a musician, has found it necessary to evolve - I see a connection between more recent works and the very stretched-out, 20+ minutes he got from Annette Peacock's languid melodies. However, for my personal tastes, the last few Bley dates that I've heard haven't moved me as much as either his "old" trio sides or his work with Giuffre. Some of that stuff released on Hat Hut is out! Haven't heard Tears, but it's been on my to-hear list.

I'm not sure if this is contrabass or sub-contrabass, but I tend to believe the headlines...

Huh, so it looks like they waited six years to issue it... Sangkt Gerold seems viewed - by some - as a Bley classic (and it's from 2001), but that one I wasn't so into. Though the execution is technically top-notch, I suppose, the tunefulness and the surprises from so many of his earlier recordings are absent for the most part. For me, what's interesting with Bley is to hear how he wanders away from - and back into - a tune. Without significant tunes present, or even sketches of tunes, it's hard to see where he's coming from to feel where he's gone.

Yeah, Collaboration West is quite good. Evolution is another one that's ahead of its time.

Gary Burton & The Jazz Composers' Orchestra (sort of) - A Genuine Tong Funeral - (RCA-Victor)

Whoa... sad news. RIP. I'll be spinning We Now Create tonight, it looks like...

This is an amazing record which has tremendous 'atmosphere' and is full of character thanks to the el-cheapo cheapo East London recording arranged by Doug Dobell which makes it sound like a mid-40s Savoy bop session. Very metallic, with loads of roll-off at the extremes. Indeed - the 1967 recording date gave me a double-take!

Yes, it's an ECM release. I rank this in the middle of my seven Bley albums, although that is not quite fair because it is so different from the others. My first two were recorded in concert at Copenhagen and Haarlem in 1965 and 1966, and I think those are really special. I would next rank an ECM album called Ballads. I like this more than his Open, to love solo album, which I've noticed is very popular on AAJ and maybe here too. I rank last his two Milestone albums with synthesizer, which are good but not as great as the others I have. So I can't say that any of his albums have left me cold the way you feel, but as I say 1972 was a long time ago, and I have been out of touch with what he has been doing for 35 years. You're pretty much where I'm at, though I have about twenty of his albums. The stuff of the past several years with, say Evan Parker or John Surman, has not really held my interest. Haven't spun Open, to Love in a long time.

Non-ionized water = distilled water. As I understand it, the excess is wiped off and the remainder would catch in the grooves, thus negating major runoff issues. I've never tried it myself, nor do I plan to...

I'd like to get a nice orig of Starsailor, but it's a bit out of my league price-wise, at least for this kind of music.

Bluiett and Roy Brooks are both great players. Dare I say it'd be preferable without the rest of the cast?