clifford_thornton

Overblowing at that level of intensity takes a lot of power, and false fingering isn't just missteps. He can play, his language just is wholly different from a lot of other post-Trane/post-Ayler players. Late, PM me on the Colbeck. I can burn you a copy. It's probably one of the greatest free-bop records ever waxed.

Check it out - you might like it. I just was expecting a more Graham Collier-feel and didn't quite get what I was hoping for.

Arthur Doyle - Alabama Feeling - (Ak-Ba original)

Right, Thurston/Ecstatic Peace have been pumping up Wooden Wand, Sunburned Hand of the Man and that free-folk shit for some time. No-Neck Blues Band also (though I wouldn't put them in the same category). Some of it good, some of it falling more flat on its face than Thurston & Co., but the best of it works very well. T's improvising can be wretched, though I've liked the Dream Action Unit (w/ Corsano and Flaherty) quite a bit.

Me too. I was being tongue in cheek.

Everybody forgets this part, the BEGINNING of the article, which may be the best part: TOP TEN FROM THE FREE JAZZ UNDERGROUND by thurston moore No matter how you listen to it JAZZ is ostensibly about FREEDOM. FREEDOM and the MYSTERY surrounding it. And, like MUSIC, it is an ABSTRACT. It's SHAPES, FORMS (SOUNDS!) are DISTINCT and PERSONAL and SENSITIVE to each player's DESIRE. And the DESIRE is INFINITE. FREEDOM is not just another word for nothing left to lose. We know this from MESSAGES beamed from the space-lantern of his cosmic highness SUN RA! The MESSAGE was clear: "NOTHING IS." To freely improvise a solo within a structural context may have begun with a young Louis Armstrong in the early 20's. As a boy he grew up in New Orleans hearing and seeing musicians both black and white cultivating a celebratory and spiritual vibe. They were flowers in the dustbin. Slaveships stole the horns and drums. The captured African would not be allowed to communicate as they had. Upon THE FREEDOM ACT the freed slave sought and fought for the EXPRESSION oppressed. And THE FREEDOM PRINCIPLE developed. Jelly Roll Morton, like Louis Armstrong began to record compositions of PURE BLACK AWARENESS. Both these men had been witness, early in the century, to BUDDY BOLDEN - a man who supposedly blew the cornet so masterfully (and so loud!) that his legend was rampant. He supposedly recorded upon a cylinder (pre-vinyl format) and it has yet to be found!! Ideas of improvisation, live and on recordings, became increasingly more sophisticated and political throughout the 40's, 50's and 60's. From Lester Youngs' twisting reedy tones to Charlie Parkers spurious key changes and (along with Miles Davis, Max Roach, et al) hyper-fast note-fly. John Coltrane was the man. With the introduction of the long-playing record, people like Trane could experiment and extend their playing for posterity. The vinyl communicated around the world. Trane's SOUND was BEAUTIFUL and COMPLEX and inspired all who received it. Trane himself was duly inspired by some of the most far-out musicians of the then burgeoning jazz avant-garde. Chief amongst them was Sun Ra & his Arkestra. Factions of experimentation abounded throughout the 50's and 60's. Trane, Ra, Ornette Coleman and his white plastic alto playing notes and tones at once beautiful and harsh. Thelonius Monk, Lennie Tristano, Charles Mingus and Eric Dolphy composing and playing music inspired by whole worlds of experience (blues, eastern and western classical, religion, etc.) Music like no one had yet imagined would emanate from the wild hearts of those such as Albert Ayler and Cecil Taylor. These are all names of artists commonly associated with the avant-garde jazz underground of the 20th century. They all recorded fairly prolifically throughout their lifetimes (and some, like Cecil Taylor, continue). But there were so many more musicians performing and recording so-called "new" music at the time. It happened mostly in the late 60's/early 70's with the concept of artist-run collectives coming into fruition. To play jazz totally FREE and ORGANIC was a gesture whose time had come in the 60's. It was SOCIAL and POLITICAL for reasons involving relationship, race, fury, rage, peace, war, love and FREEDOM. We search for artifacts from this underground constantly. They were arcane and obscure at the time and are even more so today. No record labels are reissuing this stuff (some are e.g.: Evidence Records reissuing all of Sun Ra's independent Saturn label releases). Here's a list of ten (out of hundreds of) LP's recorded in total grassroots fashion from the FREE-JAZZ underground. These are fairly impossible to locate and if you want to know what FREE-JAZZ may sound like you can get CD's of certain crucial classics where this music was allowed to exist: John Coltrane-Interstellar Space (Impulse/MCA), Ornette Coleman-Beauty Is A Rare Thing (Atlantic/Rhino), The Art Ensemble - 1967/68 (Nessa, PO Box 394, Whitehall, MI 49461), Sun Ra-various titles (Evidence)

Not that rare; I like the version of "Fortunato" on that one... it's a very good record, though I haven't heard it in some time (guess we agree to disagree there!)... Brandon Ross is also hip on that New Life Trio LP on Mustevic.

Yeah, I guess you gotta account for the improvement from "utter shite" to just plain "shite," but I try to be more optomistic than that. And some people just don't have it, and should involve themselves in other pursuits. However, I like to think that those who write regularly (and I mean daily, or at least something every few days) and like writing, will get better at the craft. And, like I've said on this board before, criticism as an artform can exist independently of that which is criticized. At this point I read (Clem) Greenberg as literature more than anything else, though his work has informed my aesthetic vantage point a great deal.

I don't know it. It's a trio? I suspect it would be mellow, warmly lyrical and sparse with (if piano is present) some "modal" grooves. Probably a nice record.

Alex von Schlippenbach - Sven-Ake Johansson Duo - Live at the Quartier Latin (FMP original)

I sometimes feel that way about my minimal Trane LP collection...

Blythe is on the Tapscott.

It's real good. I also like the Dutchman LPs quite a lot (and they deserve a nice, crisp digipack reissue, no?)...

ALL writers can improve. The public forum is a good place to do that. And I quote (not necessarily verbatim): Jazz Kat: "I'm gonna go get stoned." Chuck Nessa: "May I throw the first?"

I wasn't all that into Warm Smiles when I heard it a few years ago; Themes for Fega seems more interesting (no Mongezi connection; named, I believe, for a critic/writer whom Beckett respected). Will definitely pick up this set.

Yeah, FR is just Bagatellen without the vitriol. Good times, though!

I thought it was going to be a Collector's Choice or whatever... Multidirection is great; haven't heard the first one.

Sorry Clem, but I'm going to try not to visualize you in pasties! Rapson is fine on some recordings with Vinny Golia. I enjoyed seeing Smoker in Adam Lane's quartet in Chicago some years back, with Tchicai and Altschul. They tore up the Velvet Lounge (with almost NO audience)...

Yeah, all three places I've lived. Strange, eh? Agreed, some on my list are pushin' it. Didn't know Rob was an ex-roadie. Nice.

I thought it counted as Grachan's recording. Not so?

Gallio is very interesting... not that young, though, is he? I don't really have much to add to this conversation. To paraphrase Clem, it isn't all that bad, though it's not all that good either. A few more than "not bad" in the contemporary Am. jazz vanguard: Reuben Radding Brian Allen Tony Malaby Rob Brown Whit Dickey Joe Morris Croix Galipault Adam Lane

What Bertrand said. Awesome date. Couldn't have asked for anything better from Grachan's resurgence.

Picked up the LP for $4 last night. It's not bad, though certainly could've lived without it. Pullen is weird, as usual, so that's nice. I found Hart's drums too under-miked (or something) for my listening pleasure - it seemed like the session was missing its bottom end, and the top was sometimes a little too "clean" to warrant a lack of reasonable force.

It's going... picking up what I can here and there. I still find Abe a little cold enough of the time, but that may change. Getting primed to do a japanimprov.com order later in the week - I certainly am getting an idea of who I'm interested in hearing more from.

Just "Ictus," which gets pretty far from the theme in the ensuing improvisations. The LP is supposedly more "tuneful" than their live performances, which were apparently pretty far-out.