clifford_thornton

Dude... there was a "FWIW" in there, in advance of your reply and familiarity with "the circuit."

Clem: Thank you for the poem.

This better fucking not turn into a Bagatellen thread...

Never said he wasn't - technically astounding, swinging, and could get downright feral but it all made sense. Doyle, well, I'm obviously not an expert on how to play a reed instrument (couldn't do shit with a clarinet), but was at least under the impression that it took something to do what Doyle did. Also, I'm certainly not of the mind that he can "put it together" as well as he did when with Howard, Dixon et al. in the '60s and '70s, for what it's worth. I hear what makes the detractors detract, and what makes the apologists apologize. So where does that leave me? The rest of it, I'm not gonna argue with. Furthermore, Doyle did play in R&B bands before hitting up the free scene (not that that's particularly surprising). Doubt he was "imposing" himself on anything. Again - FWIW. As for lists, well, I can think of ten or more WAAAY obscure titles, some of which I have and some of which I would looooove to have: The Seikatsu Kojyo Iinkai Orchestra on Des-Chonboo? The Frippe Nordstrom/Don Cherry Duo on Bird Notes? The Tusques-Wilen on Moloudji? I could go on with things that make me lose sleep at night!

I'm not gonna argue Doyle's merits with a heel-digging Texas tenor player. No way...

Very good. The poetry is only on one track. I think the poem is heavy. Why don't people like poems?

Funny to think you've got something from the Thurston List, no?

I wasn't that impressed with Ashton (well, more indifferent), but haven't read enough to call it either way... I think Michael Fried is also excellent, though the best writer on modernism as a living - albeit somewhat historicized - process, is Richard Shiff. He's current. Ditto James Meyer (though not all his ideas are that original, he expresses them well. Craft.) and my former mentor David Raskin. Gregory Battcock was also pretty hip, back in "the day." We're talking '60s/'70s minimal art here, where I think some of the best critics had to cut their teeth on some very difficult artwork. Lucy Lippard was/is another excellent writer coming out of that scene. Early Ros Krauss, though often misguided, is still very good. I got away from her, though, as October seems like too much copping the philosophical feel with not enough payback. My art history bag was intense a few years ago; in school for something else now that has taken some time away from seeing.

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.