clifford_thornton

It is a Bridget Riley, and that Larry Austin piece is great! One of the rare examples of successful 'third stream' in my opinion. The PJ big band sides I enjoy quite a bit - not really music-school geek music, unless you're talkin' reefer-in-the-lounge music school.

Don Cherry "Humus" from Actions (Wergo pressing). Probably one of the strongest of his long-form orchestra pieces.

They aren't expensive... check with Dusty Groove (www.dustygroove.com). Their VG+ stereo orange/black or rainbow (black/red) issues run 15-23 usually, and they grade by Goldmine standards. Edit for currency: These be dollars, not pounds or euros.

OK, I know I'm one for the obscuros, but my vote is for Juma Sultan, Keino Spellar and the left-fielder Robidoo (heard on John Tchicai's Cadentia Nova Danica, Polydor, 1968). All of them are wonderful, and Juma could play a mean bass as well. There's also that cat Raleigh Sahumba that plays with Milford Graves, and he's pretty powerful too - apparently taught Milford a lot of the fundamentals when they were growing up Uptown. Oh yeah, and for trumpet-playing congueros, myself and Dizzy Reece aren't bad either!

I'd like to see it too... guess they aren't taking it on the road? The original albums are fine by me; I'm keeping them for sure. Spaulding storms, especially on Volume 2.

Bird, Thanks for the influence - we hardly knew ya... Happy birthday!

I have Essence on LP - not too expensive, I think I paid what a CD would cost - and it has always been a favorite. Gene Stone had a place in Topanga Canyon where Sonny Simmons lived for a while, and they practiced daily which led to The Cry. This and the New Jazz are the ones I reach for, then the Candid, then... You can still get Heckman's Improvisational Jazz Workshop LP (Ictus 101) from Cadence for like $12. The pressing is garbage, but the music is good. Of course, it's not the original with the hand-silkscreened cover and book, but still a reasonably vintage issue.

Herbie Mann at the Village Gate, side two. Canadian maroon deepgroove, stereo. Nice pressing, too. Sidewinder: Shit, if the Colbeck were on Philips, it'd be worth twice what it is now. But rest assured, it's no runt - one of my favorite jazz records, for sure.

I have less than ten, all on LP. Not sure whether I should be proud of myself for such restraint, or smacked upside the head!

Well, my cycles jibe with and feed my girlfriend's - we live together. So when we're both on the rag, watch out!

I thought they fed Homing Grits to the pigeons in WW2! They always came back for more!!

Ira Sullivan - Nicky's Tune (Delmark), w/ Nicky Hill, Jodie Christian, Wilbur Campbell and Vic Sproles. Sidewinder: the Colbeck is pretty tough to find, a later Fontana from '70 (cat. no. 6383.001), and despite the fact that he played with Noah Howard and Sunny Murray, it's not really that 'free,' very accessible in fact. Lissack's an amazing drummer, too, a South African cat who lived in London in the '60s. Played on only one other record, with Ken Terroade, which is being reissued soon.

Anthony Braxton's contrabass clarinet solo on Jacques Coursil's "Black Suite" (America) always messes with me. Soulful, tortured, and almost completely unaccompanied.

Ric Colbeck - The Sun is Coming Up (Fontana UK, 1970) w/ Mike Osborne, Sel Lissack and J.F. Jenny-Clarke. Brilliant free-bop if there ever was...

Euclid's grading sucks. So it better be crisp for that kind of dough. Seems kinda high to me, too, for that piece.

Oh yeah, saw that and then let it slip... thanks for the reminder. What a great drummer, one whose influence is too little discussed.

Alan Shorter's solo on "Syeeda" (Four for Trane). Cecil's solo on "Indent."

One? Aren't there like four good things about the Tina Brooks Mosaic?

Gee, 7/4, I can always count on you to update (or refute) my posts.

Shit. RIP. Wait, you can sleep to that shit?

I really like "Spirits in Fellowship," that record he did with Vinny Golia. Oh, JAMES Carter... Never mind!

Ah yes, the "Africanised Tone Row"... I see your card, and I raise you...

To answer the original question, I'd say no. But then, in popular consciousness, it's often portrayed as either dinner-music or the area of effete intellectual affect. So... Shit!

Well, I read in an article in Jane Magazine (one of my favorites, for real) about how she completely destroyed her apartment and terrorized the apt. complex in NYC on some of her various drug binges, threatening to kill residents and the like. I mean, it's too bad that it had to come to this stage, but one can't say that, judging from her history as a major addict and generally crazed person, that it's not unexpected.

RIP to an original character, whatever one thinks of what 'became' of the Moog synthesizer in lesser hands... Jazz pianists Paul Bley and Burton Greene were among the first to play the instrument in 1968, made famous by Walter/Wendy Carlos and Dick Hyman. He passed away yesterday at age 71.