BFrank

Just a little light morning music ...

The Tivoli album is OOP at this point, I'm guessing?

The first 2 Supergrass albums are solid SMOOOOOOOKE! The third was wasn't as strong IMHO. They have a nice balance of pop and noisy rock. It's funny... I actually prefer their newer stuff. I think they've had a very interesting evolution. I believe they are currently recording their next album... I'll buy it the day it comes out. Well, maybe I just didn't listen to "Life on Other Planets" enough. It didn't grab me as much as the others, though. (not that there aren't some great songs there)

I have a few cuts from that Tivoli set on a collection and they're definitely top shelf. I've been meaning to try and grab that one for years.

I really haven't paid attention to Jethro Tull for many years and certainly not Ian Anderson's side projects. But I heard this one recently and was pleasantly surprised. Worth checking out (it's available on eMusic, too). The Secret Language of Birds

The first 2 Supergrass albums are solid SMOOOOOOOKE! The third was wasn't as strong IMHO. They have a nice balance of pop and noisy rock.

Earlier today: Blue Mitchell (disk #2)

FWIW, there has been a report that Cream is re-forming and will be playing a series of shows at the Royal Albert Hall next Spring.

If you like The Damned and also "nuggets-style" garage rock, this is the best of both worlds. Naz Nomad & Nightmares (yes, actually The Damned) - "Give Daddy the Knife Cindy" - Includes such classics as: "Action Woman", "Kicks" and "I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)"

Everyone remember tom@bluenote from the old BNBB? As sjarrell mentioned, he is currently posting over on the All About Jazz BB. Here's his list of upcoming releases including March RVGs (this was posted on 8/31): +++ In January we will issues five DVDs of material previously available on VHS and/or Laserdisc: Lena Horne - An Evening With Lena Horne Bobby McFerrin - Spontaneous Inventions Power of Three - Michel Petrucciani, Jim Hall and Wayne Shorter John Scofield - Live Three Ways, w/ Dr. John, Don Pullen, Joe Lovano three different groups The Manhattan Project - Michel Petrucciani, Wayne Shorter, Stanley Clarke and Rachelle Ferrell. Also in January we will ship a hot new bebop/ Bird covers disc from the Italian saxophonist Stefano Battista, featuring Kenny Barron. Also...in March the next batch of RVGs Blakey - A Night In Tunisia Tina Brooks - True Blue Johnny Coles - Little Johnny C Pete LaRoca - Basra Hank Mobley - Hi Voltage Ike Quebec - Heavy Soul Art Blakey - Like Someone In Love Sonny Clark - Dial S For Sonny Grant Green - Feelin' The Spirit Herbie Hancock - Speak Like A Child Wayne Shorter - Night Dreamer Horace Silver - And The Jazz Messengers Also that month we will release a sampler of Rudy's favorite tunes from the RVG series, combined with a DVD featuring a wonderful interview with Rudy mentioned in a posting from a few months ago. We just got advance copies of Jason Moran and Bandwagon's new disc "Same Mother", featuring almost all blues tunes with guest guitarist Marvin Sewell. An amazing group and wonderful recording.

Here's a show I wish I had seen! From yesterday's NY Times: +++ November 29, 2004 JAZZ REVIEW | ERIC ALEXANDER AND GEORGE COLEMAN Two Saxes Bopping in a Post-Bop Kind of Mood By BEN RATLIFF The tenor saxophonists Eric Alexander and George Coleman, a student and a master nearly twice his age, led a quintet together at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola last week under the rubric of a centennial celebration of Coleman Hawkins, the third such homage in New York jazz clubs this fall. Mr. Alexander and Mr. Coleman dutifully played Hawkinsiana like "Body and Soul" during the early part of the week, but on Friday they ditched the tribute and turned to their own style. What they played, a set that gradually warmed up and stretched out, was the golden mean of post-bop, the mainstream East Coast jazz of the late 1950's, filtered through Mr. Coleman's sensibilities. Aside from any personal language of harmony or rhythm, the overriding qualities of aggression and restraint are what have built post-bop saxophonists into major figures. Those that zealously explode (John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy) or forlornly implode (Wayne Shorter, Lee Konitz) create cults. Mr. Coleman, 69, doesn't go for either extreme. He has always been a jazz moderate with fairly sophisticated harmonic knowledge and a strong blues sensibility; his early work with Miles Davis - an engagement that lasted for a little more than a year and produced several albums - has just been reissued in a new boxed set from Sony called "Seven Steps: The Complete Columbia Recordings of Miles Davis, 1963-1964." If Mr. Coleman's legacy seems elusive compared with the thousands of musicians who were influenced by Coltrane or Mr. Shorter, you can hear his sensibilities replayed with a kind of scholarly honesty by Mr. Alexander. For the past several years, Mr. Alexander's band has been the same as Mr. Coleman's: the pianist Harold Mabern, the bassist John Webber, and the drummer Joe Farnsworth. Through the set, the bass and drums plugged away with determined noneccentricity; Mr. Farnsworth's short fills are stone archaisms for a player in his mid-30's. But Mr. Mabern is a wild, larkish element, a contemporary of Mr. Coleman's who will quote any melody that pops into his head and who plays dense chords through his improvisations. Mr. Coleman has a more eccentric relation to the beat now than he did in the early 1960's, laying back in it or rushing forward in gusts of circular breathing. And if he still plays similar patterns, his style now sounds more distinct. When he took a solo after Mr. Mabern, he set himself apart from that continuous, manic playing with something more delicate: fractured, smoky phrases in extended harmony, gapped by rests. Mr. Alexander, by contrast, played on the beat. He used some of the same improvising patterns as Mr. Coleman, and a broad sound that stuck more often to the lower-middle register, which he occasionally escaped for unexpected effects like a fluttering figure that became a rough overtone shriek, as if a bit of Coltrane's wilder late period had been smuggled into more formal music. The set's tunes were not particularly distinguished: a blues, a bossa, the 1960's movie ballad "Maybe September" and a finale in which the saxophonists traded chorus-long improvisations on "I've Got Rhythm" chord changes. But they were used as raw material for expression. The thing about moderates like Mr. Coleman and Mr. Alexander is that they retain the capacity to surprise: after everything under the sun has been done in jazz, they can still pull you up short, putting broad knowledge and playfulness within a context of pure classicism.

I've got "First Set" which is quite good. It has "Ojos de Rojo" which is one of the better tunes on "Eastern Rebellion 2". You're gonna LOVE "The Ringer". Tolliver is a special trumpet player and all his albums are worth tracking down. Currently: "Keyed In" - Joanne Brackeen w/Eddie Gomez & Jack DeJohnette.

Don Menza - "First Flight" A damn fine blowing session!

"Blues for Sarka" - New York Jazz Quartet Roland Hanna, Frank Wess, George Mraz, Grady Tate.

"Annie Hall" was on TV last night and I watched it for the ump-teenth time. Still a classic!

I think they're wrong on this one: Airto "eye-air-toe" I remember seeing him live many years ago, and he explained his name by pointing to his 'eye', 'ear' and 'toe'.

Listening to that Viktor Krauss album right NOW. It's great at any price!! Many "thumbs up" and highly recommended from me (FWIW). B-) BTW, for Frisell fans, he's all over this one. I will second that. I am picking up a least one copy for a gift this season. Is it just me, or does Frisell sound like David Gilmour [from Pink Floyd] in a couple of spots on there? I don't listen to Pink Floyd much, but I think I could hear some "Gilmour" there. Definitely some Zep, too (aside from "The Log").

Now that you mention it, it does sound slightly out of tune........but that's OK. It actually works in a weird sort of way. I wouldn't expect Barron to agree, since I suspect he's somewhat of a perfectionist.

Yeah, that's good, too. I forgot about that one, but I still have it (vinyl, that is).

I always enjoyed this album. A solid quartet with Kenny Barron, Ben Riley and Buster Williams. Definitely an unusual lineup with 2 bass players - but it works.

Uh.................no! Was it New Year's '69/70, by any chance? I was fortunate to have seen him twice myself. The first time was my first rock concert (!) Here are my ticket stubs: "A pillow concert" ?? Somehow incongruous to think of Hendrix doing a frat "pillow concert" That's a really nice memento! The Hendrix show I saw was on May 10, 1968. Sly Stone was the other performer. For some reason (or none at all) I have only the haziest recollection of Sly. Somehow they didn't connect for me that night. I remember Hendrix doing some of his guitar antics-- playing behind his back, using his teeth, etc. But he was also laying down incredible grooves, wah-wah, feedback. And I 've always loved Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding and thought Hendrix played his best while with them. I just thought the whole group was so damn cool Whoa! Somehow I never noticed that "pillow concert" reference. I guess it was for people sitting on the floor of the gym - there were no chairs set up. I'm not surprised that you don't remember Sly. I don't remember Soft Machine very well, either (although I do remember that they had a great light show!)

He has toured with Ringo's "All-Starr Band", too. I'm sure the money is good ...