Steve Reynolds

A few more thoughts: As some know Tony might be my favorite or second favorite saxophonist alive(along with Evan Parker) but he might also be inconsistent, maddening and mystifying. But he has his own sound, can play anything in any context and never settles for anything other than risk taking adventure no matter what the context. There were moments last night when I KNEW I was listening to the greatest tenor player alive and there were also times I was thinking WTF is he doing?? And it seems to happen every time I see him. His extended improvisation during the Bechet slow blues was at times exasperating and then just as I thought that he again is going down some insane path of no return, he transformed his solo/improv into something teetering on genius. The guy is the greatest high wire performer in all of jazz with practiced technique honestly untouched by most any other tenor players on the scene today. Maybe he is not the pure bop/post bopper that Chis Potter or Jerry Bergonzi, but as far as the sound of surprise and the idea of never knowing where he's gonna go or what the hell is gonna happen, he is unmatched in jazz today. And last thing, Billy Drummond is a grand master and the in and out nature of the Malaby Reading Band showed him to be that master. A few people here might have died and gone to heaven hearing Frankenstein last night. Pure joy with not a sound of nostalgia in it. Alessi and Malaby during the heads and the stop time rhythm throughout with a great, great drum solo playing the melody before the classic theme ended the night

Well from Tony Malaby channeling Coleman Hawkins to Billy Drummond reinventing Tony Williams as himself, a pretty great 2 sets. Drew Gress is a groove monster and Ralph Alessi is precise yet at times exhuberent. The second set ended with a Sidney Bechet piece followed by Grachan Moncur's Frankenstein. Btw all tunes played were selected by Tony right before each set and played without rehearsal. Tunes included a Motian piece, a Chris Lightcap tune, a great Malaby original that was post bop groove based madness that ended the 65 minute first set on an extraordinary high note and Blessed by Mat Maneri. The composition/performance was at times almost silent with the whole place as quiet as any club could be. Mat himself was in the audience and might be a harbinger of things to come for this music. The best composition of the night, IMO, and inspired some of the most precise, yet heartfelt improvising from the dual horns.

I love Cleaver live as well especially in more open bands. I'm not a huge Berne fan either and i have also never heard of Anker. Thanks for the comments! Hopefully I'll have a few regarding tomorrow nights show

Saturday Night @ my favorite place - Cornelia Street Cafe: Saturday, Mar 16 - 9:00PM & 10:30PM TONY MALABY'S READING BAND Tony Malaby, tenor sax; Ralph Alessi, trumpet; Drew Gress, bass; Billy Drummond, drums

any comments, relyles?

I always think AMM's Live in Allentown is the best entry point - maybe as it was the entry point for me into what I consider another aspect of improvised music. I had to learn to not listen for the individual musicians and once I adapted, a whole new soundworld opened up for me yesterdaye ended up playing disc 1 of: Keith Rowe / Sachiko M / Toshimaru Nakamura / Otomo Yoshihide - erstlive 005 a few of us used to call this amazing 3 CD set 'the inaccessable document'

trying, trying me - I'm still crazy for drums - my number one factor outside the leader of a band to decide if I go see the band live... despite the fact that I listen to quite a bit of Keith Rowe et al, eai, etc. but I veer towards the loder more expressive end of that spectrum as the real quiet stuff almost gives me a headache or reminds me that my hearing at 52 isn't what it was at 32.

next step might be Keith Rowe, et al

I will mention some of the Joe Maneri discs: Blessing duo with his son Mat on violin and/or viola I think if you can deal with Barre Phillips on bass, Out Right Now on hatology is very fine - also with Mat as he is on most of Joe's recordings. I still say the best Joe Maneri discs have a drummer - but alas he is unlike anyone else I know - Randy Peterson but if you are bored with some of what you have been listening to - I think many of us have been there - I think taking a shot at what I have always called 'Maneri Music' might be a good idea. and the best of them might be 'Dahabenzapple', 'Coming Down the Mountain' and his last recording, the astounding 'Going to Church' - all have bass and drums for reeds, violin and drums - there is a great double live CD set on Leo - maybe that might work for you.

Well done. almost made me want to buy a turntable - nice well written article but the descriptions of Milford's drumming doesn't completely jibe with my experiences in listening to him live or on record - although I have only seen him live twice - one time was with William Parker and Peter Brotzmann and there was a helluva groove that night....

Ellery Eskelin's great trio with Andrea Parkins and Jim Black augmented with Joe Daley (tuba) and Erik Friedlander (cello): recoding is Ramifications on hatology - saw the band live - stupendous Tony Malaby Tuba Trio with the wonderful Dan Peck - I think the drummer on the recording may be John Hollenbeck fwiw - Peck is the tuba in the great Novela band - whihc does not have a bassist - last thing one thinks of when hearing the band live is "where is the bassist?"

HA! I love it when people walk out. Mark Ducret cleared out a couple rows at the Jazz Gallery a couple years back Frank Gratkowski blew out the row in from of me in the spring of 2001 with Michael Formanek and Gerry Hemingway at the old, old Roulette. They missed the greatest drumming performance they NEVER saw.

I agree with your definition but it clearly goes beyond Zorn - but maybe you used him as an example due to his last name. I also like other types of music - and I also have somewhere around 1200 or 1500 jazz recordings - maybe I used to have more - who knows the amount and I am no collector - thank jah for that - but I have similar problems trying to find a great rock record - and I am also not as thrilled with the more recent recordings I have sampled from the area of eai (electronic acoustic improvisation) where I thoroughly agree with you is it gets very difficult to find the *great* jazz records once I don't buy as many as I did 12 or 15 years ago, when I was really listening and buying much more than I do today. I would very much like the newer recordings I buy to count but over the past year I have found much more dissapointment in the quality of the music and even moreso often in the recording quality - with the latter issue being an embarrasment to the label/artist or whoever seemingly continues to fuck up what might be worthwhile sessions. I think part of it is that there are too many recordings, and that the great out/avant labels like hatART, FMP, emanem, or even okkadiskl are either old, defucnt or concentrating more on re-issues while clean feed has no filter on recording quality/music quality. plus the ECM recordings seem to increase the reverb with each passing year with the music having less a relationship to what it might actually sound like when they play it. nice to see artist like Brotzmann release some fine sounding music on some different labels, or hearing the fine DKV 7 CD box sound like the actual band. what I have found out is that if I pick the shows I want to see with some thought - usually looking for a band with a great drummer (and in NYC, that isn't very difficult) - then the result has been that over the past 3 year or so, I have seen dozens of very good show, and at least 10 to 12 different shows that I would consider *great*, *amazing* or *even historically great* so the music is there to be recorded and presented - I think that part of the equation has been an issue.

The Devil's Advocate question is why would anybody from after their generation want to play it either? Whatever the answer is, it ain't "comforting"! Or is it? I guess because they like it? Why do people still make blues records? They ain't gonna do it any better than Muddy, Howlin' Wolf, T-Bone, etc. Zappa and Beefheart loved the blues, but they knew it was pointless to make straight blues records. They had imagination and did something creative. As far as today's jazz scene is concerned, I can do without 98 percent of it. I'm just looking for a few unique voices to listen to. I don't care about all these cats that know all their jazz chords, but keep regurgitating what's already been done. Right now John Hollenbeck catches my ear. He has his own sound. As far as guitarists go, I haven't heard anybody in the past few years who sounds unique. I like Oz Noy. He has his own sound, but how many of these funk/jazz/soul trio albums is he going to do? He's got 4 out already. I'm not a guitar guy by any stretch but have you listened to Mary Halvorson or Brandon Seabrook? btw - 98% of what jazz scene? free improv, neo-bop, downtown NYC, remnants of Fire Music revisited, Chicago post AACM, etc.? what is the jazz scene today? 98% no good? Mat, Ed & Randy NO GOOD?!?! Ellery Eskelin? Gerry Hemingway - where does he fit in? how about Jenny Scheinman with Todd Sickafoose, Nels Cline and Jim Black - they no good? Trio 3 no good - they are over 70, are they part of the current jazz scene pretty broad brush - 98% Is Evan Parker jazz or is he dead???? At the Vortex, baby

Just compared a few. PLEASE look for the Don Mount videos. MUCH better quality. Also Look for Ivo Perelman trio with the wonderous Michael Bisio on bass. Ivo is a bit of a screamer on tenor but he melds that power with a great sense of melody. One can hear his roots in his crying improvisations. One of the great tenors of the past 20 years as is Dunmall

The vision fest clips are of better quality. Please try to check out the bands I mentioned. Performances were very strong

I don't post links but if you search vision fest 2012 there are a couple of good ones including In Order to Survive, Paul Dunmall, The Thing with Joe McPhee, Kidd Jordan's band with Drake, Gayle and others. Good quality sound and video

Yeah, different world today. Hopefully no more assholes will try rewriting the old one in their own image. Anyway what's wrong with Kenny Burrell? Surely these emerging giants you push must have some Kenny in their collections somewhere? Maybe he even taught some of them. Nothing wrong with Kenny or any of the legends of this music. Question is do you have any of these guys records in your collection? Are you supporting the risk taking creative musicians of today who play only for the music? Mal, Verve, Black and Blue, baby

I'm in agreement with Monk. I've never heard a piano successfully bowed. Of course not You got ears you gotta listen. Irene Schweitzer and Kris Davis say hello

nothing like me posting this on a Kenny Burrell thread.... as has once been said, If Anthony Braxton is playing the contrabass saxophone in the middle of a forest and no one heard it, did it make a sound? I saw a show int he fall of 2011 at The Stone with under 20 people in the crowd and it was as good a show as I have seen in 5 years. An hour of improvised genius. Does it matter that under 20 people were at the show? *I* heard it. If it was taped and released, maybe a few hundred might hear it. different world today - MUCH more music available live and on record - and the quote, un-quote jazz scene is totally diverse and bifurcated.... but that unrecorded band - it was as good as jazz gets, IMO - that *one* show. As good as a great Dave Holland set 15 years back with the Knit packed to the rafters. now of course many still do not call *that* music jazz, but that's an old tired refrain...hopefully here no one is still beating that broken drum... well of course, there were no tunes unless Mat played a bit of one his sketches - but I believe the set that night was no tunes and maybe they took a break halfway through only to start up again - here we go, baby....and *eventually* they sure do go...but they never go...unknown tempo that is a non-tempo - and invented style on the drums from a master who played it all before and yete never *that* all-bfore stuff on record or live - yet almost every time, the *great* Randy Peterson almost breaks out into what would be the most intense post-bop groove ever - yet instead it is almost and maybe one day one might hear it.... according to some it ceases to matter when less people hear it - I say it matters just as much or more, as when the music is of it's time, is made purely for the music's sake and is of the artist's vision, soul and being, sometimes it might not be like anyone else's music. tell that to Mat, Craig, Oscar, Ed and Randy plus I venture to believe that all 5 of them are among the *greatest* musicians/practitioners on the their respective instrument(s) today and in a couple of cases - ever. Anyone here see the *great* Ed Schuller live with a band like that? Or the amazing Craig Taborn play totally improvised with dynamics from a baby grand that this boy has never witnessed? (well until Kris Davis played with Mat's band 6 month's later) I doubt any of them came from the ghetto - but, alas, a couple of them might not be white and Ed, of course, played with a legend, Mal Waldron, for a good period of time - and maybe according to the legend, he should be one too. then again, maybe Mal for some wasn't a legend, wasn't a visionary, as many only ever listened to the music before his death wish didn't pan out, and he re-invented himself and his music from 1969 through the rest of his life. no - most just might have listened to the 50's and early 60's sides on the classic recordings - as by 1969 when Mal was free at last to play Mal, jazz was laready dead for so many... Blood and Guts, baby and for Mat... Get Ready to Receive Yourself

Can: Yoo Doo Right

Yeah sometimes the idea with some of the NYC downtowners seems to be interested to "show" the compositional aspect rather than letting loose a bit more and letting the music take over. I've heard it in Kris Davis quintet, Mary's sextet and Angelica Sanchez's quintet as well. Good news is that Mat Maneri is playing in a quintet in April with Randy Peterson with a couple of musicians I don't know and I doubt there will be any of that. Maybe some micro improvising and heavy tension but Mat and Randy always let it really roar from time to time. Plus I repeat that Rainey Mary and Ingrid as a trio were as great as any band I've seen in the past couple of years as they referred to compositions/themes but had no charts and the music was amazing. Rainey was inspired, free and played some of the deepest intense grooves I've ever heard him play. Mary was better than in her sextet and Ingrid was almost Paul Dunmall on tenor!

Louis Moholo's 'Bush Fire' with Barry Guy and now I can't think of the South African bassist. In any event one the great free recordings of the 90's

Sounds great, Ubu I've seen some those musicians but I think I need to check out Mike Reed and Gred Ward....I may check out Fujiwara's band when they play on April 6th @ Cornelia Street. Mary Halvorson is in the band along with a few other interesting players. My only complaint about some of these bands from this scene is that sometimes the music is overly composed. Ingrid's Anti-house is the prime example for me. They add Kris Davis and a bassist to the great trio of Laubrock, Mary and Rainey and the music falls flat. The band u saw sounds like it had it all. The Vibes player is great. I saw him with Brotz in 2011 and he was all that and more. Subtle, biting and explosive and seemingly at ease playing in duo with a legend

Great pick. I forget how long it is, but he really makes a beautiful transition from inside to outside playing on that. I remember playing that track for a few people at random back in the day, just somebody would be hanging out, not "jazz people" or anything, just folks, and not everybody would dig it. But some of the ones that did would get up and start hollering and screaming the deeper into it that Trane & Elvin got, I mean, involuntary reactions and shit, like in church or something. My first reaction was not quite so outwardly demonstrative, but yeah, I was gripped, to put it mildly. Still am. Ultimately, that's the kind of music I like best, the kind where "liking" it or not is not an option you have. It just takes you over. BAM. Figure it out later, if ever. Hell yeah. When I read your post I was reminded of catching Coltrane's quartet at Shelly's Manne-Hole in L.A. around 1965. People got so lost in the music that they were emitting primal screams and shouts. Those small cocktail tables were being knocked over, glasses were breaking, it was pandemonium. It was like a vortex in the room. I have never experienced anything like that, before or since. When I walked out after the set, a buddy of mine was waiting in line to go in for the next set. He asked me, "what the hell was going on in there?" I could only say, "you'll find out". Amazing. And from a 'West Coast' crowd too I don't think we'll see music of the mind and the heart like that anymore. What an experience to have heard that music in it's own time, unfolding before you! Great story, Cali. freelancer, as long as Cecil is with us, there's always the chance it can still happen. It has happened to me - maybe twice: 1) Brotzmann Tentet @ Tonic ~ 2000 with Drake in the band reading charts - with all 4 saxophonists : PB, KV, Mats and Mars two 45 minute sets had people screaming during and exhausted afterwards 2) Anderson-Jordan-Parker-Drake Vision Fest maybe 2001?? New York jazz fans dancing in the aisles.