Steve Reynolds

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.

Evan Parker Having gotten interested in jazz in around 1991 or 1992 (when I was 31 & 32), I started with Miles, Monk, Mingus, Bill Evans, etc. as I had no idea where else to start as I figured all the great music was made many years ago by dead people. Over the next few years my tastes expanded and contracted as I got the fever for improvised music - I started listening to Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor and then guys like Marty Ehrlich, Don Pullen, Sam Rivers, Ellery Eskelin, Steve Lacy and the AACM musicians, etc. developing an affinity for more outside tastes. In the interim, I heard snippets of the Evan Parker 50th birthday broadcast on WKCR in 1994. I think some of it was solo soprano saxophone and some duets with maybe Derek Bailey, maybe some SME and possibly some stuff with Schlippenbach and (aghast!!) some crazy drummer man dude who was playing in a manner foreign (excuse the pun) to even guys like Sunny Murray.....I thought it was hideous, extreme and non-sensical... so I contunued with what I knew branching out until around 1998 or 1999, I noticed that this same guy named Evan Parker was playing downstairs at the Knitting Factory for 2 or 3 days - so I picked out the day that worked for me which was a trio with Mark Dresser and Bobby Previte (missing the trio with Dresser and Hemingway as I must not have been able to make it in the NYC that night). By this time, I was crazy for things like Hemingway's great quintet and Eskelin's great trio with Parkins and Black and other more groove based freeish composed/improvised music. So I get the last seat as the place was packed and it seemed a bit meandering at first UNTIL I started to HEAR what I now consider the most invigorating tenor saxophonist to my ears. the rest is history for me. It opened everything up for me leading me to be able to HEAR things like AMM, SME and so-called eai improvisations. and in 2009, I did see Parker with Dresser and Hemingway and it was what is was supposed to be... and in SEPT at the Stone this year we have: THE STONE RESIDENCIES EVAN PARKER SEPT 17—22

not counting free improvisations, here are some good ones over 20 minutes long: Horace Tapscott with John Carter, Cecil McBee and Andrew Cyrille: The Dark Tree - version on volume 1 Jimmy Lyons: Jump Up - with John Lindberg and Sunny Murray, nothing on this recording gets long or boring - all 3 play as great as they ever did on this recording Gerry Hemingway Quartet: Toombow - with Ellery Eskelin, Robin Eubanks and Mark Dresser - longer than the Quintet version with the European Quintet - but this is one of the great Hemingway compositions - both versions are equally great

Went to buy this today and B&N closed due to the remnants of the storm. Maybe next weekend as it will be one of the few CDs I can buy in a local store..... Then I ordered the River Holland Altschul set, Malabys Taramindo plus Wadada Leo Smith and the brand new Pere Ubu Can't find those in the local stores

Walk, Love, Sleep is intense however the mood must be right. Recorded in close up which I like very much. Gives one a bit of an idea of what it was like live. The shows by the original tentet in the late 90's early 00's remain the greatest shows I've ever seen by anyone

Most jazz listeners never heard a deep Tom Rainey groove but we want call someone who might be a talented musician or performer in some other musical area and he is called a "the last great jazz innovator" I ask again - has the person who said heard Tom Rainey live when he invents a new groove? I say he is the most innovative and creative jazz drummer alive and yet.... Well u know...... Standing on a Whale Fishing for Minnows As always the greatness of this music exists right besides our ears and so many will not or cannot hear it so we look for a crossover or pop record or hip hop record that may have some oblique reference to improv or jazz or gas some musician who used to care about "the music" and now cares about something else. And Tom Rainey or Randy Peterson exist in this world of music and for their part play drums like no one now before or in the future. True innovators both. And they play jazz Well in Randy's case it is usually with Mat Maneri as even the great jazz musicians don't know what to do with him But one day...... "It's gonna be huge" Joe Maneri circa 2000 in front of Tonic speaking with me on the sidewalk A true dreamer and the last great innovator in jazz....if it weren't for all the rest Let The Horse Go

I will take a look at home - have no videos at work but then maybe some of y'all should find out about what Brandon Seabrook is playing.....I think Gerald Cleaver's Black Host is one of the greatest bands I ever heard - and they got this guitar player named Brandon FUCKING Seabrook - and he plays a more interesting guitar than any of all of that well you know...... now *that* was some guitar playing to these ears...... and howza bout John Adams on the amzing damn CD called Ghostly Thoughts with Dunmall and Sanders hold moly - top 25 all time for me.

really who cares except for the people posting here. I couldn't buy a George Benson jazz album recorded in the past 35 years as apparently there arn't any. so he's not that interested or interesting, so why would anyone who is really into jazz/improv be interested. kind of like Herbie Hancock only moreso. so may great players today and we want to talk about someone who could care less about jazz - if he did he would make a fucking jazz record.

The old quartet CD's are really great in retrospect - especially O'Neal's Porch. There are 2 or 3 tracks on that recording that really stand the test of time. The original IOTS band is nothing like this band as the drummer *isn't* Hamid Drake. This band is closer to the quartet as it is simply the quartet plus Cooper-Moore. IOTS at times had guys like Daniel Carter and the drummers were Rashid Bakr or Suzie Ibarra. The 2 CD set The Peach Orchard from maybe 1997 or 1998 was much discussed as it did have Cooper-Moore. However the last time I listened to it (around the time I saw the band in June), I found that it was NOTHING like what the band is doing today. The band is different because of one Hamid Drake - so the band is more groove based and has more of an engine than the band with Suzie from The Peach Orchard - and the long form composition they played that night was of a vibe not really found on that recording.