Steve Reynolds

Btw Borderlands Trio with Kris Davis, Stephen Crump & Eric McPherson is excellent Right up my alley / I love long form abstract stuff 4 improvised pieces over 2 CD’s - almost 2 hours of music On Intakt

Very curious why you pay attention to who is visible or who isn’t?

I did hear JBL live 3-4 years ago in a group with Kidd Jordan @ Vision Fest. I guess I’m in the minority here. I’ll make another effort to “hear” what I’m missing. fwiw I think Tomeka Reid is one of the most exciting of all the current jazz musicians/improvisers. Pre-Covid I saw her play live a number of times and every time her playing was transcendent. The 2 recordings of her quartet with Mary are wonderful. I sure wish I didn’t skip their 2 sets @ Jazz Gallery in 2019. I figured I’d catch the next show in 2020:( The “scene” in NYC is understandably dead right now. I’m starving for live music. None of the great NYC players have anything close to any profile at all. It’s really all about the live shows anyway for most of the really great ones. Missing seeing all my guys & gals madly - Randy, Tony, Mat, Mary, Tomeka, Ingrid, Rainey, Cleaver, Wooley, Lopez & all the rest:(

I don’t know much about them but the saxophonists on Barry Guys last 2 Blue Shroud Band box sets are wonderful. Julius Gabriel is awesome especially on baritone. Also Torben Snekkestad, Per Texas Johansson & Michael Nieseman. Snekkestad stands out as he’s the most radical. I’ll say again that “Tensegrity” & “Intensegrity” are among the best jazz/improv releases of the past 15 years. yes I’ve started “hearing” Michael Foster a bit better “Bind the Hands that Feed” with Katherine Young and the *great* Michael Zerang on relative pitch is incredible. I have not warmed up to James Brandon Lewis. Something too direct and much too non-oblique for me ears. Seems he needs to widen his scope / sounds like he’s never heard the insects flying. Sounds like he wants to be up front. Ugh. Add Steve Bazscowski / he must be under 60. saw him right before the pandemic with Lopez & Cleaver. Incredibly unique. Loved the vibe / part of the 2 sets released on relative pitch but something was lost in the transition to disc. Ingrid keeps growing on me. Still a bit too mannered and her soprano playing isn’t very strong / plus she often peaks in similar ways. saw her at the one show this summer I saw and she was terrific. With Kris Davis’ Capricorn Climber. But Kris, Mat Maneri and especially Tom Rainey stole the show if you will. Mat non-surprisingly didn’t play anything like he did with the band 7-8 years previously. It was all the in between and transitions connecting everyone to each other. Trevor Dunn was of course magnificent. Sorry for the diversion / hoping for a show by the summer:) As far the guys getting older, Toby Delius has it all. Have not heard much new from Ab Baars or Michael Moore but I’ve loved them forever especially Michael. Always overlooked. gorgeous melodic player.

Rempis might have a fine ear - unless these groups play this good every night as every one of his releases are very very good. Some of them are extraordinary like Apsis, Icoci, Cochonnerie, Perehelion, Strandwal, Of Things Beyond Thule volume 2, From Wolves to Whales & Sud Des Alps. There definitely is not too much. He’s that good and he plays only with great improvisors. Musicians such as Haker-Flaten, Wooley, Niggenkemper, Lopez, Stadhouders, Baker. And drummers like Ra, Rosaly, Daisy & Corsano. That doesn’t even cover the Kuzu recordings or Ballister (which for me despite Lonberg-Holm) can be a tough go at times due to Nilssen-Love’s pounding style. plus the supreme sound quality and cool esthetic only adds to the attraction for me. Who else is putting out such high quality purely improvised music of this sort? As far as saxophonists go I can only think of Rodrigo Amado as a comparable figure. They are both among the best jazz horn players of the past 10 years in my view.

Purple Dark Opal from Kuzu is also great. Can never have enough Kuzu. Dorji is awesome.

Kuzu Rempis, Dorji & Damon All Your Ghosts in One Corner Recorded right before lockdown 3/12 & 3/13/2020 @ Elastic Arts in Chicago & Sugar Maple in Milwaukee greatest power trio in the world. Wish they recorded and released the whole little shortened tour that started on 3/8. Post Covid I’m seeing this band. Plus as always the recording/remastering from Dave Zuchowski is better than almost anything else released by anyone. Plus Rempis is the real deal. A bit overstated but that’s his way. He’s almost too good but it still fires me up. This group does know how to build and become elastic so it never is too much. Aerophonic records

Deserved his legendary status his analysis in his early years was exciting and vibrant hated the Raiders back then but I never hated John Madden

Breadwinner & Air Supply for erstwhiles in general don’t miss “Between” from Rowe/Nakamura if you’ve never heard it. Stunning 2 CD set. So many other great ones but these 3 are good starts

I was at this show. Too bad it’s not on CD.

Just starting in on them. Some think Rodrigo Amado isn’t what I think he is. I think he’s endlessly inventive within a certain “limited” scope. Maybe it’s his dry sound. Love it. My first listen to The Field was captivating. I’ve not always been thrilled with recent Schlippenbach stuff but his playing here is gorgeous. Excellent recorded sound. The 2 relative pitch recordings are great. Almost all of their releases are very unique. I always find them interesting to hear. fwiw the newer erstwhile releases I’ve listened to over the past 3-4 years are as amazing as some of the older wonderful recordings. They still sound fresh & new. Hole in my Head, Green Ways & Everyone Needs a Plan are 3 of the new ones I’ve listened to. I’m all in. my suggestion might be the group of Lambkin/Lescalleet recordings released over the years if you’ve not heard them. But there are many many exciting (to my ears) releases from the past 5-8 years. Jon only releases stuff that meets high standards - and he’s got good ears for this stuff.

She learned to love the Grateful Dead except for the crazy abstract feedback type jams

Too many to count for me best new listens care of Relative Pitch, Astral Spirits and Grateful Dead archival releases special mention to my friend Kevin Reilly for what he has built with Relative Pitch - vibrant visceral stuff that has a huge range yet somehow has a label vibe & signature. He has great ears and doesn’t release tripe. Plus he’s doing it without the ultra active in person scene that generates many of these combinations. Much of what happens on this label are unique combinations of musicians from different geographic and musical scenes. plus I’m now listening to an unheard batch of erstwhile CD’s - very very refreshing so far special mention to Fred Frith trio plus Lotte Anker & Susana Santos Silva added on disc 2 - on Intakt. I will say I’ve found most of that label’s newer releases too staid for my tastes

A bunch of CD’s: 2 relative pitch - John Butcher trio including the great Barre Phillips plus a crazy duo CD 4 erstwhile - all newer releases / first listen to a couple of them reveal a very vibrant artform still - a bit far removed from the great releases of 10-15 years ago. 2 no business - Rodrigo Amado Motion Trio + Alexander von Schlippenbach: The Fields & Mats Gustafsson duo with Sabu Toyozumi Joelle Leandre 3 CD mini-box on Not Two Wilco 6 CD live at Capital Theatre 2014

Joelle Leandre: Beauty/Resistance 3 CD set with Mateusz Rybicki on clarinet & Zbigniew Kozera on double bass (both new to me) plus Rafal Mazur & Zlatko Kaucic disc 1 quartet all except Mazur disc 2 very short duo with Kaucic (worth all I paid right here) disc 3 duo with Mazur Every time I think I have enough from Lady Joelle I realize I’m badly mistaken / she might be my favorite improvisor on the planet. She gets better with age. I knew these were short performances and the price was high. First listen and I’m thrilled and of course moved emotionally - recorded Autumn of 2019 in Krakow before the world of this music ended. Still not back. It really only comes back when we are free from the thoughts and whispers. This music demands that in a live setting. This is the next best thing. peace and blessings on this Christmas morning - this thread needed to be added to (I have 9 other new CD’s from my stocking - 3 from No Business, 2 new ones from Relative Pitch & 4 from erstwhile records This one on Not Two records

The Dead’s first 4 albums sold little as well. Peaking at 73, 87 & 73. First one to make any impact was Live/Dead released in late 1969 and that peaked at #64. even the now acknowledged classic studio albums Workingman’s Dead & American Beauty only reached 27 & 19. The next 2 live records (2 LP Skull & Roses & 3LP Europe 72) also only hit the mid 20’s. That group of 5 albums is now looked on by many as an all-time sequence. That they existed and that the band kept playing live set the foundation for the largest grossing live act in the history of music. At least it’s acknowledged they played for more people than any other band. Imagine if Warner’s dropped them before WD & AB? even the reunion shows without Jerry sold out 3 stadium shows in 2015. All because the label supported them when they were impossible to deal with in 1968-69. They even let them use the FIRST portable 16 track machine to ever be used in January thru March 1969 to record Live/Dead. Then look at the track list. First Side: Dark Star Second Side: St. Stephen>The Eleven Third Side: Lovelight Fourth Side: Death Don’t Have No Mercy>Feedback> We Bid you Goodnight Feedback was 7:49 - I think it’s great but this is on a major label release / it’s closer to abstract improvisation than it is to anything else Only thing close to something commercial is St. Stephen

I’ve heard of more people getting covid in the past 3 weeks than the total I heard about from March 2020 until the first week of December this year. None of the people I know over the past few weeks have gone to the hospital including my 70 year old best friend and his immunocompromised 69 year old wife. This might be anecdotal but if in a week the hospitalizations here in NJ don’t follow the explosion of cases (up to 18,000 today - was 4,000 a day a week ago) we will know the answer to the severity of the omicron question we have all been speculating on. Sooner than I thought earlier today I guess. My educated guess is 70% plus less severe. Many learned people agree / of course other learned people are less optimistic. We can simply follow the data and the numbers.

Cake is baked. What’s gonna happen over the next few months is gonna happen.

I believe I’ll be at the Jazz Gallery this spring at full capacity. Missed Henry Threadgill this month as I just didn’t feel like it’s the right time. I think the evidence of the lesser severity is clear. What is not known if it’s 30 or 50 or even 70 to 90% less severe. Vaccinated and vaccinated & boosted people are still simply not ending up in hospitals at anything other than very very old or immunocompromised. That was mostly the case with delta. With omicron it will be even less / how much less as a percentage of cases is the question. Check the numbers in England 10 days from now and here in the States in a month.

I’m very optimistic that Omicron being so contagious is the way out. So many people are going to get covid that I believe the cases in England and then 4-5 weeks later in the US will drop very sharply. Maybe by mid and then late January or early February in the US. I’ll check back here in a couple of months and hopefully I’m correct. plus all evidence is that omicron is multiples less deadly. Within 2 weeks we will know pretty much how much less deadly as the hospitalization and death numbers come in from Great Britain. Seems to me especially a huge percentage of young people who are unvaxxed will get it and therefore immunity for some period of time. Huge case numbers will happen in the states - probably 400 to 500K per day by mid January (reported - actual according to experts probably at least 3-4 times that - especially since the asymptomatic cases of young people and fully vaxxed/boosted is very very high as a percentage)

Either as low as 10-12% or possibly as high as 25-30% for a non KF-94 or non KN95 or N95. but they also help protect the mask wearer to some extent as well. non KF94 or non KN95 or N95 mask wearing somewhere 10 times less effective than vaccination. Fwiw there is a pro-mask anti-vaxx slice of society that I discovered at an urban area recovery meeting a few months back. True insanity that.

I will say this. Even though many people in this country are fully vaxxed and not yet boostered and most are now beyond the 6 months time frame since their second shots, the rate of hospitalization of those people is still TEN times less per 100,000 people than unvaxxed and death rates are far lower than that. The power and effectiveness of the Pfizer & Moderna two shot regimen is still being undervalued. Really up until this point here in the US it’s very VERY rare for a fully vaccinated (without a booster) to end up in an ICU unless they are very old or immunocompromised. Why the argument that vaxxed and unvaxxed should be treated the same way is foolish, IMO.

The statement that the Pfizer booster is only good for 2 months simply isn’t true. All evidence is that the Pfizer & Moderna boosters are expected to provide a strong effect against covid (including Omicron) for upwards of 8 months or more.

Kevin - there are so many more activities that are more dangerous than Covid is to children - 24 deaths over a 16 month plus period is a tiny number. Swimming is exponentially more dangerous. So is putting a child in a driving car. There is no middle ground if this is the response to my thoughtful post. I think the data you shared proved a point.

The only overreach is asking young children (5-11) to be vaccinated to enter public places. Especially since the vaccine for those young children isn’t even fully approved yet. And even though it does reduce spread it isn’t clear how much - and children of that age are not that susceptible in any significant way to serious illness everything else is common sense - and this is from someone who is no liberal. I’m all for freedom but public health supersedes it. But lockdowns when vaccines almost eliminate any chance of serious illness or death is another kind of insanity. So there is a middle ground.