Steve Reynolds

Me three

Reminder that I’m seeing Ches Smith’s trio with Mat Maneri & Craig Taborn a few of us trying to figure out/guess who the “very special guest” on guitar is @ The Stone @ The New School @ 8:30

Mal, Verve, Black & Blue Quadrologue at the Utopia - both volumes Mal, Dance & Soul maybe my favorite Mal recordings

The Attic: Summer Bummer with a new drummer named Onno Govaert with Rodrigo Amado on tenor & Goncalo Almeida on double bass 3 improvised pieces making up 45 minutes recorded live on 8/26/2018 even more amazing than the first one - intense yet restrained - as good of a sax-bass-drums trio can be in this era. Stunning from all angles. on No Business records

As an aside, Lunge by Strong Language from maybe 2002 with Sanders & Brand is one of my desert island recordings. Plus it’s an example of how this music should be presented sound quality wise.

Not to get into an ECM sound discussion but I’ve heard versions of the pieces of The Bell live and instead of music that is soothing and somewhat interesting, what that music or other pieces of music by the trio sounds like live has little in common with that watered down gauzy recording. Especially Mat & Ches. When Mat starts playing doom metal chords it’s all over.

Sounds great. 4 of my all-time favorites. 2 sets? How many in the crowd? at least I can say I’m seeing a different 3 of my all-time favorite improvisors next Tuesday @ The Stone @ New School Ches Smith with Mat Maneri & Craig Taborn plus with a “very special” guest guitarist not all-improvised as it will be a set based on Ches Smith’s sketches/guideposts maybe the 5th time I’ve seen the trio and the first with a guest. All performances have been A minus to close to the best sets of music I’ve ever seen. Best show was their first concert March 2013 on a Sunday night 2 sets @ Cornelia Street Cafe when it WAS fully improvised. For sure one of the best 2 sets of music I’ve ever experienced. At least 2 of the other sets I’ve seen them play rivaled that blistering performance.

Some great stuff but he misses almost all European based free jazz/improv and ignores a huge number of important brilliant innovative musicians

Probably a whole bunch of recordings I love:)

Here is an “off the top of my head” list for the decade starting with the great box sets all 4 of the Barry Guy Small Formations boxes - first 2 from the members of the New Orchestra and the most recent 2 from members of the Blue Shroud Band: Mad Dogs - 4 CD’s Mad Dogs On The Loose - 4 CD’s Tensegrity - 4 CD’s Intensegrity - 5 CD’s then the other boxes: Joelle Leandre: A Woman’s Work - 8 CD’s Zlatko Kaucic: Diversity - 5 CD’s Per Ake Holmlander Carliot - It’s Never Too Late Orchestra - 3 CD’s Peter Brotzmann - Long Story Short - 5 CD’s Agusti Fernandez: River Tiger Fire - 4 CD’s Anthony Braxton: Quartet (New Haven) 2014 - 4 CD’s Mats Gustafsson - 50th Birthday Celebration - Peace and Fire - 3 CD’s all 3 DKV boxes but I like Sound in Motion the best - 5 CD’s from 2013-14 shows single or double CD releases: Peter Brotzmann Tentet: Love, Walk & Sleep - 2 CD’s Dragonfly Breath: !!!! Mats Gustafsson, Peter Evans & Agusti Fernandez: A Quietness of Water DKV Trio: Latitude Rodrigo Amado: Searching for Adam, The Flame Alphabet, This is Our Language and The Freedom Principle Joelle Leandre Sudo Quartet - with Carlos Zingaro, Sebi Tramontana & Paul Lovens Fire! Orchestra: both Exit & Enter Ken Vandermark Resonance Ensemble: Head Above Water, Feet Out of the Fire - 2 CD’s a bunch from Dave Rempis - at least 5 or 6 that deserve mention. Start with Kuzu & From Wolves to Whales Agusti Fernandez Celebration Ensemble Angelika Niescer New York Trio: The Berlin Concert Tom Rainey Trio: Hotel Grief Jury Wickiehalder Trio: Beyond John Butcher with Red Trio: Summer Skyscape Joe Morris, Joe McPhee, Jamie Saft & Charles Downs: Ticonderoga Parker-Guy-Lytton: Music for David Mossman - Live at the Vortex Before the Silence with Albert Cirera on saxophones and a stunning band North and the Red Stream: Red Trio & Mattias Stahl Joe McPhee - maybe too many to count but start with Journey to Parazzar That's just a start really many many more on labels like Relative Pitch that might be on the edge of Jazz. Things like Bind the Hands that Feed with Michael Foster, Katherine Young and Michael Zerang. So much recent game changing and mind boggling great recordings and live NYC performances that any listing of these things doesn’t give the current wide swath of improvised music it’s due credit Old Smoke, baby

Henry Cow Complete recordings Box Set Francois Carrier with Alexander Hawkins, John Edwards & Michel Lambert: Nirguna 2 CD set - recorded live @ The Vortex in 2017 Rodrigo Amado Trio - Summer Bummer two of the recent Dave Rempis CD’s - 2 CD set from quartet with Nate Wooley, Pascal Niggenkemper & Chris Corsano & 1 CD release with quartet with Joshua Abrams, Jim Baker & Avyreel Ra

Brandon Lopez’s “Sun Burns Out Your Eyes” at Roulette in Brooklyn - I’ve been told it’s 2 full sets Lopez on double bass, Cecelia Lopez (related??) on electronics, Steve Baczkowski on saxophones & Gerald Cleaver on drums the recent trio recording with all except the electronics called “Old Smoke” on Relative Pitch might be the best high energy sax/bass/drums trio recording I’ve heard in a few years. The saxophonist (from Buffalo) is new to me save for that recording so I wouldn’t miss this no matter what. Seems his main axe is the baritone but I think tenor is his number 2 although he plays at least 1 other horn (soprano) on the record. To my ears Brandon Lopez is just about the most exciting younger bassist I’ve heard over the past couple of years and Cleaver is an absolute beast in this type of context.

John Stevens

Thanks so much for posting this, Chuck. I had no idea we had anything on video in such great quality. Due to the very obscure nature of SME, I had never bothered to search You Tube.

Of course you are fortunate to be somewhere near many of the great musicians from your country/region. Despite sometimes getting annoyed that I don’t have opportunities to see/hear some of my favorite musicians like Mark Sanders, Barry Guy, John Butcher, John Edwards, etc. live ever or very very rarely, I NEVER lose sight of the fact that I’m able to see musicians like Mat, Mary Halvorson, Ches Smith, Brandon Lopez, Tony Malaby, Tom Rainey, Nate Wooley, Tomeka Reid, Nels Cline, etc. many multiple times a year or even a month in some cases if I can incorporate these show into my life. These days it’s usually 2-3 a month so I have to miss things like Wooley’s massive Seven Story Mountain show from late last month and probably this year’s Mars Williams Ayler X-Mas shoe next Saturday (with Steve Swell, Nels Cline, Fred Lonberg-Holm & Chris Corsano). I will be at Brandon Lopez’s Quartet show next Monday @ Roulette with Gerald Cleaver on drums forming what is now one of the most incendiary bass/drums tandems on the planet - and it will be my first time seeing the radical blistering hot saxophonist Steve Baczkowski in person. Word has it two sets which without Cornelia street around any longer is too much of a rarity these days.

Best Mat Maneri recordings to my ears are “51 Sorrows” with Ed Schuller & Randy Peterson & “Light Trigger” which is a duo with Peterson. The latter is the closest I’ve heard to his “sound” in a live setting. As you’ve noted, I’ve written about his concerts for years. I’ve probably seen more shows with Mat than any other musician and his hit rate for truly great performances/improvisations is probably higher than most any other musician - or his peak performances are more extraordinary. I’ll add that Mat’s best recorded playing with his dad is the 2-CD set on Leo called “The Trio Concerts”. Mat & Randy play with incredible fire on these 2 concerts. Plus the crowd is extremely excited and apparently large which is unusual on both counts. Maybe almost as great overall as “Dahabenzapple” or “Coming Down the Mountain”

Yes the the duo with Lucien to me is boring. The quartet CD with Lucien, Brad Jones & Randy is better but “samey”. Maybe even “dreary”. Definitely disappointing. 3 to 4 years ago Mat was doing gigs with a Quintet with Lucien that had Malaby & the *great* Bob Stewart in tuba. Drummers rotated with Gerald Cleaver, Billy Mintz and Randy Peterson the drummers I saw. They also played a gig or two with Billy Hart as the drummer. The shows were excellent to totally off the chain. The last 2-Set show was at Cornelia Street (as we’re all of the 4 shows I saw - all expansive 2-set nights) and it was the only one with Randy Peterson. Nothing “samey” or dreary during any of the shows but the last one was on the edge of insanity but it should have been recorded and released. I thought the whole thing might implode. Randy was playing so powerfully that it was almost too much for the music. They would play similar type charts/sketches that appear on the new recordings but the tempos were not always slow and when they were slow, there was a huge power to the music die to having Malaby & Stewart in the band. For whatever sons might think of Tony Malaby, he isnt Malaby & Maneri are awesome together. Great abstract foils. When they play together it gets way WAY out there and the tension gets to crazy levels. For whatever reason, none of the great shows I’ve seen Mat perform at over the past 15 years show up on record - and the few recordings we get have really show no indication of what he does or is. Damn shame and I really don’t get it.

Always seems to be a problem getting Kessler heard in the mix with the trio. Probably with the 2 horns often playing at one time it’s more of an issue. Plus KV is an upfront forceful player so I thinks that’s just part of the trio’s sound. I’m probably near a revisit of the box - I think I’ll pick 2 discs/shows randomly and leave it at that for a bit. Might not work for my current ears so well as I’ve been most interested in the oblique and non-groove side of improvised music over the past few months. Lots of guitar/electronics etc. I’ve been listening to a whole slew of great releases on Relative Pitch as well as streaming all kinds of stuff I don’t have on disc - from Fred Frith to Zeena Parkins to Henry Kaiser to musicians I’ve never heard before.

I tend to agree with that. As David mentioned, there is something a bit odd about the mix. Maybe it needs a bit more air / not sure.

Missed it on the 36 minute disc 6. KV in a trio with both Prevost & Drake sounds like it might be very good. fwiw I’m in between on KV’s playing. I find his clarinet playing sub-par and he’s hit or miss on tenor. I’ve always liked his riff-based playing. As far as intricate dynamics within his free playing it pales in comparison to someone like John Butcher. I’m interested to hear how he holds up in a duo with the amazing Nate Wooley and I’m especially curious (maybe in a viewing of a car crash) to hear him alone with the aforementioned Butcher. Butcher in my view is one of the best 3 or 4 improvising saxophonists on the planet - especially in small formations improvs. I like his riffing on baritone saxophone. I’m hoping he brought his baritone sax to Kraków.

Hamid Drake listed as one of the musicians but NOT listed as a musician on any of the individual discs.

Assif Tsahar: Hopscotch Records Gerry Hemingway: Auricle Records

Code Read with Dresser & Hemingway is on the streaming services. It is spectacular IMO.

Dave Rempis: Aerophonic Records

I listened through once on Tidal and it is soft and almost all of that slow tempo that sometimes can be very powerful. I’m not sure they captured the dynamics that Mat & Randy exhibit in a live performance. The set they played included most of this music but some of it seemed to explode in volume and in tempo. Lucien’s pristine sound and touch is captured very well on the recording. I do wish they put some freely improvised intense passages/pieces on the recording. For me that is what elevated the set/show to the typical high level of performance that I expect from any ensemble with Mat. I also recently saw Mat Maneri with a Matt Mitchell Ensemble where he played parts of very challenging intricately composed music as well as some mind-bending improvised sections. The band also included Ben Gerstein & Brandon Seabrook along with Mitchell & Kate Gentile. It was a fine but not transcendent set. It almost hit the perfect balance between composed & improvised but the structures were unique & creative but did not give the musicians enough room to truly explode the music. Then I saw Mat in a trio with Assif Tsahar & Ches Smith. An hour of totally improvised music with Mat playing at his highest level. Using a bass pedal, regular pedal, and no pedal, his mprovising was jaw-dropping. Stunning. As good as this music gets, IMO. Hopefully if this was recorded well, Assif will get this released somehow. After Randy, Ches is the best drummer with Mat for this sort of thing.