Steve Reynolds

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.

Saw the quartet live this past fall and they were wonderful. More subdued than some of Mat’s bands but this one is a unique special group. Randy Peterson remains just about my favorite drummer and his interplay with Mat is priceless. Fwiw Mat has played only viola for over 10 years now. He varies the pedals he uses and sometimes plays without a pick-up when he plays duets with Evan Parker, Joelle Leandre, Matt Shipp, Lucien Ban or others.

If you think Shipp & Parker are boring, I’ve been of that mindset off and on for 20+ years as well. I’ve also seen/heard Parker more recently where he has played better than I’ve ever heard him before. He was fantastic at the concert @ Shapeshifter Labs in 2017 with Rob Brown, Cooper-Moore & Hamid Drake. Same goes for Shipp. He was great with Evan Parker & Paul Lytton this spring @ Roulette and in a short duet with Mat Maneri a few weeks back his playing was transcendent. I’ve ALSO heard Shipp (most egregiously for me in 2012 with a quartet with Paul Dunmall on tenor saxophone, Joe Morris on double bass & Gerald Cleaver on drums) when he never relents and never gives the music any space rendering most of all of his notes/playing superfluous. At that concert it stifled Dunmall until the last 10 or 15 minutes when he finally gave the music the space it needed for the great tenor saxophonist to express himself successfully. Also it might be noted that these days (and for at least 10 or 15 years now), this sort of modern day “Fire Music” is far from my musical core interest and to my ears there are many more attractive and more creative improvising musicians doing/playing more exciting brands of free jazz/freely improvised music of all sorts than this “wing” or “strain” of the modern forms of improvised music.

That’s a great band.

I’ve had a love/like/hate/ambivalent relationship with David S Ware over the past 20+ years. I saw him with the “famous” quartet with Susie Ibarra in the drummer's chair - with Shipp & Parker filling out the quartet. I also saw him with an “extended” band after Susie left with Guillermo Brown as the drummer with a trombonist that I’ve never been able to figure out a name for. I think that second show was probably 2000 or so. First show was at one of the poorer venues for Vision Fest and the sound was awful. For whatever reason while Ware was blowing like a MF’er, I could hear mostly Shipp, Parker & Ibarra. The next show was hindered by sub-optimal drumming. Both shows and many recordings lessened in impact by too much Shipp. Dude always played WAY too much. He’s become a bit more restrained in recent years but not back 15-20 years ago. Ware also plays too long and too much. BUT he had a huge sound, big heart and nobody has ever played the upper register like the Big Man did. So sad that he wasn’t able to take the stage for Vision Fest in June 2012 due to his declining health. It was a huge downer that night that we didn’t get to hear his group with Cooper-Moore.

I’m about the same age as Kevin and from Quincy and then moved south shore Abington when I was 12. Class of 78, “everyone” was into rock with Aerosmith, Kiss, The Who, Sabbath, Floyd & especially Zeppelin being the biggest names. Then the Cars & Foreigner started happening and things got awful. I was only into Zeppelin & Floyd from the above and then I went more progressive with Yes, Genesis, then Gong, Crimson, Eno, Roxy, etc. only liked some Punk, post-punk 15 or 20 years later. Despised Ramones & Pistols, etc. ALL of us hated it. Bullshit musicians playing messy sloppy garbage. I still think that about most of them. Only Wire & The Clash eventually meant something to me.

Congratulations, Clifford

I’m still trying to figure out what new music he’s listening to. 1,000 albums a year but not one example of what music it is. To me Ted’s still listening via many cliches. Too much narrative and not enough individual voice. Not sure he’s been very open to the truly new & creative within improvising circles. Again if he mentioned some actual recordings or musicians that are creating the new and non-repeated that would have given the interview some worth. I do like what he says about Audio Vs Video. He’s very accurate about that.

Where and with who else or is it a duo. I never even tried any of the Braxton “standards” recordings except the Monk, Marsh & Charlie Parker projects. I always thought that stuff was hit or miss. Usually the best things/aspects would be the other musicians (Paul Smoker, Joe Fonda Misha Mengelberg & Han Bennink on the Parker music for example). This quartet music/improvised music has little to do with any of the above. I sure wish to get a chance to see the quartet live if they ever choose to set up some concerts.

I’ll cue up the Bailey/Holland album soon. I’ll look for the other Music Improvisation Company album. When I’m in the right listening mode, the early 1st generation improvisation recordings hit multiple buttons for me.

Just listened to this via Tidal. Not sure I can imagine what this would have been like to have heard this with 1972 ears. Even today it is thoroughly radical and extreme. I’m just now (over the past 5-7 years maybe) opening up my ears to be able to listen to Derek Bailey. This one was an incredibly exciting listen for me yesterday. Too bad the ECM of the past 25 years has little or no interest in this rough esthetic. I know there are many sources for small form yet aggressive yet restrained improvisation but it would be nice if today’s ECM had a bit more bite & bark.

The Glass Box Theatre (aka The Stone) is at The New School which is in large part a music school as far as I know. The Stone regularly features some of the greatest musicians in the world and the vast majority of the Students just walk on by. Hopefully with Mary Halvorson being in Trevor Dunn’s trio tonight, there will be a nice crowd. Last week with Assif Tsahar making a rare visit from Israel I went to night 2 on Wednesday when Assif was joined by Mat Maneri & Ches Smith, the crowd was also an embarrassing maybe 25. The set was as strong as any set I’ve seen in the past year or two and I’ve seen a few. Mat played as well or better than I’ve heard him in the past 3-4 years. I’m biased but his level of improvising and true spontaneous composition is on levels that are ultra rare. Ches Smith is in the Tyshawn Sorey category of drummers and Assif Tsahar has developed into a truly outstanding voice on the tenor. He was always terrific but he’s honed his sound to a more subtle and sophisticated place. and yet the guys & girls carrying violin/viola cases saxophone cases just walk on by......