Steve Reynolds

"Start with the tuba with a groove on non-groove" "That's it" The *great* Bob Stewart pushed to the edge - doesn't quite tip over Malaby plays soprano in a manner and on a level that I've never heard before. Mat takes the band leading shit real fucking serious. The combination of his and Lucien's compositions with a drum driven band teetering on the edge of combustion made for a perfect first set and a shorter second set that almost matched it. Stunning

My wife says Randy Peterson is on the EDGE!! Almost tipped over Tom drums did tip over Thought the cymbals might levitate I'm recovering

Met 4/5ths of the band on the corner... First in line and fired up....

Yep, stunning record. Reminiscent of doom metal to me. Remind me to get this CD:)

All in, baby!!

Clusone Trio : The Gig or Qow

Last Option is great The much earlier Ant Farm might be even better The opening track on Last Option is Ellingtonian in style and Chicagoan in sound One lucky week about 16-17 years ago on a 3 day business trip, I saw Von Freeman in a quartet with John Young and Eight Bold Souls at the Hot House Might have been wrapped around my first visit to a place called The Velvet Lounge where I heard Ari Brown mourn the death that day of the great Fred Hopkins Was the night Fred Anderson called my friend and I a cab to get back to the hotel during a heavy snow storm Indiana Avenue, baby

CJ - next step - try Nailed by Cecil Taylor with Evan Parker, Barry Guy & Tony Oxley The first 50 minute track is as relentlessly intense as anything I've ever heard on record. Cecil never slows down. When Parker is playing (on tenor on this live performance) he stays right with him - maybe even moreso than when Jimmy Lyons was playing with Cecil on, for example, sections of One Too Many Salty Swift and Not Goodbye. The Taylor unit recordings from the late 70's and then the group recordings with the European masters (late 80's & early 90's on FMP) all fit Colin's description. Extreme high intensity stuff that at first blush or listen can seem inpenetrable.

Making my earlier point better than I did:)

Joe Lovano: From the Soul & Trio Fascination on blue note Joe Maneri on ECM Art Ensemble on ECM Bley-Peacock-Motian: Not Two, Not One ECM (Not sure if ECM qualifies)

EXACTLY! I have nowhere near the expertise in free improv you do, but so much of it is killing without swinging in the "conventional" sense, like the new Jack album or "Espiritu" by Bendian/Cline. Right. I'm thinking more like the power generated by the likes Schlippenbach Trio/Quartet, Peter Brotzmann, Anthony Braxton's classic quartet, or Tim Berne. Not swinging exactly but a sustained and sometimes punishing intensity that generates the same feeling for me. Other groups that fall into category would be Parker-Guy-Lytton, Tarfala which is Mats Gustaffson with Barry Guy & Raymond Strid, Tony Malaby's Tamarindo (which combines all sorts of grooves and seeming anti grooves/skronk, Paul Dunmall with John Edwards and Mark Sanders, David S Ware's classic quartet - especially with Susie Ibarra and Mujician with the grooves of Tony Levin. The mystery and interest often occurs on the margins. Swing? Non-Swing? groove? Non groove? Many combinations of the above makes it all work Sometimes the "clatter" of Paul Lytton turns in some odd way into a rollicking groove in the head and heart - when he never ever plays a straight groove.

For pure groove based (rather than saying "swinging" since well you know the rathole that discussion can go down) free jazz, the above recommendation for Exploding Customer's first release hits my sweet spot as well For me, here are some recordings that demand to be heard: AALY Trio + Ken Vandermark: Live @ The Glenn Miller Cafe Any DKV trio discs - Live in Wels/Chicago and/or Trigonomtry - then if you love the band - either of the recent box sets on not two records Clusone Trio: I am an Indian Trio 3: Live in Willisau (1992) still the finest recording from Lake, Workman & Cyrille David Murray Octet: Ming - powered by the great Steve McCall BassDrumBone: March of Dimes Gerry Hemingway Quintet: Special Detail - I chose the earliest hatART recording as it is the most rambunctious and teetering on madness. William Parker Quartet: O'Neal's Porch - or go directly to the fairly recent 8 CD Wood Flute Songs box which captures the same quintet down the road by 5 to 10 years in various live performances augmented by more musicians on 4 of the 8 discs. Worth way more than the $60 or so it takes to buy it.

Two sets: 9:00 & 10:30 Third time the quintet is playing at the venue. Nasheet Waits was scheduled to be playing with the quintet for the first time. Previous drummers I saw were Gerald Cleaver & Billy Mintz. Nasheet no longer listed BUT there is ONLY one drummer I would rather see with the band and his name is listed below: Mat Maneri - viola Lucien Ban - piano Tony Malaby - tenor saxophone (maybe soprano as well?) Bob Stewart - tuba RANDY PETERSON - drums As great as Nasheet is (especially live as his power in a little room is nothing short of mind boggling), Randy Peterson live with Mat & friends has always been a very unique experience beyond the words I have. Get Ready to Receive Yourself

I am located in San Jose, Ca. Forty miles south of San Francisco. I am sure there are some excellent musicians who perform in San Francisco. I'm from New Jersey so I'm NOT familiar with the performances in your area. Edited adding NOT

So many wonderful current jazz improvisors No one quite like the Art Ensemble of Chicago but.... Where are you located? Many great musicians performing live as well.

Who says the music I love is filled with "far-out wierd noises"? You do!!! Young people who are into rock or techno or hip hop will not and do not necessarily hear a tenor saxophone being played brilliantly which might include altissimo or overblowing as "far-out wierd noises". Your stereotyping and generalizations about music you are barely familiar with can only be matched by the volume of words you apply to denigrate such music. These potential new listeners might, in fact, find more subdued or historical forms of jazz limited in sound and not nearly aggressive, bracing, striking or intense enough based on many modern forms of music that include many sounds/approaches that they have listened to - sounds that the free jazz and avant-garde masters have incorporated into their music over the past 50 years. Why the best of these forms remain vibrant, fresh and alive. Because they are still in the process of creation. Often seemingly timeless - but if one's ears are open, the music is there to be heard. This is exactly why you don't give current potential jazz listener's ears the credit they deserve. Many are much more likely (as I was 25 years ago) to be more turned on by current jazz/improv than historical music - let alone by sorry ass recreation of such music. Certainly rock fans who listen to hardcore or metal or alternative have a much larger chance of hearing something in the DKV Trio or Atomic or Tony Malaby or The Bad Plus or Trio 3 or Peter Brotzmann than some Lindy Hop band. Blood and Guts, baby

I didn't start listening to jazz until I was 31-32. Before that my only ancillary exposure was hearing and liking Birds of Fire and Inner Mounting Flame maybe when I was 20-22 and I simply moved on. A guy named Don Van Vliet mentioned a few names in an interview I read and they included Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman I didn't start with them but I bought Kind of Blue, Mingus @ Antibes and Waltz for Debby. Liked 2 of the 3 and it was intrigued Well You Needn't from Monk's Music sealed the deal. I then investigated backwards and frontwards - more frontwards as I wanted to know what existed in 1994 or 1995. It never occurred to me that this music was oly historical once I read the Penguin Guide as they seemed to treat it less nostalgically than I was reading elsewhere. Then I found jazz central station after having found black saint, hat art, Leo and found out Andrew Cyrille lived a town away and Oliver Lake made a record with him and Reggie Workman called Trio 3 Live in Willisau and to me it was as great as any of the great old records so I learned to love it all. Then I saw them live Then a few of us from the old board saw quite a few of them. We saw Joe Maneri, Brotzmann Tentet, Andrew Hill, David S Ware, Gerry Hemingway, Barry Guy, Evan Parker. We loved it like it was 1948 @ Birdland. No musical background in my house, my school, etc. I sought it out myself

What is swing? What is free jazz? peace and blessings

AEC: Les Stances a Sophie Braxton: Dortmund (Quartet) 1976 Roscoe Mitchell: Old/Quartet And the bonus recording is simply my favorite Fred Anderson record with only Fred from the AACM: Blue Winter

Can anybody discuss the actual music? How does the quartet function differently with Blackwell? Is there a difference between the 1959 dates and the later dates? How about compared to the later blue notes? Lordy fucking Lordy

My idea regarding the word or descriptor "timeless" is that an artist's work in the non linear continuum can become timeless from the perspective of his or her work in the 90's, 00's or 10's might all meld together as one or almost be interchangeable despite ironically that musician growing or changing throughout that time. It might seem incongruous but I think there is some truth to it. Ellery Eskelin's more recent music or Gerry Hemingway's more recent music might be different in some ways than it was in the past - but it is still all of the same person. Just as stages in the overall musical arc have been broken or mixed around, so it goes with musicians. It may seem the same or it may not. I hear Drake's drumming as altered from 15 years ago - not sure but I think so. I imagine when Hemingway reprises (hopefully) some of those great 90's pieces on August 1st that they will be as fresh as they were 15 to 20 years ago - but they won't be the same. That quartet/quintet music to my ears is "timeless" whether anyone is listening to it in a hundred years. Jazz fans today - even serious ones - have not even listened to it yet. Standing on a Whale Fishing for Minnows

You know that for me, I really don't care if it is called jazz or not. Certainly there are strains of SME (as one example) that stretch or even break some line between jazz and something else. What we agree on is that it is radically different. The "swing" element of the drummer and bassist is deliberately eliminated thereby obfuscating or disowning any seeming connection to the great American jazz tradition. What has happened is that some of the later (or second generation) improvisors have reconnected some jazz influences back into the music. Paul Dunmall and Mark Sanders are two examples - listen to Mujician's Birdman to hear a clear free jazz recording that has rock and EFI influences. There are many recordings/musicians/bands that cannot be pigeonholed as Clifford states above. The AMM story is purely one on another plane where the music is almost anti-jazz - yet some musicians in or associated with the group over the past almost 50 years play jazz or jazz related music(s).

In my view, EFI was a direct result of certain musicians deliberately separating what they were doing from the jazz tradition. Deliberately not playing the rhythmic and melodic devices that were still part and parcel of the more traditional American Free Jazz scene/movement at that time. So severe a break it was (looking at it in hindsight), it really was a factor in breaking the music up into different lineages. I have always thought of Evan Parker as a post Coltrane tenor saxophonist whose history/career ran independently of guys like Frank Wright, Charles Brackeen - and later on David Murray or Joe Lovano. There was almost no connection between this musicians except for Derek Bailey's Company interacting with some of the more outré American jazz guys like Braxton, Lewis and Zorn. Maybe I am looking at it more symbolically than it was in actuality, but EFI in some ways was the first purely radical improvisational movement that reacted against the tradition - with efforts not to incorporate forms that were pretty much a given in any sort of jazz - from trad to free jazz of that era. Now there are many musics within musics that add/subtract elements from all sorts or parts of the tradition. This focus and "narrowness" of approach opened up a timelessness in much of that music. A timelessness that exists in the best of all music. Yeah, I know there was an attempt to radically redefine improvisation on their local, white (importantly) terms. However, I take its actualization on those terms with some grains of salt. Each case is different, too - there's a fairly wide gulf between, say, "Collective Calls" and the Schlippenbach Trio/Quartet. One could say the same about AMM of the Gare/Prévost persuasion (jazz) and the Cardew/Rowe persuasion (aleatoric and heavily electro-acoustic), and I find the SME to be very much jazz music, even at its most abstract. I also find pretty much all of it to be jazz music. I do think my (our collective?) ears may have been opened/altered/assuaged over years of listening to better hear things like Quintessence as a jazz record. Place us in 1971 or 1972 or 1973 being there and one wonders what we are thinking or hearing. We all know friends who were listening heavily to the Loft scene at that time and may have been a bit exposed to Bailey, Parker, Stevens et al - but that exposure was very limited at that time. Would love to have experienced being involved in the local scene in 1972 and then taking a plane to hear Schlippenbach Trio and/or Tony Oxley playing those tunes with Derek Bailey and see how I would have responded to that. It is violently different music - just as to me - EAI is radically different than any other improvisation I had heard before Weather Sky or Schnee or Dach.

In my view, EFI was a direct result of certain musicians deliberately separating what they were doing from the jazz tradition. Deliberately not playing the rhythmic and melodic devices that were still part and parcel of the more traditional American Free Jazz scene/movement at that time. So severe a break it was (looking at it in hindsight), it really was a factor in breaking the music up into different lineages. I have always thought of Evan Parker as a post Coltrane tenor saxophonist whose history/career ran independently of guys like Frank Wright, Charles Brackeen - and later on David Murray or Joe Lovano. There was almost no connection between this musicians except for Derek Bailey's Company interacting with some of the more outré American jazz guys like Braxton, Lewis and Zorn. Maybe I am looking at it more symbolically than it was in actuality, but EFI in some ways was the first purely radical improvisational movement that reacted against the tradition - with efforts not to incorporate forms that were pretty much a given in any sort of jazz - from trad to free jazz of that era. Now there are many musics within musics that add/subtract elements from all sorts or parts of the tradition. This focus and "narrowness" of approach opened up a timelessness in much of that music. A timelessness that exists in the best of all music.

I was at two of the earlier festivals - maybe 1997 or 1998??? Saw Max Roach solo, Randy Weston's African Rhythms, Jimmy Heath Big Band, Milt Jackson Quartet and Benny Carter (with Al Grey) Those were the highlights. The highlight was and remains in my head and heart was seeing and hearing Benny Carter - I think he was 89 or 90