Steve Reynolds

Yes the original packaging is a nightmare The music is beyond brilliant and it is simply the best sounding free jazz/improvisation recording I've ever heard. One has not heard Tarfala unless you've heard them live (an unfulfilled dream of mine) or the first box set. My favorite section of the first Box rivaled by the Parker-Guy-Lytton-Fernandez set.

Looks less expensive than the first box Line-ups look very enticing Holiday present for me!!

Might not be real. I know quite a few older recovering addicts with perfect looking teeth. Most of them are not original.

Thanks for the comments all on that dream show!

I try NOT to keep up with all the new releases as I might buy too many.

Thanks for the comments, Jeff I'm kinda dyin for a live show - nothing for me for all of November - that hasn't happened in a while - next possibility 12/8 (Fred Frith Trio) or 12/13 Malaby trio with Hebert & Mintz) next sure bet 12/27 is Open Loose - record release as it says a new CD on Intakt(!!!) Good news - at least 3 great shows @ Greenwich House in January/February: Joe Morris quartet with Mat Maneri, Chris Lightcap & Gerald Cleaver - 1/22/15 Andre Matos Quintet with Tony Malaby and then Jacob Saks Quartet with Mat Maneri 2/7/15 Then Ideal Bread + Outhead (another band with Josh Sinton) on 2/12/15 - I need to see Josh Sinton live - very excited for this show

Paul Bley is as beautiful sounding as any pianist I've heard yet his music never goes to that place that Leeway is speaking of.

I'm on the email list of Conundrum Music Hall, a tiny, but adventurous little venue in Columbia. Very much look forward to hearing your impressions of the band

I missed the trio a couple of years back when I had to leave before their set in Brooklyn when my wife wasn't feeling well. I did see a great quartet set with Travis Laplante, Mat Maneri, Michael Formanek and Randy Peterson I really wanted to hear Nilssen-Love directly after hearing Randy blow the roof off I Beam in the 8:00 set.

Who is on the trio? Swell is great in this sort of band.

Anything can be stultifying if the creators let themselves be stultified Agreed - but it is much easier to be that way if nothing is being attempted. I once walked into the basement at the Knitting Factory and saw a tenor guy truly just trying to mimic late period Trane and it was another version of the same thing. I've also seen Dee Pop try to play "free jazz" drums. So yes, it comes in all forms. Maybe the worst are those who say they play "creative" music. At least the guys playing hard bop like it's 1958 have no pretensions about what they are doing.

Lost my best post. LOL Not always linear but if one plays the same material the same way, get ready for more of the same Some of these guys won't even make a record without a piano, organ or guitar Stultifying

Another point that may not be well received When the new "mainstream" or "neo-bop" guys make recordings with names like "Cookin" and continually record the same or similar standards and have the same theme-solo-theme format and have the same drum rhythms and same walking bass lines and even album covers that try to equate to the famous iconic covers of the 50's and sixties, it screams in quotes. It's almost a deliberate (maybe it is deliberate) attempt to make a statement that anything even associate with the "out" or "avant-garde" never existed or doesn't exist and us somehow outside of that "mainstream". And I've listened to a whole bunch of it back in the 90's and early 00's - and I never heard anything from the Eric Alexanders or the Joe Magnarellis or David Hazeltines that was anything except what I had heard on records from the 50's and early 60's. It sounds like time stopped and then we hear technically accomplished musicians playing something that already has been done. Maybe something has changed in the past ten years? The album covers and the instrumentation and song titles look just like they did in 1998 to me.

Thanks for the post, Larry As I grew up late in this music - starting to listen about 24 years ago starting with Miles, Monk, Evans, Mingus, Coltrane - and then exploring Ellington, Armstrong, Parker, Gillespie, Eldridge, Hawkins, Young, Tatum, etc. Started with the big names - the ones I heard about or read about - and I liked some musicians or eras more than others. I like Ellington's sound from the mid to late 50's onward - I liked Coltrane or Rollins more than Parker. Some of this because of sound quality, but I liked the hard bop drive of the 50's and early 60's music. I had never heard anything with the energy of Mingus' At Antibes or Blues n Roots. Of the swing era musicians I found a soft spot for Ben Webster, Benny Carter, Roy Eldridge and the atomic era Basie Band. I've never developed an affinity for Lester Young for whatever reason. I never planned on listening to anything but the above because I didn't know it existed. Sure I listened to the Ornette Atlantics and then a couple of 50's Cecil Taylor records. Then some of the inside/out mid 60's blue notes. The. I saw a Mal Waldron recording on tutu @ Crazy Rhythms in Montclair and I found a quartet from the 80's that was different. Then I saw a few black saint and soul notes - then came David Murray - then back to Albert Ayler and then Thomas Chapin, etc. I still loved Hank Mobley and Art Pepper - but when I heard something like Hemphill's Flat Out Jump Suite or DKV Live in Wels and Chicago - or many others, I found a music that really captured my interest more thoroughly than anything I had heard before in some ways - not better than A Love Supreme or Far East Suite or Soul Station - but new, current and made by musicians playing now - and much of it was very challenging - AMM, Evan Parker, Misha Mengelberg, Anthony Braxton, Art Ensemble of Chicago,etc. Or very unique to my ears and special - Gianluigi Trovesi or Thomas Chapin. But like music to be challenging, gritty, unpredictable and I have always loved high energy music - so in a broad way - the avant-garde in most of it's guises - was and is the music that I'm most attracted to - more than the rock of many stripes that I grew up with and still like or love - or newer rock - or Wayne Shorter's great blue notes of the 60's - I loved rebuying Adams Apple to hear it for the first time in ten years - but getting the new 5 CD DKV box or when I got the Barry Guy Mad Dogs 5 CD box - more than love. Then I started going to see the music live - and although I had a gap from ~ 2004 through 2009 when I saw little live jazz - but now it's quite often for me - and it reinforces how vibrant and in the moment the current music of this sort is.

Metamorphosis from Bill Dixon's Intents and Purposes Stunning to finally hear this for the first time here in 2014

Agreed. That was the CD I used to have years ago. It was so muddy if I recall. This CD sounds incredible as I expected based on the great Flight for Four reissue.

I forgot my favorite - Instant Composer's Pool - wonderful orginal material - plus IMO no band plays Monk as well as this amazing band - even without Misha Mengelberg who now can longer play. I saw them on Misha's last tour play the most invigorating version of Jackie-Ing one would ever want to hear. No drummer swings like Bennink when he goes down that path.

For me for post 60's (including that Hemphill recording), I prefer looser and freer large ensembles including Alexander von Schlippenbach's Berlin Contemporary Jazz Orchestra - tight yet loose and grooving (often but not always) - Live in Japan on DIW is superb, Globe Unity Orchestra (very free), London Jazz Composer's Orchestra, Italian Instabile Orchestra, Tony Malaby's Novela (9 piece band), Barry Guy's New Orchestra, Bik Bent Braam and a few others.

As always I recommend The Marmalade King for probably the most explosive drumming of his on record within his wonderous suite. Play straight through to the stunning last track when it all comes together. Also the finest playing on record by Moore and Reijseger I've heard Well worth the $40 it takes to buy it

Jim - I will be very interested in your impressions of Hemingway's playing on this recording. Also very curious if you've heard much of Hemingway's Quintet recordings from ~ 1988 through 1996 - the band with Michael Moore, Ernst Reijseger, Wolter Wierbos and Mark Dresser. Knowing that Gerry was part of the great Braxton Quartet might be informative in the development of his own, more traditional, band - with his own compositions.

Sad Life is listed as "Sold Out" on the Leo site. Check out this link: http://www.leorecords.com/?m=catalogue&price=Z I was surprised to find some of these "sold out." Or put another way, surprised how many titles were sold out. I got my Sad Life some years ago; can't recall where I got my copy. It's been sold out for years. Not easy to find although I doubt it would be expensive on the secondhand market. Live, on Zero In, is also pretty sick.. Very rough recording. Sad Life is burning with Ali the primal force that he was on a good day - it was a good day

Tony says "his best soprano playing on record so far"

A few recommendations: After Appleby is superb - maybe not on the level of 50th Birthday Concert - and Natives and Aliens (also with Crispell) is very nice - but is missing the ow out quality of the live 2 CD set AA. Joe Maneri Quartet - Let the Horse Go is very good - better than Get Ready to Receive Yourself (both have great titles!!!!) Ivo Perelman's Sad Life, Seeds Visions and Counterpoint and Siero are my favorite recordings of his. All from ~ 1996.

I havn't had a turntable in 25 years!! Plus if I ever get my new car, it will have a very powerful system and it won't play LP's!!!!!

I only really want disc 5