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British improviser Alex Ward has a blog (with only a few entries so far) which I find fascinating. I've always thought of Taylor primarily as a composer, even though he disdained that description. His compositional processes have remained mostly mysterious to me, though, especially since he seldom recorded the same piece more than once. But apparently he did. Ward has explored Taylor's recorded output - official and otherwise - and found instances of the same composition occurring multiple times, often under different titles. This is the key blog entry so far: https://alexwardmusicblog.wordpress.com/2018/04/24/list-of-recurring-compositions-1962-1986/ This bit caught my eye: 1985, One Night With Blue Note: “PONTOS CANTADOS” = 1986, For Olim: “THE QUESTION” = 1986, April 10th, Workshop Freie Musik, Academie Der Künste, Berlin, Germany: piece 1 = 1986, Olu Iwa: “B EE BA NGANGA BAN’A EEE!” so I listened to the three released pieces mentioned. The second part of "Pontos Cantados," subtitled "Point Two: Question," does indeed seem to be the same piece as "The Question." I'm less sure about "B Ee Ba Nganga Ban'a Eee" - the context of this septet performance is so different from the two piano solos that it's hard to tell, although I do hear similarities in the melodic material. In any case, this blog promises to give me much to explore and think about.

I'm currently working on a Night Lights show about John Coltrane in 1963 and came across mention of the Coltrane Quartet's appearance at NYC's Philharmonic Hall on Dec. 31, 1963 in the John Coltrane Reference book. I'm pretty sure I've read about this concert before, but wow, crank up the time machine and all that, especially given who else was on the bill: *John Coltrane Quartet w/Eric Dolphy *Cecil Taylor Jazz Unit (w/Jimmy Lyons as, Albert Ayler ts, Henry Grimes bass, Sunny Murray drums) *Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers (w/Wayne Shorter ts, Freddie Hubbard tpt, Curtis Fuller trombone, Cedar Walton piano, Reggie Workman bass, Wellington Blakey vocals...?!) The concert was reviewed by Leroi Jones for DownBeat and Whitney Balliett for the New Yorker--I probably read said reviews in anthologies of theirs a long time ago, but somehow had overlooked just how dynamic this overall lineup must have been.

This week on Night Lights it’s “Jazz Advance: Early Cecil Taylor.” Pianist Cecil Taylor is one of the most influential pioneers of late-20th-century improvised music; as author John Litweiler says in his book The Freedom Principle, “One of the running threads in the story of today’s jazz is that so many of the advances first appeared in Cecil Taylor’s music.” Taylor’s musical universe, often perceived by mainstream jazz fans as a challenging, distant place, is thoroughly grounded in the music’s history; and his early influences ran from Dave Brubeck and Lennie Tristano to Horace Silver and Duke Ellington. We’ll hear selections from the 1950s albums that gave birth to Taylor’s career—Jazz Advance, Looking Ahead, Coltrane Time (Taylor’s only meeting on record with John Coltrane), and Love For Sale, along with a performance from the 1957 Newport Festival. “Jazz Advance” airs Saturday, July 29 at 11:05 p.m. EST on WFIU and at 9 p.m. Central Time on WNIN-Evansville; Michigan listeners can hear it Sunday evening at 10 p.m EST on Blue Lake Public Radio. The program will be posted Monday afternoon in the Night Lights archives. Next week: "Hip Parade: Early Mark Murphy."

This is the first 1990 CD edition of this FMP classic: http://www.fmp-label.de/fmplabel/catalog2/fmpcd025.html , with a different cover. Good condition. $43 postage paid to North America, €33 postage paid to Europe. Other locations will quote individually. Accept PayPal or bank transfer. Offers welcome. PM me or send me an email to djmdavid at yahoo dot com. Thanks.

PS - we really *do* need an 'archival releases' forum...