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avant BN tracks on less avant albums


Guest donald petersen

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Guest akanalog

right now i am listening to bobby hutcherson's "components" and the last half of the album is doing nothing for me. sort of like the middle of "dialogue". or the end of "happenings". how do people feel about these kind of tracks. to be honest, "movement" on "components" sounds a lot like "dialogue" to me. or maybe it is the other avant track on "dialogue". also the last track of "happenings"-"the omen" or whatever. maybe it was fun to record but it just sounds like a bunch of crashing and shaking to me. how do others feel about these kind of tracks on BN albums? i can get down with something like "the all seeing eye" or "out to lunch" because they have more of a steady flow to my ears and maintain a consistent feel over the course of the whole album. less just random snare rolls and fullisades of cymbal crashes and a lot of space with no drums at all. the horns on these avant tracks always sound like buzzing bees to me. i guess part of this is i dont like it when the flow of an album is interrupted by these long dissonant floaty tracks.

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No seriously, isn't that the sound of surprise or whatever someone famously coined it?

How 'conventional' should an album be within the remit (right word?) of the opening track or two?

I for one prefer an album to have a cohesive feel, and a flow whether that be along the dissonant or more melodic lines. But one of my favourite albums of all time is ESP by Miles which is a fairly straight ahead thing punctuated by the opening drum solo of 'Agitation' which is I guess, a bit on the free side.

Then again, that is a solo performed on one instrument without the jarring experience of seemingly random blast of brass or reeds.

I'll have to sit through a few more of my more 'progressive' stuff to get a better idea of what I should be saying.

And yes, I'm on my xth Jennings Sneck Lifter. :)

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They don't exactly bother me, but I do understand what you're saying a bit, akanalog.

When an album has a sort of schizophrenic feel to it, sometimes it hangs together less well, as an album. Though this is entirely dependent on the album in question.

For instance, I think Booker Ervin's "The In Between" does a little too much of the "outside tune" / "inside tune" switch-off, every other tune. But there are plenty of other albums where I think it works -- as long as the overall nature of the material seems to still tell a story. (Meaning the album has a sort of musical "story arc" as it were.)

I think there's probably a fine art to sequencing albums, and having them really hang together as a cohesive unit. Some albums are just a collection of tunes, and some are really something quite more than that. And what that difference is, is hard to pin down, in a concrete way.

I’d be interested in hearing other thoughts about this, particularly from Jim Sangry. But also especially from others here who have sequenced albums. Chuck?? Allan?? Jim (b3-er)?? Plenty of others here too, step right up!!

Edited by Rooster_Ties
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Guest akanalog

there is something about the sequencing to "happenings" which has always bothered me. i dont know what it is. i think i would have started the album with "head start" for starters. or placed it second at least. it seems weird as the fifth song.

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Hmmm. . . well to elaborate MY feelings a little. . . I like albums that step outside the norm, the formula, and some of the BN albums are so much "one thing"--hard bop, greazy soul jazz, whatever that Moncur stuff is (I won't repeat my old term for it), etc. The Hutcherson albums cited seem to be a nice blend that removes that "one thing"ness and also seem a progression of the session, that is they seem to "fit" somehow to me with the time and nature of Hutch's musical thinking and the participants all seem to be "into it."

So. . . they don't bother me and they don't bother my sense of a "cohesive album"--I like the variety they introduce.

Now if all of a sudden in the middle there was music a la Guiseppi Logan's ESPs or Bley's "Barrage" ESP for instance, that would be . .. surprising. .. maybe even a little pleasant, but would seem bothersome!

Edited by jazzbo
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Man, there is not a wasted note on Dialogue or Componants. Both incredible albums. But that is just IMO. My favorite hard bop is when they insinuate toward the more avant-garde. That is some exciting stuff. But I guess if you don't dig AG then you miss out.

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