Spontaneous Music Ensemble -- Karyobin

[Guy Berger]

I finally managed to score a (digital) copy of this OOP album. Here's the lineup:

Karyobin - Spontaneous Music Ensemble (John Stevens group)

1968 with

Derek Bailey - Guitar

Dave Holland - Bass

Evan Parker - Saxophone

John Stevens - Drums

Kenny Wheeler - Trumpet, Horn

I think it was Holland's first appearance on record.

Interesting music, I like it, but have not completely made up my mind.

Guy

[7/4]

I think it's great and a milestone.

[Chuck Nessa]

We will await Guy's opinion.

[clifford_thornton]

May I say that I really like that record, too?

[clifford_thornton]

For me, Stevens' drumming here is like a sonically more "isolated" (read: less Africanized, to my ears) version of some of Milford's stuff from the period. Sure, there have been heavier SME and related sides (Prayer for Peace, on Transatlantic, is super-hip), but for a second commercially-released LP, this is a strong statement. Maybe even stronger than the Baptised Traveller (though that too is an excellent record, on-sleeve influences as they are).

[clifford_thornton]

Re: Wheeler: for whatever reason, I've never "gotten" him, though he does lend an interesting approach to some of these sides.

[Chuck Nessa]

does anyone know or can say what Roscoe thought of the Euros? Braxton first & then George Lewis were down with but of the great conceptualists (& musician, just to stick that in there tho' it sdn't be necessary), unless I've missed something, Roscoe has stayed apart.

before there were any books mentioning any of this stuff, the three most puzzling Nessa sides were...

Stevens/Bradford

Eddie Johnson

Ben Webster

i already had other Ben & Bobby but that was my first Stevens & of course I'd never heard of Eddie... & never did again?

powesheik county clementine

Don't think Roscoe knew much of the "Euro" stuff before the stay in Paris so I can't give you more info there. I do know Rock hipped me to Gunter Christmann by giving me a copy of his first record.

I know he was aware of Webern, etc in the '60s when we first met.

Roscoe has "huge ears" and notices more than I can imagine. He amazes me all the time.

Sorry you are puzzled by the mentioned label issues (why did you leave out the Lucky Thompson?) and will answer questions - though this should be conducted elsewhere (another thread or PMs).

[Chuck Nessa]

oh, not puzzled in a negative way, more surprised at the range of stuff-- since I got the Lucky after Ben, I was well prepared then. At the time-- late '80s-- nobody I knew was into any Euro stuff except ECM or John McLaughlin... "we" (hah!) all spent limited funds catching up here instead of on the Ogun or FMP stuff that Cadence had. So if this "Nessa" character thought... John Stevens, a prog- guy (cf. John Martyn, "Live at Leeds," which all the Iowa kids thought was a mindblower, along with Bert Jansch & the most "out" Tim Buckley sides) was worthwhile, maybe there's something going on there, not that we ever saw by far most of his records like we did Nessa, Black Saint, BYG (in Affinity reissues), Arista, ESP (in Italian Base reissues w/flat corners), etc etc... (beat but playable glossy Prestige Jaki Byards at the library), Moers, Hat Hut etc. thankfully, nobody I ever knew was just a modern, or avant- playa, so it was natural-- essential even-- to love Ben, Lucky, Roscoe & Anthony equally, & to say hey!! Why ain't there any more Eddie Johnson? I understand they exist, of course, but my ears don't get that all folks don't shout "Jack the Bear"!! Howlin' Wolf!! Robert Nighthawk!! Lester Bowie!! Nowadays, with abundance of everything ("availibility" that is-- I could use some $$$ myself) & pace another thread, dead-horse reinvention in the name of ersatz "avant-garde," I sometimes run into, read people w/much more isolated tastes on the both ends, the neo-moldy figs & the post-ESP heads.

(i forgot to mention Leo as great conceptualist, tho' I don't think I heard his stuff w/Bailey until the mid-90s. Incus was never exactly thick on the ground... wish someone would reissue those CCC sides tho'.)

dvorak is my co-pilot,

c

I'm just a music guy. My only "ax to grind" is "quality". Some folks don't seem to have the same standards.

Edit to add: If I had the opportunity, I'd have recorded the Creole Jazz Band.

Edited October 27, 2006 by Chuck Nessa

[Larry Kart]

I'm just a music guy. My only "ax to grind" is "quality".

That's what keeps it sharp.

[Chuck Nessa]

Sounds phony and pretentious now. Sorry.

[Chuck Nessa]

Bruce always told me we were in the same position - Bob wouldn't do what we said so we did it ourselves.

As I said earlier - different thread.

Edited October 27, 2006 by Chuck Nessa

[paul secor]

you may... it's not THEE greatest any of those guys would do, together in fractions or apart but goddamn, 1968: think of who was alive then, what the pressures were. yr talking three nascent stone geniuses (tho' Derek was already middle-aged) there in Stevens, Parker & Bailey... Wheeler is damn close but probably "just" a superb trumpeter & excellent composer (tho' I try not to promote ECM-sound cliches, I do believe most of those sides sorta took the edges off) & Holland, at least for the next ten years was a very heavy anchor-- not such a fan of his later solo efforts just for what he did w/Miles, Tony & Sam the dude's huge.

does anyone know or can say what Roscoe thought of the Euros? Braxton first & then George Lewis were down with but of the great conceptualists (& musician, just to stick that in there tho' it sdn't be necessary), unless I've missed something, Roscoe has stayed apart.

before there were any books mentioning any of this stuff, the three most puzzling Nessa sides were...

Stevens/Bradford

Eddie Johnson

Ben Webster

i already had other Ben & Bobby but that was my first Stevens & of course I'd never heard of Eddie... & never did again?

powesheik county clementine

clem - there's some more Eddie Johnson here.

[Guy Berger]

dvorak is my co-pilot,

c

I prefer to call you Johann Strauss. (Jr?)

Guy

[Alexander Hawkins]

oh, not puzzled in a negative way, more surprised at the range of stuff-- since I got the Lucky after Ben, I was well prepared then. At the time-- late '80s-- nobody I knew was into any Euro stuff except ECM or John McLaughlin... "we" (hah!) all spent limited funds catching up here instead of on the Ogun or FMP stuff that Cadence had. So if this "Nessa" character thought... John Stevens, a prog- guy (cf. John Martyn, "Live at Leeds," which all the Iowa kids thought was a mindblower, along with Bert Jansch & the most "out" Tim Buckley sides) was worthwhile, maybe there's something going on there, not that we ever saw by far most of his records like we did Nessa, Black Saint, BYG (in Affinity reissues), Arista, ESP (in Italian Base reissues w/flat corners), etc etc... (beat but playable glossy Prestige Jaki Byards at the library), Moers, Hat Hut etc. thankfully, nobody I ever knew was just a modern, or avant- playa, so it was natural-- essential even-- to love Ben, Lucky, Roscoe & Anthony equally, & to say hey!! Why ain't there any more Eddie Johnson? I understand they exist, of course, but my ears don't get that all folks don't shout "Jack the Bear"!! Howlin' Wolf!! Robert Nighthawk!! Lester Bowie!! Nowadays, with abundance of everything ("availibility" that is-- I could use some $$$ myself) & pace another thread, dead-horse reinvention in the name of ersatz "avant-garde," I sometimes run into, read people w/much more isolated tastes on the both ends, the neo-moldy figs & the post-ESP heads.

(i forgot to mention Leo as great conceptualist, tho' I don't think I heard his stuff w/Bailey until the mid-90s. Incus was never exactly thick on the ground... wish someone would reissue those CCC sides tho'.)

dvorak is my co-pilot,

c

Jim Dvorak, I take it...

FWIW, some of the players from over here were doing a large-ish group project with Roscoe Mitchell recently I believe.

[.:.impossible]

Warburton covers that "beat" (no drums) often.

Paris Trans

[jon abbey]

why bother but... if any of you see the new issue of ok English music rag The Wire (Joanna Newsom cover), even a blowhard like "Dan Warburton" riffs on cloistered "EAI" zealotry in the course of a piece on some Austrian dude whose name i've already forgotten. who "knew?" was very funny this came out almost simultaneously with the aforementioned bru-ha-ha.

actually, Dan exaggerated that part for effect and for an effective lead for the piece, because those guys ended the festival I curated in Berlin with a 33 minute Prince cover. and the end result was that I released a CD of the set, so not a very good point all in all, little boy.

P.S., the Austrian's name is Christof Kurzmann, one of the more interesting musicians around.

[jon abbey]

FWIW, here's the excerpt in question, albeit in the writer's version, not the somewhat edited one that ran:

=====================================================

What does today's electroacoustic improvised music have in common with the pop song? Apparently nothing. EAI is everything pop is not: it's predominantly slowmoving, structurally amorphous, studiously avoids regular rhythm, and there aren't many notes. Anything remotely resembling a singable melody or a standard chord progression is right out. And there are no lyrics. Make no mistake, EAI is serious stuff, and its empty samplers, inputless mixing boards and table guitars arouse passionate discussion among devotees in specialist online newsgroups.

And yet, on May 19th 2004, the closing set of AMPLIFY 2004, EAI's premier showcase festival curated by EAI's premier label Erstwhile Records, began with a song by Prince. Or at least the lyrics of a song by Prince (the chorus appeared later), delivered simply and patiently in the melancholy cadence of Viennese laptopper Christof Kurzmann. The song in question, which eventually morphed into a long stretch of typically exquisite EAI, was "Sometimes It Snows In April", an appropriate enough choice for Kurzmann's duo with guitarist Burkhard Stangl, Schnee (German for snow).

"If we'd played on the second day of the festival it would have been completely different," Kurzmann recalls with a wry smile, "but I felt we needed a reaction to four days of reductionism. I asked Margareth Kammerer and Adeline Rosenstein, who were in the audience, to come in with the backing vocals when I gave them a cue. But I didn't tell [festival organiser and Erstwhile boss] Jon Abbey what we were going to do. I don't know if he liked it!" Abbey evidently liked it enough to release it – schnee_live was the third of five ErstLive albums culled from that year's AMPLIFY festivals.

[7/4]

What does EAI have to do with SEM?

[jon abbey]

why don't you just get the fuck out of here & stop obsessing? Nobody gives a damn, & yr persuading noone. Start yr own thread under Miscellaneous Music if you can't stop advertising yrself. A jury of yr superiors has rendered their verdict & it's that you have not listened to, or thought, nearly enough about the wide world of recorded sound to have the opinions you do. Yr entitled to them, of course, just as we're free-- & delighted-- to disdain 'em. Thank you for your consideration ("douchebag," as Lacan most aptly described yr type).

um, I've been here for a while, and you're the one who brought up the entirely irrelevant topic, reported thoroughly inaccurately as usual (no wonder you never got a real journalist job). I just clarified it, since your secondhand, half-assed reporting and the actual piece bear no relation.

and again with the referring to yourself in the plural, what an endlessly amusing conceit. you contain multitudes, I know.

[jon abbey]

What does EAI have to do with SEM?

nothing, really. ask Clem Strauss why he felt compelled to go there on this thread, not me.

[jon abbey]

as for a mildly on-topic post, copies of this CD sell for a lot on ebay, I think I sold mine for around $80 or $90 earlier this year. I was never a big SME fan, even when I was much more into first-generation euro free improv, but I much prefer the later Quintessence period, the sixties material never worked too well for me. I wish I'd seen Stevens live, though.

Edited October 27, 2006 by jon abbey

[7/4]

What does EAI have to do with SEM?

nothing, really. ask Clem Strauss why he felt compelled to go there on this thread, not me.

OK. Just wonderin'...I'll have to plunge in and check out your EAI scene sometime.

David Beardsley aka 7/4

[clifford_thornton]

Back to SME & the Gang of Five on Karyobin. CT, is the COO doing any gigs down there anymore? That was where I heard Kenny Wheeler live-- Ken Filiano & Billy Mintz were other guests, also an inside-out pianist I can't recall, last-name-something-Hispanic, maybe a few Nine Winds appearances-- & he impressed just as much as on the Braxton stuff I'd most known him by.

I dunno how heads will respond today but I still have a softspot for that John Martyn "Live at Leeds," as well as good chunks of his earlier records but it was putting together Stevens' appearance there w/BB here that really opened the doors that all these things drew from similar emotional/aesthetic wells-- Brit Folk via Skip James, psyche via Coltrane, Pentangle (from whence we recognized Danny Thompson) via Mingus & a 1000 other things.

Let no man steal yr thyme,

Max Harrison

London, England

I missed the last COO gig - trombonist Brian Allen was the guest; he's quite good. There's some "quiet" improv stuff going on down here, which I'm not too into, though some hip gigs have happened with ICP, The Thing, Tony Malaby (w/ Allen and Tom Rainey) and a choice few others. I think Tristan Honsinger might be coming down to play solo sometime this winter - should be interesting!

Haven't checked out John Martyn yet, though I've been admonished elsewhere for not having any of his records. Danny Thompson and all that Pentangle stuff I really get into (yep, track A1 on the self-titled 1st LP is what hooked me on their thing), though I sort of lose steam after about three or four records - same w/ ISB (different ilk), Fairport, etc.

Abbey, chill.

[sidewinder]

Haven't checked out John Martyn yet, though I've been admonished elsewhere for not having any of his records. Danny Thompson and all that Pentangle stuff I really get into (yep, track A1 on the self-titled 1st LP is what hooked me on their thing), though I sort of lose steam after about three or four records - same w/ ISB (different ilk), Fairport, etc.

Abbey, chill.

Would that be the 'Night Flight'? That was quite a big hit over here in the UK. There was even a UK TV show using that as the theme music back in the dim and distant early 70s (I vaguely remember it).