Mark O'Leary

[Guest Bill Barton]

Last year his CD Waiting with Cuong Vu and Tom Rainey was on my Top Ten list and I've become a big fan of his approach to the electric guitar. On Waiting he also did some interesting things with e-bow, loops and assorted effects. That was the sixth of his trio discs for Leo, and a new one Radio Free Europa by Underground Jazz Trio (O'Leary, John Herndon and Matt Lux) just arrived in the mailbox along with his duo with Han Bennink, Television, on Ayler Records (part of their download series).

So far I haven't completely digested either one of these, though his playing with Bennink seems to rely much less on effects than the other stuff that I've heard from him.

Another recent acquisition is On the Shore, which is a very cool release on Clean Feed featuring two trumpets (John Fumo and Jeff Kaiser) and Alex Cline on drums and percussion. He also plays 12-string acoustic on both Waiting and On the Shore. I'd be interested in other board members' reactions to O'Leary, particularly responses from the guitarists among us.

I haven't heard the other trio discs on Leo. The personnel is impressive: Mat Maneri/Matthew Shipp; Mat Maneri/Randy Peterson; Tomasz Stanko/Billy Hart; Uri Caine/Ben Perowsky; Steve Swallow/Pierre Favre.

[Guest Bill Barton]

Mark O'Leary bio at AAJ

Wikipedia: Mark O'Leary

[Nate Dorward]

I always had the feeling that he was one of those guys who chases down as many top-notch players to play with as possible in a way that makes me a little queasy: I guess there's honest admiration there, but also it seems self-promoting to me. There's a trace of the baseball-card collector to it. -- Haven't heard too much, though the one I did actually have to review (Radio Free Europa) was pretty damn dull.

[clifford_thornton]

Yeah, I wasn't too impressed by that Clean Feed, despite the presence of some "heavy hitters."

Oh well.

[Guest Bill Barton]

Thanks for the responses, Nate and Clifford. So far, Radio Free Europa is striking me much the way it did you, Nate. It's definitely anticlimactic after Waiting. My opinion of that one hasn't changed; it's a superb recording.

[Guest Bill Barton]

I recently completed a combination review of Radio Free Europa, Television and the latest in the series of Leo trio CDs, Zemyla with Eyvind Kang and Dylan van der Schyff.

The latter got a relatively enthusiastic , the duo with Bennink a conditional partial and the first one an emphatic . Yes, Radio Free Europa is one of the emptiest, most utterly boring things I've heard in ages, Nate. Coaster time...

I'd be interested to hear other opinions, especially on the first five Leo trio discs. There are some fine players involved. And when O'Leary reins in his tendency to overplay and go nowhere he can be pretty interesting, as he was on Waiting.

Edited April 20, 2008 by Bill Barton

[Nate Dorward]

Well, glad to hear that the rest of his catalogue is better than that one; definitely not a good intro. I haven't really sought out much else, because of that & because a few correspondents I asked about O'Leary gave the emailed equivalent of a shrug: not bad but not great either.