Funny Rat

[J.A.W.]

WTF indeed!

I think I'll send an e-mail to Mr. Uehlinger asking if everything is all right.

Please do, and keep us posted.

I can't imagine he just forgot to renew his subscription (or whatever it's called). I hope he's not in financial difficulties with hat hut.

[Guest Chaney]

Will do, Hans.

I don't want to start rumors (I know noTHING!) but I've been having a bad feeling about hat and its future. Seems that, what with so many other labels to discover and investigate, I've been buying less and less of hat's stuff of late. Aside from a few hat reissues, recent releases have been less than thrilling.

+ + + + + + + + + +

Hello Mr. Euhlinger,

I just noticed that your site seems to be 'down.' ("This domain name expired on 12/16/2005 and is pending renewal or deletion.")

Is everything all right?

Tony

Buffalo, New York

Dear Tony,

Thank you for your email. I forgot to renew it. My last payment was

on December 29, 2002 and I expected it to run until December 28th, 2005.

I just send an email to Network Solutions.

Thank you and merry christmas,

Werner X. Uehlinger

[J.A.W.]

Will do, Hans.

I don't want to start rumors (I know noTHING!) but I've been having a bad feeling about hat and its future. Seems that, what with so many other labels to discover and investigate, I've been buying less and less of hat's stuff of late. Aside from a few hat reissues, recent releases have been less than thrilling.

+ + + + + + + + + +

Hello Mr. Euhlinger,

I just noticed that your site seems to be 'down.' ("This domain name expired on 12/16/2005 and is pending renewal or deletion.")

Is everything all right?

Tony

Buffalo, New York

Dear Tony,

Thank you for your email. I forgot to renew it. My last payment was

on December 29, 2002 and I expected it to run until December 28th, 2005.

I just send an email to Network Solutions.

Thank you and merry christmas,

Werner X. Uehlinger

So he did forget to renew... Hmmm...

Glad there seem to be no other problems.

Thanks Tony.

[7/4]

Great news! I'd hate to see Hat go under.

[king ubu]

Big relief! Indeed from what he said in the interview we did I wasn't really afraid it was anything serious, but still!

********

Happy x-mas and all, to my fellow funny rats!

[7/4]

Happy x-mas and all, to my fellow funny rats!

Same here!

[Guest Chaney]

Happy holidays friends!

Edited December 25, 2005 by Chaney

[J.A.W.]

Happy holidays friends!

You're having a guest during Xmas?

Happy holidays to you too!

[Guest Chaney]

Funny, but my sister has a pet rat and I can't get myself to touch the thing. (She's a loon. Over the years, she and her family have had a pet rat, two iguanas, a rabbit, a turtle, a snake, two cats, fish... Want to know what her husband bought her for x-mas? A dog! You'd be amazed at just how much of their small home is dedicated to this flippin' petting zoo.)

[P.L.M]

Big relief! Indeed from what he said in the interview we did I wasn't really afraid it was anything serious, but still!

Well, hope it's nothing morethan that. But, anyway...

Happy Winter Solstice to you all!

[Guest Chaney]

Just ordered this one from SquidCo:

"Michel Lambert began working on the music on Le Passant (The Wanderer) in 1992. Time, however, brought about changes. He reduced his original symphonic work to its current instrumentation. He calls it a meeting of the two forces and a confrontation between music that is through-composed and freely improvised. The latter is seen in complete detail on the last seven pieces, which are improv-based. The first five (together comprising "Le Passant") have the improvisers and the orchestra meeting and finding their means of expression together. ...Lambert filters the power of his orchestrations and lets the improvisers find their own space to dwell. They do, making this wanderer an often times startling one."-Jerry D'Souza/AAJ

Sound samples from CD Baby.

[Д.Д.]

Just ordered this one from SquidCo:

"Michel Lambert began working on the music on Le Passant (The Wanderer) in 1992. Time, however, brought about changes. He reduced his original symphonic work to its current instrumentation. He calls it a meeting of the two forces and a confrontation between music that is through-composed and freely improvised. The latter is seen in complete detail on the last seven pieces, which are improv-based. The first five (together comprising "Le Passant") have the improvisers and the orchestra meeting and finding their means of expression together. ...Lambert filters the power of his orchestrations and lets the improvisers find their own space to dwell. They do, making this wanderer an often times startling one."-Jerry D'Souza/AAJ

Sound samples from CD Baby.

Whoa, that's a great line-up (except for Duval, whose playing I don't like too much... at all), and an intriguing concept. The samples did not sound that convincing, but I will probably go for it anyway.

[John B]

Howard, IMO, has a very uneven discography. The one I like the most is Red Star (Boxholder, 2001) - a recording from 1977 with Bobby Few on piano, Guy Pedersen on bass, Richard Williams on trumpet and Kenny Clarke (!) on drums.

have you heard Howard's The Black Ark from the early seventies? barely reissued on CD (Japanese Tokuma), this is not only the best Howard I've heard, but the only Arthur Doyle I've ever liked. a real classic from this area of music.

I finally had a chance to hear Black Ark thanks to a kind soul on IHM. I was very impressed on first listen. This is a great album that deserves to be available.

Also, if you are a fan of the Art Ensemble of Chicago I highly recommend the album Black Paladins, by Joseph Jarman, Don Moye and Johnny Dyani, on Black Saint. Very, very good. I really like what Dyani adds to the mix, taking some tunes that would have fit righti in on an AEC album of the era and taking them to a different (S. African) place.

Edited December 29, 2005 by John B

[king ubu]

Picked these two in a sale today:

Playing the later one right now. Not as good as the Dörner/Mahall (with Schlippenbach, playing Monk) and Wogram/Mahall sets I heard at unerhört in November, but I quite like it. Mahall may indeed be the very best bass clarinet player since Dolphy (at least over here in Europe), and John Schröder is a great drummer. Möbus (guitar/leader) is maybe the weakest of the three. But all in all I find this quite an enjoyable disc.

Not sure I'll like the Ali/Rhames - never heard Rhames before... but for a prize of 10 CHF (ca. 6.50€) I had to buy it... (only later I realized it's a live set from Willisau, 1981).

Anyone knows any of these two discs?

(edit: had a wrong pic in here, originally...)

Edited December 29, 2005 by king ubu

[Nate Dorward]

By coincidence the Ali/Rhames is winging its way to me here at the moment -- I'm not sure it'll click that much with me (Ali's decades-long series of tributes to Coltrane is getting a little much....) but given that I talked with James Finn at length about his buddy Rhames I want to check him out. Anyway, will have to compare notes once I've got my hands on it.

[Guest Chaney]

ICTUS RECORDS' 30th ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION - 12-CD Limited edition Box-set - RELEASE DATE - March 1, 2006

Bagatellen: Wallets Wither as Ictus Resurfaces

[gnhrtg]

ubu - I have not heard that Der Rote Bereich but neither of the other two I've heard was a keeper. Seeing them live and hearing the music once might be fun but it's definitely not the sort of thing I'd return to. I hope the one you have is the best of the bunch, though.

I listened twice to the new Roscoe Mitchell, Turn, on RogueArt and it's not bad at all. The music covers a fair bit of ground, as is usual with Roscoe's albums and what I can say so far is that this certainly won't disappoint if you are a fan.

[Д.Д.]

Happy New Year, friends!

[John B]

Happy New Year to all of you, too!

I'm off to choose some "family friendly" music for the guests today. How Funny Rat can I get the music without receiving complaints?

I'll start with Charles Tolliver and see how that goes.

[Д.Д.]

Happy New Year to all of you, too!

I'm off to choose some "family friendly" music for the guests today. How Funny Rat can I get the music without receiving complaints?

I'll start with Charles Tolliver and see how that goes.

John, have mercy on your loved ones during the new year celebration.

Meaning, choose some later-period Broetzmann, not "Machine Gun".

ICTUS RECORDS' 30th ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION - 12-CD Limited edition Box-set - RELEASE DATE - March 1, 2006

Bagatellen: Wallets Wither as Ictus Resurfaces

A lot (all?) of this stuff has been available on CD on Italian Felmay / Robi Droli label in the "Ictus reissues" series: LINK. I have some of the CDs, but don't remeber them at all.

[Guest Chaney]

John: As I recall, I sent you a Sketch CD containing some very pretty music that I feel your relatives would love.

Speaking of the Ictus label, anyone familiar with Andrea Centazzo? Is he to be embraced? Shunned?

Happy New Year to All!

[John B]

John, have mercy on your loved ones during the new year celebration.

Meaning, choose some later-period Broetzmann, not "Machine Gun".

No Broetzmann, but Don Pullen seemed to work really well. (Or at least they did not complain to me.)

[Д.Д.]

Mahall may indeed be the very best bass clarinet player since Dolphy (at least over here in Europe)...

Flurin, amigo, are you trying to stir The Rat with provocative contorversy ? You don't really mean it, do you?

I have a couple of CDs with Mahall, and heard him live (with Schlippenbach Monk project), and I've found him invariably mediocre. Hans Koch, Wolfgang Fuchs, Louis Sclavis, André Jaume (and many many more) are definitely more interesting (and original) Eeropean bass-clarinetists...

Edited January 7, 2006 by Д.Д.

[Д.Д.]

Two full-track mp3s from the new Full Metal Klezmer CD (with Gianni Gebbia) are available at El Gallo Rojo website. Fun stuff.

[king ubu]

David, of course any such categoric statement is over the top... but I was rather serious about liking Mahall. He was terrific with Die Enttäuschung/Schlipp playing Monk tunes (but Dörner was even better). I was very impressed by Mahall, seriously!

Of course I find guys like Sclavis or Koch at least as interesting... (but I missed Koch's solo concert the day after the Wogram-Mahall concert took place).

Btw: another very interesting clarinetist: Michael Moore - of course you all know him, but I am a fairly recent convert, originally only knew him from those Rara Avis discs Gokhan sent me (thanks!), then from the two Rara hatOs... but after Wogram-Mahall, the ICP guys played, and that was one marvellous concert! All of them did some great playing/soloing - maybe the serious one of the tenor saxists was the most boring/predictable musician of them all - the madman tenorist was da shitte, for sure! Moore played some great stuff, going from Lee Konitz coolness to chirpish free stuff. Similarly the blokes on tenor, from full-bodied Webster-Brötz to chirps... and the brass guys were pretty good, too. Mengelberg seemed a bit tired, but when he had his duo with Bennink, and the occasional solo with no horn interfering, he was fully there, minimalist as ever... (much better than a late 2004 solo set I heard on the radio, which turned into lyrical bla-bla). The cello maniac was also utter fun to watch - that guy is ooooold (sorry, don't want to offend anyone...) and was directing the band by jumping around like a 5 year old... and when he bowed the cello he got into something like another state of being it seemed, being so deeply involved.

They did their usual stuff - from Ellington-like stuff to free improvs, and in the end added as encore, dedicated to Schlipp who as in the audience, "Alexander's Ragtime March" or how that number is called - great fun! Even if this concert hardly presented anything "new" or "innovative", it was one of the most beautiful and enjoyable concerts I ever saw - they clicked with me from the very first tone (prob. Bennink hitting the post of his hi-hat...)

*****

Then, I received the first Bailey discs from our kind helping hands (we'll do a radio show in his honour on Jan. 15th and I have so few discs myself that I asked around a bit), and have been playing "Domestic & public Pieces" and "Improvisation", two totally compelling solo discs. Now listening to "Yankees" I don't find that one so good - but maybe it would need more effort to get into this one.