Funny Rat

[EKE BBB]

Welcome aboard EKE BBB! Care to join us in a ceremonial pre-order?

Alan: I'm assuming the CD Universe link you've provided links through Jazzmatazz? If not, I'll visit your site.

Now available for pre-ordering:

...

ON THE EDIT: Just answered my own question: it does.

Thanks, Chaney!

Don´t you think the new Brötzmann disc is a bit hard for the virginal creature I am?

B)

[Guest Chaney]

Don´t you think the new Brötzmann disc is a bit hard for the virginal creature I am? 

  B)

Being violated by so many clarinets? Could be... although the sound of so many clarinets might be taxing for even the hardened Funny Rat veterans.

Should be fascinating.

[J.A.W.]

For those interested: Funny Rat auction - I'm not the seller.

[Д.Д.]

Welcome aboard EKE BBB!  Care to join us in a ceremonial pre-order?

Alan:  I'm assuming the CD Universe link you've provided links through Jazzmatazz?  If not, I'll visit your site.

Now available for pre-ordering:

...

ON THE EDIT: Just answered my own question: it does.

Thanks, Chaney!

Don´t you think the new Brötzmann disc is a bit hard for the virginal creature I am?

B)

EKE BBB, if you interested in checking out some Broetzmann, go for "Live at Nefertiti" (Ayler) and "Litle Birds Have Fast Hearts" (FMP).

If you do a search here, you will find some information on both.

[EKE BBB]

Thanks, D.D.

I´ll put them on my ever growing wish-list.

[Д.Д.]

France has always produced great bass players.

One more excellent French bass player: Christian Brazier.

There is a very nice lyrical disc of his with Sunny Murray (at his most gentle), Rasul Siddik (excellent trumpeter whom I haven't heard eleswhere), and Sophie Agnel (very talented and original pianist) on Bleu Regard label called Pérégrinations.

[P.L.M]

Yes, CHRISTIAN BRAZIER. But I'm not a fan of his record on BLEU REGARD.

To short pieces in solo and not much convincing band playing on it.

He has another record with ANDRE JAUME on a label that I can't remember the name. It came out two or three years ago.

It could be interesting, who knows?

[P.L.M]

To continued with bassist, I just pick in second hand shop another record with

BERNARD SANTACRUZ.

I'm currently listening to him and it's sound good.

DENIS FOURNIER: CHAGARANDAH (Deux Z) (it's from 2000)

featuring LIONEL GARCIN (saxes, he plays in some pieces two saxes at the same time), BERNARD SANTACRUZ (doublebass).

SANTACRUZ very closed to TEXIER here.

the disc has a very strong "folk" taste.

[John B]

If anyone here is looking for a copy of Assif Tsahar's first album, Shekhina, which is on Eremite and long since OOP, Jazz Loft has it in their clearance section for $10.97.

Is anyone here familar with the group Mujician? (Dunmall, Levin, Rogers and Tippett.) I've been curious about them for a while and was wondering if anyone had a recommendation for which disc of theirs to start off with.

Edited June 9, 2004 by John B

[John B]

I saw Steve Coleman and the Five Elements last night and was really underwhelmed. Coleman was good, when he played and Dafnis Prieto was fantastic on drums but their trumpet player was extremely hesitant and unsure of himself (as far as I could tell) and they have a vocalist now who scatted throughout every tune and killed any momentum Coleman and the rhythm section did manage to create when she sat out. Very disapointing.

[Guest Chaney]

If anyone here is looking for a copy of Assif Tsahar's first album, Shekhina, which is on Eremite and long since OOP, Jazz Loft has it in their clearance section for $10.97.

Thanks! You read my mind... or at least were looking over my sholder at my wish list.

[John B]

If anyone here is looking for a copy of Assif Tsahar's first album, Shekhina, which is on Eremite and long since OOP, Jazz Loft has it in their clearance section for $10.97.

Thanks! You read my mind... or at least were looking over my sholder at my wish list.

Always glad to return the favor and help lighten other people's wallets.

[John B]

Has anyone here heard this disc:

Cooper-Moore - Deep in the Neighborhood of History and Influence (Hopscotch)

This is a live solo set recorded in Guelph in 1999. Cooper-Moore travels from fiery Cecil Taylor-esque avant garde to blues and swing as he pays tribute to the musicians that influenced and inspired him. The recording sounds great and this is some of the best Cooper-Moore I have ever heard. It is nice to hear him step out from the sideman's role he usually plays and really stretch out.

Highly recommended.

[Д.Д.]

Has anyone here heard this disc:

Cooper-Moore - Deep in the Neighborhood of History and Influence (Hopscotch)

This one looks good. I'll check it out.

[John B]

Another recommendation, this one for anyone who has become interested in electro-acoustic improv:

Trapist - Highway My Friend (hatOLOGY)

This disc features Martin Brandlmayr (drums and percussion) and Martin Siewert (guitar, lapsteel and electronics), who also appear on my favorite Erst, Too Beautiful to Burn, along with bass player Joe Williamson. This disc is more accessible than most music in this genre but is still fairly abstract, for the most part. I would not recommend it to anyone who avidly disliked La Voyelle Liquide, unless they were interested in approaching this music from a different angle. The electronics are very well mixed into the overall sound of the group.

[Guest Chaney]

Interesting review of Highway My Friend:

Trapist

Highway My Friend

(hatOLOGY)

This trio chose their name well; although they haven't quite taken a vow of silence, they get pretty close to it at times. If Trapist are a power trio (and a casual glance at the guitar, bass, drums lineup might lead you to think so), they're running on an ancient car battery rather than the national grid.

This deliberate, sparse improv is about what isn't played as much as anything else. If Morton Feldman, John Cage and David Tudor had formed a  rock band, they might have sounded a bit like this. On the opening tracks, Martin Siewert's minimalist guitar is hardly there; faint pencil strokes of melody or resonant drones are framed by clicks, buzzes and static. Martin Brandlmayr's drumming is as much about texture as rhythm, while Joe Williamson's bass adds a warm, dark throb.

Williamson is also credited with 'trackball'. Whether this is connected to a laptop or not isn't made clear, but occasionally more  obviously electronic elements creep in, though what generates them isn't clear either. "Impex"  appears to feature a modem undergoing torture, and many of the sounds here resemble equipment malfunction as much as anything else. As the album goes on Trapist get progressively less interested in silence, engaging in comparatively hyperactive  exchanges which hum with a repressed, focussed energy, sometimes settling into spare, sinewy grooves.

Siewert's guitar is alternately abstract scrabble or desolate, almost bluesy in best John Fahey mode. This is best heard on the fragile "Mine Was The Shoulder You Cried On That Day", where he carefully places long, mournful notes over a soft, tumbling bed of drums and bass. It's the most conventionally beautiful moment on a CD stuffed with moments of stranger, alien beauties.  Brilliant stuff.

Reviewer: Peter Marsh

I'm such a fan of Hat that I'd be willing to buy Hat-reissued Bay City Rollers sides if Mr. Uehlinger thought them Hat-worthy.

Edited June 10, 2004 by Chaney

[John B]

I just listened to Steve Lacy's Clinkers again. Great disc! I need to get some more Lacy. The mid-price Hats (NY Capers, Cliches and Morning Joy) are looking very tempting...

[J.A.W.]

I think I'm going to sell my copy of Lacy's Clichés; I don't like Irène Aëbi's contributions.

[John B]

And everybody who wrote me regarding the Brötzmarksson - mailed today.

Hope I didn't forget anybody.

Please do post your impressions here, once you have the disc!

And drop me your email address, so I can send you my self-made cover.

ubu

ubu -

I received the disc and am listening to it now. So far it sounds fantastic! Thanks again.

[John B]

I think I'm going to sell my copy of Lacy's Clichés; I don't like Irène Aëbi's contributions.

I don't believe I have ever heard her. What does she play / contribute?

[J.A.W.]

I think I'm going to sell my copy of Lacy's Clichés; I don't like Irène Aëbi's contributions.

I don't believe I have ever heard her. What does she play / contribute?

Cello, violin and (the main reason for my dislike of the CD) voice.

[king ubu]

And everybody who wrote me regarding the Brötzmarksson - mailed today.

Hope I didn't forget anybody.

Please do post your impressions here, once you have the disc!

And drop me your email address, so I can send you my self-made cover.

ubu

ubu -

I received the disc and am listening to it now. So far it sounds fantastic! Thanks again.

Welcome, and glad you like it!

ubu

[Д.Д.]

I think I'm going to sell my copy of Lacy's Clichés; I don't like Irène Aëbi's contributions.

I don't believe I have ever heard her. What does she play / contribute?

Cello, violin and (the main reason for my dislike of the CD) voice.

Aebi has absolutely unbearable vocals, IMO, but here she is not singing that much, and the rest of the music is brilliant (George Lewis' solos alone are worht a lot).

Edited June 10, 2004 by Д.Д.

[Guest Chaney]

I think I'm going to sell my copy of Lacy's Clichés; I don't like Irène Aëbi's contributions.

I don't believe I have ever heard her. What does she play / contribute?

Although accurate, contribute might not be the best word to use is describing Aebi's role as member of Lacy led bands. I don't believe I've ever heard anyone claim to actually like the vocalizing of Aebi without also admitting / adding that the her voice grew on them. An acquired taste apparently.

Here's some Internet-found thoughts / opinions on her singing style:

Aebi and Lacy spent 1967 in New York, where he began writing songs and vocal pieces for her spectacular* singing abilities (3 octaves, 4 languages and a unique “mountain voice with a golden quality”). The very first works they created together, were things by Lao-Tzu and Buckminister Fuller. They returned to Rome in 1968 and worked with Musica Elettronico Viva and conducted musical research, prior to moving to Paris in 1970.

* The first time I read this, I mentally substituted the word peculiar for spectacular.

Also present on two tracks is Lacy’s wife, vocalist Irene Aebi. Although often treated by Lacy’s fans as a Yoko Ono to his John Lennon, she’s more of a distinctive stylist and her voice meshes with Lacy’s horn much appropriately than Ono’s voice ever did with Lennon. However Aebi’s curious intonation and delivery seems never to alter a whit, whether she’s intoning a Creeley poem put to Lacy’s music on “Inside My Head” or singing in French on “Retreat”.

IRENE AEBI'S association with Mr. Lacy dates back to the '60s when both lived in Rome. Their artistic relationship has endured and grown to this day. Many of Mr. Lacy's compositions have been especially created for Mrs. Aebi's voice.

Irene Aebi seasoned the broth with extractions from Chinese texts and cereal boxes, school notebooks and love poems of the samizdat. Her highly angular delivery is indeed a completely unique presence in this kind of setting, but that fact does not invalidate her stylings, which are a perfect foil to Lacy's unique architectonics. It is unfathomable that Irene Aebi is so frequently maligned by the jazz press. Perhaps people are stymied when a jazz vocalist so clearly does not descend from the legacy of Billie Holiday or Ella Fitzgerald, but in a medium that is ostensibly about high degrees of artistic freedom, why must a woman still walk in the stylistic footsteps of the great torches and canaries to earn respect from the establishment? Aebi contributed a poetics to the first night's performance which was sorely missed on the second night, when she had reportedly fallen ill.

Interesting exchange...

As I'm a fan of vocalists -- especially female vocalists -- I wish it weren't for me true but I thus far tolerate Aebi's vocal presence on Lacy recordings. (Big of me, no?)

[7/4]

From what I heard on the WKCR memorial broadcast, she seems to be quite the microtonalist. It seemed like she was always a quatertone away from anything!