Jazzdog Posted December 26, 2003 Report Share Posted December 26, 2003 If I did have to pick a most disapointing new release of 2003 it would be the awful last Scofield cd...Up All Night? Snoozer! I get a big kick out of Up All Night. I was just listening to it last night, in fact, and having a good time of it! So there! I like it too, so you're not alone... ...and come to think of it "ScoLoHoFo" pretty much sucked eggs too! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Selim Sivad Posted December 27, 2003 Report Share Posted December 27, 2003 For me it was David Ware's latest on Thirsty Ear. "Threads", I think it was called. Now I recognize that he is doing something very different than his music of the past, but even so, I found the compositions not very interesting. 1) I just listened to Threads, I kind of liked the classical element brought on by the string group. Reminded me a bit of what Threadgill might sound like if he exchanged the horns for the violins. The compositions sounded like Ware was going for the textural more than the complex, but it had a nice vibe to it, IMO. 2) The live Holland is excellent, as you would expect from that crew. The Big Band sounds awkward to me. 3) Amen about Bad Plus. When Rolling Stone is pimping them (50 Best Albums of 2003, etc.), that should be all the hint you need. Still, they ain't bad, just not as cutting edge as are made out to be. SS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nate Dorward Posted December 28, 2003 Report Share Posted December 28, 2003 1) yeah, Threads stinks. 2) the AEOC's The Meeting. Not bad, but pretty lacklustre considering it's got everyone but Bowie back on board. 3) The much-ballyhooed Limescale on Incus isn't terrible, but it's a one-joke album. Predictably enough The Wire has elevated it to the ranks of the best releases of 2003 (at least one Derek Bailey release always receives this accolade, & since he only released two or three albums this year there wasn't much to pick from.....). Don't be fooled. 4) Actually I was a bit underwhelmed by a lot of Palmetto discs this year. I got one batch from them that included the Previte, Matt Wilson, Javon Jackson & Ted Nash. None of which I thought was all that remarkable, & the Jackson is downright terrible. Fortunately they released some good things this year too--I haven't heard the Fred Hersch disc, but the Bill Mays & Marty Ehrlich are superb. 5) Ron Carter's The Golden Striker is inconsequential & genteel music from three players capable of much more. 6) In the teeth of countless Vandermark fans I'll insist that Airports for Light isn't all that great. But then, I've never really gotten with the program on KVDM.... 7) William Parker, Joe Morris, Hamid Drake, Eloping with the Sun. Shapeless studio jamming, with Morris's banjo/banjouke genuinely painful to listen to. You know it's bad when they include a 3-minute track with Hamid noodling on the drums while the other guys have a conversation with the recording engineer (entirely audible on the track). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Selim Sivad Posted December 28, 2003 Report Share Posted December 28, 2003 (edited) 1) yeah, Threads stinks. ...OK, but why do you think that? Just curious. SS Edited December 28, 2003 by Selim Sivad Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nate Dorward Posted December 28, 2003 Report Share Posted December 28, 2003 Here's what I wrote about it: http://www.squidco.com/cgi-bin/news/newsView.cgi?newsID=259 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Selim Sivad Posted January 3, 2004 Report Share Posted January 3, 2004 Sweet, nice write up, Nate. Apparently, this is one of those records that generates strong emotions on both ends of the scale: http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&u...l=Anr98b5m4zsqg SS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nate Dorward Posted January 3, 2004 Report Share Posted January 3, 2004 Ah yes, the Jurek review..... That appeared before the disc was formally released & a chunk of it (the bit calling for the disc to win a Grammy) was extracted & used in the packaging of the eventual release, I gather. (I haven't got a copy of the formal release; I was sent a bare-bones CD-ROM by Thirsty Ear a few months before it came out.) Actually one of the oddest things about the disc was the repeated postponing of the release date--the earliest review I saw was in July but I think it actually eventually came out in September. On the other hand: http://www.paristransatlantic.com/magazine...oct_text.html#8 http://bagatellen.com/archives/reviews/000156.html et al. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuckyd4 Posted January 5, 2004 Report Share Posted January 5, 2004 Actually, Nate's thrashing of the Ware disc was probably the #1 review I read in 2003, though I haven't heard the disc, so have no idea if I would agree with it. But your review was clever, concise and clear. Worst release for me was, hands down, Matthew Shipp's latest entry in the Blue Series Continuum. I like a lot of the stuff he's put out on Thirsty Ear, but hardly a single thing was working for me on this disc. But I'm not sure I expected much from this approach, so I don't know if it qualifies as most disappointing. I'll have to think some more about that... maybe Osby's St. Louis Shoes - good disc but pretty tame, all things considered. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nate Dorward Posted January 5, 2004 Report Share Posted January 5, 2004 Hey, thanks for the kind words on the review.....! Actually, the review I did I'm proudest of on that site is the one of Duos for Doris....it was very hard to write, because I found the amount of critical fuss about the disc distracting (it was like reviewers were competing with each other to praise it more highly than the last). My first impressions of it had been kinda....blank....& so I found I had to, so to speak, clear a space for myself to listen to it intently & without pressure. The resulting review is pretty positive, but with a lot of ambivalence hovering around the edges. I don't think Jon Abbey (of Erstwhile Records) liked it much, as a result. Haven't heard St Louis Shoes....well, nevertheless I think I'll want to hear it, I've found most of Osby's Blue Notes worthwhile. Besides, I'd better do my bit to support him at the home of Norah Jones......they keep releasing discs by him but they also have been deleting even fairly recent ones at a ferocious rate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuckyd4 Posted January 5, 2004 Report Share Posted January 5, 2004 Yeah, I wholeheartedly support buying the Osby; I just thought it was the least interesting of his recent string of Blue Notes. I was just trying to come up with one that I had high expectations for that ended up not knocking me out. Like I said, it's definitely a good disc, just not as challenging as some of his others to these ears. BWTFDIK? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rooster_Ties Posted January 5, 2004 Report Share Posted January 5, 2004 Yeah, I wholeheartedly support buying the Osby; I just thought it was the least interesting of his recent string of Blue Notes. I was just trying to come up with one that I had high expectations for that ended up not knocking me out. Like I said, it's definitely a good disc, just not as challenging as some of his others to these ears. I thought the exact same thing about St. Louis Shoes. A very good disc, to be sure, but not exactly in keeping with Osby's string of recent releases since about 1998. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jazzdog Posted January 5, 2004 Report Share Posted January 5, 2004 I was more dissapointed in the Invisible Hand than I was in St. Louis Shoes. Shoes seemed decent enough, I was expecting a bit more fireworks from it, but I like the ensemble as a whole and its a damn shame I didn't get to see them perform live. Invisible Hand, however should have been magnificent, but it missed the mark for me in a BIG way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nate Dorward Posted January 9, 2004 Report Share Posted January 9, 2004 I like Invisible Hand, though I think Osby could have given the other players more room. Gary Thomas, in particular, is barely used on the album (he gets a single flute obliggato & a brief tenor solo), & in general the whole album is gimcracked around Osby's own soloing, which seems perverse given how extraordinary the band is. But I like the disc's moody vibe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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