BFT #84 discussion

[Spontooneous]

I've been traveling since the first of the month and thought I would get in alot of listening time but that didn't happen. I hate to agree with everyone else but track 13 is a standout for me as well. If not for the South Africa comments I would have been thinking about Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra. I pretty much have a tin ear but there seems to be a kinship there to me.

A number of other tracks are also interesting to me but I need to listen more. I just wanted to get in a comment and thank you for your effort.

Not a tin-eared comparison at all. Carla likes bottom-heavy brass textures like this. Hadn't thought of the parallel, but it's there. I'm glad that #13 is resonating with people.

You still planning on going to ICP Orchestra in Des Moines, NIS? Beer after the show, maybe?

[Spontooneous]

Late to the dance. Most of the music was unfamiliar to me - hope there's not something there that I have in my collection & didn't recognize.

1 - Didn't grab me. Seemed as if the musicians were on cruise control.

2 - Seemed like an exercise rather than music.

I'll admit to having been hot and cold on this one. I'm on the hot side now.

3 - I used to have a couple of Colin Nancarrow LPs in my collection. This sounded like something I remember from those.

Because it is.

4 - No idea who, but I love this one & want to get it when I find out who it is.

Jeff pegged it.

5 - Blues pianist - Might be something I may have in my collection, but I can't place it. Liked this track.

6 - Great trombone, tho no idea who. Another I'd buy.

The golden-eared Jeff pegged this one, too.

7 - No comment - except not to my taste.

This one's probably the kind of thing that's either loved or hated. A friend has got me completely hooked on it.

8 - Monk's "Bye-Ya". Liked the fact that the pianist tried to step outside and not play Monk's music as a Monk clone or turning it into a straight improviation. It wasn't completely successful to my ears, but props for trying something different.

9 - "Old Man River" - Didn't grab me. Strangely recorded - was it a drummer led session?

A musician friend has a line that it's more fun to play in a big band than to listen to one.

I'm not a musician, but I can imagine that being true - with a number of notable exceptions.

Jeff got this one too. Yep, it's drummer-led, and cheaply recorded for 1991. Maybe another love-or-hate cut. I can think of a lot of big-band charts that it must be more fun to play than to hear, and some big bands in Kansas City that strangely insist on playing them.

10 - Not sure if I ever need to hear another vocal version of "Willow Weep for Me". Enjoyed the pianist's contributions very much. Thought of Ran Blake, but probably not he.

Yes, the piano makes this one. Not Ran, but the pianist would probably like the comparison.

11 - I'd buy this one just for the violinist's playing. The band's energy sounded a bit forced/unrelaxed to me, but perhaps that's what people needed back in the 30's - assume that's when it was recorded.

Not the most relaxed swing, but hey, it's only 1934.

12 - First time I listened, I thought someone trying to do a Dolphy. Second time I listened, I thought perhaps it is Dolphy. Third time, I decided for sure that it wasn't Dolphy. No idea who it is. Arrangement sounded like they copped some things from Mingus, but without Mingus' magic. Each time I listened, I went back & forth between liking it and feeling that at times someone was being different just to be different.

Some things here could be done better, but I like the way the scattered pieces finally fit together.

13 - Kept waiting for something to happen. Then waiting for it to end. That said, I'm curious to know who this is.

Guess I'm a sucker for performances with short repeated themes, like this and Ornette's "Broken Shadows." Maybe I'm stuck in a circle.

14 - Liked this one some, but I have the feeling that this wasn't the saxophonist's strongest playing. Don't know who it is, but I just had the feeling that there was something more to be heard.

We should probably do a survey to see which artist has been on the most Blindfold Tests. I'd suspect this sax player is the one. This isn't the style we associate him with, but that's what I liked about this track. Jeff ID'd the player, but not the track.

Seems as if I had a lot of negative comments, but I did find a number of tracks that I enjoyed enough to add to my collection. And, if that was a Nancarrow piano roll, I'm kind of sorry I traded my Nancarrow LPs.

Not too negative at all. Some of these tracks tend to push back at you! Maybe some don't push hard enough. Thank you, Paul!

P.S., The Other Minds label has a boxed CD reissue of some Nancarrow LPs, very reasonably priced.

[NIS]

I've been traveling since the first of the month and thought I would get in alot of listening time but that didn't happen. I hate to agree with everyone else but track 13 is a standout for me as well. If not for the South Africa comments I would have been thinking about Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra. I pretty much have a tin ear but there seems to be a kinship there to me.

A number of other tracks are also interesting to me but I need to listen more. I just wanted to get in a comment and thank you for your effort.

Not a tin-eared comparison at all. Carla likes bottom-heavy brass textures like this. Hadn't thought of the parallel, but it's there. I'm glad that #13 is resonating with people.

You still planning on going to ICP Orchestra in Des Moines, NIS? Beer after the show, maybe?

Yes, I have my ticket in hand. Beer singular would be great. I am a pretty light weight drinker.

Have you been to this venue before? The promoter really does a great job with turn-out. They also have a meet and greet with the artists after the show.

We need to get a PM conversation going. It would be great to meet a fellow forum member.

[NIS]

I am hopelessly stuck in the middle of March Madness, so I'd better make a couple of quick comments now.

Really am enjoying track 4. I have to say that most of what I know about traditional music is due to hearing stuff like this here and on other BFTs. Now I have one more band to check out. Thank you.

I've said this before but my hat is really off to the guys who recognize individual musicians. I've listened to a fair amount of MJQ but I would have never guessed John Lewis on track 6. Nice tune and great playing. I need to check this one further too.

If not for the vocals, I would have liked track 10 also, the piano in particular. I'm not a real jazz vocal fan to start with but this style (the Betty Carter side of the street, no?) is not for me. Each to his own,eh?

Thanks again. Back to hoops.

[Spontooneous]

Track 10 is a very unlikely match-up of singer and band. I don't know of anything else like it.

Anybody have more to say about the very strange No. 7?

[picketfence]

just 2 guesses:

- harold land could be the tenor player in 7 (which I like very much b.t.w.),

- frank lacy the fantastic trombonist in 13

ok, and a third one: does the willow weeps for nnenna freelon?

[NIS]

Anybody have more to say about the very strange No. 7?

I've listened to this track several times this afternoon because it really sounds familiar. But nothing clicks. In the far reaches of my poor addled brain something says this reminds me of a Mike Nock album I haven't listened to in years (style not instrumentation) but as I say, I haven't listened to it for awhile. I think I would have liked this more in the "old days".

On the other hand, i don't think this is that strange or that odd of a duck. Why do you think that it is?

[Spontooneous]

just 2 guesses:

- harold land could be the tenor player in 7 (which I like very much b.t.w.),

- frank lacy the fantastic trombonist in 13

ok, and a third one: does the willow weeps for nnenna freelon?

Welcome, and stick around!

Glad you like 7. Two tenor players are credited on the original disc, neither of them Harold. Frankly I'm not sure which of the two it is, though I have a guess.

Not Frank on 13, but come to think of it, it does sound like him. (I thought a bunch of people had this record and would have identified this one by now, but apparently I was wrong. Y'all are missing out on a fantastic album here.)

This willow doesn't weep for Nnenna Freelon, but the singer would probably be pleased at the comparison.

[Spontooneous]

Anybody have more to say about the very strange No. 7?

I've listened to this track several times this afternoon because it really sounds familiar. But nothing clicks. In the far reaches of my poor addled brain something says this reminds me of a Mike Nock album I haven't listened to in years (style not instrumentation) but as I say, I haven't listened to it for awhile. I think I would have liked this more in the "old days".

On the other hand, i don't think this is that strange or that odd of a duck. Why do you think that it is?

No Mike Nock connection as far as I know, but now you're making me want to give the Mike Nock records another spin. This one's probably the rarest tune in the batch, from a homemade-looking LP that wasn't distributed widely.

For the first two minutes, there isn't much about it that isn't strange, is there? The flute melody that doesn't settle down anywhere, the baritone-sax interruptions, the added parts that seem to come out of nowhere... Once you get past the shout section and that Red Clay-like groove starts, it locks in nicely, though. The piece flirts with being over-written and over-arranged. It wobbles but it never tips over.

The leader and composer is quite unknown, and that's a shame. That's why I'm trying to draw attention to this one.

[Spontooneous]

The Big Reveal arrives on Tuesday, March 29. No one will be admitted during the thrilling shower scene.

[JSngry]

Geez, I'm later than late, too late, really...so sorry...but generosity abused is hopefully still better than generosity ignored, so let's get, uh..."busy"?

TRACK ONE - Hell yeah! I like this one a lot. "Commercial"? Maybe, but not really, too much variety and unpredictability in the form, and besides, it's got a really nice swinging sway to it. Maybe a "latin jazz" date of sorts? No matter - real playing all the way around. No holding back on the solos, everybody is in there for real. The percussion makes a meaningful contribution as well. It's not just there for "color". The pianist sounds familiar too (as does the tune?)...somebody w/firm "Latin" roots. All in all, I don't think you could get anything like this to be any better than this w/o crossing over into the Total Magic Zone.

TRACK TWO - Joanne Brackeen? She always sounds to me like she's fidgeting because she has to go pee. I like this well enough, but at my age, I'm kinda like, geez, if you gotta pee, just get up and go pee. Holding it in ends up being a loser on the sacrifice/benefit scale.

TRACK THREE - Geez, that sounds like Colin Nancarrow chanelling Albert Ammons or some such!

TRACK FOUR - Louis, right? Geez, his sense of time, his knowing where the pulse was allowed him to push and pull the way that only a very rare handful of people ever have been able to do. And that's really what the music of the African Diaspora brought to the "new world" - new possibilities of where "is" really is, be it in pitch, or tone, or time...espcecially in time, because all we can perceive is what is there in our own time zone, our own vibrational spectrum. So you open up the possibilities of awareness of possibilities, and you open up what else you can be aware of, and then hopefully you embrace it rather than run away from it, and you become more one with the ultimate One, which is really all there is anyway, so...the jokes on you if you try to go anywhere else, right?

TRACK FIVE - Remember Joanne Castle on the Lawrence Welk show? How she would always turn her head to the camera and smile this weird smile that was unlike any other smile on that show because it looked like she was actually working while she was smiling? Well, this is definitely not Joanne Castle, but I couldn't help but keep thinking how much even more cool that smile would have come across if she had been playing something like this.

TRACK SIX - That opening lick is "mmm, mmm, good" from the Campbell Soup commercials. The rest of the performance, it sounds like a vintage RVG piano sound, so that should and probably does narrow it down, but I'm late enough as it is...those drums (Max? No...) definitely sound RVG to me...no idea, but this is pretty delightfully original for being a 2:44 trombone quartet record made by somebody who most likely was surrounded by a whole orthodoxy which is so at once referenced and ignored here. Kudos!

TRACK SEVEN - No idea, other than it's got that 70s indie label (i.e. - Strata-East) feel that so many miss, even people weren't there the first time it...there was a certain "populist" flavor to so much of this music that was real, not forced, people usually get that and respond favorably to it... Hey, that tenor player is really speaking the language! Love it! No real idea, but...YEAH!

TRACK EIGHT - "Bye Ya'", of course. It maybe went on a little too long, I mean, a bunch of really solid ideas is never an adequate substitute for just one or two great ones, but on the whole, I heard what they were going for & feel that they were there often enough to make me not unhappy with staying the course with them. But truthfully, the opening to the first head was all that really needed to be said. 1:28 of perfection? Not long enough? Bullshit. It is what it is, leave it be, ok?

TRACK NINE - I have totally unexplainable issues with "Old Man River"...always have, probably always will. No idea why, but...just do. Sorry, but nothing here fixes that. Was this taped off a TV show?

TRACK TEN - There's a fair amount of Shirley Horn in the timbre of the voice, an overt Lee/Blake feel to the arrangement, and a certain amount of self-consciousness in the whole thing, but I like it anyway. Go figure.

TRACK ELEVEN - Earl Hines on piano? Dickie Wells? Jean Luc Ponty? Chords sound like "You're Driving Me Crazy"...man does this SWING. Would've love to have been around to have heard it live, you know there was some air being moved in front of that bandstand!

TRACK TWELVE - Not really sure who, what, or why. Fine playing all around, but...no context for it, not that I can hear. But that's just me.

TRACK THIRTEEN - Context aplenty here, and all the more better for it! I love how you got a constant straight-eighth beat, which is normally a setup for a very symmetrical structure, bu here you got an overall 14 beat structure, which is, like 3 1/2 bars instead of 4, so there goes that, but yet it still bears the comfort of symmetry. Neat! No idea who it might be...after the whole Brotherhood of Breath thing last BFT, there's a whole orb that I know next to nothing about, and this might be from there. No matter, I like it!

TRACK FOURTEEN - Pharoah? The tune sounds really familiar, but may not actually be familiar, if you know what I mean. Pharoah is a master saxophonist, period. Anybody who plays the instrument can learn something from listening to him. And if this isn't Pharoah, it sounds like somebody of about the same age and wisdom level, so say that about them too.

Really, really sorry to be too late, but, you know....life, and all that. But still.... Anyway, thanks for sharing. Some very good stuff here.