Rolling Jazz Thread 2021

New year, new decade, new sounds!

The latest volume in the Spiritual Jazz series is split across two volumes and is devoted to new(ish) releases.

Part 1:
1. Benjamin Herman - Lizard Waltz
2. Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids - An Angel Fell
3. Nat Birchall - The Black Ark
4. Chip Wickham - Shamal Wind
5. Jimi Tenor And Kabukabu - Suite Meets
6. Black Flower - Winter
7. Darryl Yokley - Echoes of Ancient Sahara
8. Damon Locks Black Monument Ensemble - Sounds Like Now
9. Oiro Pena - Nimeton
10. Cat Toren - Soul
11. Shabaka & the Ancestors - Nguni
12. Makaya McCraven - Gnawa

Part 2:
1. The Cosmic Range - Palms to Heaven
2. Vibration Black Finger - Empty Streets
3. Abeeku - Slow Sweet Burn
4. Wildflower - Flute Song
5. The Pyramids - Memory Ritual
6. Steve Reid - For Coltrane
7. Carla Marciano - Trane's Groove
8. Angel Bat Dawid - What do I tell my children who are black (Dr. Margaret Burroughs)
9. Menagerie - Nova
10. Teemu Akerblom - Avo's Tune
11. The Jamie Saft Quartet - Vessels
12. Jonas Kullhammar - Paris

This could be cross-posted to an electronic music thread, but it's fantastic:
https://timdaisyrelayrecords.bandcamp.com/album/tim-daisy-ikue-mori-light-and-shade-relay-030

Duets with Tim Daisy on marimba and drums x Ikue Morie on electronics.

Colour me intrigued:

https://williamparker.bandcamp.com/album/migration-of-silence-into-and-out-of-the-tone-world-volumes-1-10

That Parker box is quite a thing. I'm going to be reviewing it in depth on Burning Ambulance at the end of the month (two discs per day for five days).

The subscription to 2021 releases for Astral Spirits is $15/month, so I just said fuck it and went in, mostly because I listened to this: https://astralahmed.bandcamp.com/

You also get a majority of the back catalogue as part of that deal, too.

wow this is fucking good

haha i just said fuck it on the astral spirits bandcamp too, let the amirtha kidambi/lea bertucci manipulated vocal sound record rearrange some brain cells last night

the big astral spirits hit for me last year was the luke stewart quintet album, some seriously heavy sounds there.

Just got a promo of a piano trio album led by a dude named LUIGI SALAMI. (Okay, Pier Luigi Salami - the group is called the PLS Trio - but still.)

https://relativepitchrecords.bandcamp.com/album/dromedaries-ii

seeing as calendar years are a made-up social construct I thought I'd mention this blistering album from 2020 that features the only good Kier, that is Irreversible Entanglements' Keir Neuringer.

https://intaktrec.bandcamp.com/album/togetherness-music

new Alexander Hawkins album is out today.

free on-demand livestream show with Brandee Younger and Dezron Douglas
https://www.millertheatre.com/events/brandee-younger-dezron-douglas-live-from-columbia

RIP Gino Moratti of Kitano Jazz.

Aka another NYC jazz institution seems to fall by the wayside.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCNqhzkSk58

Iris Ornig wrote a nice thing about Gino M on FB which is publicly visible.

My latest Stereogum column is up. Here's the first paragraph:

William Parker deserves a Pulitzer Prize, or at least a MacArthur Fellowship. His body of work is nearly 50 years deep at this point, and encompasses vocal and instrumental music (his own original compositions, and brilliant reinterpretations of others’ work), poetry, criticism, and journalism. His long-running bands the William Parker Quartet and its expanded incarnation Raining On The Moon; In Order To Survive; and the Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra are balanced by short-lived or one-off ensembles that may only appear for a single album or concert. In addition to work under his own name, he’s been a key member of groups led by Cecil Taylor, Peter Brötzmann, Bill Dixon, David S. Ware, Matthew Shipp, and others. Although his work hinges on a deeply individual voice, he is a community builder at heart. He and his wife, Patricia Nicholson, have run the annual Vision Festival in New York for over 20 years, and that single annual event has grown to encompass multiple performance series running all year long, many of them outdoors and free, an invitation to the public to experience high-level out jazz as just one more form of art, as physically as it is aesthetically accessible.

Cool, will check it out.

I started reading that Monk biography by Robin Kelly (found a cheap ebook version), it's good so far.

(after someone mentioned it on a thread, probably the cymbal-tapping one)

I had to read that Monk book twice; the first time, when it was new, it didn't click with me, but when I went back to it years later I loved it.

Thanks for that, unperson. Aside from the Parker, I'm most intrigued by the Formanek and Perelman.

I've had a few opportunities to listen to the latest Alexander Hawkins project now and it is really really good. Just had a brief run through and I think that rushed out Jason Moran album had me intrigued the most, it makes a nice change to read about a pianist who acknowledges DJ Screw as an influence and I liked the sound of that sample.

New World Records is putting out an incredible looking 7CD box of previously unreleased material by Julius Hemphill next Friday. Most of it is from the '70s and '80s, but there's some later stuff as well. Info here. Includes several CDs' worth of small group performances with trios and quartets, plus a whole disc of duos with cellist Abdul Wadud...to me, this is a treasure trove the equivalent of the Albert Ayler Holy Ghost box. I've requested a review copy, but if they don't send me a download I'm just gonna have to buy it.

kwhitehead covers Some Kind of Tomorrow, new Jane Ira Bloom x Mark Helias duo alb, recorded via Zoom, so had to find, set up camp in the right tempo zone to avoid lag, but they did---excerpts sounding goooood:
https://www.npr.org/2021/01/21/959199306/with-some-kind-of-tomorrow-2-jazz-musicians-improvise-together-over-zoom

xp hemphill box looks wonderful, thanks for the tip

Listening to replay of Fresh Air interview w Howard Johnson, recently RIP. Like it says in the transcript:
In the 1960s and '70s, he played on jazz recordings by Charles Mingus, McCoy Tyner, Carla Bley and Charlie Haden. He was, for the most part, self-taught. And though tuba was his main instrument, Johnson also learned to play bass, clarinet, baritone sax, flugelhorn and electric bass. He led his own ensembles, most notably the band Gravity, which consisted of six tubas and a rhythm section and released several albums.

(SOUNDBITE OF HOWARD JOHNSON AND GRAVITY'S "BE NO EVIL")

BIANCULLI: Johnson wrote arrangements for and was featured on rock albums by The Band, John Lennon, Taj Mahal and Maria Muldaur. And he helped form and then played in the original "Saturday Night Live" house band and even appeared in some of the show's musical sketches.
Stream/download: https://www.npr.org/2021/01/22/959579707/remembering-jazz-tuba-player-howard-johnson

...So when they ask me things like that, they really - what they really want is for me to take them and show them how, you know. And I really think - I mean, see there wasn't any jazz education when I came up, you know. If you lived in Ohio, you know, and were 14 or something like that, you weren't going to any Berklee. And I wasn't going to just do nothing until such time as I could get some instruction.

Well, what did the people before any of that was happening do? They listened to the music. They learned it. They found a way to learn it. I mean, you know, who gave Sonny Stitt lessons? When I was trying to understand intervals in music well enough to learn to improvise by ear, I mean, everything was an interval to me. You know, I'd hear the - a car horn or a doorbell. You know, I'd say bing-bong - ope (ph) - minor third. There we go.

Sorry, can't resist continuing that a little further (this is all right at the end, after adventures with Mingus etc. etc.)
There was nothing on the radio, maybe two hours a week of jazz on the radio. I didn't have a record collection or a record player. I just kind of had to slide around to wherever the records were and listen to little stuff that I could take off the radio and try to learn. So I had to really absorb myself into it in a way that people don't tend to do if they have - you know, if they can just go to Berklee.

(Although of course you'd have to know some stuff, some way, to get into Berklee.)

I pretty much hang on that guy’s every word, so no problem.

damn i know howard johnson really well from the taj mahal stuff

Howard Johnson plays on Gato Barbieri's Alive in New York, but it's got to be one of the worst-sounding records I've ever heard. Somehow every instrument except the sax is buried, the electric guitar is almost inaudible (except when he takes a barely-detectable solo), and there's some sort of phasing going on that makes it sound like they're playing on the beach.

I knew Johnson mostly for his contributions to some early Carla Bley records, where he even gets to sing a little.

Ok jazz sleuths, please help me with a quest -- I'm looking for a version of 'Epistrophy' that I downloaded off Audiogalaxy in the early '00s. It has a backbeat, and it's a banger. Very sparsely arranged groove, with the piano doubling the bass on very low notes, a bassline using mostly the root & minor 2nd while someone else (probably a sax) plays the melody.

It really seems like it would be a Leon Parker version, but his version of that is different (but awesome as, and I remember it well upon hearing it again). Or Matthew Shipp in the Thirsty Ear era, but I'm not seeing that he recorded it.

I used to listen to this mp3 all the time and it's driving me a little crazy.

How great is this (mostly) cymbal solo though:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubQ8UOIeIPw

Nate Chinen on Twitter:
A few weeks ago I bought Mose Allison’s ‘Wild Man on the Loose’ on LP. An album I’ve loved for ages — but when I put it on the turntable, I felt like I was hearing Motian more clearly in the mix than ever. Puzzle piece!

Then he quoted Evan Iverson:

Nobody in this Jarrett trio is
condescending to Dylan or the Byrds.
Charlie Haden began as hillbilly
countrY musician, he always liked
simple songs. Paul Motian had already
recorded in this kind of genre with
Mose Allison,and a year after this date
he joined Arlo Guthrie at Woodstock.

Jarrett talks about hearing Motian with
both Lowell Davidson and Mose
Allison. Of course, Motian played with
Bill Evans and Paul BleY as well. This
bears restating: Jarrett heard Motian
with four pianists, Bill Evans, Paul Bley,
Mose Allison and Lowell Davidson.
That's a pretty big puzzle piece,for one
can hear all four of those pianists in
Jarrett's final conception.
from https://ethaniverson.com/shades-of-jazz-keith-jarrett-charlie-haden-paul-motian-dewey-redman/

Thanks for that. I've got a couple Jarrett records and like him pretty well, but never listened to these specifically and I am loving Birth by that quartet from 1971.

I've only heard the Impulse! albums (and wrote about them myself a while ago); now I want to check them out. There's a trio disc on ECM, recorded live in 1972, that Iverson doesn't cover because it wasn't released until a couple of years ago. I've heard that; it's good.

One approach was taken by Keith Jarrett in consort with Charlie Haden, Paul Motian, and Dewey Redman.

i don't mean to be a pedant, but doesn't iverson mean "concert" here? or have i been getting that wrong all this time

Um,...

That paste had some garble ("for a better transcription click here"--wish I had): I corrected most of it, but missed one capital Y ending, and may have missed "consort" when the original was "concert" dunno tweets can be hard to look up, but see the whole essay in the link sorry. Speaking of Twitter:

Franklin Bruno
@humanfranklin
Schoenberg's harmony textbook isn't quite what I was expecting: "Let the pupil know that every living thing has within it that which changes, develops, and destroys it. Life and death are both equally present in the embryo. In between is time."

"Consort" is in the original, okay by me. (The Paul Winter Consort etc.)

Duly noting Junior Mance's passing here, as well as that of two jazz vocalists, Janet Lawson and Carol Fredette, both of whom had been living at The Actor's Home in New Jersey.

New Joshua Abrams album on Rogue Art, Cloud Script, sounding excellent this morning - and what a band! Gerald Cleaver, Ari Brown, and Jeff Parker. Decidedly more traditional approach than the recent Natural Information Society material (ie there are heads and solos, including a drum solo) but just as captivating as those great records. Parker in particular sounds fantastic - check out his gnarly solo on "Collapsing Novelty." Pity the LP appears to be sold out everywhere already.

^ I wish Rogue Art had a digital download presence on Bandcamp and weren't CD only (as far as I recall).

This is my kind of actual modern fusion, in terms of where soul/funk and jazz and open-minded pop/rock meets--lots of great players on this in add'n to the co-billed, incl. Sam Gendel and Rob Moose; very excited to hear the whole thing in mid-March, and this lead single sounds awesome, with nice touches incl. electric sitar as featured on D'Angelo's Black Messiah:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQTtUmmjqbI

Haven't even listened to this yet and I'm very excited based on the lineup, dang.

I've been having a good time today listening to Junior Mance records, and related ones from that Mickey Roker interview that James linked in the other thread (Shirley Scott, Walt Dickerson).

Ok that's a little more, idk, tasteful and ECM-ish than I was expecting? It's nice though, still curious to hear the album. But there's only about 10 secs of Chris Dave sounding like Chris Dave. Although I guess that's why he's Chris Dave, because he's a tasteful musician and doesn't always have to sound like Chris Dave.

Charles Lloyd, who mostly leaves me cold, has a new album coming out March 12. The first single is a version of Ornette Coleman's "Ramblin'," one of my favorite OC tunes because Change of the Century was the first album of his I heard and it cracked my head wide open. And this version, with Bill Frisell on guitar, is surprisingly hot. So now I think I might have to hear the whole record.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGVIrck0pNI

Cool, I'll check out in due course. Last year's 8: Kindred Spirits was solid, albeit overlong.

As I say, I'm not a big fan, but his Blue Note albums have generally been better than his ECM albums were.

a new Trio Tapestry album (Joe Lovano/Marilyn Crispell/Carmen Castladi) Garden Of Expression is out on ECM.

Lloyd always seemed to me a little bit like a so-so musician who found a way to ride the hippie train. Also not a big fan. He has his moments though.

I liked Kindred Spirit but yeah it went on

I enjoyed Lloyd's duet album with Billy Higgins, Which Way Is East? Admittedly, it's more a document of them pursuing whatever eclectic ideas cross their minds than a conventional jazz record. I never heard Lloyd's early, "hippie jazz".

The late '60s albums on Atlantic are his best work by far. (With Keith Jarrett, Cecil McBee, and Jack DeJohnette, how could they not be?)

Mentions of Lloyd remind me of my Rolling Jazz 2019 post:
Looking for Charles Lloyd on Bandcamp, found Manhattan Stories (2014), comprised of
two 1965 New York Concerts, Disc 1 recorded at Judson Hall & Disc 2 recorded at Slugs' Saloon.
A remarkable and previously unrecorded quartet featuring three jazz giants: guitarist Gábor Szabó, bassist Ron Carter and drummer Pete La Roca.
'It was a specific time and place'; Lloyd told Manhattan Stories annotator Don Heckman. 'We all felt like the boundaries were being dissolved and we could do or try anything. This is a music of freedom and wonder -- we were young and on the move.''
Which is just what the sample track, "Sweet Georgia Brown," sounds like (17' 49", but quite spritely). Especially digging the interplay of guitar and sax, bass and cymbals, also succinct solos, esp. PLR's and Szabo's---the latter bright and brittle, autumn leaves, but def not drifting. What other Szabo should I check? Used to see his LPs...
https://charleslloyd.bandcamp.com/
(That was first reposted on the Szabo thread I later found, good 'un too.)

Very much enjoying Dyads, a double bass/tenor sax (or clarinet) duo between Michael Formanek and his son, Peter. I expected a bit of a self-indulgent family affair, but it held my attention throughout its 1h12 duration.

Very much enjoying _Dyads_, a double bass/tenor sax (or clarinet) duo between Michael Formanek and his son, Peter. I expected a bit of a self-indulgent family affair, but it held my attention throughout its 1h12 duration.

Derrida interviews Coleman in 1997 (around the time of his Lincoln Center concert w orchestra, trio w Haden & Higgins. and Prime Time): they talk about "the language of the other," incl. dealing with colonialism, gender, group behavior, other kinds of determinism. incl. music as and of language---both speaking English. but orig. transcript was lost, so this is translated "back" from the French translation (wonder where the tape is. or maybe the recording was in stenography) It's not very long, is very Ornette:
https://www.ubu.com/papers/Derrida-Interviews-Coleman_1997.pdf

And this is from The New Yorker---no indication here., but print ed. said it's streaming on the Criterion Channel, I think (never seen it, thought about getting a Blu-Ray player when read that there's more footage in that format):

Ornette: Made in America
Shirley Clarke’s 1985 documentary about the crucial jazz innovator Ornette Coleman unites an impressionistic portrait with an overview of his life, work, and ideas. It also poses painful questions about a mid-career artist whose restless curiosity is yoked to the glory and burden of a public persona. The film’s collage-like composition is anchored by Coleman’s 1984 visit to his home town of Fort Worth, where he receives official tributes and performs with the city’s symphony orchestra. Dramatizations of his youth, filmed performances from the sixties onward, and discussions with him and other musicians and associates (including William Burroughs and Brion Gysin) mesh with Clarke’s diverse video manipulations and rapid-fire editing, which evoke the visions and fantasies from which Coleman’s music arises. (His discussion of an earlier plan for sexual abstinence is as chilling as it is revealing.) Clarke relates Coleman’s grandly transformative multimedia projects (including one involving satellite transmissions) to her own; his troubled effort to rehabilitate a Lower East Side building highlights the free-flowing connection between art and life.

— Richard Brody

Found the print: yeah, Criterion Channel.

It's available on DVD (Blu-Ray seems a little harder to come by) but doesn't say anything about extra footage.

Seems like the Blu-Ray supposedly had for instance an extra or longer interview with Denardo. according to whatever magazine.

Chicago Reader's Jonathan Rosenbaum had one caveat: The film's biggest limitation may be its focus on a single piece, "Skies of America," through many performances and incarnations over a seven-year period, which stretch geographically from Fort Worth and Berkeley to Morocco and Italy—a good idea in theory, but the third-stream trappings of the piece make it less than ideal for this kind of workout. Sounds even better to me!

This is mostly about Clarke's adventures in film, overall, esp The Connection, which I know only from music incl. in and associated with it, but what I've seen of and read about her other work def. has jazz appeal:
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/movies/the-shirley-clarke-project-by-milestone-films.html?pagewanted=all

Oh yeah---re her work with Ornette. wiki sez: The opening of the now-defunct Caravan of Dreams nightclub serves as a catalyst for (Made In America's) production, but Shirley Clarke had actually been working on the film for a span of over 20 years. The 1968 footage with Ornette, his young son, Denardo, and frequent collaborator Charlie Haden was filmed by Clarke for a separate film that never came to fruition.[2]

The Caravan of Dreams is a whole story in itself, incl. the associated record label; I still have some of their newsletter catalogues.

The recent book on Ornette, The Territory and the Adventure, deals quite a bit with the Caravan; the author worked there for several years.

I love Ornette and saw that film in a theatre, but unhappily I only remember some brief unfortunate animated bits where Ornette's picture bounces around the screen.

I always just listened to Mary Halvorson for the playing but after paying for Artlessly Falling and getting the booklet, I started paying attention to some of her lyrics. I'm almost shocked at how good they are (at least from my v inexpert pov) - I honestly didn't expect one of the leading guitar virtuosi of the time would also have this command of poetic imagery; it adds a whole other layer to my enjoyment of the album.

Smell of grease and mint.
Glissando female laughter.
Thirsty one spinning
tops. Gold outline of her neck,
crimped at its deepest plastic.

As cartoon backdrop:
lemon trees darkening, wish-
bones bit from a life.
Private crisis of the now.
These indolent visions, parched.

I remember her old out-rock band People (duo w/ Kevin Shea from Storm and Stress on drums) having some good lines (w/ her on vox instead of someone else singing as in Code Girl, of course)

Ha, so she can sing too!

Ha, I only just noticed that the poetic form of the text of each lyric is indicated in the bottom right of the pages - that one is a double tanka.

https://www.actmusic.com/en/Artists/Diego-Pinera/Odd-Wisdom/Odd-Wisdom-CD

I quite like this one from Uruguayan drummer Diego Pinera.

the he brings some awful vox to one of the tracks and it spoils my mood!

a good one from last year I've not seen hardly mentioned anywhere was the Anthony Pirog/Michael Formanek/Ches Smith album Pocket Poem.

Another track teased from the upcoming Pino/Mills + Gendel album, this one backed by digital tabla in slinky sevens:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq4hSD1LvAo

I've only just realized how good Pirog is, even after having seen him perform live only once or twice.

Yeah we were digging AF over on Robert Wyatt: Classic or Dud?:

He's good on that Code Girl album--sounds old, but vivid, to lingering impression after tracks are over---and alb is all good, by far the best Halvorson set I've heard so far, maybe because she's an accompanist here, to singers and instrumental "chamber" (but non-antiseptic) jazz combo & soloists.
Seems like this might pertain:

― dow, Tuesday, 5 January 2021 19:45 (one month ago) link

i was a little cooler on the album overall, maybe it needs a few more spins to grow on me, but agree that Wyatt is fantastic on it

― nobody like my rap (One Eye Open), Tuesday, 5 January 2021 19:50 (one month ago) link

It's a great setting for him and he sounds perfect on it even if I am not as high on as I was the first Code Girl record, but agreed I need some more time with it

― chr1sb3singer, Tuesday, 5 January 2021 20:47 (one month ago) link

I thought Amirtha Kidambi's vocals were very strong too, think she's the main singer other than Wyatt, although tenor saxophonist Maria Grand also gets voice credit on the bandcamp page. MH writing and picking but not singing is okay by me; People was like a Portlandia take off on jazz school nerds, although as such, could be entertaining, but it goes on a while. Anyway, this one is soooo much better, and whole thing is here:
https://maryhalvorson.bandcamp.com/album/artlessly-falling

Seems like this might pertain: Oops, meant to delete that along with something that did pertain to the Wyatt thread, but not this one so much.

Oh, tbc, I listened to the whole album a lot over the last year; I think I nominated it for the ILM poll. I just finally bought it on the last Bandcamp Friday. (I already owned the previous Code Girl album.)

Yeah, I figured you were pretty well familiar with it, that was just a link and reminder for those who are always trying catch up w bandcamp, like me.

Ah, yeah, right on

Grand must be doing backing vocals e.g. on the refrain of "Mexican War Streets (Pittsburgh)". Kidambi was the only credited vocalist on the previous Code Girl and the non-Wyatt lead vocals on this album sound like the exact same voice to me.

Going back to back to this Nicholas Payton album where he plays trumpet and Rhodes simultaneously, it's really pretty stunning how un-gimmicky it is. Also just a perfect sounding record. The Tiny Desk version is really good too.

https://open.spotify.com/album/3FXM1Oj2O936SuRHSl6Oc6?si=ANh9m0kRR8id3tdjjiq9SA

Saw he has a quarantine album but haven't checked it out yet.

Ok the quarantine album is a big nope

Tipitina's tv is showing New Orleans music docs all weekend plus on Mardi Gras. James Booker, Henry Butler, and brass bands ones may appeal to some on this thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwflNeY0HPM

Is it just me or is Jakob Bro almost inaudible on his latest for ECM, Uma Elmo? I assume this was a deliberate choice on his and Manfred Eicher's part, but the end result sounds like a duo between Arve Henriksen and Jorge Rossy, which is fine but false advertisement imo.

He's there, he's just the least interesting part of each track.

Hm, I really liked Streams and his live show a couple of years ago but maybe this means I should give this one a pass?

I love both Streams and Gefion, but on this one he sounds like he's about to dissolve into wispy insignificance. Perhaps he should've fully owned up to being the ambient guy in the team and taken his non-interventionist stance even further? It's still a decent album thanks to the other two (especially Henriksen), but I won't be revisiting it very often.

It makes me chuckle how, on Force Majeure, after they play the Sanders tune, Douglas declares "the Creator has a master plan for us all" and they jump straight into the Carpenters' "Sing". Kind of sweet to imagine that the plan is for us all to sing out loud and strong.

God moves in a mysterious way, maaaan.

More docs today Sunday

The Tipitina's virtual film festival continues today on the Tipitina's tv website and youtube page with the following lineup, which starts at 11am central and then repeats at 5:30pm.
11am Buckjumping
12:07pm Anders Osborne (2020)
12:30pm All On A Mardi Gras Day
1:30pm Treme Brass Band (2006)
2pm Tuba To Cuba
3:24pm Tipitina’s.TV Exclusive: Float Houses!
3:30pm Up From The Streets: New Orleans: The City of Music
5:14pm The Wild Magnolias (2004)
5:30pm Buckjumping
6:37pm Anders Osborne (2020)
7pm All On A Mardi Gras Day
8pm Treme Brass Band (2006)
8:30pm Tuba To Cuba
9:54pm Tipitina’s.TV Exclusive: Float Houses!
10pm Up From The Streets: New Orleans: The City of Music
11:44pm The Wild Magnolias (2004)

A little surprised nothing on Milford Graves' passing here.

In any case, RIP to one of the greats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi2kQ8JtPVw

See here:

I love you Milford graves!!!

Oh, sorry!

I need to remember to actually check New Answers more often— I rely on bookmarks too much.

From Luaka Bop:

On this day we are incredibly proud to announce Promises, a new album by Floating Points and Pharoah Sanders, featuring the London Symphony Orchestra and artwork by Julie Mehretu.
https://www.listentopromises.com/

Interviewed Joe Chambers today for my podcast. He has Some Shit To Say on the subject of Milford Graves, let me tell you.

Looking forward to that

Oh that rules, I love his new world album.

Intriguing excerpts from Data Lords via this check-in w Maria Scneeider: at first omninous, zoned, later sardonic, then positive instrumental response to unheard poetry---stream/download:
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2020/08/11/maria-schneider-data-lords

It's *all* instrumental themes, anti-voxxers have no fear (some have popped up on RJ threads of recent years)

This came into the world today, I'm enjoying myself quite a lot.

https://astralmitchellreed.bandcamp.com/album/the-ritual-and-the-dance

My least favourite of the three Palladino/Mills advance singles released so far, but even this Afrobeat/Latin Playboys situation is solid enough to me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXQUVKko5J8

That Roscoe Mitchell/Mike Reed one is on tap for this afternoon, currently working my way through the Jeremiah Cymerman/Charlie Looker one, A Horizon Made of Canvas. Pretty good.

Uh-oh, just now got the memo:

Last Chance to Access Legacies of Excellence

Legacies of Excellence
Hosted by Catherine Russell
Available on demand through tonight
Ticket price: $20
Member price: free–$15

The first performance of the spring concert season is available to view for just one more day! Vocalist Catherine Russell hosts an extraordinary ensemble of jazz musicians in this concert for families and student audiences. The contributions of iconic jazz artists suc
h as Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald will be explored in a performance demonstrating their lasting legacies
Catherine Russell, host/vocals
Sean Mason, piano
Russell Hall, bass
Rob Garcia, drums
Bruce Harris, trumpet/music director
Camille Thurman, saxophone/vocals
Mariel Bildsten, trombone.
Trailer or something, also ticket link:
https://jazzatlincolncenter.squarespace.com/virtual-season?utm_source=wordfly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MKT21%3AFeb.24Newsletter&utm_content=version_A&promo=#catherinerussell

"One More Day" but today is last day/evening.
And speaking of Camille Thurman, excellent singer/saxophonist and vice-versa, judging by Jazz Night In America:
Don't Miss Camille Thurman at
Dizzy's Club

Camille Thurman and the Darrell Green Quartet
Thursday, Feb 25
7:30pm ET
Suggested ticket price: $10 / Free for JALC Members

Jazz at Lincoln Center's new live concert experience, Live From Dizzy’s, allows you to enjoy a night of beautiful music from the comfort and safety of your own home.

Experience the multi-talented Camille Thurman, a formidable saxophonist who recently took second place in the prestigious Sarah Vaughan Vocal Competition. Thurman is known for her stylistically varied mix of classic repertoire that highlights her chops as both a singer and instrumentalist; recent albums have featured songs by Sarah Vaughan, Wayne Shorter, Wes Montgomery, Jimmy McHugh, Milton Nascimento, Hoagy Carmichael, Cole Porter, Angela Bofill, and others. Don't miss your chance to experience the full scope of Thurman’s artistry!
Tickets etc.: https://jazzatlincolncenter.squarespace.com/camille-thurman-darrell-green-trio?utm_source=wordfly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MKT21%3AFeb.24Newsletter&utm_content=version_A&promo=

My least favourite of the three Palladino/Mills advance singles released so far,

Heh, it's definitely my favorite one so far. Probably the least ECM-y?

xpost Oh and dig the line-up!
Camille Thurman, Tenor Saxophone & Vocals
Darrell Green, Drums
Marvin Sewell, Guitar
Tom DiCarlo, Bass
Wallace Roney Jr., Trumpet

Sewell of course quite good w Moran, De Johnette, Qassandra, Brian Blade, still need to check the one w Tom Harrell, prob more

Damon Locks' Black Monument Ensemble has a new album, NOW, coming out in April (due to printing delays, the physical versions won't be out until July), and it's amazing. It's like a cross between the last two SAULT albums, Archie Shepp's Attica Blues, and an Adam Curtis documentary. There's a track streaming on International Anthem's Bandcamp page:

https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/now

Very promising!

Archie Shepp (must check out the new alb w Moran): I'm surprised that he regrets having made music maybe more "difficult" than nec. to get his ideas across, back in the day---Attica Blues, for instance, was one I could play at parties for distinctly non-arty types, as w several others in the 70s; his musical approach overall always seemed accessible by nature, compared to some others for sure:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/feb/24/archie-shepp-on-jazz-race-and-freedom-institutions-continue-to-abuse-power

But at the end of that, he does respond that he's proudest of Attica Blues.

I interviewed him a long time ago for Red Bull Music Academy and he said the same thing about older female relatives (his mom and an aunt) being unable to relate to his more "out" stuff, causing him to reconsider his attitude toward the blues.

Come to think of it, he said in Leroi Jones's Black Music (unless it was Blues People)that when he had a chance to jam wit some out cats very early on, like maybe when he was still majoring in playwriting, they laughed at "my Stan Getz shit," but when he went into a blues, they said yeah, that was right." Something he may have thought of again after his relatives' response---and I've always heard his path through it as going with the way my older Black customers in CD etc stores used it: they could be looking for BB King and/or Bobby Blue Bland, sure, but just as likely Smokey Robinson, Junior Walker, Nat King Cole (with his trio and/or as croomer). So with Shepp you get blues and bluesoid elements in different contexts, incl. "Mama Too Tight" (w new thing solo im midst of tight 60s groove), to Attica Blues, Litte Red Moon, the albums with Horace Parlan, and the rustic metamorphosis on Charlie Haden's duets collection, The Golden Number (also in some of his work with Cecil Taylor).

jam *with*, also "they said, yeah, that was right" closed quote(or "they said yeah, that that was right" was the part of his sentence I meant to quote, though still may be imprecise, decades after last reading the piece).

Nir Felder trio with Antonio Sanchez and Matt Penman at Smalls Live sounding great right now.

I loved that Matt Penman Good Question album a few years back

Listened to that Blue Note Re:Imagined record with LDN musicians; it's all a bit tasteful and wine bar-y but still some good stuff.

Unperson, I listened to your Christian McBride podcast and when he was listing every drummer in the world who had played with Rollins, I couldn't believe he didn't mention Steve Jordan. I guess it's more of a Spinal Tappian drum chair than I thought, but I was under the impression that Jordan was his guy for the '00s. Clearly that's not the whole story, but since he was on Rollins' last studio album and was with him the one time I saw him (at Ravinia), and from listening to recent interviews with Jordan, I assumed he was the first call.

https://hafezmodirzadeh.bandcamp.com/album/facets

the new Hafez Modirzadeh album has got Tyshawn Sorey(on piano), Kris Davis and Craig Taborn involved.

That Modirzadeh record is really good; I interviewed him about it for Bandcamp Daily. I imagine it'll run in a week or two. (I may put the full transcript of our conversation on my Patreon page, as we covered a lot of ground.)

Fire! Orchestra does nothing for me (unsurprisingly, since I dislike 95% of big band jazz), but the new Fire! is very much to my liking.

yeah it's a bit different to their last trio one but good stuff nevertheless. I can't listen to Fire Orchestra either.

xp

not even Duke Ellington, pom?

Duke Ellington is the main reason I left myself a bit of wiggle room with that 95%.

I think New Orleans Suite is one of the greatest ever and think it contains the last ever recorded playing of Johnny Hodges. I play it to death and then I play it to death again after a short break.

Turns out my Hafez interview just went up.

I disliked big band jazz for a long time, but Ellington finally cracked open for me a few years ago, and Count Basie's mid '30s recordings are pretty amazing too. I also like some modern big band stuff like Darcy James Argue's Secret Society and the Michael Leonhart Orchestra — a lot of that is more indebted to 1970s movie scores and modern classical than to big band tradition, so it's very interesting without the obligation to swing.

I like Fire! and Fire! Orchestra; the latter's version of Penderecki's Actions is a lot of fun.

I like Mingus’s big band stuff, and some of Sam Rivers’s and Charlie Haden’s as well. Count Basie is absolutely classic, of course. But yeah, skepticism is my default attitude towards the genre.

obv Carla Bley is exempt from criticism as well imo. Do the large avant-garde ensembles of Henry Threadgill count as big bands? god knows idk shit tbh! but they have done some incredible work.

his record label describes it as the “little big band” sound

whenever people say they don't like big band jazz, i direct them to this video and they go, "okay, so yeah this rules"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmALIF7c3lY

that link isn't working this side of the atlantic Table!

Oh of course Gil Evans as well

ignore me it is working now!

Such Sweet Thunder was the album that got me into Ellington, it's fucking awesome!

I even had that as my ringtone for years!

This was always pretty fresh and engaging, though haven't listened in a whie---take it away, wiki:

Far East Suite is an album by Duke Ellington that won the Grammy Award in 1968 for Best Instrumental Jazz Performance – Large Group or Soloist with Large Group. Ellington and Billy Strayhorn wrote the compositions. The album was reissued in 1995 with four previously unreleased alternate takes.[1] In 2003, Bluebird Records issued the album on CD with additional bonus takes.

Strayhorn died in May 1967, making Far East Suite one of the last albums recorded during his life to feature his compositions. Was especially struck by "Blue Pepper,"which uses a backbeat for Ellingtonian purposes--he does not play that rock 'n' roll, doesn't need it.
'

On the other hand, Xgau's right about this early stuff, incl. the rock appeal of some:
The Best of Early Ellington [MCA, 1996]
Although it doesn't approach RCA's long-lost Flaming Youth and touches fewer famous classics than Columbia's fainter, cleaner two-CD Okeh Ellington, this warm, scratchy disc leads out of his tangled discography into his '20s music, which traffics in a rinky-dink novelty more rock and roll than his glossy big-band dance charts. At first only a few familiar tunes stand out from the delicate audacity and raucous detail of the sound. But soon every theme kicks in, every silky clarinet solo and bumptious plunger mute. Ellington called this jungle music because white folks would never have believed he heard the modern city so much better than they did. They learned, kind of. A oops not really big band, but big enough, and couldn't resist slipping it in.

whenever people say they don't like big band jazz, i direct them to this video and they go, "okay, so yeah this rules"

Yep. "La Plus Belle Africaine" -- any recording, but especially this one -- is easily one of my all-time favorite Ellington works. So many of his pieces have incredibly evocative and affecting twists and turns, but this one just goes into whole other worlds of...well, Ellingtonia, I guess.

"worlds of Ellingtonia" is such an edifying and pleasing phrase!

Yeah, love Such Sweet Thunder. The slink of the title track is just perfect. The Star-Crossed Lovers is so swoony.

My issue with Fire! Orchestra isn't that it's a big band, more that it doesn't do the big band thing particularly well - it's surprising, cos Gustafsson has been involved with some terrific large ensembles, but the things that work really well for the Fire! trio - hypnotic riffs, an engagement with slow burning rock and blues forms - don't really work scaled up. That Orchestra album with the ridiculous Scandi prog vocalist was a chore, and the episodic structure didn't really lend itself to satisfying group interplay. I generally think Gustafsson is at his best in small groups, particularly when it allows him to be subtle. Hearing him do these extended technique and extreme timbres at a low volume is really exciting - the latest Underflow being a case in point.

new Joe Chambers album Samba de Maracatu (on blue note) is cool as..

xp

absolutely concur with you there, Stew

that Ellington video table posted is stunningly good

I was trying to find something else from him many years ago, literally stumbled onto that video. Continually wows me.

https://cuneiformrecords.bandcamp.com/album/never-is-enough

just what I needed tonight ... a new Thumbscrew album.

It's really good; I wrote about it on Friday.

I think it's great that one of the most impressive + out there modern jazz trios of the moment have a track called Emojis Have Consequences!

Hope it is good, was disappointed by The Anthoy Braxton Project: maybe should listen some more, but so far pretty bland, especially her, esp, compared to the Braxton-Chabbourne set I'd recently listened to while posting about, and everything else I've heard by Braxton himself.

Listened to that Blue Note Re:Imagined record with LDN musicians; it's all a bit tasteful and wine bar-y but still some good stuff.

― Daniel_Rf, Thursday, February 25, 2021
Yeah, and you might prefer Kaleidoscope, on Soul Jazz Records, which is even more The Sound of Young London, but doing their own compositions, a wider and sometimes deeper range (haven't heard the digital, but the CD, I know, also the vinyl, I'm told, have very vivid sound, and delving booklet, pretty much a book). It led me to a lot of good 2020s and 2109 releases by K contributors on bandcamp and YouTube.
Discussions of some of these artists and albums can be found on the shape of acid jazz to come: MOSES BOYD's Dark Matter and
A catch-all thread for the current jazz scene in London, including Shabaka Hutchings, Yazz Ahmed, Moses Boyd, Nubya Garcia, Camilla George, Theon Cross, Zara McFarlane, Daniel Casimir, SEED Ensemble,
(and some mentions on RJ 2020 and before)

Those four sample tracks from the Thumbscrew on Bandcamp are fantastic! Added it to my cart right away.

Yeah, I was totally sold 20 seconds in.

Jazz drummer Ralph Peterson Jr., who had been battling cancer for six years, has died. I've heard him on countless records, but only saw him live once, in January 2020, subbing for Billy Hart with the Cookers. It sounded like an avalanche. He was very much of the Art Blakey/Elvin Jones school of jazz drumming; if you were the bassist who had to stand next to him, you might as well just mime your part, because no one was going to hear you.

Fuck, I didn't know he had cancer. He was one of my favorites, this record is a classic in my book:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6MwTVkgY4o

You can only get away with playing like that if you're the leader, but I f'in love it.

Yeah, that's an amazing record; I mean, just look at that band. They made three albums together, and they're all hard as hell.

For those of you who crave Dutch jazz, this is a recent initiative of a series of 50 concerts with 130 different musicians. Ian Cleaver is a musician to follow as he's only in his twenties but already a veteran. This is a video with guitarist Jesse van Ruller.

Something different: this Anthony Coleman album was announced on Twitter by Marc Urselli, but otherwise hard to find (if you use the search function of Bandcmap it won't show up).

The current episode of the NY Times Popcast is all about jazz, with a ton of discussion of Immanuel Wilkins, Georgia Anne Muldrow, various International Anthem releases, and much more. It's hosted by J0n C@r@m@n1c@, who I think is one of the worst big name music critics, but his guests are Giovanni Russonello and Marcus J. Moore, who are both great.

http://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/02/arts/music/popcast-jazz.html

I've always had a blind spot where The Second Great Quintet is concerned: something about the way Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock interact in *this* context, like they encourage each other towards inertia, compared to Miles, Tony Williams, Ron Carter---what are yall's favorite albums by this group, that might get me out of this rut---? I want to believe.

I like Nefertiti best of the studio records I've heard, the heads are very memorable even if the improvisations can get abstract.

Yeah, I'd rank them:

1) Nefertiti
2) Miles Smiles
3) the quintet half of Water Babies
4) the quintet half of Filles de Kilimanjaro
5) E.S.P.
6) Sorcerer
7) Miles in the Sky

The live stuff on the Complete Live at the Plugged Nickel box, Miles In Berlin, and Vol. 1 and Vol. 4 of the Bootleg Series is often better than the studio albums (except for Nefertiti, which really is a masterpiece). Maybe start there.

So this just happened:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CVa1dkkXcY

Not sure what I think yet.

Yeah, I don’t love that. There are two songs with Iggy on the album, and I’m not super into either one. The instrumental stuff, some of which has as many as four horns, is better. In general, though, I kinda feel like Dr. Lonnie’s just running out the clock at this point.

Yeah. In general don't tend to like jazz versions of rock tunes unless they are kind of skronky or at least dig a deep soul jazz groove. This didn't seem to change it up enough.

Prefer this Gabor Szabo vesion, for instance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvFs7OhT1BI

https://www.bricartsmedia.org/events-performances/bric-jazzfest-0

My 2nd quintet faves are Miles Smiles and Filles, with selected tracks from the rest. Maybe I'll make a playlist. :)

That would be good, thanks to you and others above. So far I'm thinking it's my prob with acoustic Herbie in general, in any decade/century. I played one of those Legal-in-Italy CDs (from before Media Lord Berlusconi became PM), Double Image(Moon, 1989), live in Paris, 1969, and here Shorter's effective enough, switching back and forth from tenor to soprano, rattling along between Miles and Chick Corea, with Dave Holland and Tony Williams prividing subway momentum--but then on Paris, France(Moon, 1990), live, 10-01-64, the full Second Quintet, Shorter and Hancock are back to being the blurry center I remember from xpost Water Babies and others, although in this case it may be in part the recording quality (which the other players push through).

However, will check the other live sets recommended, also Nefertiti,E.S.P., and Sorcerer---I did like Filles, but maybe because don't think there was any acoustic Herbie: he played electric piano on the first (?) session, later Corea played acoustic and electric.

Ok, without spending too much time on it, here's my stab at a 2nd quintet playlist:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/45Y69BdICHVVCe0NWXKkIS?si=l-pRLCUERGqcLGTRa__-eA

Tbh Water Babies is a blind spot for me, so nothing from that, I'll be rectifying that though

I'm still getting deeper into that Hafez Modirzadeh album there is about the detuned pianos and his very rich and light artistic touch to playing that really appeals to me.

*something*

Thanks, Jordan!
Re jazz and rock, aside from Gabor Szabo and say Steve Marcus and Larry Coryell giving the Beatles a double shot of freewheeling, usually seems to work better when jazz strategies and of course attitude bring out rock appeal in originals, more than covers.
For instance, another formerly Legal-In-Italy set, Two Miles Live (Discarios, 19??), live in Vienna 11-05-71---boot sites usually say: Wiener Konzerthaus, Vienna (Austria)
Österreischer Rundfunk radio broadcast (B+)

Miles Davis (tpt); Gary Bartz (ss, as); Keith Jarrett (el-p, org); Michael Henderson (el-b); Ndugu Leon Chancler (d); Charles Don Alias (cga, perc); James Mtume Forman (cga, perc)
Yeah, The Lost Septet, never as a full line-up, in the studio at the same time, apparently. Here. Miles draws dry ice and other smoke from the fractive frictions of wah-wah, Echoplex, pitch controls, whatevs, revealing puassing patterns on the inner surfaces of his glass headpiece, also for instance JK's organ sustains metallic sheets which his electric piano hand taps more patterns into, while Gary B's alto and soprano go for microtones from the slaugherhuas, Henderson's bass is bruise as much as blues, drums are all around the town, in a supportive way---Disc One has a *bit* more variety, segmentation; Disc 2 grabs me by the back of neck right off and don't let go.

revealing *passing* patterns, that is (incl indentations)

*KJ*'s organ

That first Count's Rock Band album to which you are referring, Tomorrow Never Knows, is incredible. Believe Xgau wrote something about how it represented something of a Road Not Taken for fusion.

yeah, and while I'm at it, *slaughterhaus*

Here's a reunion version of that band with only those two guys you mentioned, haven't listened to the whole thing yet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHJn1A-LfUY

Oh, here is the title cut from the original album, still sounds grebt!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGT5kHpmH78

Thanks!! Yeah, xgau liked young Coryell a lot, and btw even though he and the other Free Spirits disowned their s/t studio album, fw by suits, Live At The Scene, which came out in 2011, with notes by Bob Moses, who was in or from high school with those dive flights were recorded by a single overhead mic, I think he says, is a lot of fun.

*when* those dive flights were recorded.

Oh, looks like the Free Spirits LP, which I always picture w just their name, actually was titled Out of Sight and Sound: the last part was right, but not as the suits intended us to think.

Here's something Xgau wrote that discussed Coryell: https://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/rock/jazz-71.php

Yeah like how he starts out kinda mumblecore and stoned and wry and otherwise self-involved and (that was a weird year for sure) builds to finale of last two grafs (though still kinda low-key re passing mention of Devotion but think he got more excited when he came back to it later), and will have to check Gato's Fenix, don't recall that title at all.

His later Consumer Guide comments on Coryell releases reflect my impression that he turned out (at least for a while) to be one of those gifted guitarists who could play in a wide variety of styles, and seemed to drift through all of them: here's an album of Texas blues, here's some things I heard in Brazil, here's some bop--cool, but why not just listen to the originals? Maybe he found enough direction for momentum of interest later, I dunno--but oh that youth---I really didn't like most of what got tagged as fusion, but even what I've heard of garish period elements on Eleventh House albums have winning exuberance, just letting it fly in the Face ov Thee Master or whatevs (whether he got into Scientology or numerology or macrobiotic heroin, didn't matter then, not while platters were spinning)

Wonder how his album with Emily Remler is (or was there more than one)?

Somewhere I read a description by Robert Wyatt of a club show where Coryell tried to "duel" with Hendrix, and Hendrix wiping out Coryell's playing with a single power chord.

The Lady Coryell album is a confounding, barely listenable mess.

Believe he had some kind of obsession with Hendrix so not surprised at that story.

The Coryell/Hendrix story is told by Robert Wyatt in Charles Shaar Murray's Crosstown Traffic. Coryell got up to try to cut Hendrix at a club, on the erroneous assumption that his thorough harmonic knowledge and bebop chops would put him over. So after Coryell finished, Hendrix got up, went bowOOWWWW, and as Wyatt put it, "just erased the last ten minutes. It was like walking into a blowtorch. The fool!"

Looool.

I like the Coryell stuff in high school when my friends and I were played tasteless jazz-rock-jam band gigs and it sorta legitimized it, but have no desire to go back to it now.

The early stuff was fun, but that story (like another one about Johnny Winter jamming w Jimi) reminds me of when I went to an Eric Clapton concert in the late 70s, because Muddy Waters was opening. I was kicked back in stoned complacency, even okay with the record playing before the show started, Jefferson Starship or some shit---but his first note jabbed me out of my seat and fully awake for the whole set, quite an achievement---and the audience was as one in that. Clapton, opening with "Badge," was able to capitalize on this, as long as he played the hits and FM-familiar album tracks---but his non-jazz, complicated-as-"complex", sort of prog-blues treks, with Albert Lee, maybe, got crickets in response, although I (still stoned) liked it pretty well. But, maybe especially because this was the Age of Punk in Tuscaloosa, with students blasting "Rock Lobster" and Ramones from their hovels, Mud's music seemed much more timely than that of the younger EC.

First track of this is real feel-good stuff, I dig. out today on Astral Spirits.

https://quinkirchner.bandcamp.com/album/live-at-pro-musica

His album from last year was fantastic. I'll have a listen to that later.

Kevin Whitehead on new Julius Hemphill box: he warns of zig-zag roughness, but def. recommends--really appealing excepts, may have to buy:
Hemphill was a founding member and principal composer for the World Saxophone Quartet. The Boyé Multi-National Crusade for Harmony features seven discs of newly released music from his archives.
stream, download:https://www.npr.org/2021/03/05/973981703/crusade-for-harmony-surveys-the-life-work-of-saxophonist-julius-hemphill

Dutch guitar player Anton Goudsmit has a new release scheduled later this month, but they did a video stream from the Bimhuis with a new band. The music sounds more introverted than his other output (kind of Frisell-ish maybe), but there's a lot going on harmonically/rhythmically.

https://benmonder.bandcamp.com/album/live-at-55-bar

sick Monder/Malaby/Rainey set here.

Bobby Previte shared a recording of The President recorded at CBGB's and in the studio during the 80s.

Intriguing coverage by Peter Margasak, incl. backstory:

Considering the seemingly boundless spring of archival music collections in the marketplace, it’s surprising that so few of them provide genuine revelations outside of micro-details about how a particular tune may have developed over time or has been shaped in a studio. Box set fatigue is understandable, but there are exceptions.

Take, for example, a recent seven-CD excavation of holdings in the archive of the brilliant reedist and composer Julius Hemphill, which not only consists exclusively of previously unissued recordings, but also goes a long way in filling out the complex story of this multifaceted artist whose breadth and vision were seriously short-changed by the recording industry.

https://downbeat.com/news/detail/julius-hemphills-crusade

What a cute couple
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7keXVgj0xk

I like her albums better than anything I've ever heard by him.

Yeah I can't really stand his tone, the only album I ever listened to from him is 'Play', because of Ben Perowsky and Scofield on it. I've never investigated her stuff, but now I'm curious.

I talked to Joe Chambers for the new Burning Ambulance podcast. He has some thoughts about Milford Graves (and free jazz drumming in general)...

Links to listen are below, if you're interested.

Osiris: https://bit.ly/3qyFRl2
Apple: https://apple.co/2OcUqO6
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2ODfMnF

I listened the other day and enjoyed it. Even though I appreciate Milford Graves, I have a lot of sympathy for his pov. Rejecting the pulse entirely can be just as limiting as the rhythmic grid, since then you're basically left with texture and density (in terms of a musical conversation). And of course MG had a whole conceptual framework to go along with the musical one, it's hard to talk about these things without the social context.

But purely musically, I find it a lot more satisfying to listen to someone stretching the boundaries within the context of a pulse, and a little pulse-less music goes a long way.

Speaking of Ben Perowsky, looks like one of my favorite albums of all time is now streaming and on Bandcamp:
https://benperowsky.bandcamp.com/album/ben-perowsky-trio
https://open.spotify.com/album/3t1PNw6bl6kHj8Xo8Z59vH?si=HUlKes4ORCeGJtqzX7_EoQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvymTXIPMaw

Everybody's talking about that.

Yeah, I like how he preserves the melody faithfully in the top voice through individually ringing harmonics and stopped notes even while developing four-voice harmony and counterpoint under it.

Did you learn how to do that in that workshop?

Heh, he'd probably need more than a single workshop to teach it.

I remember him telling me about the blessing he got from another guitarist who was interested in counterpoint and multiline improv.

Somebody told me to watch this before it goes away
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtNWuZgWNQo

Guitarist Julian Lage has signed to Blue Note; his debut for the label, Squint, will be out in June. Here's the first track, "Saint Rose," with Jorge Roeder on bass and Dave King on drums:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feli3FwOiso

Speaking of Dave King, Orrin Evans has left the Bad Plus after two albums. King and Reid Anderson say they're gonna keep working together, possibly as TBP, but it may become something beyond a piano trio. Could be interesting.

Ooh interesting

Bad Plus original lineup reunion for Coachella 2025

I read about the TBP news on Twitter, from Ethan Iverson, who mentioned that he'd never listened to either of the albums they did with Orrin. That kind of surprised me. I don't know why.

Huh, it never occurred to me but I could see it, just too personal.

I do think it makes a lot more sense for TBP to turn into whatever Dave & Reid want to do with whoever, rather than trying to recreate the original dynamic. It does kinda undercut the initial idea of 'the band is the band', but now the band is a bass player and a drummer, so.

New album of piano trio music written by drummer Devin Drobka, who has become one of the main jazz drummers around these parts.

Sounds very composed and spacious, I'm into it:
https://shiftingparadigmrecords.bandcamp.com/album/resorts

Ah, no, that Monder duo video went away now.:(

Think it goes behind a paywall

My latest Stereogum column, in which I go long on Jeremy Pelt's new book of interviews and the need for more black jazz critics, and more artist-to-artist dialogue. I also review some records.

Ooh cool. I've been planning to re-read the Art Taylor book of interviews (which reminds me, I really stalled out on reading that Monk bio).

Burnt Sugar, The Rites ~ Butch Morris Conductions Inspired By Stravinsky's Le Sacre Du Printemps---w Pete Cosey, Melvin Gibbs, Mazz Swift, many more: https://burntsugarthearkestrachamber.bandcamp.com/album/the-rites-butch-morris-conductions-inspired-by-stravinskys-le-sacre-du-printemps

I tend to find one jazz album per year I like enough to buy. This year that would be The Clear Revolution by Cyclone Trio (Massimo Magee, Tony Irving, Tim Green) on 577 RECS . It chaotically lurches with reckless abandon. Play it loud.

http://elsewhere.scdn3.secure.raxcdn.com/images/v95000/articles/cyclone.jpg

http://open.spotify.com/album/6Es2bLAKmLOQU3FCc8l1Au?si=BJMPnsNlT4m2TxOmHVplNA
http://577records.bandcamp.com/album/the-clear-revolution

what's the ilm take on J.D. Beck and DOMi https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/03/10/magazine/jd-beck-domi.html ?

They're great. Especially J.D. Beck, I've been on his drumming videos for a long time now and he's a young genius.

I'm looking forward to them making/appearing on more actual records someday, instead of just being virtuoso Youtube celebs. But maybe that's an old brain way of looking at it.

yeah they're crazy live, and I can def stand what they do more than the louis cole style of younger virtuoso ppl, but idk if there's anything more to them than their chops. I haven't really heard anything they've done that I would want to listen to outside of seeing them play

looking forward to the live koma saxo record https://wejazzrecords.bandcamp.com/album/live

I found that Times story insufferable. Their music was...fine. Teenagers making music for teenagers. Good for them. But very much Not For Me.

I hadn't read it, but mark my words, JD Beck is going to be around. His videos are popular not because he's made a particular effort to make them so (like Jacob Collier or whoever), it's because he really does have his own style that's already been influential. He's a drummer's drummer, it's not all memes or serving up watered-down gospel chops.

But yeah, he's yet to make a good record as far as I know.

hehe, enjoying both takes

Koma Saxo sounds great

I just hated the way that Times article looked, I didn't want to have anything to do with it.

Little late, but I just got my copy. This Pino Palladion/Blake Mills record is fantastic. I only wish it were longer.

ECM announced a new trio disc with Vijay Iyer, Tyshawn Sorey and Linda May Han O.

NYT does that every year, I believe spearheaded by our own Nitsuh

Then I watched this duo do “Giant Steps” — not Bieber and Aguilera, but the drummer J.D. Beck (16 at the time) and the keyboard player DOMi (19) — and I thought, in this exact order: Oh. Oh, my. Wow. What? WHAT? After a few minutes I started emitting short, snorting laughs. Not because the music was funny, but because you have got to be kidding me: Who were these kids?

this is like ... a standard "challenging" song of high school combo jazz not an obscurity or something

difficult ofc but

Seriously, doesn't every jazz kid learn "Giant Steps"? I don't know who the author of that piece is but he's very easily impressed.

I don't think the fact that they're playing Giant Steps is the point, but that the way they're playing it is very them, and not particularly like anyone else (although it's clearly influenced by Glasper/Chris Dave etc)

the visuals on that NYT piece turned me off but i'm enjoying listening to domi and beck and am bookmarking a selection to deep dive... I certainly get the appeal!

yeah, fuck i'm gonna really like these kids aren't i

(koma saxo track also great btw)

glad that nyt thing is stuck behind a paywall for me so i don't have to get mad at the writing

Vijay Iyer interview by Morgan Enos. Discusses his upcoming album and has some interesting points about jazz history and why he avoids the term: https://www.grammy.com/grammys/news/2021-vijay-iyer-interview-linda-oh-tyshawn-sorey-uneasy

https://punktvrtplastikintakt.bandcamp.com/album/somit

new Punkt.Vrt.Plastik album is another of the extremely good piano trios about right now.

Stunning new operatic piece from Tyshawn Sorey. Only up for 24 hours so set aside 20 minutes and dive in. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/magazine/tyshawn-sorey.html

Dang, did I miss?

That just leads to the older Times feature on him

Stunning new operatic piece from Tyshawn Sorey. Only up for 24 hours so set aside 20 minutes and dive in. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/magazine/tyshawn-sorey.html🕸

Prestige Records is now on Bandcamp. They're puttng their catalog up in chunks and it's kinda piecemeal right now, but there's some good stuff there.

This was officially released last Friday, but I'm listening to it this afternoon, and it's destroying my mind. Really great.

https://astralahmed.bandcamp.com/album/nights-on-saturn-communication

probably the best place for this. been really loving the new Chris Corsano & Bill Orcutt https://billorcutt.bandcamp.com/album/made-out-of-sound

x-post - ah sorry, I posted the wrong link! It's still up, but you have to pay now. https://www.operaphila.tv/2020-2021/videos/save-the-boys?fbclid=IwAR19E2erZKhE2dTqLfm4AVJzKTlv4I0GAF8zzmYOqF4V6avgbL5LTRvEh9I

Jason Moran
@morethan88
6:30 PM · Apr 1, 2021
Graves/Moran live at @BigEarsFestival
2018 releases at midnight. Features another performance from @ICAPhiladelphia
/ @ArsNovaWorkshop
. Mind-Body.

https://jasonmoran.bandcamp.com/album/graves-moran-live-at-big-ears

On the UK Soul Jazz label, which has a lot of releases on Amazon US etc.---I used to see this in the cooler stores, somehow never bought it:

https://soundsoftheuniverse.com/img/UVJkSEJESHJYTkRnN3FQMzEvdkF6Zz09/sjr-lp442-steve-reid-nova-sleeve-copy.jpg

Steve Reid
Nova (1976)
Soul Jazz Records

LP * Download Code
CD
MP3

As a radical jazz artist, Steve Reid played with an extraordinary group of artists – including Miles Davis, Sun Ra, Fela Kuti, James Brown, Ornette Coleman, Lester Bowie, Freddie Hubbard, Jackie McLean, Dionne Warwick, Archie Shepp, Chief Bey, Olatunji, Arthur Blythe, , Dextor Gordon, Gary Bartz, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Sam Rivers, Leon Thomas, Lonnie Smith and Horace Silver!

Reid was born in the South Bronx, and grew up in Queens, New York. He played in the house band at Harlem's Apollo Theatre, accompanying James Brown, as well as playing in Sun Ra's Arkestra. He lived next to John Coltrane, worked in a department store with Ornette Coleman, had a son who played drums with NWA. He began his career as a teenager in the 1960s as a drummer at Motown when he played on Martha and The Vandellas "Heatwave" (aged 14).

At the end of the 1960s Reid was sentenced to four years in jail as a conscientious objector of the Vietnam war. On his release from prison in 1974, he formed the Legendary Master Brotherhood and started the independent record label, Mustevic Sound, to release his debut LP Nova in 1976. This album is released in its entirety and with full original cover art here. Nova was the first in a series of stunning independent records he released in the 1970s.

At the start of the 21st century, his career took a new twist when Steve Reid began a successful collaboration with Kieran Hebden (Four Tet). Hebden referred to Reid as his ‘musical soul mate’, resulting in a number of joint albums.

Steve Reid died in New York in 2010. Subsequently the Steve Reid Foundation was set up in his name, to help aspiring musicians and artists
More info, excerpts of all tracks:
https://soundsoftheuniverse.com/sjr/product/steve-reid-nova

Love that album!

On today's Fresh Air:
The late Philadelphia pianist and composer Hasaan Ibn Ali recorded only two albums. The first was a celebrated 1964 session titled "The Max Roach Trio Featuring The Legendary Hasaan." The following year, he recorded a quartet date that went unreleased and was long believed lost. Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead says its rediscovery is cause for renewed celebration.
Good excerpts! https://www.npr.org/2021/04/06/984703269/newly-unearthed-1965-album-represents-hasaan-ibn-alis-posthumous-vindication

I pre-ordered that about six months ago, as soon as it was announced. I expect to be surprised when it lands in my PO box.

I'm being sent a copy of Mosaic's new Louis Armstrong box, The Complete Louis Armstrong Columbia & RCA Victor Studio Sessions 1946-66. Gonna write about it for Stereogum for sure.

Also from Soul Jazz storefront, Sounds of the Universe, incl. Sunny Murray:

https://soundsoftheuniverse.com/img/UnRJeVBPMWJnYkx4cUZLUVhvTnhndz09/infinity-khan-jamal.jpg
Khan Jamal
Infinity
Jazz Room Records
LP
Expected April 16

**Reissue of this sought-after, self-released jazz album from 1984, featuring the classic 'The Known Unknown'!**

Vibes maestro Khan Jamal's 'Infinity' features a stellar line up, a drums and percussion-rich sextet that features altoist Byard Lancaster and a Philadelphia-based rhythm section, Clifton Burton on harmonica and the legendary free drummer Sunny Murray.
More info, audio:
https://soundsoftheuniverse.com/product/khan-jamal-infinity

Interesting piece on the history of the Real Book: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-real-book/

Yeah, good stuff, thanks.

alls I'm going to listen to today is that new Vijay Iyer with Linda May Han Oh & Tyshawn Sorey

Three new releases on Relative Pitch Records' Bandcamp page, including one with Susan Alcorn.

OK have listened to the new Vijay Iyer about a dozen times now, it's in turns exhilarating, elegant and quite beautiful.

freakin love the vijay iyer record

yep!

This seems like it could be of interest to people who like Bill Evans more than I do.

CRAFT RECORDINGS CELEBRATES THE LEGACY OF BILL EVANS WITH FIRST-EVER CAREER-SPANNING COLLECTION, EVERYBODY STILL DIGS BILL EVANS: A CAREER RETROSPECTIVE (1956–1980)

5-CD deluxe set (also available digitally) spotlights legendary jazz pianist’s work as a leader and co-leader, with over 60 choice cuts including an entire
previously unreleased live concert

Breakout title ‘On a Friday Evening’ offers newly discovered concert from 1975 in Vancouver, B.C. as a standalone live album (available in 2-LP, CD, and digital formats)

Both titles due out June 25th

Craft Recordings proudly honors the pioneering jazz artist Bill Evans and his enduring musical contributions, with two new titles. The first—a deluxe, five-CD box set and digital album, titled Everybody Still Digs Bill Evans: A Career Retrospective (1956–1980)—marks the first-ever career-spanning collection of music from the pianist, featuring over 60 tracks that spotlight Evans’ exceptional work as a leader and co-leader. The expansive set also includes a previously unreleased live performance from 1975, captured at Oil Can Harry’s in Vancouver, B.C. This recently unearthed concert recording will also be issued as a standalone album, titled On a Friday Evening, which will be available on 2-LP, CD and digital formats, including hi-res 192/24 and 96/24. Both titles will be released June 25th and are available for pre-order today, with the previously unheard live track “Up with the Lark” available for immediate download as an instant grat. single (listen and pre-save here). Special bundles featuring a new Bill Evans T-shirt and mug are also available exclusively at the Craft Recordings online store.

Everybody Still Digs Bill Evans: A Career Retrospective (1956–1980) spans the pianist’s Riverside, Milestone, Fantasy, Verve, Warner Bros., and Elektra/Musician catalogs, and features such collective personnel as Tony Bennett, Cannonball Adderley, Kenny Burrell, Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, Eddie Gomez, Shelly Manne, and Lee Konitz, among many others. Produced by Nick Phillips, the five-CD collection comes housed in a fabric-wrapped, hard-cover book, containing 48 pages of photos and ephemera, as well as new liner notes from the GRAMMY® Award-winning writer, radio host, and music journalist, Neil Tesser, who offers insight into the life and career of Evans through recent and archival interviews with a variety of subjects, as well as a deep survey of the box set’s tracks. Also available across digital and streaming platforms, Everybody Still Digs Bill Evans includes newly remastered audio by GRAMMY®-winning engineer, Paul Blakemore.

The majority of the box set’s musical selections are culled from Evans’ trios, with whom he released over 40 albums. Discs one and two offer highlights from those recordings, with the first disc spotlighting his Riverside sessions and spanning Evans’ earliest days working with Philly Joe Jones, Teddy Kotick, Paul Chambers, and Sam Jones, to solidifying a group with drummer Paul Motian and bassist Scott LaFaro, who died tragically in 1961, to the post-LaFaro trios featuring Motian, Chuck Israels, and Larry Bunker. The second disc focuses on Evans’ trio recordings from the mid-’60s onwards, collaborating with sidemen like Eddie Gomez, Marty Morell, Eliot Zigmund, Gary Peacock, Jack DeJohnette, Joe LaBarbera, and Marc Johnson.

Evans’ many solo recordings were also an important aspect of his career, garnering him two of his seven GRAMMY® Awards (for 1963’s Conversations with Myself and 1968’s Alone). Disc three of the collection spotlights the pianist’s performances unaccompanied by others (some are truly “solo” while others feature Evans accompanying himself by way of overdubbing), including some of his seminal works like “Peace Piece” and “N.Y.C.'s No Lark,” as well as his musical composition to his son, “Letter to Evan,” and the Miles Davis-penned “Nardis,” which, in a lengthy and abstract solo piano exposition, Evans made wholly his own.

Disc four, meanwhile, focuses on Evans’ non-trio collaborations—of which there were many. Highlights include his famous duet partnerships with legendary vocalist Tony Bennett and lyrical guitarist Jim Hall, and a rare pairing with fellow pianist and interviewer Marian McPartland, excerpted from her long-running NPR show. Evans’ work within quartet and quintet settings is also highlighted on this disc, with such esteemed musicians as Cannonball Adderley, Stan Getz, Freddie Hubbard, Toots Thielemans, Zoot Sims, and Lee Konitz.

For the final disc of Everybody Still Digs Bill Evans, fans will enjoy a newly discovered live performance by the Bill Evans Trio, featuring Eddie Gomez on bass and Eliot Zigmund on drums. Available in its entirety, the previously unreleased concert took place on June 20, 1975, at Oil Can Harry’s—an intimate club that operated until 1977 in Vancouver, BC. The show was captured for Canadian radio host Gary Barclay, who served as the evening’s announcer, and later aired the set on his popular CHQM jazz show. Then, for nearly half a century, the tapes lay forgotten—until now. Thanks to audio restoration by Plangent Processes and meticulous mastering by Blakemore, the intimate recording sounds just as fresh today as it did more than 45 years ago.

The concert will also be released as a standalone album, On a Friday Evening, and will be available on two 180-gram vinyl LPs, CD, and across digital and streaming platforms. The nine-track outing includes an adaptation of original liner notes from Tesser, who incorporates new interviews with trio members Eddie Gomez and Eliot Zigmund, along with meticulous, track-by-track details on the evening’s program—which included both original compositions and standards.

On a Friday Evening also offers listeners the rare chance to hear Evans and his bandmates settling into a new reconfiguration of the trio, which Zigmund had joined just months before. Tesser explains that this live recording “merits attention, and much of that comes from hearing Zigmund, in an intimate setting away from the concert hall, finding his place in the lineage of the most important piano trio of its era—a trio that for 15 years had exploded the established piano-plus-accompanists model and replaced it with a true trialogue among instruments.”

Indeed, Zigmund knew he was on a different plane entirely, playing alongside Evans. In the notes for Everybody Still Digs Bill Evans, Tesser proclaims, “In the history of 20th-century piano, the music of Bill Evans constitutes an inflection point…. There have been only a handful of pianists…whose innovations so strongly altered the prevailing aesthetic that the timeline breaks down into ‘before’ and ‘after.’”

One of the most influential artists in the history of jazz, Bill Evans (1929–1980), was known for his conversational interplay within his trios, his lyrical compositions, and his matchless approach to the piano. In less than three decades, the prolific artist released over 50 albums as a leader, garnering seven GRAMMY® Awards, 31 GRAMMY®-nominations and two inductions into the GRAMMY® Hall of Fame. In 1994, he was honored posthumously with the GRAMMY® Lifetime Achievement Award. Cited as an influence by everyone from Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea to Eliane Elias and Robert Glasper, Bill Evans’ work continues to inspire new generations of musicians today.

Tracklist - Everybody Still Digs Bill Evans: A Career Retrospective (1956–1980):

Disc One: Trialogues, Vol. 1
1. Five
2. Woody'N You [take 2]
3. Young and Foolish
4. Autumn Leaves
5. How Deep Is the Ocean
6. Sweet and Lovely
7. Blue in Green
8. How My Heart Sings
9. Re: Person I Knew
10. My Foolish Heart (live)
11. Waltz for Debby (live)
12. Gloria's Step (live)
13. My Man's Gone Now (live)
14. Swedish Pastry (live)

Disc Two: Trialogues, Vol. 2
1. Israel
2. The Peacocks
3. I Believe in You
4. Santa Claus Is Coming to Town
5. I Will Say Goodbye
6. Turn Out the Stars (live)
7. Walkin' Up (live)
8. Very Early (live)
9. Minha (All Mine) (live)
10. My Romance (live)
11. Days of Wine and Roses (live)
12. The Touch of Your Lips (live)
13. Someday My Prince Will Come (live)

Disc Three: Monologues
1. Peace Piece
2. Danny Boy
3. Make Someone Happy
4. A Time for Love
5. Waltz for Debby
6. The Bad and the Beautiful
7. N.Y.C.'s No Lark
8. Emily
9. Remembering the Rain
10. I Loves You Porgy (live)
11. Letter to Evan (live)
12. Nardis (live)

Disc Four: Dialogues & Confluences
1. My Funny Valentine
2. A Face Without a Name
3. The Touch of Your Lips (Vocal Version)
4. I Love You
5. Up with the Lark (live)
6. Funkallero (live)
7. Who Cares?
8. Body and Soul
9. You and the Night and the Music
10. Time Remembered
11. Night and Day
12. A Child is Born
13. Peri's Scope

Disc Five: Epilogue
1. Sareen Jurer (live)
2. Sugar Plum (live)
3. The Two Lonely People (live)
4. T. T. T. (Twelve Tone Tune) (live)
5. Quiet Now (live)
6. Up with the Lark (live)
7. How Deep Is the Ocean (live)
8. Blue Serge (live)
9. Nardis (live)


Tracklist - On a Friday Evening (LP-edition):

Side A
1. Sareen Jurer (live)
2. Sugar Plum (live)

Side B
1. The Two Lonely People (live)
2. T. T. T. (Twelve Tone Tune) (live)
3. Quiet Now (live)

Side C
1. Up with the Lark (live)
2. How Deep Is the Ocean (live)

Side D
1. Blue Serge (live)
2. Nardis (live)

* Tracklist for CD and digital editions mirror vinyl.

Not necessary for me, but I'm interested in the live concert!

XXXXXXXXXXXpost Vijay the stomping kicking hairline clarity centering xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxpost Burnt Sugar's The Rites too.

Welp unperson just now jumped for this ("Yes Please!") on Twitter:

Disc 1: WADADA LEO SMITH & MILFORD GRAVES
01-03 Nyoto 1-3 / 04 Baby Dodds In Congo Square / 05 Celebration Rhythms / 06 Poetic Sonics / 07 The Poet: Play Ebony, Play Ivory (For Henry Dumas)

Disc 2: WADADA LEO SMITH & BILL LASWELL
01 Ascending the Sacred Waterfall - A Ceremonial Practice / 02 Prince - The Blue Diamond Spirit / 03 Donald Ayler´s Rainbow Summit / 04 Tony Williams / 05 Mysterious Night / 06 Earth - A Morning Song / 07 Minnie Riperton - The Chicago Bronzeville Master Blaster

Disc 3: WADADA LEO SMITH, BILL LASWELL & MILFORD GRAVES
01 Social Justice - A Fire for Reimagining the World / 02.Myths of Civilizations and Revolutions / 03 Truth in Expansion / 04 The Healer´s Direct Energy / 05 Waves of Elevated Horizontal Forces / 06 An Epic Journey Inside the Center of Color / 07 Ruby Red Largo - A Sonnet

Wadada Leo Smith Trumpet
Bill Laswell Basses
Milford Graves Drums and percussion
International release:

May 21, 2021

Sacred Ceremonies brings together three distinct and highly influential movements in contemporary creative music, convening in a once-in-a-lifetime meeting of wholly singular minds...
http://tumrecords.com/box-003-sacred-ceremonies

... as well as a second 3cd box with solo work

Thanks! Also, now I see this, from 2019:
Wadada Leo Smith
PURE LOVE. AN ORATORIO OF SEVEN SONGS
This new major work is composed for the iconic civil rights hero Rosa Parks (1913-2005) and performed by three vocalists, a double-quartet and a drummer with electronics. The album is released in February 2019 to celebrate Rosa Parks´ birthday on February 4.
Texts by Wadada Leo Smith, except text for "No Fear" by Rosa Parks
http://tumrecords.com/057-rosa-parks

Is the Hasaan ibn ali going on streaming ?

Maybe it will--release is April 23 (not seeing digital btw).

That label (Omnivore) puts a fair amount of their stuff on Spotify.

As discussed on the International Anthem thread, the Damon Locks/Angel Bat Dawid/etc. album is really really good.

Checking out the Iyer/Sorey/Oh album now, seems promising.

Do these labels really not release digitally? That Smith/Laswell/Graves thing is exactly up my alley, but in order to play CDs, I would have to drag out an old computer, import the CDs, put them on my external HD, then move them to my current computer.

CDs are literal garbage, it's absurd that any label would still be relying on them in this day and age.

I still buy cds and prefer them to both overpriced, shoddy quality vinyl and streaming

should always be an option to purchase digitally though, I agree

Checking back, can confirm that the Iyer trio is a.) a jam, and b.) my jam. Great conversational back and forth between all three, lots of energy.

Listening to the Vijay Iyer record, hating the drum sound (bc it's the same anemic close mic'ed sound as 98% of modern jazz records)

xp lol

Oh right, forgot it's on ECM :)

I like the drums! What don't you like?

Too much skitter, not enough thump?

Tum and RogueArt are two labels I can think of offhand that do not do downloads or streaming. No idea why. Even the anti-streaming classical labels have make FLAC downloads available.

Listening to the Vijay Iyer record, hating the drum sound (bc it's the same anemic close mic'ed sound as 98% of modern jazz records)

Having seen this trio live, I agree about the drums. Sorey's been ECM-ized. Live with this band, he sounds like a cross between Billy Cobham and Gene Hoglan.

Close-mic'ed, no room sound, super-separated, compressed either not enough or in a very bland way.

I compared against Now He Sings, Now He Sobs and it was like night and day, but that's not fair. So I pulled up a few more recent jazz records with drum sounds that I like, and all of them sound much more like a whole drum kit and are much more exciting to hear:

-Joshua Redman record from last year w/Brian Blade
-Mark Turner 'Dharma Days' w/Nasheet Waits
-Christian McBride 'A Family Affair' w/Gregory Hutchinson
-Nicholas Payton 'Relaxin' with Nick' w/Kenny Washington

I hear what you mean, tho I wouldn't say there's no room sound. I think there's a fair amount of space in the mix, his cymbals have a lot of shimmer. I feel like it's a good companion to Iyer's kind of precise, staccato playing. It's a bit of a mathematical vibe, but that's his thing.

No prob w drums x perc sound on xpost Damon Locks - Black Monument Ensemble's NOW---although, as tends to happen in my bandcamp streaming experiences, I have to turn it up more than elsewhere to get what I want, but once I do that yeah this is good---that link one more time: https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/now (Should spring for the flac no doubt).

Oh and was startled by bold drums & percussion (& everything else) of Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah's Axiom last year---also on bandcamp, but no need to turn that one up: https://christianscott.bandcamp.com/

Axiom is excellent, yeah.

I guess I didn't notice Sorey's playing much, which is not something I would have expected.

I might personally write Tum and tell them that they will continue to be irrelevant past a certain demographic unless they begin to offer digital downloads.

(Just a note that I do not use any streaming services...if it's available digitally or on vinyl, I try to buy it... If not, well, slsk it is...that this happens more with jazz releases says something IMHO. It's like how Underground Resistance could be making bank on an mp3 site, but...alas, none is emerging, it seems).

Really don't get this CD hate. They're a perfectly good format and often better for lengthy jazz sets. And they're cheap, especially when it comes to reissues. If you've got a hi-fi set up for vinyl, then adding in a CD player isn't a big deal - you can get good ones pretty cheap these days.

Rogue Art's old school approach is admirable in certain respects, but they are missing a trick by not offering DLs. Their stuff is beautifully curated and produced - deserves to be heard more widely.

Rogue Art goes one step further by (as far as I know) not having a publicist, either. Matt Shipp and I have had rueful conversations about this in the past. They seem to have zero interest in the issue of whether anyone hears their records or not.

They sent me their stuff for a while, which was lovely, but lately I've tended to have their stuff sent directly by the artists.

x-post Tend to agree about the Iyer. Strong music, but the ECM tastefulness comes into the composition/performance as well as the production. Would love to hear this band live and hear the difference. Saw Iyer's Sextet a couple of years ago and while it wasn't exactly ragged fire music, it had more bite than on record.

CDs are a good high-quality format, wtf.

In some defense, Tum releases are beautifully packaged, but I definitely need fewer physical “things” and I still want to support the artists/label.

That's fair - my romantic attachment to physical media has taken a hit after moving house recently. I love having a good collection in the flat, but limited space means it needs regular pruning. Now we're coming out of UK lockdown, I'll be taking a fair bit of stuff to my local record store and charity shops. The jazz ain't going nowhere though.

perhaps i'm a boring fucker, but I can't understand how someone can listen to that incredibly good new Vijay album and their main takeaway is: meh, too much ECM!

lmao a convo about ecm tastefulness in 2021, interesting

not sure i even hear one iota of anyone’s problem with the drum sound on the iyer

I interviewed Seth Rosner and Yulun Wang of Pi Recordings for my podcast. Wanna know how to keep an independent jazz label running for 20 years? Here's how. Links to listen:

Osiris - https://bit.ly/3toETtQ
Apple - https://apple.co/3dmbHOi
Spotify - https://spoti.fi/32iCOnf

It just feels like the recording & mixing (for piano too!) doesn't serve the music, by making it less exciting than it actually is. Works for those more ambient & less busy Eurojazz ECM records, not for something like this.

Still been thinking about that Rudy Van Gelder interview I found awhile back, and how people think those old Blue Note records are some sort of neutral document, but he talks about all these things he did to specifically hype up the sounds, to simulate the excitement of seeing the music live.

Anyway I'm glad people are enjoying the record, wish I could enjoy it more!

Also the Damon Locks album is cool, although it satisfies something other than the 'jazz' part of my brain (more like listening to electronic music). I saw Dana Hall with the Saturday night band at the Green Mill once (fka Sabertooth?), with a ton of all-stars in the audience (Kamasi, Makaya, etc), and he sounded amazing.

Looking forward to the new Joe Lovano/Dave Douglas Sound Prints album...the last one was great

My latest Stereogum column is up. I wrote about the new Vijay Iyer, Wadada Leo Smith, and Floating Points/Pharoah Sanders albums, among others, but I also wrote a whole long thing about Louis Armstrong.

The other day I listened to Bobby Hutcherson's last album, with Billy Hart, Joey DeFrancesco, and (wait for it) David Sanborn. It's...really good! Particularly DeFrancesco.

christ almighty Axiom is an incredible album!!

ph1l i want your column as a newsletter :)

christ almighty Axiom is an incredible album!!

― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, April 21, 2021 5:02 PM (ten minutes ago)

Assuming you're talking about the Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah live album, I've been getting obsessed with this lately myself as well as Stretch Music (plus I just ordered the Centennial Trilogy)

yes indeed.

just imagining being in the room while this music is being played makes me lowkey freak out!

Ha, I actually slept on listening to Axiom for a long time because I saw him on the Ancestral Recall tour; it was really incredible. He's a powerfully magnetic stage presence. Also the drums were insanely loud lol

also thanks Jordan for mentioning "Relaxin With Nick" - kind of other end of the spectrum from Christian Scott but it totally hits my spot. It's on by default in my house for the last couple of days and there's always something that makes me perk up and go 'huh'

Payton's an interesting character in general

It just feels like the recording & mixing (for piano too!) doesn't serve the music, by making it less exciting than it actually is. Works for those more ambient & less busy Eurojazz ECM records, not for something like this.

this makes sense to me!!!! unfortunately i like to remain really ignorant about production details (cf. the recent conversation about '70s jazz production making no sense to me whatsoever). on repeat listens however i have been sorta noticing that the atmosphere around sorey's drums is v tight and a little airless... but i still love the sound of the record, the ambient eurojazz production applied to a piano trio record, for whatever it sacrifices in room sound, makes it feel like they're all playing at least a few inches above the ground. also really appreciate pretty much all of iyer's solos on the record, something about his playing feels v... syntactical to me, like it has the rhythms of an improvised speech, in a good way. this is something i noticed while stoned and falling asleep to the record so it could be way off

I think syntactical is a good description of Iyer's playing, with the caveat that he's somebody with pretty precise diction. Improvised, but like one of those friends who's able to conjure whole paragraphs with elegant metaphors out of thin air. I'm totally a dilettante, but I can almost always recognize his playing when I hear it.

"Relaxin With Nick" - kind of other end of the spectrum from Christian Scott but it totally hits my spot.

Nice, it's pretty amazing how he makes playing trumpet and keys at the same time so natural and non-gimmicky. If you haven't checked out that Tiny Desk concert, it's fantastic.

I do like his writing too, wish I liked his more r&b/electronic records more, but oh well.

Payton annoys me, but in a "I have chosen to ignore this person" way rather than a "Grr, I hate that guy" way.

he definitely seems to have made it his business to be annoying in a certain way and I too don’t like his R&B records but his ornery sense of humour really works for me in those Relaxin songs.

Re: Louis Armstrong, I never got it until I started spending time in New Orleans and heard a ton of other great New Orleans trumpet players. Then I realized, oh, he was a great New Orleans trumpet player, and he wrote the playbook.

(I wrote a bunch more about chops and brass band and Miles Davis and deleted it)

The Hot Fives and Sevens box from the '90s was the key to me. It helped that it came out when I was spending a lot of time digging into '20s and '30s music, and it was just so obvious what a blaze of talent and inspiration he was. There was one point in my infatuation where I would have told you Satch was the most important American artist in any field in the first half of the 20th century. I wouldn't go that far these days, but he's on a shortlist for sure. I even have a lot of tolerance for his corny stuff, just because I feel like he was such an important cultural presence. (And a hell of a jazz singer, too, but definitely his playing is the magic stuff.)

(I guess that box was actually 2000, not the '90s.)

https://jamesbrandonlewis.bandcamp.com/album/jesup-wagon

the new JBL quintet is looking like a top notch band (inc William Parker on two tracks)

The JBL is gorgeous. Really strong writing and the combination of players/instruments is inspired. Particularly dig the cello/ngoni grooves on a couple of tracks. Lewis has been building up a really impressive catalogue, but this feels like a real breakthrough.

Sorry, guimbri not ngoni!

it sounds fucking tremendous on my first listen. I got it off slsk but will pay for it when it's officially available.

The self-titled Broken Shadows album (Tim Berne, Chris Speed, Reid Anderson and Dave King playing tunes by Ornette Coleman, Julius Hemphill, Charlie Haden and Dewey Redman) that was originally part of a super-expensive vinyl box from the Newvelle label a couple of years ago is being reissued on CD by Intakt, with two extra tracks. I saw Broken Shadows at the Jazz Standard and had a blast; glad this is gonna reach a slightly larger audience.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EzqGM30XEAE-Gor?format=jpg&name=small

there is this lost album by the "Legendary" Hasaan as well.

Funny, I've had Tutu in my head for a few weeks now (not the studio version, the Live Around the World version):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv3EbfQtj2w

I'd like to hear that Broken Shadows record, I saw them in a small art gallery space and it was great, but pretty intense for that room. I preferred the more stripped down Dave King + Chris Potter trio gig a few months before, which hey, it looks like is all on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi40sqsdglE

Wadada Leo Smith's very zen Sun Beans of Shimmering Light is his best album in years, even though apparently for some strange reason it has been been gathering dust on a shelf for years. Astral Spirits is quickly turning into one of my fave record labels.

^ The Chris Speed trio is so good--have given those two recent albums on Intakt plenty of listens over past small handful of years.

Speaking of Astral Spirits, the two opening tracks of this new Rob Frye sound great--slowed-down birdsong melodies (Given that all three members are part of this band, maybe a missed opp to call themselves Bitchin Birdies?): https://astralexoplanet.bandcamp.com/album/exoplanet

This Pitchfork review of Sonny Sharrock's Ask the Ages is kind of a mixed bag. On the one hand, there's a lot of solid analysis of the record and good insight into Sharrock himself. On the other hand, to give Last Exit no more than a glance, and to ignore 1970's Monkey-Pockie-Boo and 1986's Guitar entirely, seem like pretty big oversights.

BTW, Real Gone Records put out a 2CD live Herbie Mann set, Live at the Whisky 1969: The Unreleased Masters, in 2016, that features a lot of Sonny (and Linda!) Sharrock; in addition to Mann's material, they got a mid-set interlude where they played a couple of pieces from Black Woman. Well worth digging up if you can find one.

lol can’t even tell you how many times i’ve pitched a sunday review of ask the ages

I don't bother pitching there anymore. Total silence every time.

I don't know why I had trouble appreciating Ask the Ages, I like Sharrock and Sanders otherwise. I found the drum sound clattery, but I liked Iron Path, also produced by Laswell, and that is mostly clatter!

Ethan Iverson sight-reads a number of standards from the original sheet music (thread):

*sight-read from the sheet music* No 1. "Stella by Starlight" (Victor Young & Ned Washington) #ivershow pic.twitter.com/Z3W5pLrWSy

— Ethan Iverson (@ethan_iverson) April 22, 2021

ha it really is "Sun Beans"

I like that Rob Frye record, and the Wadada Leo Smith record. I have to say, the 2021 subscription deal that Astral Spirits were running at the end of last year has shown to be a really great investment, will subscribe for next year too.

Just heard a version of “Cherokee” that was arranged like “Soulful Strut” and found out it was by this artist, these artists: https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/kamasi-washington-makaya-mccraven/Event?oid=19053645

is this where we're discussing the Arooj Aftab? It's very nice.

we were talking a little on the rolling outernational thread, but I am swooning for this one right so: Arooj Aftab

Thanks, that's lovely.

Some intriguing descriptions here, and I find Nezelhorns is an ensemble that demonstrates a harmonious nature, even when it feels like they’re coming apart at the seams especially relatable--time to take the plunge:
https://daily.bandcamp.com/best-jazz/the-best-jazz-on-bandcamp-april-2021

both of the sons of kemet singles are great but "to never forget the source" is best of the young year material.

agreed, at this point I'm in trying not to get too hyped mode wrt that album

Listening to that Silent Room record right now. It's gorgeous, exactly what I want right now.

big moon dog energy from sons of kemet

I know Evan Parker is an insane conspiracist, but my illegal download of the record with Natural Information Society is doing me really well this morning into afternoon. Really great record.

You should probably buy that despite the covidiot aspect because both Abrams and Eremite are doing good work and could probably use the dough, and also it's one of the best albums of the year

covidiocy as a justification for piracy = dud

Holding out in the hopes of a domestic CD issue.

there was an interview with Alexander Hawkins in the freejazz blog where he talked quite a bit about working with EP but no questions or mentions of the covidiocy. And then in the same blog a 5 star review of EP's latest album with also no mention of it. Quite odd really considering another reviewer fretted at great length over if he was even correct to be reviewing a Jerimiah Cymerman album with a title taken from a longread by some beyond the pale right-wing blogger arsehole.

$15 USD for four digital files? In my world, that's known as highway robbery. I support the label and I've supported Abrams in other ways by buying other records.

OTM!

I wouldn't give a fucking ha'penny to Parker.

That price is insane, but Abrams is a good dude and deserves support, imo. Of course I'm assuming that even collaborating with Parker will have folks looking at him askance, but this set was recorded two years ago.

I know Alexander Hawkins is definitely not an idiot of any stripe and I wouldn't judge him for working with Parker, and his contribution to his last album very good tbf.

The Broken Shadows (Berne/Speed/Anderson/King) digital reissue that Phi1 unperson typed about upthread on April 23rd is now up on Bandcamp for pre-order, and does indeed sound great to these ears: https://intaktrec.bandcamp.com/album/broken-shadows

Poet Anthony Joseph has a really good album with a jazz band coming out on Friday with the awesome title The Rich Are Only Defeated When Running For Their Lives; Shabaka Hutchings plays on two tracks.

https://anthonyjosephofficial.bandcamp.com/album/the-rich-are-only-defeated-when-running-for-their-lives

Recorded an hour-long interview with Wadada Leo Smith for my podcast today. A great conversation; I'll post it in about two weeks.

Cool! Looking forward to it.

Recorded an hour-long interview with Wadada Leo Smith for my podcast today. A great conversation; I'll post it in about two weeks.

That's great. Yesterday I discovered this interview from 2011. Someone should write a Primer on him for The Wire, as there are so many records to choose from.

Yeah, I did a cover story on him for them in 2009 but he's put out an absolute flood of material since then.

Drummer Jim Black's piano trio released an album in 2020 and it's sick:

https://jimblackintakt.bandcamp.com/album/reckon
https://open.spotify.com/album/4EQYsloQ9MVJ5YIlbDMxwu?si=WidwJ7jkQqezOsIjVV0Vtw

I wish all the recent Wadada material was available in the States without paying import prices. Most of the new material (box sets, collaborations, etc) on TUM looks super enticing but I can't afford physical copies of any of it.

ImportCDs.com has good prices on a lot of his stuff.

Going back through the Jim Black catalog today, the ones with Marc Ducret and Hank Roberts are really nice. Sort of avant Americana.

Those guys are all part of the Tim Berne Expanded Universe, so I should probably give a listen.

Welp, somebody just sent me Sacred Ceremonies, and I've so far given up, after the first six tracks: Graves is of course the ideal collaborator, constantly (but never obtrusively) spinning fresh ideas around and behind the trumpet, but a lot of times I wish he'd challenge or just bust through these repetitive, frequently draggy-ass lines---at first it works as contemplation, but then what the heck, not nearly fuck, zzzz. Maybe I'll try some more of it.

Reading about Curtis Fuller on FB, that he was some kind of word class punster, some kind of combination of JBL and Yogi Berra, if I may.

Listening to more Wadada on bandcamp (think I may have already mentioned his cogent contributions to my beloved https://harriettubman.bandcamp.com/album/araminta):
from The Year of The Elephant, by Wadada Leo Smith's Golden Quartet, here is the robustly Milesian work-out,

1.Al-Madinah 10:01

Malachi Favors Maghostut - bass
Wadada Leo Smith - trumpet & flugelhorn
Jack DeJohnette - drums & synthesizer
Anthony Davis - piano & synthesizer
https://wadadaleosmith.bandcamp.com/album/the-year-of-the-elephant

And a couple of lively, warm, distinctive, sometimes exploratory, always emblematic free jazz trips w Braxton:
from Organic Resonance:
1.Tawaf (Cycles 1-7) 11:48
https://wadadaleosmith.bandcamp.com/album/organic-resonance
Now you might think 11:48 that feels more like 4 would be enough, not pushing your luck--but personally, I find that the variety (incl. some lyricism and dog-keening) certainly benefits from added time, and vice-versa, of course---goes into second plane of my attention sometimes, but pulls itself back into the foreground, often enough:
from Saturn, Conjunct the Grand Canyon in a Sweet Embrace:
1. Composition No. 316 28:4
Wadada Leo Smith - trumpet, flugelhorn
Anthony Braxton - saxophones
https://wadadaleosmith.bandcamp.com/album/saturn-conjunct-the-grand-canyon-in-a-sweet-embrace

Almost as long as that last one, but tensile and interactive with no claustrophobia---think the strings are my faves here, but he's always responsive, and I'm always ready for those drums to jump in and out---really good live sound too:

Taif: Prayer in the Garden of Hijaz 27:57

Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith - Trumpet
Anthony Brown - Percussion
Del Sol String Quartet
https://othermindsrecords.bandcamp.com/album/om-live-taif-prayer-in-the-garden-of-hijaz

I've been listening to some of his and Henry Kaiser's Yo Miles! tribute-based band albums, reissues and first releases, both on Cunieform's bandcamp pages: they're fun, not trying to beat Miles at his own game, but appropriately employing some of his and crew's more conversational approaches--shrewd-to-incisive comments from the guitars, bass, and keys for inst, w 0 bravura asshole Fusion solos, from them or anybody else---in fact, it's not really about solos, for the most part, although Greg Osby's alto and John Tchicai's soprano and tenor do provide tasty rations of such, and Smith flexes reflections of translucent punctuation.

This is a (non-Cuneiform?) collection of band originals from (then) OOP albums---current fave is the wah-wah shuffle, "Who's Targeted?", which also takes evasive action, and Smith also gets bluesy as hell on his hovering intro to "Miles Star."
https://henrykaiser.bandcamp.com/album/yo-miles-shinjuku
participants on this and/or other Yo Miles! bandcamp albums also include:
Kaiser, Mike Keneally and Chris Muir on electric guitars; Michael Manring on bass; Steve Smith on drums; Karl Perazzo on percussion; Tom Coster on keyboards,and sometimes Zakir Hussain on tabla, Dave Creamer on guitar, and the ROVA Sax Quartet (though I've yet to hear ROVA).

Isaiah Collier & the Chosen Few's Cosmic Transitions (Album of the Day on Bandcamp today) is a super Coltraney — it was recorded on the anniversary of his birth last year, at the Van Gelder studio — spiritual jazz disc. Despite the recording location, it has the sound and feel of a self-released LP from the early '70s. Muddy bass, super echoey drums, post-Sanders/Ayler sax, chanting... this will definitely give many listeners flashbacks to this or that Holy Grail artifact they bought on overpriced Italian vinyl in the late '90s or early '00s. If you buy the digital version, as I did, you get the album divided into four tracks, but you also get it as a single 56-minute piece, which is apparently how it's meant to be heard.

My intrepid jazz buddy John Wojtowicz has sent me the bandcamp link to Lucky Man, the recently released soundtrack/audiodoc version of the 2010 film, which tracks Vietnam War vet Billy Bang's return to the country, traveling all through it, playing and talking with local musicians and maybe others--- I gotta see the whole thing for context, but it all comes into focus right away, and in effect completes a trilogy, following his Vietnam: The Aftermath, which I think first came out in 2002, and is like it says here:

As a belated document of his traumatic experience as a soldier in Southeast Asia, Vietnam: The Aftermath was a painful but cathartic album for free jazz violin great Billy Bang to make. Joined by fellow Vietnam vets including tenor saxophonist Frank Lowe, trumpeter Ted Daniel, drummer Michael Carvin, and "conductionist" Butch Morris, Bang paints a harrowing picture of the conflict on "TET Offensive." But employing Asian folk melodies like rays of sunshine through the darkness and sturdy bop lines as friendly arrows pointing the way back home, he offsets visions of death and destruction with humane insight and saving humor (then and now, there's nothing like a little '60s-styled "Saigon Phunk" to prop a grunt up). Bolstered by some richly textured ensembles, Bang rips off some of his most impressive and stirring solos. The contributors also include pianist John Hicks and flutist Sonny Fortune. --Lloyd Sachs

Frank Lowe, Bang's frontline partner in the Jazz Doctors, died before Vietnam: Reflections (2005), but it has James Spaulding, with guest Henry Threadgill on flute, joining Daniels, Hicks, Carvin, Morris,Carmen Lundy, Rob Brown, plus Vietnamese singer Co Boi Nguyen and Nhan Thanh Ngo on the 16-string dan tranh. As with The Aftermath, we get an intersection of post or late bop and Asiatic asssociations (which John says he always though of Bang's violining as having, way before he knew about any of these albums; I think it has something to do with his bluesiness too). They also perform some Vietnamese melodies, and--not seeing the credit on "Doi Moi," but it's one on of my favorite ballad tracks by anybody ever, and a poignant countercurrent to the rest of Reflections's dance thus far.

On screen, Lucky Man climaxes with a new arrangement of "Mystery of the Mekong," from The Aftermath, now performed with the Hanoi Symphony Orchestra: it's rich, dark, profuse, surefooted, river delta music for sure---but here, it's not the grand finale, it's track 4, dig.

Along the way, Bang's flying strings get matched by marching folk bands, and "Jungle Lullaby" starts nighty-night and then everybody goes wild as dreams, for a while, also into two shots of "New Saigon Phunk," rippling and loping. "Song For Don Cherry" is another good 'un, and can Bang keep up with the stone lithophone of "Dan Da"? It rings like a bell, but not too often and not too chime-y, and so far I prefer it to vibes---come back and start over, Gary Burton.

Incisive speed bums incl. excerpts of a Vietnamese woman on how her father changed after the War (with music far in the background, and what I'd hoped was an tape artifact turning about to the kind of engine still associated with war footage), and Bang in little spills of his own lifelong coming to grips. (This particular project was three years before he died.)
https://bbemusic.bandcamp.com/album/billy-bang-lucky-man

Here's a reasonable take on the music, incl. in context of the movie, with backstory to it and relevant aspects of Bang's life: https://www.allaboutjazz.com/lucky-man-billy-bang-bbe-records

incisive speed *bumps*, not "burns."

I interviewed alto saxophonist and bebop diehard Charles McPherson the other week; the results are in my new Stereogum column, along with reviews of the new Jaimie Branch, Sons of Kemet, James Brandon Lewis, and other albums.

Nate Smith is playing an outdoor show here next month with his band, looks like that will be my first post-COVID show (where I'm not playing)

Enjoying the 'new' Bheki Mseleku (studio recording from 2003). I'd not heard him before: solo piano, big rolling sound, Jarrett by way of Johannesburg.

https://tapestryworks.bandcamp.com/album/beyond-the-stars

https://annawebber.bandcamp.com/album/idiom

new Anna Webber album!

Good Dave Holland trio track: "Mashup," from Another Land("Nonstop" would have been an apt title too):https://editionrecords.com/releases/another-land/

new to me, on International Anthem so better check it out:
More Energy Fields, Current
by Carlos Niño & Friends
Tagged in label notes as 10 pristine gems of collaborative communication helmed by the Southern Californian sage, elegantly presented in his unique “Spiritual, Improvisational, Space Collage” style. And sounds like the improvisational part might feed and respond to the Space Collage: it's more jazz than set piece, like the tracks, never too long, might be scooping up something along the way, lighting in the bottle and vice-versa. Wonder if they play live, with loops, maybe? (I imme

Listening on headphones, I keep getting aerial glimpses of the Pacific Coast Highway, interspersed w more time in little caves and coves: an intimate, though airy, small group sound, always incl. Niño (percussion, sound design, editing, mixing) and I think always Jamael Dean on keys, with others sometims on drums, tenor and/or flute, synths, and voices (on one track: wordless ones, don't worry, of Laraaji and Sharada). Shabaka Hutchings, Dntel, Adam Rudolph, Aaron Shaw, a bunch of others, coming in and moving on, at least for a while, never too many at once.

First one to command my attention was "Nightswimming," then so many of the others that I gave up on linking a favorite in addition to the whole thing:
https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/more-energy-fields-current

Niño’s previous album on IA, Chicago Waves, is live if you’re curious! I think I described it as more like ambient/new age than jazz on the IA thread but I liked it a lot

Will check, thanks! Ambient/New Age usually puts me right to sleep, but this got me more awake.
Also, this one has *kind* of a DePlume vibe, or related appeal,anyway, but maybe earlier in the day or evening, and a little more spare?
https://alabasterdeplume.bandcamp.com/

I had been wondering about this — the 3CD version has been out of print for a long time and fetches absurd sums on Discogs, and there was a rumor that something big was coming.

BLUE NOTE ANNOUNCES JULY 30 RELEASE FOR LEE MORGAN - THE COMPLETE LIVE AT THE LIGHTHOUSE
AN EXPANSIVE COLLECTION OF THE LEGENDARY TRUMPETER’S EPIC 1970 ENGAGEMENT AT THE HERMOSA BEACH, CALIFORNIA VENUE
PRESENTING ALL 12 SETS OF MUSIC HIS QUINTET RECORDED OVER 3 NIGHTS
AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER AS 8-CD & LIMITED-EDITION 12-LP ALL-ANALOG 180g VINYL SETS

Blue Note Records has announced a July 30 release date for Lee Morgan The Complete Live at the Lighthouse, an expansive collection that presents for the very first time all 12 sets of music the legendary trumpeter’s quintet with saxophonist Bennie Maupin, pianist Harold Mabern, bassist Jymie Merritt, and drummer Mickey Roker recorded during their historic engagement at The Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, California from July 10-12, 1970. Originally released 50 years ago in 1971 as a 2-LP set, and later expanded to a 3-CD set in 1996, this definitive edition produced by Zev Feldman and David Weiss will be available as an 8-CD set and a limited-edition 12-LP all-analog 180g vinyl set that encompasses 33 performances including more than 4 hours of previously unreleased music that lets the listener relive the experience of being in the club for every exhilarating moment. Watch the unboxing video here. A previously unreleased version of Mabern’s composition “The Beehive” from the 2nd set on Saturday, July 11 is available now to stream or download.

Both physical formats are accompanied by an enlightening booklet featuring new interviews with Bennie Maupin and the last extensive interview with Jymie Merritt before his passing last year; essays by Jeffery McMillan (author or Delightfulee: The Life and Music of Lee Morgan) and Michael Cuscuna; statements from Jack DeJohnette, Wallace Roney, Nicholas Payton, Charles Tolliver, Eddie Henderson, Dave Douglas, and others; previously unpublished photos by Joel Franklin and Lee Tanner; as well as a statement from Morgan’s family. The audio was mixed from the original ½” 4-track tapes by Steve Genewick at Capitol Studios with LP mastering by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio and 180g vinyl manufactured at Record Technology Inc. (RTI) in Camarillo, California. CD mastering was done by Robert Vosgien at Capitol Studios.
Bennie Maupin, saxophonist
“Right from the beginning, we developed such a heart-to-heart connection with each other. I think that’s really reflected in what we did. It was just about being in the moment and capturing the moment, and we did that.”

Jymie Merritt, bassist
“In a sense, it is holy music. And that was the thing I felt throughout the performances at The Lighthouse, this was totally uncompromised music in terms of the way it went down.”

Don Was, President, Blue Note Records
“’Live at the Lighthouse’ probably gives us the clearest picture of where Lee Morgan was headed and, as such, is a record of monumental importance.”

Zev Feldman, producer
“‘Live at the Lighthouse’ is an all-time desert island disc for me and to be ushering in a complete edition of this magnitude—each set, night-by-night just like if you were at the club witnessing it live—is nothing short of a dream come true. This was one of the very first projects I wanted to pursue when I came to Blue Note. I had prior knowledge that there was 4-plus hours of unissued material sitting on the shelves, but I didn't realize how great it was until hearing it all. Just as these musicians worked to create a recording that would stand the test of time, we made every effort to create a package that would serve that legacy.”

PERSONNEL:
Lee Morgan – trumpet, flugelhorn
Bennie Maupin – tenor saxophone, flute, bass clarinet
Harold Mabern – piano
Jymie Merritt – Ampeg bass
Mickey Roker – drums
Jack DeJohnette – drums (on "Speedball" from Friday, July 10, Set 4)

Original recordings produced by Francis Wolff

TRACK LISTING:
*previously unissued

Friday, July 10, 1970
Set 1
Introduction by Lee Morgan (2:06)
The Beehive (12:51) *
Introduction (0:20)
Something Like This (12:43)
Yunjana (14:28) *
Speedball (4:34) *

Set 2
I Remember Britt (16:45) *
Introduction (0:19)
Absolutions (21:55) *
Speedball (3:46) *

Set 3
Introduction (0:33)
Neophilia (18:52) *
Introduction (0:47)
416 East 10th Street (11:46)
The Sidewinder (12:49)
Speedball (0:53)

Set 4
Introduction (0:30)
Peyote (13:23) *
Speedball (11:55)

Saturday, July 11, 1970
Set 1
Aon (13:47)
Introduction (0:21)
Yunjana (17:32) *

Set 2
Introduction (0:14)
Something Like This (11:46) *
Introduction (0:28)
I Remember Britt (14:25)
Introduction (0:47)
The Beehive (15:23) *
Speedball (7:00) *

Set 3
Neophilia (19:18) *
Nommo (17:44)

Set 4
Peyote (11:24) *
Absolutions (22:28)

Sunday, July 12, 1970
Set 1
Introduction (1:37)
Something Like This (15:39) *
Introduction (0:29)
Yunjana (16:07)

Set 2
I Remember Britt (16:19) *
Absolutions (19:35) *
Speedball (0:27)

Set 3
Introduction (1:19)
Neophilia (18:59)
Introduction (0:46)
The Beehive (15:11)
Speedball (1:59)

Set 4
Peyote (9:27)
Nommo (19:19) *

Absolutely my favorite Morgan record, and one of my favorites by anyone, ever. I've pretty much committed the 3CD set to memory, and I cannot wait for this box.

My grandfather dubbed me a bunch of cassettes of his jazz records back when I was in high school. One was this but it was either unlabeled or mislabeled, and I spent years wondering who made Neophilia.

Universal Music's webstore (which includes Blue Note stuff) is running a sale and I was able to pre-order the Lee Morgan box for $60 - free shipping - using the code SUMMER25.

Thanks! here's a chunk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NB3yDSbc1yc

This Anthony Braxton interview is...something. I don't even want to pull out any quotes. Just read the whole thing.

Wow, I just listened to his version of "Desafinado". It's very nice but I've never heard him play anything nearly this comparatively straight-ahead before. (I'm not an expert on his catalogue.) Probably won't buy a 13-disc set but I'm eager to hear more of these.

Universal Music's webstore (which includes Blue Note stuff) is running a sale and I was able to pre-order the Lee Morgan box for $60 - free shipping - using the code SUMMER25.

― but also fuck you (unperson), Friday, June 4, 2021 6:22 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Thanks for the head's up! I just ordered. Too sweet a deal to pass up.

The standards box is great. I'm reviewing it for Bandcamp soon.

Expectations and Experience is certainly an apt title for Shawm Maxwell's new album of---jazz miniatures! A startling, refreshing experience: each track has its own identity, and satisfying enough lifespan (which can be tantalizing) in the cohesion, though "Alternative Facts," one of my faves, is the Crocus Behemoth at 4:17, without seeming any longer then the others (many are a little over one or two minutes): 17 tracks, unique subsets of 30 players total, as the leader-composer shifts between alto, soprano, and clarinet (bot mostly alto, I think) It's Young Chicago Today, continuing to see and hear so much, ready as anybody can be for quarantine, terse and witty, but not brittle, pensive sometimes, but not getting stuck in there, more of a ricochet though the grid of situations, with some aerial views---is it deep enough? The leader's succinct comments on the basis of each composition sometimes led me into great distracting expectations, but that's what I get for reading along while listening, should never do that. But it swept my few reservations along, though a (maybe!) stronger second half, especially? (Maybe, but the whole thing, incl. ballads, is quite a spin) https://shawnmaxwell.bandcamp.com/

Sometimes it's like the effective contrast between what you might expect from the title of Attica Blues and its actual sound: not harrowing catharsis, or a dirge, but a countermove to the weight, coming up for air, never stopping for long.

I like the concept but it was rubbing me the wrong way for some reason, I'll try the second half another time.

These Tim Daisy/Vasco Trilla drum duets are really doing it for me however:
https://timdaisyrelayrecords.bandcamp.com/album/vasco-trilla-and-tim-daisy-bristling-duets-2021-relay-031

Oho, will check that, thanks. Yeah the Maxwell takes some getting used to; my reservations may come back. The mostly short tracks on Logan Richardson's Afrofuturism are roomier than Maxwells, bigger inside than out, in savvy cosmic showmanship that works even/especially on 8:14 "The Birth of Us," and a few more that go on for up to six minutes, but end just right (with a aoundtrack-associated continuity, incl. of synth and maybe organ, slipping in and out), Also, even though I haven't caught all the words in vocal samples, the timing, placement, cadence, and texture of voices is deft. Also: effective, wordless, non-scatting sung solo on "According to You," with happy response of strings, which previously appeared in the threnody "Black Wall Street," stirred by brief, incisive sax solo. "Birth..." seemed between Attica Blues and The Epic, and that impression took hold (speaking of savvy cosmic showmanship), but there's always a sense of Richardson's own concerns, of somebody thinking, of wariness and boldness, finding and seeking, solace and shelf life.
https://loganrichardsonmusic.bandcamp.com/

Lots of good stuff in here, I'm going to check out the Skuli Sverrison + Bill Frisell record and the posthumous Ralph Peterson (!) record, and I once again recommend hometown hero/drummer Devin Drobka's ambient contemporary classical piano trio record:
https://daily.bandcamp.com/best-jazz/the-best-jazz-on-bandcamp-may-2021

I guess the Skuli & Frisell record is from a few years ago, but is lovely.

The Ralph Peterson record is excellent. :(

I guess the Skuli & Frisell record is from a few years ago, but is lovely.

...there will be a repressing if 90 more people reserve a $400 copy of the whole 5-lp set.

It seems like departed pianist Joan Wildman left a bunch of veritably unheard private press records in a storage unit, now being sold by a Milwaukee-based auction house for $50 a pop. Interesting mix of early electronics and new music/jazz piano improvisation, particularly on "Disintegration"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW5-TM65fY4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWAuu9jQBDI

Oh, cool. It's funny, the whole time I was at UW Madison, I never once encountered her. I would just hear stories, and I was on Team Richard Davis (and I think there was some tension between them?). I also had no idea about making electronic music back then. But I wish I could have taken a class from her, she seems like a very interesting lady.

Also re: that Bandcamp list above, can confirm that the Schlarb/Taylor "Time No Changes" record is some seriously good ECM style jazz in the vein of Tibbets or Towner. Been playing it a lot the past few days.

I saw Nate Smith & Kinfolk in Madison last night, apparently their first post-pandemic show (!). Beautiful evening, a jazz-sized but enthusiastic crowd outdoors in a soccer stadium that usually has much larger concerts. Band was Nate, Jaleel Shaw, Fima Ephron, and Brad Allen Williams on guitar.

Incredible set, a lot of it really had a Brian Blade Fellowship jazz-Americana vibe (the guitarist especially, who's from Nashville apparently). And it looks like Jon Cowherd plays with them sometimes? But he threw in enough Nate Smith doing Nate Smith beat things for the people (incl. a Funky Drummer break routine w/JB samples that seemed specifically made for me, since that's all I've been practicing for the last couple weeks). You could tell there was a little bit of rust, like some missed hits, but nothing that mattered, it was incredibly musical & focused. Even the set programming was perfect, everyone took short solos as a matter of course but each member got one tune to stretch out on. Anyway, see this band if you can.

Sorry Memphis, not Nashville

These Tim Daisy/Vasco Trilla drum duets are really doing it for me however:
https://timdaisyrelayrecords.bandcamp.com/album/vasco-trilla-and-tim-daisy-bristling-duets-2021-relay-031
Will get back to that, but just now, about halfway through, I was wanting some variety, and jumped to Realy 030, which is: Tim Daisy: drums + percussion + marimba + turntables
Ikue Mori: Electronics

Light and Shade... A selection of material recorded on various instruments reconstructed, reimagined, and remixed by NYC based electronic musician Ikue Mori. A remote collaboration shaped during a unique moment in time.Yeah, this moment, seems like: the perfect illusion of remix on the fly, with no sense of distancing, just whatever's brought forward, around and up and down, from Daisy's instruments, incl. whatever he's got going on the turntable. Nothing dumped on top or otherwise intruding (maybe voices in there at least once, but then again they may well be worked up from the frictions of percussion, or maybe samples of Robert Wyatt's Ladytron, or Enotron, or all of thee above). no jazz per se that, I've noticed yet, but that kind of appeal is generated by the freedom x process. Faves so far: "Thoughts are Things,' "Steel Flags."

https://timdaisyrelayrecords.bandcamp.com/album/tim-daisy-ikue-mori-light-and-shade-relay-030

incredible set, a lot of it really had a Brian Blade Fellowship jazz-Americana vibe You might like Charles Lloyd and the Marvels' Tone Poem, which opens with Ornette's "Peace," cautious, shrewd and flexing, then xpost "Ramblin'" sets off, having decided the coast is clear enough for now---only thing that bothers me is Frisell's effects-laden loop de loops, apparently influenced by steel guitar, sometimes seem superfluous---well even more superfluous--next to the actual and no-b.s. steel guitar of Greg Leisz. On well, I cna listen around him, and he can bear down and knows, as they all do, not to gild the already gilded "Ay Amor," or fuck aronnd with "Monk's Mood, " for instance. Current fave is "Anthem" (by L.Cohen), which, despite its title, is pretty down to earth and grabbed me right away. Lloyd is not the most distinctive soloist, but he knows when just to shade and inflect this and curve around that, rather than bring on thee groovy noodles (although there's some of those, not too many)

Tim Daisy has really been killing it this year, like Zorn-level release schedule, it's almost too much. Those Ikue Morie duets are one the best releases.

I do like those recent Charles Lloyd records, and went in on them earlier this year, thanks! I'll have to go back to that one.

Interviewed Anthony Braxton for my podcast this morning. It went great. (We didn't talk about politics.) The episode will be out next Friday.

Looking fwd to that. re the interview you linked, I agree with him to an extent, but if he's going to talk about it at all, better to put in context of how systemic racism, and other forces that incl. divide and conquer, screw w perspectives. And harping on the Simon and Garfunkel advocacy don't help, in terms of coming off like a contrarian. I once some some festival footage where he was talking about Beefheart and Hendrix, saying he'd never met a musician who didn't like them---maybe he doesn't want to be that hipster-typical anymore? Read an article, maybe in Musician, that tagged him as being tagged as too out for the out---at another festival: "Hey, guys!" AEC: "Oh, you're here too, huh." But what he says in the linked interview about being a trainspotter as a kid, not being able to socialize conventionally, may have always affected him to some extent, like he seems eager but off-kilter in the interview, articulate, but yeah, if you're going to get into that stuff at all, you can't be hasty.

Speaking of Lloyd, when we were talking about him way up this thread, or last year's, I linked what was then the only bandcamp freebie from his Manhattan Stories: two mid-60s NYC concerts, with Ron Carter, Gabor Szabo, and Pete LaRoca. Now the other tracks are free-streaming too, and I sure hope they're anywhere near as good as the aforementioned 17:49 opener, "Sweet Georgia Bright" (sporting a video, even).

Ah, 1965: The Judson Hall recording comes from the archives of Resonance founder George Klabin, whose trove has previously yielded treasures from Bill Evans and Jimmy Giuffre. The Slugs' performances were recorded by Bjorn von Schlebrugge, who accompanied Lloyd to his Manhattan gigs.
https://charleslloyd.bandcamp.com/

That Grammy interview felt like clickbait tbh. Not much on the music either. If I was being generous, I'd say that the interviewer just doesn't understand systemic racism or structural analysis, but I think an anti BLM/CRT agenda comes through pretty clearly. The framing makes some of Braxton's comments look more reactionary than they are. There was nothing in Braxton's comments that supported the editorialising about BLM being an "insidious separatist movement". Braxton has always resisted reductive categories or received ideas of what he as a black musician should be about, so I can understand why he'd be critical of separatist or nationalist movements, but it's not clear that's what he thinks BLM is - that's all on the journalist. Braxton took the question about racial essentialism in good faith, but I'm not sure it was presented as such given the overall line being pushed, i.e. the implication that BLM and CRT are essentialist or separatist. Braxton certainly wants to talk up America, but I don't think anyone could seriously mistake his liberal patriotism for MAGA.

I don't think there's anything contrarian about his advocacy of S&G - he's always embraced a wide range of music and Simon's writing is a pretty neat fit into an extended Great America Songbook. The Latin shuffle Alex Hawkins puts under Bridge Over Troubled Water is refreshing after decades of over-earnest readings, while Old Friends, with Braxton's almost microtonal pitching, is genuinely moving.

That Grammy interview felt like clickbait tbh. Not much on the music either. If I was being generous, I'd say that the interviewer just doesn't understand systemic racism or structural analysis, but I think an anti BLM/CRT agenda comes through pretty clearly. The framing makes some of Braxton's comments look more reactionary than they are. There was nothing in Braxton's comments that supported the editorialising about BLM being an "insidious separatist movement". Braxton has always resisted reductive categories or received ideas of what he as a black musician should be about, so I can understand why he'd be critical of separatist or nationalist movements, but it's not clear that's what he thinks BLM is - that's all on the journalist. Braxton took the question about racial essentialism in good faith, but I'm not sure it was presented as such given the overall line being pushed, i.e. the implication that BLM and CRT are essentialist or separatist. Braxton certainly wants to talk up America, but I don't think anyone could seriously mistake his liberal patriotism for MAGA.

Agree with all of this. No need to be generous, either. I follow the writer on Twitter and he's definitely a conservative — not a MAGA psycho, but the kind of asshole who thinks "cancel culture" and "virtue signaling" are real things. Between that and the hyperbole young music journalists are addicted to (Julian Lage is the best guitarist of the decade!), he's pretty annoying. And I feel like he kinda poisoned the well w/r/t Braxton, for other writers. After that interview was published, it took me two weeks to get mine re-scheduled.

That's interesting. My interview took place a few days before the Grammy piece was published. He talked about being a "proud American", which in retrospect could be seen as an attempt to set things straight. Perhaps I'd have responded differently if the interview had been done after the Grammy one was published, but I didn't pursue that line at the time because it came across as "we're not all right wing assholes and there are things about America worth celebrating", which is fair enough. As Graham Lock's Forces In Motion shows, Braxton has nuanced and insightful things to say about racial politics, particularly in the contexts of jazz and classical music. It would be interesting to sit down and engage with Braxton on today's politics, but a white conservative is definitely not the best person for the job.

Tbf to younger journalists, there are structural reasons for the hyperbole and clickbait. Not that it's anything particularly new - I grew up with the UK music press telling me Oasis were genius and jazz didn't exist. Thank goodness for The Wire and the internet!

Nothing wrong with him liking whatever music, and if he can find something fresh, maybe revelatory, like Charlie Parker with "Cherokee," Coltrane with "My Favorite Things," that's great, but like I said, talking about them (and no other specific artists) in the context of that interview/framing device, struck me as seeming more ocntrarian, but no, certainly not some black MAGA head, it's just that, if you're gonna talk about *black* separatists (or the ones you see that way), better not leave out the white ones--and who knows, maybe he didn't, maybe that writer edited the transcript for his own pruposes---but, however it came about, that's how it looked--certainly not like Kanye or Qassandra though.

His comments were fine imo. A lot of intelligent and progressive-minded people have reservations about critical race theory or cancel culture, or like Simon & Garfunkel. People don't need to contextualize everything they say.

75 Dollar Bill's live ateliers claus, out this year, starts with tracks from a 2016 show, right after the election: Chen says he's pissed with himself because he didn't see it coming, but takes out his frustrations in acerbic, swirling, African-influenced folk-rock-jazz, steadfast and developmental (sometimes sounding like two guitars), while Brown's found crate is very supportive. Later, in 2019, Chen also plays the lower register of soprano sax, while Andrew L.'s wide-ranging contrabass arco and Brown's "homemade horns" join in. One of their most consistent collections, https://75dollarbill.bandcamp.com/album/live-ateliers-claus

This piece clarifies things a little. He finds certain aspects of today's social justice movements divisive, but as I expected, this comes from his own experience of being denounced as not black enough during the height of black power. I might not agree with everything he's saying, but I can respect his viewpoint and understand where he's coming from. As it happens, I don't think Braxton would necessarily have an issue with CRT per se - his comments on the racial politics of sweat in jazz photography, for example, fits right in with it. https://www.npr.org/2021/06/17/998656406/jazz-elder-statesman-anthony-braxton-continues-to-defy-expectations?t=1623948810962

He definitely mentioned critical race theory twice in a negative light in the Grammy interview but idk maybe there are interpretations of it he would agree with.

I started listening to 12 Comp (ZIM) 2017 and was thinking it sounded great - then noticed it consists of 12 compositions, each one between 40 to 73 minutes in length! So that's two mammoth sets he's dropping!

Yeah, there's no getting around the comment about CRT being "far out" but I suppose the question is what he thinks it is. One of these things that would need to be unpacked carefully - which isn't something that conservative Grammy kid is interested in.

Anyway, both box sets are wonderful and it was a joy to go deep on them with him. https://thequietus.com/articles/30084-anthony-braxton-interview

He taught at Wesleyan for over 20 years; I imagine he's not just basing his opinion on Youtube but it's true that it wasn't probed in depth in that interview. Will read your piece.

Sure - I wasn't suggesting he was. I guess it could be said he's trying to get beyond the broader campus battle lines.

Has the NTS series on Japanese jazz been linked here? Absolutely heroic work:

https://www.nts.live/shows/japanese-jazz-week

Avant-jazz thing from Terraza last night looks real good. I thought about going but it was a little late for me these days. The full thing is available on their FB page.

International Anthem launching a podcast, starting with Angel Bat Dawid. Sounds great!

https://anchor.fm/international-anthem

Harpist Brandee Younger's Impulse! debut, Somewhere Different, will be released August 13. The first single will be out on Wednesday. The core band is trumpeter Maurice "Mobetta" Brown, tenor saxophonist Chelsea Baratz, flutist Anne Drummond, bassist Rashaan Carter and drummers Allan Mednard and Marcus Gilmore (switching off, I guess). Ron Carter plays on two tracks, one of which is called "Olivia Benson," and Tarriona "Tank" Ball from Tank and the Bangas (a UK group I've never listened to) is on one song.

excited for that, though I actually wasn't all that thrilled by that duo album on Intl Anthem

This is better. Fuller arrangements, actual production.

ha "actual production" is probably all I needed

Oh man, I absolutely loved that duo record with Dezron Douglas. I think the key was approaching it less as an "album" and more as a focused compilation pulled from their really charming streaming sets. I though the fondness for each other and the music really shone through on that one. Really excited for that Impulse! debut though, that's a great lineup.

I really did want to like it more than I did, maybe it was a little *too* cozy for me? anyway, I'm excited to hear what she does with a full palette

Her 2019 album (recorded in 2013 and shelved) is really good, too.

I had no idea that existed, thanks!

Tarriona "Tank" Ball from Tank and the Bangas (a UK group I've never listened to)

They're a New Orleans band

https://lionmilk.bandcamp.com/album/o-t-s

new live jazz thing from a younger LA crew

I liked his quarantine solo Rhodes album, will check that out, thanks

Still need to check those Brandee albs on bandcamp, thanx for reminders.
Following up on their well-received 2017 ESP-Disk’ album backing poet Amina Baraka, The Red Microphone added guitarist Dave Ross to its roster and went into the studio with Ivan Julian (guitarist of punk icons Richard Hell & the Voidoids). A few other veterans of the downtown NYC jazz scene joined in to help accompany the provocative, political poetry of John Pietaro, who doubles on voice and drums.
credits
released April 23, 2021
And I Became Of The Dark is so much thee 2020a incarnation of a certain kind of 1960s ESP-DISK, a funky, stimulating harvest of beatnik wordage, hipster humor and jazz resources, maybe with some busking experience to keep it engaging and freewheeling. The combo, incl. several multi-instrumentalists and a couple of guests, who don't overstay their welcome, on viola and bari, is always tight and exuberant; don't know how much of the de facto arrangements come from good drummer Pietaro, who is also listed as musical director, but they are usually worth listening around his voice when need be. He's better the closer he gets to actual singing and emphatic chanting, but even when he's just intoning, he never gets in the way that much. "Revenge of the Atom Spies" is perfect opener, should be the single. Gotta check their album with Baraka, which I think is on the ESP-DISK bandcamp. Nu Cantu En Esperanto!
https://theredmicrophone.bandcamp.com/

My wife designed the CD for the Baraka album. It's a good one.

omg edicated to Saint Escrava Anastacia.
credits
released June 19, 2021

All instruments, vocalz, and synths performed, produced, recorded, arranged & mixed By Angel Bat Dawid.
https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/hush-harbor-mixtape-vol-1-doxology
First encounter w this, and don't know of course if it will seem as amazing now that I know what to expect (nothing like what I did expect from several titles, which is prob the point), but so far it's immediately compelling, often beguiling, with an eerie, tranquil intensity, and some shifting surfaces and perimeters (for inst, what's happening to the vocals going around the room---"I know I should be grateful"---in " 'Goree,' or Slave - Stick"---we also get the improbably redemption of overt Auto Tune sometimes, or maybe keys, emphasizing the inflection (of male group vocals? Or herself treated?) that suggests a African-Hebraic-Isalmic chain, rattling a little (the clarinet encourages this). One of the most affecting tracks is her untreated, a capella , "Bet"--followed, in a plausible way, by a calmly killer finale trilogy. None of this is an onslaught of sounds though; each room is only as full as need be. Seems like a rec to fans of adventurously historical clarinetists John Carter and Matana Roberts (her Coin Coin series, and maybe all of his Roots and Folklore: Episodes in the Development of American Folk Music, although the album from that I'm thinking of, and most familiar with, is Fields).

I haven't pulled the trigger on that one yet. I am slowly coming around to the idea that I like the idea of Dawid a lot more than I like listening to her actual records.

I feel that way about the International Anthem roster (except Irreversible Entanglements).

The Heat Warps, the site that's posting every available bootleg of electric Miles, has a great interview with Lonnie Liston Smith.

Yeah, that 2019 Brandee Younger album on bandcamp is really satisfying; thanks for the link. Looking fwd to the August release. Speaking of jazz harp, several of Dorothy Ashby's albums have been reissued fairly recently, and here's a good 58 minute survey of her career, ranging from late 1950s bop/modal contexts to late 1960s outings influenced by mysticism and soul. Stream, also download, with Chrome's Sound Pirate, for inst:
https://indianapublicmedia.org/nightlights/fantastic-jazz-harp-dorothy-ashby.php

So, over on A catch-all thread for the current jazz scene in London, including Shabaka Hutchings, Yazz Ahmed, Moses Boyd, Nubya Garcia, Camilla George, Theon Cross, Zara McFarlane, Daniel Casimir, SEED Ensemble, , I was carrying about Nérija trombonist(-composer-arranger) Rosie Turton's own recent refreshingly airy, fluid, robust, succinct (even w remixes) EP, Expansions and Transformations, Part I & II: https://rosieturton.bandcamp.com/---which led me to Jennifer Wharton's Bonegasm, which is four trombomnes, piano/Fender Rhodes, bass, and drums: promising, but so far seeming overloaded sometimes, on {defensively titled?) Not A Novelty, their second album, so they've had a while to get it together, although maybe it's Second Album Slump; I haven't tried the debut yet. Or maybe it's just me, esp. re the leader's bass trombone, which is very much with us--I had a similar problem with the tuba on some of Your Queen Is A Reptile, but loved Black To The Future right off.
Still, I'm already struck by this Bonegasm ballad all the way through:https://jenniferwharton.bandcamp.com/track/twinkle
And the finale, with Kurt Elling! They should do much more with him, whom I've never heard like this:
https://jenniferwharton.bandcamp.com/track/the-day-i-tried-to-live Especially like it when he "blah-blah-blaah" 's the trombones dogging his depressed heels.

That's fun I guess, but don't come at me with four trombones unless you're a trombone shout choir (also ugh, that name):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1QnzTnhcw0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UglqiHXcTHc

Yeah, that's better!

My favorite jazz releases of the first half of 2021:

Jaimie Branch, Fly or Die Live
Anthony Braxton, Quartet (Standards) 2020
Broken Shadows, s/t (reissue)
Fire!, Defeat
Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra, Promises
Amaro Freitas, Sankofa
Cameron Graves, Seven
Hearth, Melt
Julius Hemphill, The Boyé Multi-National Crusade for Harmony
Vijay Iyer/Linda May Han Oh/Tyshawn Sorey, Uneasy
James Brandon Lewis Red Lily Quintet, Jesup Wagon
Damon Locks Black Monument Ensemble, Now
Charles Mingus, Mingus at Carnegie Hall (reissue)
Hafez Modirzadeh, Facets
Hedvig Mollestad Trio, Ding Dong. You’re Dead.
Monder/Malaby/Rainey, Live at the 55 Bar
Jason Moran/Milford Graves, Moran/Graves Live
Bheki Mseleku, Beyond the Stars
Ivo Perelman Trio, Garden of Jewels
Wadada Leo Smith/Douglas R. Ewart/Mike Reed, Sun Beans of Shimmering Light
Sons of Kemet, Black to the Future
Cecil Taylor Ensemble, Göttingen
Various Artists, Indaba Is
Various Artists, J Jazz: Deep Modern Jazz from Japan Volume 3
Various Artists, Spiritual Jazz 13: Now

Liking the Julian Lage album

Oh he’s got a new one? Hadn’t noticed. He is great. Like that he made good on his prodigy origins.

Big ears and not just fast fingers.

Wonder who else is playing in it, maybe usual suspects

yeah Lage album is more than decent decent, can hear echoes of Johnny Smith in his playing style.

Hafez Modirzadeh, Facets

^^^

this is the one is my personal fave of the year.

only meant one decent!

Another call for Facets - absolutely stunning album, formally innovative but beautiful with it.

The Ahmed album needs more love. Pat Thomas can do no wrong.

And while we're talking Ahmed, that group's saxophonist, Seymour Wright, has just dropped a wild new footwork-inspired album with Paul Abbot. A glorious antidote to polite and tasteful jazz/improv approaches to electronic music.

https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/shop/xt-deorlaf-x/

So as seen in this video, Justin Brown, best known to me as a member of Ambrose Akinmusire's long-running quartet, is now a member of ex-Circle Jerks frontman Keith Morris's throwback hardcore band OFF!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI5t6wxUhN4

Haha that rules, love an overqualified punk drummer.

WT…?

Is that Angelo Moore as their manager, too?

And David Yow of Jesus Lizard as the priest.