Rolling Jazz Thread 2022

I'm writing another goddamn book! I've just signed the contract to write In the Brewing Luminous: The Life and Music of Cecil Taylor for Wolke Verlag in Germany. (It'll be published in English.) If all goes well it'll be out in spring/summer 2024. Here's a picture of me and CT, from the Whitney Museum in 2016, when I interviewed him for The Wire:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FZ4bzgPXgAEv38b.jpg

Excellent, ha CT in full Yoda mode in that pic

Awesome!!!!! Is this going to be the first Full length CT biography ever?

Yep. Supposedly someone else is working on one, but I think he's been "working on it" as long as I've been writing about music professionally, so...

nice, congrats!

RIP 75 year-old cellist Abdul Wadud who played with Julius Hemphill, Arthur Blythe, Frank Lowe, George Lewis, Oliver Lake, Sam Rivers, Cecil Taylor, David Murray, Chico Freeman, Anthony Davis, and James Newton, and Wynton Marsalis.

Congratulations on the CT bio, unperson! Very much looking forward to reading it.

Yep. Supposedly someone else is working on one, but I think he's been "working on it" as long as I've been writing about music professionally, so...

Sure, but research, interviews, fact-checking, follow-up interviews, fact-checking the follow-up interviews...that all takes time. The book he published in 1998 took maybe 8-10 years, and it remains a standard-bearer in this music for how comprehensively it documented that artist.

I'll bite: who yall talkin bout, and what standard-bearer did he write?

Ben Young, author of Dixonia: A bio-discography of Bill Dixon. Unfortunately, it's a pretty pricey book, but if you're a fan of Dixon's, it's worth it. Young had the advantage of working directly with Bill while assembling the book, and had access to Bill's archive of tapes, notes, letters, scores, and other documentation.

I've actually been thinking about buying a copy as research for this Taylor book, but yeah, it costs about $100 on eBay including shipping. Of course, I can write it off my taxes, but still.

Ben just loves making expensive things, books, vinyl, etc.

Yeah, I was amazed that Triple Point sent me MP3s of the Dixon/Taylor duos album to review for The Wire. The hilarious part? The MP3s were (very clean) needle drops; he didn't even make them from the digital master used to make the album!

That actually makes sense: pristine digital files would invite file-sharing moreso than needledrops.

That set, brilliant as it is, is frustrating for a) being an expensive vinyl-only release, and b) for not entirely adhering to Bill and Cecil's original vision of the set. Bill was a fan of CDs, and (as the liner notes point out) the idea was to release a box with two CDs, a folio of Bill's artwork, and a folio of Cecil's poetry. But no label at the time would touch it. Between 1992 and the Triple Point release, DVDs and Blu-Rays became a thing, potentially expanding the box's contents to include video of two of the concerts Bill and Cecil did in the summer of 1992 (both pro-shot, and both equal to the music on the records). And while the vinyl does sound amazing -- Triple Point releases are some of the quietest vinyl/most sensitively-mastered contemporary releases I've heard of this music -- I feel like there was a bit of a missed opportunity.

Ben just loves making expensive things, books, vinyl, etc.

Unless Ben is the owner of Greenwood Press, which I'm reasonably certain he's not, I'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest he didn't set the book's price. But with regard to Triple Point, he works directly with the artists (or their estates), and they get paid -- they wouldn't have signed off on the releases unless the terms favored them. I've literally argued about this with collectors who might drop $100 on a rare used record, but balk at buying a Triple Point release -- in only one of those instances does the artist get a cut.

I know, I bought Triple Point releases too, because there was no alternative. Of course the artists should get paid! But why he couldn’t reissue them on CD or as downloads now. The artists can’t be getting paid now that the ultra limited vinyl runs are sold out and now trading only on the second hand market. I just hate people making music as expensive and as exclusive as possible.

By contrast, the “2Ts” box, when it became hard to find CD copies, is now a super affordable download!

None of the Triple Point releases are sold out (unless their website hasn't been updated). The only thing you can't still get is the signed New York Art Quartet box -- unsigned ones are still available. (Also, fun fact: that NYAQ box was nominated for a Grammy.)

class album is this and it's a very thoroughly researched review with a lot of interesting stuff about the short lived Booker Little and his associations with other musicians, although it's always disappointing to find out someone you like was a bit of a melt! (joking of course)

This Max Roach box has multiple albums including Booker Little that are named in the PF review. It has a lot of great music, including a session with Sonny Rollins that is unbelievable (I can't remember which disc, but everyone is trying to outdo each other when soloing).

Unperson, congrats on the book deal and I hope to read a Primer or a large review on all those recent Leo Smith box sets that haven't been covered yet in The Wire.

Congrats on the book deal!

Yes!

Oscar Peterson to appear on a commemorative Canadian dollar coin (along with symbols for a progression in Bb). First jazz player to appear on a national currency?

https://www.mint.ca/en/shop/coins/2022/2022-1-celebrating-oscar-peterson-colourized-special-wrap-roll

https://coins.thefuntimesguide.com/files/district-of-columbia-quarter.jpg

Ah, nice

Canada has a District of Columbia?

Haha, I sometimes do think that the Ottawa-Gatineau capital region should be its own autonomous district like DC, actually. I'm p sure Tarfumes was just pointing out that Duke appeared on a national currency earlier than Peterson did, though. This might still be the first ii/IV-V-/IV-IV-V-I progression to appear on a national currency.

Sorry, it's just ii-I (or V/IV) - IV - V - I, actually

There was a run of commemorative state quarters in the US, and when they ran out of states, other territories got commemorative quarters -- Guam, Puerto Rico, DC, etc. I was pleasantly surprised -- shocked, honestly -- that Duke was chosen for the DC quarter. I always check my change for Ellington quarters, and I keep the ones I find (only have two, though).

(Just checked my change again -- now I have three!)

Oh sorry, had brain fart!
Here are Oscar's coins, from coinweek.com

https://coinweek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/peterson_700.jpg

Thelonious Monk (1959) Rehearsing in a New York loft with saxophonists Phil Woods and Charlie Rouse. pic.twitter.com/gfwTOMpWDG

— Sheet Music Library (PDF) (@LibrarySheet) August 14, 2022

Picture from the "Jazz Loft." There's a fine documentary on the place and it's residents. Here's my review:https://t.co/Il74IydA8a

— Frank Hudson (@Frank_Hudson) August 14, 2022

Click on pic to see Monk's hands and keys.

Great documentary that.

https://mcusercontent.com/252b821bb623c0544fd0dfc64/images/2b616747-85f8-f193-e32d-93da03f76ff5.jpg

Announcing Evocation, a live recording from master drummer Andrew Cyrille, innovative guitarist-reedist Elliott Sharp and pioneering electronic composer/performer Richard Teitelbaum, out Sept. 30 on Infrequent Seams.

Featuring a groundbreaking improv set from October 2011 at Roulette Intermedium's new Brooklyn home, this is the first release in a new series that highlights live exploratory sets from Thomas Buckner's Interpretations Series at the venue.

Another pre-order that is---o btw, the Connie Converse tribute album, mentioned on her thread, is in Tzadik's Spectrum series, and can be purchased at Amazon MP3 Store, also I think it's streamable on Amazon Unlimited, if you really wanna pay even more than Premium. Maybe this is permitted because Spectrum can be jazz-related, not the Zorncore.

Anyway, I'd like to hear this trio!

Really loving the Ayler Revelations box

The Cyrille/Sharp/Teitelbaum is available digitally:

http://andrewcyrilleelliottsharprichardteitelbaum.bandcamp.com/album/evocation

When I profiled Cecil Taylor for The Wire in 2016, I recorded four hours of conversation (one did not "interview" Cecil Taylor) over two days, and spent even more time with him without recording it. Anyway, I'm transcribing the entire thing now for the first time, and there's a lot of family lore, etc. — he talks about his grandfather — that didn't fit into the article, but will be great for the book.

Very much enjoying the DOMi & JD Beck album. They really made jazzy drum & bass and fusion hit for gen Z.

https://www.villagevoice.com/2022/08/19/smoking-harry-whitaker-a-village-jazz-story/

WBGO’s Michael BourneKnew it was coming but still the end of an era.

Also Creed Taylor, founder of both Impulse! and CTI. (He also worked for Bethlehem and Verve at various points.) Hard to imagine modern jazz without him. He was 93, and/but for some reason I assumed he'd been dead for years.

Holy shit — word is circulating on FB that Jaimie Branch has died. Just 39. Fucking fuck.

Yeah seeing it on Twitter & Instagram from people who would know...damn...just saw Fly or Die last summer, they were great

Fucking hell, that’s devastating. I saw Ryley Walkers tweet earlier and thought it was just a general tweet of appreciation, but seeing the following tweets from people in her orbit has been heartbreaking.

Very, very sad. Just saw the news, seems literally unbelievable.

Terrible.

Whoa

Sadly confirmed

At 9:21 pm on Monday, August 22, composer and trumpeter jaimie branch passed away in her home in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Her family, friends and community are heart broken. pic.twitter.com/nGAkHpfPab

— International Anthem (@intlanthem) August 23, 2022

Fuck

Saw her at Big Ears in March, one of the more wild and memorable shows there. What a tragedy.

Really nice piece from Nate Chinen here:

https://www.npr.org/2022/08/24/1119174908/jaimie-branch-trumpet-obituary

My latest podcast interview is up today — I talked to Vernon Reid about Ronald Shannon Jackson, the Isley Brothers, Bad Brains, and his new Free Form Funky Freqs record with Jamaaladeen Tacuma and G. Calvin Weston. Details here.

One of the things I am really going to miss about branch and this is something that really came through when I saw her live, was the sense that her life depended on what she was playing right at that moment. There are a lot of younger jazz players, a lot of whom I like, can seem a little measured almost tentative live, they don't grab the music by the collar and drag it around the way branch did and I am really going to miss it.