I go into music/video events with a certain amount of trepidation. For myself, the success rate has been fairly low, generally on the video part as I'm probably far more critical of visual art than of musical and, with regard to video, having seen my share since the art-form blossomed in the early 70s, a large percentage of what I've encountered has struck me as stale, shallow and gimmicky.

Last evening was a happy exception, a performance at Issue Project Room by Brendan Murray, Asher and Richard Garet. The show was presented in two halves, the first three duos by (in music/video order) Murray/Garet, Asher/Garet, Garet/Asher, the latter a sound performance by all three.

While the trio set was fine, a thick matrix of steady state sound ranging from tonal drones to noisier elements, it was the duos that I went home thinking about. I had little idea what to expect from Garet, though what I'd seen of his visual work seemed centered around geometric abstraction in luminous colors. What was presented last night showed a far wider field. The first video stemmed from a 16mm source, which film had been marked and painted in various ways then processed via computer onto a DVD then reprocessed live (if I have this all straight, which I might well not). The images had that "upward" movement betraying its celluloid source, all abstract splotches and lines, the colors varying quite a bit, tending toward combinations that might loosely be described as psychedelic (ie, chartreuse and purple). This isn't my favorite sub-genre of video but by virtue of sitting rather close, the image's large size (projected on a screen some 8 x 12 feet) and the reflection of same off the white walls to either side, I was able to lose myself in it without much difficulty, especially when the video blurred somewhat. I did find that the video overpowered Murray's music which was dark and brooding and likely fine on its own but I had trouble melding it with the images and ended up more watching than listening. (Balancing these senses, I find, can engender some difficulty and, obviously, may be more my problem than that of the performers).

Gears were drastically shifted for the second piece. I've long held the general view that, in music/video works, extreme abstract/concrete poles often serve the form well. That is, the more abstract the music, the more "realist" (in conventional terms) the video, and vice versa. Not always the case by any means (see the glorious Block/Encoder/Gibson DVD recently discussed) but more often than not. Here, the images were from black and white footage shot by Garet from a helicopter over a particularly raw and rugged stretch of glacial territory in Alaska. The camera never caught the horizon line, lending a delicious confusion between the brutal realism of the images and the abstract patterns they'd create; it was almost impossible to get a sense of scale, for instance, due to the fractal nature of the barren cliff-sides. Garet processed this film on the fly, contributing flickers (both "black" and "white", if I'm not mistaken) and a kind of horizontal smearing that evoked Richter. These effects didn't overly distort the image, rather imparting a dreamlike aspect to it, or one of a decaying memory. Beautifully done, in any case. Asher's music was softer, with subdued bell-like tones. As I've said in the past with regard to some of his work, I'm reminded of Eno circa "On Land" once in a while, and was so here, especially given the video. All to his benefit though, as this was richer and deeper. Garet's website, btw, can be found here

Still, it was the final work that really stuck with me. I hadn't heard Garet's music before and you can roughly place it (or at least what was played last night) in an area adjacent to Murray's and Asher's, that is, a rich steady-state zone where sound is constant though fluctuating. He sourced BART subways for one element and you could discern train rumblings in much of the piece; it was excellent work. The video by Asher was a piece from several years prior. It consisted of five or six "scenes", each lasting a few minutes, of an elevated highway shot from a fixed position camera, often on a divider mid-road. The views were beautifully composed, with something of a wide angle, recalling (to me) Rackstraw Downes' painting. They were shot, apparently, at either dusk or dawn in somewhat foggy weather (in b&w), the streets wet, the traffic occasional (It looked like could almost be part of the BQE, though there's never that little amount of traffic). The shots emphasized the wide sweep of the off-ramps and the different levels of the roadbeds. Headlights would appear fuzzily in the distance before arcing by. They had an everyday eeriness and calm beauty that would serve Lynch well, or even Tarr; I could've watched them for hours. Here, to a greater degree than with the prior offerings, the music and film meshed perfectly, each balancing the other, allowing one to experience them as a unity. One of the finest live sets I've encountered recently; love to see/hear on disc.

Thanks, gentlemen.

Went to see Magda Mayas and Andy Moor at Issue Project Room last evening. I'd heard Mayas ins a couple of group contexts, most recently with Michal Renkel in phono_phono, I think, had enjoyed what I could pick out of her playing and knew she was working with Annette Krebs.

She performed on an upright piano that had both faceboards, upper and lower, removed as well as having been prepared in numerous ways (non-electric) and attacked it with various implements, giving a three-level visual sense ranging from standing to sitting to crouching. Moor (of The Ex) played electric guitar.

Much of the music straddled that oft uncomfortable borderline between eai and efi. Moor was often in post-Bailey mode, reminding me once again how tough that area really is and how generally fruitless it turns out for anyone not named Derek Bailey. As is often the case, the more tonally oriented Moor became, the better the music; some musicians simply aren't suited for high levels of abstraction and there's nothing wrong with that. When he reined himself in somewhat, things bubbled along rather well.

Still, it was Mayas' work that stood out and held things together. She seems to be one of those whose touch retains musicality no matter how far afield she roams. IF anything, I wished she stayed with a given approach longer than she often did instead of switching back and forth (see comments on percussionists in the Cooper post below), but she had some stabilizing motifs, small chunks of sound that she'd go back to periodically, forming a nice linkage between sections. Near the beginning they got into a percolating, carbonated groove-let that was giddily enjoyable though when they veered toward the overtly brutal, usually courtesy Moor, the music stumbled. There were some individually striking moments, as when Mayas strummed certain strings and generated a sound astonishingly like a harmonica, which result, when combined with some tangentially bluesy playing from Moor, was eerily evocative.

As the set went on, Moor settled down from his skronkier moments and the last couple of sections grew very ethereal and quite lovely. I'd like to hear more of Mayas on her own (or with a more interesting partner--Krebs would certainly do--but maybe someone like Dorner) but it was fine to hear this much for now.

I haven't read the literature but I'm generally aware that the relationship between the olfactory sense and memory/nostalgia has been established as a phenomenon though whether or not its neurological basis is known, I've no idea. It's uncanny enough how a whiff of something can instantly transport oneself back decades to a specific place and time. I'm wondering if the locales thus visited tend to cluster around one's adolescence; I'm guessing that's the case. With myself, aside from smelleportation, I also experience a somewhat more specific occurrence when listening to the pop or rock that transfixed me as an early teen.

A few years ago, I was up in Poughkeepsie and my Dad mentioned that, while cleaning in the basement, he'd found some old vinyl of mine. I was a little surprised as I thought it'd all been traded in but I guess my brother Glen took a bunch before they disappeared and saved them. There were only a handful, including my Doors collection, which I couldn't quite work up the interest to give a re-listen so declined to take them. But also on hand was Cream's 'Wheels of Fire'. "Hmmm", muses I, "Wonder how this would sound to me today?" I had a soft place for it in my heart as it was the first Double-LP I ever owned, plus I'd liked enough of Bruce's and Baker's subsequent work (hated most of Clapton's) to pique my curiosity.

On the strictly musical front, my relative likes had flip-flopped since first hearing this at about 14. Now, the long, bluesy things sounded half-decent (not compared to their sources, of course, but in and of themselves) whereas much of the shorter, song-oriented material struck me as dated; not all, but most. Overall, it's still rather fun to hear.

However, those shorter songs, "As You Said", "Deserted Cities of the Heart", "White Room", plunged me right back to 1968 to a specific scene: lying on my bed, listening to Cream while immersed in Marvel comics. This is a really common reaction I get with music from this period: Rock music and Marvel. I can't imagine the number of hours I spent in that situation, reading and listening. Not very different from what I do now, to be sure so I'm guessing it has something to do with acquiring certain kinds of knowledge at a certain point in one's development, things that will turn out to be crucial building blocks for future areas of fascination. Comics (we're talking the classic Marvels, Steranko's Nick Fury, Adams' X-Men, Buscema's Avengers and Inhumans, Kirby's Silver Surfer, Barry Smith's Conan, etc.) were my intro to visual art, for better or worse. Things like Cream led to Crimson, Beefheart and on out. My future aesthetic life was in kernel form right then and there, waiting for some heat to pop. Not too surprising that simply hearing some of the same music resonates so much though each time it happens, I get giddy.

PS. Just put on Curlew's 'Live in Berlin' and really can't tolerate it.

Speaking of solo percussion records...not sure how I came across this, maybe picked it up on our first trip to Europe (including Amsterdam) in 1983: Pierre Courbois, 'Independence' on Timeless Records. Again, no cover image I could find.

I'm not real familiar with Courbois otherwise but this one is actually OK if a bit "of its time" with regard to electronics usage. Doesn't have the conceptual rigor of Cooper's work but each piece is a self-contained idea, no flailing. He has a nice sense of musicality, a little Roach-ian. Ultimately forgettable, I guess, but not bad of its type. (!)


Now, you see, there's an album cover. When I pulled this out, I was trying to remember why it was still in my collection. When I purged all the rock, fusion and other stuff back in the mid 70s, I also included a lot of my more mainstream jazz albums, including a bunch of things on Strata East, among them Cowell's Piano Choir and (most unfortunately) several Music Inc. albums. I would've thought "Regeneration" would have been part of that exodus, but no. Playing it, I'm sure its saving grace has to to with an affinity to the kind of music Marion Brown and John Betsch were doing around the same time, albeit with a poppier edge. Brown's on the recording, in fact, along with Ed Blackwell, Billy Higgins, the late John Stubblefield, the fine percussionist Nadi Qamar, Jimmy Heath and Spike's dad, Bill Lee. Interesting mix of African, rural blues, avant jazz and soul-pop, relaxed and enjoyable.

For fun, I googled Psyche Wanzandae, who plays flute and harmonica here. His name always...intrigued me and I don't believe I've ever come across him otherwise. Well, he has a myspace page, laden with Egyptological nonsense.


Really one of the great AACM recordings that rarely gets mentioned, this took place in NYC at the Washington Square Church on May 19, 1970 (released by Muse in 1975), a sextet of Jenkins, Braxton, Leo Smith, Muhal, Richard Davis and Steve McCall. Volume One is a single piece by Jenkins called "Muhal", with a gorgeous theme of long, oddly harmonized tones followed by inspired improv. Very reined in for the most part, great to hear Davis with these guys; his lead-in to the theme is a classic morsel. And that Jenkins lyricism.... (just realized it has to be Muhal playing cello on that theme). Ornette is listed as "recording supervisor".

Vol.2, form the same concert, consists of another album-length piece, "No More White Gloves", apparently another Jenkins piece (listed under his publishing on the disc label--sounds more Muhal-ish). This performance is more raucous in large part, perhaps not quite as strong but still vibrant and rather amazing for 1970; I'm not sure I heard better than this from the same musicians in the last half of the decade.

The covers were painted by one P. Givens, who's also responsible for the fine portrait of Rahsaan on the record I mentioned in the previous post, 'Natural Black Inventions: Root Strata' on Atlantic. Vol 1 is rather attractive, imho. Vol. 2 however, is certifiably in the running for Worst Jazz Album Cover Ever. Enjoy!

Among the handful of musical ideas developed by the jazz avant-garde of the 70s that had a direct bearing on my future appreciation of post-AMM improvisation, one was surely the solo percussion work of Jerome Cooper. I was familiar, of course, with his playing in the Revolutionary Ensemble and with Braxton on the latter's first Arista release (I still think Cooper and Steve McCall were the two most simpatico drummers to work with AB) but when I saw him do a solo performance at Environ, probably in 1977, it was a revelation. I'd already had ingrained a visceral dislike of percussionists who would surround themselves with 85 small hittable or shakable objects and, in the course of a given feature, utilize each and every one for several moments. Seemed an utter waste of time to me. So imagine my joy when Cooper played a solo piece lasting 1/2 hour or more for, say, bass drum, balaphone and sock cymbal or for saw and snare drum.

He'd "limit" himself to only two or three colors and wring awesome amounts of beautiful music from them, aided in large parts by the fascinating West African-derived rhythms he'd employ. It was a major breath of fresh air, in some deep ways not unlike the freshness I experienced with, for instance, Sachiko M's solo pieces.

"Root Assumptions" (what a great album title!) came out on Anima in 1982 (no cover image available, natch), though it was recorded in 1978--I'm wondering if it was in fact recorded at Environ; Peter Kuhn was the engineer and he did a good amount of recording work there. It's a 32 minute piece for balaphone (an antecedent to the marimba, made of bamboo), sock cymbal and bass drum. Endlessly inventive, intricately rhythmic, it's one of my very favorite pieces from that era.


A second solo recording was issued around 1980 by the small and excellent Boston-based About Time label (which also put out some of Threadgill's earliest work as leader), 'The Unpredictability of Predictability', recorded in 1979 at Verna Gillis' wonderful Soundscape loft in the West 50s. I believe I saw Cooper there, in fact, perhaps this performance.

The title suite, on side One, again isolates certain instruments for each part. The first uses flute, whistle, chiramia (a Mexican double reed), bass drum, sock cymbal; the second, drum set with mallets; the third, floor tom, bass drum, sock cymbal, voice. 'Bert the Cat', taking up side Two, adds the chiramia to the ensemble from the previous album and takes on something of a one-man band aspect. Reminds me a little of things like (the divine) 'Black Root' from Rahsaan's 'Natural Black Inventions: Root Strata', if not quite in the same league. Fun piece, if something more of a lark than the music on 'Root Assumptions', though it picks up quite a head of steam along the way.


In 1988, About Time released a quintet date of Cooper's from the previous year, the unfelicitously titled, 'Outer and Interactions'. The group is Vision-Festy before the fact, with Joseph Jarman, William Parker, Thurman Barker and Jason Hwang but the music came as a pleasant surprise, yet another fresh gust of wind in a time where I was already picking up how stultified the genre was becoming. The best pieces are extensions of Cooper's solo work, sometimes with him returning to minimal instrumentation in a group context. Cooper always had a light touch on drums, something that serves him well in a larger context, here with Barker occupying middle percussive ground; the whole group swings very trippingly (admittedly, something of a surprise in any band with Parker in tow). I don't recall this album garnering much press at all and it rarely comes up in discussions; if you're into this area at all, it's well worth checking out.

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About ten years ago, we were invited to a birthday part for my childhood friend Cathy at someone's apartment on Prince Street in Soho. At one point, sitting around, I saw a guy from the rear, ambling toward the kitchen. "I'll be damned if that didn't look like Jerome Cooper", says I. I asked the hostess, "Are you by any chance acquainted with a fellow named Jerome Cooper?" Indeed she was and it was he. Had an lengthy, fairly enjoyable conversation with him up on the building's roof, enjoyable in the sense of recalling old stories from the Environ days. Cooper was somewhat spacey--I imagine the pot and drink circulating didn't help--; as 20 years earlier, he was an exceedingly pleasant individual but I had the sense the business hadn't treated him well, or possibly he it. I left thankful for his prior music but not really expecting much for the future. I notice he's been playing around a bit in the last couple of years, though I've not investigated.

But for his wonderful work with the Revolutionary Ensemble, Braxton and, especially, for his solo music: Thanks, Mr. Cooper.

Christopher McFall - The City of Almost (sourdine)

Another in a string of strong releases from McFall. I'm rapidly losing the ability to describe these sorts of things semi-coherently without repeating myself so suffice it to say that we have field recordings tempered with electronics and who knows what else. Can a critical language be developed for work like this? Dunno. But it tinges the atmosphere in a manner I find beautiful and thought-provoking, even if those thoughts remain impossible to nail down. Oh and the last of the four cuts, "all parts contained", does more than tinge, it kicks butt. Good work. sourdine


Asher - Instability (leerraum)

I believe I've described Asher previously as "indefatigable". Have to come up with a new term...relentless, maybe. "Instability" is an audio DVD release running some 146 minutes. Not so dissimilar from previous work although with a kind of sonic decay foregrounded. You get the sense you're hearing this through an iffy radio transmission which certainly adds some evocativeness. Makes me wish I had a better speaker set-up for my DVDs, as the ambient potential of this one seems very strong. Another sold release. leerraum

Asher, btw, will be playing with Brendan Murray and video artist Richard Garet at Issue Project Room on 8/23.

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A few words on this.

I forget if I went into it when I played the vinyl release on Moers, "Factor X", that contained the original recording of "Guitar Trio". I'm sure I didn't know its history back when that came out and, though I knew Chatham had a tour going last year (I missed the vent at Issue Project, unfortunately), I don't think it sunk in that they were only playing this piece in city after city.

The story, essentially, is that Peter Gordon of LOLO fame, brought the rock-ignorant Chatham to see The Ramones at CBGB in 1977. Chatham minimalist soul was floored by the group's use of three chords, more or less, to hammer home their sound and figured, if they can do it with three, why not with one? Went and wrote "Guitar Trio" which uses one chord (Em7, I understand) over a rhythm that owes a little something to "My Baby Does the Hanky-Panky", allowing the ensemble to go from spare to explosive over the course of the piece, generally around 20 minutes.

So he took David Daniell and went from town to town, rounding up locals, teaching them the work in about an hour in the afternoon and performing it in the evening. I find that whole notion very attractive. That facet of "minimalism", scouring an ostensibly small area to produce an enormous amount of music has obvious parallels--even if the result sounds very different--with post-AMM musicians like Sachiko, Toshi, etc. and I really think you can listen to "Guitar Trio" in much the same way.

The rhythm is a hook, to be sure, but the interaction of guitars is quite often thrilling verging on the ecstatic. The ten pieces don't vary too much--they shouldn't really, but it somehow doesn't matter. If anything, I found that a couple of the drummers allowed things to drag a bit. But when they hit on all cylinders, as in both NYC performances, it's one amazing, transcendent piece of music.

Chatham was supposed to put on a work for 200 electric guitars outdoor at Lincoln Center's Damrosch Park tonight. Thunderstorms are predicted however and, as I was already juggling this event with birthday dinner plans involving a few people, I'm guessing I won't be witnessing it either at its original locale or the vague, undefined indoor site that is supposedly in play (but which you'll only know about if you go early, get a wristband, etc., which is too much to handle).

In the meantime though, this is a glorious set to wallow in.

Annette Krebs/Toshimaru Nakamura - Siyu (sos editions)

In addition to the Block/Recoder/Gibson DVD mentioned below, sos editions has released yet another excellent disc, "siyu". Krebs has really hit her stride over the last year or two--this might be my favorite thing of hers yet, a marvelously strong, dense meeting with Nakamura. This is one of those electronic recordings where you actually feel the voltage surge, including several surprisingly loud and brutal arcs, a fine combination of rawness and, for lack of a sillier metaphor, the "roundness" of heat lightning. sos editions. Also available from erst dist.


Miguel Prado - Dios aborrece una singularidad desnuda (free software series)

Prado's latest (I don't see it up yet, but presumably it'll be available for free download at free software series sometime soon--once again, the above image is an approximation of what appears on the disc sleeve) is a set of six abstract, scrabbling guitar works, occasionally out somewhere beyond Bailey, sometimes with echoes of Hendrix and Frith, always maintaining a guitar sound. Maybe a bit much of that for my taste, though the 5th track hushes matters up very nicely, embedding the ratchety strings in some ambient noise. Crunchy enough, overall, but I wanted more meat.


Paper Wings - Ash Field (Black Petal)

Speaking of guitars, Paper Wings is the guitar duo of Anthony Guerra and Anthony Milton, this session from September, 2005. This one's more in the "death of the universe", feedback-moan-with-noise end of the field which I admit to having some small partiality toward. I haven't brought up Fripp & Eno for at least a couple of months, right? Well, "Ash Field" might be heard as another extension of same. At least until the last of the four tracks, where something closer to...dunno, late Fahey combined with God Speed!?...surfaces, a vibrant, heady strum-affair that deltas out into a supremely rich layers of variegated silts. Great track. If this sounds remotely up your alley, check it out.

black petal

I never had any real pets growing up. My Dad wasn't fond of having dogs or cats around the house. My Mom had a parakeet or two and I remember having some fish and several of those two-inch diameter turtles that would last a few weeks. Occasionally a dog would follow me home and I'd bring it inside, Mom warning me to make sure it was gone by the time Dad came home from work. There was a small woods and pond behind our house. On the other side was the back of the Lampell's, who had a big dopey black Lab named Divot. When we'd be in the backyard and see Divot resting on his lawn some hundred yards away, we'd yell, "Divot!" and he'd come galumphing through the woods, ever ready to cavort.

Linda never had a dog either. It's changed now a bit, but dogs as "pets" in the Philippines weren't so common in the recent past, though you'd see these ratty creatures skulking around homes, "alarm dogs" if anything. When I first visited, in 1985, we'd be sitting around outside, one of these pitiful creatures would amble up and I'd pet it, much to the shock of family members; you just didn't pet these things. I asked its name and was met with a blank look. "Name?"

In the early 90s, when it became apparent we weren't going to be having kids, we started talking about the idea of getting a dog. In the summer of '93, we decided to go for it. We first figured we'd adopt an abandoned one and went out to the North Shore Animal League in Long Island only to discover their policy of not giving up dogs less than six months old to couples who both work. I'd happened to have visited a pet shop a week prior so I suggested to Linda we stop in, if only to get an idea of what was around. This was in midtown Manhattan, no parking, so I idled in the car while Linda went to the store. About a half-hour later, she reappeared all a-twitter, "Ooh--ooh, you have to go and see this puppy!" Hence, Nanook, an American Eskimo dog, the lovely creature you see in my blog pic.

Nanook was an exceptionally sweet dog, pampered to an absurd degree, always ready with a friendly lick and cuddle. Didn't mind listening to eai. About a year and a half ago, she began to age noticeably, developing arthritis in her hindquarters, getting a bit mentally dizzy. As these things go, it gradually worsened, taking a big downturn a couple months back when her muscles began to atrophy, a worse one last week.

This morning, we had her put to rest, a very tough decision but, I'm sure, the correct one. Very, very hard thing to do.

A wonderful dog, we'll miss her terribly.

Six releases on another timbre


My very first exposure to European free improv came about when, around 1973, I picked up the Music Improvisation Company's recording on ECM. I'm quite sure my main impetus for doing so was the presence of Jame Muir on percussion, with whom I was familiar from King Crimson's "Lark's Tongue in Aspic". So that was my initial hearing of Derek Bailey, Evan Parker...and Hugh Davies. I think it was the last time I heard Davies for a number of years, into the mid 90s. Firstly, after my dalliance, I'd given up on EFI in the late 70s, trading in the handful of vinyl I owned along with all my rock whilst in my all-black-avant, all the time phase (quelle erreur!--the trade-ins, not the AACM etc. appreciation). Secondly, his work wasn't easy to come by.

Even so, when encountered, it's given me some amount of trouble. I'm all for rawness, but Davies' brand of same, at least in my limited exposure to it, never quite convinced me. Still, as he was held in high esteem by a number of musicians I admire (Keith once mentioned that, of all the improvisers who had never been asked to play with AMM, the one he most regretted was Davies), I was interested to experience a sampling of his work which is what's provided on this another timbre release.

Frankly, his music still gives me some problems, though I ascribe that more to me than him. Part of me still likes to hear a given instrument transcend its inherent form--when you hear Sonny Rollins, you (or, at least, I) hear less a saxophone than Rollins himself) and with many a homemade, I tend to hear the springs, egg slicers, etc. rather than the musician. I realize this shouldn't really be a concern, that the sounds should be appreciated for what they are and, I get the feeling that if I didn't derive a kind of "improv-y" sense from Davies' music, ie, if it was more purely sonic exploration, that would be the case here. But to my ears, he straddles the two fields and a little uncomfortably. Like I say, my mishigas. That said, I can sort of tell this is a strong collection for those into Davies, heavy on the rough and brutal. Of the tracks here, 'salad' (1977) makes the greatest impression, probably due in part to its relative quietness and subtlety. I should work at enjoying this music more (!)


Hugh Davies + Adam Bohman/Lee Patterson/Mark Wastell - for Hugh Davies

Now here's the strange thing. The companion release to the above, which uses several of its tracks as a basis for improvisations on five of the six cuts, I find totally fantastic. With Davies' voice as one part in four (or three or two on two tracks), his ratchetiness is subsumed within a lovely blanket of work from Bohman (prepared balalaika/amplified objects), Patterson (amplified objects) and Wastell (unpacking his cello for the occasion). Each piece is something of a gem, including the final one, which is sans Davies, though dedicated to him. Beautiful recording.


Frédéric Blondy/Thomas Lehn - obdo

Another fine one. I've only heard Blondy sparingly in the past and was never entirely taken with his work and the louder side of Lehn has often left me cold. On the first of two tracks the tendency is quiet (though often quite sharp), with Blondy vaguely evoking Tilbury in Cage/gamelan mode and Lehn contributing lovely mists, hammers and chirps. Much of the second piece is bumpier, more rambunctious, but sounds just as carefully considered. Wonderful, spatial clattering and dense, insane chittering in the second portion of the "suite". Excellent job.


Clive Bell/Bechir Saade - \an account of my hut

I'm anything but an expert on the shakuhachi--I have several recordings that I like a great deal and what else I've heard I've also tended to enjoy. This duo of Bell on the shakuhachi and Saade on the ney, an end-blown flute of Arabic origin perform seven improvisations that strike my ears as having more in common with the Japanese form than not. They're fine, but nothing about them particularly moves me. There's a kind of shapelessness here which may be precisely what the pair were aiming for and devotees of the wider improvising flute arena may have a ball with it, but it left me unsatisfied.


Esteban Algora/Alessandra Rombola/Ingar Zach - ...de las piedras

At the beginning, Algora's accordion is often a bit up front for my taste but when things are turned down a notch or two, as on the ghostly "Alabastro", the trio shines. The ensuing "Galena", rife with ringing tones, is almost equally lovely for much of its length. The clatter mid-disc is quite effective (not sure if it's Rombola on "tiles installation" or the always enjoyable Zach) but the finale brings back the organ-y accordion to the fore. A mixed bag, but good enough at its best that I'm interested in hearing more from these three.


Matt Davis/Matt Milton/Bechir Saade - Dun

Finally comes "Dun", a very fine, expansive and at the same time bracingly spartan set by Davis (trumpet. field recordings), Milton (violin) and Saade (here on bass clarinet and flute). Three longish cuts, each carving out a wedge of space, sharply defined as to overall shape even as the elements making up the volume are sparely distributed. The latter half of the second track, all a-twitter, is especially beautiful. Really enjoyable, intelligent music.

Nice batch of releases overall from an excellent label.

another timbre

Available from erst dist

Because I don't have enough to get around to listening, I went out and purchased:

Ustad Ali Akbar Khan - Morning Visions
Elodie Lauten - The Death of Don Juan
Kevin Drumm - Imperial Distortion
Tape - Luminarium
Rhys Chatham - Guitar Trio Is My Life!

Plus, I bought moongraphs [erm, sic] on Rothko (Skira), Richter (MOMA), Rauschenberg (Abrams) and Rackstraw Downes, as well as the Tarkvosky 'Sculpting in Time'.

Luis Recoder/Sandra Gibson/Olivia Block - (untitled) sos editions DVD

I just watched and listened to this for the first time and I gotta say, it's pretty impressive. There will be more viewings, but just a few notes.

Unlike the previous release on this label, Sean Meehan's 'Sectors (for constant)', I decided to open this one. The external packaging contains what printed text there is, the interior pieces lending themselves to be assembled into a small box, into which the DVD sleeve can be inserted. But aside from Block, by the time I put it into my player, I'd forgotten the names of the other two contributors and, indeed, didn't know what the make-up of the disc was with regard to who was responsible for what, if there were three pieces, etc. The disc itself provided no further clues, beginning without a menu or any other indication of what was in store (which, btw, is the way I like it; would that more music DVDs followed this pattern). So one result was that I wasn't sure if the audio portion was entirely Block's responsibility or not (it is).

Her music, not surprisingly, is excellent, though less Block-ish than one might have come to expect given her last several releases. The only telltale signs were a handful of echoing bangs, the kind of large-vessel-interior booms we heard on parts of "Heave To". Otherwise, the music carries a traditional arc from quiet to loud to quiet, very much in the "roar" category, from dull to enormous. On its own, as an audio disc, it would likely have been a big favorite of mine this year. Combined with the video, it's pretty damned fantastic.

The initial image is a light rectangle (the entire video is black and white) with a somewhat darker border, its shape roughly congruent to that of your TV, with rounded corners. In the first few minutes, this shape pretty much sits there, the shades varying very slightly, minimally enough that you're not sure if they're actually changing or your eyes are playing tricks. Gradually, a kind of aura projects from the rectangle, seeping into the surrounding dark. Later, as the music intensifies, faint light pulses are seen within the white quadrangle, flashing irregularly and dully, as if seen through thick, clouded glass. Throughout the video, there's a shifting placement of these images, emerging and receding from the rectangle, sometimes "within" it, sometimes, exploding outside of it. Around the 25-minute mark (total time of the video @42 minutes), the action is ratcheted up and an incredibly dense and chaotic period of activity occurs, throbbing and organic, though as if on a microscopic level; it's like you're watching neurons and synapses in action. Anyone ever use the old CA Lab cellular automata program? I was reminded of the kind of seething movement you'd get there, organic and pattern-oriented but a step or two beyond what your brain could easily perceive as a pattern.

Jeez and this on just one listen....

It eventually subsides but here's the real special part. You sort of expect a reversion to the visuals that began the piece, a kind of A-B-A form. The music more or less does so but instead of the white rectangle coming back into sharp focus, the writhing movements and flashes of light gradually go extremely out of focus, resulting in an utterly marvelous several minutes of pulsing blur, a beautiful and eerie effect, the kind of thing some protege of David Lynch will be featuring in ten years, an abstract image that has (viewer imposed) glimmers of realism (headlights, heat lightning, etc.). Very, very cool.

So, big kudos to Recoder & Gibson, whose work I'm otherwise unfamiliar with (can't locate any images of this disc online). And of course to Block, the three teaming for a superlative effort, maybe the best thing I've seen and/or heard this year.

Here's a capture, courtesy Erik:


It's a little pricey, but well worth it, available from erstdist

sos editions

The single best thing about reunions has to be when people you remember as being lovely, bright and interesting decades ago turn out to still be lovely, bright and interesting.

I attended a high school reunion this past Saturday, the 36th year after our '72 graduation. We'd had only one previously, the 20th in '92. My brother Glen's class ('74) holds one every five years and this year decided to do a 3-fer, with the classes from '72-'74. There were people I'd seen reasonably often over the last few years but not often enough (hi, Joy!), others I'd been in touch with but hadn't seen in ages (great to see you, Corky & Jodé!) and others who's presence was a wonderful surprise like Anne Schwartz and her husband Dan Levitan (who, btw, is a composer, specializing in works for percussion and keyboard and who studied with, among others, Henry Brant). Great to see Carol, who had extreme trepidations about going, enjoying herself so thoroughly, the belle of the ball!

Mucho fun, very nostalgic. Hope it happens more often in the future.

Conjure - Music for the Texts of Ishmael Reed (American Clave)

This one just gets better with age and it's a royal shame that it's currently, as far as I know, unavailable on disc. One of the most inspired of Kip Hanrahan's multi-genre projects, it was a thrilling idea in 1983 and the stew remains damn tasty.

With Reed's words as a basis, we have pieces composed by David Murray, Carla Bley, Steve Swallow, Carman Moore, Allen Toussaint, Taj Mahal, Lester Bowie and Hanrahan, with additional instrumental contributions from, among others, Olu Dara (in primo form) Jean-Paul Bourelly, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Billy Hart, Puntilla Orlando Rios, Elysee Pyronneau, Milton Cardona, Kenny Kirkland, Andy Gonzalez and Arto Lindsay.

Most every piece is strong. The deep blues-funk of Murray's "Jes' Grew" is one of my favorite compositions of his. Bley's "The Wardrobe Master of Paradise" has a surpriingly bouncy groove for her with a subtly smooth vocal from Taj Mahal and some soulful tenor from Murray. "Dualism (1)", by Swallow, is a small masterpiece featuring my prize playing from Dara, a marvelous combination of consideredness and soft swagger, just stunning. Moore's "Oakland Blues" attempts and largely succeeds in combining street grit with an almost operatic form, courtesy Robert Jason's vocal. The real jewel on Side One, though, is Toussaint's "Skydiving", a perfect, serious pop song with some heartbreaking piano and organ work from the composer and an extremely moving vocal from Mahal. Classic.

Side Two is almost as good, especially the other Swallow piece, "Untitled II" with some wonderfully smoky Murray. If one track has faded a bit here compared to my memory, it might be Bowie's "Fool-ology"; it's a great deal of fun with the late Lester doing a fine job acting a clown and with some neato backing vocals by Molly Farley and Brenda Norton, but it's structure sounds creakier now than it did then, maybe requiring a bit more tightness.

Fantastic cover, too. American Clave's trademark was a metallic undercoating--gold, silver, copper--that imparted a burnished look that's still pretty unique (it's not as red as the image above would indicate, much more penny-colored).

Just located and bought a CD copy of this on e-bay; I guess it surfaced for a while somewhere.

The follow-up, "Cab Calloway Stands in for the Moon", runs a close second to this one in the Conjure catalog, well worth hearing (another great Toussaint song, "Running for the Office of Love") but their most recent offering, "Big Mouth" was, as I wrote here last year sometime, a major disappointment.

Brendan Murray - Commonwealth (23five)

Every so often I hear a piece that brings to mind Harry Partch's wonderful line about his invented instrument, the Blo-Boy. "It does exactly one thing, but that one thing it does superbly." In many respects, that may not apply to Murray's "Commonwealth"--there's a good deal going on within the vortex--but one can imagine it sitting out there like a single, seething mass of sound. On the whole, there's a tonal feel to it, though trying to untangle the number of elements contributing to the skein is a fool's errand. If you enjoyed Murray's previous outings, this is a no-brainer. Good stuff, play it loud. 23five


Chop Shop - Oxide (23five)

Chop Shop (Scott Konzelmann) constructs an interesting "second remove" piece. Original tapes he recorded from already abstracted source material accidentally underwent extreme damage while in storage. Like any good post-Cagean, he took these "marred" tapes and investigated what the accident had wrought. The sounds themselves are fine, tending toward the dirty rumble and dull roar. The structure, though, strikes me as a bit...un-thought out, blandly conceived, blocky, I didn't sense a rationale for the disc as a whole (it's a single piece). Maybe doesn't matter, but it didn't convince me as a real entity as much as the Murray above.


BJ Nilsen & Stilluppsteypa - Passing Out (Helen Scarsdale Agency)

I hadn't heard Stilluppsteypa in a few years and, as far as I know, I've never heard BJ Nilsen. This is their third collaboration but I had little more than vague expectations. Well, it subverted them. One track, some 68 minutes long, of quiet disquiet, brooding augmented field recordings (guessing), uncomfortable blistering, passive roiling. I gather the previous releases have referenced aspects of drinking in their titles as well. Not sure I make the sonic connection but never mind. The music isn't earthshaking in conception, simply extremely well executed and conceived, moving at its own unhurried pace, finding several surprises around the dark corners. Gets a little loopy at the 50-minute mark but overall, very nice. helen scarsdale

Agustí Fernández/Ingar Zach - Germinal (Plastic Strip)

Fernández (piano) and Zach (percussion) proffer six pieces that are perhaps closer in feel to Xenakis than most current improv--the pianist especially has a similar kind of rigor--fashioning music that moves from sharply etched and jagged to a kind of quiet that possesses a sandpaper roughness, the latter especially enjoyable ("Hojarasca"). Good restless, prickly probing on the part of each, resulting in a good strong disc that absorbed me more on each listen. plastic strip


Axel Dörner/Clare Cooper/Cor Fuhler - Crax (Conundrom)

Another fine release from Fuhler's willfully obscure Conundrom label (that's not the cover above, but a pic of Ms. Cooper). A single 35 minute track, recorded on December 21st of 2007, it's a lovely blend of bittersweet, long tones, Dörner providing the acerbity, Fuhler the tonal ground and Cooper, a harpist from Australia new to me, the glistening pinpoints of color. Several very beautiful "patches" where the trio is absolutely unified as well as cohesive throughout. Good stuff and good luck finding it, but here's Cor's site.

I wasn't expecting much.

I'd bought the first Fennesz/Sakamoto disc, Sala Santa Cecilia, and found it to be so much attractive fluff, not unlistenable but certainly unmemorable. Hadn't heard anything more recent but had a nagging suspicion things hadn't exactly taken a turn toward the gritty. But the show was free, in the Winter Garden near the World Trade Center site, an easy train jog from home, so off I went.

I'd been to a couple of shows there before, though not in a while. One was Fripp and his League of Artsy Guitarists. That was pretty bad; this may have been worse.

Lot of people, maybe 1,000, kind of dispiriting considering the 100 or 150 that showed up in 2004 when Christian played with Rowe at Tonic. I gather Sakamoto is fairly big in Japan and the crowd may have been 1/3 Japanese. They began each on laptops and that was easily the best part of the show, rising to the level of a lousy eai set, some quiet noise but assembled with little touch or rigor. Even so, I was kind of surprised and wondered if, whatever the quality, the cotton candy aspect of the music was going to be less than I expected.

No such luck. Sakamoto went over to the piano which, for the duration of my stay, he proceeded to play with a ham-handedness and vapidity that would have challenged George Winston. Fennesz largely just provided background fuzz, sugary waftings. Once in a while he picked up his guitar and scratched at it, a relatively welcome sound. Amazingly shapeless music, enough so that, for a while, I attempted to listen to it as a Cagean, "personality-vacant" performance. Maybe it was my lack of ability, but I couldn't even get that to work.

I was more or less trapped in my seating situation, but after about an hour a small aisle opened up and I took advantage to make a hasty exit. Walking over the Vesey St. Bridge back to the PATH station, the roar of traffic on West St. below and the deep chugging of a helicopter above were infinitely preferable to what I'd experienced inside.

I don't care a whit about Sakamoto, but I do hold out hope that this is simply a financial issue for Fennesz and that he returns to creating vibrant music sometime in the future. It'd be mighty sad if he ends up churning out this pap for years to come.

For a supposed avant jazz fan since 1972, my Coltrane LP collection is extraordinarily sparse. Aside from a reissue copy of "A Love Supreme" from '86, which I'm pretty certain was a gift from someone, it only consists of two items. There's a reason for this, sorta. Coltrane, along with Charlie Parker, was easily the most played musician on my radio station of choice, WKCR. In fact, the first time I came across that station, in the summer of '72, it was in the middle of one of the longer versions of "My Favorite Things". With some exceptions, I tended to devote what record buying funds I had to newer music and since I was hearing Coltrane constantly on radio, he got short shrift in the collection. I've stocked the shelves during the CD era though, even here, it's virtually all post-1960 work, with a heavy concentration in the last few years of his life.

To that extent, it's not too surprising that the two LPs I do own are from that final period.

As always, there may well be some nostalgia at play, but if I had to pick one Coltrane recording, "Interstellar Space" might be it. Especially for "Mars" and "Jupiter". What incredible, protean power. Always get the mental image of a huge dam breaking. Can't say much that hasn't already been said about the session though.


This is probably an odder one to happen to have purchased. Might've found it for cheap in a college store or cutout bin. It's an oddity, to be sure, but an attractive one, imho. I wrote it up for All Music Guide and stand by that opinion. Don't keep up with Trane disciplism, so I've no idea what the consensus up or down is these days. Listening now, it reminds me a bit of Jarrett's mid-70s US quartet a bit, "Living Space", anyway.

[Shocked at the apparent non-overlap between eai listeners and Jeopardy fans, btw]

So, yes there was a prize. During the game, they announced what the 2nd and 3rd place finishers were to receive, which announcement hardly registered with me. Immediately following the show's conclusion, we were brought to the table of one of the producers and asked to sign a form saying we would or wouldn't accept delivery of said prizes. I signed, OK.

My prizes were 1) a 286 Motorola computer (this was 1991, recall) and some kind of brass "desk set". I didn't own a "regular" computer at the time, just a C64 for gaming purposes. I'd been looking into it though and knew that the Motorola wasn't one I particularly wanted but I figured I could sell it and use the cash toward getting the desired one.

The show was taped in February and aired in mid-April. (Jeopardy, for tax purposes I imagine, had valued the PC at its list price of $1,800 though a quick check upon my return home showed that you could buy one anyplace for $1,200.) My prize (I never saw hide nor hair of the desk set) arrived on Oct. 31. During the course of the preceding summer, Motorola (and everyone else) had brought out their 386 line, rendering my unwanted PC obsolete. So I didn't unpack it but looked around for a business that purchased computers and found one in midtown. The deal was, you give them a product description, they put out a notice. If they locate an interested buyer, he sends them a check and they notify you. You then ship the PC to the buyer and when he verifies receipt, they release his check to you less a 10% commission. Fine, they found someone who would pay $660 for it which I figured would cover my taxes on my "winnings". I shipped out the box to Louisiana and shortly received my $600 check.

A few weeks later, I get a note in my mailbox of a package awaiting me at the Post Office. I go over and there's my box. I see that the Louisiana guy had, without removing my return address, sent it to somewhere in South Carolina where it had apparently been refused and so the PO sent it back to me. Wonderful. Being an honest feller, I called the middleman company I'd dealt with, explained the situation. They contacted the LA guy, he sent me a check to cover reposting and I sent it out again.

Come tax time, I receive a W-2 from Jeopardy, claiming full value, natch, for the merchandise. However, i know that if I can show "true market value", which I could due to my legit sale, I can claim that income instead and did so, including copies of all pertinent documents.

Three years later...I get a letter from the IRS accusing me of under-reporting my income for 1991. Oy. I call some IRS office out in Long Island and explain the story to a lady. "Oh, you were on Jeopardy! How exciting!" etc, etc. Turns out I was correct in my approach except that they needed a letter from the company who handled the sale, explicitly stating that $660 was the market price for the PC. Fer krissakes. Amazingly enough, the company was still in business and, even more amazingly, I got hold of a sweet young girl who was willing to look through three year-old records, find a copy of my transaction and write the needed letter.

Thus, finally, ended my Jeopardy experience.

Linda was actually on "So You Want to Be A Millionaire" in 2001, but that's another story....

Ellen Ripstein is a lovely lady and one of the best crossword solvers around (she won the US Open once and finished 2nd or 3rd innumerable times). I just came across a link to her experiences as a contestant on Jeopardy in 1991 (here) and thought, it being a lazy Friday afternoon at work and all, that I'd do the same for posterity (I've recounted it elsewhere, I'm sure, but....)

Like any self-respecting geek, I'd been a fan on the show (btw, I find it impossible to tag on the technically correct exclamation mark after the show's title) since I was a wee one, growing up with Art Fleming, pictured above, in the emcee role. He had a kind of gruff manliness that contrasted with the knowledge-based game, none of the occasional smarmy middlebrow-ness of Trebek. Somewhere in the back of my head was always the idea that I should try out for the show. For a long time, iirc, it was a matter of sending in postcards and suffering the randomness of the draw. Eventually, possibly due to the increased popularity of the reborn, Trebek-led program, score-based tryouts began to be held. In 1990, perhaps with some added confidence derived from my reasonable success in crossword tourneys, my friend Peter Cohen and I journeyed to Atlantic City, attempting to gain entry into this mythic kingdom.

It was a sleek operation, held in some large hotel there. They ushered groups of 80 or so into a big room (there had to be 7 or 8 such groups that day) and gave us the lowdown. We were going to be given 50 questions, roughly on a difficulty level equal to the harder Double Jeopardy questions from the show. We were handed a sheet of paper with 50 blank, numbered spaces and there was a large-screen TV on the room's stage. The questions would pop up, just as in the game, and remain for 10 or so seconds before proceeding to the next. They didn't tell you how many you needed to answer correctly in order to move on into the next "round", but the rumor circulating around the room was 37.

The host took questions from the gathered nerds. Some people were already asking about prize payouts. "Jeez", I'm thinking, "How about passing the test first?" One asked why the 2nd and 3rd place finishers weren't allowed to keep the money. Interesting reason: Going into Final Jeopardy, it wasn't uncommon to see someone in 2nd place with a substantial sum, quite possibly enough for them to be happy about and not risk on the last question, thus screwing up the drama of the game. The producers wanted to avoid that scenario, so instead you're sent home with a Barc-a-Lounger or whatever.

So I hunkered down for the test. The questions seemed to be grouped in categories and the first six or seven were all political or US historical in nature, not my favorite subject. I know I was unsure about every answer I wrote down. Then, however, there was a string of 10 or 12 that I was positive about, a bunch of art or music related items I knew easily, etc. After it was over, I was guessing (I'd never find out) that I was probably pretty close to the cut-off. They design the quiz so as to eliminate 90% of the wannabees and, in my group, this worked to a tee as eight of us passed, including yours truly. My friend Peter, alas, didn't make it as didn't those idiots asking about their prize shares.

They herded the octet into a smaller room where we were compelled to play a mock game. The purpose of this exercise, I think, was to determine a) if we were more or less presentable (a good thing about Jeopardy is that they don't care how bubbly or hyper-enthusiastic you are, but they like their entrants to be on the seemlier side of Ratso Rizzo) and b) if it seemed likely we'd freeze up due to nerves. There were clearly two or three in my group that had zero chance of ever getting on the show. That done, we were told, "Go home. If you don't hear from us in the next two or three weeks, feel free to try again." So home I went.

A little over a week later, I received the call. I was to fly to LA mid-February. They don't pay your way or put you up so we found some old friends of Linda's to mooch on and went out for four days, my first trip to Tinseltown. The city failed to impress, btw, living up to several of its worst stereotypes including smog and lack of pedestrians though a car trip up into the San Gabriel Mountains was very cool, the only place I've encountered where "Fallen Rock Zone" signs were accompanied by actual fallen rock in the road, including one boulder which, as I approached it coming 'round a curve, was still surrounded by a cloud of dust!

On the appointed day, I went to the TV studio. They taped (still do, I suppose) a week's worth of shows on a given day so there were 16 other contestants in our little group, two extra in case someone got sick or was overcome by stage fright. The rules were laid down: there were only certain staff with whom we were allowed to talk. If we happened to encounter Mr. Trebek in the hallway or astride a urinal, we were to ignore him on the off-chance we'd establish some kind of relationship (as if). In the mid-morning we got to play some practice rounds on the set to familiarize ourselves with the situation and, crucially, the clickers.

Now, we all (we Jeopardy geeks, that is) go to the event armed with certain areas of knowledge that we know inside out, that appear with some regularity as Jeopardy categories and that few other people seem to have a grasp of. In my case, this includes art, music (non-pop variety), science and math, etc. Chatting with some of the other contestants, I met a very enjoyable young guy from Boston (I forget his name!) who was a sculptor with a big science/math interest! We joked about facing off against each other. We were discussing recent shows and he mentioned knowing a very difficult final answer ("The Picture of Dorian Grey") because, as he said, "I've been reading a lot of Wilde lately." As it turned out, on the practice round, we were indeed up on the set at the same time. Not only that, but there were a few art and math-related categories which we zipped through, much to the consternation of the other lady up there with us.

Come the tapings, they select three people more or less at random (they like to mix up the sexes, if possible), the rest of us sitting in the studio, watching the goings on. As it turned out, I didn't get chosen until Friday's show, so I watched four games. Well. Not only did every one of "my" categories show up during those four shows but no one knew any of the answers. I was sitting out there cursing my head off. Moreover, no one was particularly good, the champion changing on each show, winning with a paltry amount of money. This sucked. My buddy from Boston was on Wednesday's show. He was in contention through Double Jeopardy then, the category being "English Literature", he hit a Daily Double and bet most of his money. The question was something like, "This author spent two years in Reading Prison" "Wow," silently exclaimed I, "The lucky dog!"

But he blanked out. He stood there, having the answer on the tip of his tongue, knowing he had just talked about the person in question hours before, but couldn't get it out! Aggh, I felt terrible for him. He lost.

The fellow who won on Thursday, a lawyer, was pretty good. I got picked for Friday. It was what I would call a "general interest" show, the categories being fairly broad and the answers not too difficult. However, getting the timing down on the buzzers proved to be tricky. Time and time again, all three of us would know the answer but the champion, having gotten the timing down very well, beat us out. It was rather frustrating; you expect to get edged out sometimes but this guy was up around the 90% mark. I blew a couple as well. To this day I get glasnost and perestroika confused; did then too. But things got better in Double Jeopardy and our scores got closer, though the lawyer still had a good lead.

My kick-myself-in-the-ass moment was a failure to guess on the $1,000 question as to which sense was accommodated by the Jacobson's Organ in snakes. Though I didn't know it offhand, going through the possibilities, it was (almost) obvious that it could only be smell. But I couldn't pull the trigger. Had I done so, when I hit my own Daily Double, things would have been different. The category was "Russian" (not something I know) and I bet about 60% of my winnings up to that point. The question was, "In 1957, this Russian term for 'comrade' became popular" Well I didn't know, but for me, 1957 and Russia equate to one thing, and I was correct. (I'll leave this open for others to guess) It was near the end of the round and had I ventured an answer on the snake question, I would have had to bet more, enough to overtake the other guy. Grrr...

So, we go into final jeopardy with the lawyer at $8,500, the other woman at $6,500 and me at $5,600. (Very similar, overall, to Ellen's experience). Now, I'd watched the show enough to know what my deal was: The woman would bet all of her dough, the guy would bet enough to cover her amount if she won (ie, $4,501). I have to bet a fairly small amount and hope that they each get the answer wrong. I'd seen many a show where the idiot 3rd place person unnecessarily bets all or most of his cash and needlessly lost. The category comes up: Broadway Musicals.

There are probably two Jeopardy categories that I both know nothing about and, further, have no desire to know anything about. One is British Royalty. The other is Broadway Musicals.

So, I bet $0. (I had a couple thou to play with).

The question appears: This 1955 musical featured the songs, "Shoeless Joe from Hannibal Mo." and "Heart"

Naturally, I knew the answer. So I write down "Damn Yankees", figuring if I knew it, these guys will know it. Alex comes to my lectern. "Brian wrote, 'What is Damn Yankees?' Correct! How much did he wager? Zero! Leaving you with $5,600" Yawn. He goes over to the woman and it seems she wrote, "What is 'Annie Get Your Gun'?" "How much did you bet?" "$6,500! Sorry, you're down to $0." I quickly crossed my fingers.

But, of course, the lawyer got it right and I was Jeopardy history.

Then there's the story of the prize, but this post is quite long enough.

Love this record. I suppose it's a jumbled mess in some respects, a set of 20 some loosely related themes patched together but some of those themes, especially the slower sections, are some of the most beautiful melodic lines I know. Very romantic, very...aspirational in the sense of floating upward. Has this ever been staged live? Performed in recent years? Again, as with the Town Hall concert, in many respects the writing is obviously very conservative relative to things going on in the contemporary classical world in 1972. Curious if Ornette simply didn't care, if he dismissed those trends or if he was more or less oblivious to them. Aside: He was taken to see AMM in '66 while in London and, from reports, ignored them and talked with friends.


Lovely date, just Haden and Ornette, the latter on tenor throughout save for the final track where he switches to trumpet. Interesting that it's from '78 when Prime Time was running full steam; the music here has nothing to do with that. Don't know how many know "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman", the subversive TV show whose theme is played here. Both are in fine, relaxed form. I don't see this mentioned too often, but it's something of a gem, well worth checking out.


This may rank in my 10 Worst Album covers ever list. A 1979 Prime Time date released by Antilles in 1982, it's always struck me as lackluster. I wasn't a huge Prime Time fan. Saw them twice, once in 1977 at Avery Fisher Hall on a "double bill" with Ornette's acoustic quintet (Cherry, Redman, Haden, Blackwell) and then out in the park in Hartford Ct. for Ornette Coleman day around 1983. Might be Calvin Weston's and Denardo's drumming that I find too plodding; could use some Shannon Jackson here. But it's also the tunes he used with this line-up--few of them for me, have as much inherent beauty as his earlier compositions so whatever instrumental filigree they overlay, the structure, to my ears, is rickety.


Been quite a while since I listened to this. I recall cringing when I heard that Ornette was working with Metheny, a musician I've never been able to abide (absurd that he gets top billing on the record). He's OK here, though, kind of subsumed into the harmolodic concept. Good dual drum team of Denardo and DeJohnette. Happily, this holds up surprisingly well, some good intense playing, barely controlled free for alls. By the end of the record, it gets to be a bit much and you want some lemon sorbet to cleanse the palate, but overall, pretty decent.

The remainder of my Ornette on vinyl consists of three items I can't quite work up the interest to spin:

Opening the Caravan of Dreams (1985) more Prime Time that I recall finding pretty tiresome.

In All Languages (1987) Split 2LP with Cherry/Haden/Higgins on one disc Prime Time on the other. My memory of the acoustic set is that the pieces were way to short, almost treated like Prime Time pop songs. Hideous album design as well.

Virgin Beauty (1988) - The sole representation of Jerry Garcia in my collection (he guests on a couple of tracks), enough to keep it off the turntable.....

***************

Addendum


My only Steve Coleman album, 1998's "Sine Die" on the short-lived, Sting-financed Pangaea label. Boy I hope he's changed his wardrobe since then. I never understood the buzz around his work (though I think he was a fine component of some of Dave Holland's bands around the time). Stilted funk, dry, overcooked melodic lines, sappy lyrics ("Everybody's got to have a destination/Everybody needs somewhere to go")--I don't get it. I had fairly negative memories of this one but wanted to make sure. Now I'm sure.