colinmce

They were all over the place shortly after the Concord sale. In addition to Oldies and Newbury, where I bought dozens, they were also sold as cutouts at bookstores in my area, and a local jazz-centric record shop marked them down in favor of the new RVG and Keepnews editions.

I agree. I think for the combination of quality and scarcity of the material this is one of the very best Mosaic sets period.

He's on fire here, but yes, it's very hard to find now:

Yep, it's part of this same initiative.

A friend had this confirmed by one of the producers a few months back. My assumption is it will be LP and CD just like Blue World, Both Directions At Once, and Live In Seattle. There is also an Alice/Pharoah live tape project being assembled.

PM: Barry Guy – The Passing (Maya) Hot End – Do Tell: The Music of Julius Hemphill (Amirani) Wadada Leo Smith/Sabu Toyozumi – Burning Meditation (No Business) Jurgen Wuchner/Rudi Mahall/Jorg Fischer – In Memoriam Buschi Niebergall (Sporeprint) Markus Eichenberger & Christoph Galio – Unison Polyphony (Ezz-Thetics)

I found a copy of Songs & Dances last year, the first one I've ever seen for sale. A very nice disc indeed, it would be great if more people could hear it.

I had the fortune of visiting Amoeba in both LA and San Francisco over the last year. In each case I walked out with a massive pile of jazz CDs, nearly all between $2-8, many of them things I've been searching for high & low for years. If I lived there I'd run out of space in my house within months.

Just noticed this one while I was filing some things away yesterday: 3 Points and A Mountain ... Plus FMP CD 107 Brötzmann- Mengelberg - Benning

I still buy several a year this way, but I am finding people are becoming ever more precious about the Limited Edition ones. Somehow even Blue Note RVG CDs are starting to get very pricy in some cases. Highly ironic and absurd as they're less in demand than ever. Algorithms and Discogs have convinced everyone they have a big payday just around the corner.

"Blue Bossa" - Page One "Funk In A Deep Freeze" - Hank Mobley Quintet "Falling In Love With Love" - Portrait of Sheila "The Griots" - Andrew!!! "Eco" - Right Now! "Arietis" - Ready For Freddie "Tune Up" - Newk's Time "Witch Hunt" - Speak No Evil "Snowflakes & Sunshine" - At The Golden Circle Vol. 2 "Zoltan" - Unity

The alternate of "You" is the only track not on the OJCs.

I read the book this week, and found it a bit of a disappointment overall. It reads more like a longform article than an intensive biography. It's very glossy; compared to a work like Robin Kelley's Monk bio (admittedly the gold standard of jazz biography) or even Jack Chambers' problematic yet exhaustive Miles book, there is ultimately very little in the way of specifics or deep sourcing. In terms of the latter, it relies almost entirely on reviews and interviews from a small handful of publications (Coda, Downbeat, Cadence, The Cricket etc.); there is very little in the way of primary sourcing. Maybe this is difficult to obtain for a figure of Ayler's relative stature, I can't rightly say, but the line in the above Goodreads review ("a massive undertaking which gathers a phenomenal amount of research material") is frankly grossly overstated. As you move through the discography, the format becomes almost mind-numbing: the album, the songs, critical response, rinse & repeat. (And speaking of the discography, this text does not have one which is a glaring omission. I don't have the copy in front of me but I don't believe it contains an index either?). There is almost no background on his collaborators-- names come up with about a sentence of context before moving on. Again, most of the critical analysis of the music is outsourced to block quotes from other writers (and I counted at least two which were repeated within a few pages). If you're already versed in jazz history, and in Ayler's music and history, this is fine, you can fill the rest in yourself. But someone coming in cold would have very little context for the progression of free jazz, the context of the music in New York City at the time, the shifting roles of the instruments, i.e. what exactly Sunny Murray's innovations were, how they were developed with Cecil Taylor, etc. Much mention is made of course of the building blocks of Ayler's music, but no specifics at all beyond "marches", "blues", "New Orleans" etc. One illustrative aside that I found quite bizarre was the assertion re: Love Cry that Alan Silva and Milford Graves are less musically rigorous than Peacock and Murray, that they deal with sound rather than specific musical ideas. This, of course, could not be further from the truth. It's a missed opportunity to examine in a substantial way how their approaches differ. Essentially, musicians other than the Aylers are given rather short shrift in the text (with the possible exception of Michel Samson, oddly enough). Maybe this is a quibble, not all biographies need double as critical analyses, but I don't think I've ever read a satisfactory jazz text that did not engage on this level at least somewhat deeper than what you find here. The many overlapping perspectives ultimately create a lot of noise and add up to very little understanding. Anyways, these are the things that, in my opinion, it does not do well. There are many things it does do well (especially its consideration of Donald, this is almost a dual biography). As a straightforward overview of Ayler's life, it's a great start. I would like to see someone go further at some point.

I got 10/10, guess I chose right! The Swell/Schiaffini will likely be where I start.

Wow, love the Craft box. Non-Miles/Coltrane/Art Pepper/whatever else has been reissued ad nauseum, on CD with original artwork in 2023 ... a bit of hope remains! I would love to see something similar for Booker Ervin and Charles McPherson.

There are innumerable 'what ifs' when it comes to Coltrane but it's not hard to imagine the Rev sliding into Pharoah's spot in the group later in the 60s. John/Alice/Frank/Jimmy/Rashied/auxillary percussion circa 1969 ... the mind reels!

Thanks, I'm not familiar with the Broadway LP but I will track one down. Autumn In New York is one of my very favorite vocal albums.

Thanks to Steve and Д.Д. for a couple new recommendations. I agree that the 2xCD Judson Trio disc is tremendous. I don't exactly know what I was "expecting", but what I got was something else altogether. This one rewards much relistening. I will take another spin through the new Barre Phillips ECM. My initial impression was neither good nor bad.

There may yet be more! I and others have made some attempts to untangle the very complicated threads here:

Ramblin' was originally recorded for Italian RCA (à la Steve Lacy) but was not released by them; BYG did the first issue in 1969.

It should all be out there! Touching, the ECMs and the ESPs are just about the only ones to be consistently available. I can't say what all would be possible, but a box containing at least the Savoy/IAI, Fontana/Polydor, and Limelight recordings should be done.

and Maliks Emerging Force Art Trio: https://www.dustygroove.com/item/131618/Maliks-Emerging-Force-Art-Trio:Time-Condition?sf=malik&incl_oos=1&incl_cs=1&kwfilter=malik&sort_order=artist I am curious to see if this is for real, there is no mention of CD releases on the label site. I have an OG Sirone and a Jeanne Lee RE, but I would go in for all 3 CDs if possible.

If this is any help, here is a list of my 25 favorite jazz & improvised music releases of 2022: Michael Bisio Quartet – MBefore (Tao Forms) Anthony Braxton & James Fei - Duet (Other Minds) 2021 (Other Minds) Frank Carlberg Trio - Reflections 1952 (577 Records) Dan Clucas/Kyle Motl/Nathan Hubbard - Daydream and Halting (FMR) Andrew Cyrille/Enrico Rava/William Parker - 2 Blues for Cecil (TUM) Kaja Draksler/Susana Santos Silva - Grow (Intakt) Martín Escalante/Teté Leguia/Weasel Walter – Katyusha (ugEXPLODE) Barry Guy And Friends – Kraków 2018 (Not Two) Maya Homburger/Barry Guy/Lucas Niggli – Acanthis (Maya Recordings) Sven-Åke Johansson/Pierre Borel/Axel Dörner/Joel Grip/Simon Sieger - Stumps (Ni Vu Ni Connu) Takehisa Kosugi & Mototeru Takagi – 薫的遊無有 / Infinite Emanation (Chap Chap) Lantana - Elemental (Cipsela) Daunik Lazro/Jouk Minor/Thierry Madiot/David Chiésa/Louis-Michel Marion - Sonoris Causa (NoBusiness) Denman Maroney/Scott Walton/Denis Fourner - O Kosmos Meta (RogueArt) Joe McPhee/Tomeka Reid - Let Our Rejoicing Rise (Corbett Vs. Dempsey) Joe Morris/Agustí Fernandez/Brad Barrett/DoYeon Kim - Other Galaxies (Fundacja Sluchaj!) Fred Moten/Brandon López/Gerald Cleaver – Moten / López / Cleaver (Reading Group) Michiko Ogawa - Junkan (2020) (Marginal Frequency) Oùat - Elastic Bricks (Umlaut) Eddie Prévost - Collider-Or, ‘whose drum is it, anyway’ (Matchless) Hal Russell & Joel Futterman - The Chicago River (Fundacja Sluchaj!) Brandon Sebrook Trio - In The Swarm (Astral Spirits) Damon Smith/Andrew Neumann/Forbes Graham/Sandy Ewen/Junko Fujiwara/Eric Rosenthal - Quartet:Quartet:Trio (Balance Point Acoustics) Tim Trevor-Briscoe/Szilárd Mezei/Nicola Guazzaloca – Before Then (Not Two) Pat Thomas & XT – "Akisakila" / Attitudes Of Preparation (Mountains, Oceans, Trees) (Edition Gamut) My thoughts in brief: the current wave of au courant "mainstream" jazz music ranges, in my opinion only, from boring to passé to outright terrible. I do the due diligence to give a listen to the latest darlings of bandcamp, Pitchfork, et al and find nothing to like. Dig deeper and you will still find great, serious music being made that will never catch the attention of today's tastemakers.

Andrea Centazzo is offering Ictus CDs at $1.50 per when you buy 10. My total was $24 with shipping, you can't go wrong: https://ictusrecords.com/catalogue/

I also just came into an appreciation of this stuff in the last year. Maybe came from taking a very dedicated deep dive into his 60s acoustic music in a way that I never had before.