king ubu

Woodyard, HELLYEAH! What a great drummer!

Claude, "Abstract" is a terrific disc! (And probably pretty hard to find soon, to!) My most recent additions: - Sittin' in (the Verve LPR with Dizzy et.al.) - Soul on Top (that sucka by James Brown with Louie Bellson, arr. O. Nelson -WHOAH!) and the O'Day Mosaic (which was delivered very fast, too, but cost 30$ or something freakin' crazy to ship!)

It's pretty amazing that Werner had it for so long, and I do believe it benefitted all of us. Perhaps we can persuade someone rich to do it again. ← At least in Switzerland, I would say no chance. The same banking institute that supported hat (it was UBS, wasn't it?) also supported the Willisau Jazz Festival until a couple of years ago, and then dropped out completely of sponsoring jazz (it's not sexy enough... the probably go for sponsoring some stupid sports stuff instead now... Troxler, it seems, has an annual fight to find enough money to do his festival (that has been in existence now for more than 30 years). Big scale sponsoring for opera, alright, maybe for the (prestigious) theatre here in Zurich, yes, but nothing even slightly out of mainstream... pity, but that's how things seem to be nowadays. And money there would be enough, for sure (Basel, home of hat, is another city rich in banking institutes...)

Got my discs! (They probably had been there several days before I was where they were...) Thanks!

Wouldn't a couple of much-requested reissues help in this respect? But then that's not what his label is about... (or not all that it is about - thank God!)

My Anita box arrived today! 3010. Spinned Disc 8 in the background, since it has a couple of scratches that made me worry, but it played perfectly fine. One other of the discs has sort of bubbles right on the outside (where the disc is already transparent) - I assume that's nothing to worry about. Loved that one disc, even if it only was background music tonight!

Those are fun. I'll have to pull 'em out again. I like the fourth one best, as it has the most diverse programming; plus it opens and closes with the theme from one of my favorite French gangster films, Touchez Pas au Grisbi. Another amazing jazz soundtrack is George Gruntz's for the 1960 Swiss film Mental Cruelty, a stunning piece of moody Euro hard bop, which features Kenny Clarke and Barney Wilen. I think it gives Miles's L'Ascenseur music a run for the money. Actually, it works better as an album. It was re-released, after barely being released at all in the first place, on Atavistic's Unheard Music Series. http://www.atavistic.com/artist.cfm?action...=148&itemid=240 I know that this has already been discussed on the board ( this is where I heard about it in the first place!), but it seems appropriate to bring it up again in this thread. ← Yes indeed! I know I said so (and probably several times), but that "Mental Cruelty" album is terrific!

That email does not sound *that* good, does it? Maybe there's simply not enough money around to do the new releases and the reissues? A note about the following one: I heard parts or all of this (Willisau is broadcast annually on Swiss radio), and it's quite good. Quite simple at moments, quite pure. Liebman also played drums (in tribute to Elvin) and I think piano as well - seems they'll leave that off the release, from Mr. Litweiler's mention of his saxes and the flute (quite beautiful!). Liebman told some stories between the tracks as well, some of them rather personal and touching. Whatever... it definitely was a great idea of Willisau's Niklaus Troxler to convince Liebman to do a solo set! The festival has featured a solo performance every year (since at least 2000 or so, as far as I can tell, maybe since longer ago), but - obviously - most often the invitees were piano players (Cecil Taylor, Matt Shipp, Andrew Hill and Jason Moran did the 1999-2003 solo sets, if my memory serves me right. Not all that great sets, but the Cecil one (available on Intakt) is glorious. Oh, and I heard (memory is not quite right, I realize), that Braxton's solo set (from 2003) will be released in the future on Intakt as well. (Hopefully in its entirety - it definitely fits on one CD.)

Sad news... I somehow shied away to see the Buena Vista circus live... now it's too late... May he rest in peace.

I enjoyed it a lot... sure, the Miles cut was waaaaay too short, and that *was* disappointing. Sure, the musicians were not announced and all, and that is not great, and sure, the sequencing was weird to say the least (when George Lewis - whom I love! - turned up I thought they had sort of interrupted the whole thing... it just didn't fit in, neither stylistically, nor image quality, nor mood wise). The highlight for me was Paul Desmond's solo (but Brubeck was boring) - so simple, so easy-sounding, yet, WHOAH! That man was soooooooo good! Sophistication at work! And of course the Cannonball band was fun to watch, too, but Cannon's solo - somewhat similar to Desmond's in that it started as loose and unconnected phrases (but he started inserting his trademark 16th-runs almost from the beginnign) was not working for me... just slack. (I must add that I never liked any version of "Jive Samba" that I have heard - Zawinul was weak as well, Jones was too low in the mix, Nat was merely ok, Lateef was the best...) Harsh criticism, I know, but I love that sextet so much (the finally - but now cactusicalistically - reissued "In Europe" being one of my alltime Cannon favourites, together with "Nippon Soul"). Oh, and Ray Nance was *sweet*! I never saw this before, so I enjoyed it immensely - even if Duke was aping almost as much as that kiddo boogie boy on that Basie telescription. Pretty embarassing... Satchmo was much more natural, while Duke was having a distorted grin on his face... I guess I prefer the Miles-approach to showbiz. Mangelsdorff was good to see, for sure -but was that cut edited as well? Why were there no really wild solos, why no tenor? Why did they mix the bass so low there again? (Or is that just the old tv I watched it on?)

Om has legendary status in Switzerland... Doran and Studer are among the more visible jazz musicians still today. Burri I don't know much about, but he's still active, too. Leimgruber, of course, made it as big as you can, if you play that kind of music. He's probably a giant... I saw him in concert two or three years ago, and it was terrific. Funny rat stuff, but more of the quiet side, introspective, exploring, searching, playing with sounds and noises, yet at the same time creating an ark of tension and release over a continous set of music (he was accompanied by Christian Weber on bass and some swiss drummer, can't remember who it was). As for Studer he today plays with the "hardcore chamber" music (jazz, mainly) trio Koch-Schütz-Studer (with reeds player Hans Koch and cellist Martin Schütz). Doran leads a band called "New Bag" - they have I think three discs out now. I did a little radio show together with a friend on Doran & Studer's "Play the Music of Jimi Hendrix" programme. You can hear it here: link There's some (swiss german) talk in between, from an interview we did with the two, but two thirds of it are music, taken from a live gig from the tour they did (with Kim Clarke on bass and Erika Stucki on vocals).

I have spelled it "butt" always, so far... also I considered that to be a noun... Then, I have paid for my Organissimo CD weeks (if not months) back, so I have, uhm,... butted it already?

Freddie? I wasn't aware Nasheet was his son!

A marvellous film! Would be my first call on the topic! There are some more great French films with jazz from those years... one with jazz on screen, too, is Roger Vadim's "Les liaisons dangereuses". Some of the better jazz music recorded (often it seems for pretty mediocre films) has been collected on four volumes in the Jazz in Paris series. The band on screen is acting pretty frenetic, but somehow I liked it. I think it's not the musicians that did the album (Blakey & co with Barney on sax), but rather Barney, KD and Duke Jordan, but I'm not sure anymore. I think it was discussed in the film corner some time ago.

Sunny is definitely not modest, that's for sure. ← Why should he... I disagree with David here, obviously! Just yesterday I played part of a longish audience recording I recently acquired by a trio of his with Mateen and Dave Burrell. I think he's in pretty fine form. I have heard another set, half in trio with Khan Jamal and Mateen, and the other half with some guests (Odean Pope, Byard Lancaster, and others), and he sounds fine there, too. Both recordings are from October 2003. Funny enough - throw stones! - I took to like Murray much faster (with Ayler and Taylor) than Andrew Cyrille (who might be, or rahter, back in the days, might have been the perfect Taylor drummer) and others from the era. I still think Taylor's "Nefertiti" is a tremendous achievement in music, and Murray is playing quite an important part in its success (probably more so than Lyons, who is only tentatively searching there, still pretty much a bebop player).

Thanks Claude! I'll have to buy some video tapes... (have only entered DVD-age as far as computers are concerned...) How I'd wish someone would occasionally put some of those shows on their schedule in complete form! I've seen only one of them...

All the best, Lon!

And you can buy that Alternate Takes disc separately, too: Amazon

I almost fainted when I saw how they adjusted their shipping charges to Europe ... ← Same here! Crazy indeed! Now if they had cheapo prizes and crazy shipping (as 2001 has for the 'mericans), I would not bitch... but this is a little bit too much! And I went for US postal services (since I would not be home anyway when DHL or UPS or whoever delivers), and that still takes 2-4 weeks! For that, 30$ is way too much, no? ← I agree, it's a pity the option of slow but cheaper surface mail is now only available for orders less than $100. I can't quite believe I stumped up $30 over 10 days ago to ship the O'Day set and I still haven't received it !!! Higher prices and slower service don't bode well really !! ← I guess U.K. Customs is very happy with your order... ← Undoubtably, surface items often would bypass their scrutiny where as airmail or fedex always get taxed. ← That's exactly the experience I made...

r.i.p. Lucky

I almost fainted when I saw how they adjusted their shipping charges to Europe ... ← Same here! Crazy indeed! Now if they had cheapo prizes and crazy shipping (as 2001 has for the 'mericans), I would not bitch... but this is a little bit too much! And I went for US postal services (since I would not be home anyway when DHL or UPS or whoever delivers), and that still takes 2-4 weeks! For that, 30$ is way too much, no?

30$ for shipping and then add another 35$ or more for them custom fellas... ruinous! At least the US$ is not much more expensive then toilet paper of late

Green with envy! I already have the J.J. (fantastic set, and definitely one of my favourites!), but I can only afford the O'Day for now, not the Ory. Why do these sets run out so fast these days? Starting MSIE to order now... won't work with Opera, for some reason.

Happy birthday!