king ubu

I bet maren's - pardon my language - laughing her ass of! Just returned from Zen Windows' concert. They were scheduled to play at 8:15. When I arrived there around 8 p.m., the three musicians were there, plus the guy who was in charge of the concert, no one else... in the end there were ten people in the audience, among them Saadet Türkoz. The music was fantastic! They started out with a free improvisation, the sparse "dialogue"-kind of impro, then went on playing "tracks" - not sure talking of "tunes" is right, maybe I better say "segments" that seemed more organized, some even of some kind of harmonic organization, I thought. Garth Powell - man, speak of a good-hearted bear-kind of guy! And what a drummer! Man, he killed me! So musical! He must be one of the swingingest drummers in this kind of music! And he had his own kit there (plus several bags full of "little instruments") - for a week of four concerts in Europe, crazy! He played all kinds of sticks and brushes on the drums, played the saw (on the first tune only saw, after that mainly drums), had gongs and horns (you know, those things you got in cars... the old versions of those, though...). He was simply stunning! Goodheart was the least interesting player, all in all, yet he did some very impressive piano playing, plus he was very creative with all those effects he added - there were segments when he only plucked strings inside of the piano, and to good effect - no gimmicks - it all made sense, musically. Gebbia was, well, the only disc I knew of his was "Arcana Major" (a/k/a da shit! (he was astonished when I told him I had it - he thinks no one has it and it's impossible to get)... back to the concert, I freaked up that sentence, it seems Well, Gebbia was actually often playing rather simple stuff, lines that were providing background as often as creating momentum by themselves. He did tons of sounds on his alto, really astonishing, and absolutely controlled. He did one solo segment where he went into the circular breathing mode he does on da shit!, he also did the circular thing in trio segments. Plus: he's a born racounteur - I stayed pretty much in the background after the concert had ended, and just listened to what he told to others, talking about the political situation in Italy/Sicily/Palermo (he had some job under Leoluca Orlando, but was blacklisted when Berlusconi got into power). He also told some stories about other musicians (Zorn, Uri Caine) and was just all round making a very nice and friendly impression. David, I'm sad that you missed the concert, I'm sure it would have been right down your alley! It was, btw, the first time that Gebbia performed in Zurich.

Lon, your post about how good it is made me want to listen to it immediately, so thanks to you, too! It's a great disc!

The music is so good I didn't bother about sound! I didn't even really notice - but it seems others find it botheringly bad, yes.

No, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this "king ubu" character is really Susie Ibarra. wrong, buster, I'm Lil Armstrong

muso! stop that laddle-daddle NOW, man! now what you mean!

"our" Garth?

(note: king ubu *hates* skiing and has stopped attempting to ski a long time ago)

Some pretty cool stuff here: http://www.travelbrochuregraphics.com/Top_...a_main_page.htm enjoy the trip, ubu

Thanks for your help, Jim! It IS confusing!

Late, is that your personal Free America altar or what? Tony: loved your posts! Stay away from "Circles", a recent Fantasy Bley reissue full of more early synth music! (I liked that one, but haven't come around to listen to the Free America Bley yet.) Lon: my Shepp is ok, too. It's a terrific recording! I really really like it! It has that sixties Black thing to it, much more so than the earlier Impulses. That blues shouter/raconteur is pretty cool, and so are Shepp and Noah Howard on saxophones, and Dave Burrell on piano. And Sonny Murray helps big time, too!

I love this one! I think I posted some mumblings in the Free America thread in the reissues section. Always good to hear Rudd, in my opinion! Moholo, btw, is from South Africa. He's one of the exiles, deciding to stay in Europe, together with a bunch of fine South African jazz musicians (Dollar Brand, Dudu Pukwana, Chris McGregor...)

Beautiful cover! But I wonder, is that disc/album including music that was also on the two Vogue CDs? Same question for the Xanadu! (I have seen a Lucky Thompson Prevue CD - reissue of a Xanadu album, I think, "Brown Rose" - that had the same music as one of the Original Vogue Masters Lucky T. discs. Confusing!

But otherwise you're ok, right? I felt like posting such a reaction, too, at first, but then I thought maybe it was worth trying to make a few points... Seems we poor EU people (oh, wait, I'm not even a EU person!) are greedy pigs that don't do anything but press worthless reissues of public domain discs. You know, CD pressing is the main occupation of 7/8 of the EU's population... (I know you didn't mean it this way, Wolff, but still you could have chosen your words a bit more carefully.) ubu Yes, I flew off the handle a bit. Sorry. Maybe, the PD issue will work out ok, but when I see them taking up shelf space(even in the USA) it bugs me. No problem, wolff! I can't tell you how much it bothers me... go figure a store with the autumn 2004 RVGs in the "just in"-section, not a single OJC (except maybe a couple of Miles, Trane, Monk and Rollins, NOTHING besides that), but tons of Freshsounds (full prize of 36 CHF, currently around 30 US$, go figure!!!), and Lonehilljazz discs (still impressively prized at 22 to 24 CHF - the prize of a Blue Note disc, here, btw). THAT sucks! But that has nothing to do with either us Europeans and our greed(s), nor with the actual European jazz scene!

But otherwise you're ok, right? I felt like posting such a reaction, too, at first, but then I thought maybe it was worth trying to make a few points... Seems we poor EU people (oh, wait, I'm not even a EU person!) are greedy pigs that don't do anything but press worthless reissues of public domain discs. You know, CD pressing is the main occupation of 7/8 of the EU's population... (I know you didn't mean it this way, Wolff, but still you could have chosen your words a bit more carefully.) ubu

Occasionally. Charles wrote his own liner notes (interesting ones, actually) for All My Relations. Guy Umberto Eco did liners for two of Gianni Coscia's & Gianluigi Trovesi's duo discs, too. Heard a few recent live shows of the group, and yes, Harland is impressive on those! Not sure I need another official release though.

Still have to listen to it. I'll try tonight and tell you when I have!

I know this is not the issue, but still I disagree with this sentence of yours (even if I tear it out of its context): There are many many great musicians over here that create "original products". Blame the main jazz audience (still US, as it always has been) for being touchy about jazz having to "swing" and be "blues-related" and whatever... it may help the market some, if the US audience would support Euro labels like Leo, Hat, Intakt, Soulnote/Black Saint, etc etc. They all offer original music of great artists, yet I guess their sales are nowhere close to the sales of the large US corporations. (I do realize there are many great small US labels, Atavistic, Eremite, whatever, as well as those euro corporation crooks from BMG, so the picture is distorted... I just wish the jazz market would be more decentalized and more of the sales would go to the small labels doing such a great job at such big expenses.)

not quite, Chuck!

Good point! I never played bari in strictly jazz settings, so I wasn't giving this a thought, Mike.

I had thought my CD player gone wrong, but it seems to be like this. Strange indeed! I love this CD, though! (But I'm a Braxton newbie, so don't fire away... the disc got some pretty bad write ups in the rat...) ubu

I haven't stopped by here all that often, of late, and taht's because very little of the music I've heard of late has any connection with what's being discussed here. However, please allow me to ask: what's the matter about Mateen? I got the duo he made with Hamid Drake lying around somewhere, but I can't remember if I have heard it or not. Here's the cover: Read about it on the eremite homepage. I also heard a recent Raphé Malik concert including Mateen (I suppose a few of you have heard it, too...) and I liked that one alright. ************* Next one: I'm very excited to know that Zeena Parkins & Ikue Mori will perform in duo here in Zurich! don't have the full programme at hand, and the website is still listing last year's programme (a month before this year's festival, lazy guys!), but I can post it here, later, in case D.D. wants to know what's going on this year! The Parkins/Mori duo is the only thing that I can recall at the moment, the only one I got really excited about! ubu

Happy Birthday, Evan! Hope she had a box of cake with here, too: If that's not exaclty what you're after, here's a pair of beautiful legs for you: