king ubu

Now here comes the rest of the information about the CD bonus track of Dennis Gonzalez "Stefan": Doxology (Gonzalez) 6:42 Dennis Gonzalez - tp Malachi Favors - b W.A. Richardson - d February 13, 1987 at Omega Audio, Dallas, Texas. I listened to the whole album today. I rather like it. There's some beautiful stuff on it - as the two short numbers, "Fortuity" and "Boi Fuba". What I do miss on this album (and this happens to me rather often on this sort of "multi-faceted", not to say disparate - in a positive way, I don't know a better word), is hearing more of the individual musicians - more solos, more stretching out etc. I love what Purcell (whom I never heard before, I might add) does on bass clarinet on the first track. Also, Franklin has a few good spots. But still all in all, I'd wish to hear more of it. More of all that's included on this album, so that's not necessarily a negative statement, as it also means I did not get bored. ubu

Thanks for this reply! I appreciate reading your opinion. However, I cannot really add anything at this point, as my Braxton is still extremely thin, and I really do intend to cut down my CD expenses for several months... I have only one McPhee (Tenor & Fallen Angel), but I need to really listen to that one first. Also I need to spin the Gebbia (I only have Arcana Mayor, thanks to guess whom ) again soon. The point you make about Gebbia pursuing a solo career might be true, indeed. ubu

deus, the one I mention above is OOP - if you're not able to locate a used copy (try http://www.djangos.com or Amazon marketplace sellers), drop me a line. ubu

Brad, got any recommendations? I'm planning on getting some more Stitt. Cheers! This one's probably my favourite: Though I don't have the Roost set yet, and don't own any of the Verves but the one included in the Elite Edition Series ("Plays the Blues", I think it's called). Anyone knows why Atlantic held "Plays Bird" back for so long? Contractual reasons? I guess rather not, as Stitt was not the one to have exclusive recording contracts. ubu

Well, I guess it serves us right for the television shows we export around the world...talk about tasteless and boring! I was not trying to sound sarcastic - I'd be really interested to know! ubu

Ooh, we (a band I was in) had a heavenly raclette dinner in our wonderful promoter's lovely farmhouse outside (and uphill from) Zurich -- melted and almost roasted raclette* with tiny pickles and tiny onions and potatoes and fantastic bread on the side. And wine. Ooh. not something to eat too often, but ubu

Fascinating thread! I think I understand what you mean, Simon. One small qeustion, rather, two: - the first: on jazz in general: would not jazz in its entirety, from its roots, its beginnings, be a "post-modern" art-form? A collage, a play with existing forms, a once more, once less, successful attempt to create and define new forms - and each time such forms get established, there is something new to throw them over again. Just a though. I don't know if it's of any value. - second: if Mingus (and maybe Sun Ra, no? I don't know him well at all), is "post-modern" - you mean his playing with form, his irony? His consciousness of what's been made and thought and said before him? Then, what about today's musical ecclecticism? Wynton playing Jelly Roll one day, and "modern" post-bop the next? Now letting the discussion of "is this jazz or not" aside, what do you do with this? Or maybe the "is this jazz or not" thing is just the point here? These are only some spontaneous musings - I don't know if there's much to it! ubu

You're right, Bev. The "one of the best" part is actually rather my personal opinion than the way he should be rated generally. I'm looking forward very much to seing him again on tuesday! ubu

Oh, let the press write what they want! I hope he's really doing so well. He most certainly is in no way a Miles epigone. He most certainly can hardly be overrated, in my opinion. His tone, his compositions, his moods, his melodic invention... I think he's one of the best jazz musicians around these days. ubu

Great choice, deus! I have the 1990 release - the sequencing of the tunes on that one is in session order, I believe, rather then the original sequence on the new one. Have to listen again, it's been a long time... ubu

For me, "The Inflated Tear" is completely no-nonsense, and one of the most stunning Kirk albums. By the way it's from 1967, so no seventies there. I mixed things up about "Giant Steps" on the 5000lb man - it's not a duo, but a large band (not listed in the booklet of the 32jazz reissue, but probably a similar one as on the first track - tuba, vocals etc.) ubu

dreams indeed, but you know, sometimes they come true... (And Mosaic did do the Atlantic output of Jimmy Giuffre and the TKM set) Back on topic: I just started listening to the 32jazz reissue of Kirk's three Warner albums. If you're open to his music, and don't mind the sometimes rather sixtie-ish vocals and backgrounds, there's some very fine music to be found! Kirk's tenor on "Theme for the Eulipions" sound marvellous! Then "Sweet Georgia Brown" with Hank Jones, Milt Hinton, tenor & washboard, is another highlight! The vocal version (Kirk's lyrics) of Mingus' "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" is another good one. And then there's a Kirk/Charlie Persip duo on Coltrane's "Giant Steps" - sure one hell of a fine album! ("The Return of the 5000lb Man" was the original title, by the way). ubu

I have the Clifford Brown and the Kirk box - and both are worth every penny, in my opinion. The Washingtons and Vaughans, I don't know, and I guess I can live without, but that's a question of one's likings. ubu

WOOOOW Thanks for sharing this! ubu

Just joking of course! Please tell us what's your opinion on Gebbia! ubu

O-ho-ho, I recognize this writing style!!! Great to see you here! Oh-ho-ho indeed! Stick around! ubu You are both a pain in the ass, you know that? I wanted to remain in the shadow a little longer. Just the time to trash Gebbia a bit, in the name and defense of Anthony Braxton and Evan Parker, of course... Uh, I just wanted to add that you may remain wherever you want, as long as you don't dare to fuck with us about Gebbia ubu

Listening to the Art Ensemble (Bowie, Mitchell, Favors & Moye) in Francia, June 4, 1997 - released with the italian magazine "Musica Jazz", under the title of "Urban Magic". I quite like it. It 's not all that adventurous, but it's pretty playful. Bowie quoting "Moanin'" on his solo on the great Favors tune "Mama Wants You", for instance. What a pity Jarman did not rejoin in time! ubu

I was lucky enough to get the live Basie - that one was around forever, as was the Woody Shaw. ubu

We agree on that, for sure! (And I guess we have that dream of a complete Ahmad Jamal Argo/Chess box on Mosaic...) Thanks for your interesting comments! I don't have the CD (you mean the one recorded at the Olympia in Paris, Dreyfus, I think, yes?) - I always thought to keep the memory from that live concert (Muhammad was smokin' and Coleman was in pretty good shape, too - Jamal was alright, but there were moments where he was trying too hard, and moments where he sounded a bit like a caricature of himself in his best days...) ubu

It IS a great set! Get it latest when it hits the "running low" list! ubu

While I don't own many discs with him at all - and I'm trying to cut my CD expense (there we go again) - I only have this one he made under his own name: Love it! Hope to be able to spin it over the weekend. ubu

That was a very cool idea, IMO. The plus of the trio with Leon Parker was the wide dynamics and creative approach to trio playing, using the Ahmad Jamal Trio with Israel Crosby and Vernel Fournier as a kind of reference point. The minus was that it is a little too controlled. Where I can listen to Jamal over and over again, the Terasson trio starts getting stale after a dozen listens and doesn't sound as fresh anymore. Just my opinion - I kind of lost my enthusiasm for them. I experienced the same with the "J.T." and "Reach" discs, but not with "Alive". But live he was better indeed. Funny was that Leon Parker was playing a FULL drum set! Yet it did not really make much of a difference (and I saw Ahmad the same night, with Idris Muhammad on drums and George Coleman sitting in for two thirds of the set - and it seemed Ahmad had lost it, while Terrasson on that night was really hot) ubu

Sounds like one I should have! Is this on CD, and is it available? ubu

I used to have the same "problem" w/Hawk when I first started checking him out, but when I wasn't looking, it all fell into place fr me and I started hearing the other things in his playing that I still marvel at, notably the way that his tone fits inside his lines perfectly, and how even though his lines are predominately steady eith note oriented (but not as consistently as you might think, depending on the session), his accents and subtle-but-very-real tonal variations create a tension/release within those eight notes (and within his harmonic dissections) that is quite engaging once one becomes aware of it (and it's not always obvious, that's for sure). A whilke back, PD & I got into a discussion about Hawk, and I commented on what I percieved as his emotional quality, his stubborn refusal to display vulnerability of any sort, as well as the "mindset" of his playing, which I likened to a the type of person who enjoys taking things apart and putting them back together (and not always the way they were first assembled!), somebody who delights and finds satisfaction in the details themselves, not necessarily in the act of discovering them. In other words, a person for whom the ends mattered more than the means. I think that Hawks rhythmic style is a reflection of this "type". He seems to me to be so engrossed in what he's finding that how he's finding it doesn't really matter all that much to him. In less esthetically attuned hands, this type of personality runs the danger of analytical roboticism, but Hawk was a "classicist" in the very highest sense of the word - he didn't just enjoy the details for their own sake, but instead for the greater beauty and nobility that they implied. Again, means to an end, not means for their own sake (which is also a perfectly wonderful esthetic in, like any esthetic, the right hands, hands which appreciate and understand what's going on to the highest, most subtle, extent). It's all of a piece - look at how he dressed, always impeccable, "conservative", not flamboyant, but DAMN, every thing was of the highest quality, and everything was JUST right. Same with his reported love of fine automobiles - he seems to have appreciated the inherent beauty of a machine that both looked good and performed good, not as a stauts symbol, but becasue in his mind, that was the object of the game to "get it right" righter than as right as it could be given the tools at hand. Definitely the esthetic of the aforementioned "classicist", and that's an esthetic that's a bit at odds with a lot of things, even in his time, but still an esthetic that is impossible to find invalid unless one is willing to accept total chaos as the only valid perception of reality. All of that to say this - you have to come to, and ultimately accept, Coleman Hawkins entirely on his own terms, because that is how he lived, thought and played (or so it seems). That means that his relative lack of rhythmic variety is something that one has to confront and come to term with, not for what it lacks, but for what it represents, if one is to deve;op a personal relationship with the man's music. I'm in no way saying that you HAVE to love it (which I'm not even sure is the result from a istener that Hawk was looking for anyway) or appreciate it (which may in fact be that desired result), but I do think that doing so opens more personal doors than looking for something that was probably never intended to be there in the first place. Just my opinion based on my experience. Your mileage, of course, may vary. Jim, thanks a lot for this elaborate reply! What you say makes perfect sense to me. And don't get me wrong: I adore Hawk, I am absolutely in awe of him and his playing, and what you call his "mindset" or his "type of person" most certainly has a lot to do with that awe. It's just that I cannot listen to him at any time. And there have been moments when I was, say, in the middle of "Genius" or said Impulse quartet date, and just couldn't take it anymore. Maybe it is too strong for me in these moments, too "stubborn" in the sense of, yes, him sticking to his never-show-vulnerability-"ethos" - that does not fit with my personality, and maybe that's the reason why I cannot listen to him at any given time. This again is not a reproach or a dislike, but rather a difference. It's hard for me to put such things into words, even moreso as english is not at all a language I can easily use. Hope you can understand what I want to express. ubu

This one? I think this might be his best solo recording! Love it! ubu