ombudsman

I heard years ago that for this title and for Arthur Jones - Scorpio, that it came out first on either America or BYG and was subsequently bootlegged by the other. But I can't remember which, and am not sure if that is true... anyone know ?

Yes, they are. Radio pays far more than streaming (albeit in the US, only to those with songwriting credit). Back in the day when you (and many, many millions of others) were listening to the radio, so many records were being sold partly as a result of that radio exposure (and MTV, for those of a certain age) that there was a viable revenue stream relative to the real cost of creating music - which relates to whole careers of musicians and other professionals and very substantial marketing, not just recording costs. Lots of people made their living from that revenue stream, and it supported many middle class jobs of one kind or another as well as labels big and small and musicians big and small... not that it was perfect by any means. Now, consumer purchase of music is the exception rather than the rule, and a laughably small fraction of the revenue for listening without purchasing a copy makes it back to the people that made and invested up front in the music compared to before. Albums (the only format really relevant to jazz) have been hit particularly hard, currently making up about 1/3 the sales compared to the high in the 90s. That's across all formats including legit digital downloads. If this was all due to decreased consumption, I would have no fairness/ethics -based complaint. But consumption is as high as ever, it's just become a pirate economy where most of the income generated from the work of a few people goes to others who are positioned to sell data access and ads on the sidelines of the huge flow of pirated information.

Helen Merrill - Live at New Latin Quarter was last on deck (and will be next since I haven't gotten to the second side yet). Not exactly hi fi although Merrill kills it of course. some others I just heard for the first time - Mtume - Rebirth Cycle (great !) Reggie Workman - Works of Workman and a welcome re hearing: Art Ensemble - Go Home

I have a few of his albums, my favorite being Poesy. Would have liked to have seen him play. I really enjoyed that Do the Math interview mentioned above, it's so unguarded.

on Facebook Patrick Wilen urges that fans avoid this release , saying its a boot ! Any truth in that claim? Damn, wish I would have known that sooner.

I'm a big fan of Kip Hanrahan's first album Coup de Tete. Fred Frith and Lisa Herman (who you may know from the Greaves/Blegvad album Kew Rhone) play on some tracks along with many other heavy hitters from the downtown NYC/uptown latin percussion/Jazz Composer's Orchestra/Prime Time/Laswell - Material circles. Some of Hanrahan's other albums IMO do not necessarily sound as interesting as you would hope from the usually impressive lineups, but this one does and then some. It's got excellent production and engineering too. I think this record may have been the original template of genre hopping studio lineups for many, many other records that Laswell was involved with in the 80s, since he played on some tracks on this album before most of his production credits, with this being the first studio date that I can find that has him working with Daniel Ponce and Arto Lindsay who would become frequent players on his sessions. In other words I think it's a seminal early 80s record that connects Tales of Captain Black and Escalator Over the Hill very clearly to Laswell, Curlew, and others who are thought of as characteristically 80s artists. http://www.discogs.com/Kip-Hanrahan-Coup-De-Tête/release/1967707

Here's a little solo

I'd certainly like to see that, but unfortunately it's not too easy for me to get to NYC these days. I do miss it. I think my leisure traveling this year is going to be to Chicago and Detroit for parts of each of their jazz fests.

One band I am involved with has 5 tunes available on one streaming platform. Total plays at this point are around 10,000 after a few months. Earnings $1.98. And that if I'm not mistaken is considerably more than what Spotify pays. As to the original question, I suppose if you call the online streaming services themselves the music business, then I think yes, it's saving the hell out of them. As for the musicians, this is the kind of revenue stream you can't even die on much less live on.

Especially when Yoko Ono is involved... There will never be enough Yoko Ono recordings for me, especially from the 60s. Some representation of her work with Richard Maxfield would be a nice next installment. More with Ornette would be great too but I don't know what else there may be.

Ulmer's "Tales of Captain Black" (which Ornette plays on) was a life changer for me. David Izenzon did nice work on "The Country and Western Sound of Jazz Piano" (which is a lot cooler than the title suggests), on some Archie Shepp albums, and Jaki Byard's "Sunshine of My Soul". The Contortions - "Live in New York" consists of two shows where the lineup was blurred between James Chance's two bands, the Contortions and James White and the Blacks. I always thought Bern Nix' playing here made this set a good introduction for punk/no wave fans to the Ornette "school", especially on "Money to Burn" . I'm a Don Cherry completist, but to single something out, the double album Mu (parts 1 and 2) with Blackwell is a favorite. Dewey Redman's "Look for the Black Star" is my favorite of his records. (But recorded before he played with Ornette.)

A couple of my favorite altered record covers: 1) a copy of "It Crawled Into My Hands, Honest" by the Fugs, with a library card and pocket still attached, showing that it was once part of a church library 2) a old home made replacement cover for "Homage to Africa" by Sunny Murray. It's plain white with the name/title and a crude drawing of a human skull in profile, and a note that helpfully points out that the shape of the continent of Africa kind of looks like a skull. Whoever made that was high. One that is strange is my copy of "Music is the Healing Force of the Universe" by Albert Ayler. Inside the gatefold are a couple of handwritten things. One looks like a signature, but not by Albert; it isn't easy to read, could be some previous owner's name, or possibly the signature of Stafford James who plays on that record. The other looks like it says "Starwatcher", which is intriguingly similar to an Ayler song on a different record, "Sunwatcher".

Totally disagree... I've seen Antibalas and bought their records in the past... as long as Jordan is in the band, they are dead to me now, and I bring this up anytime their name comes up in conversation. I'm not saying I personally will impact this so that anyone would notice, but on the other hand I know I'm not the only person pissed about this. And I would be a person that would do a review of Antibalas for a print magazine with a half decent circulation if one of their albums came around, were it not for this. Which is not to say that someone else won't... but they might not. It's very popular to bash record labels or generic "big corporations" as a means of justifying illegal downloading... things like this are sad and they provide a different narrative... musicians and fans are just as happy to screw over musicians to make a buck (or avoid paying a buck, same diff) as the opportunity presents. Have to say it really irks me for people to be claiming that Denardo was driving the legal action or bashing Ornette for knowing his music has real value. Ornette has a long history of believing very strongly in his work, and asking very high prices for it, getting ridiculed for it, and then doing more great work, and actually getting his price, or something pretty close to it. It's been that way since the early days. I've recently heard that there are falsified writing credits on some Antibalas releases too. Don't think that the narrative of a mostly white group exploiting black musicians doesn't have the power to do real harm to a band that is fairly well known for an imported style like Afrobeat, particularly with the political dimension that it has and the economic, values, and racial identity issues that are standard content of lyrics in the style. I'm a white guy that used to play in a (much, much, so much lesser quality) largely white Afrobeat band myself, which like Antibalas had a Nigerian singer. I can tell you from awkward experience that issues of authenticity and authorship do come up. I would not be surprised if some other band did a song about Antibalas as colonialist hucksters.

I'm a fan as well. I think I have everything on LP except the Cinevox album (which I have on CD). I've noticed some of the recent LPs have gone out of print and become expensive pretty quickly, so I would suggest picking up the reissue of the General Music album if anyone has been on the fence about it. I am hoping the interest leads to a vinyl reissue of the Cinevox album. The re (?) issued soundtrack of a Quiet Day in the County was well done and it's a pretty great movie too.