Joe

IMO, some of the best / most subtle use of the mellotron can be heard on The Kinks' VILLAGE GREEN PRESERVATION SOCIETY. God save Nicky Hopkins and Ray Davies. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9sY3NKP7is

tick... tick... tick... about a week let on this BFT...

Glad to know these tracks have given you some pleasure!

Tim -- my pleasure! And thanks for the careful listen and thoughts. A few words of my own... 1 has been ID'ed elsewhere in this thread, if you are interested. I agree... I wish there was more of this work available from this particular pianist. 2 has also been skulldug (?) / guessed, at least tenor and trumpet. Higgins this is not; a drummer of an earlier generation, actually. But a drummer who never was anything but contemporary... I mean, big, big ears. 6 is indeed a Sun Ra composition, interpreted almost in the manner in which Ra himself might have interpreted someone else's music, which, for me, is part of the genius of the performance. "Sun Ra in the style of Sun Ra." 10 does not feature any particularly well-known musicians, with the exception of maybe one. But the drummer, yes, name recognition aside, he's a dal that's real. 12 is not Thomas Chapin... rather, a player who sounds to me -- here, at least -- equal parts Ayler and Ornette. If that helps! 13 is not the AEC, but it's not outside that orbit by any stretch of the imagination. And, yes, this is actually something of a snippet from a greater work / performance. 15 -- half-right, and the trombone player has been named elsewhere, too. Another player who should be more well-known. 16 -- again, the answer is in this thread. But its definitely a band and performance that is situated at the intersection of all the music you named in your comments. In fact, this band (not limiting band here to this specific personnel) was perhaps more influential in all that first wave "fusion" that it's generally been given credit for... 20 -- I wish I'd included some Doug Carn here. But Carn it is not. And, as I may have mentioned in another set of comments, if you listen closely, it becomes less and less certain that what you are hearing is a tenor sax. 22 meanders for a reason (I almost left this tune off because of its sprawl), as I hope the reveal will, um, reveal. But I just couldn't resist including it because of personnel involved and the context surrounding the recording. 25 has also been exposed, and you are right on early in your guesses. We began in Africa -- even if just an Africa of the imagination -- and end there, too. Thanks again! J

Just to make it more confusing, "Cleopatra" is listed as "Chloe-patra" on the COOL DOGS issue / reissue. That is, title variations aside, one presumes these two tracks are identical.

There's also all the early Billy Bang recordings. If you can find the 8th Harmonic Breakdown reissue of his Anima dates UNTITLED GIFT and SWEET SPACE, it's worth an audition. http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=20472#.Ub4IVuub9V4

I couldn't add anything beyond what's already been established elsewhere, but it is worth mentioning -- again -- that Dallas gave us, via Ray Charles, Fathead and Cooper. http://www.popmatters.com/pm/article/ray-charles-style-formed-in-south-dallas-home/ Outside of dates with Ray and his fellow Charles bandmates, Cooper can be heard to advantage on the Buster Smith LP that Atlantic issued in the late 50s. IIRC, there are some good anecdotes re: King Curtis in Ornette Coleman's section of Spellman's 4 LIVES IN THE BEBOP BUSINESS. Jim will know more about the under-documented guys of a later generation. And, while he's not R & B -- call it "gospel," but carefully -- if you not yet heard Fort Worth's Brother Vernard Johnson... do!

You've heard all the Rashied Ali Survival dates that were reissued by Knitting Factory in the late 90s / early 00s? Some great stuff there, featuring Leroy Jenkins, Carlos Ward, Jimmy Vass, Fred Simmons, Frank Lowe, Charles Eubanks, James Blood Ulmer (his first recording, IIRC) and Joe Lee Wilson. http://www.furious.com/perfect/rashiedalisurvival.html

Add Leroy "Hog" Cooper (baritone).

Well, Jim, what can I say, except that the Internet = narcissism? Can I hear myself now? I think I can. Really, I trued to trim this set list, but found that there were just too many sounds I wanted to turn on and turn on to. A few thoughts... 1: Ellington is, I think, an influence felt by this pianist, but Ellington filtered primarily through other players more commonly classified as "modern." And, yes, a player more known for group work than as a great soloist. The sense of integration (no pun or clue intended) on this track, not just of all the members of the band but the subtly disparate musical materials (e.g., that intro, the subsequent theme) is one reason why this track hold so much appeal to me. 2: Rung up. But I'll say it again... I just love how the trumpet player states the theme here. 3: Its vintage, like batik shirts and mushroom rock art and fondue sets. What do you make of the baritone player? Grab you at all? I think there's something going on here in that long solo that relates almost directly to track 23, but maybe I'm making up history that was never made... 6: Monk? Perhaps. This pianist has done a Monk recital, but, as a stylist, this one's more of an omnivore. Again, I will single out the composition itself, which is not the pianist's own (it belongs to another pianist and bandleader). Here, the shape of the original has been retained, but, harmonically, it rolls along in a slightly altered orbit from the original. Certainly, the mood this pianist finds along this track is rather different from the one I know, or thought I knew... 8: Yeah, kind of bummed that this was outed elsewhere on the board -- and totally inadvertently -- but this track is, for me, hardly at all about the soloists (other than the trumpet player... though the tenor player does hit on a few agree-able Clifford Jordan-isms, IMO) and more about the composition (and its composer) and the larger project of which its a part. 9: All good guesses, and, yes, these 4 players are more standard / classical / "eternal verities of swing" than modish. What I love about this track is how this pianist -- not one much (well, ever or at all) associated with electric instruments -- is willing to fully explore and exploit those tonalities. I mean, this is not just this player's typical playing transposed to an electric instrument. This is an electric instrument inhabited. 10: Don't you remember our old neighbors? 11: Surprised no one has yet thought, "Is this Dave Douglas?" It's not Dave Douglas, but he has made records vaguely in this mode. But this is a working band, and a band featuring a player who has, for the bulk of a long career, but more sort of a freelancer / featured player. In fact, the leader is a player I've never really warmed to until I heard this particular record. And I'm still a bit surprised to think that, yep, that's that player leading this band! 14: I hear more Sun Ra than Monk, but I can't argue with that analysis. I think you will be proved correct in your feeling that "All of them sound like people I'd probably like more on some other piece." Especially the tenor player. 15: Ding! (On the trombone player... a player who should be more widely known.) 16: If "it is what it is" hadn't been bludgeoned into meaninglessness by overuse (especially by athletes), then I would say that this track is an illustration of the best that "it is what it is" might mean. But, OK, no, and a better definition exists in choreography anyway. And don't you love how the band responds to each soloists... like, how you can feel the urgency step up the minute the alto player comes in. Reminds me a little of what happens on Coltrane's "Ole", where Elvin is rather blithely grooving behind Hubbard and Dolphy and Tyner, not really pushing anything past his cymbal and snare work... until Coltrane starts his solo, and immediately Elvin transforms into, well, Elvin. 17: Yes, its about the song, and the songwriter for sure. Innocent but not naive. Sometimes you find hipness in odd places... I would say of this tenor player, too, that this is but one facet of that individual's music. This is a player who understands and respects the musical cultures from which he/she belongs, but is not unduly beholden to them. Though that may not be easy to hear here. 18: If you recognize the tune, then maybe its because you like to recognize the tune! 19: The history of that record is a story worth telling. 20: Less about the horn player than the organist for me, and the "traditions" being extended here, RRK DEFINITELY being part of that. James Carter would use (too many) more notes to say less, surely. A sidetrack, really; like that one street in the seedy neighborhood you avoid driving through only one afternoon you take a wild hare and say to yourself, "Hey, let's see what else is back there" only to discover, what? some wild thing preserved? something real? once of a place, and still capable of presence, but now out of place? 22: Gil Melle... well, there is a soundtrack connection here. This track is really a mess, in some ways, but there's something compellingly "off" about the soprano sax player. I can tell you: this player is not especially known as a soprano sax player. 25: It makes me happy. Thanks for the close listen and the generous words!

John Hardee? Kind of a straddler... Ditto Tom Archia.

Thanks for listening! Track 1 has been puzzled out already, if you care to look back through the comments. I would agree re: the talent of the pianist heard on 6. He's actually a historically significant player as well. I would also agree that there is a "tightness" to 13, which, regardless of how you feel about the music itself, merits appreciation.

Hoffman's sound reminds me rather much of (a Oxford-collared) Clifford Jordan. I wonder if he's listened to Jordan extensively, and, if so, of where Jordan went harmonically from his Strata-East days into his Muse years...

Thanks for posting this. "Through a byzantine circuit of contracts and enforcements, the banishment of Jacques Sirot’s video from YouTube for copyright violation, for using my music which I had given him and everyone else explicit permission to use, was the result of a secret account collecting royalties on my music operated by a label that had built its reputation on resistance to overblown copyright claims!" Only in America...

Thom -- thanks for the close listen and the comments. I won't respond to everything here, but I can offer a few words here and there... 1 - Not Weston, but it has a Weston-like feel. Though the "classical" flourishes here and there are a tell. (And I can say nothing more.) 2 - Hubbard is definitely within this trumpet player's scope. As to the peaks and valleys of the soloists... this band is definitely a cultural mix. 4 - The song itself has been identified, the performers in part. But who is responsible for the arrangement, and who is that in the backing band? 6 - Not Waldron, and the key here is the composition itself (assuming it is recognizable to anyone). 7 - Yes, the Tristano groups with Konitz and Marsh are the model for this group and performance. But its not T / K / M. IN fact, I'm not sure I really like this track all that much myself, but, as a kind of impersonation, I find it both a bit eerie and a bit fascinating. 8 - Of VERY recent vintage, though the individual players have all been around for a while. Again, the composer of the tune itself is of some importance in ID'ing this. 9 - Unless someone instantly recognizes this, I think it may be the biggest surprise of all on this BFT. 12 - No, these players are not 'Mericans. 14 - I hear the Sun Ra influence as well... but this track is all about the tenor player (again, another big potential surprise). 15 - You might listen again and mull some more on the ID of that soprano player... 16 - Once more, I can say no more... 20 - Hal Singer, huh? He's at play within the confines of this BFT, but not on this track. And is that actually a tenor sax? 22 - Maybe more like the scene where Andy Robinson pays that heavy to beat him up so he can accuse Callahan of police brutality. (I'm trying to say... yes, there's a cinematic connection here... and exploitation is sometimes in the eye of the beholder.) Also... ID of the soprano sax soloist? 25 - Pre-70s actually. But some of the best of what the 70s gave us springs almost directly from this track and this group. Glad these tracks gave you some enjoyment! Best, J

A powerful player who managed to do a lot with the whole "post-Coltrane" thing (if there is such a thing.) And I always found his personal story particualrly meaningful, as my own father was confined to a wheelchair for virtual his entire life after contracting polio when he was a toddler. RIP, indeed.

:tup Great to hear this particular aggregation / congregation / conglomeration given the freedom to dance again... have you all ever thought of doing an entire set of suicide groovers (after "Ode to Billie Joe")?

Well, if Mosaic is going to continue to license Muse material (though I suspect the most recent set has more to do with Cuscuna's relationship with Woody Shaw than any specific interest he might have in the label on which that music originally appeared), I think we need a Ricky Ford box, a Richard Davis box (including the Creative Construction Company LPs), and a Red Rodney / Red Rodney and Ira Sullivan box.

EXTEMPORANEOUS is quite good. I think some of Freddie's quirks -- as much as I enjoy them in a band setting -- play out a bit better in the context of a solo recital. The compositions, too, breathe a bit more naturally. You can sample a track from this date here: BFT 87; track 13, "Night Song", http://www.slowstudies.net/bft87/

That's four votes: you, me, Bol and Romualdo... :tup :tup

A Joe Harriott box?

As previously mentioned, I pretend that Nat Adderley is a drummer.

MG -- good ears on several of these cuts... you've nailed a couple, and propose some interesting ballparks for some others. There's a Sun Ra connection in this BFT, but not with respect to track 22. 17: train, trolley, what's the difference? 20: the organist is the key member of this band, IMO. 14 is, again IMO, features an unusual assembly, i.e., maybe this explains why the band's fit doesn't sound quite right to you. OTOH, 15 was something of a working band, plus -- here -- one guest. No Jimmy Owens on this BFT, but I did consider including a track from his MPS date (NO ESCAPING IT). 19 is as much about the producer as the band (but it is still an interesting band). There's no explicit connection (i.e., shared personnel) between 9 and 10. But you are right / right on to single out the drummer on the latter. Thanks for listening! J

I can say no more re: 2. But I will ask: what makes you think that's Woody? More than the listening to... there was all that was discussed. 25 being party to that, too.