Burton Greene

[jostber]

I have the Burton Greene "Live At The Grasland" album from 2007 and like that a lot. Has anyone checked out these recent releases with his music?

Burton Greene - Live At The Woodstock Playhouse 1965

Perry 4 Robinson & Burton Greene - Two Voices In The Desert

Edited May 13, 2010 by jostber

[clifford_thornton]

Two Voices is excellent. Live at the Playhouse is an interesting historical document, but it's not very well recorded (though the music is good).

[jostber]

Thanks. I found some more information on Playhouse here:

http://masterofasmallhouse.blogspot.com/2010/03/burton-greene-live-at-woodstock.html

http://www.porterrecords.com/id81.html

And Two Voices:

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=33656

[paul secor]

I heard Roswell Rudd st the Woodstock Playhouse in 1968. Wonder if that concert was recorded?

[clifford_thornton]

I mean, I'm all for earlier work, but to my ears Burton's music now is much more all-encompassing, informed, and beautiful. Chalk it up to 40 years of human experience, but I'd take Two Voices, Grasland, or some of the recent CIMP material over his ESPs and such any day.

[clifford_thornton]

Interview with Burton here.

Yours truly weighing in on Two Voices (and more) here and some more here.

I saw Burton and Perry when their US tour stopped in Austin a couple of years ago. It was tremendous and beautiful, and they are both great folks. Perry stayed at my house and I was able to cook (and pass the test on Indian meals) for them, hang out, etc. Supremely great times.

[jostber]

That's a great interview! Thanks for the story and links.

[clifford_thornton]

Sure thing. It was one of the first few I did, glad you enjoy. Burton is now someone whom I consider a friend and I hope you get to see him perform.

[jostber]

Has there never been any plans for the Columbia album "Presenting" to be reissued?

[clifford_thornton]

Not to my knowledge. That's too bad, because it's easily the best of his '60s recordings. The Free Form Improvisation Ensemble CD on Cadence is also worth picking up - very interesting stuff.

[RJ Spangler]

This CD was panned in Cadence this year.

[clifford_thornton]

It was also panned in Paris Transatlantic.

It was not panned in Signal To Noise.

[paul secor]

Bob Rusch in Cadence panned both the Burton Greene Woodstock Playhouse album and Giuseppi Logan's Tompkins Square album. He felt that neither should have been released (for different reasons) - saying that releasing them did an injustice to both musicians. He made a comparison with Allen Eager's Uptown recording and Anita O'Day's last recording as being recorded travesties that a caring producer would have left unreleased.

I haven't hear either the Greene or Logan, but Mr. Rusch's review made me want to hear both, if only to find out if they're truly that bad.

[clifford_thornton]

They aren't that bad. The main thing is that the Greene is a rougher set than the (contemporaneous) ESP and the recording quality is poor. Musically, I don't have a problem with it. Considering some of what Rusch puts out through CIMP and the Cadence Historical Series, I'd say he doesn't have a bun in that fight.

As for the Logan, I can understand why he has aesthetic problems with it (and I do too). But I am glad that it exists and is available.

[ep1str0phy]

I should for all purposes love the music on the Woodstock Playhouse album, but I have a strange disconnect from it--it may have something to do with the bootleg-caliber sound, but it could just as much be that there's a sprawling, somewhat meandering quality to the music that doesn't necessarily serve Greene's approach very well. I'll have to listen again. It's an interesting comparison with the self-titled ESP, which is IMO somewhat more focused but maybe less energetic.

Not so much a knock, but rather an observation--Greene's playing on these early discs is somewhat more dynamically static and, to my ears, less melodically detailed than (the obvious comparison) contemporaneous Cecil Taylor, which redoubtably holds my interest over long intervals. Of course, this serves a sort of trancelike quality in Greene's music--totally absent from Cecil's stuff, which is far more rhapsodic (maybe more romantically boisterous in a hybrid Western art music/African sense than an Eastern infinite sense). The often equally unterse Don Pullen has more power at this point, although in his earlier music it's this, and maybe only this energy component that carries things over (and if you're not in the mood for free bash, it can sound a little aimless, too).

[clifford_thornton]

Greene wasn't really trying to play like Cecil or Pullen - he was looking for his own approach, and at that time was inspired heavily by the Tristano school. At its best, his music then could be very condensed and rhythmic or airy and surreal, and I won't argue that the Woodstock gig isn't the best representation. A decent snapshot, sure, but... I almost don't even think of his '60s records anymore as being "Burton" - they're him, obviously, but the pianist he's grown into from the 1980s onward is who I'd like to listen to.

[mjazzg]

I'm currently enjoying Greene's work on Groder & Greene w. Rob Brown, Adam Lane & Ray Sage from 2007. My first real exposure to him so I've been interested in everyone's views on his previous works - thanks

[AllenLowe]

I agree with Cliff; the early Burton was, to my ears, not very good.

Let me quote a former saxophonist of his (whom I met in Amsterdam in the late 1980s; he was a transplanted American):

"he's actually learned how to play the piano now."

[clifford_thornton]

I wouldn't say that it's not good, and if that was all there was, I would be happy with it. The first of Burton's records I heard was ESP 1024 and it resonated with me. He did everything he was capable of at the time, and that's totally respectable and fantastic (not everybody realizes their current potential at the time they are doing something).

But what he's done since is superb and often sublime.

Allen, are you referring to Paul Stocker?

[AllenLowe]

he's the guy - I always wondered what happened to him. Do you know?

[RJ Spangler]

I was curious about Paul Stocker and a quick google search yielded this:

http://www.jazzloft.com/p-41847-maiden-voyage-jazz-orchestra.aspx

I see his band covers Ntylo Ntylo a South Africa tune I've played in several bands for almost 30 years. He is the the 1st non- S.African to cover this tune besides my crew here in Detroit, at least that I know of.

[felser]

I agree with Cliff; the early Burton was, to my ears, not very good.

Let me quote a former saxophonist of his (whom I met in Amsterdam in the late 1980s; he was a transplanted American):

"he's actually learned how to play the piano now."

Never quite sure how to take that kind of quote, though. I remember the notes to the Archie Shepp 1975 Montreux (I think)records, where Johnny Griffin was quoted as saying that Archie Shepp had finally learned how to play saxophone or something, and Shepp, to me, was fascinating from "3 for Trane" through about '77, then basically unlistenable as he became a conventional tenor player with bad intonation, doing ballad albums and such.

[clifford_thornton]

I was curious about Paul Stocker and a quick google search yielded this:

http://www.jazzloft.com/p-41847-maiden-voyage-jazz-orchestra.aspx

I see his band covers Ntylo Ntylo a South Africa tune I've played in several bands for almost 30 years. He is the the 1st non- S.African to cover this tune besides my crew here in Detroit, at least that I know of.

Thanks for the info - all I know of him is the BG connection.

[paul secor]

I had never heard of Paul Stocker before his name appeared on this thread.

Did a search and found a link to a video:

[ep1str0phy]

I was curious about Paul Stocker and a quick google search yielded this:

http://www.jazzloft.com/p-41847-maiden-voyage-jazz-orchestra.aspx

I see his band covers Ntylo Ntylo a South Africa tune I've played in several bands for almost 30 years. He is the the 1st non- S.African to cover this tune besides my crew here in Detroit, at least that I know of.

Pharoah Sanders covered it on Rejoice (circa 1981, I think, which at least puts it within the timeframe you've been doing it {?)). I wouldn't be surprised if more people had done it back in the 70's/80's, if only because the UK SA exiles seemed to favor the piece and, well, cultural diffusion being what it is...

Edited May 27, 2010 by ep1str0phy