Favorite Free Jazz/Avant Garde Box Sets

[Face of the Bass]

Two things I love are avant garde jazz and the box set. Avant garde jazz is the closest thing I've ever found in this world to the kind of beauty I can understand and connect to, while the format of the box set feeds my desire for a sense of narrative in the music I listen to. While this is not an exhaustive list, here are some of my favorite box sets covering avant garde jazz....I'd be curious to hear what others like most. For my list I'm focusing mostly on post-Coltrane/Ornette/Ayler free jazz...

1. Jimmy Lyons - The Box Set (Ayler Records) --Love the first couple discs especially on this one.

2. Anthony Braxton - Complete Arista Recordings (Mosaic) -- This set seemed to be an urban legend for several years and when it finally appeared it more than lived up to all the hype.

3. Bill Dixon - Odyssey (Self Released) -- This might be a more idiosyncratic choice...but I love solo trumpet music and no one was better at making it than Dixon.

4. 1967/68: The Art Ensemble (Nessa)-- It has been too long since I last listened to this one, but it is a wonderful document of a critical time period in the development of the Chicago school of free jazz...

5. Cecil Taylor -- Two Ts For A Lovely T (Condanza) --been too long since I heard this one too...

What say you?

[jlhoots]

Threadgill Mosaic

Alchemia

Taylor FMP box

[Chuck Nessa]

Taylor = FMP

Taylor - Codanza

For Example - FMP lps

Ayler box 2. :ph34r:CRAP

CRAP - where is the Atlantic Ornette box?

Too much good stuff.

Edited December 1, 2011 by Chuck Nessa

[paul secor]

Cecil/Neidlinger - Mosaic

Cecil - FMP

Ayler - Revenant

Cecil - One Too Many Salty Swift - Hat Hut LP box

Ornette - Beauty Is a Rare Thing - Atlantic/Rhino

Art Ensemble - Nessa (Have to say that I enjoy listening to the single releases that have come out, so I don't find myself returning to the box.)

[Face of the Bass]

I've got most of the Cecil FMPs on individual disc, but unfortunately didn't come to the music until the box set had long been out of print. Just scanning around for it today, I see that the lowest price at the moment appears to be $600. Insane.

[colinmce]

Berlin '88 is one I will have before I die.

[jeffcrom]

Berlin '88 is one I will have before I die.

That's one I bought when it came out. I didn't have much money and really couldn't afford it, but I bought it anyway. It's the first thing that came to mind when I saw the title of this thread.

[David Ayers]

If we are including Ornette and Ayler we have to include Coltrane and Miles...so it is hard to set proper boundaries in this thread...but for me I neither like nor want avant-garde box sets outside the classics...EXCEPT the recent FMP memorial which has a great book but is a bit uh pricey...and which I therefore don't yet own...

[Joe]

The WILDFLOWERS set

Wadada Leo Smith's Kabell recordings

[David Ayers]

Oh...wait... Willisau (Quartet) 1991

[clifford_thornton]

Amen on the Cecil '88 box.

That Juma Sultan Aboriginal Music Society box that Eremite just put out is a killer, too.

Also:

AEC Nessa box (all out as individuals now)

Bill Dixon - Odyssey

Braxton Mosaic

Threadgill Mosaic

FMP For Example & FMP In Retrospect

[brownie]

Albert Ayler Revenant box

Jimmy Lyons Ayler set

Cecil Taylor Mosaic

Henry Threadgill Black Saint

wish I had the full CT 1988 box but have only the individual CDs...

[David Ayers]

Oh wait I know - Iskra 1903 Chapter One (1970-72) - Rutherford/Bailey/Guy

Is it OK if I mention one I maybe no longer like quite so much? That's the Sam Rivers Blue Note Mosaic. Gave that a play over the last few days and...found myself wondering...

Somebody now mention the Andrew Hill Blue Note Mosaic and all boundaries between the avant-garde and the vaguely modernistic disappear entirely...

Oh and finally the only reason no-one mentions Coltrane is (a) he's a straight winner in the avant-garde category but (b) the classic quartet Impulse box is a dead loss. Which leaves us with the VV box as the sine qua non of the jazz avant-garde. TA-freakin'-DA.

[David Ayers]

AEC

Take another look at that box, grasshopper...

[mjazzg]

Wadada Leo Smith - Kabell Years

[John L]

Ornette on Atlantic is number one for me. I had most of the music before it came out, and already loved Ornette. But having the music in that form and format really deepened my appreciation.

The Nessa Art Ensemble box is also fabulous, of course.

I don't know if the Andrew Hill Mosaic qualifies as "avant garde," but I love it. The Sam Rivers Mosaic is up there too.

I also really like the live box set of the Brotzmann Chicago Tentet on Okka Disc. That was an exciting band.

[JETman]

Maybe not avant-garde, but definitely out: the Jackie McLean Mosaic is one of my faves, along with some of the boxes already mentioned.

[Stefan Wood]

I've enjoyed the Mosaic releases of the Henry Threadgill and Anthony Braxton Arista sessions.

Also:

Henry Threadgill set from Black Saint

The Thing - 3 cd compilation of their early work

Atomic box set

Sam Rivers Mosaic (3 cds box and Mosaic Select)

Sun Ra - The Singles 2 cd set on Evidence

Wildflowers set on Knitting Factory

My current listen, the 14 cd Sun Ra Transparency box set that just came out (volume 1!) is one of the most revealing sets I have ever heard. My mind and ears have been stretched by both pre WWII and "avant garde" music to know that this is a set that ties all the music together -- big band, latin, doo wop, etc. To listen or even prefer to one genre more than the other no longer makes sense to me.

[ghost of miles]

Just off the top of my head:

Ornette Coleman, BEAUTY IS A RARE THING

Anthony Braxton, WILISAU and the Arista Mosaic

Various, WILDFLOWERS

John Carter-Bobby Bradford, MOSAIC SELECT (edit...thanks for the reminder, colinmce.)

Various artists, MESSAGE FROM THE TRIBE

I have the Threadgill Mosaic and love what I've heard of it so far, but only two discs in, so can't honestly rack it up yet as an all-time avant-garde box-set favorite... but I think it will land there once I've listened to the rest of it.

Edited December 1, 2011 by ghost of miles

[colinmce]

The Carter-Bradford Select is one for the ages.

[J.A.W.]

I love the Ornette Coleman Atlantic box, Beauty Is a Rare Thing. The Jimmy Lyons box is also a favourite, though I don't listen to it often enough (I have way too much music to listen to...). Don't have the Threadgill Mosaic yet, but it's on my list.

[NIS]

I'm not too big on box sets in general but "Two Ts for a Lovely T" is the one Cecil Taylor release that I can really get into.

[mjazzg]

Document: New Music from Russia, the 80s [Leo Records] was a revelatory listen on its release and has proved worthy of revisiting over a long period now.

[colinmce]

I sure wish there were more boxes like the Albert Ayler and Jimmy Lyons ones ... so many figures that could benefit from this treatment, most notably (imo):

Marion Brown-- check his online discography ... TONS of unreleased sessions from a man so painfully underrepresented on record, especially in his prime

Sam Rivers-- we know the recent Select just scratches the surface of what's sitting around, both from his creative orchestras and the old trio

Horace Tapscott-- again, so, so many private tapes from a major artist who was rarely recorded

Bill Dixon-- Odyssey is there, but I'm sure there's much more. I'd say the same for him as for Tapscott: too rarely recorded.

Joe McPhee-- John Corbett has done great putting out early private recordings and gigs but I'd love to hear more from the late 70s and 80s.

Sunny Murray-- probably the Major Figure least acknowledged as such. An anthology of his career would do wonders in asserting his eminence.

Black Artist Group-- Mentioned about as often as AEC but not much original recordings to point to

And while there's certainly no shortage of their stuff on the market, I'd always welcome odds & ends boxes from Taylor, Lacy & Braxton-- gigs, rehearsals, speeches, etc. Also, why not an official Ornette bootleg series?

Sorry, I'll be back to reality in a minute ...

[B. Clugston]

Document: New Music from Russia, the 80s [Leo Records] was a revelatory listen on its release and has proved worthy of revisiting over a long period now.

Yes, that is a classic. Along that line:

•Conspiracy. Excellent four CD box set on Leo of a Zurich festival featuring many of those documented on Document.

•Sergey Kuryokhin. Absolutely Great! (Leo). Seven CDs documenting Kuryokhin's trip to the Bay Area, mostly featuring solo piano and Pop Mechanics-style performances with U.S. musicians.

•The four Golden Years of the Soviet New Jazz 4-CD sets, while partly a shelf-clearing exercise, contain some fabulous music.