Modern/Avant New Releases: A running thread

[clifford_thornton]

Also re: Snakeoil: I'm sorry I brought the damn thing up. It's a shame that Tim Berne hasn't done enough for and by himself over the last thirty years to adequately prove to people he's not in it for the money. What a bullshit attitude to have towards someone who's busted his ass for decades making people happy with no financial gain at all. I'll assume you'd lob the same snark in Roscoe Mitchell's direction?

For pete's sake, people, there's a WHOLE where you can go to town on Snakeoil. Same old yapping. It's a nice record, band is more interesting live in my opinion, but WHATEVER.

[Blue Train]

As a recent convert, I'm looking forward to Mary Halvorson's upcoming release:

Mary Halvorson Septet - Illusionary Sea (Firehouse 12)

Mary Halvorson, guitar; Jonathan Finlayson, trumpet; Jacob Garchik, trombone;

Jon Irabagon, alto sax; Ingrid Laubrock, tenor sax; John Hébert, bass; Ches Smith, drums.

Today's the official release date.

[xybert]

Also re: Snakeoil: I'm sorry I brought the damn thing up. It's a shame that Tim Berne hasn't done enough for and by himself over the last thirty years to adequately prove to people he's not in it for the money. What a bullshit attitude to have towards someone who's busted his ass for decades making people happy with no financial gain at all. I'll assume you'd lob the same snark in Roscoe Mitchell's direction?

For pete's sake, people, there's a WHOLE where you can go to town on Snakeoil. Same old yapping. It's a nice record, band is more interesting live in my opinion, but WHATEVER.

There's almost been as many posts criticizing the spontaneous outbreak of discussion on Snakeoil as actul posts in the thread. I think we get it now. Fair enough. Mods, would it be possible to move the Snakeoil related posts from last week to the linked thread? Maybe then we can move on. A couple of people have posted links to the thread now.

As a recent convert, I'm looking forward to Mary Halvorson's upcoming release:

Mary Halvorson Septet - Illusionary Sea (Firehouse 12)

Mary Halvorson, guitar; Jonathan Finlayson, trumpet; Jacob Garchik, trombone;

Jon Irabagon, alto sax; Ingrid Laubrock, tenor sax; John Hébert, bass; Ches Smith, drums.

Today's the official release date.

Awesome, eh? I keep checking my email for the shipping notice.

[clifford_thornton]

Sorry, it just devolves whenever anyone talks about ECM and it gets really tiring to read. I, for one, would be happy to hear a new Snakeoil album, even if sometimes I prefer Berne in other settings.

[Steve Reynolds]

I actually prefer hearing two of the musicians in Snakeoil in other contexts - Hearing Ches Smith with Mat Maneri and Craig Taborn revealed to me that in that free improvisation environment he is one of the most explosive and exciting drummers playing today.

hearing Oscar Noriega with Endangered Blood with Chris Speed, Michael Formanek and Jim Black revealed a great musician on both clarinet and alto saxophone and hearing Oscar with Mat Maneri's quintet a couple of times revealed a whole other side of his playing - from scratchy seemingly obtuse improvisations of a small small almost reductive bent to cranking angular explosions out of both horns.

in contrast to many listeners of outtish or improvisational music, I have never really warmed to Berne's playing, composing or his music in general. I have *enjoyed some of his recordings - a few of the Bloodcount or Paraphrase CD's are intermittently exiciting but have never held my interests for the lengths of the recordings. When I have seen him play over the past couple of years (in Formanek's Quartet and with a John Hebert led Mingus ensemble), his improvisations never approached the burn or depth of who I consider the great saxophonists of our time.

Maybe I need to see him in one of his own bands as whenever I am at a show in the city, it seems one of the regulars is raving about a recent Berne show - of which there are many - he probably plays in New York as much or more than any other New York based jazz musician as far as I can tell.

So I will keep my mind open - but not quite yet - my fall calendar is pretty well booked with other shows until December....

Edited September 11, 2013 by Steve Reynolds

[Steve Reynolds]

Maybe another brief point not ot dredge up the old discussion.

When there are SO many releases these days from a wide variety of extremely talented and exciting artists in the broad area of 'avant-garde' or 'free jazz' or 'jazz based or jazz influenced free improvisation', it is such a shame than the focus of many is on recordings that are simply inferior in content and in sound quality than may lesser known releases on lesser known labels.

and IMO, the difference in quality is often stunning

[clifford_thornton]

Totally.

[Steve Reynolds]

and the most overlooked release of the year is "Mad Dogs"

comprised of small formation improvisations from the members of Barry Guy's New Orchestra - recorded live I think in 2011.

as far as I can tell, no one on this board or any other board has commented on it - havn't seen that anyone here has bought it. Too much for your mirror, anyone?? still not ready for these guys?

Anyone hear ever heard the incredible Inscape/Tableaux - the first Barry Guy New Orchestra recording that was released over 10 years ago? In my listening experience, another landmark all-time recording - then all compositionally based.

As far as the Mad Dogs box - granted, it is expensive - ~ $90 - $100 for 5 discs, it is all free improvisation - BUT it is the BEST sounding CD recording maybe I have ever heard - and many of the performances are breathtaking.

I think sometimes people think that it is too obscure, the musician's reputaions are too severe - or something - not sure - but very odd that so little interest in a landmark release such as this which includes ome of the truly great improvisor/musicians of our time.

Edited September 11, 2013 by Steve Reynolds

[Tania Giannouli]

Maybe another brief point not ot dredge up the old discussion.

When there are SO many releases these days from a wide variety of extremely talented and exciting artists in the broad area of 'avant-garde' or 'free jazz' or 'jazz based or jazz influenced free improvisation', it is such a shame than the focus of many is on recordings that are simply inferior in content and in sound quality than may lesser known releases on lesser known labels.

and IMO, the difference in quality is often stunning

totally agree

[mjazzg]

and the most overlooked release of the year is "Mad Dogs"

comprised of small formation improvisations from the members of Barry Guy's New Orchestra - recorded live I think in 2011.

as far as I can tell, no one on this board or any other board has commented on it - havn't seen that anyone here has bought it. Too much for your mirror, anyone?? still not ready for these guys?

Anyone hear ever heard the incredible Inscape/Tableaux - the first Barry Guy New Orchestra recording that was released over 10 years ago? In my listening experience, another landmark all-time recording - then all compositionally based.

As far as the Mad Dogs box - granted, it is expensive - ~ $90 - $100 for 5 discs, it is all free improvisation - BUT it is the BEST sounding CD recording maybe I have ever heard - and many of the performances are breathtaking.

I think sometimes people think that it is too obscure, the musician's reputaions are too severe - or something - not sure - but very odd that so little interest in a landmark release such as this which includes ome of the truly great improvisor/musicians of our time.

Would love to hear it. Nothing about 'too obscure' or not being ready (give me a break on that - how do I prove my readiness? who do I apply to for the badge?).

Simple - too expensive. When the spare's there then I'll be sharing your enthusiasm.

Edited September 11, 2013 by mjazzg

[colinmce]

Same boat. I'm on a strict budget that means I may not spend a solitary penny on music for years to come. It's hard, it's depressing, it's life.

[Steve Reynolds]

and the most overlooked release of the year is "Mad Dogs"

comprised of small formation improvisations from the members of Barry Guy's New Orchestra - recorded live I think in 2011.

as far as I can tell, no one on this board or any other board has commented on it - havn't seen that anyone here has bought it. Too much for your mirror, anyone?? still not ready for these guys?

Anyone hear ever heard the incredible Inscape/Tableaux - the first Barry Guy New Orchestra recording that was released over 10 years ago? In my listening experience, another landmark all-time recording - then all compositionally based.

As far as the Mad Dogs box - granted, it is expensive - ~ $90 - $100 for 5 discs, it is all free improvisation - BUT it is the BEST sounding CD recording maybe I have ever heard - and many of the performances are breathtaking.

I think sometimes people think that it is too obscure, the musician's reputaions are too severe - or something - not sure - but very odd that so little interest in a landmark release such as this which includes ome of the truly great improvisor/musicians of our time.

Would love to hear it. Nothing about 'too obscure' or not being ready (give me a break on that - how do I prove my readiness? who do I apply to for the badge?).

Simple - too expensive. When the spare's there then I'll be sharing your enthusiasm.

I understand that for you, obviously not 'too obscure'

my pointed obseravtions tends towards those who conciosously or unconciously avoid many of those musicians not associated with the tradition - specifically the american tradition of jazz or even american free jazz - but the interest level or even inquiry level for even the great first generation european improvisors is close to null and void.

I have a pseudo friend who grew up with much of the downtown loft scene in NYC in the 70's and when we became familiar with each other, I gave him a copy of Evan Parker's The Two Seasons - and after probably sulking through a few minutes of it, he decided that Mark Sanders was just a loud drummer. Or "listeners" who grew up in that scene or related scenes and maybe they hear Paul Lovens and say - oh nothing different there....

forget about hoisting the SME on them - total rejection.

why I wish guys like John Edwards and Paul Rogers could visit NYC to expose some of these "listeners" to approaches with the bass that havn't for whatever reason even entered into the American community of free jazz/free improvisation. The closest we get is guys like Ken Filiano and maybe Michael Bisio - but still the reality is few are really listening to some of these great musicians and it is really a damn shame.

[disaac]

FWIW, I have an extra copy of Inscape/Tableaux (which is as wonderful as Steve relates) if someone wants to buy or trade it.

[Clunky]

another for the Mad Dogs box. Excellent music in great sound, makes me wonder why I'm so attached to vinyl as the sound totally eclipses most recent vinyl recordings I've bought ( NoBusiness, Pi etc)

[Blue Train]

and the most overlooked release of the year is "Mad Dogs"

comprised of small formation improvisations from the members of Barry Guy's New Orchestra - recorded live I think in 2011.

as far as I can tell, no one on this board or any other board has commented on it - havn't seen that anyone here has bought it. Too much for your mirror, anyone?? still not ready for these guys?

I bought it, which is why I was able to recommend the place you bought it from.

I second the Inscape/Tableaux.

Edited September 11, 2013 by Blue Train

[clifford_thornton]

It's on my to buy list when the new job starts. Can't get every new release for "review," obviously.

[Swinger]

Mad Dogs is great but I got my copy in faulty condition. I hate the whole vinyl size packaging. All those spines holding the cds were loose when I got the packet and the first cd got a nasty cut which affect a few seconds of playing.

[xybert]

Mad Dogs is great but I got my copy in faulty condition. I hate the whole vinyl size packaging. All those spines holding the cds were loose when I got the packet and the first cd got a nasty cut which affect a few seconds of playing.

In all honesty the packaging is a factor for me on this one. Unless i pay a fortune to get it couriered to me it's going to get mangled in the post. I appreciate the creativity but for the cost something simple/solid/practical would have been cool... but maybe i just need to free my miiiiind maaaaan. Having said that, i'm still tempted.

For those interested someone actually posted an 'unboxing' vid on youtube (prepare to possible cringe at his disc handling).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRzyaZPsFBE

[Blue Train]

Yusef Lateef, Roscoe Mitchell, Douglas Ewart, Adam Rudolph - Voice Prints

Edited September 16, 2013 by Blue Train

[uli]

Yusef Lateef, Roscoe Mitchell, Douglas Ewart, Adam Rudolph - Voice Prints

Nice liners by Mr. Litweiler

"Performance begins with shamanism," says Douglas Ewart, who formed the quartet in this concert. "Yusef Lateef brought magic to this group," says Adam Rudolph. From Lateef's serene flute and the soft taps and tings that open Voice Prints, this music casts a spell. While there are subsequent lightning flashes and also extended passages of energy and aggression in this concert, the fundamental serenity of this music's setting is never violated. Here, serenity is a calm yet active state of being, not at all passive--a state of sensitivity, alert awareness, responsiveness. Magic? Certainly here is a world beyond worldly beats, where spirits meet, enhance each other, and speak to us.

From around America, from Massachusetts (Lateef), northern California (Mitchell), southern California (Rudolph), from Minnesota (Ewart), they gathered in Minneapolis to play together for the first time, in this concert. Are you surprised to discover ex-Detroiter Lateef improvising along with three leading ex-Chicago free spirits? "He has such a wide musical spectrum and a musical vision," says Ewart. "His vision is inclusive, not exclusive--he welcomes younger musicians and other visions," and Rudolph emphasizes Lateef's "deep feeling and spiritual awareness." Of course, these Chicagoans are musical globetrotters themselves. Like Lateef, all three have worked with African musicians, plus Jamaica-born Ewart has also studied flutes in Japan and Australia and Adam Rudolph has lived in West Africa and studied North Indian percussion. All four have so much to share, to inspire each other--there are no barriers.

"Yusef Lateef pioneered world music," points out Ewart. From Lateef's earliest albums, beginning in 1957, he was among the first modern-improvising flutists, he introduced exotic double-reed horns, and he played fluent, transitional swing-to-bop tenor sax music with a light sound in all registers. He began a lifelong breakaway from the standard repertoire of American-pop chord changes to instead introduce songs from Asia, Africa, Japan, and European classical music. It's no wonder his vision and mastery inspired his Chicago juniors. In 1988 he began his stimulating partnership with Adam Rudolph, who shares his fascination with fusing diverse musical cultures. They've composed together and often performed in settings from duets to large orchestras.

Since Roscoe Mitchell's previous Delmark album Sound Songs (1996) and the loss of Malachi Favors and Lester Bowie, he worked with tenorist Fred Anderson and trumpeter Corey Wilkes among others in later editions of the Art Ensemble of Chicago. He also composed a major work, Non-Cognitive Aspects of the City, for orchestra and voice. It's based on the same Joseph Jarman poem that's the source of a great Jarman performance, in the album Song For (Delmark 410)--how rare to have two very important, very different pieces based upon the same poem. Since 2007 he's held the distinguished Darius Milhaud chair of Musical Composition at Mills College.

When Chicago's AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians) and its school were new, Douglas Ewart studied under Mitchell. While he was in the process of becoming an inspired alto saxophonist, he also began crafting musical instruments. His beautifully decorated, large and small bamboo flutes, played by a number of jazz artists, are perhaps best known. He's also created didgeridoos, colorful rain sticks, even bamboo saxophones, among other instruments, which he's exhibited as well as played. Meanwhile he played in Fred Anderson's historic 1970s sextet, which resulted in many later collaborations with trombonist George Lewis and reunions with Anderson. Among the groups Ewart has led are his Clarinet Choir and Nyabinghi Drum Choir; and his Inventions ensembles; he's usually offered multimedia works, often grand spectacles including music, poetry, dance, video.

Percussionist Adam Rudolph first played with Ewart in Fred Anderson's group in 1970’s played on Anderson's first American album The Missing Link (Nessa). By then he'd begun his exploration of world musical cultures as cofounder (with kora master Foday Musa Suso) of the Mandingo Griot Society as well as Gnawa master Hassan Hakmoun; his subsequent fusions of international musics include his percussion group Hu: Vibrational, his octet Moving Pictures and his Go: Organic Orchestra, which includes up to 54 musicians and offers his unique concepts of marrying composition and improvisation. As Ewart was planning this concert, it was Rudolph who suggested including Lateef.

Voice Prints is a kind of tone poem, with curves of feeling that subtly change and expand as if it could be a large composition, Yet all of Voice Prints is improvised: "The only parts worked out were, we planned sections where Roscoe and I or Yusef and Adam would play together--here would be duos, here would be quartet." In the long "Voice Prints" track textures very slowly and subtly, but inevitably, move from the opening calm, spaced intensity, becoming deeper, higher, more complex. By the middle, it’s a three saxes-hand drums improvisation. In the last eight minutes textures gather then scatter as Lateef makes stark, spacy tones. "Sound Search" begins as a tenor-drums duet, becomes by contrast a fantastic, intense Mitchell sopranino sax statement, and concludes in an especially lovely section of three flutes over a quiet piano. The two concluding tracks, then, are so very soft, quiet: the spirits are united in peace.

- John Litweiler

http://www.metarecords.com/voice_prints.html

[mjazzg]

Yusef Lateef, Roscoe Mitchell, Douglas Ewart, Adam Rudolph - Voice Prints

very much looking forward to finding it somewhere where the postage cost isn't such an issue. Problem is I'm not sure how much sdistribution Mr Rudolph gets to Europe

[Robs]

Anyone who's a fan of Mary Halvorson's stuff over the last few years will probably like her new album. It's kind of more of the same -- not a bad thing in my opinion. I've had it for a couple days now and I'm really enjoying it. She's definitely one of my favorites these days.

[mjzee]

Yusef Lateef, Roscoe Mitchell, Douglas Ewart, Adam Rudolph - Voice Prints

very much looking forward to finding it somewhere where the postage cost isn't such an issue. Problem is I'm not sure how much sdistribution Mr Rudolph gets to Europe

Amazon's carrying it - release date November 19.

[Swinger]

Mad Dogs is great but I got my copy in faulty condition. I hate the whole vinyl size packaging. All those spines holding the cds were loose when I got the packet and the first cd got a nasty cut which affect a few seconds of playing.

In all honesty the packaging is a factor for me on this one. Unless i pay a fortune to get it couriered to me it's going to get mangled in the post. I appreciate the creativity but for the cost something simple/solid/practical would have been cool... but maybe i just need to free my miiiiind maaaaan. Having said that, i'm still tempted.

For those interested someone actually posted an 'unboxing' vid on youtube (prepare to possible cringe at his disc handling).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRzyaZPsFBE

My friend got the same set in perfect condition. We even ordered it from the same store

[xybert]

Mad Dogs is great but I got my copy in faulty condition. I hate the whole vinyl size packaging. All those spines holding the cds were loose when I got the packet and the first cd got a nasty cut which affect a few seconds of playing.

In all honesty the packaging is a factor for me on this one. Unless i pay a fortune to get it couriered to me it's going to get mangled in the post. I appreciate the creativity but for the cost something simple/solid/practical would have been cool... but maybe i just need to free my miiiiind maaaaan. Having said that, i'm still tempted.

For those interested someone actually posted an 'unboxing' vid on youtube (prepare to possible cringe at his disc handling).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRzyaZPsFBE

My friend got the same set in perfect condition. We even ordered it from the same store

Yeah definitely a 'take your chances' kind of thing. There's every chance it could arrive in my letter box via air mail in immaculate condition.