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Post by alunsevern on Sept 13, 2017 8:06:26 GMT
Steve --- You've been busy. I'm glad you found my earlier post useful. There is _such_ a lot to discover.
I forgot to mention Anthony Braxton's SIX MONK COMPOSITIONS, which is a classic record by any definition -- and it unites Braxton with Mal Waldron too (Soul Note).
Dig in and enjoy. I wonder whether Soul Note / Black Saint will increase in price? They seem labels largely ignored by the "mainstream" collectors of jazz, but on the other hand i suppose must be getting scarcer given that many of the titles are now thirty years old and more...
Best -- Alun
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Post by sztiv on Sept 13, 2017 19:17:57 GMT
This Motian / Haden / Allen LP is exceptional - thank you. I'm not sure I've heard anything quite as beautiful since Sunday Night at the Village Vanguard.
The "little known" Leo Records label is also fascinating. I'm going to have to do away with my only on vinyl stupidity though!
I also have a copy of Evan Parker's Walthamstow Moon on order and I haven't a clue what to expect but I think I have you to thank for me taking a chance with him. I'll let you know what I make of it after it arrives.
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Post by alunsevern on Sept 14, 2017 10:50:17 GMT
Steve, I passed on Walthamstow Moon because I have a personal problem with free improv guitar. I have a couple of records with Derek Bailey on, and I like those, but those aside I have this persistent nagging doubt that the non idiomatic free improv style (ie a guitar shouldn't sound like a guitar) can really be taken seriously. when I hear Evan Parker's extraordinary tenor playing I hear someone who has spent years developing a new approach to the sax -- a new voice, if you like -- and it demands to be taken seriously. BUt when I hear free improv guitar -- the scratch and scrabble style -- I'm always left with the feeling that even I could play that...
Walthamstow Moon is a lovely package on LP, and I was seriously tempted, but a kind friend enabled me to listen via a private link and I must say that overall I found the set disappointing. The guitar -- at least for me -- was the weak point, but I have also heard Parker play much, much better. Almost any set with Von Schlippenbach is better, I feel.
Once the. LP set of Walthamstow is unavailable I feel almost sure I will regret saying all this and wish I could find a copy!
I hope you enjoy it and will be interested to hear what you make of it.
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Post by clifford on Sept 14, 2017 14:40:03 GMT
Ooh, I'll have to check this out. I like John Russell and certainly Parker is an ace.
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Post by gregorythefish on Sept 14, 2017 14:57:39 GMT
alun, i like free guitar, the likes of bruce johnson and rodney jones on strata east, but i have never cared much for derek bailey personally. your opinion is a fair one and i often share it, but allow me to regale you with a tale: i like a lot of hardcore punk music (i know, sue me) and once my dad said "anybody can scream like that" and so i said "ok, you do it, right now" and my dad is not one to shy away from a challenge, so he tried on the spot to mimic what he had just heard. he hurt his vocal chords so badly that he could barely talk for a month and a half. now, if i'd known he would do that i wouldn't have challenged him to do it, and i felt bad. but the point is that even that activity takes practice and training. i'd imagine there's a subtlty to scratchy guitar playing that we don't grasp. i'm a guitar player, and i've played in some free collectives before, but that is not my style. still, we would do best to keep a respectable distance. you know i love ya, though.
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Post by alunsevern on Sept 14, 2017 15:25:30 GMT
Greg, you are absolutely right, of course. THe "I could do that" or the "my five year old daughter could paint like that" (the idiot's standard condemnation of abstract painting!) claims are always based on ignorance. I'm sure that free improv guitar has a subtlety and perhaps even purpose that I don't fully understand. But as I say, while I can make the effort with, say, sax, and immediately see the iron discipline free music requires ( if it is to be truly good), for some reason I can't do this with guitar.
Do you know the improv guitarist Keith Rowe? Now oddly enough I seem to appreciate him more. As you may know, he doesn't even play the guitar like a guitar. For him, the guitar is a source of electronic sound that can be manipulated and it is always played flat on a table top. He made a great record with Evan Parker called DARK RAGS. Perhaps I can enjoy that because the guitar doesn't even sound like a guitar -- and I have always been partial to feedback and electronic noise? Who knows? It's an altogether strange thing.
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Post by alunsevern on Sept 14, 2017 15:33:09 GMT
This Motian / Haden / Allen LP is exceptional - thank you. I'm not sure I've heard anything quite as beautiful since Sunday Night at the Village Vanguard. I'm glad you like ETUDES, Steve. THe same line up made three more LPs, I believe. ONe on JMT called SEGMENTS and two on DIW -- one live at the Vanguard, and one called IN THE YEAR OF THE DRAGON. I have at least seen SEGMENTS for sale on vinyl, but have never owned or heard any of them...
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Post by sztiv on Sept 15, 2017 8:37:48 GMT
I had 45 minutes of uninterrupted listening time earlier this week and listened to Etudes and I'm impatient to find another 45 minutes this weekend.
That DIW label is another interesting one. I acquired a couple of John Hicks LPs on that label last week an artist that also plays a lot as part of a conventional trio which I'm very much drawn to.
I'm running short of things to sell at the moment so my ability to finance more acquisitions is somewhat lacking. But I'll check out those other Motian / Haden / Allen LPs when I get a chance.
As for free guitar, I have nothing to say, yet.
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Post by gregorythefish on Sept 15, 2017 17:02:57 GMT
i do not know keith rowe, and it doesn't sound like it would be something i would listen to often, but i am curious, and will look him up.
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Post by clifford on Sept 15, 2017 19:35:31 GMT
Rowe is a very special artist and thinker. Not all of the lowercase stuff is for me, but he's really something else. Of course, AMM have been huge as well, whether or not he's in the band.
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Post by sztiv on Sept 15, 2017 20:54:44 GMT
Good God! I've just been listening to Keith Rowe on YouTube! Extraordinary doesn't really do him justice.
Someone posted:
"This sounds like 'Flight of The Bumblebee' played by someone who has had a stroke."
I'm sure I can do better than that. The comment I mean, not the music. This is a hell of a long way from Sidney Bechet (how was that?)
I see that he recorded an album with the artist Tom Phillips who used to eat regularly with Brian Eno at a cafe I worked at in the 80s.
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Post by clifford on Sept 16, 2017 0:56:47 GMT
Well, he's not really a jazz musician, so... indeed, quite far from Bechet (or Charlie Christian -- though w/o Christian, Rowe might not have been possible).
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Post by dottorjazz on Sept 16, 2017 17:42:54 GMT
as always, I try to listen to artists, for me unknown, that some folks here bring to my attention. Keith Rowe. what hell does he play? on which bases does he construct his music/noise? I claim I have no fear to listen to anything from Middle Ages to Contemporary. I may like or not, I may be interested even if I don't like. at least it could be an experience. now let's put Mr. Rowe apart. art-painting: I've always loved Jackson Pollock, even when I did know nothing about him. his paintings were different from all I saw before. once learned the technique, anyone could paint like him BUT he was the first, a very original. another example: Lucio Fontana and his "cuts": anyone can do the same BUT he was the first, another very original. back to Keith Rowe: I have listened to some of his work today and have seen some live performances. is it music? it is as long as Fontana's cuts are art or Pollock's dripping. I don't think that Rowe couldn't be possible w/o Christian, the same for Fontana or Pollock w/o Raffaello. paramethers to judge or simply like an artist must be personal, not dictated by critics, at least for me.
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Post by alunsevern on Sept 17, 2017 7:58:46 GMT
The odd thing is, I find Rowe easier to listen to than, say, Derek Bailey -- for reasons I was trying to articulate above (and failing). But a possibly useful analogy just struck me. The reason that I think Rowe may be an easier listen is because anyone who has grown up listening to feedback and electronic noise in rock or avant garde music (Sonic Youth, for instance, and Thurston Moore's guitar experiments, or Robert Fripp or Marc Ribot) probably wouldn't be astonished by what Rowe does -- although the context might confuse them (eg with tenor sax)... Just a thought...
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Post by dottorjazz on Sept 17, 2017 12:36:06 GMT
what about this paradigm: music can be noise as noise can be music?
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