Detroit International Jazz Festival- Day Two

After checking out a panel discussion on Elvin Jones, it was time to check out another Jones - Sean. I've seen him play numerous times in Pittsburgh and wrote about him for City Paper but this was the first time I've seen the trumpeter with his regular group, with Orrin Evans (piano), Brian Hogans (alto sax), Vincente Archer (bass) and Josh Davis (drums). They played a lot of tunes from his latest album The Search Within, but they also played a version of "Resolution" from Coltrane's A Love Supreme, that was astounding. Everyone was firing on all cylinders. Jones was wailing, Hogans went on such an extended tear that the rhythm section dropped out, just like McCoy Tyner and Jimmy Garrison did for Trane.

Jones likes to go into the upper register during solos, sometimes bending those notes with his lips. But he never uses those high notes to show off. They're connected to a greater idea in his solos.

I had to cut out a few minutes before the end of their set because Dave Brubeck was playing at the Carhartt Amphitheatre. And these shows were all starting right on time, so I didn't want to be late. However I was still late because Brubeck started a few minutes early.

Dave and the band were sight to see: four older cats all with silver hair, all wearing shades. Alto saxophonist Bobby Militello had a bit of a Santa Claus look going (with the recent passing on Joe Maneri, the world needs another saxophonist who could pass for St. Nick), a jolly and plump fella blowin' a horn. Dave looked pretty good for a guy who had to cancel shows earlier this year because of illness. And his hands were flying over that piano, doing that patented Brubeck time changing thing (is it 3 over 4?) during solos, getting audience members to yell, "My man!" during a blues solo, and opening "Yesterdays" with a dramatic rubato that really seemed to come from the heart.

I've seen him play "Take Five" before but never "Blue Rondo a la Turk." So I got goosebumps when the band - which by then included Dave's sons Chris (trombone) and Danny (drums) and their bandmates - kick into that bouncy riff. During his solo in that tune, Dave quoted "Button Up Your Overcoat." That guy is still sharp.

Later that night I kept turning around and seeing Chris Brubeck at the bar and was tempted to talk to him. I didn't, because anything I said would come out sounding like, "Your dad is soooooooo cool." And I had only caught the last couple minutes of the Brubeck Brothers' set before Sean Jones came on, so I felt funny about that.

I think it was at the Brubeck show that I caught up with my friends Mike and Shaunna, he of the Tribune Review and she of WDUQ. They don't have cellphones so it could've been hard to find them, but like most of the weekend, everything came together.

Later that night we wound up going to see Bennie Maupin's Dolphyana. He played the omnipresent bass clarinet on Bitches Brew and worked as a sideman with Horace Silver and Lee Morgan, before joining Herbie Hancock for a number of albums that include Headhunters. His group tonight had him on bass clarinet and tenor, Nestor Torres (flute), Jay Hogarth (vibes, marimba) Billy Hart (drums) and Darek Oles (bass).

They played a couple Dolphy tunes including: "Out To Lunch," which sounded great and obtuse; "245" which wasn't as dirty as the original but just as good; the equally abstract "The Madrig Speaks the Panther Walks." The original Maupin works were also pretty fascinating, especially the closing "Prophet's Motifs" which was Dolphyesque but also morphed through different rhythms including a funk beat. That was the closing tune and the only one, unfortunately, where the sound seemed perfectly balanced. A guy who I met on the Motown tour told me he agreed that the mix was really unbalanced, with the flute sounding distorted and that it seemed like Maupin was doing most of the mixing himself.

Back at the hotel bar, bedlam ensued. People were cutting in front of people who had been waiting 10 minutes for a drink. And musicians who looked like they were 13 years old were playing at the jam session. It was loud there. After two drinks, I went back to my room, tried to go to sleep but not before watching a Law and Order:SVU rerun and almost staying up until 4 a.m. watching American Graffiti.

Detroit- The Motown Museum

It didn't hit me until we were in the makeshift theater that I was actually sitting in the building where all the classic Motown singles were made. The room was clearly a converted recording studio room, with walls built specifically to accentuate or deflect sound bouncing around the room. So who knows who once stood where I was sitting?

On Saturday morning, Dr. Jazz, a Detroit jazz promoter affiliated with the Detroit International Jazz Festival, charted a van for anyone who wanted to get the tour of the Motown Museum, which is located at 2648 West Grand Boulevard - the same place where the music was recorded. The neighborhood looks like a regular residential area that just happens to have a building with "Home of the Hits" written in script above its front windows. The guys who were giving the tour were really good, too, offering a lot of information without bogging it down with long lists of names or song titles, or just zapping the life out of the history. They really did a good job of letting you know how Berry Gordy started this enterprise, how he kept it going and how the music sounded so good. In other words, they let you know why you should care.

Studio A was the last stop on the tour, which makes sense because that's the most compelling place in the building. That's where all the recordings were done. And there are nearly lifesize pictures on the wall of Stevie Wonder and the Supremes at sessions, so naturally the tour guide (somehow "docent" doesn't seem appropriate at this museum) made some of the ladies do a Supremes formation, some of the guys do the Temps and one of the kids do a Stevie Wonder head wave right in the spots where the originals did it. Group participation usually isn't cool on a tour, but again, there's no tour like this one.

Best line of the tour: Q: What do you call a singer who can't do the Temptations dance? A: A Four Top.

Among the people on this tour, along with me and Jordy, was Ashley Kahn, who among other things wrote the book A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album. And a book about Miles Davis' Kind of Blue. And one about Impulse Records. And he writes for JazzTimes. This is the man I want to be.

Of course I didn't tell him that when I introduced myself. Or any other time over the weekend. I tried to play it cool. So the cat's out of the bag if he finds this.

He was nice enough to take my picture a couple times in front of the museum. I foolishly didn't bring my camera so all I had was my cellphone. I thought the lint that's all over the lense created that Penthouse look, but I actually think it's the sun coming over the building. The second one looks better. After he took this one below, Ashley deadpanned, "You know you're five minutes late for work." Mr. Gordy's gonna whup me.
Then it was back to the hotel and back to the festival.

Intermission

The upcoming posts will focus more on the music, I promise.

Detroit International Jazz Festival- Day One

It's been eight days since my adventure at the Detroit International Jazz Festival began, but it's taken that long for all the thoughts in my brain to settle, so that I can tell you what happened. (Actually I didn't have time to start blogging until my write-up for JazzTimes was finished, but the first thing sounded better.)


JazzTimes picked me to be the writer who would cover the festival for the magazine. Marking its 30th year, it was a pretty collasal event, with music going almost non-stop.

As I sat in the Pittsburgh airport with two hours to kill before my plane left (who'd'a thunk I'd get through security that quickly?), I realized that this would only be my fourth trip on a plane. I'm more of a train kind of guy, but that takes a long time and the cost of my flight was taken care of for me.



When I finally touched down in Detroit, I wasn't exactly sure where to go because there was supposed to be a driver ready to pick me up. But no one working in the airport knew where the Jazz Festival shuttle was. It was at that point that I got a call from one of the media guys saying that "they're looking for you at the airport." Me?! They know who I am? Oh yeah, I am a published writer and I know something about the music so that amounts to something. The guy in the call directed me to Passenger Pickup, where I could find the shuttle, and when the other person who was getting a ride showed up, we were whisked off to the hotel.



The swell festival volunteer directed me to where I was to check in with the hotel and with the festival itself, and I found out I had a VIP badge and a press badge so I could go upfront at all the shows. I also met my new friend Jordy who would be my running buddy for most of the weekend.



After hanging out in my room for a bit, looking at Caesar's Palace across the Detroit River in Windsor, trying to catch a bit of a nap (not possible after all the coffee I had that morning), I headed to the Pepsi Jazz Talk Tent where Hank Jones was appearing. Now the theme of the festival was "Keepin' Up with the Joneses," meaning Hank and his brothers Elvin and Thad. So his lineage and his age (91) made Hank a worthy honoree. With all that he's done, you'd hope that the person interviewing him would ask some good leading questions. Maybe "What was Charlie Parker really like at that Verve session" might not sound good, but I bet the answers would be. Instead, a lot of the queries were pretty general and phrased like yes-or-no questions.



Later I went to a VIP event where I met a writer who grew up about three blocks from me in Pittsburgh. That could only happen to someone from my town too. Gary Graff is about 7 years older than me (I know because he graduated from high school the same year as my brother Pete) and a good egg. He knows a lot about music but he's not high and mighty about it. No more sarcastic than I am, which I like. He took me and Jordy to the Dirty Dog, a restaurant that had a tent set up near the Chase Main Stage where Hank Jones was playing that night. We waiting forever for our server to take our orders and then waiting forever and a day for the food to come.

While all this was going on, the festival was starting and Hank Jones was getting a proclamation from the mayor of Detroit. Gretchen Valade, the grand dame or fairy godmother of the festival (and I mean that in a good way, in case you're reading this Gretchen; you're the tops) told Hank, "You're playing is so elegant and spiritual, it makes me cry. And I think everyone agrees." When Hank started playing it became clear that Gretchen was right on. His touch was so precise, with the right amount of subtlety and thunder, it was astounding. One of the tunes he played with Wes Montgomery's "Twisted Blues," which has a pretty complex melody. And Hank chewed up it. A couple people thought Hank was being held back because his regular drummer, Willie Jones III wasn't with him, replaced by Carl Allen. But I thought they all swung like hell, with bassist George Mraz in between them.

I kind of lost track of Jordy and Gary in a quest for coffee and a bathroom (not necessarily in that order). Chick Corea was up next, with Stanley Clarke and Lenny White joining him. I guess you could call them Return to Almost Forever, since all that was missing from the RTF equation was Al Di Meola. And electric instruments. Chick stuck to acoustic piano and Stanley played upright bass.

Someone in the audience yelled out "500 Miles High" and that RTF tune kicked off the set, coincidentally. The soundperson was getting a lot of feedback from one of the instruments and I was afraid Chick was going to rip their head off. He did walk over and talk to the person working sound, but he seemed cool about it. In fact he and Stanley were doing a lot of smiling while they played. Stanley seemed to pick up on the vibe of "I Mean You," doing his own kind of Monk-like solo. Of course it wasn't long before he started doing that double-time slapping thing he likes to do. Chick also got some Monk-isms going in a later tune that sounded like it could've been "Evidence" or "Straight No Chaser." They were definitely tight and swinging, but overall I couldn't get completely into them. Maybe it was the lack of sleep that was catching up with me.

As I walked through the blocked off streets by the stage, it astounded me that so many people had come out for the show. It was the equivalent of Pittsburghers coming to Point State Park for Fourth of July fireworks. For the ones who couldn't see the stage, there was a huge jumbotron held high over the stage for everyone else to see.

I went back to the hotel after they were over, and the jam session was in full effect. I didn't see anyone I knew (musician or writer or publicist), so rather than getting a drink and falling asleep in it, I decided it was time to hit the hay. After all, I had to get up early for the tour of the Motown Museum. More on that next time.

Detroit International Jazz Festival

Just got back today from Detroit. Too much to say and one post won't cut it. But I'll start with one of the final moments. Ran into TS Monk in the hotel bar last night. His group had played "Off Minor," using the big band charts from the Town Hall Concert, which is my favorite version of that tune. It got me right here and I had to tell him that. The younger Monk proceeded to testify on the power of his father's music and the simplicity of it. So much so that I wasn't sure I was going to get away from him without an hour-long oration.
Not to say that I didn't enjoy hearing it. The guy is cool.
So it made three hours of sleep and a 5 a.m. lobby call worth it.

Yes, you read correctly......

In case you missed the off-hand reference in the last posting, I am finally playing in a band again. And not just as a support player, like I was in Amoeba Knievel. This is probably the post-Mofones band that I hoped to start four years ago. Aimee DeFoe and I have tried with varying degrees of success to try to get something together since then, with schedules and babies getting in the way. But now, we're playing with Buck Knauer (guitar) and Erin Dawes (drums) and it looks like we're called the Love Letters. (Aimee plays keyboards, I'm on bass.) Buck has been playing in bands as long as I have. When I was 18 he was 16 or 17 playing in Cousin It, one of my favorite local bands of that era. More recently he's been in Liverball who have also made a comeback with their heavy sound. Erin works with me and I never heard her play drums until we got together. But she has great tastes in music and played drums in high school, so I figured she was a natural. I was right. At practices we've had moments where all four of us sing at once. It's exciting.
We're debuting at a work-related party in a couple weeks (eek!) and at the Thunderbird in October. More details to come.

Number One Cup - an appreciation

The only way I am going to be productive, I've decided, is get to bed early and get up early before everyone else, and do things like blog entries first thing.

A few days ago, I woke up with a song by Number One Cup in my head. And I'm not completely sure why that happened. They were a Chicago band in the 1990s who put out a few pretty good albums and one amazing, should've-been-on-every-smart-critic's-year-end list album before breaking up. I came across them when a guy put their song "Dive Bomb" on a tape for me. It was sort of a Pavement-y, catchy simple sound with the hook coming from the way they used a keyboard with one of those whammy bars to bend the pitch. And they used it on every chorus to simulate the dive bomb effect. Since the sound was more whiney than catastrophic, it was pretty funny and made me think these guys have something going for themselves.

In 1999, I bought Number One Cup's album People People Why are We Fighting? which is a pretty brilliant album name (coming from Mick Jagger's comment at Altamont after the stabbing). I always forget it came out a year earlier and I always want to put it on my "Last great albums of the millennium" list, beside Olivia Tremor Control's Black Foliage (which never seems to get its due) and Neutral Milk Hotel's In an Aeroplane Over the Sea (which does). It was a purchase based on what I read on a press release about the band and it ended up being a smart buy. Their first two albums were mixed bags (as I'd find out when I worked my way backwards in the discography), but People really comes off as a strong diverse album. The songs all sound pretty different but they work together to create a complete project.

Three out of the four guys take turns singing lead. Drummer Michael Lenzi, who does a lot of it, has a voice like a cross between Big Dipper's Bill Goffrier and the Cure's Robert Smith. He sounds really tense on some songs which goes along with the loud power chords and simple but perfect one string leads ("Low Sparks"). After he gets you all riled up, Patrick O'Connell shifts vocal gears and calms things down (in "Ice Melts Around My Battery," for example). "Canada Disappears" is a two-minute piece that quietly rises up at the end of the first half of the album (I don't know if it appeared on vinyl, but this was the logical place for Side One to end). Later on, "Caught on the Crown," another soft, piano driven piece, emerges out of an extended coda of metallic noodling in the previous song, all low-register, haunting minor key vocals, providing a good contrast to the high vocals and counter melodies you just heard. The title track is a six-minute sound sculpture, for lack of a better word that begins with a rainstorm and piano meanderings and climaxes with some really loud sounds from a noise generator.

I think what put Number One Cup in my subconscious had to do with "Remote Control," my favorite song on the album. In it, Patrick sings in Michael's register over a simple three chord riff that gets overlaid with "doo doo doo" harmonies, a great countermelody and a vague lyric that could be the thoughts of a spy. (It has the "metallic noodling" coda mentioned above.) This is one of those times that proves how simplicity can be irresistible if it has the right amount of enthusiasm behind it.

I've always had this song figured as a cover and I'm in a new band that has a show coming up and our set is still coming together. So maybe I was thinking in my sleep that we should learn "Remote Control."

On September, 10, 2001 I wrote the band a letter which was returned a few weeks later. I tracked them down via email a little while later. They had disbanded by then, with some moving on to another band, Fire Show was the name.

Flydaddy Records released People People and they went under a few years later. So finding the album is probably impossible now. But it's worth the search. And if you see it on vinyl, somewhere let me know.





PS In searching for an image of the album cover I came across this, http://www.magnetmagazine.com/2009/02/24/lost-classics-number-one-cups-wrecked-by-lions/ a rather back-handed after-the-fact shoutout to the band's second album, followed by a comment from Seth Kim-Cohen from the band.

Snorings, and pictures of those Fiery Furnaces

It's Saturday night and I........... am falling forward at the computer. I have things to say but I'll tell you more later.

In the meantime, go to http://www.blurt-online.com/concert_reviews/view/183/ and read my review of the Fiery Furnaces show in Pittsburgh a few weeks ago. Blurt put it up this past week.

Since they didn't run my pictures of the Friedbergers, here's an exclusive for you.

CD Review: Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins

Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins - The Classic Prestige Sessions, 1951-1956 (Prestige/Concord)

It's hard to think of Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins as just another couple of guys (cats, as it were) working on finding their own unique voices in a still developing genre of music. But in 1951, that's not too far removed from how they were on the earliest of these recordings.

Continuing to mark the 60th anniversary of Prestige Records, Concord Music - who now owns the label that Bob Weinstock started - has compiled the 25 tracks that these giants-in-the-making recorded together over a period of five years. Granted Davis and Rollins were at the head of their classes on tenor and trumpet, but much of the first disc has a tentative feeling to it.

That's not to say this isn't good listening. John Lewis's "Morpheus" opens things at a clipped tempo with some fast lines not normally heard from Davis. A version of "Conception," with Jackie McLean joining the frontline, updates the sound that originated with the fabled Birth of the Cool sessions. The rest of that session, released on the album Dig, has some fine blowing but not a whole lot of band chemistry. This was McLean's first session and he sounds like an able soloist, but the rhythm section doesn't seem to drive the band. Part of this could be the sound quality itself, which is especially echoey on "Dig," like fake stereo is being used. Beyond that, one of the more remarkable things is the appearance on "Bluing" of Davis' voice, pre-rasp, heard when Art Blakey keeps playing after everyone else has stopped: "Play the endin', man. You know the arrangement." (Dig is probably the only Miles album I bought and later sold when money was tight.)

Disc two is a different story. These sessions later appeared on the albums Collector's Items and Bags' Groove capture Miles and Sonny really digging into the music. The first session includes Charlie Parker (credited as Charlie Chan originally, due to contractual obligations) on second tenor sax, giving Rollins a run for his money. The next includes Horace Silver, Percy Heath and Kenny Clarke, as well as the debuts of several tunes that have gone on to become stalwarts of jam sessions - and recording sessions - everywhere: "Airegin," "Oleo" and "Doxy," all written by Rollins. Supposedly Sonny just whipped these out for the session, and whether or not that's true, the players respond with the enthusiasm of a group digging into a tune for the first time knowing they're onto something big. The final session includes a Brubeck tune Miles would redo soon after with Coltrane, oddly enough at the same session where the tune caled "Vierd Blues" would be rechristened "Coltrane's Blues."

Ira Gitler provides liner notes that recount the history of these players' affiliation, along with some personal recollections from the sessions. (Gitler wrote liner notes and occasionally acted as something of a producer for Prestige.) The best story comes from the Parker session where Bird was the first to show up for the recording (a rarity, if not a first) and chugged the bottle of gin and Miles nearly walked out after Gitler came down to hard on him.

If you don't already have the two albums on disc two, you ought to go out and by the whole thing.

If It Sounds Too Good to Be True, There's No Gig

Playing right now: John Surman - Brewster's Rooster (ECM)
Yes, a very ECM-sounding ECM album. I have only a little bit of saxophonist Surman so when it was offered as a review item, I thought, why not.

At the start of the summer I got an email about a national tour by a few psych bands, with the connection being that they all got their big start in 1966. Indeed - these weren't third or fourth generation bands but the progenitors, if you don't mind the $9 college word. The tour consisted of the Electric Prunes, Sky Saxon and Love "featuring Johnny Echols" (in other words original Love guitarist Echols along with the band that backed Arthur Lee in his last days, Baby Lemonade).

Then Sky died about a month ago. I kept wondering if the tour was still happening but never actively combed through my email to find the publicist's name to ask and find out. Then on Sunday night, I came across an email dated August 3 that said the tour now included Jerry Miller from Moby Grape, taking the spot vacated by Mr. Saxon. My heart skipped a beat. I love Moby Grape, and immediately set about trying to make plans to make it to the show and get a chance to review it.

Well, if it sounds to good to be true it probably is. Or let's put it this way: If you haven't heard anything about a show beyond two emails, it's probably cancelled.

Monday afternoon, as I walked into the Three Bears' house at Storybook Forest with Jennie and Donovan, my phone rang. It was a guy involved with the tour who said the Pittsburgh show was cancelled because the venue did bupkis to publicize it. Somehow I knew that was going to happen. I guess I won't be touching the sleeve of a Moby Grape member any time soon.

My favorite band and my big break = incompatible

I'm going to the 30th Annual Detroit International Jazz Festival on Labor Day weekend! This is the first time I've covered something outside of Pittsburgh for JazzTimes. And the first time I've been to any big jazz festivals. The list of performers includes Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, Hank Jones and our hometown hero Sean Jones.

It's almost a shame that Mission of Burma is coming to town while I'll be up therein Detroit. I've only waited, oh, 29 years to see them in Pittsburgh. And they're playing Club Cafe, which ought to be an unusual venue since they're so freaking loud and liable to shatter the windows that are right behind the stage.

In case I never said it here, I was listening to Mission of Burma when I decided that I wanted to seriously try to start a band playing bass. During the summer of 1985, I was obsessed with the Minutemen and Mission of Burma and noodled away on the bass hoping that something would happen than would put my fingers on the right frets and know what to play. That happened while listening to Burma's "This is Not a Photograph." It all fell into place and I wanted to be Clint Conley, via Mike Watt.

It will be a shame to miss them but, then again, [copping a mock-haughty voice] I've already seen them twice since they got back together. I know they'll rock.

Remember Rashied Ali

I came home from work tonight and after Jennie and I talked about our respective days and about the kid, she said she heard that Rashied Ali had died. What can I say that I haven't said previously when blogging about a jazz great dying. "It's a damn shame"? "Not again"? How about this: It's bad enough that we lost Les Paul...

(Although I have to say it always made me feel good that Les lasted as long as he did, playing until almost the very end.)

So now, only two people who played with John Coltrane during his seminal quartet/quintet years are still alive: McCoy Tyner and Pharoah Sanders. A lot of people (non-free jazz fans, that is) might put Ali down because of his loose, wild style of playing, but the guy knew what he was doing. You talk about a flowing sound - that's what he did on the kit. I have two CDs he did as a leader, one with Leroy Jenkins and the other w/a quintet that included James Blood Ulmer. I'll have to get them out tonight.

Bird and the heat

I'd really love to sit around all day, drinking iced coffee and listening to live Charlie Parker records. But I have a feeling this heat is going to be too much for me and I'm going to hightail it to an airconditioned coffee joint and try to weed through some promos. My brow is getting wet as I type.

What's up with the Dirty Projectors?

I started reading about the Dirty Projectors about a month ago when their Bitte Orca album came out. They seemed like the new critic's fave band: write-ups in Sunday New York Times, Rolling Stone (which I only caught because I got a free copy at work).... And somebody somewhere along the way started asking me about them. I can't remember who though, although I feel like it was someone from work. If it was you, speak up.

So anyhow, I saw that Bitte Orca was available on vinyl, which made them even more appealing to me and someone I put on my mental music list. I wound up getting the CD anyway last Monday. (A few bucks less and I was able to walk out with two items instead of one.) I was writing reviews all week, so I didn't get to listen to it until last night.

What's the story with these folks?! Don't get me wrong, I'm really into getting my senses challenged by new music these days. For instance, St. Vincent's latest is really intriguing for reasons that I still can't pinpoint. Plus it reminds me of Lida Husik a little (another Shimmy-Disc vet whose name I meant to drop in a previous entry).

But these Projector peoples seem to have taken the math rock thing and fused it to a chamber pop aesthetic. (I guess it was only a matter of time.) My wife said some of it reminded her of Shellyan Orphan and I'll take it further and say that if you cross that band with the Fiery Furnaces, you'd be dead on. I'm a Furnaces follower and feel like there's always a pop song at the core of what they're doing. With the Dirty Projectors, I'm not sure. Sometimes it seems like they just slapped some off kilter twist onto a steady 4/4 type background to see how it works. I can appreciate that, but I'm not sure how often I'll reach for that CD.

But I'm not ready to pass judgement yet. I need at least one more listen.

CD Review: Warren Smith Composers Workshop Ensemble

Warren Smith Composers Workshop Ensemble

Old News Borrowed Blues (Engine)

Drummer/percussionist/composer Warren Smith brought together 14 musicians plus himself to record these five brilliant pieces. Five saxes, four brass, guitar, African percussion and two drummers sound like the next generation of the Sun Ra Arkestra, although their influences stick with the various inhabitants of Planet Earth, rather than pulling more inspiration from the cosmos.

"Rivers State Suite" consists of a three-part tone poem inspired by villages Smith visited in Nigeria and the songs griots sang there about their cities. Vibes set up a dreamy mood over reggae groove in the first part before the lower horns come in with a folk-like melody. The laid-back feeling shifts into a more urgent tempo for part two, where the harmonies go to church. The third movement is built on an equally simplistic riff, but the way the percussion kicks it along and the way Smith layers the horns keep it exciting.

"The Hungarian Gypsy Song" also sounds true to its name, with haunting diminished chords, some gypsy guitar strumming and those dreamy vibes again. "Lock the Toilet Door" presents the group playing no nonsense hard bop, with a strong trumpet solo and a lot of fire from Smith and second drummer Lloyd Haber. "One More Like for Harold Vick," recently saluted by Sonny Rollins, pays tribute to the late tenor player with a theme that seems more like an emotional rendering than an attempt to emulate his style. Sounding a bit like a Mingus piece at times, it feels as if Smith is trying to explain the tragedy that Vick wasn't heard by more people.

Smith explains in the notes that "Free Forms 1-4" comes from a set of ten interconnected compositions that utilize free improvisation. Each is marked by a sketch of a theme, followed by free blowing, that eventually cues in a vamp. The final section features Smith, presumably, reading a poem over a slow waltz with Craig Rivers' soprano and the vibes moving behind him, with the rest of the ensemble adding some dark chords and a few well-placed honks and blats. Jazz poetry can be a scary (read - bad) idea, but Smith avoids speaking in the cliched poet cadence and the text ("a love song, sort of") sketches a thoughtful image that feels appropriate after the frenzy that came before it.

The only setback with Old News Borrowed Blues is that individual soloists aren't singled out. While the recycled chipboard cover includes notes from Smith on the music, it's not clear which drummer plays vibes (or if they take turns) or whether Cecil Bridgewater or John Carlton take the trumpet solos. Ultimately, that can be chalked up to nitpicking, though. With soloists that include Claire Daly (baritone sax) and Craig Rivers (soprano sax), and recent Art Ensemble of Chicago bassist Jeribu Shahid as part of the group, this is definitely one of the strongest releases of the year and needs to be heard.

Moving the albums; remembering Kramer's Guilt Trip

Playing right now: Donovan's various renditions of the ABC song/Baa Baa Black Sheep/Twinkle Twinkle Little Star - none of which ever get finished. They're emanating from the next room.

Last week I began the arduous task of moving our albums into the den (we call it the Skinny Room due to its 35' X 10' dimensions) from the small storage room behind it (we call it the Mistress Room, since the sliding mirrored doors are the perfect place to house your backdoor dame). The Mistress Room has been sort of damp since the big flood of '04 and when rain came in last month during a particularly heavy downpour, enough was enough. Some of the CDs were getting musty already, and a couple of the walls are showing signs of must. Luckily the records were against the dry wall, but still it's only a matter of time.

We have one of those IKEA shelves w/five sections across and five down. And to move that heavy thing I had to take all the records out, carry most of them to the front room and pile them up. Getting them back in was pretty easy, but I still have a bunch that have never even been on that shelf. So there's been a lot of reorganizing. At first, I left some space open in the M's because that always seems the tightest. That way, if more room was needed on either end of that grouping, they could be adjusted accordingly. Of course that lasted about a day. It's all very tight around there now. Now the major slack can be found around the Horace Silver section. We'll see how long that lasts.

It's always funny to see what artists sit side by side. Allan Sherman is still sharing company with Archie Shepp. But that's not nearly as funny as seeing Phil Ochs next to Ted Nugent.

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Kramer's 3-record deluge The Guilt Trip was sitting out since it's better to keep it off the shelf due to the amount space that it swallows up. That album came out in 1993 and it was one of the most anticipated albums for me at that time. For about three years, up until then, I was a Kramer fanatic, buying all the Bongwater albums and checking out every release on his Shimmy-Disc label. When he called me back for an interview for my fanzineonce, I about died.

So after the crushing break-up of Bongwater, I eagerly awaited this humongous solo project box. (It came out about a year later.) There's something about a new release spread over three records that makes it a must have. I remember buying it on a Friday and taking it to Jennie's place that night. We only got through maybe two sides of it before it became clear that we couldn't listen to it and have a conversation.

Today it sounds... okay. I mean sonically it sounds great. Kramer's swirly, psychedelic production is what made his early work so good, and also what made his post-1993 work so lacking. He started to abandon his trademark sound around that time. (Only a few of the songs on Bone of Contention's Kramer-produced Fun CD have his telltale trimmings, which really bummed me out when someone mentioned that to me.)

But I'm digressing. The Guilt Trip is loaded with instrumentals. Some sound pretty good on their own. The opening couple minutes of the album ("Overture")sound absolutely mind-blowing, for instance. It's like the intro to Sergeant Pepper played by Blue Cheer and looped. Some tracks sound like they were ready for Ann Magnuson to add her parts. In fact all the Kramer harmonies on "Wisdom Sits" (he was always very skilled at singing all of them) make it sound like a Bongwater outtake. But other wordless tracks sound like unfinished sketches with layers of overdubs to cover up the riff-not-necessarily-a-song quality of them.

The vocal tracks are great though. It occurred to me that "Welcome Home" might be sung from the perspective of his baby (at the time) daughter, since it's being sung to a mother who has come home and is begged to "forget that awful day." Plus, there's a snippet of a squawking baby in the background before the guitar solo. The trippy vocal on "Stupid Summer" (who's he sound like? Donovan? Syd?) sounds better than it did 16 years ago. And I almost forgot about the sped-up vocal on "I'm Your Fan" (which at the time could've been about me). I might have to get out record three and play that.

Still, the best example of Kramer's post-Bongwater work from that era has to be Who's Afraid, his first Shimmy album with Daevid Allen. It's consistent from beginning to end with all the trippiness and noodly qualities reined in by conventional song structures.

I wonder where his daughter Tess is now. She's probably about 17.

CD Review: Fred Anderson

Engine is a New York based label that recently landed a distribution deal with ESP. A couple of their discs showed up with the latest batch of ESP items. On initial inspection, what's interesting about Engine is their econo packaging: a 10"X 5" piece of recycled chip board with the album cover artwork and info printed on it. (Very similar to what the early Screwgun discs were wrapped in, only a little more basic.) The disc itself stays in place courtesy of a piece of foam that's glued on good and tight. Unless you try to rip it out, or compulsively put the CD on and off, that little pad won't fall off. Smart packaging.

I just looked at the Engine site, hoping find some background info or label history. While I agree with much of what founder Steven Walcott says (I'm assuming it's him) about getting press, the tone is rather grouchy. I mean I know it's hard to get reviews when you're a small label and that most of the people who end up reading your website will be "with you," but damn, brother, do you have to an us v. them thing? Why not talk about how great your CDs are?

Oh, I guess that's where I come in.

Fred Anderson
Staying In the Game (Engine)

On the credits to this CD, tenor saxophonist Fred Anderson "thanks God for keeping him here so he can play jazz." Whether or not you're a believer in a higher power, we should all give Fred an amen on that. In fact, let's hope the 80-year old Chicago veteran never dies because he still has an unending font of ideas to drawn on.

Staying in the Game is a trio session with bassist Harrison Bankhead and drummer Tim Daisy. Recorded last November in Chicago, these six tracks sound like spontaneous inventions. The 24-minute "Sunday Afternoon" opens the album, with Anderson working on a "Giant Steps"-like idea, while his conspirators play a walking waltz underneath. The dynamic level doesn't vary a whole lot, which means it stays at a similar volume throughout the duration. Even when things get free, the trio doesn't resort to crazy blowing. But the way Anderson brings out a series of melodic tricks -rather than going for the easy wail, for instance - will win over discerning listeners.

"The Elephant and the Bee" describes the combination of tenor and bass in duet, although it's hard to tell which instrument represents which creature. Bankhead's rich bowing, with its scraping harmonics, could symbolize the lumbering elephant. Then again, his fleet plucking moves like a bee too. Anderson seems to play on a parallel line, but he's clearly in tune with the bassist's movement. As the track ends, one of them - probably Bankhead since he finishes last - is heard marveling at the performance, out of breath, and it's easy to agree with the sentiment.

In "Springing Water," Daisy gets his chance to play alone with Anderson. Together they create a sound that evokes the track's title, ebbing and flowing in a stream of ideas. Then the album climaxes with "Changes and Bodies and Tones" full of rolling cymbals, arco bass (is he using two bows?) and tenor sax lines that ring out like deep thoughts. It's off-the-cuff and loose but it's also a textbook example of how this music should sound.

Check it out at http://www.engine-studios.com/

Next up, Warren Smith's Composers Workshop Ensemble - Old New Borrowed Blues (also on Engine).

Almost a Sonic Youth review

Playing right now: Burt Bacharach - Make It Easy On Yourself (Wanted to hear the version of "Do You Know Way to San Jose" because it's top-shelf exquisite pop, but man, even the slow poke title track and Burt's "rumpled baritone" sound good right now.)

Having said that...

I've had Sonic Youth on the brain for the past couple of weeks, in anticipation of getting their new album. We were talking about them at work a few weeks back, and discussing how their last few albums haven't exactly knocked it out the park like they used to. I remember liking Rather Ripped when I bought it, but it's been quite awhile since I played it. My friend Toby said that Washing Machine was one of his favorites, to which I said I bypassed that one completely at the time, due to a combination of lack of funds to buy it and feedback from friends that it wasn't very good. Toby loaned it to me and I listened to it in the car for a few days while driving around. It's not as lackluster as I heard, but it wasn't great. And it seemed like Kim Gordon hardly played bass on it at all.

Then a few nights ago, I decided to dig out Rather Ripped to check it out again. (I bought The Eternal in the meantime, but I'll get to that shortly.) While going through the Sonic Youth section of my CDs I came across Sonic Nurse. "What the hell is this," I thought when I saw the spine. When I looked at the cover I recognized it, but I had absolutely no recollection of what is on it or when I bought it. It came out in 2004, which was the year that Pulp shut down so it might've come as a promo to the paper or maybe I bought it during the time I was out of work. (For an unemployed person, I bought a fair share of records and CDs that summer.) But as far as the songs on it, the only thing that rang a bell was the title "Kim Gordon and the Arthur Doyle Hand Cream," because Kim was interviewed in Bust and she explained that saxophonist Doyle had given Thurston some hand cream at a show.

I listened to about half of it last night while picking up in the kitchen. Not bad, but not exactly memorable either. Sounds like every song is in D, just like most SY albums. I'll probably keep it since I have just about all of SY's "rock" albums. (I can't do without the improv stuff.) It's good to have for reference, I suppose.

But this brings up a subject I've been thinking about for quite awhile - what's more important: between owning an album or CD or simply hearing what's on it? This question started to congeal in my head about a month ago when I went to Carnegie Library and checked out the Mosaic box of Hank Mobley's '50s Blue Note sessions. I have about 1/3 of the set already on vinyl, having been obsessed with those early, valuable Blue Note albums. My intention was to burn copies of the rest of the stuff so I'd flush from my system the desire to keep searching eBay in hopes of finding copies of the other albums for a reasonable price. (Ain't gonna happen; it's a waste of time.) I know I could find just about all of that stuff on individual CDs too, but that runs into money, time, etc...

And when I did that, I realized it wasn't so much that I wanted to possess copies of all this music (although a Blue Note album with the W. 63rd Street address would make a nice addition to the collection), but to simply hear all of it. It's not as if I have time to just sit and listen to records like I once did. Look at the time I had the chance to listen to Sonic Nurse.

I really like buying CDs and records and I want to keep up with different artists since I write about music, but I'm looking at the Revenant Albert Ayler box and wondering when I'll get back to that. The most recent St. Vincent album is on the desk in front of me. I definitely bought that because she's gotten good press and I felt like I better check her out. And she's good but how often will I putting it on? I'll be lucky if I get to know that album intimately before I have to review something or buy the next "I should check this out" disc.

And those Mobley discs? I think I've listened to one since I burned them. Just in case anyone from Blue Note is reading, don't bust my chops about copying the discs. Yeah, it's wrong, but it's not as if I would've gone out and bought Peckin' Time anyway.

But back to Sonic Youth's new album The Eternal. After about two decades (say it with me: Jeez-oh-pete!) they're back on an independent label - Matador, one of the best. Not only that, they're rocking like they haven't in a long time. On a Goo or Dirty level. With Pavement's Mark Ibold joining the fold, things sound really inspired. If the album hadn't been $15 more than the CD, I probably would've sprung for it. I just hope I'm not missing out on any bonus, vinyl-only tracks

I think I'm going to replay some of that Bacharach album. 'Scuse me.

CD Review: Talibam!

Talibam!
Boogie in the Breeze Blocks (ESP)

To call Matthew Mottel and Kevin Shea irreverent would be stating the obvious. They named their musical project Talibam!, after all. But aside from that, there’s the cover shot on Boogie in the Breeze Blocks, where their tousled-but-styling looks could help them pass for a couple of hip New York DJs. And then there’s the program on this release, which numbers somewhere around number 12 in a discography of CDs, CDrs, singles and 10”s, and has already been followed by a new release.
Boogie has a recurring bit that casts Mottel (numerous keyboards) and Shea (drums, “detritus”) as either ambulance drivers or cops. They receive radio dispatches, which sound like samples of real thing, and respond to them with zany comments (“Oh! That’s a strange thing!”) before the sound of motorcycles and sirens segue into the next blast of spazz jazz. Sometimes the group goes for pure noise (“Predetermined to the Master Plan”), sometimes they get downright funky (“Not Just Any Kind of Vegetable”) and sometimes they do all that and more (“Nike Rim Johb,” which includes some growling horns and bird field recordings).
Like with most of his work, Shea’s drumming often sounds like he’s dismantling his kit, throwing down a flight of stairs and making it sound good. Mottel who plays everything from piano to Rhodes to Roland, is the perfect co-conspirator for the drummer, being able to jump into any style at a moment’s notice. (If John Zorn every wants to get a new Naked City together, he should recruit these two.)
Thirteen guests show up on various tracks, including all of Shea’s bandmates from the jazz quartet Mostly Other People Do The Killing. Tim Dahl’s bass gives seven of the tracks some much needed bottom. Danielle Kuhlmann adds some chanteuse-y moments to various tracks, which is the perfect foil for the chaos of “Predetermined.”
I’ve only heard one other Talibam! disc, which was admirable for its focus but got a little tiring after numerous splattering, free form assaults, even as different musical guests moved in and out of the fold. Boogie in the Breeze Blocks has one track that goes over the top with spastic screaming in the not-so-background. But for the most part, the disc maintains interest because it keeps changing shape; some songs even sound like two different tracks fused together. Plus the crazy personas that keep popping up add some much levity.

(In case you haven't read my interview with ESP founder Bernard Stollman, here’s the first part and here’s part two.)

JazzTimes is back!

For the past month or so, I've been seriously thinking that music journalism as a whole is being systematically killed, jazz journalism in particular. Then, 20 minutes ago, I got an email from Lee Mergner, JazzTimes' editor, saying the magazine has been bought.

It's a Christmas miracle!

And it ain't even Christmas.

Here's the straight dope if you want to know. http://jazztimes.com/articles/24943-jazztimes-to-resume-print-and-online-publishing

And by the way, my CD reviews of the Cline Brothers (Alex and Nels) and Charlie Kohlhase have been removed from this blog because they're going to run in JT after all. Go out and buy it. You'll be glad you did.