Record Store Day 2013

For people like me, every day is Record Store Day. The idea of darkening the doorway of the neighborhood record shop (and there is one in my 'hood too) always seems appealing to me, so in some ways I should be dismissing the annual day with a brush of the hand. But yesterday I did sort of buy into it - but only perhaps because the timing worked with my life. The Attic, a record store across the river in Millvale (i.e. about eight minutes from my house when there's no traffic) opened at midnight, like they've done for at least the past few years. In 2011, I went there at midnight and got wigged out by the claustrophobia. It's narrow enough on a slow day. So this year, I decided to get up early (as I usually do anyway) and get there a little before 7 a.m., since it would either be dead or close to dead. I was right. 

The item that interested me was a live Art Blakey record that I think had the Jazz Messengers lineup with Lee Morgan and Wayne Shorter. Turns out, it wasn't pressed in time for RSD. On the jazz front, though, there were some 10" reissues of Fantasy EPs from the '50s, and I picked up this Cal Tjader release.

It's a pretty cool blend of all of Tjader's instruments - vibes (for which he's probably best known), drums (which his plays with an amazing amount of weight) and bongos (same as drums). The other guys in the trio play bass and drums, so with eight songs, there's a lot of variety. There were reissues of Miles Davis albums on Columbia, but it's stuff I already have in some format.

The next find was Destroyer's first album on Merge, which came out on vinyl for the first time yesterday.

Destroyer albums are all very strange to me. Strange and appealing. I don't have all of them, but I do own several. So far, this might be my favorite. It has that ethereal quality to it, but it also rocks, which is not something I always get from ol' Dan Bejar. Plus, the lyrics are amazing.

As far as singles go, there was a piece of cardboard next to the box of 7"s that read "Husker Du," so I knew I missed out something. (I later found out that it was a re-release of their first single, which I'm mixed on anyhow.) A box of Ringo Starr's biggest singles seemed like one of the stranger entries in the RSD canon. (To whom is THAT geared?) But the one thing that gave me the "I should get this" feeling was Sharon Van Etten's "We Are Fine."

The song appeared on the Tramp album but it has an unreleased B-side. I have to revisit that song a couple more times because I'm not sure how I feel about it yet.

If I had been super-flush with cash, I might have picked up the reissue of Half Japanese's 1/2 Gentlemen Not Beasts which is now a FOUR-record set, instead of the initial three records. But then again, I have two of the more rock Half Japanese albums that I haven't played in close to 20 years, but can't part with them either. There was also a used copy of the Miles Davis '60s box (CD not vinyl) that I feel like I should've grabbed because used stuff was discounted too. But right now, I'm up to my ears in a Duke Ellington Mosaic box that I borrowed from the library, so I decided to wait.

Conclusion: Three records, three different formats. Good times. Then I headed to work. On the way, I drove past Sound Cat, which had a line out onto the sidewalk before 8 a.m.

CD Review: Steve Coleman and Five Elements - Functional Arrhythmias

Steve Coleman & Five Elements
Functional Arrhythmias
(Pi) www.pirecordings.com

None of Steve Coleman's recent albums really qualify as casual listening. Listening to the alto saxophonist's sometimes rigid blend of a deceptively static rhythm section and tightly wound alto and trumpet melodies can really get under your skin. At other times, it sounds like off-kilter funk that can groove.

Functional Arrhythmias takes a departure from Coleman's The Mancy of Sound, which Pi released in 2011. Where that album featured two drummers and a percussionist setting up a tricky interplay, this time  Five Elements veteran Sean Rickman is the only drummer. Bassist Anthony Tidd, who like Rickman played in the band over 15 years ago, also returns to the fold, thus ensuring the group has a tight rhythm section to maneuver Coleman's writing. The frontline is pared down as well to just Coleman and trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson, after a few albums that added Tim Albright's trombone and Jen Shyu's voice, which was used as an instrument, as opposed to working as a vocalist. Five of the fourteen tracks add guitarist Miles Okazaki, who bridges the gap between Tidd's basslines and the horns.

On top of the instrumentation, there's the underlying concept of the album, which is inspired by the way the body's circulatory, nervous and respiratory operate. Percussionist Milford Graves studied the connection between these function and music, according to Coleman's liner notes, and it inspired the saxophonist to explore it in music. A concept like this can be something that sounds fascinating on paper but dry and mathematical in execution. Coleman has avoided that pitfall by making music that is challenging at times, grates at times, but keeps you listening. Only one track comes close to hitting the seven-minute mark, while most of them average about four minutes. In doing this, Coleman seems to realize that there are a lot of different angles to explore when approaching the concept, and he knows how to keep them compelling. "Cardiovascular" present a good example of the rhythm section's challenge: most of the time they repeat a waltz ostinato, rigidly locked into the riff, but every so often another beat (or is it two?) get thrown in, representing the arrhythmia and making your ear do a double-take. In "Irregular Heartbeats" Okazaki doubles up the bass melody which also keeps shifting the number of beats. "Adrenal, Got Ghost" changes things around, almost sounding like fusion funk, complete with cowbell, while Rickman plays "Cerebrum Crossover" on rims and woodblocks.

The rapport between Coleman and Finlayson sounds so tight that they almost sound like twin heads of one horn on "Sinews." Everything is executed with the most amazing, precise clarity. As the album opener, this piece is also the loosest, with a stop-start funk groove and a solo by Coleman that gets kicks off with some slippery blues feeling. While the two horns are cohesive, many of the tracks also require them to fire off their melodies with quick, staccato delivery, which is when they get a little unsettling. Especially when they're spitting out melodies in asymmetrical groups of notes, it can sound more like exercises, or prog-rock. But for every moment like that, they come back with "Limbic Cry" where they recall Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry having some deep conversation. Rather than brush it aside, it makes you want to listen in and figure out what Coleman and Finlayson are discussing.

CD Review: Dave Douglas Quintet- Time Travel

(NOTE: SINCE THIS POST HAS RECEIVED 48 SPAM COMMENTS IN THE MONTH SINCE IT'S BEEN POSTED, COMMENTS HAVE BEEN DISMANTLED)

Dave Douglas Quintet
Time Travel
(Greenleaf) www.greenleafmusic.com

Dave Douglas turns 50 this year, and that milestone seems to bring with it a state of reflection. The title of the trumpeter's latest album, on his own Greenleaf imprint, could reflect a desire to toy with the time signatures in his music, or it could be a way to look back at where he's been over these last five decades. Both ideas seem to filter into the quintet's performance to some degree, yet to call this a concept album would seem to be pushing the issue. Any modern jazz musician worth their salt will always have some sense of the past and the future, with a group of like-minded support players to give it the enthusiastic push.

Having said that, "Bridge to Nowhere" launches the album with a vamp that sounds like a hard bop idea that was discovered in an early 1960s session at Van Gelder's. Before it can turn into something closer to "Well You Needn't" this driving number takes on an elliptical form. Douglas builds in intensity, as does tenor saxophonist Jon Irabagon, who starts with shorter lines that he keeps extending, getting fire from drummer Rudy Royston. Pianist Matt Mitchell (heard last year on Tim Berne's Snake Oil) also turns in an impressive solo full of fast lines, which do go somewhere. A similar speed and clarity marks "Garden State" which effectively recreates the intensity of Douglas' home of New Jersey, where dodging and speeding seem to be the standard rules of the day. "Beware of Doug" is also uptempo, with a somewhat lighthearted bounce to it, and it gives bassist Linda Oh a chance to unleash an astounding fleet-fingered solo.

Time Travel also has some pensive moments. "Law of Historical Memory" (named for a six-year-old Spanish law regarding the Franco dictatorship and receiving justice from it) has Mitchell rolling out steady eighth notes as Douglas and Irabagon play longer, brooding lines on top of it. "Little Feet" also sounds more contemplative at first, but it still gives Douglas a chance to go a little wild, wailing into the upper register of his horn.

This same quintet, along with vocalist Aiofe O'Donovan, released the album Be Still last year, to much critical acclaim. Having your own label means not having to wait too long between releases to follow up on your accomplishments. But Time Travel should not be mistaken for a quick followup that Douglas put out just because he can. Without even considering the last disc, this is a fully realized, engaging work that stands as a worthy document by someone who should continue to be productive in his second half-century of performances.

Blurt update, end of the week

Playing right now: Michael Gallant Trio - Completely

The week of vacation is over. Big plans were envisioned: cleaning up the crates of classical albums; finding some stuff to auction; alphabetizing - or at least organizing - the CDs that I put in the new rack a year ago; and listening.......yes, doing A LOT of listening to the discs that have been arriving. Hell, I might've even made plans to weed through email about releases.

So how did it go?

Monday, Tuesday and especially Wednesday, I was knocked out by illness. On Wednesday, all I wanted to do was stay in bed and sleep, without even listening to any music. The thought of any music annoyed me. I was in bed until about 6:30 that night. Tuesday night was the Mike Nesmith show. I suffered through a badly running nose to make it to the show. Figured a bunch of orange juice before the show and a dozen wings after would help me get through what usually feels like the final stage of a cold. But the next morning I had a 100-degree temperature.

Thursday I started to feel like myself, and then Donovan started getting sick and he stayed home the next day. Luckily Jennie was sweet enough to stay home too, and I got some work done. But the grand total of time to myself to get my thoughts and surroundings in order - one day.

In other news, don't follow any of the links in previous posts to the Blurt website. Since the site was severely hacked with malware, everything is moving to a slighly different site (new web address: www.blurtonline.com, no hyphen between words like the old one) and these links won't work. All the old stuff isn't up yet either, so it's not worth exploring yet anyway. However, my Mike Nesmith Q&A IS supposed to be posted tomorrow on the new site. That link should work.

Last night the Love Letters played at my fabled neighboring watering hole, Gooski's. It was sort of a special show because we were joined by Spaz, who was my bandmate in Paul Lynde 451, a local punk drag band in the early '00s. We did six PL451 songs, which sounded really great. For a noisy pop band, the Love Letters are a good punk band. But, as what seems to be more and more usual, we had a pretty sparse turnout. Not what I needed after a disappointing week. I did appreciate the folks who did come out though.

Playing with Musical Matches

I had an April Fools joke up my sleeve yesterday, that I've actually been sitting on for a year or two. The day before Donovan was born six years ago, Harp was still in existence and Fred fooled a lot of people into believing that Captain Beefheart had come out of retirement and was agreeing to tour. Pretty brilliant trick, it was, and not at all clear as a joke until you got to the photo credit, which read "A.P. Rilfool." Now every year, I think that I should do something along the lines of that trick. My idea isn't as wide ranging, but maybe I'll get it together next year. I had to write a couple reviews yesterday and by the time I had a moment for the joke, it felt too late in the day.

File this under "You Should Have Known Better": At the record fair that I mentioned in the last post, I picked up a copy of Chicago Transit Authority which a friend of mine had for $1. I recall moments on that album (I checked it out of the library when I was about 10) that were a little edgy, which a good friend has confirmed. "Free Form Guitar" consists of seven minutes of guitar feedback, going for a sort of homage to Jimi Hendrix. Then a few years ago, I heard the beginning of another song from the album (missed the title) that almost sounded like a Stooges riff, with fuzzy bass. Therefore, I've maintained a "one of these day, I'll check it out again" feeling about it.

Well I was right about "Free Form Guitar." Pretty noisy and good. It's followed by the mystery song, "South California Purples," which has a bass-line similar to "Dirt" but the comparison ends there. Once the horns kick in with all that bwah bwah bwaaaaah it looses something. Side Four begins with a recording made at the 1968 Democratic Convention (you know, the one w/all the rioting) and the chant "The whole world's watching" segues into the bassline of the next song ... which bottoms out when Peter Cetera starts singing. If he had only stuck with bass and kept his mouth shut, things would've been great because his basslines are pretty heavy.

I don't have a problem with a limited amount of Chicago's early stuff beyond that album. So when I was at the folks' house for Easter Sunday, I remembered that we once had a copy of Chicago II with one record missing. I think I bought it at a flea market and was bummed that the lost LP had "25 or 6 to 4" on it. But it does have "Make Me Smile," which has sounded pretty good recently when it's come on at work. When you're up close and personal with that song, it still sounds pretty flaccid, drum breaks aside. Not only that, it's part of a side-long suite, "Ballad of a Girl from Buchannon," which my bandmate/Buckhannon, WV native Aimee informed me, is spelled wrong. The final chorus of "Make Me Smile" doesn't actually come until the end of the side, after it's gone through a few more instrumental, Maynard-Ferguson-meets-prog sections, past "Colour My World" into the last chorus and a closing that sounds like some t.v. show theme.

Like I said, I should've known better. I'm kind of curious to hear the other side of the record, but not too curious.

Can't Think of a Title for a Return after several weeks of no posts

Damn, I know I've been away from here for awhile, but I had no idea it's been about a month! It figures that a burst of activity is followed by a burst of INactivity. But I was keeping sort of busy writing in other places. Both Mike Nesmith and the ICP Orchestra are coming to town in another 10 days or so, and I wrote about them for Pittsburgh City Paper (coming in next week's issue). There were a bunch of JazzTimes reviews too, including Pat Metheny's latest, which is something fairly out of character for me.

And then there's Blurt. Poor ol' Blurt. Something always seems to happen to happen to Fred and co., right around the time of South by Southwest. A few years ago it was the demise of Blurt's forerunner, Harp. This time the website got pretty badly hacked and infected with malware. The process is underway to get it cleaned up, luckily.

Last week the Pittsburgh Record Fair happened at Belvedere's. I didn't sell this time because I didn't feel like hauling all those crates of albums again. I bought a few things, nothing over $5 either. One of the happiest purchases of the night was a copy of School's Out by Alice Cooper. This was an album I owned from about second grade on. I think I got it for Christmas that year and I pretty much wore it out. I do remember that the desk part of the cover got a little ripped. Eventually I think it wound up in the giveaway box at the Record Recycler some time around 8th grade. The copy I got was almost the same as the one from back then. It didn't have the song titles on the back (my first copy did) and it didn't have the panties (luckily, my first didn't either). But the cover was in beautiful shape and it had the olive green Warner Brothers label, which always makes the heart beat faster. I still know every single note to that album. If I had a dollar for every time that me and my friend Eric put on the 55-second "Street Fight" and pretended to fight in my basement.... I'd be doing pretty well.

CD Review: Kramer - The Brill Building

Kramer
The Brill Building
(Tzadik) www.tzadik.com

This review is going to include a lot of me, at least in the beginning. You see, Kramer and I go back a long way. Not personally, though there is personal business involved too. But back around 1990, Kramer was it. He had one of the greatest bands in the world (Bongwater). He had a label that kept churning out all kinds of weird records (Shimmy-Disc), some of which were awesome, some weren't, but all were worth exploring, especially if you worked at a college radio station. On top of all that, he played bass, through a fuzz pedal, no less. He was doing things that I dreamed of doing.

In the fall of '89, I went to my first CMJ Music Marathon, and saw his other concurrent band B.A.L.L. Until I saw Bongwater a year and a half later, this was one of the most amazing, almost-falling-apart acts I had ever seen. The set began with Kramer running some cheapo cassette player through the p.a. with some strange music on it, and taking balloons from a garbage bag and throwing them into the audience. While all this was going on, guitarist Don Fleming stood there yelling, "PAPERBACK WRITER!" When they kicked into the music, they rocked really hard too. Every few songs, Kramer shot silly string into the audience. He also took an American flag and duct-taped it to the back wall, upside-down and haphazardly. (This was during the era of laws over flag-burning.) The band's energy and focus floored me. But it was too good to last. After about 15 minutes, Fleming's amp stack fell over and broke, so the set ended abruptly. Disappointing at the time, it almost seems vaguely appropriate.

Two of my bands ended up recording at Kramer's Noise New Jersey studio a few years later. Bone of Contention made an album over Memorial Day weekend in 1995 and two years earlier the Pundits drove up for a weekend to record three songs on a Sunday, which Kramer mixed that night before we split. It had always been my dream to have him produce BoC, though by the time we got up there, he was moving away from the gauzy sound of the Bongwater and Galaxie 500 albums towards something else. Still, it was a good time and I even got him to add an extra bass part to one of our songs that I had envisioned to be a little B.A.L.L.-ish. (Kramer, if you're reading this, I didn't tell you that at the time because I felt to inhibited. Didn't want to get on your bad side.)

When Kramer released the three-record opus The Guilt Trip in 1993, I was psyched. Not only was it gigantic, it sounded great, with all kinds of different stylings going on. But after one great album with Daevid Allen (Who's Afraid, which I come back to about every six months), the Shimmy-Disc outpouring seemed to slow down and didn't slay me as much.

Out of nowhere, Blurt's Fred Mills wrote a piece about Kramer's first new album in ages. Brill Building pays tribute to the songwriters who worked in that storied locale in New York (where my sister works now, though not as a songwriter) by covering 10 of them. I had to have it.

The album is marked by a lot of vintage Kramer stylings, specifically the use of sampled recordings before, after and sometimes during the songs. By 2013 standards, this is nothing new, but he was doing this on Bongwater records and it actually goes back to his days with Shockabilly (who were to classic rock what Spike Jones was to '40s music; why I'm the only person to say that, I'll never know). Sometimes they seem to be voices that randomly were chosen to go there, other times, there might be some political charge to it that gives the song a little more depth. Some of the ones on this album seem to have a continuing theme related to the '60s: Lyndon Johnson paying tribute to John Kennedy while signing the Civil Rights Bill; newscasters talking about Jack Ruby, presumably after he shot Lee Harvey Oswald.

Without even considering that he worked on it for seven years, it's clear that Kramer has a fondness for these songs and put care into this production. (His last few outings seemed to be not much more than simple jams with layers of overdubs piled onto them. A previous Beatles cover also a little lazy when he messed up lyric order.) The album begins with the creepy "He Hit Me" (whose title omits the "...and It Felt Like a Kiss"), but the slow tempo and sea of keyboards seem to make a statement on the unsavory message of the song. Brill Building also has extensive liner notes by Kramer where he analyzes that song and its meaning, not to mention the whole milieu of the Brill Building and the connection with Lower East Side poets like the Fugs. That alone is fascinating in and of itself, and not just because the layout makes it a challenge to read.

Kramer once described his take on covers as being something like part tribute and part lampoon, and that feeling comes across in several tracks. "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" finds him channeling an old Jewish grandfather while mumbling that insipid title. (Or maybe he's invoking Jack Mundurian, the novelty singer that he sampled on The Guilt Trip). In the "I knew we were falling in love" section, he shifts gears and belts it out like a rocker, which hams up the whole thing and makes you appreciate the whole thing. The fuzzed out electro-clash version of "I Want Candy" might be a bit much but the spastic version of "Save the Last Dance For Me" - which features R. Stevie Moore singing, drumming and playing way off-key guitar - is right on the money.

While several of tunes are fairly faithful and play it fairly safe, nearly half of the album successfully takes the songs where they've never gone before. For starters, there's a country-and-western take on "Spanish Harlem," complete with Johnny Cash-style guitar strums and some horse neighs. "On Broadway" gives us guest vocalist Jad Fair at his most soulful and guest pianist Mike Jones doing some busy but boppish piano fills. Neil Diamond's "Cherry Cherry" gets translated into Spanish and rearranged to sound almost like "Guantanamera," at least when the Sandpipers did it. That's not a put-down either. This is beautiful.

After what seems like a long time away from the limelight, this album signals that Kramer still has the creative juices flowing. The guest vocalists (which also includes Danielson's Daniel C. Smith on "Paradise) offer variety that evokes the groups that sang Brill Building songs. Yet Kramer himself is in extremely fine form whether he's goofing or making like a straight crooner on "Baby It's You" and "I Love How You Love Me." Which has me thinking, next time out, maybe he ought to take on the Great American Songbook. Kramer, you getting this down? It could be another chapter in the Great American Jewish series for ol' Zorn.

Suzanne Vega, Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, One Night

Monday was a great night for music. The evening started at Club Cafe where Suzanne Vega was playing two shows. I attended the first show, at 6:30, where I felt like one of the younger people in the audience, something I haven't felt in a long time.

Some people might be surprised to hear this but I really like Suzanne Vega's music. In fact, I should say that I love it. She has a beautiful voice, very calming and spellbinding at the same time. She is a great storyteller, which I'm reminded of every time I hear some mediocre "singer-songwriter" type banging on an acoustic guitar and trying to make a statement. And now it's clear that she has an impeccable stage presence, telling stories between songs that are charming and amusing, and playing songs that close to 30 years old like they're brand new.

All of this was on display in the opening minutes of the show when she and guitarist Gerry Leonard got onstage. Vega casually donned a top hat, which she flipped into shape before she introduced "Marlene on the Wall." That song alone is filled with all her attributes: great lyrics, great story and a key change in the chorus that grabs your ear without letting you think about it as it amps up the beauty of the whole thing.

Her song selection incorporated all of her albums, and then some. She has recently released a series of albums called Close-Up in which she's re-recorded her back catalog acoustically, grouping the songs by theme over the four volumes. The reasoning wasn't explained, but knowing the state of record labels (most of her albums were on A&M) it could have something to do with getting the songs back out there. Since she's still writing songs, anything else might be a bit dubious.

Mid-set she played a few new songs in a row. Tentatively titled "Fool's Complaint," this first one had a verse that sounded exactly like "When Heroes Go Down," and had what seemed like a clunky opening line for someone like Suzanne ("I really hate the Queen of Cups."). "I Never Wear White" also seemed a little basic with a second line like "I wear black." At the same time, she has a unique way of giving a line like that some gravity, whereas anyone who came after her might sound like a hack. Leonard gave the song a heavy rock riff, with his arsenal of effects pedals that added bass tones throughout the set and looped chords so he could play some leads. This made "Blood Makes Noise" as creepy as the studio version, especially when Vega's voice added some reverb and delay.

As hoped, the show was over in enough time to get down to the Thunderbird Cafe to see the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble. Leader Kahil El'Zabar has been here several times over the past few years with a few different groups, including one with baritone saxophonist Hamiett Blueitt. This trio is possibly the most remarkable, especially since it consists only of him, trumpeter Corey Wilkes and saxophonist Ernest Dawkins.

El'Zabar might do a similar thing each time he comes - one tune on kalimba, one on trap kit, one on conga - but hearing him is like listening to an album you really like. It's always enjoyable. And even if his vocalizing might be similar to Keith Jarrett's noises during his solo, everything else makes this music infectious. "Black is Back" opened with a hypnotic finger piano groove which the horns built upon. Dawkins, on alto, sounded especially sharp, quoting "Wade in the Water" toward the end of a bristling solo. It's no surprise he was laughing with excitement as the tune wound up, with all three of them whispering the title.

If Clifford Brown was still around and he took inspiration from Lester Bowie, he might sound like Corey Wilkes. The second, untitled piece of the first set (with El'Zabar on drums, playing tempo and  a melodic undercurrent) featured Wilkes showing off his bright tone and wild intervallic leaps, occasionally putting the bell of his horn right on the microphone for emphasis.

Bands like the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, like the Art Ensemble of Chicago before them (a few of whom played with El'Zabar), will tip their hat to the past without ever forgetting that they're a band of modern times. As an example, they played Dizzy Gillespie's "Bebop" with El'Zabar on hand drums (not sure if you'd actually call it a conga drum), which gave the song more of a pedal point base instead of flurry of chords normally heard in it. It changed the shape of the tune and gave it a new life. Acknowledging it's origin, perhaps, Dawkins quoted the bridge of Charlie Parker's "Donna Lee" - twice.

The second set kept the energy up, even during the more meditative "Can You Find a Place," with its vocal and kalimba groove. Dawkins pulled out tenor and alto to blow behind Wilkes during the boppish opener. And the all-percussive final tune took us out on a very high note.

CD Review: Barry Altschul - The 3dom Factor

Barry Altschul
The 3dom Factor
(TUM) www.tumrecords.com

Robert Wyatt once said that every time he hears a new record, he wants to hear an old one. It was his personal reworking of some author's observation that every time he reads a new book, he then wants to read an old one. That happens a lot with new albums: After hearing a new work by someone, I want to hunt down everything else they've done. Otherwise I feel like I'm missing something.

That feeling occurred while listening to The 3dom Factor, drummer Barry Altschul's first recording as a leader in over 25 years. Altschul earned his stripes for his work in Circle (the co-op group with Dave Holland, Anthony Braxton and Chick Corea) and the trios of Paul Bley and Sam Rivers. He's an ingenious percussionist who can play freely or swing viciously. In the past couple of years, he resurfaced, on the reunion disc with Rivers and Holland, and on Jon Irabagon's lengthy spontaneous disc Foxy. But between his name-establishing work and his resurgence, the drummer proved himself to be an excellent composer too, releasing albums which, on the basis of these performances, I feel compelled to track down.

The 3dom Factor revisits several of those compositions, with Irabagon (on tenor) and Joe Fonda (bass) along for the ride. Carla Bley's "Ictus" is also included, a tune Altschul played in Paul Bley's trio. Three new songs appear on the disc as well, to prove this isn't just a reflection of the past. Far from it - this is a vital album that is exuberant throughout the whole set.

From the moment the title track kicks off this album, the trio operates on a high level of communication. The theme here is vaguely reminiscent of an Ornette/folk style melody, which moves into solos marked by Irabagon doing some rapid slap-tonguing. When things drift apart freely, Fonda brings it back with some authoritative slides up the neck.

Altschul incorporated all sorts of percussion into his playing, and "Martin's Stew" exemplifies this. Over Fonda's bowed ostinato, the drummer blows whistles and never fully moving to the trap kit until Irabagon's solo later in the piece. The tenor player has appeared in different situations in his own sessions that span straight ahead jazz and blistering free improv, not to mention the nothing-is-sacred approach of Mostly Other People Do the Killing. In "Martin's Stew" he draws on all those experiences with astounding ease, going from growling overtones to convoluted lines of bop in a matter of breaths. His depth serves as a reminder that this guy is one of the most creative younger saxophonist out there.

When the group plays the two ballads, a little bit of wildness lies below the surface but it never shatters the mood. "Irina" uses space really well, moving a couple phrases at a time with punctuation coming from Altschul. Fonda plays a solo with a contrast of drawn-out notes and fast phrases. Irabagon feels like he wants to go wild but never does, using that energy instead to add color to the piece. He does something similar in "Just a Simple Song," starting subdued and gradually moving to a high shout. Fonda's double-stops in the melody make this one compelling too.

In the mid-'80s, Altschul wrote a tune called "For Papa Jo, Klook and Philly Too," paying tribute to his heroes Papa Jo Jones, Kenny "Klook" Clarke and Philly Joe Jones. Here the trio adds a little funk to the tune, transforming it into "Papa's Funkish Dance," and his rhythmic punctuation is electrifying. Another surprise comes in "Natal Chart," which is based on the idea that each of our solar system's planets have their own tone, and each is represented in the song. While things start wild, the planets align and the group eventually shifts in a Dixieland groove. That might sound crazy, but it works thanks to more bowing from Fonda and some machine gun-style fluttering tonguing from Irabagon.

The folks at TUM Records (which is based in Finland) know how to put together a package. The 3dom Factor's nearly 30-page booklet rivals AllMusic.com for detailed notes on the session, the musicians and the compositions, to the point where there's a bit of overlap. Nevertheless all the info is useful and it serves as the icing on a birthday cake for Mr. Altschul, who just turned 70 in early January.

May his seventh decade bring him more recognition not just for his past triumphs but for what's capable of doing right now. And believe me, he can still do a lot. It was tempting to expound on nearly every track.

CD Review: Chris Potter - The Sirens

Chris Potter
The Sirens
(ECM) www.ecmrecords.com

There have been moments during the last few Chris Potter albums where it's been easy to think, This is the future of jazz. Not to say that there aren't a lot of musicians advancing the music, but saxophonist Potter is someone who's fairly close to "mainstream" jazz but approaches it with the vision of, if not an avant-garde player, than someone who really pushes himself and listeners in the direction of adventure. He's a creative player, on tenor and soprano, as well as bass clarinet. For a musician who has played with Marian McPartland and Steely Dan, he has brought a good deal of fire to Dave Holland's groups, and Paul Motian's trios. In fact Motian's Lost in a Dream probably ranks with some of the best jazz albums of the last decade.

But the real excitement can be found on albums by Potter's Underground units, where he forgoes bass, has Craig Taborn cover those duties with keyboards and lets his Holland bandmate Nate Smith go wild on drums. On their 2009 album Ultrahang it seemed like Potter might have taken some cues from Tim Berne and he clearly knew what to do with them.

For his first album as a leader on ECM, Potter has brought along Taborn (on acoustic piano), with bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Eric Harland for his core quartet. The extra sense of experimentation comes with a second pianist, David Virelles, on prepared piano, celeste and harmonium. Virelles (who just released the highly-regarded Continuum on Pi Recordings) only seems to appear on a few tracks, if my ears are being accurate. But he adds a twist to the music without cluttering the balance of the quartet. The pianists' spare duet that closes the album leaves you wanting a lot more than some bare exchanges of sound too.

The compositions were inspired by the writings of Homer, and that being said, many take the slow and thoughtful course. The minor title track begins with Potter on bass clarinet, leading to a bowed solo by Grenadier in the same register as the reed, wrapping up with the leader switching to tenor. "Strangers at the Gate" finds Potter on soprano, and a dialogue between Taborn and Virelles with the latter's celeste being the more dissonant voice. In contrast, "Kalypso" doesn't quite capture the feeling of its synonymous title, but it gets Harland to play the melody with the tenor and get a little space of his own to flex a little.

Being an ECM album The Sirens has the majestic and somewhat dreamy production of Manfred Eicher setting the mood, though Potter reveals the bite in his playing as well. "Wine Dark Sea" begins gently but as his tenor solo develops, he gets a little more jagged, with the fire of the Underground albums coming into the mix. "Wayfinder" continues with the same type of wooliness, with Virelles adding some prepared piano clicks and celeste. Marked by shifting time signatures, the band still almost locks into a funk vamp by the end of the tenor solo.

Potter's sense of adventure is still going strong and this new album offers proof, which only grows with repeated listens.

On Allison Miller, Kevin Ayers, Chris Potter

Finally! I'm finally back online, 100%. Monday morning our internet connection was going on and off, on when the PC went into sleep mode, and off when I wanted to get online. After going through the long, drawn out, impersonal call to Verizon, complete with the canned empathy by the operator, it was clear that the problem was on our line and a tech had to come out. On Wednesday.

He finally came on Wednesday, only 30 minutes past the 4-hour window that they gave and he fixed the line. But the shock waves that the line update made (figuratively) kept me from getting on smoothly until about now.

Tuesday night I went to the Thunderbird because Colter Harper was leading Space Exchange that week and he had drummer Allison Miller in from New York to play with him. It was wild, because they were playing some of Colter's vocal songs, which are a little more singer-songwriter than straight jazz. Then they'd go off on solos and Miller was tearing it up like some combination of George Hurley and Jim Black. (That just came to me, Allison, don't bust my chops if you think I'm off the mark.) I know she plays with songwriters like Brandi Carlile too, so I wish I could start a band with her.

That night I was talking to my friend Jeff Berman about Soft Machine. I had posted on Facebook a few days ago that I pulled out Third and still love it. Jeff commented that he saw Soft Machine live, and on Tuesday he explained he saw them more than once, which made me jealous. And then...a day later, he came into the store and told me that original Soft Machine bassist Kevin Ayers had died. It's not quite the same synchronicity as when Paul Motian died (I was driving home one night thinking about how I might try to interview such a tough interviewee, unaware that he had died about an hour earlier), but still it was odd.

Here's an Ayers obit with a great photo of early Soft Machine. Funny how all those British bands started out looking zany or wiggy in the early days and later became so stoic. Compare the Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd to the lineup right after, and you'll see what I mean.

Here's also a link to an early Soft Machine song, "Jet Propelled," when the lineup also included Daevid Allen. I was rather disappointed with this whole album of songs, but this one is great.

Tonight is the Paula Poundstone show. I wrote a quickie about her for Pittsburgh City Paper this week but I think I'm going to skip the show, much as it'd be cool to see her. There are a few things coming up next week, including Suzanne Vega and the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble both on the same night. Plus I'm recording on Sunday afternoon. Both things could cut into family time.

Another thing that's happening this weekend is that the Chris Potter Quintet is playing in Cleveland. If only we were traveling to Ohio this weekend, I'd steal away to that for a few hours, but that ain't happening. If you're near Cleveland, though, check them out. I'll be reviewing the new album here soon.

CD Review: Wayne Shorter Quartet - Without a Net

Until March 5, there was an obtuse review here, but I've since revised it and given it to Blurt for them to run. I'll post a link when it's on their website.

Ken Stringfellow in Pittsburgh

Playing right now: JD Allen Trio - The Matador and the Bull.
(I bought this CD about 10 days ago during a binge at Sound Cat and didn't get to take the shrink wrap off until this morning.)

All the writing assignments, for the moment at least, wrapped up on Tuesday morning. They included a story for JazzTimes, four CD reviews for the same magazine (I was good and submitted some ahead of time), about three for Blurt and a preview for City Paper. Plus interviews for all of them that needed to be transcribed. Now it's back to the lingering feeling that I should be reviewing everything else here. What a joy it would be to just do that all day.

Last night I went to the Thunderbird to see Ken Stringfellow, with Will Simmons and his band (not sure if they're still the Upholsterers) opening. I missed Karl Hendricks' solo set since I had what's known in this house as "baby duty," though the person in question who I was putting to bed is no longer a baby. Will and the Gang played a tight set that included a guest vocal spot by Karl himself on a song called "Don't Look Back" that's not the Boston song. It's from some Nuggets box.

I'm not all that up on the Posies catalog though I think somewhere there in the house there's a solo CD by Stringfellow from when he was here on a solo tour. He has a beautiful voice, and a lot of his songs were marked by "woah-woah"s. I was expected something a little more pure pop, with power chords and hooks, but his playing was a little less pronounced than that, meaning it was a little more open. It was a different story when he played keyboard. Those songs were a little easier to groove on.

But he played a looooong time. I'm not exactly sure when he started but I'm pretty sure he bypassed the hour mark when I finally decided that I needed to hit the hay. Local violinist Megan Williams (my ex-bandmate from Up the Sandbox) and vocalist Emily Rodgers joined him, Megan for several songs, Emily for one that was sung on Stringfellow's album by Margaret Cho. He also talked Bill Fulmer from the Simmons band to blow some trombone on a song too.It all sounded pretty good.

In other news, I just discovered a couple days ago that Suzanne Vega is in town the same night as the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble. I've seen the latter and always passed up the former. I might try to do both that night, as Vega's doing an early and late show.

I've been getting daily comment emails sent to me that I delete, figuring Blogger would delete all the messages. Imagine my surprise when I saw 14 spam comments of "I enjoy blog you write" crap.

Monday recap

Yesterday I saw more writing action/preparation than I feel like I have in years.

9:00: Drop the boy off at school
9:30: Interview trombonist Curtis Hasselbring
10:00 - 1:59: Shower, mail package at post office, finish a review (a week early!) and send to JazzTimes, start on a second review
2:00: Interview Mary Halvorson re: Curtis Hasselbring, tinker w/review a little more
2:30: Interview Kahil El'Zabar for his upcoming Pittsburgh show
3:00-3:10: Run around in circles, feel productive, until it's time to pick up the boy from school.

If only everyday offered this much writing activity. I just emailed the second review and now I can't decide whether I should start on the El'Zabar piece or just listen to a CD I have to review by next week.

RIPs

Playing right now: Curtis Hasselbring - Number Stations (Cuneiform)

Before January even ended, there were a few RIPs to acknowledge. Jayne Cortez, poet, activist and performer (and one time wife of Ornette Coleman and mother of Denardo Coleman) actually passed away on December 28, though I only heard earlier in the week. She came to Pittsburgh in a band with Denardo around 2000, but unfortunately I never got to see her. She was 78. Here's an obituary on her. You know someone's legit if the Huffington Post is writing about them.

This week, "Conduction" master/cornetist Lawrence "Butch" Morris died on January 29, after a battle with lung cancer. Here's a nice obit on him. I got to talk to him a few years ago in advance of a performance in Buffalo and his philosophy about conduction was pretty fascinating.

Then last night, I read that Barbara Manning's mother, Saria Farr, also recently passed away. She wasn't a musician, at least not in the same capacity as her daughter, but she was clearly a positive influence on Barbara, whom I count as one of my all time favorite songwriters. Whereever she is, I wish Barbara and her sister Terri all the best.

CD Review: Ben Holmes Quartet - Anvil of the Lord

Ben Holmes Quartet
Anvil of the Lord
(Skirl) www.skirlrecords.com

You never know when you're going to cross paths with random musicians who, years later, will be seen in a completely different light than the first experience. Several years ago, the back room of my neighborhood bar/live venue Gooski's was stuffed probably way past the fire code with all manner of people interested in checking out the good time that would be laid down by Slavic Soul Party! (Despite the excessive cigarette smoke,  still legal in some places in the Keystone State, the group did not disappoint.) Everyone in that band probably had at least one other musical venture besides SSP!, but the frenzy of the evening made it hard to find out anyone's individual story.

It's hard to say if Ben Holmes was part of the trumpet section that night, but it's pretty likely. Holmes has an ongoing interest in Balkan music as well as modern jazz, and has played with a great number of bands and projects that feature both styles. Anvil of the Lord - a title that gets more amusing the more you think of it as the counterpoint to Led Zeppelin's classic biography Hammer of the Gods - cites Holmes' Eastern European influences, but this isn't simply good time party music with some improv in it. These nine originals are fairly straight forward (at least for an album on Skirl) tunes with subtle harmonic movement that comes with deeper listening.

The quartet's instrumentation gives it a unique sound. The rhythm section of Matt Pavolka (bass) and Vinnie Sperrazza (drums) back up Holmes and trombonist Curtis Hasselbring, the end result being both a little spare  and keeping the focus on the horns. Pavolka and Sperrazza don't play with flash but their steadiness adds some fire to "Doodle for Rhapsody," the opening salvo which grooves in a syncopated, uneven meter. Nearly all the songs have specific inspirations and this one takes a cue from a Romanian singer Gabi Lunca, which can be felt in the harmonies of the brass.

At other times the muse isn't too obvious, like "Nada v. Armitage," a fairly calm homage to a fight scene in the film They Live between those two characters, portrayed by Roddy Piper and Keith David respectively. "Malach Hamovi" (Hebrew for "Angel of Death") has a noirish feel with slinky bass behind a plaintive, melancholy line. Holmes wrote this in response to Chopin's Prelude No. 2, which is know as the "Presentiment of Death." If Chopin hung out in Downtown New York, maybe it would have sounded like this as well.

Sometimes a Miles Davis vibe creeps slowly into the music. With "Song for Creel Thompson," the melody starts off sounding a little like "Nefertiti" but moves on to greater development as well as solos with some quick double-time licks from Hasselbring and great intervals from Holmes. The more pensive "Moved Like a Fog" contains some of that vibrato-less honesty that recalls the Prince of Darkness.

If any criticism can be made of Anvil of the God it would be that Holmes and the crew almost sound too relaxed, and nice without a lot of bite initially. They clearly all know the nuances of Holmes' writing but some push and pull could have given it a little more edge. Still, it's a fine set of work from a guy who can  get a room of hipsters dancing or get a bunch of modern beatniks to lean in close and listen.

The Music that I Play Sounds Like...

Playing right now: a recording of the Love Letters show at Club Cafe, made a week ago last Friday

It says it in a couple places here on the blog, but the Love Letters are the band of which I am a part these days, in case you didn't know. The night of this last show Bob Loiselle, from opening band Junk Fingers, told me that he thought we sounded like a cross between They Might Be Giants and the Human Switchboard. I love one of those bands and, while I don't hate the other one, I still look upon them with a bit of suspicion.

Funny thing is, in listening to this recording, I can hear exactly what he's talking about.

At least on my songs.

In other news, I'm trying to be prolific in terms of CD reviews these days. I have a stack of assignments for Blurt and JazzTimes but I banged out two for the former today. (One submitted, one to be submitted in the a.m. after I've have some distance from it to give it a final read.) I'm hoping this productivity will continue and that I can drop one on the blog in between these two.

CD Review: Jason Robinson - Tiresian Symmetry

Jason Robinson
Tiresian Symmetry
(Cuneiform) www.cuneiformrecords.com

This is the time of year when I usually hit upon albums that I completely missed during the previous year. These are things that flew under my radar for any number of reasons (the biggest usually being, "That looks cool, I'll have to check it out sometime soon"), only to find it in near the top of the year end lists. Granted it's a rare breed of writer who can keep up with everything. On the Rhapsody website, critic Tom Hull said he reviewed 535 new jazz albums last year. That is both admirable and - when you do the math - exhausting, especially if you factor in box sets. I think last year Peter Margasak had a Top 40 of 2011.

But enough of a set-up. Jason Robinson's Tiresian Symmetry is my this-is-amazing-how'd-I'd-put-this-off-you-need-to-check-it-out-ASAP release. It comes from Cuneiform, the long-standing adventurous label that had a banner year overall (to name few: Wadada Leo Smith's four-disc Ten Freedom Summers  and Living by Lanterns' New Myth/Old Science which I reviewed here). I listened to it several times without checking out the liner notes so his concept of the myth of Tiresias and the numerical relationship didn't affect my listening at first. (According to Greek myth, this soothsayer lived for seven generations, both as a man and a woman, giving Robinson the idea to explore relationships between 7 and 2.) What caught my attention are the different sections of the title track and "Radiate" which each continue for 10 engaging minutes each.

Sometimes Robinson's writing reminds of me of Tim Berne's more subdued tunes, where things move gently but the horns feel like they're ready to go wild, and time signatures change on a dime. This happens a lot in the last couple songs, but "Saros" not only has that going for it, it starts with JD Parran doing some great contra-bass clarinet squonking. After the nine-piece band states the theme, things move into a tuba (or maybe bass trombone) solo, and when Robinson takes a solo spot, one of the lower brass guys starts wailing through his horn behind him.

The instrumentation is intriguing enough, but the personnel is the kind that should pull people in too. Robinson plays alto flute and soprano sax. Allan also handles alto clarinet and tenor. Along with them on the front line is Marty Ehrlich (alto sax, bass clarinet, C flute). Marcus Rojas and Bill Lowe both play tuba, creating some beautiful harmonies on the level of French horns on "Radiate." (Lowe doubles on bass trombone.) Drew Gress handles bass, Liberty Ellman adds some guitar solos, and the double-team of Ches Smith and George Schuller both play drums (Smith also plays glockenspeil) without getting too busy or thunderous.

This album was released back around September, but if you missed it then, now is the time to discover it. Not being familiar with Robinson's work, this disc makes me want to explore his back catalog too.

Quickie

Playing right now: The Mau Maus - Scorched Earth Policies: Then & Now

Harrison Bankhead's Kickstarter project was successfully funded! I was really glad to see that. Hooray for music.

Blurt posted my Franklin Bruno piece a couple days ago. Here it is.

I was lucky enough to get a download of Wayne Shorter's new album, which is cool because when the end of the year comes, I'll be able to opine on whether it deserves to be in the Top 10 or not. I made CD-r of it  because I wanted to hear it with good fidelity, not just on lo-fi computer speakers. Turns out the burn wasn't totally successful, and at the end of the 23-minute "Pegasus" it keeps skipping back two minutes to the end of the song, and won't go further. Conspiracy theorist that I am, I was starting to wonder if this is some elaborate trick the brass at Blue Note did to make sure that I won't share the music with anyone. Guys - don't worry. I won't give it to anyone. But if you keep this up I might not even feel compelled to write about it.

Jeff Mangum review, new sax in town, Harrison Bankhead Kickstart

Blurt published my Jeff Mangum review yesterday. You can find it here, along with some video links although I would like to go on record and assure you it was not me who filmed them. The piece was written over several days, which was a good idea because it helped me figure out how I wanted to talk about him. There were actually a couple different ideas in my head about how to start and finish it.

Last night I went to the Thunderbird Cafe for the weekly Space Exchange sometimes jazz/sometimes something else series. Saxophonist Erik Lawrence just moved to town pretty recently and last night he led a trio with drummer Dave Throckmorton (one of the SE curators) and bassist Paul Thompson. Lawrence plays/played with the Honey Ear Trio (who I reviewed here a while ago), Steven Bernstein and the late Levon Helm. He was playing baritone, tenor and alto last night, although I missed most of the baritone playing because I got there late. It was great stuff and a bit on-the-fly, with Erik explaining arrangements to Paul and Dave before they played tunes, yet sounded remarkably together and exciting. There were a lot of vamps that the bass held down while Lawrence moved all over the horn, pushing into the upper limits when necessary.

Lawrence said he likes our town, so let's show the man some support. We don't want to loose him like we've lost other heavy hitters. Next Tuesday, he's sitting in with at Thunderbird with Book Exchange, Ben Opie's trio that plays Monk, Braxton and Coleman. That should be a blast.

And finally, I got an email from Stephen at Engine Records about a Kickstarter campaign he has to help record and release a new album by bassist Harrison Bankhead. The goal is to raise $1500, of which $720 has been raised as of this morning.

The deadline for it is this Friday, so I realize this mention is last minute. Check it out right here. Bankhead has played with a lot of great Chicago musicians like Roscoe Mitchell, Von Freeman, Hamid Drake and the Windy City's last guru Fred Anderson (that's my description, not common terminology). It'd be really amazing if we could help this project happen.