For German readers: some thoughts and notes and quotes on the music I'm listening - to be found
on my new blog:
ubus-notizen.blogspot.com

Also check out the great new, independent magazine get happy!?, reporting on music, movies and more:
gethappymag.de

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Duke & Ella

no one from the dimers who dowloaded my Anita and Tete sets seem to have found their way over here to grab the third set I have from Antibes 1966, so here's a post dedicated to this one in the open, as opposed to the "easter egg", as which it had been disguised before...

I assume all or most of this is on the big 8CD box of Duke & Ella in Antibes - too much of a good thing for me - I love Duke and own the RCA set, the Capitol and Reprise Mosaics, the recent Storyville box, the Private Collection, the Carnegie Hall Concerts, and a whole bunch of single CD reissues, too, from Columbia, Bethlehem, Blue Note, Impulse etc. - but I'm not that big an Ella fan... and 1966 was past the Duke's prime, too...

Anyway, this short set, radio-sourced, is certainly nice to have! Links in the comments, all info included with the DL.

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Töbi Tobler - Altdorf 2007 - now on dime

Here's one fresh off the press - yesterday's solo recital at the great Alpentöne festival in Altdorf by Töbi Tobler on Hackbrett (hammered dulcimer). Quite a nice surprise! I like this honest and simple kind of folk music - though his horizon is much broader and he incorporates some of it in his music, too. Anyway, folk music shouldn't just be conserved as is, rather it should evolve, and here's a fine example for that!



**********************************************************

Töbi Tobler Solo
Alpentöne 2007
Altdorf (Switzerland), Schlüsselsaal
August 17, 2007

Töbi Tobler - Hackbrett & voice

1. Introduction TT (0:38)
2. Medley / Improvisation (22:09)
3. Zäuerli (9:02)
4. Heurigentanz (9:22)
5. Family Goes Shopping (3:13)
6. unknown (Schluss / Ending) (8:15)
7. [encore] (3:18)

8. Interview (by Kjell Keller) (6:30)

TT: 62:30

Sound: A- (mono)
Source: DRS 2 "Weltklasse auf DRS 2" / 2007-08-17 (live)
Lineage: FM > HD > Cool Edit Pro > FLAC (8,asb,verify)


Note: much of this music is improvised, partly it's based on traditional melodies/songs, partly on Tobler's own tunes. The encore possibly is an old Swiss folk song, but I'm not quite so familiar with that kind of music... traditional folk music (not of the commercialised crap kind marketed on German/Austrian/Swiss TV) lies at the core of this music, though, paired with Tobler's experience as a drummer with various well-known Swiss musicians, as well as his own band, "Appezeller Space Schöttl".

Friday, August 17, 2007

ubu's Max Roach Memorial listen


Max Roach, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker

Here are some impressions about the tough but rewarding ride I just finished... (relaxin' with Sonny Stitt's "Deuces Wild" now, a gift I just got from a friend).

Thanks a lot, Max, for all the great music!

I started with Percussion Bitter Suite (covered in the previous Roach post), then went on with the following albums:

It's Time (Impulse!, 1962) - one of the best of those chorus albums. Max stands out here, his playing is so poised - awesome! Jordan has many fine spots and so has Richard Williams - too bad he wasn't getting more exposure, a very fine musician in any context I've heard him in (Jones/Lewis big band, Gigi Gryce, Mingus, his sole leader album on Candid, Lateef...)

Speak, Brother, Speak! (Fantasy/OJC, 1962) - Much better than most reviews want us to think! Jordan is on fire, Waldron does his long meandering lines. And Eddie Khan holds his own with a much earthier sound and delivery than Art Davis, more a felt bass player, but very much there, all of the time! And again Roach is doing great! This is a fairly simple, blowing album (though the two long numbers, or at least the first 25 minute long title track, are some kind of suites with various parts in changing tempos), other than the music preceeding it - the last Mercury albums, the Candid and the two Impulses all had larger line-ups and/or more thorough concepts and arrangements. Here they just blow, and it's good to hear them doing that! And the music is earthy and soulful, and yes, it swings!

The Max Roach Trio Featuring the Legendary Hasaan (Atlantic, 1964) - a weird one... all the hype about that Hasaan chap is more hot air than anything - not really a huge loss that he remained legendary... however, he's a fun pianist to listen to, there's no denying that! The main point of interest here though, is Roach's highly creative drumming and Art Davis' bass providing a great bottom for the music - their playing together is simply terrific here!

Drums Unlimited (Atlantic, 1965/66) - Very nice one! The short solos are terrific, and the groove hit by Jymie Merritt and Ronnie Mathews (he sounds a lot like Bobby Timmons here) on "Nommo" is terrific! Freddie Hubbard is at his aggressive best - I quite like him as a sideman on most album's I've heard him (he appears on so many important albums!), while I don't like his leader dates that much... or I rather listen to them for the bands, not for him. Anyway, he's serious here! There's also the live date from the band's tour in late '66 where Hubbard asks the (white, of course) audience in Graz, Austria, to kiss his black ass... I'll have to play that again soon!

Lift Every Voice and Sing (Atlantic, 1971)- A collection of spirituals (except for #2 by one Patricia Curtis and Max Roach), arranged for choir and the Roach group, at that stage (1971) including Cecil Bridgewater and the great Billy Harper who does some apeshit soloing here - great! George Cables is on electric piano. I like this one a lot. It's more of its time and less a great piece of art than "It's Time", I think, but it has a lot going on, there's a certain aggressiveness in the music that reaches out and grabs me!

Now playing Members, Don't Git Weary (Atlantic, 1969) - and guess what, this (and also Lift Every Voice) is where for me - unintentionally - the focus while listening shifts away more and more from Max, towards the other musicians. Tolliver is great, Bartz also contributes a few nice solos (and his composition "Libra"), and Stanley Cowell is great to have on any album from that period... I'd have preferred Merritt on double bass, though... his sound on "Nommo" (Drums Unlimited) is so fat and boomy, he'd have had a better groove than on electric bass... and about Roach, I guess this is where he kind of started losing his great, aggressive, individual style of drumming (now this is crap, put in such general words, I know...) ... now this doesn't mean "Members" is a bad album, not even a mediocre one, there's plenty of good music on it, but Max' own playing ain't quite so exciting any longer... (even though - I doubt I could, though - some may hear it's Max within one bar from any of the tunes...)

Addition: Merritt is partly on double bass (for instance on the title track) - but I'd wished he'd be on it on the funky opening number, for instance!

Max Roach (1924-2007)


Maxwell Roach, January 10, 1924 - August 16, 2007

Some background reading on the era and the civil rights movement:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/aopart9.html


:: New York Times obituary ::

August 16, 2007
Max Roach, a Founder of Modern Jazz, Dies at 83
By PETER KEEPNEWS

Max Roach, a founder of modern jazz who rewrote the rules of drumming in the 1940’s and spent the rest of his career breaking musical barriers and defying listeners’ expectations, died early today at his home in New York. He was 83.

His death was announced today by a spokesman for Blue Note records, on which he frequently appeared. No cause was given. Mr. Roach had been known to be ill for several years.

As a young man, Mr. Roach, a percussion virtuoso capable of playing at the most brutal tempos with subtlety as well as power, was among a small circle of adventurous musicians who brought about wholesale changes in jazz. He remained adventurous to the end.

Over the years he challenged both his audiences and himself by working not just with standard jazz instrumentation, and not just in traditional jazz venues, but in a wide variety of contexts, some of them well beyond the confines of jazz as that word is generally understood.

He led a “double quartet” consisting of his working group of trumpet, saxophone, bass and drums plus a string quartet. He led an ensemble consisting entirely of percussionists. He dueted with uncompromising avant-gardists like the pianist Cecil Taylor and the saxophonist Anthony Braxton. He performed unaccompanied. He wrote music for plays by Sam Shepard and dance pieces by Alvin Ailey. He collaborated with video artists, gospel choirs and hip-hop performers.

Mr. Roach explained his philosophy to The New York Times in 1990: “You can’t write the same book twice. Though I’ve been in historic musical situations, I can’t go back and do that again. And though I run into artistic crises, they keep my life interesting.”

He found himself in historic situations from the beginning of his career. He was still in his teens when he played drums with the alto saxophonist Charlie Parker, a pioneer of modern jazz, at a Harlem after-hours club in 1942. Within a few years, Mr. Roach was himself recognized as a pioneer in the development of the sophisticated new form of jazz that came to be known as bebop.

He was not the first drummer to play bebop — Kenny Clarke, 10 years his senior, is generally credited with that distinction — but he quickly established himself as both the most imaginative percussionist in modern jazz and the most influential.

In Mr. Roach’s hands, the drum kit became much more than a means of keeping time. He saw himself as a full-fledged member of the front line, not simply as a supporting player.

Layering rhythms on top of rhythms, he paid as much attention to a song’s melody as to its beat. He developed, as the jazz critic Burt Korall put it, “a highly responsive, contrapuntal style,” engaging his fellow musicians in an open-ended conversation while maintaining a rock-solid pulse. His approach “initially mystified and thoroughly challenged other drummers,” Mr. Korall wrote, but quickly earned the respect of his peers and established a new standard for the instrument.

Mr. Roach was an innovator in other ways. In the late 1950s, he led a group that was among the first in jazz to regularly perform pieces in waltz time and other unusual meters in addition to the conventional 4/4. In the early 1960s, he was among the first to use jazz to address racial and political issues, with works like the album-length “We Insist! Freedom Now Suite.”

In 1972, he became one of the first jazz musicians to teach full time at the college level when he was hired as a professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. And in 1988, he became the first jazz musician to receive a so-called genius grant from the MacArthur Foundation.

Maxwell Roach was born on Jan. 10, 1924, in the small town of New Land, N.C., and grew up in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. He began studying piano at a neighborhood Baptist church when he was 8 and took up the drums a few years later.

Even before he graduated from Boys High School in 1942, savvy New York jazz musicians knew his name. As a teenager he worked briefly with Duke Ellington’s orchestra at the Paramount Theater and with Charlie Parker at Monroe’s Uptown House in Harlem, where he took part in jam sessions that helped lay the groundwork for bebop.

By the middle 1940’s, he had become a ubiquitous presence on the New York jazz scene, working in the 52nd Street nightclubs with Parker, the trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and other leading modernists. Within a few years he had become equally ubiquitous on record, participating in such seminal recordings as Miles Davis’s “Birth of the Cool” sessions in 1949 and 1950.

He also found time to study composition at the Manhattan School of Music. He had planned to major in percussion, he later recalled in an interview, but changed his mind after a teacher told him his technique was incorrect. “The way he wanted me to play would have been fine if I’d been after a career in a symphony orchestra,” he said, “but it wouldn’t have worked on 52nd Street.”

Mr. Roach made the transition from sideman to leader in 1954, when he and the young trumpet virtuoso Clifford Brown formed a quintet. That group, which specialized in a muscular and stripped-down version of bebop that came to be called hard bop, took the jazz world by storm. But it was short-lived.

In June 1956, at the height of the Brown-Roach quintet’s success, Brown was killed in an automobile accident, along with Richie Powell, the group’s pianist, and Powell’s wife. The sudden loss of his friend and co-leader, Mr. Roach later recalled, plunged him into depression and heavy drinking from which it took him years to emerge.

Nonetheless, he kept working. He honored his existing nightclub bookings with the two surviving members of his group, the saxophonist Sonny Rollins and the bassist George Morrow, before briefly taking time off and putting together a new quartet. By the end of the 50’s, seemingly recovered from his depression, he was recording prolifically, mostly as a leader but occasionally as a sideman with Mr. Rollins and others.

The personnel of Mr. Roach’s working group changed frequently over the next decade, but the level of artistry and innovation remained high. His sidemen included such important musicians as the saxophonists Eric Dolphy, Stanley Turrentine and George Coleman and the trumpet players Donald Byrd, Kenny Dorham and Booker Little. Few of his groups had a pianist, making for a distinctively open ensemble sound in which Mr. Roach’s drums were prominent.

Always among the most politically active of jazz musicians, Mr. Roach had helped the bassist Charles Mingus establish one of the first musician-run record companies, Debut, in 1952. Eight years later, the two organized a so-called rebel festival in Newport, R.I., to protest the Newport Jazz Festival’s treatment of performers. That same year, Mr. Roach collaborated with the lyricist Oscar Brown Jr. on “We Insist! Freedom Now Suite,” which played variations on the theme of black people’s struggle for equality in the United States and Africa.

The album, which featured vocals by Abbey Lincoln (Mr. Roach’s frequent collaborator and, from 1962 to 1970, his wife), received mixed reviews: many critics praised its ambition, but some attacked it as overly polemical. Mr. Roach was undeterred.

“I will never again play anything that does not have social significance,” he told Down Beat magazine after the album’s release. “We American jazz musicians of African descent have proved beyond all doubt that we’re master musicians of our instruments. Now what we have to do is employ our skill to tell the dramatic story of our people and what we’ve been through.”

“We Insist!” was not a commercial success, but it emboldened Mr. Roach to broaden his scope as a composer. Soon he was collaborating with choreographers, filmmakers and Off Broadway playwrights on projects, including a stage version of “We Insist!”

As his range of activities expanded, his career as a bandleader became less of a priority. At the same time, the market for his uncompromising brand of small-group jazz began to diminish. By the time he joined the faculty of the University of Massachusetts in 1972, teaching had come to seem an increasingly attractive alternative to the demands of the musician’s life.

Joining the academy did not mean turning his back entirely on performing. In the early ‘70s, Mr. Roach joined with seven fellow drummers to form M’Boom, an ensemble that achieved tonal and coloristic variety through the use of xylophones, chimes, steel drums and other percussion instruments. Later in the decade he formed a new quartet, two of whose members — the saxophonist Odean Pope and the trumpeter Cecil Bridgewater — would perform and record with him off and on for more than two decades.

He also participated in a number of unusual experiments. He appeared in concert in 1983 with a rapper, two disc jockeys and a team of break dancers. A year later, he composed music for an Off Broadway production of three Sam Shepard plays, for which he won an Obie Award. In 1985, he took part in a multimedia collaboration with the video artist Kit Fitzgerald and the stage director George Ferencz.

Perhaps his most ambitious experiment in those years was the Max Roach Double Quartet, a combination of his quartet and the Uptown String Quartet. Jazz musicians had performed with string accompaniment before, but rarely if ever in a setting like this, where the string players were an equal part of the ensemble and were given the opportunity to improvise. Reviewing a Double Quartet album in The Times in 1985, Robert Palmer wrote, “For the first time in the history of jazz recording, strings swing as persuasively as any saxophonist or drummer.”

This endeavor had personal as well as musical significance for Mr. Roach: the Uptown String Quartet’s founder and viola player was his daughter Maxine. She survives him, as do two other daughters, Ayo and Dara, and two sons, Raoul and Darryl.

By the early ‘90s, Mr. Roach had reduced his teaching load and was again based in New York year-round, traveling to Amherst only for two residencies and a summer program each year. He was still touring with his quartet as recently as 2000, and he also remained active as a composer. In 2002 he wrote and performed the music for “How to Draw a Bunny,” a documentary about the artist Ray Johnson.


:: ubu's notes ::

These are copy-pasted from several threads over on Organissimo.

I've been digging a lot of Max Roach's music, lately. Put most of the Clifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet material from the great 10CD box onto my iPod (omitting some alternates and false starts). Then I just recently got around playing most of the Mosaic box, combined with the albums he did for other labels in between the Mercury albums, including Max (Argo), Deeds Not Words (Riverside), the Time album, Award Winning Drummer, and just this morning while commuting the great Prestige album of Sonny Rollins' heading the Roach +4 band (Sonny Rollins Plays For Bird) with Wade Legge and Kenny Dorham (including the magnificient Bird-medley, which probably was the idea for the Mercury album Max Roach Plays Charlie Parker, I assume?). Later I also played the Booker Little 4+ Max Roach album (United Artists/Blue Note CD).
The earlier Mercury albums on the Mosaic, Max Roach +4, Jazz in 3/4 Time (this one's easily available on CD, the only one besides the Jazz in Paris edition of "Parisian Sketches" that is, from the Mercury output), Max Roach 4 Plays Charlie Parker, Max Roach +4 on the Chicago Scene, fit right in with the Argo, Riverside and Time album. The last of the Mercury albums before the Turrentines arrived to replace the Booker Little/George Coleman frontline, The Many Sides of Max, is a minor masterpiece.

Anyway, it's most fascinating to see how Max evolves.
Also it's very interesting to read the liners in the Mosaic and compare the music, play it in chronological way, check out how Roach's solo conception changes and grows... he seems to have been one of jazz' sharpest minds back then - a very intriguing character, to me.
Looking forward now to continue the trip with more of the Turrentine Bros./Julian Priester Quintet (incl. Tommy Turrentine's self-titled album for Time adding Horace Parlan on piano, and the live album on Enja, Long As You're Living predating the last of the Mercury albums recorded in Paris). Next then what I still think are his best albums (besides the Brown/Roach material), Freedom Now Suite and Percussion Bitter Suite.
What a great body of work in so few years! Too bad only that Mercury had more of a project-based approach and didn't document the working quartets/quintets more thoroughly! They're clearly on fire on the 1958 Newport (Mercury) set!

*****

Max' huge contribution to Sonny Rollins' Saxophone Colossus - that's the first album I ever heard with him on drums. The solo he pulls on "St. Thomas" is jaw-dropping (as is the whole album... Blue Seven!)
Beautiful sound on that album too (even on the 80s Fantasy version), it's so deep and blue - one of my very favourite albums to this day!

I was able to catch Max live, in a weird concert with Abdullah Ibrahim. First both of them played half a solo set, and after the break they made a lame attempt at a duo. The Roach solo portion was the only part that was convincing and partly very good, but the whole event was a big letdown, even though I love both guys when they're on their own (or working with more sympathetic partners).

To The Max, the 2CD set, is a nice showcase of more recent Roach, including M'Boom, his 80s quartet, the double quartet and more. Covers all the variety of things Max did in his later career.
Nothing of it comes close, in my opinion, to the stuff he did in 55-63 or so, though... in fact probably most of his post Brownie material isn't coming close to their quintet in 55/56, except maybe for the Candid and Impulse albums mentioned in my first post.
But then, luckily, it's not just about "greatest" albums all the time... he did so many good and great ones besides those classics, too!

*****

Art Davis (December 5, 1934 - July 29, 2007)

I have been playing the Roach Mosaic set with additional other discs in between and have just entered the tuba band months... Davis was a monster player! His playing on the Newport live set (with a broken index finger) is terrific!
He always struck me as a terrific musician when playing with Roach - and as "just" a very good bass player in most of the other contexts I've heard him in. Magic at work when he and Roach got together!

Probably he was just too strong a musical personality. I mean his walking lines, his timing, all of it is too personal for him to just fit in on any kind of jam session or loosely arranged studio date. With Roach though, he's very inspired and inspiring, I find - much more so than George Morrow, who just happens to play the bass in the band, most of the time, Davis is there, you can feel him at any given moment and he's actively shaping the music, not just accompanying - that's how it feels to me, at least...

... is that there are statements about George Morrow in the montage of quotes by musicians/sideman in the Roach Mosaic booklet, that state that he was the only one to really cope with the fast tempos at that time (before Davis joined, that is - no negative words about Boswell, but he's not exactly your greatest bass fiddle virtuoso either, though he did a fine job with what was one of Roach's most underrated bands, in my opinion). There are statements that mention others sitting in, including Oscar Pettiford, and simply being unable to keep the tempo... so Morrow was no slouch, I guess... rather he wasn't a great solo player (not at all... there's one bass feature on the Brown/Roach band, not such a great track, but quite alright), but it seems he's respected by his colleagues if just for his able walking at breakneck tempos.
That tempo thing is one of the slight letdowns of these Roach bands, I think - Billy Wallace makes that point (and he seems quite certain that his own circle of musicians in Chicago was far better than the Roach group he played with... I don't think that makes too much sense, speaking of being better musicians, on that level, but I wouldn't doubt Wallace's statements per se). Anyway, the band so often just playing as fast as they can brings a certain sameness to the music that not even guys like Booker Little and the great (underrated? I guess so even if it's a stupid tag and I already used it in this post...) George Coleman can help getting over that. It's possibly some kind of restlessness, that would again make it interesting... a nervousness, a sensitivity? I don't know, though... looking forward to get through the Turrentines band and then on with the Freedom Now Suite - the 5/4 opener with Hawkins rough and stunning tenor solo most definitely offers one of those fat swinging grooves that Wallace seemed to miss in the Roach band... maybe it's like Roach has lost that nervous edge, gone a step further around that time (Freedom Now and also Percussion Bitter Suite from 1961)?

*****

Anyway, back on topic: enjoying the shit out of those albums with the Turrentine brothers and Julian Priester. Stanley Turrentine is so good at this early stage of his career! Tommy may not be the greatest technician and doesn't have stealth chops and all, but he's got a way of playing that I think is all his own. I played the Quiet As It's Kept album, plus Moon Faced and Starry Eyed (with Abbey Lincoln guesting on two tunes) from the Mosaic, then the Tommy Turrentine Time album, and now getting close to the end of the Enja release, Long As You're Living, from the band's Kaiserslautern 1960 concert - more great playing there! Then I'll end my Roach Mosaic trip with the Paris date, Parisian Sketches, on the last disc... and continue with Freedom Now Suite, of course!

Oh, and let me put in a good word for Julian Priester! Definitely one of my favourite trombone players of any time and style - his sound is so beautiful (highlights being his features on Quiet As It's Kept, I'd say... but most of his solos on these albums are great)!

Another observation about the Turrentines/Priester edition of the Roach quintet: Max seems to loosen up quite a bit by that time. He's still *very* sharp (he always is!) but on some of the bluesier tunes tending in a bit of a "soul jazz" direction (such as the 5/4 groover "As Long As You're Living" or some of the material on the Tommy T Time album), he really lays out a fat groovy bottom that swings almost in the kind of way that Billy Wallace seems to have missed in Roach's playing, I guess...

*****

A few impressions on We Insist! Freedom Now Suite (Candid 1960):
Coleman Hawkins' tenor solo on "Driva Man" smokes! It's one of the strongest statements ever committed to record by Hawkins, in my opinion. It's full of raw emotion, once he even squeaks, but doing a re-take was no option (I think they offered it to him but he didn't want to do it again).
Also how Max stresses the first beat in this 5/4 number, so as the old Hawk doesn't get lost is creating a great kind of groove, kind of a stop and go feel which I love.

Then there's Abbey Lincoln... I never liked her, the one two/third of her Riverside albums and the Candid album are just so-so, I think. But hell, that was a long way from the bar singing stuff she did, looking cute and singing nicely, to the extremely emotional "Tryptich" on this album! That track is still now hard to take for me, it's just too much, actually, too much emotion, too much screaming... but it's real.

One last thought for now: the afro stuff on the second half fits in with the general black movement and all in all this album is one of the highwatermarks of politically engaged jazz, for me. But then it's so good on a musical level, it could be about any kind of crap... but probably if it had been, it wouldn't have ended up being so good on musical terms... anyway, there's the Rollins Freedom Suite and a few other things from the era that I love, most notably the 1960 Randy Weston album "Uhuru Afrika" (Roulette, reissued on the Weston Mosaic Select). That Weston album should be much better known and be part of the "canon" together with the Rollins and Roach Freedom Suites, in my opinion!

*****

Then there's Percussion Bitter Suite - the presence of Eric Dolphy alone makes this Impulse album from 1961 a special thing. Booker Little returns on trumpet, Clifford Jordan is now on tenor (he succeeded Walter Benton who was present on the Freedom Now Suite, holding his own next to Coleman Hawkins), and Julian Priester is still around and heavily contributing. Mal Waldron is on piano, Art Davis still doing great work on bass. Booker Little's opening solo on the first track, "Garvey's Ghost" (dedicated to Marcus Garvey) is so plaintif, so moody, one of my favourite solos of his.
On "Tender Warrior" Dolphy contributes some of his mad bass clarinet playing, the highlight for me, though, comes with "Mendacity" - one of the most haunting pieces of Roach music I'm aware of, right up there with "Driva Man" from the Freedom Now Suite. Dig Dolphy's alto!

*****

Let me end this for the moment. I was actually playing Bill Evans recordings for two days now, but I'll continue my Roach trip where I left off, with Speak, Brother, Speak!, Max Roach Trio featuring the Legendary Hasaan, Drums Unlimited, Lift Every Voice and Sing, and Members, Don't Git Weary (all on Atlantic, except for It's Time, Impulse, and Speak, Brother, Speak!, Fantasy/OJCCD).
I might do another post dedictated to those albums.

Andrew Hill - Lugano 2004 - now on dime

Here's a partial re-seed, partial new seed of one of the most beautiful and accessible Andrew Hill shows I've heard:
http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=158665

A belated memorial for the late great Hill, one of the most idiosyncratic composer and musician in jazz.

**********************************************************

Andrew Hill Quartet
Concerto Jazz Rete Due
Lugano (CH), Studio 2, RSI
March 13, 2004

Greg Tardy - tenor sax, clarinet
Andrew Hill - piano
John Hebert - bass
Nasheet Waits - drums

CD1/Set1/53:23
1. But Not Farewell (11:18)
2. unknown (13:36)
3. Dedication (10:00)
4. Cantarnos (17:35)
5. 11/8 (Theme) (0:52)

CD2/Set2/64:23
1. unknown > Ann AH (11:24)
2. unknown > Ann AH (19:44)
3. Bass Intro > Ashes (15:54)
4. 11/8 (Theme) (3:11) [splice @ 2:46]
5. unknown (14:08) [encore]

All compositions by Andrew Hill

TT: 117:46


CD1 #1-2, CD2 #4 (from splice to end), CD2#5:
Sound: A-
Source: RSI 2 "Live di mezzanotte" / 2007-08-16
Lineage: Hotbird Sat > nexus-s > HDD > BeLight > Cool Edit Pro (separating tracks) > flac
(hotbird sat uses MPEG1 Layer 2/192 kbps)


CD1 #3-5, CD2 #1-3, CD2 #4 (from beginning to splice):
Sound: A/A- (stereo)
Source: RSI 2 broadcast > seeded on dime by relyles (#38309)
Lineage: FM > ? > CDR > EAC > FLAC > CDR > EAC (secure) > Cool Edit Pro (see editing note below) > FLAC (8,asb,verify)


Edits to previous (dime) source:
- cut 0:12-0:43 of CD2#3 (fm talk)
- corrected mark CD2#2/#3 (moved mark to after deleted fm talk)
- separated CD1#4 and CD1#5
- splitted mono applause onto end of CD2#4 (it was cut @ 2:46)


Note: some applause is missing on the tracks from the previous dime seed, the complete version (if only the digital source would have been used) would have been 118:23

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Tete Montoliu & Dusko Goykovich - now on dime

The last two shares of my Tete flood on dime are up now:

a fine trio show: Tete Montoliu Trio - Köln 1990
and a sideman appearance: Dusko Goykovich - Schwabach 1971

Tete recorded two fine albums under Dusko's leadership, in quartet they did "Ten To Two Blues" (Ensayo), also known as "After Hours" (on Enja under that title), and "It's About Blues Time" (Ensayo - CD reissue on Freshsound Records) inquintet with Ferdinand Povel on tenor sax. The rhythm section on both is Robert Langereis (bass) and Joe Nay (drums), the albums were recorded in November 1971 in Barcelona. Both are recommended!

Original cover & Ensayo CD reissue:


Enja reissue, and finally the second album

Check out the Dusko Goykovich Discography on the Cosmic Sounds site!

And if you really feel like checking out Dusko, don't forget his classic album, "Swinging Macedonia" (I just got the CD version of that, courtesy of Enja, while I was in Vienna). A great album!

Friday, August 10, 2007

Anita & Tete - now on dime



Another nice Tete show I put up on dime includes the great Anita O'Day, one of my favourite jazz singers and all 'round great lady. Part two of that show is just Tete in trio (with another singer, Lilian Terry, sitting in on one tune).

This was done in Antibes 1966 and has been out on a Moon bootleg release.
The second "easter egg" is also from that festival... check the comments!

Tete with Tenors - now on dime!

I put up two more sessions on which Tete Montoliu appears as a sideman, backing Joe Henderson and Messrs Johnny Griffin & Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, the later date also including two other masters filling out the rhythm section: NHOP on bass and Art Taylor on drums!

Here are the links:
Johnny Griffin & Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis - Hamburg 1975
Joe Henderson - Düsseldorf 1981

Thursday, August 09, 2007

Bright Moments - Roland Kirk on dime & right here, too!



In between the Tete flood, I put up some Roland Kirk shows on dime, some with Tete and/or Walter Bishop one with George Gruntz, and one with Andrew Hill (yup, the Newport 1962 concert).

Here are the links to the dime seeds:
Roland Kirk - Berlin, Milan & Paris 1964 (with Tete & Walter Bishop)
Roland Kirk - Copenhagen 1963 (with Tete)
Roland Kirk - Bremen 1963 (with George Gruntz)
Roland Kirk - Newport 1962 (with Andrew Hill)

These shows further include some very fine rhythm sections, such as Paul Rovère/Daniel Humair (w/Gruntz), Vernon Martin/Clifford Jarvis (w/Hill), Jimmy Woode or Tommy Potter/Kenny Clarke (w/Tete & Walter Bishop, add Sonny Stitt and J.J. Johnson for some tracks, too), and of course NHOP/J.C. Moses on the Copenhagen show w/Tete, the same band as on the official live material released as "Kirk in Copenhagen" and in its entirety (well, almost) on "Rahsaan", the fantastic 10CD complete Mercury box.

Now the Newport and Bremen shows have partly been released: one title from the Newport set appeared as a bonus on the Rahsaan box, and several Bremen titles have been part of a great 3CD set on one of Joel Dorn's doomed operations, 32 Jazz, titled "Dog Years in the Fourth Ring", which was a fantastic compilation of 2CDs worth of live material from various concerts, and on disc 3 brought the great Atlantic album "Natural Black Inventions: Root Strata" into CD age. This came out in 1997 and is highly recommended (but I guess it's also highly unlikely to stumble over by now).

Anyway, look for the download links in the comments to fill the gaps in my dime seeds - these tracks have *not* been lifted off the Mercury and 32 Jazz sets, but are from the same source my dime seeds were taken from - hence sound is less good, it's just that I find it nice to have these shows in their entirety, even more so as the Bremen seed has some announcements for tunes that then don't follow...

Bright Moments!

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Tete Montoliu - more on dime

I've put up a few shows by various tenor sax players with Tete in the backing group:

Ben Webster/Don Byas - Karlsruhe 1968
Dexter Gordon - Molde 1964
George Coleman - Laren 1977

More to follow - with Kirk, Joe Henderson, Griffin/Lockjaw, Anita O'Day, as well as more shows Tete led himself!

I'll also put up a bunch of related items on dime, with some hard-to-get-by tracks excluded, those tracks will be put up here, as well as a full (fairly short, though) show by one of jazz's giants...

Let it be a surprise for the moment!

 

Sunday, August 05, 2007

Braff-Oester-Rohrer & George Gruntz - now on dime

Posting some more piano music, after the Tete seeds (some may remember I did a loose series called "ubu's pianos" a year ago or so).

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Here's a rather unusual show... Gruntz is one of the best writers for big band music in recent years (make that decades... he's been active since the 60s!) and leads a fantastic unit, his "George Gruntz Concert Jazz Band", featuring many great soloists from different parts of the world.
He himself is a very fine pianist, although in the context of his band, he most often takes a backseat and is happy to steer the proceedings and act as a very charming MC.

He did one of the piano solo albums for German ACT label's recent series of piano solo releases - his was titled "Ringing the Luminator". It brought back to memory that Gruntz is a fine pianist and can easily do a full solo programme. So he did here, at the festival Generations, founded/lead by tenor saxophonist Roman Schwaller (who was with the Vienna Art Orchestra for long years and has several fine releases on pianist Joe Haider's JHM label, including a great quartet disc with Jimmy Cobb on drums).

Have a look at the setlist, can't be bad, can it?

His announcements are in Swiss German, with a heavy accent from Basel, Gruntz's hometown. He tells some funny stories, most notably after performing the "Guggisberglied" (meaning "Song from the Guggishill"), an old and very beautiful Swiss traditional song (Stephan Eicher also did a version of this, by the way). It's the only Swiss folk song, says Gruntz, that's in minor...


George Gruntz
Generations 2006
Frauenfeld (CH), Eisenwerk
October 10, 2006

George Gruntz - piano

1. So If Love's a Triumph of Illusions (Gruntz) 5:38
2. Well You Needn't (Monk) 5:55
3. Announcement GG (2:01)
4. All Blues (Miles Davis) 8:38
5. Body and Soul (Green-Heyman-Sour-Eyton) 5:49
6. Announcement GG (2:05)
7. Summertime (Gershwin-Gershwin-Heyward) 5:50
8. Guggisberglied (Traditional) 2:21
9. Announcement GG (3:14)
10. The Train and the River (Jimmy Giuffre) 4:00

TT: 45:36

Sound: A (mono)
Source: DRS 2 "Jazz Live" / 2007-08-03
Lineage: FM > HD > Cool Edit Pro > FLAC (8,asb,verify)
Recorded & shared by ubu


Note:

This broadcast starts with the second tune Gruntz played in this concert
Gruntz played a trio set with Fabian Gisler (b) and Dominic Egli (d), but none of it was broadcast, to my knowledge.

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Here's a partial recording of one of the greatest concerts I ever heard! I have made a few dimers turn into fans of Malcolm Braff and this specific trio and I hope more will check it out and enjoy it! (I, for one, enjoy the sh*t out of it!)
Oester is a bit low in the mix here, I'm afraid, even though I sat like two metres straight in front of his bass, with Braff to his left, back to me - Oester was standing next to the grand piano, where it gets smaller - and Rohrer sandwiching Oester on the right... Rohrer is so creative, really one of the most astonishing drummers I've seen so far (and that includes guys like Max Roach, Idris Muhammad or Leon Parker, just to set things into the right perspective!)

Here's the website of the great unerhört festival.


Braff-Oester-Rohrer
Unerhört 2006
Zürich (CH), Rote Fabrik, Fabriktheater
November 25, 2006

Malcolm Braff - piano
Bänz Oester - bass
Samuel Rohrer - drums

1. (18:26)
2. (13:48)
3. (14:02) [inc]

TT: 46:17

Sound: A-/B+
Source: audience recording, right in front of the band (2 metres)
Lineage: crappy Sony mic > MD (LP2) > analogue to HD > Cool Edit Pro > FLAC (8,asb,verify)
Recorded & shared by ubu


Note:

this is part of the first set of a nocturne concert, lasting from around midnight until 2:30 a.m. the following day (it could also be dated Nov. 26)
this is all my MD recorder would do that night, after that it stopped recording, alas, as the music grew more and more unbelievable - one of the greatest concerts I've witnessed so far!
the third track is marred by drop-outs - I deleted them, but some hiccups remain audible.

Friday, August 03, 2007

Taktlos 2007 - now on dime

Here's the first of three broadcasts, upped yesterday:
http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=156711
The second seed, including my own audience taping of the Sclavis 5 gig:
http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=156992
And here's the third, just getting started:
http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=156857

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Taktlos 07 (1/3)  - Zürich (CH), Rote Fabrik
 
Guy-Crispell-Lytton - June 2, 2007
Marilyn Crispell (p), Barry Guy (b), Paul Lytton (d)
1. 17:26 [inspired by Max Ernst's painting "Phases of the Night"] (short dropout @ 5:16)
2. 8:43 [inspired by an Yves Tanguy painting]
3. 12:18 [inspired by a Dorothea Tanning painting]
4. 15:40 [inspired by a Wilfredo Lahm painting]
TT: 54:09
Note: this is the complete set

Das Kapital - June 1, 2007
Daniel Erdman (sax), Hasse Poulsen (g,elec), Edward Perraud (perc)
5. 23:07 [excerpt]

Note: this is part of the opening event which also included film shown simultaneously with the music, the music actually interacted with the film material (or so said the radio announcer - I wasn't there that night...)


TT: 77:16

Sound: A (mono)
Source: DRS 2 "Neue Musik im Konzert" / 2007-07-18
Lineage: FM > HD > Cool Edit Pro > FLAC (8,asb,verify)
Recorded & seeded by ubu

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Taktlos 2007 (2/3)  - Zürich (CH), Rote Fabrik


CD1 - Louis Sclavis - L'imparfait des langues - June 3, 2007
Louis Sclavis - bass clarinet, soprano sax
Marc Baron - alto sax
Paul Brousseau - keys, samples, electronics
Maxime Delpierre - guitar, electronics
François Merville - drums
1. Le verbe (12:50)
2. Archéologie (11:15)
3. Annonce (11:03)
4. Story of a Phrase (12:44)
5. L'idée du dialecte (20:05)
6. Applause (1:55)
7. Palabre (6:55) [encore]
TT: 76:50

Notes: this is the complete concert. some tracks may begin with or end in another tune - I am not very familiar yet with the quintet's disc (ECM 1954 / 2007)


CD2 - Homberger-Demierre-Schütz-Lovens - Matthäus Passion - June 2, 2007
Christoph Homberger - tenor (vocals)
Jacques Demierre - piano
Martin Schütz - violoncello & electronics
Paul Lovens - drums
1. Matthäus-Passion (J.S. Bach + Free Improvisation) 24:59 [excerpt]


TT: 101:50


*** CD1#2-5,CD2 ***
Sound: A (mono)
Source: DRS 2 "Neue Musik im Konzert" / 2007-07-25
Lineage: FM > HD > Cool Edit Pro > FLAC (8,asb,verify)

*** CD1#1,6,7 ***
Sound: A-/B+ (very narrow stereo, in fact mono, too...)
Source: audience recording (center, third or fourth row)
Lineage: crappy Sony mic > MD > analogue to HD > Cool Edit Pro > FLAC (8,asb,verify)

Recorded & seeded by ubu

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My comments to the third seed:

This is a much more experimental seed than the first (and second), if I hadn't seeded the first as jazz, I might have put this under avantgarde... but still, there's plenty of interest in the music, I hope!

The first band is a young experimental trio. They often have guests, but this was the first time, I think, that they had someone coming from "serious" music (E-Musik, as the darnded germans call it... fegh that differentiation between E and U!). Anyway, this is a sounds-based project, beats and bells and whirrs and birdcalls...

The second band is a pretty earthy one, in comparison... noise, rock, psychedelic influences melded together, originally in songs, by now in free improvs which incorporate elements of these songs. Both Flo Stoffner and Flo Götte are familiar from joerg and my own Harald Haerter seeds. Here they invited cellist/electronician Martin Schütz (part of the hardcore chambermusic trio Koch-Schütz-Studer).
Homepage: http://www.lauschangriff.ch/

The archives of the new taktlos.com website:
http://www.taktlos.com/archiv.html


Taktlos 07 (3/3) - Zürich (CH), Rote Fabrik

Superterz & Marianne Schröder - June 1, 2007
Marcel Vaid (guitar, digital repeater, sampler, kalimba)
Ravi Vaid (synthesizer, sequencer, sampler)
Oliver Schmid (drums, e-drumpads, sampler, xylophon)
guest on #2: Marianne Schröder (piano)
1. Improvisation (22:03)
2. Improvisation (23:36)
TT: 45:39

Lauschangriff & Martin Schütz - June 3, 2007
Joy Frempong (voice) , Flo Stoffner (guitar), Flo Götte (electric bass), Luca Ramella (drums)
guest: Martin Schütz (electric cello, laptop)
3. Improvisation (27:51)
4. Improvisation (5:36) [inc]
TT: 33:28


TT: 79:08

Sound: A (mono)
Source: DRS 2 "Electronica" / 2007-08-01
Lineage: FM > HD > Cool Edit Pro > FLAC (8,asb,verify)
Recorded & seeded by ubu

ScoLoHoFo - Lugano 2002 (FM / FLAC) - exclusif

Here's another fine recent recording of mine... hope you'll enjoy!
Please let me know if you can help with the setlist!
And if someone feels like doing a cover, I'd be pleased!

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ScoLoHoFo
Estival Jazz 2002
Lugano (CH)
July 12, 2002

Joe Lovano - tenor sax (on #5 only: soprano sax)
John Scofield - guitar
Dave Holland - bass
Al Foster - drums

1. unknown (9:24)
2. unknown (17:07)
3. unknown > Ann (11:40)
4. Shorter Form (9:05)
5. unknown (7:24)
6. New Amsterdam (Lovano) > Band Intros DH (11:34)
7. unknown (5:40)
FM outro (0:17)

TT: 72:15

Sound: A/A-
Source: RSI 2 "Live di mezzanotte" / 2007-07-21
Lineage: FM > HD > CoolEditPro > FLAC (8,asb,verify)
Recorded & shared by ubu

Tete Montoliu - now on dime



I just put up some short Tete shows on dime:

Tete Montoliu Trio - Leverkusen 1993-10-17
Tete Montoliu Solo - Hamburg 1994-10-11
Tete Montoliu Solo & Trio - Marciac 1987-08-14
Tete Montoliu Solo - Marseille 1983-07-24

Tete Montoliu (Vicente Montoliu Massana) was born March 28, 1933 and died August 24, 1997. He was a great piano player from Spain. He did lots of good recordings, many of them for the Danish Steeplechase label.
A friend of mine compiled a discography that's online here:
http://www.jazzdiscography.com/Artists/Montoliu/index.htm
Of course I did help as much as I could. To my knowledge, the discography will need a major update and hence will become even better!

During his career, Tete played with many great musicians, Americans and Europeans, such as Lucky Thompson, Dusko Goykovich, Albert "Tootie" Heath, Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen, Chick Corea, Bobby Hutcherson, Harold Land, Herbie Lewis, Billy Higgins, David Murray, Jackie McLean, Ben Webster, Peter King, Roland Kirk, and many many more. However, his best discs I find, are usually his trio or solo albums. I can't really name a favourite disc, but if you want to check Tete out, you may go for "Catalonian Fire", "Tootie's Tempo", Dusko's "Ten To Two Blues" (also known as "After Hours"), or his album with Lucky Thompson, "Soul's Nite Out".

There's a good book on Tete, written by Miquel Jurado: "Tete. Quasi Autiobiografia" (first edition by Pòrtic Proa, Barcelona, 1998 - I received a copy of the Spanish translation from said friend).

There's also a modest wiki entry.

Thursday, August 02, 2007

The Police - Hatfield 1979 - FLAC

Here's a very early show by a pretty intriguing band. I used to listen to some of Sting's discs before I got into jazz, still have them, but it must be ten years since I last played any of them...
About Police I knew nothing, the best of compilation from the library I found boring back then, but times and my listening habits have changed, and this is a great short set, in my opinion. It's been out on a Japanese DVD (missing the encore - seems they were only just building their repertoire, hence a reprise, rather than an additional song).

Check the comments for the links!



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The Police
Hatfield (UK), Polytechnic
February 21, 1979

Andy Summers - guitar
Sting - bass & vocals
Stewart Copeland - drums

1. I Can't Stand Losing You (1) (5:19)
2. So Lonely (6:01)
3. Fallout (2:51)
4. Hole in My Life (4:13)
5. Truth Hits Everybody (2:46)
6. Message in a Bottle (4:09)
7. Peanuts (3:41)
8. Roxanne (7:11) [deleted skip @ 6:05.017]
9. Next to You (4:24) [w/band intros & reprise]
10. I Can't Stand Losing You (2) (6:07) [encore]

TT: 46:49

Sound: A/A- (mono)
Source: DRS 3 broadcast / 2007-07-23 (BBC recording)
Lineage: FM > HD > Cool Edit Pro > FLAC (8,asb,verify)


Note: all except the final "I Can't Stand Losing You" was released on a Japanese DVD
Release info: http://www.police.cybercomm.nl/video019.htm

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Ali Farka Toure - Lugano 2000 - now on dime

Here's a show I put up on dime a minute ago - terrific music by one of my favourite discoveries of recent!
http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=156601

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Ali Farka Toure (Mali)
Estival Jazz 2000
Lugano (CH), Piazza della Riforma
July 14, 2000

Ali Farka Toure - vocals, guitar
Hamadoun Bocoum - [bass?,] vocals
Samba Toure - [bass?,] vocals
Oumar Diallo - bass
Oumar Hamadoun Toure - conga
Suleymane Kane [Souleye Kane?]- djembe
Alpha Ousmane Sankare - percussion


1. Goye Kur (7:53)
2. Karaw (4:54)
3. Soukora (6:22)
4. Kadi Kadi (6:43)
5. Ai Du (6:04)
6. Dofana (8:13)
7. Hilly Yoro (6:26)
8. Gomni (6:04)
9. Diaraby (6:39)
10. Jangali Famata (4:10)

TT: 63:32

Sound: A/A- (mono)
Source: RSI 2 "Live di mezzanotte" / 2007-07-30
Lineage: FM > HD > Cool Edit Pro > FLAC (8,asb,verify)
Recorded & shared by ubu