Playlist, Week of 2026-08-30

 

With Miles Davis at the Blackhawk, not only do we get some of Miles' best playing ever, we also get Hank Mobley... Finally finished working my way through relistening to Sun Ra's historic stint in Detroit over the last days of December 1980... an amazing run with not much overlap of material (except for the space chants, which I'll likely skip in the future for now)... 

Playlist 2026-08-31:

*Cannonball Adderley/John Coltrane: Cannonball & Coltrane (side 1)
*And Big Band: 2026-08-28 RVA (wav)
*Anthony Braxton: The Complete Braxton 1971
*Anthony Braxton/Gino Robair: Duets 1987
*Daniel Carter: Makeshift Spirituals, Vol. 1
*Chick Corea: Circulus
*Miles Davis: Rare Miles (CDR compilation) (disc 6)
*Miles Davis Quintet: 1957-02-16 St. Louis (CDR)
*Miles Davis Quintet: 1957-02-23 St. Louis (CDR)
*Miles Davis/John Coltrane: The Complete Columbia Recordings 1955-1961 (disc 3)
*Miles Davis: Someday My Prince Will Come (side 2)
*Miles Davis: In Person Friday and Saturday Nights at the Blackhawk, Complete (disc 1)
*Miles Davis: Seven Steps: The Complete Columbia Recordings of Miles Davis 1963-1964 (disc 1)
*Miles Davis: The Complete In a Silent Way Sessions (disc 1)
*Miles Davis: Live at the Fillmore East (March 7, 1970): It's About That Time (disc 1)
*Miles Davis: The Cellar Door Sessions 1970 (disc 2) "It's About That Time"
*Miles Davis: The Complete On the Corner Sessions (disc 4) "Calypso Frelimo"
*Duke Ellington: Never No Lament: The Blanton-Webster Band, 1940-1942 (disc 3)
*Duke Ellington and His Orchestra: The Treasury Shows, Vol. 14 (disc 2)
*Duke Ellington: His Piano and His Orchestra at the Bal Masque (side 1)
*Funkadelic: 1971-09-12 Rochester, MI (CDR)
*Gentle Giant: Playing the Fool (side 4)
*Grateful Dead: Sunshine Daydream (Veneta, Oregon 8/27/72) (disc 2) "Playing in the Band"
*Lightnin' Hopkins: Dirty House Blues (disc 1)
*Ingrid Laubrock: Dreamt Twice, Twice Dreamt (disc 1)
*James Brandon Lewis: An Unruly Manifesto
*Jimmy Lyons: Other Afternoons
*Matt Mitchell/Kate Gentile: Snark Horse (disc 6)
*National Health: Of Queues and Cures (side 1)
*New Ting: 2018-09-24 "How Easily I Can Lie" (wav)
*New Ting: 2019-10-07 "We All Answered" (wav)
*Soojin Suh: Prism of Existence
*Sun Ra and His Arkestra: Supersonic Jazz (21st Century Expanded Ed.) (side 3)
*Sun Ra and His Omniverse Jet-Set Arkestra: 1980-12-31 Detroit (CDR) (disc 9)
*Cecil Taylor Feel Trio: Two Ts for a Lovely T (disc 8)
*Cecil Taylor Orchestra Humane: At Iridium 2004 (disc 3)
*Lennie Tristano: Intuition
*Alex Ward: The Trade
*Dionne Warwick: Here, Where There Is Love  (side 1)

Reading List, Week of 2026-08-30

Reading List 2026-08-31:

*The Adventures of Jonathan Corncob, Loyal American Refugee (started)
*Fletcher, John. The Tamer Tamed (started/finished)
*Gillen, Kieron et al. The Power Fantasy, Vol. 2: Mutually Reassuring Destruction (started/finished)
*Hemingway, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises (reread/started/finished)
*Barker, Nicola. The Three Button Trick and Other Stories (finished)
*Birkerts, Sven. The Other Walk: Essays (finished)
*Gillen, Kieron et al. The Power Fantasy, Vol. 1: The Superpowers (finished)
*Tejaratchi, Sean. Liartown: The First Four Years (reread/finished)
*Cook, Richard. It's About That Time: Miles Davis On and Off Record (in progress)
*Garner, Bryan A. Modern American Usage, 2nd ed. (in progress)
 

A Lifetime of Listening

Sun Ra, Anthony Braxton, Duke Ellington, Cecil Taylor, John Coltrane, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Miles Davis, Charles Mingus... any -one- of these artists would provide a lifetime of listening... lots to do!

Playlist, Week of 2026-08-23

Returning again to Ingrid Laubrock's Dreamt Twice, Twice Dreamt was a delight... one of her most entrancing albums, somehow capturing the foggy ethereality of half-remembered dreamscapes... for some reason I associate it in my mind with Sun Ra's Heliocentric Worlds, Vol. 1... it's that sense that no matter how many times I listen to it, I feel like there's more to grasp that's just beyond my comprehension... music to return to time and again... Reading Richard Cook's It's About That Time is of course sending me back (not that I ever left) to Miles Davis... 

Playlist 2026-08-24:

*Cannonball Adderley: Somethin' Else
*Louis Armstrong: From the Original Okehs Vol. 5 1931/32
*Will Bryce/Sam Byrd/Jimmy Ghaphery: 2026-05-02 RVA (CDR) "Pear Tree"
*Nels Cline Singers: Initiate (disc 1)
*Rodger Coleman/Sam Byrd: The Mathematics of War
*John Coltrane: Live in Japan (disc 3) "Peace on Earth"
*Miles Davis/John Coltrane: The Complete Columbia Recordings 1955-1961 (discs 1, 2)
*Miles Davis + 19/Orchestra under the Direction of Gil Evans: Miles Ahead
*Miles Davis: 1958-05-17 NYC (CDR)
*Earth Wind and Fire: Faces (selections)
*Earth Wind and Fire: Raise! (selections)
*Duke Ellington and His Orchestra: The Treasury Shows, Vol. 14 (disc 1)
*Grateful Dead: The Complete Fillmore West 1969 (disc 7) "Dark Star"
*Grateful Dead: 1969-12-04 San Francisco (CDR) "Dark Star"
*Grateful Dead: 1981-05-01 Hampton VA (CDR) (disc 3)
*Grateful Dead: 1990-09-20 NYC (CDR) "Dark Star"
*Guided By Voices: Crawlspace of the Pantheon
*Alexander Hawkins: No Nation But Imagination
*Susie Ibarra: Flower after Flower
*ISM: Metaphor
*Ingrid Laubrock: Dreamt Twice, Twice Dreamt (discs 1, 2)
*Rob Mazurek Exploding Star Orchestra: Galactic Parables: Vol. 1 (disc 1) "Free Agents of Sound"
*Ava Mendoza: Alive Alone, Alive Together
*Nicole Mitchell's Sonic Projections: The Secret Escapades of Velvet Anderson
*New Ting: 2026-08-17 "Golly" (wav)
*Paal Nilssen-Love Circus with The Ex Guitars: Turn Thy Loose
*Pauline Oliveros: Reverberations: Tape & Electronic Music 1961-1970 (disc 7)
*OM: Sudpol
*Otomo Yoshihide Special Big Band: Stone Stone Stone
*Charlie Parker: The Complete Savoy Studio Sessions (side 6)
*Sun Ra and His Arkestra: Elliptical Orbits
*Sun Ra and His Space Arkestra: What Planet Is This? (disc 2)
*Sun Ra: Somewhere Over the Rainbow (Strut) (disc 2)
*Sun Ra and His Omniverse Jet-Set Arkestra: 1980-12-31 Detroit (CDR) (disc 8)
*Cecil Taylor: 3 Phasis (side 1)
*Cecil Taylor: One Too Many Salty Swift and Not Goodbye (sides 1, 2)
*Cecil Taylor Orchestra Humane: At Iridium 2004 (discs 1, 2)
*Henry Threadgill Zooid: This Brings Us To (side 1)
*Marta Warelis: Still Life with Lemons

Reading List, Week of 2026-08-23

Reading List 2026-08-24:

*Barker, Nicola. The Three Button Trick and Other Stories (started)
*Birkerts, Sven. The Other Walk: Essays (started)
*Gillen, Kieron et al. The Power Fantasy, Vol. 1: The Superpowers (started)
*Tejaratchi, Sean. Liartown: The First Four Years (reread/started)
*Fratricide Punished, or, Prince Hamlet of Denmark (transl. Horace Howard Furness) (started/finished)
*Kirby, Jack. The Hunger Dogs (started/finished)
*Ram V., Evan Cagle, et al. The New Gods, Vol. 1: The Falling Sky (reread/started/finished)
*Ram V., Evan Cagle, et al. The New Gods, Vol. 2: Edge of Darkness (started/finished)
*Iyer, Pico. A Beginner's Guide to Japan (finished)
*Vollmann, William T. The Ice-Shirt (Seven Dreams: A Book of North American Landscapes, Vol. 1) (finished)
*Cook, Richard. It's About That Time: Miles Davis On and Off Record (in progress)
*Garner, Bryan A. Modern American Usage, 2nd ed. (in progress)
 

And Big Band: Upcoming RVA Gig on Friday August 28, 2026

 

I will be playing in And Big Band this Friday... looking forward to it! 

Playlist, Week of 2026-08-16

 

I hope the lineup of Kim Cass's Levs proves to be more than a one-off... I really enjoy Charlie Parker on tenor... he's not as comfortable with it, and so his playing is less fluid... but it's still monstrously swinging... The Cecil Taylor big band music is endlessly nourishing... "If music be the food of love, play on"... Still continuing to be blown away by the majestic Sun Ra release Somewhere Over the Rainbow... especially all the new John Gilmore solos... 

Playlist 2026-08-17:

*Art Ensemble: 1967/68 (disc 4) "Number 2 - Quartet Version Take 7"
*Art Ensemble of Chicago: Kabalaba (pt. 1)
*Beatles: Something New (side 2)
*Beatles: Yesterday and Today (sides 1, 2)
*Anthony Braxton/Richard Teitelbaum: Silence/Time Zones:  "Crossing (Dedicated To Roscoe Mitchell)"
*Kim Cass: Levs
*Frédéric Chopin: 24 Preludes Op. 28/Sonata No. 2, Op. 35/Polonaise, Op. 53 (Evgeny Kissin)
*Gerald Cleaver: Adjust
*John Coltrane: Giant Steps (side 2)
*Miles Davis: Complete Birth of the Cool
*Miles Davis: Collector's Items (side 2)
*Deerhoof: Future Teenage Cave Artists
*Deerhoof: Miracle-Level
*Duke Ellington: The Complete 1932-1940 Brunswick, Columbia and Master Recordings of Duke Ellington and His Famous Orchestra (disc 11)
*Duke Ellington: Live in Mexico "The Mexican Suite"
*Grateful Dead: 1981-05-01 Hampton VA (CDR) (disc 2)
*Charlie Haden: Liberation Music Orchestra (side 1)
*Ingrid Laubrock: Monochromes
*Ingrid Laubrock/Kris Davis: Blood Moon
*James Brandon Lewis: An Unruly Manifesto
*London Jazz Composers Orchestra featuring Anthony Braxton: 1988-03-25 Basel, Switzerland (CDR) (disc 2) "Unidentified Barry Guy Composition"
*Monstrance: Monstrance (disc 2)
*New Ting: 2027-07-27 "Horse for Au Pair" (wav)
*OM: It's About Time
*Tony Oxley Quintet: Angular Apron
*Charlie Parker: The Complete Savoy and Dial Studio Recordings 1944-1948 (disc 5)
*Soft Machine: Floating World Live
*Sun Ra and His Space Arkestra: What Planet Is This? (disc 1)
*Sun Ra: Somewhere Over the Rainbow (Strut) (disc 1)
*Sun Ra and His Omniverse Jet-Set Arkestra: 1980-12-31 Detroit (CDR) (disc 7)
*Sun Ra: Inside the Light World: Sun Ra Meets the OVC (side 1)
*Cecil Taylor: Fragments: The Complete 1969 Salle Pleyel Concerts (disc 1)
*Cecil Taylor Unit: 1979-03-15 WKCR, NYC (CDR) track 1
*Cecil Taylor Orchestra Humane: At Iridium 2004 (discs 13, 14)
*UYA: 1995-03-16 Touch Module (wav)
*Various artists: Stax Singles Vol. 4: Rarities and the Best of the Rest (disc 2)
*Stevie Wonder: 1979-12-18 Secret Life of Plants Tour, Pasadena CA (CDR) (disc 1)
*Robert Wyatt: Shleep