Playlist, Week of 2026-06-28

XTC's Live Boots: energy over fidelity... Myra Melford's For the Love of Fire and Water still holds up as one of the strongest jazz releases of the last few years... Always great to dip back into early Ellington... talk about holding up... The jam session of Jimi Hendrix with Robert Wyatt on drums is disappointing, as only Hendrix jam sessions can be... The Fire! Orchestra's recordings are uniformly transcendent and inspiring, not least because of the vocals of Mariam Wallentin and Sofia Jernberg... The Art Ensemble of Chicago is truly one of the greatest improvisational groups... their 1978 Public Theatre run is outstanding... 

Playlist 2026-06-29:

*Art Ensemble of Chicago: 1978-03-10 NYC (CDR) (disc 2)
*Art Ensemble of Chicago: 1978-03-11 NYC (CDR) (disc 1)
*Ayumi Ishito: Ayumi Ishito and the Spacemen, Vol. 1
*Beach Boys: We Gotta Groove: The Brother Studio Years (disc 2)
*Anthony Braxton: 9 Compositions (Iridium) 2006 (selections)
*John Coltrane: First Meditations (For Quartet)
*Cream: Wheels of Fire (Super Deluxe Ed.) (disc 3)
*Kris Davis/Lutosławski Quartet: The Solastalgia Suite
*Miles Davis: The Cellar Door Sessions 1970 (disc 5) "Honky Tonk"
*Miles Davis: The Columbia Years 1955-1985 (disc 4)
*Duke Ellington: The Duke Ellington Centennial Edition: The Complete RCA Victor Recordings (1927-1973) (disc 1)
*Duke Ellington: Never No Lament: The Blanton-Webster Band, 1940-1942 (disc 2)
*Fire! Orchestra: Enter
*Fire! Orchestra: Ritual
*Funkadelic: Hardcore Jollies
*Grateful Dead: 1978-04-24 Normal IL (CDR) (disc 1)
*Grateful Dead: 1991-09-24 Boston (CDR) "Dark Star"
*Grateful Dead: 1991-09-26 Boston (CDR) "Dark Star"
*Jimi Hendrix w/Robert Wyatt: 1968-10 Hollywood (CDR)
*Neil Jendon/Mark Nagy: Cardew/Treatise, Vol. 5: Pages 101-130
*Ingrid Laubrock: Monochromes
*Lazro/Léandre/Lovens: For Baritone Sax, Double Bass & Drumset
*Paul McCartney: The Boys of Dungeon Lane
*Myra Melford's Fire and Water Quintet: For the Love of Fire and Water
*Mendoza Hoff Revels: Echolocation
*Merzbow/Balázs Pándi/Mats Gustafsson/Thurston Moore: Cuts Up Cuts Out
*Harry Miller: BBC Sessions, 1976-1977 (CDR)
*Muffins: Baker's Dozen (disc 11)
*Naked City: Heretic: Jeux des Dames Cruelles
*New Ting: 2026-05-11 "Battering Wham" (wav)
*Angelika Niescier: Chicago Tapes
*Pauline Oliveros: Reverberations: Tape & Electronic Music 1961-1970 (discs 1, 2, 3)
*Playfield: Stepping Out, Vol. 1
*Sonny Rollins: East Broadway Run Down (side 2)
*Sonny Sharrock: Ask the Ages
*Sparks: MAD! (sides 1, 2)
*Sparks: MADDER! (sides 1, 2)
*Sun Ra: The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Vol. 2 "Cosmic Chaos"
*Sun Ra: East Two +5 (sides 1, 2)
*Sun Ra and His Omniverse Jet-Set Arkestra: 1980-12-30 Detroit (CDR) (disc 3)
*Cecil Taylor: 3 Phasis (side 2)
*Test: Ecstatic Peace
*Pat Thomas & XT: Strata, Act (Joy Contemporary)* (disc  1)
*Weather Report: Black Market (side 1)
*XTC: Live Boots: Emerald City, Cherry Hill, New Jersey 17th April 1981 (sides 3, 4)

Reading List, Week of 2026-06-28

Reading List 2026-06-29:

*Birkerts, Sven. An Artificial Wilderness: Essays on 20th-Century Literature (started)
*McKinney, Devin. Magic Circles: The Beatles in Dream and History (reread/finished)
*Christgau, Robert. Is It Still Good to Ya? Fifty Years of Rock Criticism, 1967-2017 (in progress)
*Forrest, Leon. Divine Days (in progress)
*Garner, Bryan A. Modern American Usage, 2nd ed. (in progress)
 

Sven Birkerts on Our Relation to Time

 ...these feelings come to all of us who are lucky enough to live so long. They accompany the ultimately unavoidable realization that our basic relation to time—which is to say to possibility, to memory—has changed. The former diminishes as the latter grows, and there is nothing to be done. At a certain point in adulthood the weights seem equally distributed, the balance is at rest. And then, a moment later, it begins to tip, imperceptibly at first, then more obviously. (Sven Birkerts, " 'Live All You Can,' " in Reading Life: Books for the Ages, 2007, Graywolf Press, p. 156)

Playlist, Week of 2026-06-21

 [Ahmed] continues to kick my butt and engage my brain... The newest Zorn/Brian Marsella Trio strikes me as more of the same, but the same is so, so good... Love the strings on the one side of the Andrew Hill two-record set One for One... I wish he had explored those textures more... I have tbr (to be read) piles, but I also have tlt (to listen to) piles, and mine are constantly growing faster than time allows to work through them... 

Playlist 2026-06-22:

*[Ahmed]: Play Monk (disc 2)
*Art Ensemble of Chicago: 1978-03-10 NYC (CDR) (disc 1)
*Beatles: Please Please Me (2009 mono remaster)
*Beatles: Hard Day's Night (2009 mono remaster)
*Beatles: Help! (2009 mono remaster)
*Beatles: The Beatles (2009 mono remaster)
*Boris: Heavy Rocks
*Anthony Braxton Quartet: 1976-10-28 Graz, Austria (CDR) "Four Winds"
*Tina Brooks: True Blue
*Sam Byrd/Jimmy Ghaphery/Eric Helm: 2026-06-13 Richmond VA (CDR)
*Byrds: The Essential Byrds (disc 1)
*John Coltrane: The Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings (disc 3) "Chasin' the Trane"
*John Coltrane: Coltrane (side 1)
*Cream: Wheels of Fire (Super Deluxe Ed.) (disc 1)
*Miles Davis: Someday My Prince Will Come (side 1)
*Duke Ellington: Money Jungle
*Duke Ellington: The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse
*Entropic Hop: Live at Downtown Music Gallery
*Fire! Orchestra: Exit!
*Grateful Dead: Hundred Year Hall (1972-04-26 Frankfurt) (disc 2) "The Other One"
*Grateful Dead: 1991-06-22 Chicago (CDR) "Dark Star"
*Grateful Dead: 1991-08-16 Mountain View CA (CDR) "Dark Star"
*Grateful Dead: 1991-09-10 NYC (CDR) "Dark Star"
*Joe Henderson: Consonance: Live at the Jazz Showcase (disc 2)
*Andrew Hill: One for One (side 2)
*Neil Jendon/Mark Nagy: Cardew/Treatise, Vol. 4: Pages 76-100
*Fela Kuti: Roforofo Fight
*Ingrid Laubrock: Contemporary Chaos Practices
*Charles Mingus: Fables of Faubus: Slugs' Vol. 2
*National Health: Missing Pieces
*New Ting: 2026-06-08 "Carry This" (wav)
*Ivo Perelman: The Art of the Improv Trio, Vol. 6
*Sun Ra and His Arkestra: Jazz in Silhouette (Expanded Edition) (side 3)
*Sun Ra Arkestra: Live at the Red Garter (disc 1)
*Sun Ra: East Two + 7
*Sun Ra and His Omniverse Jet-Set Arkestra: 1980-12-30 Detroit (CDR) (discs 1, 2)
*Craig Taborn: Light Made Lighter
*Umlaut Big Band: Mary's Ideas (disc 2)
*UYA: 1995-02-01 Wet Smoke (wav)
*UYA: Space Chunk (CDR compilation)
*Various artists: A Bolus of Pop Chyme/7-Inchers of Pleasure (cassette compilation) (side A)
*Alex Ward Item 10: Volition (Live At Cafe Oto) "Entreaty"
*XTC: Live Boots: Emerald City, Cherry Hill, New Jersey 17th April 1981 (side 3)
*John Zorn/Brian Marsella Trio: Alea Iacta Est

Reading List, Week of 2026-06-21

Reading List 2026-06-22:

*Drnaso, Nick. Acting Class (finished)
*Christgau, Robert. Is It Still Good to Ya? Fifty Years of Rock Criticism, 1967-2017 (in progress)
*Forrest, Leon. Divine Days (in progress)
*Garner, Bryan A. Modern American Usage, 2nd ed. (in progress)
*McKinney, Devin. Magic Circles: The Beatles in Dream and History (reread/in progress
 

This Is Why I Keep Going Back

 ...a novel for me is a pretext, a way of starting up and sustaining a complicated and many-layered inner exchange, a to-and-fro which I long ago discovered that I need in order to locate myself in the world. Reading is a process that keeps the inner realm open, susceptible. Involvement in a book sets things going at a depth. (Sven Birkerts, "The Possibility of the Search," in Reading Life: Books for the Ages, 2007, Graywolf Press, p. 130)

 

Playlist, Week of 2026-06-14

 

The new Cecil Taylor release Fragments is excellent... some of the best sounding performances I've heard from this particular Unit... lots of critics quibble, but I quite like the contributions of Sam Rivers... I'm still getting blown away by [Ahmed]... loving their takes on Monk... 

Playlist 2026-06-15:

*[Ahmed]: Giant Beauty (disc 1)
*[Ahmed]: Play Monk (disc 1)
*Art Ensemble: 1967/68 (disc 1) "Quartet No. 1"
*Art Ensemble of Chicago: 1978-03-09 NYC (CDR) (discs 1, 2)
*At the Drive-In: Vaya
*Ayumi Ishito: Roboquarians, Vol. 2
*Beatles: Sgt. Peppers Lonely Heart Club Band (2009 mono remaster)
*Ornette Coleman Double Quartet: Free Jazz (side 1)
*Elvis Costello: This Year's Model (UK) (sides 1, 2)
*Elvis Costello: Taking Liberties (sides 1, 2)
*Egg: The Metronomical Society
*Duke Ellington and His Orchestra: Jazz of the World War 2nd, Vol. 2: 1944/1945 (side 2)
*Duke Ellington and His Orchestra: A Drum Is a Woman (side 2)
*Duke Ellington: …And His Mother Called Him Bill
*Grateful Dead: 1990-12-31 Oakland (CDR) "Dark Star"
*Grateful Dead: 1991-04-01 Greensboro NC (CDR) "Dark Star"
*Grateful Dead: 1991-06-14 Washington DC (CDR) "Dark Star"
*Alexander Hawkins/Sofia Jernberg: Musho
*Joe Henderson: Multiple (side 1)
*Henry Now: Then Again (side 2)
*Andrew Hill: One for One (side 3)
*Hyper Gal: Our Hyper
*Neil Jendon/Mark Nagy: Cardew/Treatise, Vol. 3: Pages 51-75
*James Brandon Lewis: An Unruly Manifesto
*Charles Mingus: Dizzy Atmosphere: Slugs' Vol. 1
*Roscoe Mitchell/Nicole Mitchell's Black Earth Ensemble: Three Compositions "Quintet #1 for Eleven"
*Naked City: Grand Guignol
*New Ting Ting Loft: 2016-04-13 Musicircus, UR, Richmond (wav)
*New Ting: 2026-06-08 Carry It All (wav)
*Sonny Rollins Quartet with Don Cherry: Complete Live at the Village Gate 1962 (disc 2)
*Sun Ra and His Myth Science Arkestra: When Sun Comes Out (side 1)
*Sun Ra: East Two +5 (sides 1, 2)
*Sun Ra and His Omniverse Jet-Set Arkestra: 1980-12-29 Detroit (CDR) (disc 3)
*Sun Ra: Kingdom of Discipline (side 2)
*Cecil Taylor: Fragments: The Complete 1969 Salle Pleyel Concerts (discs 1, 2)
*Pat Thomas & XT: Strata, Act (Joy Contemporary)* (disc 3)
*UYA: 1995-01-25 I Have to Build My Own Martians (wav)
*Various artists: Variations #2: The Globe (Jon Leidecker) (CDR)
*Marta Warelis: Still Life with Lemons