Playlist, Week of 2026-05-03

Still absorbing and getting new insights from Deerhoof's Miracle-Level and Ingrid Laubrock's Serpentines... Prog rocks gotten off: Passion Play and Tarkus... Overall I have preferred the 1974 "Dark Stars" to the 1973 ones... I am almost at the end of the fantastic run of Bill Kreutzmann-only versions... Slowly working my way through the epic Sun Ra Detroit run of December 1980...

Playlist 2026-05-04:

*Art Ensemble of Chicago: 1977-07-29 NYC (CDR) (discs 2, 3)
*Béla Bartók: 6 String Quartets (Emerson String Quartet) (disc 1)
*Borderlands Trio: Asteroidea "Borderlands"
*Anthony Braxton: Quartet (England) 1985 (disc 4)
*Nels Cline: Dirty Baby (disc 1)
*John Coltrane: Transition
*John Coltrane: First Meditations (For Quartet) (sides 1, 2)
*John Coltrane: A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle
*Miles Davis & Gil Evans: The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings (disc 2)
*Miles Davis: The Columbia Years 1955-1985 (disc 1)
*Deerhoof: Miracle-Level (side 1)
*Duke Ellington: The Complete 1932-1940 Brunswick, Columbia and Master Recordings of Duke Ellington and His Famous Orchestra (disc 9)
*Duke Ellington: Duke 56/62 Vol. 1 (sides 3, 4)
*Duke Ellington: The Private Collection: Vol. 10, Studio Sessions New York & Chicago 1965, 1966, 1971 "Harlem"
*Emerson Lake and Palmer: The Atlantic Years (disc 1) "Tarkus"
*Flying Sutra with Ayumi Ishito: Out Beyond Orbit
*Grateful Dead: Dick's Picks 12 (1974-06-28 Boston) (disc 3) "Weather Report Suite > Jam> U.S. Blues"
*Grateful Dead: 1974-07-25 Chicago (CDR) (disc 2) "Dark Star"
*Grateful Dead: Dick's Picks 7 (1974-09-10 London) (disc 3) "Dark Star"
*Grateful Dead: 1978-04-11 Atlanta (CDR) (disc 1)
*Guru Guru: UFO
*Jimi Hendrix: Hendrix in the West
*Charles Ives: Symphonies No. 1 & 4 (Michael Tilson Thomas)
*Jethro Tull: A Passion Play
*Kinks: The Journey: Part 2 (side 1)
*Steve Lacy/Andrea Centazzo: Tao
*Ingrid Laubrock: Serpentines
*Lightning Bolt: The Horizon Viral
*Allen Lowe: Jews and Roots: An Avant-Garde of Our Own (discs 7, 8)
*Charles Mingus: Mingus in Argentina: The Buenos Aires Concerts (disc 2)
*New Ting: 2025-10-20 "Tethered Dream" (wav)
*OOIOO: The Horizon Spiral
*Keith Rowe/John Tilbury: E.E. Tension and Circumstance
*Todd Rundgren: Healing
*Fie Schouten: Open Space
*Sun Ra and His Arkestra: Supersonic Jazz (21st Century Expanded Ed.) (side 1)
*Sun Ra and His Arkestra: Sound of Joy
*Sun Ra: The Futuristic Sounds of Sun Ra (sides 1, 2)
*Sun Ra and His Omniverse Jet-Set Arkestra: 1980-12-28 Detroit (CDR) (discs 3, 4)
*Cecil Taylor Big Band: 1995-07-03 NYC (CDR) (disc 1) track 1
*UYA: 1994-12-07 Frosty the Newt
*Yes: Tales from Topographic Oceans (Super Deluxe Ed.) (discs 11, 12)

Reading List, Week of 2026-05-03

Reading List 2026-05-04:

*King, Stephen, and Peter Straub. Black House (reread/started)
*King, Stephen, and Peter Straub. The Talisman (reread/finished)
*Garner, Bryan A. Modern American Usage, 2nd ed. (in progress)
*Munday, Anthony et al. Sir Thomas More (Arden Shakespeare 3rd series, ed. John Jowett) (in progress)
 

Playlist, Week of 2026-04-26

Tom Rainey rocks out on Downpour... Paul Gonsalves nails it again and again on Featuring Paul Gonsalves... XTC tries too hard on White Music... Cecil Taylor and Anthony Braxton together: exquisite perfection... Al Foster and Michael Henderson: deep funk on "Mtume"... Craig Taborn: sublime on Bells for the South Side... lots to be thankful for...

Playlist 2026-04-27:

*[Ahmed]: Sama'a [Audition] (side 1)
*Art Ensemble of Chicago: 1977-07-28 NYC (CDR) (disc 3)
*Art Ensemble of Chicago: 1977-07-29 NYC (CDR) (disc 1)
*Art Ensemble of Chicago: Live in Berlin (disc 2)
*Beach Boys: The Smile Sessions (sides 1, 2)
*Daniel Carter: Makeshift Spirituals, Vol. 1
*Nels Cline Singers: Initiate (disc 2)
*Nels Cline: Downpour "Downpour 2"
*John Coltrane: Evenings at the Village Gate (side 2)
*Miles Davis Quintet: Live [1960-04-09 Scheveningen] (side 2)
*Miles Davis: The Columbia Years 1955-1985 (disc 2)
*Miles Davis: The Complete On the Corner Sessions (disc 5) "Mtume"
*Richard Dawson: The Ruby Cord
*Bill Dixon: Bill Dixon in Italy, Vol. 2 (side 1)
*Duke Ellington: The Complete 1932-1940 Brunswick, Columbia and Master Recordings of Duke Ellington and His Famous Orchestra (disc 8)
*Duke Ellington: Money Jungle
*Duke Ellington/John Coltrane: Duke Ellington & John Coltrane (sides 1, 2)
*Duke Ellington and His Orchestra: Featuring Paul Gonsalves (sides 1, 2)
*Entropic Hop: Live at Downtown Music Gallery "Action Prevails Where Words Will Fail"
*Flying Sutra with Ayumi Ishito: Out Beyond Orbit
*Grateful Dead: 1972-06-16 Hatford CT (CDR) "The Other One"
*Grateful Dead: 1974-05-14 Missoula MT (CDR) "Dark Star"
*Grateful Dead: 1978-04-10 Atlanta (CDR) (disc 3)
*Grateful Dead: Dave's Picks Vol. 34 (1974-06-03 Miami) (disc 3) "Dark Star Jam > Spanish Jam > U.S. Blues"
*Heldon: Third ("It's Always Rock'n'Roll") (disc 2)
*Charles Ives: Symphonies No. 2 & 3/Central Park in the Dark (Leonard Bernstein)
*Joseph Jarman: As If It Were the Seasons (side 2)
*Allen Lowe: Jews and Roots: An Avant-Garde of Our Own (disc 6)
*Magda Mayas' Filamental: Murmur
*Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66: Equinox
*Roscoe Mitchell: Bells for the South Side (disc 2) "Red Moon in the Sky/Odwalla"
*Thelonious Monk: Brilliant Corners
*New Order: Substance
*Wadada Leo Smith: Najwa "Ornette Coleman´s Harmolodic Sonic Hierographic Forms: A Resonance Change In The Millennium"
*Soft Machine: Seven
*Sun Ra and His Solar Arkestra: Other Planes of There (side 1)
*Sun Ra and His Arkestra: Omniverse (side 1)
*Craig Taborn: Dream Archives
*Cecil Taylor Quartet featuring Anthony Braxton: 2007-06-08 London (CDR)
*Pat Thomas & XT: Strata, Act (Joy Contemporary)* (disc 2)
*Phil Upchurch Guitar Sound: Feeling Blue
*UYA: 1994-11-17 Keep Saying this (wav)
*UYA: 1994-12-01 Bend, Monster (wav)
*Various artists: Nigeria Soul Fever (disc 1)
*Weather Report: Live and Unreleased (disc 2)
*XTC: White Music
*XTC: Transistor Blast: The Best of the BBC Sessions (disc 4) 

Reading List, Week of 2026-04-26

Reading List 2026-04-27:

*King, Stephen, and Peter Straub. The Talisman (reread/started)
*Munday, Anthony et al. Sir Thomas More (Arden Shakespeare 3rd series, ed. John Jowett) (started)
*DuBois, Gaylord et al. Brothers of the Spear, Vol. 1 (finished)
*Hummer, T. R. The Infinity Sessions: Poems (finished)
*Nabokov, Vladimir. Pale Fire (reread/finished)
*Garner, Bryan A. Modern American Usage, 2nd ed. (in progress)
 

Cecil Taylor on Artistry and Time

...I mean the first time I saw Carmen Amaya dance, in 1955, it was as though everything stopped for me, I mean everything stopped. When you see that. Now that, to me, is the highest kind of compliment that can be paid to another artist, to make somebody else lose all sense of time, all sense of their own existence outside, like the perception of all their energies on that figure. That to me is the greatest. (Cecil Taylor, interview with Bill Smith, 1974-09-07)

This is absolutely what it was like for me every time I saw Cecil Taylor live. (And that Bill Smith interview is one of the best I've read with Mr. Taylor.)

 

Playlist, Week of 2026-04-19

 

I have been on a bit of a Nels Cline kick lately... he's such a versatile guitarist... I am particularly drawn to his skronky, atonal noise playing, like on the live disc of Initiate... good stuff...

Playlist 2026-04-20:

*Amon Duul II: Yeti
*Art Ensemble: 1967/68 (disc 3) "Number 1"
*Anthony Braxton: Trillium E (disc 1) "Act 1, Part 1"
*Anthony Braxton: Trillium X (disc 8)
*Nels Cline: The Inkling
*Nels Cline: Downpour
*Nels Cline Singers: Initiate (disc 1)
*Walt Dickerson Quartet: Impressions of A Patch of Blue
*Duke Ellington: The Indispensable Duke Ellington and the Small Groups (Vol. 9/10) 1940-1946 (side 2)
*Farmers By Nature: Love and Ghosts (disc 1) "Love and Ghosts"
*Grateful Dead: Dick's Picks 11 (1972-09-27 Jersey City, NJ) "Dark Star"
*Grateful Dead: 1973-12-18 Tampa FL (CDR) "Dark Star"
*Grateful Dead: 1974-02-24 Winterland SF (CDR) "Dark Star"
*Allen Lowe: Jews and Roots: An Avant-Garde of Our Own (disc 5)
*Otomo Yoshihide's New Jazz Orchestra: Out to Lunch
*Otomo Yoshihide's New Jazz Quintet: Hat and Beard
*Otomo Yoshihide Special Big Band: Stone Stone Stone
*Evan Parker ElectroAcoustic Septet: Seven "Seven-2"
*Sun Ra and His Solar-Myth Arkestra: The Solar​-​Myth Approach, Vols. 1 & 2 (discs 1, 2)
*Sun Ra and His Omniverse Jet-Set Arkestra: 1980-12-27 Detroit (CDR) (disc 5)
*Sun Ra and His Omniverse Jet-Set Arkestra: 1980-12-28 Detroit (CDR) (discs 1, 2)
*Pat Thomas & XT: Strata, Act (Joy Contemporary)* (discs 1, 3)
*UYA: 1994 (CDR compilation)
*UYA: 1994-11-01 Image of a Stale Jazz (wav)
*UYA: 1994-11-08 Newt-Dole Hole Merger (wav)
*Various artists: WSAM: Short Cuts I (cassette compilation) (side B)
*Weather Report: Live and Unreleased (disc 1)
*XTC: Drums and Wires (sides 1, 2) 

Reading List, Week of 2026-04-19

Reading List 2026-04-20:

*DuBois, Gaylord et al. Brothers of the Spear, Vol. 1 (started)
*Nabokov, Vladimir. Pale Fire (reread/started)
*Creepy Archives, Vol. 1 (ed. Shawna Gore) (finished)
*Green, Daniel. Gilbert Sorrentino: An Introduction (finished)
*Herriman, George. Krazy and Ignatz: "There Is a Heppy Lend--Fur, Fur Awa-a-ay": 1925-1926 (finished)
*King Edward III (Arden Shakespeare 3rd series, ed. Richard Proudfoot and Nicola Bennett) (reread/finished)
*Garner, Bryan A. Modern American Usage, 2nd ed. (in progress)
*Hummer, T. R. The Infinity Sessions: Poems (in progress)