Playlist, Week of 2024-10-30

Been immensely enjoying the newest Anthony Braxton box of Lorraine music, played by saxophone quartet (plus computer)... this particular configuration really suits the music, in a different way I think than the various combinations on 10 Comp (Lorraine) 2022... at any rate, this is a wealth of new Braxton music that I'm sure will continue to yield years of pleasure... RIP Phil Lesh, and a tip of the hat to Daniel Barbiero, who got me to check out (again, and it's been a while) the great bass playing on "Eyes of the World" from June 16, 1974 in Des Moines... 

Playlist 2024-10-28:

*Alco Frisbass: Le Bateleur
*At the Drive-In: Relationship of Command
*Anthony Braxton Saxophone Quartet: Sax QT (Lorraine) 2022 (discs 1, 2, 3, 4)
*Carter Family: 1927-1934 (disc 1)
*Kim Cass: Levs
*Stephan Crump: Slow Water
*Kris Davis Trio: Run the Gauntlet
*Miles Davis: 1969-03 Rochester NY (CDR) (disc 2)
*Duke Ellington: The Complete 1936-1940 Variety, Vocalion, and Okeh Small Group Sessions (disc 6)
*Duke Ellington: …And His Mother Called Him Bill
*Grateful Dead: 1974-06-16 Des Moines (CDR) (disc 2)
*Herbie Hancock: Takin' Off
*Jimi Hendrix: Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision (discs 1, 2, 3)
*Ingrid Laubrock/Tom Rainey: Brink
*Love Cry Want: Love Cry Want
*Brian Marsella's iMAGiNARiUM: Chapter One: The Clocks Have Gone Mad
*Rob Mazurek/Exploding Star Orchestra: Live at the Adler Planetarium
*Jackie McLean: It's Time!
*Micro-East Collective: 20000325 Micro​-​East Collective, Red Room, Baltimore, MD
*Matt Mitchell: Zealous Angles
*New Ting: 2019-09-30 "Emulsify My Desires" (wav)
*New Ting: 2024-10-14 "Druids and Salarymen on the Oedo Line Weep Silently before Dawn" (wav)
*Charlie Parker: Live and Private Recordings in Chronological Order (disc 11)
*Annette Peacock: 31:31
*Elvis Presley: The Complete Elvis Presley Masters (disc 20)
*Pretty Things: S.F. Sorrow
*Tomeka Reid/Kyoko Kitamura/Taylor Ho Bynum/Joe Morris: Geometry of Phenomena
*Jon Rose/Mark Dresser: Band Width
*Sara Schoenbeck: Sara Schoenbeck
*Ches Smith: Laugh Ash
*Soft Machine: 1967-11-10 London (CDR) (disc 2)
*Sparks: Angst in My Pants (sides 1, 2)
*Sun Ra and His Astro Infinity Arkestra: Strange Strings (Expanded Edition) (side 3)
*Sun Ra: Media Dreams (sides 1, 2)
*Sun Ra: Kingdom of Discipline
*Cecil Taylor Feel Trio: Two Ts for a Lovely T (disc 5)
*Cecil Taylor: 2016-04-14 Whitney Museum, NYC (CDR) (disc 2)
*Thumbscrew: Wingbeats
*Tom and Marty Band: Afraid to Go to Sleep
*Various artists: That Devilin' Tune (Vol. I, disc 4)
*Various artists: Éthiopiques 1 : Golden Years Of Modern Ethiopian Music 1969-1975
*Alex Ward: Gated
*Anna Webber/Matt Mitchell: Capacious Aeration

Reading List, Week of 2024-10-27

 

Reading List 2024-10-28:

*Bechdel, Alison. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (started)
*Davidson, Mark, and Parker Fishel. Bob Dylan: Mixing Up the Medicine (started)
*Waters, Keith. The Studio Recordings of the Miles Davis Quintet, 1965-68 (started)
*Complete Cartoons of the New Yorker, ed. Robert Mankoff (finished)
*Shakespeare, William. Julius Caesar (Arden 3rd ed., ed. David Daniell) (reread/finished)
*Mendelson, Cheryl. Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House (in progress)
*Young, Marguerite. Miss MacIntosh, My Darling (in progress)

Dirda on When to Read

 

This seems about right...

When to read

Mine is a simple system: I read from morning till bedtime, with breaks for my job, family, meetings with friends, exercise, household chores and periodic review of my life’s greatest blunders. (Michael Dirda, "10 rules for reading from someone who does it for a living," Washington Post, 2024-05-18)

Playlist, Week of 2024-10-20

For an excellent example of Duke Ellington (and/or Billy Strayhorn?) as arranger, try "Stomping at the Savoy" from The Private Collection, Vol. 2... and dig Sam Woodyard's bass drum driving the arrangement!... Kinda on a little Bob Dylan kick these days, don't know why... maybe it's in anticipation of starting that new Dylan book... and I did thoroughly enjoy Chronicles, which I finally got around to reading... I think "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight" is my favorite Dylan song... I'm really enjoying rediscovering the Bill Dixon in Italy albums... I've owned them for years but never gave them the attention they deserve... trying to catch up now... Kudos to Irwin Chusid and Cosmic Myth Records for another fine Sun Ra release... Strange Strings is as strange as ever... I especially like the unreleased material... my only quibble: putting "Worlds Approaching" in stereo means you're missing the Bugs Hunter reverb effects, which are only on the mono version and are especially strong in John Gilmore's solo... definitely worth tracking down the mono version... 

Playlist 2024-10-21:

*[Ahmed]: Giant Beauty (disc 3)

*Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers: 1965-06-11 NYC (CDR)

*Anthony Braxton Saxophone Quartet: Sax QT (Lorraine) 2022 (discs 1, 2, 3, 4)

*Peter Brötzmann Octet: The Complete Machine Gun Sessions "Machine Gun Live"

*James Brown: Live at the Apollo (Vol. 2) (sides 2, 3)

*Rodger Coleman and Sam Byrd: 2015-05-14 Nashville (wav) track 4

*Miles Davis: Bitches Brew (SACD) "Spanish Key"

*Bill Dixon: Bill Dixon in Italy, Vol. 2 (side 1)

*Bob Dylan: Highway 61 Revisited (side 1)

*Bob Dylan: 1965-07-25 Newport Folk Festival (CDR)

*Bob Dylan: Blood on the Tracks

*Duke Ellington: The Complete 1936-1940 Variety, Vocalion, and Okeh Small Group Sessions (disc 3)

*Duke Ellington: The Private Collection, Vol. 2: Dance Concerts, California, 1958

*Everly Brothers: The Very Best of the Cadence Era

*Lee Hazlewood: Requiem for an Almost Lady

*Joe Henderson: The Milestone Years (disc 7)

*Dave Holland: Prism

*Ingrid Laubrock/Tom Rainey: Brink

*Layers of Memory: 2019-12-07 RVA (wav)"Improvisation No. 4"

*Medeski Martin and Wood: The Dropper

*Charlie Parker: Live and Private Recordings in Chronological Order (disc 10)

*Rolling Stones: Aftermath (Expanded mono ed.)

*Wadada Leo Smith & Roscoe Mitchell Creative Orchestra: 1979-06-03 Moers "track 3"

*Soft Machine: 1967-11-10 London (CDR) (disc 1)

*Soft Machine: 1969 Patasoft Demo & Other Rare

*Tyshawn Sorey: Alloy "Movement"

*Tyshawn Sorey: The Off-Off Broadway Guide to Synergism (disc 3)

*Sparks: Live at the Record Plant 1974 (side 1)

*Sun Ra: Saturn Research: Rarities and Oddities (CDR compilation) (disc 3)

*Sun Ra and His Astro Infinity Arkestra: Strange Strings (Expanded Edition) (sides 1, 2, 3, 4)

*Sun Ra and His Astro-Infinity Arkestra: Other Strange Worlds

*Sun Ra and His All-Star Inventions: 1991-11-15 NYC (CDR) (discs 1, 2)

*Tarbaby: Fanon

*Cecil Taylor Orchestra of Two Continents: 1984-10-20 Rubigen, Switzerland (CDR) (disc 2)

*Cecil Taylor: 2016-04-14 Whitney Museum, NYC (CDR) (disc 1)

*Various artists: Tenor Sax Battle 1982-07-18 Den Haag (CDR)

*Various artists: Subradar Sampler #01

*Anna Webber: Shimmer Wince

*Lester Young Trio: Lester Young Trio

*John Zorn/Simulacrum: Nostradamus: The Death of Satan

Reading List, Week of 2024-10-20

Reading List 2024-10-21:

*Willis, Ellen. Out of the Vinyl Deeps: Ellen Willis on Rock Music (finished)
*Complete Cartoons of the New Yorker, ed. Robert Mankoff (in progress)
*Mendelson, Cheryl. Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House (in progress)
*Shakespeare, William. Julius Caesar (Arden 3rd ed., ed. David Daniell) (reread/in progress)
*Young, Marguerite. Miss MacIntosh, My Darling (in progress)

 

Playlist, Week of 2024-10-13

Hot damn, the small group sessions of Duke Ellington from the '30s and '40s are jumpin', quirky, and divine... "Frolic Sam"... Delving into some Sun Ra rarities as well, several from only a mere ten years or so later... then things diverge... or do they?

Playlist 2024-10-14:

*Muhal Richard Abrams featuring Malachi Favors: Sightsong (side 1)

*[Ahmed]: Giant Beauty (discs 1, 2)

*Mose Allison: The Word from Mose

*Johann Sebastian Bach: The Sonatas and Partitas for Unaccompanied Violin (Sergio Luca) (disc 2)

*Ran Blake Quartet: Short Life of Barbara Monk

*Rodger Coleman and Sam Byrd: 2019-05-02/03 Nashville (rough mix wav) (disc 1)

*Rodger Coleman and Sam Byrd: 2022-11-26 Nashville (wav)

*Alice Coltrane: The Carnegie Hall Concert (discs 1, 2)

*D’Angelo and the Vanguard: Black Messiah (sides 1 ,2)

*Bob Dylan: Time Out of Mind

*Duke Ellington: The Complete 1936-1940 Variety, Vocalion, and Okeh Small Group Sessions (discs 1, 2, 4, 5)

*Duke Ellington: All American in Jazz

*Duke Ellington: Midnight in Paris

*Mary Halvorson Quintet: Saturn Sings

*Joe Henderson: The Milestone Years (disc 6)

*Susie Ibarra: Folkloriko

*Irreversible Entanglements: Irreversible Entanglements

*Vijay Iyer: Compassion

*Roscoe Mitchell: L-R-G/The Maze/S II Examples

*New Ting: 2024-10-07 "Attention Kemar Shoppers! (He's Bald But He Can Hear)" (wav)

*Charlie Parker: Live and Private Recordings in Chronological Order (disc 9)

*Polyorchard: Ink (disc 1)

*Residents: Fingerprince (pREServed Edition) (disc 1)

*Soft Machine: The Soft Machine

*Soft Machine: Volume Two

*Soft Machine: Spaced

*Soft Machine: Høvikodden 1971 (disc 1)

*Soft Machine: Six (side 1)

*Sun Ra: Saturn Research: Rarities and Oddities (CDR compilation) (discs 1, 2)

*Sun Ra: Black Utopia Excerpts (CDR compilation)

*Sun Ra: Excelsior Mill

*Cecil Taylor Orchestra of Two Continents: 1984-10-20 Rubigen, Switzerland (CDR) (disc 1)

*Henry Threadgill's Zooid: This Brings Us To, Volumes I & II (side 2)

*Lennie Tristano: Personal Recordings 1946-1970 (disc 4)

*Various artists: Tenor Sax Battle 1982-07-18 Den Haag (CDR)

*John Zorn/Simulacrum: Spinoza

*John Zorn/Chaos Magick: Chaos Magick

Reading List, Week of 2024-10-13

Reading List 2024-10-14:

*Complete Cartoons of the New Yorker, ed. Robert Mankoff (started)
*Willis, Ellen. Out of the Vinyl Deeps: Ellen Willis on Rock Music (started)
*Granville-Barker, Harley. Prefaces to Shakespeare, Vol. II (started/finished)
*Smith, Ming. Ming Smith: An Aperture Monograph (finished)
*Mendelson, Cheryl. Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House (in progress)
*Shakespeare, William. Julius Caesar (Arden 3rd ed., ed. David Daniell) (reread/in progress)
*Young, Marguerite. Miss MacIntosh, My Darling (in progress)

Playlist, Week of 2024-10-06

A beautifully relaxing solo guitar album from Henry Kaiser... Tyshawn Sorey's drumming on Vijay Iyer's Compassion is outstanding... primo piano trio stuff!... nice to hear a Stevie Wonder cover in this context... Every time I delve into Two T's for a Lovely T I am astounded by the rich interplay and vitality of all three players... Such Sweet Thunder is still floating my boat... It's fun listening to Bud Powell through a Cecil Taylor lens... I plan on doing the same with Horace Silver... Of course, Cecil is drenched with Duke Ellington...

Playlist 2024-10-07:

*[Ahmed]: Giant Beauty (discs 4, 5)

*Art Ensemble: 1967/68 (disc 2) "Trio (Oh Susanna)"

*Johann Sebastian Bach: The Sonatas and Partitas for Unaccompanied Violin (Sergio Luca) (disc 1)

*Beatles: Hard Day's Night (2009 stereo remaster) (sides 1, 2)

*Beatles: 1962-1966 (2023 Edition) (side 5)

*Beyonce: Lemonade

*Peter Brötzmann Octet: The Complete Machine Gun Sessions "Machine Gun"

*Sonny Clark: The Complete Sonny Clark Blue Note Sessions (disc 2)

*Stephan Crump: Slow Water

*Bill Dixon: Bill Dixon in Italy, Vol. 1 (sides 1, 2)

*Dave Douglas: Spirit Moves

*Duke Ellington and His Orchestra: Such Sweet Thunder (side 1)

*Duke Ellington: The Far East Suite (sides 1, 2)

*Duke Ellington and His Orchestra: Featuring Paul Gonsalves (side 1)

*Joseph Haydn: Complete Symphonies, Vol. 3: Nos. 82, 88, 95 (Heidelberger Sinfoniker)

*Henry Cow: Glastonbury and Elsewhere

*Freddie Hubbard: Hub Cap

*Vijay Iyer: Compassion

*Henry Kaiser: Everything Forever

*Layers of Memory: 2019-12-07 RVA (wav)"Improvisation No. 4"

*Rob Mazurek/Exploding Star Orchestra Featuring Roscoe Mitchell: Matter Anti-Matter (disc 1)

*Roscoe Mitchell: Duets with Tyshawn Sorey and Special Guest Hugh Ragin

*Roscoe Mitchell: Not Yet: Six Compositions

*New Ting: 2024-08-27 Richmond VA "Dated a Rockefeller: Live at Scuffletown" (wav)

*New Ting: 2024-09-30 "It's Raining, Understood" (wav)

*Charlie Parker: Live and Private Recordings in Chronological Order (discs 6, 7, 8)

*Polyorchard: Ink (disc 2)

*Bud Powell: The Genius of Bud Powell (side 1)

*Tyshawn Sorey: Alloy "Movement"

*Tyshawn Sorey: The Off-Off Broadway Guide to Synergism (disc 2)

*Sparks: A Woofer in Tweeter's Clothing (sides 1, 2)

*Sun Ra and His Arkestra: Bad and Beautiful

*Sun Ra: Exotica (discs 1, 2)

*Sun Ra and His Astro-Infinity Arkestra: Continuation (side 1)

*Sun Ra: At the Showcase: Live in Chicago 1976-1977 (disc 1)

*Sun Ra and His Arkestra: 1989-08-11 Cambridge MA (CDR) (disc 3)

*Sun Ra Sextet: At the Village Vanguard

*Masayuki Takayanagi New Direction Unit: April Is the Cruellest Month

*Cecil Taylor Orchestra of Two Continents: 1984-10-20 Rubigen, Switzerland (CDR) (disc 2)

*Cecil Taylor Feel Trio: Two Ts for a Lovely T (disc 5)

*YoshimiOizumikiYoshiduO: To the Forest to Live a Truer Life

*John Zorn/Insurrection: Salem 1692

 

Reading List, Week of 2024-10-06

Another strong Malazan entry from Esslemont... several steps up from the last one...

Reading List 2024-10-07:

*Esslemont, Ian C. Forge of the High Mage (finished)
*Mendelson, Cheryl. Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House (in progress)
*Shakespeare, William. Julius Caesar (Arden 3rd ed., ed. David Daniell) (reread/in progress)
*Smith, Ming. Ming Smith: An Aperture Monograph (in progress)
*Young, Marguerite. Miss MacIntosh, My Darling (in progress)

 

Playlist, Week of 2024-09-28

Still catching up... Sun Ra and Duke Ellington are keeping me going...

Playlist 2024-09-30:

*[Ahmed]: Giant Beauty (disc 3)
*Jack DeJohnette/Made in Chicago: 2015-07-11 Rotterdam (CDR) "Chant"
*Bob Dylan: Another Side of Bob Dylan
*Duke Ellington and His Orchestra: Such Sweet Thunder (sides 1, 2)
*Duke Ellington: Midnight in Paris
*Duke Ellington and His Orchestra: Peer Gynt Suites Nos. 1 & 2/Suite Thursday
*Duke Ellington: His Piano and His Orchestra at the Bal Masque
*Duke Ellington: 1899-1974 (side 7)
*Grateful Dead: 1972-05-16 Luxembourg "The Other One"
*Kinks: The Journey: Part 1 (side 3)
*Janel Leppin: Ensemble Volcanic Ash
*New Ting: 2024-09-16 "Bone Technology" (wav)
*Charlie Parker: Live and Private Recordings in Chronological Order (disc 5)
*Polyorchard: Ink (disc 1)
*Wadada Leo Smith & Roscoe Mitchell Creative Orchestra: 1979-06-03 Moers "track 3"
*Sparks: Interior Design (sides 1, 2)
*Sparks: Exotic Creatures of the Deep (sides 1, 2)
*Sun Ra Arkestra: Kosmos in Blue: A John Gilmore Anthology, Vol. 1
*Sun Ra Arkestra: Blues at Midnight: A John Gilmore Anthology, Vol. 2
*Sun Ra: Acetate 1955 (CDR)
*Sun Ra and His Arkestra: Jazz in Silhouette (Expanded Edition) (side 2)
*Sun Ra: 5 Unreleased Tunes 1962-1965 (CDR compilation)
*Sun Ra and His Astro Infinity Arkestra: Holiday for Soul Dance
*Sun Ra: The Futuristic Sounds of Sun Ra (sides 1, 2)
*Sun Ra: Spaceways [Outer Spaceways Inc.]
*Sun Ra and His Intergalactic Infinity Arkestra: The Night of the Purple Moon (sides 1, 2)
*Cecil Taylor: Unit Structures
*Lennie Tristano: Personal Recordings 1946-1970 (disc 3)
*Yes: Tales from Topographic Oceans (2016 remaster) (disc 1)

Reading List, Week of 2024-09-29

Reading List 2024-09-30:

*Esslemont, Ian C. Forge of the High Mage (started)
*Sax, David. The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter (finished)
*Mendelson, Cheryl. Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House (in progress)
*Shakespeare, William. Julius Caesar (Arden 3rd ed., ed. David Daniell) (reread/in progress)
*Smith, Ming. Ming Smith: An Aperture Monograph (in progress)
*Young, Marguerite. Miss MacIntosh, My Darling (in progress)