Playlist, Week of 2017-07-23

Around Robert Wyatt is an album of interesting orchestral settings of Wyatt songs... he even sings on some of them... some versions are more successful than others... sometimes the arrangements strike me as too intrusive... I'm just a crank... Interesting prog-math rock sounds from Upsilon Acrux... read a mention of them on a best-of list and they sounded intriguing... Alexander Hawkins' new double CD of medium- and large-sized ensemble works, Unit[e], starts off with a bang with the Jerome Cooper composition "For the People"... the whole album is stomping, grooving, brilliant free jazz, propelled by Hawkins' always excellent piano playing... with "[C]all," I also hear traces of Ronald Shannon Jackson and the Decoding Society here... multiple harmolodic lines anchored by propulsive drums, maybe... elsewhere, echoes of various AACM large ensembles, especially Muhal Richard Abram's... In the world of soul and sophisticated pop, Dusty Springfield is always enjoyable... some of the production values are too polished for me, but her voice is a delight... faves from the B sides here include "Something Special" (her own composition), "Baby Don't You Know," and "I'll Love You for a While"... Somewhat sadly, the only version I've seen of King Crimson is the quartet as heard on Live at Cap D'Agde, 1982... sadly, because while I love Bill Bruford, I have a really hard time with Adrian Belew's strained vocals... thus, I don't find myself returning to this version of the group much... even though there's lots of cool stuff going on... even so, it's very beat-driven, and I prefer the more exploratory, freer Crimson music of, say, the version with Jamie Muir and John Wetton... again with the crankiness...

Playlist 2017-07-24:

*Alice Babs & Duke Ellington: Serenade to Sweden
*Anthony Braxton: Trillium E (disc 1)
*Taylor Ho Bynum Sextet: Asphalt Flowers Forking Paths
*Rodger Coleman & Sam Byrd: Indeterminate (Improvisations for Piano & Drums)
*Rodger Coleman/Sam Byrd: Who Doesn't Fade?
*Chick Corea: The Musician (disc 1)
*Eric Dolphy: Iron Man
*George Duke: Faces in Reflection
*Alexander Hawkins: Unit[e]
*Ingrid Laubrock/Tom Rainey/Kris Davis/Ralph Alessi: Lark
*John McLaughlin: My Goal's Beyond
*Purple Trap: Decided ... Already The Motionless Heart Of Tranquility, Tangling The Prayer Called "I" (disc 2)
*Sun Ra and His Arkestra: Jazz in Silhouette
*Sun Ra and His Mythic Science Arkestra: The Paris Tapes: Live at le Theatre du Chatelet 1971
*Various artists: Creative Music Studio (Archive Selections, Vol. 1) (disc 1)
*World Saxophone Quartet: Requiem for Julius
*John Zorn: Cobra (disc 2)
*Apples in Stereo: The Discovery of a World Inside the Moone
*Beatles: Sgt. Peppers Lonely Heart Club Band (2017 remix vinyl) (side 2)
*Elvis Costello and the Attractions: Live at Hollywood High
*D’Angelo: Brown Sugar
*Mike Elder/Harry Forrest/Greg Jordan/Sam Byrd: 2017-07-15 (wav)
*Gong: You
*KIng Crimson: Live at Cap D'Agde, 1982
*Orchestre National de Jazz: Around Robert Wyatt
*Prince and the Revolution: Purple Rain (Deluxe Expanded Edition) (discs 1, 2)
*Dusty Springfield: Complete A and B Sides 1963-1970 (disc 2)
*Upsilon Acrux: Upsilon Live
*XTC: Skylarking: Deluxe Edition (side 4)
*Neil Young: Tonight’s the Night
*Neil Young: Chrome Dreams (soniclovenoize reconstruction)

Reading List, week of 2017-07-23

David Thomson is one of the most astute observers on how technology is changing our lives. Ostensibly about TV, Television: A Biography covers society, culture, technology, politics, the Internet, racism, feminism--everything that TV claims to cover but often only screens over.

Reading List 2017-07-24:

*King, Frank. Walt and Skeezix, Vol. 4: 1927-1928 (reread/started)
*L'Engle, Madeleine. A Wrinkle in Time (reread/started)
*Kirkman, Robert, et al. The Walking Dead (issues 94-102) (started/finished)
*King, Frank. Walt and Skeezix, Vol. 3: 1925-1926 (reread/finished)
*Thomson, David. Television: A Biography (finished)
*Jackson, Holbrook. Anatomy of Bibliomania (in progress)
*Silliman, Ron. The Alphabet (in progress)
*Youngquist, Paul. A Pure Solar World: Sun Ra and the Birth of Afrofuturism (in progress)

Blue Goose

Is there a better summation of Duke Ellington's mastery of swing and mood than 1940's sublime Blue Goose?  It starts off with grand but subtle piano. Johnny Hodges states the whimsical theme; Harry Carney restates it majestically. Cootie Williams steps in, then the full band comes in. Ben Webster solos over the groove before Lawrence Brown takes over the theme, then the full band comes in again, with almost dissonant chords and flourishes. Hodges then recapitulates the theme and takes it out, with Ellington having the last word (or syllable). All over a sumptuous bed of relaxed but insistent swing. All in a little over three minutes. Just marvelous.

Playlist, Week of 2017-07-16

In a great summer for major reissues, another one to add to the list is the new remastered and expanded edition of Purple Rain... key draw is the second disc of unreleased material, much of which I've heard, but not with this sound quality, including the amazing "Wonderful Ass,"one of my favorite Prince bootleg tracks...  second key draw is the presence of all the Purple Rain-related extended 12-inch singles, many on CD for the first time... there are some issues with this release, though, and the best overall review I've seen of it is here... It's also guitar week, it seems! In addition to revisiting some of the unreleased December 2016 sessions with Rodger Coleman, whose guitar playing always gets me excited, I'm enjoying delving a little deeper into the guitar playing of Nels Cline... his playing in the guitar/bass/drum trio context is particularly inventive, with a hefty dose of noise mixed in, especially on Instrumentals... Henry Kaiser's Everything Forever is an extended 80-minute solo guitar piece that quickly delves into "Dark Star" territory... it's a long trance piece, but the mood is beautifully sustained... Mix in some Garcia, some Fripp, and some Steve Hillage and you have a nice week of guitar.

Playlist 2017-07-17:

*Johann Christian Bach: Six Favorite Overtures (Academy of Ancient Music)
*Anthony Braxton Zim Sextet: 2017-06-03 Moers (CDR)
*Nels Cline: Coward
*Nels Cline Singers: Instrumentals
*Nels Cline Trio: Ground
*Rodger Coleman & Sam Byrd: 2016-12-26 Nashville (wav) (selections)
*Mary Halvorson Quintet: Saturn Sings
*Ingrid Laubrock/Tom Rainey: 2011-07-25 NYC (CDR)
*Roscoe Mitchell Creative Orchestra: Sketches from Bamboo
*Thelonious Monk: Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960 (disc 1)
*Sun Ra and His Arkestra: Super-Sonic Jazz
*Sun Ra: 1982-06-24 Mannheim, Germany (CDR) (disc 1)
*Henry Threadgill Sextet: Just the Facts and Pass the Bucket
*John Zorn: Moonchild: Songs Without Words
*Apples in Stereo: The Discovery of a World Inside the Moone
*Area: Maledetti (Maudits)
*Beach Boys: 1967: Sunshine Tomorrow (selections)
*Beatles: Sgt. Peppers Lonely Heart Club Band (Super Deluxe Ed.) (discs 2, 3)
*Gong: Live in Sherwood Forest '75
*Grateful Dead: Cornell 5.8.77 (disc 3)
*Grateful Dead: 50 Shades of Black & White (1987-04-07 East Rutherford NJ)
*Hatfield and the North: The Rotters’ Club (side 2)
*Henry Kaiser: Everything Forever
*King Crimson: Islands (40th Anniversary Ed.) (disc 2)
*King Tubby: Two Big Bull in a One Pen Dubwise
*Prince and the Revolution: Purple Rain (Deluxe Expanded Edition) (discs 2, 3)
*Prince: Released (CDR compilation)
*Prince: Unreleased (CDR compilation)
*Rolling Stones: Havana Moon
*Neil Young: On the Beach

Reading List, Week of 2017-07-16

Reading List 2017-07-17:

*Thomson, David. Television: A Biography (started)
*Youngquist, Paul. A Pure Solar World: Sun Ra and the Birth of Afrofuturism (started)
*Kirkman, Robert, et al. The Walking Dead (issues 92-93) (started/finished)
*Steele, Greg. Kitties (started/finished)
*Brontë, Anne. Agnes Grey (finished)
*Jackson, Holbrook. Anatomy of Bibliomania (in progress)
*King, Frank. Walt and Skeezix, Vol. 3: 1925-1926 (reread/in progress)
*Silliman, Ron. The Alphabet (in progress)

The Other, Better World

Thmei was the activist group formed by Sun Ra and Alton Abraham in the 1950s in Chicago:

Thmei needed a public address system, a means of spreading its message of building a better world through culture and art. Or maybe a medium that was the message, art that built the better world it announced. For Sun Ra, music was that art, a creative medium that could challenge reality and offer something better in the process: a new sound, a progressive sensibility, a bold promise that however ugly the world might be, a more beautiful one awaited those adventurers who could feel and respond to music's call. (Paul Youngquist, A Pure Solar World: Sun Ra and the Birth of Afrofuturism, 2016, p. 62)

Pick of the Week

Happy to see that Who Doesn't Fade? has been chosen as a Pick of the Week over at Avant Music News! What an honor--thanks, guys.