Playlist, Week of 2019-03-10

Pathways to Unknown Worlds is another well-done reissue from the folks at Modern Harmonic... this is one of my all-time favorite Sun Ra albums, and this version does it justice... the remastered sound is crisp and solid, giving extra weight to Ronnie Boykins' superlative bass work... this is one of the last Ra albums he appeared on, I believe... he always worked well with Clifford Jarvis, and this is no exception... and fortunately we are spared any grandstanding Jarvis drum solos... the album is a slow simmer of guided improvisation, heated up by Ra's keyboards... be sure to check out Rodger Coleman's assessment of this album from Sun Ra Sundays... the reissue ties up some loose ends by joining together the two pieces that were presented separately on the Evidence version as "Untitled" and "Extension Out"... also included are two pieces which originally appeared on Of Mythic Worlds, with a top John Gilmore solo on the title track from that LP, as well as an unreleased original: "View from a Mountain Top" is a short organ-drenched meditation very much in the spirit of the rest of the album, with some beautiful moody sax from Gilmore at the end... needless to say, a must-have!

Playlist 2019-03-11:

*Albert Ayler: Music Is the Healing Force of The Universe
*Chicago/London Underground: A Night Walking Through Mirrors
*Nels Cline Singers: Instrumentals
*John Coltrane: The Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings (disc 2)
*Eric Dolphy: Musical Prophet: The Expanded 1963 New York Studio Sessions (disc 2)
*Ella Fitzgerald: The Complete Decca Singles 1935-1939 featuring Chick Webb (selections)
*Hasidic New Wave: Psycho-Semitic
*Alexander Hawkins: Iron into Wind (Pears from an Elm)
*Ingrid Laubrock/Tom Rainey: Utter
*Roscoe Mitchell: Bells for the South Side (disc 1)
*New Ting: 2019-03-04 "Weather Undersky" (wav)
*Oakland Elementary School Arkestra: The Saga of Padani
*Tom Rainey Trio: Combobulated
*Schlippenbach Trio: Elf Bagatellen
*Matthew Shipp: Sonic Fiction
*Spontaneous Music Ensemble: Unreleased Studio Sessions and Broadcasts 1966-1968 (CDR)
*Sun Ra and His Astro Infinity Arkestra: Pathways to Unknown Worlds (Remastered 2019)
*Sun Ra: Discipline Series (Tommy D compilation) (.mp3)
*Cecil Taylor: Jazz Advance
*Cecil Taylor Quartet: At Newport
*Various artists: History of Electronic/Electroacoustic Music (Manoury: "Zeitlauf") (CDR compilation) (disc 24)
*Various artists: Wildflowers: The New York Jazz Loft Sessions, Complete (disc 3)
*Beau Hunks: On to the Show!
*Mike Elder/Harry Forrest/Greg Jordan/Sam Byrd: 2019-03-03 (wav)
*Guided By Voices: Singles 95-14 (CDR compilation)
*Janis Joplin: Janis (disc 3)
*Palberta: 2017-02-10 Brooklyn (CDR)
*Palberta: 2019-02-02 Brooklyn (CDR) (selections)
*Solange: When I Get Home
*UYA: 1991-08-24/09-07 Asleep-220 (wav)
*UYA: 1991-09-10 Examine the Phenomenon (wav)
*UYA: 1991-09-16 This Energy Not at Once (wav)

Reading List, Week of 2019-03-10

Reading List 2019-03-11:

*Weigel, David. The Show That Never Ends: The Rise and Fall of Prog Rock (started)
*Rankin, Ian. The Black Book (started/finished)
*Wallace, David Foster, and Bryan A. Garner: Quack This Way (started/finished)
*O'Brien, Flann. At Swim-Two-Birds (finished)
*Stanley, John, and Irving Tripp. Little Lulu: Lulu Goes Shopping (finished)
*Burt, Stephen. The Poem Is You: 60 Contemporary American Poems and How to Read Them (in progress)
*Thomson, David. The New Biographical Dictionary of Film (4th ed.) (in progress)

For Me It's Pynchon

...if you spend enough time reading or writing, you find a voice, but you also find certain tastes. You find certain writers who when they write, it makes your own brain voice like a tuning fork, and you just resonate with them. And when that happens, reading those writers--not all of whom are modern... I mean, if you are willing to make allowances for the way English has changed, you can go way, way back with this--becomes a source of unbelievable joy. (David Foster Wallace, in Wallace and Bryan A. Garner, Quack This Way, 2013, p. 61)

Playlist, Week of 2019-03-03

Really nice tribute to the late Keith Sinzinger, experimental DC-area musician extraordinaire, from Liquid Friction Assemblage. I only got to play with Keith once, in Jimmy Ghaphery's Boris Bobby project (spot him playing some kind of tin cannister at 21:46).

Playlist 2019-03-04:

*Albert Ayler: Holy Ghost (disc 1)
*Anthony Braxton & Derek Bailey: First Duo Concert, London 1974
*Eric Dolphy: Musical Prophet: The Expanded 1963 New York Studio Sessions (disc 1)
*Jimmy Ghaphery/Gary Rouzer/Sam Byrd: Layers of Memory
*Herbie Hancock: Maiden Voyage
*Harriet Tubman: The Terror End of Beauty
*Alexander Hawkins: Iron into Wind (Pears from an Elm)
*Ingrid Laubrock: Serpentines
*Tony Levin/David Torn/Alan White: Levin Torn White
*Liquid Friction Assemblage: 2019-02-01 Rhizome, Washington DC
*New Ting: 2019-02-04 "Hungry Expectations, Part 1: Don't Spoil the Dream" (wav)
*New Ting: 2019-02-04 "Hungry Expectations, Part 2: During the Meal" (wav)
*New Ting: 2019-02-18 "Congealed Mysteries" (wav)
*New Ting: 2019-02-25 "Make the Round Thing Talk" (wav)
*No Material: No Material
*Tony Oxley: Ichnos
*Tom Rainey Trio: Combobulated
*Pharoah Sanders: Live at the East
*Tyshawn Sorey: Pillars (discs 1, 2)
*Sun Ra: Monorails & Satellites: Works for Solo Piano Vols. 1, 2, 3 (disc 2)
*Cecil Taylor Feel Trio: Two Ts for a Lovely T (disc 3)
*James Blood Ulmer: Memphis Blood: The Sun Sessions
*Various artists: A Day in the Life: Impressions of Pepper
*Beatnix: It's Four You
*Beau Hunks: The Beau Hunks Play the Original "Little Rascals" Music
*Dirty Projectors: Lamp Lit Prose
*Janis Joplin: Janis (disc 2)
*Lemon Twigs: Do Hollywood
*Lemon Twigs: Go to School
*Jerry Lee Lewis: The Jerry Lee Lewis Anthology - All Killer No Filler! (disc 1)
*Melt Banana: MxBx 1998/13000 Miles at Light Velocity
*Merzbow: Karasu: 13 Japanese Birds Pt. 4
*Paul McCartney: New
*Palberta: 2018-05-18 Chinatown Sessions
*Palberta: On Audiotree Live
*Parliament: Medicaid Fraud Dogg
*Andy Partridge: Apples & Oranges/Humanoid Boogie (EP)
*Sugar: Copper Blue
*Sugar: Beaster
*UYA: 1991-08-08 Sitting on a Guy Named Verge (wav)
*UYA: 1991-08-12 Your Professional Portfolio at Work (wav)
*UYA: 1991-08-18 Call Now! (wav)
*UYA: 1991-08-22 B.P.N.J. (wav)
*Frank Zappa/Mothers of Invention: The Roxy Performances (disc 5)

Reading List, Week of 2019-03-03

Reading List 2019-03-04:

*O'Brien, Flann. At Swim-Two-Birds (started)
*Sorrentino, Gilbert. Mulligan Stew (reread/finished)
*Stanley, John, and Irving Tripp. Little Lulu: Lulu Goes Shopping (started)
*Burt, Stephen. The Poem Is You: 60 Contemporary American Poems and How to Read Them (in progress)
*Thomson, David. The New Biographical Dictionary of Film (4th ed.) (in progress)

Sun Ra Sundays

Over at the Sun Ra site, I am pleased that Irwin Chusid has posted two PDFs compiling Rodger Coleman's masterful Sun Ra Sundays posts. Over a period of seven years, Rodger worked his way through the Ra discography with detailed essays, providing historical context and deep musical insight. Chusid's PDF compiles all the blog entries in chronological order as they appeared on the (now-defunct) blog. He was also kind enough to include to include a (slightly altered) version of a PDF I had (independently) compiled which goes through Rodger's posts in discographical order. Both are available for free download, and either version is essential reading for any Sun Ra fan.

Logging the Books

Ever since I was a kid, I have kept a book log, listing all the books I've read, similar in many ways to what Pamela Paul writes about here. A few years ago, I also started a spreadsheet, an online book log which has made it easier to track certain things, like totals and categories.

For example, I can easily tally how many books I read in a given year. In 2018, I read a total of 100 books (that's compared to 90 for 2017 and 107 for 2016). Of those books, for 2018, 45 were novels--less than half. I think of myself as mostly reading novels, but the numbers think differently: for 2017, I read 32 novels (out of 90, that's just a little over a third), and for 2016, I read 38 (out of 107; again, about a third). If I broaden the category to fiction and include short stories, comics, and drama, the number for 2018 goes up to 80 out of 100--an easy-to-calculate 80% (duh--numbers have never been my strong suit.) So maybe I should think of myself as primarily a fiction reader. Well, I knew that already, but it's a bit of meaningless fun to look at the figures.

Another interesting figure: out of the 100 books I read in 2018, 32 were rereads. For 2017, 16 out of the 90 total were rereads, and for 2016, only 9 out of 107. So my rereading seems to be on an upward trend--we'll see how that pans out this year. I am a huge proponent of rereading---I know there are so many great books out there, but so many books do reward second (and third, and fourth...) rereadings, and my reading plan for this year, as for all years, includes many return readings.