While You're Waiting.

Yeah, I'm not exactly posting much here at the moment.  So, here's something for you to listen to while you wait.  A whole 8 hours of rain on a tent audio.


For a website originally intended to present short video clips YouTube sure has a lot of extended audio content on it now.  I'm surprised they're able to get away with the number of full length albums of music that are now being posted.  I shouldn't complain, as it's the only way I'm likely to hear an album like this, which is only available at a price I can't afford.  (Sorry, Watanabe-san.)

Today's Cassette, January 13, 2013.

Yep, it's time for another item from my boxes of cassettes.  Tonight it's Iron Path by Last Exit, from 1988.  This was the sole studio album by the quartet of Bill Laswell, Ronald Shannon Jackson, Peter Brotzmann, and the late Sonny Sharrock.  Their previous albums, on the Laswell oriented label Enemy, were live recordings.  Iron Path finds them in much more restrained mode.  It was released on Virgin during Laswell's brief association with the label, which also saw the release of his 1988 solo album Hear No Evil.  This was never one of my best sounding cassettes, but years of sitting unlistened to in my cassette collection hasn't done it any harm.  I was actually going to listen to it a couple weeks or so back, but got sidetracked for reasons I can't remember.

Last Take.

Jazz pianist Dave Brubeck has died at 91. So in his hounour here is his best known piece, "Take Five." I got the chance to see him at the Sask Tel Jazz Festival several years ago. Even at his advanced age he still had it, even if he needed help getting on and off stage. Hopefully we'll all be still active in our late eighties.

So Much Music...

...so little time to listen to it.  Someone could send me 10 recordings a day, every day, and I'm sure I'd never run out of things to listen to.

This is one of the things I was listening to tonight, the late jazz drummer Rashied Ali in a duet with a guitarist I was previously unaware of, Michael Bocian.  This reminds me I need to listen to some of the stuff in my current collection that I haven't in a long time.

Today's Cassette, February 12, 2011.

It's been a while, hasn't it?  Today's cassette is Bill Frisell's, or if you want to be technically correct the Bill Frisell Band's, 1988 release Lookout For Hope.  This was his 3rd album under his own name for ECM, and his last before moving on to Elektra Nonesuch.  It features what was his working quartet at the time, which included Joey Barron on drums, Kermit Driscoll on bass, and Hank Roberts on cello.  Having a cellist reflects a love of unusual for jazz instrumentation that Frisell seems to have had from the start.  His previous album, Rambler, featured Bob Stewart on tuba, and in more recent years he has worked with musicians like steel guitarist Greg Leisz. 

Les Quebecois Funky

For some reason I decided to search YouTube last night for stuff by UZEB, and came across the above, which I remember watching on the CBC, probably within a few months of it being filmed.  Great version of this tune, featuring guest percussion from the late great Don Alias.

Pair Of Jacks.

Grabbing a couple of CDs to listen to as I sit here I ended up with two ECM examples featuring Jack DeJohnette. First was Gateway, with Dave Holland and John Abercrombie. The opener, Dave Holland's "Backwoods Song," is my favourite on the album. The other was the self-titled Terje Rypdal, Miroslav Vitous, Jack DeJohnette. I didn't deliberately set out to do that, but that's the way it went.

Jazz Consumer Tip.

If you actually still go out to look for CDs you may have seen the silver box labelled Collectors Edition with a nice late '60s-early '70s shot of Miles Davis on it. Despite the picture on it the albums contained within are from the '50s, specifically Workin', Relaxin', and Cookin'. These are the recent RVG Remasters, done by the original engineer Rudy Van Gelder himself, so if you've been thinking of picking up those albums buy this box instead, as you'll save money. I found a $16.99 copy at my local Future Shop, and with the tax the whole thing came out to $18.69. Some other places like London Drugs and HMV, in my area at least, have offered this package at $19.99. So you may save 15 bucks or more over buying the albums individually. Now if I could just find new copies of things like Get Up With It at a good price....

Oscar Peterson, RIP.

One of the greatest jazz musicians to come out of Canada has died. Oscar Peterson died in his Mississauga, Ontario home Sunday at 82. Born in Montreal Peterson came out of that city's music scene in the early 1940s. When famed jazz promoter Norman Granz heard a Peterson live broadcast while taking a taxi to Montreal's airport in 1949 he was so impressed he made the cabbie head for the location of the broadcast. He signed Peterson to perform at a concert at Carnegie Hall on the same bill as various jazz greats of the era. Peterson's US debut proved a success and the start of a decades long career as one of the best known pianists in jazz. Although he suffered a stroke in 1993 that disabled his left hand Peterson continued to perform into the 21st Century, and leaves behind a recorded legacy of dozens of recordings with a wide range of artists.

Joe Zawinul, RIP

Unfortunate news to report. Austrian jazz great Joe Zawinul has died at 75 in a Vienna hospital. Zawinul was one of the most influential European jazz musicians of the post war period. During his stint with Cannonball Adderley in the 1960s he wrote the hit "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" and was an early exponent of the use of electric piano in jazz. He was a participant in the late '60s Miles Davis sessions that resulted in the pioneering jazz fusion albums In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew, writing the title cut of the former and contributing the (then) album side long cut "Pharoah's Dance" to the latter. In the 1970s he formed the group Weather Report with veteran tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter, which saw considerable success and saw Zawinul as one of the early and major promoters of synthesizers in jazz. He remained musically active until his recent hospital stint, having toured earlier this year with his current group, and having recently appeared as the cover story in Downbeat magazine.

Max Roach, RIP.

I just found out that legendary jazz drummer Max Roach has died at age 83. Roach was one of the key drummers in the development of bebop in the 1940s and played with a who's who of jazz musicians including Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, and Dizzy Gillespie. Roach recorded numerous albums under his own name ranging from hard bop dates in the '50s and '60s to solo percussion recordings. With Roach's death the circle of jazz greats of the '40s shrinks a little bit more.

Where Are You, Gene?

It sometimes seems like you find out about pretty much everyone on the Internet. But of course this isn't really true. People often fall through the gaps. For example I was listening to Soul Message by Richard "Groove" Holmes this afternoon, and decided to see what I could find out about the guitarist on that recording, Gene Edwards. Unfortunately although his name comes up via Google none of the references provide details about Edwards himself, just his involvement in various recording sessions. He is, or maybe by now was, Canadian, and that's about all I know. That, and that he often played with a rather distorted guitar sound, much to the chagrin of some listeners. Personally I think it's kind of neat to hear something besides the treble completely rolled back sound most often heard with straight ahead players.

Bad News From The World Of Music.

Unfortunately I've got a big batch of bad news related to music to report.

Jazz keyboardist Alice Coltrane died Friday, apparently due respiratory problems. She was 69. It was as a member of John Coltrane's last groups that she came to widespread recognition, marrying the jazz saxophone titan in 1966. After his death she continued to perform, developing an original style of music influenced by her interest in Eastern religion, and was one of the few jazz musicians to play the harp.

Jazz lost another voice Saturday with the death of tenor saxophonist Michael Brecker at 58. Brecker had been suffering with myelodysplastic syndrome, a type of leukemia. Brecker played in numerous contexts in a career that lasted nearly 40 years, including the group The Brecker Brothers with his older brother Randy, and the fusion group Steps Ahead. Brecker was a major proponent of the Electronic Wind Instrument, a synthesizer controller designed to be played like a saxophone.

Electronic music equipment designer Doug Curtis also died this week. The CEM integrated circuits he helped design were used by a wide range of synthesizers sold in the late '70s and '80s, such as the Rev 3 version of the Sequential Circuits Prophet 5 analog synthesizer.

And I just found out that Wally Ingram, a frequent collaborator in recent years with string wizard David Lindley, is currently fighting throat and neck cancer. Hopefully he'll beat his illness.

Preset.

I'm currently listening to the album Miniature by Hank Roberts, Tim Berne, and Joey Baron. I got a chuckle listening to the cut "Abeetah" when a very familiar sound came out of the cans. Baron used a Casio CZ101 synth on the album, and it seems that one of its presets was the basis for the "Brass" preset on the Casio SK1 keyboard. The pitch bending and so forth make me assume its from a '101 and not from an SK1. I own a Realistic Concertmate 500, which was the rebadged SK1 sold by Radio Shack. SK1s are very popular with the circuitbending crowd, circuitbending being the altering of cheap keyboards and other electronics to make them produce sounds they weren't intended to. As I've said elsewhere I can't help but wonder if I might not end up with the only unbent one left at some point, as I intend to keep mine untouched.

Two New Links.

In case anyone is interested I've added a couple of new links to the link list, both blogs. First is The Daily Jazz, which as you might guess is a jazz related blog. Second we have Matrixsynth, a blog for all the synth freaks passing through.

There was a personal irony for me in reporting Derek Bailey's death. Today I purchased Extrapolation, John McLaughlin's first album under his own name from 1969. The drummer on it was Bailey collaborator Tony Oxley. Incidently if you're a fan of late '60s jazz or McLaughlin check this one out. Saxophonist John Surman gets plenty of solo time, and in at least one place sounds to my ears a bit like Pharoah Sanders.

Wow, Dave Brubeck has just turned 85! I hadn't realised he was that old. Fortunately despite his age he's still active as a player. Its always nice when artists can keep on doing their craft at an advanced age.

Starting with his first recording sessions as a sideman in 1945 the recording career of Miles Davis would cover a span of nearly 50 years. During that time he would become the most influential trumpet player in post World War 2 jazz, and only overshadowed as most important jazz trumpet player period by Louis Armstrong. Not surprisingly a large number of books have been written about Davis, covering the entirety of his career. The most recent is The Last Miles: The Music of Miles Davis, 1980-1991 by George Cole. This is the only book to date to concentrate on the music Miles made in the last years of his life. His comeback at the beginning of the 1980s shocked many, as poor health and a renewed problem with drug addiction had forced him into retirement in 1975. As was often the case with Miles the music was controversial, as so much of it was more overtly commercial, for lack of a better term, than even his electric music of the '70s.

Cole provides an in depth look at this period from the perspective of someone who enjoys this period of Miles' work. He obviously couldn't discuss this music with the most important person in the story, Miles himself, but he interviewed the majority of those musicians involved with this period, as well as members of the road crew, employees of Columbia Records and Warner Brothers Records, and friends and family. Although this is primarily a book about the music we also get a look at elements of Miles' personal life of the period given that its impossible to separate a musician's work from the rest of his life, and the ups and downs of Davis' health played a considerable role in that last decade of work. Cole gives us a comprehensive look at the studio recordings, live performances, and Miles' guest appearances on the recordings of others. There are a few places where I found Cole's description of certain technical elements of the recording process slightly off, but these aren't likely to be noticed by the non musician. Overall this is an enjoyable book, recommended for anyone interested in the music of Miles Davis.

Another musical figure with cancer to report, coming on the heals of last week's post about Bob Moog. Jazz tenor saxophonist Michael Brecker has been diagnosed with Myelodysplastic Syndrome. Brecker has played on innumerable recordings, including his own solo albums, albums with his brother Randy as the Brecker Brothers, and noteables such as Pat Metheny. Brecker has cancelled all engagements while he's being treated for the disease. Good luck to him.

Hello to anyone passing through from Landis, Saskatchewan, location of my latest Where's Willy hit. Can't say I've ever been there, but at least my money has.

Not much over the last couple of days to inspire a post. I did spend a bit of time today looking at the lineup of the upcoming SaskTel Saskatchewan Jazz Festival. I'm thinking about going to see the Dave Holland Quintet. 30 bucks ain't cheap, but the price of everybody's tickets seems to be going up these days.