Friday, April 22nd, 2005 ... 3:00 p.m. - 5:45 p.m. ... KZSU, 90.1 FM
Format:
ARTIST -- "TRACK TITLE" -- ALBUM TITLE (LABEL, YEAR)
* Mike Ladd -- "The French Dig Latinos, Too" -- Negrophilia (The Album) (Thirsty Ear, 2004)
* Fonda/Stevens Group -- "The Stalker" -- Forever Real (482 Music, 2005)
With Joe Fonda on bass and Michael Jefry Stevens on piano, rounded
out by Herb Roberston doing growly and exciting trumpet solos and
Harvey Sorgen holding it all down on drums. Fonda/Stevens have convened
their Group multiple times with varying members but always with great
results, tossing a mix of "out-jazz" numbers and nicely dusky
'60s-jazz pieces.
* Emily Hay -- "Crooken Hopscotch" -- Like Minds (pfMentum, 2004)
* William Parker -- "Bud in Alphaville" -- Luc's Lantern (Thirsty Ear, 2005)
One of the more active tracks on this piano trio album. Most of the
disc is taken with lyrical and pretty pieces, nice stuff.
* John Zorn with Susie Ibarra -- "Meridian" -- 50th Birthday Celebration, disk 8 (Tzadik, 2004)
Scribbly sax-and-drums duet. This CD also features Wadada Leo Smith
on trumpet, on four of the eight tracks.
* Ravish Momin's Trio Tarana -- "Weeping Statue" -- Climbing the Banyan Tree (Clean Feed, 2004)
Nice "world"-sounding jazz from a trio of violin, oud (stringed instrument) and
drums/percussion. Playing this track gave me the inspiration to do an
all-violin-based set, which comprised the next three tracks:
* Zach Brock and the Coffee Achievers -- "Remember Young Ray" -- Chemistry (Secret Fort, 2004)
Fusion-y fast stuff. Brock does the whole guitar-hero thing,
distorting his electric violin and everything. Kinda showy but
he's quite good.
Michael Bisio and Eyvand Kang -- "The Biszer" -- MBEK (Meniscus, 1999)
A disk of bass/violin pieces, many with an improvised sound, but this
composition by Kang is bouncy and even country-fied.
-- 4:00 p.m. --
* San Francisco Klezmer Experience -- "Al's Dances" -- Harbst (self-released, 2004)
Klezmer music, fun and richly imbued with both traditional verve
and modern jazziness. Cool fast violin on this particular track; sax
solos on others. These guys are probably lots of fun to see live.
They've apparently changed their name to The Klez-X, by the way.
* Milo Fine -- "May Radicals Five" -- Ikebana (London Encounters, 2003) (Emanem, 2004)
From a 2-CD set of longtime free-jazzer Fine teaming up with
various combinations of London-area musicians. Here's he's in a sextet
that includes violin, viola, bass, and cello, with Fine doing his usual
switching off between clarinet, bass, and drums. Squirrely abstract improv
in the fine European tradition.
CKW Trio -- "4+#11m6m7" -- The Is (Black Hat, 2004)
Trio featuring Michael Cooke on sax, clarinets, and -- for this
track -- bassoon. Adventurous stuff in the '60s free-jazz vein,
although some tracks like this one get a bit abstract. Michael took the
time to do a quick interview back in February.
*! Hmmm... -- "Trained Monkey" -- I Only Want Love (Is Productions, 2004)
An experimental/pop band with Herb Heinz -- formerly of Amy X. Neuburg
and Men -- and Mark Briggs. Wacky stuff mixing catchy tunes with
insane noises and sound effects. Amy X. and Herb were kind enough to
stop by and talk about this CD, among others, back in December.
* Cooper-Moore and Assif Tsahar -- "Forlorn" -- Tells Untold (Hopscotch, 2004)
Pretty piece with thumb piano and saxophone.
Pharoah Sanders -- "Summun, Bukmun, Umyun" -- Summun Bukmun Umyun (Impulse!/ABC, 1970)
Great side-long jam, starts with rich piano tones and gets into a
frenzy of African percussion. The album's other side is also just one track: a soaring piano-rooted
piece, very powerful.
-- 5:00 p.m. --
* Max Nagl, Steven Bernstein, Noel Akchote, Bradley Jones -- "Lazy River" -- Big Four (Hatology, 2002)
* Gebhard Ullmann, Chris Dahlgren, Peter Herbert -- "Blue Mint" -- BassX3 (Drimala, 2005)
* Jason Moran -- "Aubade" -- Same Mother (Blue Note, 2004)
I never looked it up until today, but an "aubade" is a song or
poem meant to evoke that sunrise/dawn feeling. Which this is -- it's a
piano and acoustic guitar piece that's quite relaxing.
* Nicole Mitchell Black Earth Ensemble -- "Journey for 3 Blue Stones" -- Hope, Future, and Destiny (Dreamtime, 2004)
Camille Saint-Saens: Arthur Grumiaux, violin, with Orchestre des Concerts Lamoureux, Manuel Rosenthal, conductor -- "Violin Concerto No. 3, First Movement" -- Saint-Saens/Vieuxtemps (Philips, 197?)
Played this because we were giving away tickets to
the St. Laurence String Quartet performance at Stanford this weekend. None
of the pieces on that program happen to be in our library, but this came
close, sort of, to the Saint-Saens string quartet they'll be playing.
* Veryon Weston, John Edwards, John Sanders -- "Gateway Three" -- Gateway to Vienna (Emanem, 2004)
A 2-CD set of piano-bass-drums improvisations. Richly varied
sessions that stick to a free-jazz motif with occasional sonic explorations.
Some very engaging fast/loud jams as well. Disk Two, which consists of
two 30-minute pieces, is quite good, especially the first, faster piece ...
although it feels a bit shallow to say I liked the faster one more than the slower one.
* Machine and the Synergetic Nuts -- "M-B" -- Leap Second Neutral (Cuneiform, 2004)
* = Item in KZSU rotation
! = Pop anomaly
? = Item not in KZSU library
-- Go back to Memory Select playlists.
-- Bay Area free/improv music calendar: http://www.bayimproviser.com.