Thursday, July 12, 2007 ... midnight - 3:00 a.m. ... KZSU, 90.1 FM

Taking an empty late-shift slot to make up for the fact that I'm missing the 7/13 show.

Note that the date is literal - this is the "night" of Weds., July 11, starting at midnight, when the day technically turns to Thursday.

I'll be adding more notes after getting some sleep...

Format:
ARTIST -- "TRACK TITLE" -- ALBUM TITLE (LABEL, YEAR)
Horizontal lines denote microphone breaks.

* The Claudia Quintet -- "I'm So Fickin' Cool" -- For (Cuneiform, 2007)

Fourth album from the cool, futuristic-sounding group led by drummer John Hollenbeck. The band is fronted by vibraphone and accordion, the latter played in a spare, single-note vein, creating a clean sound that reminds me of the spartan walls of modern art galleries. This stuff, catchy as it is, would play really well at the opening of an installation by some former hipster coming into his/her own as a Big Name artist.

No, wait. To be fair, that's my impression of their first couple of albums. This one falls into that mode, too, but here and there it adds a gruffer edge, a twinge of rock 'n' roll that shows you they've been playing together a long time: The sound has freed up a bit and they're comfortable taking some unexpected turns into new territory, without disrupting their sound. Actually, this might be their best album yet.

One of the more obscure tracks off one of Ornette's classic albums, with Donald Cherry, Charlie Haden, and Ed Blackwell. Has a sparse sense of melody; you can see why jazzsters of the time were so upset with them.

Don't forget, by the way, that Ornette is still around and has a new album out!

SoCal improv trio of flutes, percussion, and piano/organ. A fine session that includes some great abstract explorations as well as the occasional beat-driven section -- like this track, which falls into a peppy groove. Great stuff.

Multi-instrumentalist Apfelbaum, formerly a star of a formerly attention-getting jazz scene in the East Bay, is coming back to town this weekend for a show at Stanford and another at The Freight & Salvage. He's put out a couple of albums after a hiatus, during which he's been trying to get established in the New York environs.

Apfelbaum's stuff is a mix of jazz, world, blues, and funk, best exemplified by his Hieroglyphics Ensemble big band. Part of his story involves the rise and fall of that Ensemble -- it got great audiences and reviews, but it's economically infeasible to keep a large jazz band going, especially one that needs rehearsals. The Hieroglyphics Ensemble was eventually replaced by a Sextet, heard here, and Apfelbaum left for NYC shortly afterwards.

Previously noted here.

* Flatlands Collective -- "Gnomade" -- Gnomade (Skycap, 2007)

Previously noted here.

From the final GbV album (Robert Pollard's work and status are now viewable at his own Web site). I always found this track catchy, with its coolly dissonant bounce, but the best lyrical couplet isn't playable during daylight radio hours: "You're gonna fuck up my make-up / You're gonna make up my fuck-up." I've had this one on my to-do list for a late-night show for some time.

Previously noted here.

* Tripwire -- "Descent" -- Looking in My Ear (Creative Source, 2007)

* Beth Custer -- "Daikon Radish" -- Bernal Heights Suite (BC, 2006)

Previously noted here.

* Graham Collier's Hoarded Dreams -- "Part 4" -- Graham Collier's Hoarded Dreams (Cuneiform, 2007; recorded 1983)

Previously noted here.

Steve Lacy -- "Train Going By" -- Associates (Felmay, 1997)

Steve Lacy -- "Gospel" -- Revenue (Soul Note, 1995)

Previously noted here.

* Declared Enemy -- "Le Rouge et le Noir" -- Night of 100001 Stars: A Tribute to Jean Genet (, 2007)

Previously noted here.

* Carl Ludwig Hubsch -- "Pressio #1" -- Primordial Soup (Red Toucan, 2007)

Led by a tuba! Euro-chamber jazz with a sense of fun; some tracks result in a crazy spin on Dixieland kinds of jazz. Others have a palpable sense of quiet, such as the mouthpiece sounds that make up "Pressio #2." A fave of mine on here is the sparse second track, "NGC 2274 Melos," upbeat but quiet chamber lines that DJ Mufaor describes as a "spider dancing silly."

Previously noted here.

* David Sanford and the Pittsburgh Collective -- "Three Card Molly" -- Live at the Knitting Factory (Oxingale, 2007)

Previously noted here.

Previously noted here.

* Mike Reed's Loose Assembly -- "Day of the Dead" -- Last Year's Ghost (482 Music, 2007)

Previously noted here.

* Hecker -- "In Actu (Create 7.1 Edit)" [excerpt] -- Recordings for Rephlex (Rephlex, 2006)

* Myra Melford and Tanya Kalmanovitch -- "Three Sisters" -- Heart Mountain (Perspicacity, 2007)

Previously noted here.

Traditional duet of tabla and sarode (stringed instrument smaller than a sitar, with a cleaner sound). Nice stuff at a nice pace, pretty much what you'd expect. Played a good 7 minutes of this 21-minute piece.

Previously noted here.

* Sun Ra -- "Constellation" -- Media Dreams (Art Yard, recorded c. 1977-78)

A vinyl find by Your Imaginary Friend, a fellow KZSU DJ. Features Sun Ra and a band in contexts that seem freaky even for Sun Ra: crazy, crazy analog synth convulsions (as on this track), and primitive drum machines, as Y.I.F. puts it. The band comes back down for the last two tracks of the six-track session, downshifting into a more traditional jazz mode. Impressive stuff.

* = 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.