Friday, July 20th, 2007
... 3:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. ...
KZSU, 90.1 FM
Format:
ARTIST -- "TRACK TITLE" -- ALBUM TITLE (LABEL, YEAR)
Horizontal lines denote microphone breaks.
* Declared Enemy -- "Abdallah" -- Night of 100001 Stars: A Tribute to Jean Genet (Rogue Art, 2007)
* Stephen Riley -- "Big Foot" -- Easy to Remember (SteepleChase, 2007)
Previously noted here.
A nice straight reading of a Charlie Parker tune, running 10 minutes.
* Jim Ryan's Forward Energy -- "Big Mountain" -- FE3 Portland (Edgetone, 2007)
Conlon Nancarrow -- "No. 21" -- Player Piano 3:Conlon Nancarrow, Volume 2 (MDG Scene, 2006)
Waves upon waves of insanely fast runs, and it just keeps getting
faster. It's inhuman -- literally; these are player piano pieces that show
off all sorts of tricks humans will never be able to do. The piano rolls come
from the collection of one Jurgen Hocker, who also provided the 1927
Bossendorfer grand piano outfitted with an Ampico player-piano mechanism. All
sorts of craziness pervades this album, from incomprehensibly fast playing to
strange slow harmonies.
* Zero Point -- "The Wizard" -- Plays Albert Ayler (Ayler, 2007)
* Frank Carlberg -- "State of the Union" -- State of the Union (Fresh Sound New Talent, 2007)
Spoken word from the likes of Alan Ginsberg set to progressive jazz
music. Interesting stuff. The first three tracks are devoted to a
"presidential suite," first satirizing Clinton and George W. Bush, then
producing this text, a twisted version of the Bill of Rights.
* Mike Reed's Loose Assembly -- "The Entire State of Florida" -- Last Year's Ghost (482 Music, 2007)
* Dave Soldier -- "East Saint Louis 1968" -- Chamber Music (Mulatta, 2007)
A crazy piece incorporating a funk motif at first, then gets taken over
by strings with viola in the lead. Later, an down-home bluesy harmonica comes
in. Throughout all of this, Soldier has some recordings of kids on a
playground, with the sound sometimes tweaked electronically.
This is part of
a 2-CD set featuring a wide variety of music from Soldier, including straight
chamber stuff and a suite for solo saxophone. Interesting variety, and as
you'd expect, he gets a lot of versatility out of the strings.
-- 4:00 p.m. --
* William Parker and Hamid Drake -- "The Edge of Everything" -- Summer Snow (AUM Fidelity, 2007)
* David Sanford and the Pittsburgh Collective -- "Scherzo Grosso" -- Live at the Knitting Factory (Oxingale, 2007)
Previously noted here,
when I played just the concluding movement of the Scherzo; this time,
I went for the full 24-minute piece.
It's a concerto in four movements for cello (played by Matt Haimovitz) and big
band, in memory of trumpeter Ed "Thax" Nelson, who died in 2004 and had been
a key member of the Collective when it started, in 2003. Uses the cello in
both rhythm and lead parts, mirroring what Henry Threadgill did with cello in
his bands.
* Rocco John -- "Cursory Rhyme" -- Don't Wait Too Long (Coalition of Creative Artists, 2007)
*! Pulsallama -- "Ungawa Part 2" (Way Out Guyana) Remix" -- V/A: Girlmonster (Chicks on Speed Records, 2007)
With a big surfy sound full of drums and the "Way Out Guyana" part sung
out by a crowd of female voices. They throw in a "Cowabunga" every few
repetitions, too. Big fun.
This is a 3-CD compilation of all kinds of female artists -- rock, punk,
noise, electronica, sample art -- it's all over the map. And yes,
Chicks on Speed appears, as does Bjork. You've also got some KZSU favorites
like sampling artists People Like Us.
* Emily Hay, Brad Dutz, Wayne Peet -- "Possum
[excerpt]" -- Emily Hay, Brad Dutz, Wayne Peet (pfMentum, 2007)
Previously noted here.
A 12-minute improvised track that opens with a really nice little groove -- I
mean, with a catchy rhythm and everything -- with the second half dissolving
into a slower, more placid place. As that second half unfolded, we made the
transition into some darker stuff...
-- 5:00 p.m. --
* Jeff Arnal and Dietrich Eichmann -- [Side B, track 1, excerpt] -- Live in Hamburg (Broken Research, 2007)
! Kate Bush -- "Brazil" -- Brazil [Motion Pitcure Soundtrack, credited to Michael Kaman] (Milan, 1993)
This came in as a request just as the Emily Hay piece started up.
I'd planned on putting the Jeff Arnal LP on next, and I had a stack of
music yet to play, but I figured I could fit this in. It's got a haunting
quality to it, while still being pretty (you have seen the movie, right? It's an essential work.) It's been a longstanding trick of mine to bracket a pretty song with harsh noise, so suddenly, it seemed like this could fit.
* Jeff Arnal and Dietrich Eichmann -- [Side B, track 2, excerpt] -- Live in Hamburg (Broken Research, 2007)
Returned to this one at an appropriately clattery segment.
Edward Vesala -- "Streaming Below the Times" -- Sound & Fury (ECM, 1994)
Reasonably thoughtful near-classical stuff from a Finnish composer who
died in 1999. More brash than a lot of "serious" music, with saxophones up
front but also guitar, harm, and accordion showing up in spots. This is a
fairly dark piece, with decaratory horns blaring out themes in between
abstract improv solos.
* At Rest -- "Destroy All Music Festival 2, Pillow Tex Warehouse 9/19/1985 [excerpt]" -- Dust from the Closet: Destroy All Music Festival 2, 1985 (self-released, 2007)
Actually, a track title is disingenuous here, because this is a single
26-minute cut. Lo-fi noise, lots of guitars in a big vicious haze, as if
three or four guys decided to play different Glenn Branca pieces all at once.
(With a drummer.) Sent to us by Brian Bath, who's presumably one of the
musicians in the mix and now lives in San Francisco. A nice little slice of
history.
Tom Schmidt -- "Jump the Escalator" -- Rabble (Koch, 1996)
Random pull from the library, and a terrific one that I'll have to get
back to later. Driving and nearly funky, with a pulsing drum line (of
course) that made a nice transition out of the blur of At Rest. Catchy stuff,
accessible but adventurous, in the vein of Bobby Previte's late '90s work.
That comparison got mentioned in a note written up by Cat, a former KZSU jazz
DJ, so it's not just my imagination, nor just the fact that Previte and
Schmidt are both drummers.
Musicians here include Randy McKean, who also played in the cool but
short-lived Great Circle Saxophone Quartet, and Steve Swell on trombone.
Graham Collier's Hoarded Dreams -- "Part 5" -- Graham Collier's Hoarded Dreams (Cuneiform, 2007; recorded 1983)
* Doctor Bob -- "Dream Scheme" -- Dark Times (Edgetone, 2006)
* Joel Harrison -- "End Time" -- Harbor (High Note, 2007)
* Eddie the Rat -- "Mu (Unask the Question)" -- Once Around the Butterfly Bush (Edgetone, 2006)
Previously noted here.
With tinny tuned bells and irregular spare drumbeats, and a few high-toned
lines of female vocal occasionally breezing through, this track has the mild
creepiness of a sparse forest right after sunset, even though the melody
itself seems quite pleasant. These guys have been around for about 10 years,
and they've even been recommended to me in the past, but I'm only now
beginning to explore their music, and I'm liking what I find.
* = 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.