Friday, October 12th, 2007 ... 3:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. ... KZSU, 90.1 FM

(Return to playlists.)

I'm spending next week in New York, home of lots of great music. Downside: I get to enjoy pretty much none of it, as this is a work trip without much room for adventure. In the good old days, I'd arrive in NYC as many as three days early, using up a weekend to play tourist and see Elliott Sharp, Tim Berne, Eric Bogosian, a film by Matthew Barney ...

That's nostalgia, not self-pity. What I've got in my life these days is more than a fair trade-off.

Random thoughts resembling news:

• Amy X. Neuburg and the Cello ChiXtet are reviving "The Secret Language of Subways", a song cycle for three cellos, loops, and electronic percussion. "Subways" debuted last year, and Neuburg's latest newsletter even links to my account of the performance. Always amazing and frightening to discover someone's actually read this stuff. Thanks Amy!

  The one-off re-performance of "Subways" is Nov. 3 at the Freight & Salvage in Berkeley. A CD is apparently in the works, too, but you really want to see this live, trust me.

• Tim Berne's quartet Bloodcount is re-forming for some February 2008 shows, and Berne is selling a new CD and DVD of past material from them. Wow. This quartet is how I got into outside jazz in the first place, and they remain a favorite of mine -- not just for sentimental reasons, either. In the intervening decade, Chris Speed (sax/clarinet) and Jim Black (drums) have carved out careers for themselves as leaders, and Michael Formanek (bass) has been busy as a sideman for lots of projects, including inside-jazz work. How that will affect the band's sound, I don't know -- but I'd love to find out. Someone find me an east-coast tech conference to attend near Feb. 3, 9, or 10, please...

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

* Charlie Hunter Trio -- "Wizard Sleeve" -- Mistico (Fantasy, 2007)

8-stringed guitarist Hunter is back, again showing an edgy side that belies the sweaty-yet-easygoing grooves that marked his early career. He's replaced the sax with keyboards, for a different and tougher sound, but it's still the same hardy groove stuff at its core. Very nice; always good to see Charlie in action.

Previously noted here.

Normally, I don't like synthesizers in jazz. They conjure up memories of '80s precursors to smooth jazz, those Oregon/Winston/Windham Hill bands that tried to take the music to new adventurous heights but, in the process, wound up sucking out the soul and -- forgive me for saying it -- whitening it down.

Lindeborg's is a quartet with a club-jazz sound. She leads on piano, and the band as a whole will occasionally slip into a rather free-jazz motif. Then, occasionally, she'll switch to synth -- and the sax and bass players will sometimes launch computer-distorted versions of their own playing. At first glance, I'm intrigued -- the stuff doesn't get too cheesy, nor is it too self-consciously sci-fi.

Previously noted here.

Previously noted here.

Previously mentioned here. This track is a 15-minute jam, bright and very active, with Baron getting joyously loud in spots.

An explosion of white noise, of course.

Quirky out-rockers beloved by college radio DJs everywhere. Our new music director, Mike (who's actually been music director on several past occasions), has instituted a plan he's talked about for years. Every now and then, he's putting an old CD into "reanimation," an extra shelf of old discs that count as A-file (rotation) spins for the DJs who play them. Reanimation normally consists of old music that our station has newly acquired. It's a good way to remind ourselves of the great finds waiting in our library drawers.

Back in 2005, these three got together for an edition of the Out Trios a series on Atavistic consisting of improv sessions led by guitarists. Part of the idea, I think, was to combine top-notch musicians who hadn't played together before.

Well, the Victo folks were apparently impressed and invited the trio to play at last year's Victoriaville festival. The results are on this CD, highlighted by this 37-minute track. They played two other pieces as well. The results are more splintery and aggressive than I remember their Out Trios session being, with Cline leaning on some psych-groove nerves for a few minutes at a time. Plenty of guitar shredding alongside more pensive, electronics-colored phases, too.

Previously noted here.

Toad in the Hole -- "Toad 7" -- Toad in the Hole (Limited Sedition, 2002)

One-off local project, collecting some of the big names in the Bay Area improv scene for a set of curly improvs with cranky louder segments and playfully pensive quiet zones. Really nice stuff, with lots of non-musical sounds for an "extended technique" kind of aesthetic. There's a gimmick, too. Every other track is a "Toad," an improv ofnormal length (2 to 14 minutes). Every other other track is a "Hole," a short blip less than 1 minute long ("Hole 17" is just 4 seconds.)

By the way, those names: Morgan Guberman (bass), Matt Ingalls (clarinet), Gino Robair (drums), Scott Rosenberg (sax) John Shiurba (guitar) ... with plenty of electronics and other noisemakers spread among all five.

Karayorgis is a pianist with a style that I suppose would classify as free jazz. Plenty of wandering spirit. But his sound overall is restrained and relaxed, quite mellow and pretty really. It's just that if you listen carefully, you won't hear a charming melody that would characterize, say, Dave Brubeck or Dave Kikoski. Rich bass and drums complete the sound for him, provided in this case by Nate McBride and Randy Peterson, respectively. Our library has a few of Karayorgis' CDs, and it's a pleasure to pick up this one, recorded in Chicago in 2005.

Wild, cartoony fun, as you'd expect from these guys. They're apparently coming to the San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts for a Halloween show, playing a live sidetrack to the 1926 silent movie Faust.

Previously mentioned here, where I noted Spalding plays acoustic bass and sings, in the kind of high airy voice that fits well with Latin jazz. Here, she does a bit of scat noodling behind a pleasant melody, while digging into some substantial bass riffs. A nice ear-catching showcase for her. She'll be on campus next Friday, opening for Dianne Reeves' show.

Bill Frisell's latest project, with Matt Chamberlain on drums, and guests like Eyvind Kang on viola. Dreamy slowish stuff, as Frisell is wont to do, with touches of Americana and occasionally surprise influences like reggae. Also plenty of "production" (meaning electronics and manipulations, I guess) from Tucker Martine and Lee Townsend.

Previously noted here.

? Fausto Romitelli [composer] -- "Professor Bad Trip, Lesson 2" -- Professor Bad Trip (Cypres, 2003)

Played "Lesson 1" last week. Thought it would be cute to play "Lesson 2," the middle movement of the suite, this week; it's not as catchy as "Lesson 1" and has some longer slow work in its 17 minutes, but it's still very good and worked well on radio, I think.

I pretty much have to play "Lesson 3" next week, even though it strikes me (on early listens) as the weakest of the movements.

* Rudder -- "Sad Clown" -- Rudder (19/8, 2007)

Previously noted here.

Both songs on this 7" are credited to Frick, a cat, as the songwriter. In lieu of vocals, the pieces use recordings of Frick's voice -- or, for this side, Frick joined by pals Bony and Hissy. Cat growls, purrs, and wails, all deeply processed as vocals would be (echo chambers and the like) for a ghostly sound. Great novelty item. Side A has just Frick's purr plus an acoustic guitar -- you wouldn't necessarily guess that's a cat sound if you weren't told. Side B, this one, uses a louder trio and electric guitar, and gets into those growls and wails. It's allegedly the brainchild of Mark Dagley, who was in the band The Girls ... but we all know he's just a puppet for Frick.

Excellent, if rough, session with some songs extending to the 30-minute mark. Very interesting 2-CD set, because you get to hear Dolphy, obviously, and also because it's historic; apparently this is the earliest band recording of "Orange Was the Color of Her Dress, Then Blue." Jaki Byard on piano goofs around a ton on this track, quoting "Yankee Doodle" in his solo and ordaining it with free-jazz twists.

Previously noted here. I'd played the CD earlier in the show and forgotten the reason: because Slusser has a gig early next week. Had to give the gig a plug and go out with another track, this one a strong mid/fast tempo but a light, almost loungy feel, with a jazz guitar added as special guest.

* = 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.