DBMITW: Ornette Coleman live, 1968

A little change in gears as we near the end of our little fund raising drive. A big thanks to the mighty few who have made donations and purchased books— if any of our other hundreds of daily visitors wants to show his or her appreciation, now would be a lovely time to do it. The big, special transcriptions will be up for a few more days, and I have one more big, cool, thing coming whenever I get around to finishing it.

So, while I work on some other things— two new books, a Europe tour, planting some hops, and dealing with a troublesome possum— check out this rare 1968 live cassette recording of one of my favorite Ornette Coleman bands, with Ed Blackwell on drums, and Charlie Haden and David Izenson on bass— I wish there were more recordings available of this group. One of these days I'm going to make a drums-sax-and-two-bassists album. Embedding is disabled, so click through to give it a listen:

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4

J.C. Moses

Ted @ Trap'd mentions and posts audio from a drummer I haven't thought of in awhile- J.C. Moses, drummer with Archie Shepp's New York Contemporary Five, Andrew Hill, and Sam Rivers, among other people. Along with Andrew Cyrille, Beaver Harris et al he was one of the main avante-garde guys in the 60's, though he didn't get on as many records as the others.

I could never find a NYC5 record until early in the '00's (you used to have to go to record stores and flip through a lot of LPs and "compacte discs" to find these things), and knew him better from Shepp's double LP Further Fire Music, which had a trio with David Izenson and Moses on the first two sides. I guess I'll have to dig it out of the archives and make mp3s- I can't find it available for sale or download (legal or illegal) anywhere on line.

Favorite albums: Dance by Paul Motian

New feature: I'll mention records that have meant a lot to me and write a little bit about them. Writing about musical experiences is not my thing, and I am not a jazz critic, so I'll keep my commentaries concise and idiosyncratic. Terse even.

Our first entry:

Dance by Paul Motian
1977 - ECM 144384



Charles Brackeen - tenor and soprano sax
David Izenson - bass
 Paul Motian - drums

This has been one of my all-time favorite records since I found the LP used (probably a promo) for two bucks at Portland's Crossroads Music in the late 90's. Features one of my favorite drum solos (on Dance), some of the friendliest Motian compositions recorded, the great David Izenson doing a lot of beautiful arco playing, and the interesting, elusive saxophonist Charles Brackeen. The blowing is raucous but also spacious. Rare overdubs nicely handled on Kalypso and Lullaby. Lush-sounding. Each piece and the entire album are beautifully balanced.

Purchase on Amazon.com.