Get well, Phil Collins

Wish I had some profound reflections to offer on this rainy 9/11. But the best I can muster is a get-well-soon message for Phil Collins, who recently revealed that severe neck problems have rendered him unable to play drums (or piano, for that matter). I haven't kept up much with recent Genesis happenings, but as anyone who's heard, say, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway can tell you, this man is a brilliant percussionist with a remarkably subtle sense of prog/fusion groove. And, of course, on "In the Air Tonight," he also dropped one of the most classic Monster Fills in all of rock-drumming lore. Check out this live version, and buckle up right around 3:40:



*****

P.S. I absolutely loved District 9 - a great combo of gutwrenching and near-sappy.

P.P.S. I wrote a preview of pianist Connie Crothers's upcoming Stone run. If you haven't checked out Crothers, get with the program: She's amazing.

Missing links

In a couple of hours, I'm headed west with Laal in search of the Boognish. I wish everyone a wonderful Labor Day weekend. I leave you with some links to recent Time Out pieces that I'm happy with:

*As you can see above, I attended last week's Heaven and Hell (a.k.a. Black Sabbath 2.0) show and spent a few minutes standing less than ten feet from Tony Iommi. It was magical. More pics and a review here.

*Central Market, the new Tyondai Braxton solo album that comes out in a few weeks, is really awesome. I interviewed Mr. Braxton and wrote a profile of him in advance of the Warp20 celebration going down this weekend in NYC.

*Sadly I didn't make it out to one of the Nine Inch Nails shows. I did however write a longish preview of the run. It was interesting to think about how much I'd adored NIN in high school, and how unlikely it was that Trent Reznor had managed to keep people interested for so long.

*The new Mount Eerie album is very creepy and cool. Here's my review.

*On the TONY music blog, the Volume, we have a weekly video series featuring in-office performances by local artists. Some recent ones I've really enjoyed: Wild Yaks, Marcus Strickland Trio, Sharon Van Etten, Mike Watt (!) and Shilpa Ray. You can view the full archive here.

*****

Lastly, how insanely cool is all this Michael McDonald business? From pop-cultural punchline in The 40-Year-Old Virgin to oracle of the shifting zeitgeist in just a few short years!

"When I was with the Doobies, the style of music was that we all went over the falls with chord progressions, trying to make things as complex and interconnected as possible. The punk movement swung towards being as primitive as possible, but now it’s back to where these guys are good musicians. I never thought that would come back around, but it has.”

Boy has it ever. "Cannibal Resource" on Letterman anyone? Prog is back in the mainstream where it belongs! [Used to have a YouTube link here, but they yanked the vid.]

And for something completely different, check out a brutal new Ted Kennedy-themed Blouse jam here. Joe from STATS guests on guitar.

Goodbye, Joe Maneri

And the improvised music world has lost another genius who sought to turn time into nothing: Mr. Joe Maneri passed away yesterday at the age of 82. I'm sure many of his many students and acolytes will be able to eulogize him in far greater detail than I ever could. My exposure to his music was minimal, but what I heard touched me deeply. Some years back I listened obsessively to a 1995 Leo disc called Get Ready to Receive Yourself, which teamed Joe with his son Mat, bassist John Lockwood and drummer Randy Peterson. Obviously I've heard all the hoopla re: Maneri's allegiance to microtonal music, but I'm not schooled enough to have any clear idea of what that means. To me, what Maneri's music sounded like was SLIDING. The quartet on the aforementioned CD played like it was swaying underwater. I don't think I've ever heard jazz sound more fluid or--and this term isn't meant in any derogatory sense--lazy.

And for all the saxists whose sounds have been compared to crying, Maneri was the one who sounded most like he was sobbing when he played. His lines were like hoarse, slow-motion laments. It was a devastating soundworld that his band created, abetted in no small part by Peterson, one of the world's strangest and most revelatory drummers, a player who looks and sounds like he's wobbling on a tightrope as he plays--the perfect complement to the leader's woozy time-sense.

When I think of Joe Maneri, I think of the one time I saw him live at Tonic, his singularly roly-poly body seated at the piano and him babbling in those weird tongues that he used to favor. (I remember running into a co-worker there who played bebop sax in his spare time. He had heard that Maneri was a legend, but the show itself left him quite disgusted. I think he walked out.) But that visual image couldn't compare to my sonic memory. I haven't listened to Joe Maneri in a few years, but I can hear him in my head plain as day, sobbing and sliding along, serenading a weird muse that spoke to no one but him.

P.S. Maneri's own site is woefully out of date, so try this detailed interview by JazzWeekly's Fred Jung if you're curious to learn more. [Update: There's also a lengthy Jazz Times piece by Harvey Pekar. Haven't had a chance to dig in, but I'm psyched to do so. Pekar used Maneri's music in the film version of American Splendor.]

CThreePO: Fieldwork summons robojazz fury at the Stone

The Stone was sweltering tonight. I attended Fieldwork's late set and the heat and the music aligned to induce a very heavenly sort of delirium. Fieldwork is a band without a leader, still a rare thing in jazz. The members--saxist Steve Lehman, pianist Vijay Iyer and drummer Tyshawn Sorey, the latter of whom curates the Stone this month--are all well known for fronting various projects and generally being on forefront of contemporary-jazz bad-ass-ness. Together what they are is a machine.

All three musicians compose for the group, but I wasn't able to discern any particular diversity in writing style during tonight's set. (I plan to go back to the band's latest disc, Door, to see if that assertion really holds water.) The trio played about five longish pieces, all in the eight-minute range, and the style was very consistent. Let's call it robojazz, or something. Fieldwork specializes in vamps, of a sort, namely the most dizzyingly complex sort you've ever heard, played largely in straight (i.e., nonswung) time. It's the jazz equivalent of math rock, and it's a mode that maestro Tim Berne has excelled in for years. Check out Berne's bands Hardcell and Science Friction and then listen to Fieldwork and you'll see what I mean: Both feature a kind of asymmetrical funk grid sketched by lockstep piano and drums, with tart, intricate sax lines laid over top. (I don't want the Berne comparison to seem too reductive, since Fieldwork definitely carves out its own space within this territory. Its approach to vamping comes off as generally more oblique, with the three instruments orbiting each other in ultrasubtle ways, like parts in an elaborate mobile.) For me, jazz like this is like chocolate and peanut butter: I get the proggy rhythmic tendencies I so dearly adore in rock, and I get the daredevil improv and inspired looseness I love in jazz.

As much as Fieldwork foregrounds its collectivity on paper, it was hard not to feel that tonight's show was Tyshawn Sorey's show. Sorey has taken great pains--in the liner notes to his great 2007 release That/Not and in commentary related to his new disc, Koan--to emphasize his disinterest in flaunting his world-class chops on his records as a leader. And indeed, on the aforementioned sessions, he backs up that rhetoric completely. These are outstandingly restrained albums, to an almost ascetic degree. Sorey's playing in Fieldwork is another story entirely

A lot of jazz musicians you talk to will describe performances as "burnin'" or "killin'." I guess the metal equivalent would be something like "shredding" or "face-melting." Whatever your preferred terminology for this phenomenon of utter musical density and proficiency and decimation, it would apply in a major, major way to what this drummer was up to tonight. You know those percussionists who reproduce drum 'n' bass electronica live, and how it's kind of cool but also kind of a pointless gimmick? Sorey takes that level of ungodly coordination and proceeds to chop and screw it. He sounds like the world's smartest, most passionate, most paradoxically anarchic computer.

He starts slow and throws his whole body into it, grimacing as he nails a cymbal crash. It's all about the stutter, the suggestion of ultimate fragmented funk, rising into some unbelievably swift cyborg rhythm, like the turbo-speed apotheosis of a paradiddle. Cracking the snare, muted with (tonight) a wallet or a piece of paper. Hi-hat snapped taut for maximum crispness. Just impossible levels of groove, making it so that you have to move, like you're shaking off a bee that's stinging you. Sicker and sicker and sicker. The guy doesn't relent. And then there are the digressions: transferring the pattern to the bell-less ride, pulling up short on the high tom, rolling his way back over to the hi-hat for a breath-stealing choke. Basically what we're talking about is the airy buoyance of Tony Williams combined with the deadeye precision of Neil Peart, and neither aesthetic gets short-shrifted.

So yes, Fieldwork a collective, but it's damn near impossible to take your eyes and ears off Tyshawn once he gets going. Iyer's playing in the group is deep and mysterious. He's vamping but with notes chosen for maximum drift and eeriness. The combination of his dreamy chord haze and the tautness of his rhythmic grids is exceedingly odd. He plays a lot like a bassist in Fieldwork, trancing out on the robojazz ostinatos, sometimes insanely long so that you can't for the life of you figure out if they're repeating exactly or where the one is or what the hell is going on. All you know is that Iyer is in control and that eventually he and Sorey will stop without warning on a dime and you'll be shocked just like you were when the piece before ended exactly the same way. (This is another prime Tim Berne trick.)

Lehman's contribution tonight seemed like the slightest. That had a lot to do with the fact that it was hard to hear him. Sorey was punishingly loud at times and didn't seem to want to concede much in that department. But the saxist knows that he has a lot of work to do to pierce through the grid the other two lay down, and he slices in and out with torrid, punchy lines. A very edgy sound. At one point, he busted out some shredded-throat-sounding multiphonics, which made for a great contrast with the sleek futurism churning underneath. Lehman provides a crucial squiggly, mercurial texture, writhing over top of the solid steel.

There were moments of soft stillness, pieces of fruitful quiet. But like water in a draining bathtub, everything was always sort of tending toward that glorious pounding rigor, and every piece eventually did get to that point. By the third or fourth piece, there was a same-iness to the set, but honestly, I couldn't have cared less. The asymmetrical-robojazz vibe is like catnip for me, and I didn't want it to stop. If you've ever loved thorny yet propulsive fusion (Mahavishnu Orchestra), thorny yet propulsive electronica (good example escaping me--Autechre?), thorny yet propulsive classical (that one part everyone loves in "Rite of Spring"), thorny yet propulsive Balkan music (don't know enough to list a good example but I'm confident in my citation of the style), thorny yet propulsive prog (Yes), thorny yet propulsive math rock (Don Caballero)--any music where it's all about that holy confluence of brain and balls--you absolutely must behold the way this band aerates that aesthetic, makes it make sense with the cutting edge of postmillennial jazz.

Fieldwork represents the best kind of foregrounded virtuosity. There's heart and weirdness and unpredictability mixed in and however dazzling the music is, it isn't superficial. It really is that tight, that complex, that powerful and most importantly, that human.

RIP Rashied Ali

What an absolutely outstanding musician.

And he sounded as good in recent years as he did on all those classic records. I feel fortunate that I was able to catch him live several times (but still, it wasn't enough). I'll never forget when I interviewed him in 2003 at his studio in Soho. He spoke of trying to "turn time into nothing." When I asked him what he meant, he proceeded to sit down at his kit and demonstrate. "Okay, here's time," he said, easing into one of his patented subtly roiling drumscapes. "And now I'm going to turn time into nothing." To be perfectly honest, I perceived no change in what he was playing, but either way it was completely magical to hear him in such an intimate setting. Here, via All About Jazz, is the complete transcript of said interview, which contains a wealth of great info on Interstellar Space and Ali's career as a whole. Check The Volume for a modest obituary and some nice links.

This sad news begs the question: Does anyone know the whereabouts of Rashied's younger brother Muhammad? I absolutely love his vintage work with Frank Wright and several others, but I have heard very little news of his recent activities. Some enticing tidbits here.

UPDATE: A Blog Supreme reports (as do several other sources) that Muhammad actually subbed for Rashied at the Newport Jazz Festival this past weekend. Anyone attend? I'm dying to know how he sounded. Thanks to RVAJazz and Steve Smith for the heads-ups.

Keel overhaul, etc.

[UDATE: From the Dept. of Pretzel Logic Linkage, here's a link to the Brooklyn Vegan photo post on Sunday's Keelhaul show, which itself links here.]

On Sunday, STATS had the pleasure of sharing a bill at Public Assembly with a band from Cleveland called Keelhaul (above). (You might recall the name from a post I wrote here last December.) It was a hell of a show all around, and I want to thank Brandon Stosuy (Show No Mercy) and Black Bubblegum (Brooklyn Vegan) for putting it together. These gentlemen had no way of knowing this in advance, but for a few reasons, it was really special for me to be able to play alongside Keelhaul.

First, the band's drummer, Will Scharf--an outstandingly fluid and powerful player--used to be a member of a band called Craw. I've blabbed at length on here about Craw, but suffice it to say that I adore them more than any other musical entity I've ever been exposed to. It has been this way since I was approximately 17. That was a very formative time for me: It's when I started playing drums; it's when I started writing about music; and it's when I witnessed many of the performances that have affected me the most. A good number of those performances were by Craw, and all but one of those featured Mr. Scharf behind the kit.

Craw being a thoroughly independent band, I had all the personal access to the members that I could ever want, and my friends and I spent hours before and after those gigs grilling the members about this and that. I've kept in touch with them over the years to varying degrees, and though Will was never very much of a talker, he's always been kind enough to check out music I've sent him and to let me pick his brain re: drumming, influences, technique, gear, etc.

STATS shared a bill with one of Scharf's other projects, Pincer, when we played in Cleveland in late '07, but Sunday was the first time we'd ever gotten the opportunity to perform on a bill with Keelhaul, his primary musical concern. It was an extreme trip to be able to open for someone who's been an artistic hero of mine for more than a decade and to interact with him as a peer as well as a fan.

And I am a huge fan. Keelhaul is a very esoteric band, and an only sporadically active one at that. But still, more people should know them. This is because they are simply outstanding at playing rock & roll. The show of theirs I caught last December--a warm-up for the recording of their latest album, Keelhaul's Triumphant Return to Obscurity (two tracks stream here), which comes out August 18 on Hydra Head--was solid, but this was much better. They'd been on the road for a few days, and their performance had that bullish energy that can only come from consecutive gigs.

Keelhaul is probably best categorized as a math-metal band. Their music is largely instrumental and extremely complex. But the great thing about it is that however technical it gets, it never feels cold. The band embraces groove and boogie even as it rages through some of the most outrageously asymmetrical riffing you've ever heard. I know of few other bands that imbue the genre with so much soul. (Incidentally, said feat is like a mission statement for STATS.)

And it's such a pleasure to watch these musicians perform. You'll rarely see a group of more scruffy, unself-conscious guys onstage. Each one puts forth his own kind of sweaty intensity. Guitarist Dana Embrose is an amazingly animated presence: He has a penchant for mouthing nearly every note he plays and shimmying uncontrollably. Bassist-vocalist Aaron Dallison acts the wild brute, headbanging vigorously and spitting to punctuate major accents. Guitarist-vocalist Chris Smith is the most subdued, squinting at his fingers through huge, clear-rimmed spectacles. And Scharf, ever-shirtless, contorts his face into all sorts of rubbery grimaces as he plays. Sometimes he's mugging for the crowd; other times he's just rolling his eyes at a flubbed fill.

The band works like a churning, chugging machine. There's something so human about the way they operate onstage. They are the epitome of unfashion--I remarked to Joe during the set that they should have their own line of cargo shorts. But the music itself has such style and swing and passion and fun. It's just pure exaltation of ballsy riffs and post-hardcore pathos and extreme dynamics. (Keelhaul is known for its dynamite quiet parts.) There's none of that coldness you feel from a band like Fucking Champs, that notion of metal as calisthenics, or even worse, as some kind of punchline. Math metal simply feels like a subset of soul music when Keelhaul plays it. You'd have a hard time finding another band that honors the progressive aspects of making rock & roll as much as the meat-and-potatoes ones.

Here's some video of a recent Keelhaul show in Rochester:



And here's the promo spot for their amazing 2003 jam "Cruel Shoes," which was rocked in high style at Sunday's show:



/////

Other quick nods:

*Stephen O'Connor "Ziggurat"
An amazing piece of classico-postmodern mythology published in The New Yorker this past June. A weird retelling of the Minotaur tale, one which teases out all the most sad, fucked-up psychological implications. I sat stunned at the end of this, about to cry.

*The Flying Luttenbachers Cataclysm and more
Been surveying this band's prime brutal-prog period, i.e., the albums from The Void through Incarceration by Abstraction, and I've been re-floored by what a grand and coherent body of work this is. It's more obvious to me than ever that Weasel Walter could easily be regard as a "serious" composer if he gave two shits about such things. Instead he's one of the great outsider musical geniuses of our time. For these records he wrote a lot of fantastically great, aggressive, loopy contrapuntal prog and got two of the most uniquely virtuosic guitarists of our time, Ed Rodriguez (Deerhoof, Gorge Trio, Colossamite, Sicbay, etc.) and Mick Barr (Orthrelm, Ocrilim, Octis, etc.) to help him interpret it. (Both players appear together only on Cataclysm and Spectral Warrior Mythos, Volume 1. I'm wondering what happened to the long-promised Cataclysm-era live DVD.) All these records are still available direct from Weasel. Go with Cataclysm first. Brilliant, brilliant album. Love the group's creepy take on a Messiaen piece I can't pronounce.

*The Modern Lovers
Laal has been turning me on to their self-titled debut album, which I don't think I'd ever heard before. More outsider genius, the polar opposite of Weasel's, courtesy of Jonathan Richman. Wondrous combinations of sad and wry abound in songs like "Hospital" and "Dignified and Old."

*KGW Mrs. Equitone
Growing on me slowly, imperceptibly. I thought Yes Boss was an untouchable monolith, and I still think it will be hard for Graham Smith to ever top it, but this new one is killer too. A slightly different emotional cast. Not so battered and laid-bare. But catchy and transcendent and full of cracked joy and sweet sorrow.

*Paul Auster Invisible
His new one, due in November. Sped through Leviathan and now I'm on to this, in galley version. Don't want to spoil plot, but this one is way, way heavy. Maybe the most emotionally gripping of the Auster novels I've read.

*Queens of the Stone Age Era Vulgaris and more
Fantastic rock music of the future. I don't like all the Queens stuff I've heard, but I'm never bored by them. Somehow this band combines muscle and melody in ways that feel new. Turbopop for the now. Got freaked on them after interviewing Josh Homme last week for my Ween book.

*Michael Showalter vs. Michael Cera
There's nothing I love more than a heaping helping of Michael Showalter's "asshole" character. Cera plays along exceedingly well.

Public service announcement, etc.

Greetings, good people. Just a quick note about a show that STATS is playing this coming Sunday, 8/2. It's part of the Show No Mercy metal series at Public Assembly in Williamsburg, and the bill is amazing. Headlining is Cleveland's Keelhaul, who make complex and brutally elegant music. This will be a release party for their brand-new Hydra Head record, Keelhaul's Triumphant Return to Obscurity. The show will be rounded out by three other great, loud bands, and the whole night was co-curated by Pitchfork/Stereogum scribe Brandon Stosuy and Brooklyn Vegan blogger Black Bubblegum. All pertinent info is on the flyer above (click to enlarge). I don't know for sure yet, but my guess is that we'll be playing first, right around 8pm. [Update: Just confirmed this, and we are in fact playing first.] The new STATS EP, Marooned, is still available in a digital format free of charge. Drop a line to statsbrooklyn[at]gmail[dot]com if you'd like to hear it.

/////

Recent delights:

Old and New Dreams s/t [ECM, 1979], Playing
Such comfort and delight in teamwork. Just makes you want to live and listen. Love these guys.

Charlie Haden The Golden Number
Fascinating session, justly adored by Ethan Iverson, to name one prominent fan. To me, the Archie Shepp duet is the real gem, but everything here is special. Anyone catch Haden with Paul Bley this past weekend? I really wanted to see that.

Cecil Taylor 3 Phasis
Masterful, celebratory turbulence. A lot of bawdy soul in Cecil's playing. Raphé Malik is so bold and LOUD—a severely underrated player. Love those fly-on-the-wall Gary Giddins liner notes too.

Muhal Richard Abrams with Malachi Favors Sightsong
Excellent, concise and very diverse duo jams from these two AACM geniuses. Some pieces free-flowing; others tight and swinging.

George Harrison All Things Must Pass
Still digesting this deep-feeling classic. When I'm done it may be one of my favorite albums, period. Ringo is killing throughout. "Wah Wah" is a phenomenal song.

Dirty Projectors Bitte Orca
Finally giving the rest of the album its due after months of exclusive obsession with "Stillness Is the Move." The guitar solo on "Temecula Sunrise" is an insta-classic: total brain-frying skronk.

Paul Auster Leviathan
I like this book a lot better than the Mastodon album of the same name. Masterful storytelling. Psyched for Auster's new one, Invisible, due in the fall.

Terror's Advocate
Stone-faced yet utterly bonkers documentary about a lawyer with a soft spot for violent revolutionaries and other questionable characters (e.g., Pol Pot). Really hard to understand (well, for my historically challenged brain, at least) but worth the slog.

28 Days Later [the movie]
Interesting mix of completely fucked-up and sweetly sentimental. Excited to compare The Road with this. Which will be the gold standard for postapocalyptic melodrama?

Ween "I Smoke Some Grass (Really Really High)"
A brilliantly infuriating song. Eight minutes of unrelenting hell.

The Evens Get Evens
What a strange and cool band. Wry polemics: the good kind of preachy. Love the wiry sound of MacKaye's baritone guitar and Farina's limber, funky drumming. First song, "Cut from the Cloth," is an elegiac masterpiece. Considering these two have a son now—see this fine recent interview for a bit more info on that—I hope they can find time to keep the band going.

And, of course, that marvelous William Vollmann Times piece that everyone is talking about. Can't get enough of this guy. He can rest assured that no matter how much people are daunted by his doorstop literary dispatches, said folks will always go nuts over the stats of his insane life. "'Crack,' [Vollmann] said recently, 'is a really great drug — it’s like having three cups of coffee at once.'"

Various and sundry, mid-July-'09 edition

Greetings, good people. It has been a minute, I know. Hectic times, stemming in part from the Ween project, on which I've been making some slow but respectable progress. I'm in interview mode right now, busy tracking down all the principal players in the Chocolate and Cheese saga. If anyone knows the whereabouts of cover model Ashley Savage, do drop a line.

So, if you don't mind, here's an utterly random list of mainly non-music-oriented shout-outs:

Blue Hill at Stone Barns
A farm/restaurant up in Westchester, run by the same folks who own the Blue Hill joint in the West Village (the Obamas' chosen date spot). Laal and I celebrated her June birthday belatedly here this past weekend, and it was insanely good. It's steep, no doubt, but the Sunday tasting-menu lunch is very reasonable, and the food was simple yet mindblowing. Basically it's one of those farm-to-table joints: The menu focuses on "the daily catch" and thus it's always changing. Below is a pictorial sampling of what we ate, before taking some time to stroll around the grounds, which are pretty much gorgeous. I'd recommend the jaunt highly--I think it's pretty quick on Metro North. (Be forewarned, though: You'll definitely need to score reservations way in advance.) Anyway, the eats, as photographed by Laal and myself, both making our initial forays into food porn:

[I didn't record all the "official" names for these dishes, so I'm just going to wing it.]

Bean salad with fresh tomatoes
I'm no tomato lover and still, this ruled. Abundant string beans, mixed with peaches and other goodies. Subtle and awesomely acidic dressing.















Ricotta gnocchi
I never knew that gnocchi could actually be filled with something; had always thought it was more of a mixture. Anyway, this was probably the best pasta I've ever had in my life.















Baby lamb with chickpeas and zucchini
It's a little harder to eat lamb when you see the animals in question grazing on your way into the farm. I got over it quick, though: The meat was unreal. Killer green sauce on this one, tasted like pureed vegetables or somesuch. And the chickpeas were a great touch.















Cheese!
How can you not opt for the proverbial cheese course? I have no recollection of what these cheeses were actually called, but I can tell you that they both come from Vermont and that they were both delicious. Note cherry chutney (which had onions in it!) and little chewy caramel-nut confection on the side.















Cheesecake gelato with fresh blueberries and yogurt... pellets?
Re: the latter ingredient, there were these little frozen pieces of yogurt used as sprinkles--a crazy little accent. The gelato itself was flawless, and being a cobbler enthusiast, I very much appreciated the fresh fruit and graham-crackery crust sprinkled throughout.















/////

Two new/recent publications of note, authored by friends/colleagues:












Zachary Mexico's China Underground
Apologies to Zack, my college buddy and former bandmate (and current member of the highly recommended bands The Octagon and Gates of Heaven), for not mentioning this on the blog sooner. A mega-informative and highly entertaining piece of travel literature. Profiles of a wide variety of everyday folk--punk musicians, a filmmaker, a prostitute, a university student, a journalist, a guy who's obsessed with the so-called Killing People game, etc.--adding up to an alternative history of modern China. Each chapter is like a mini documentary and history lesson rolled into one. I believe Zack is currently in China working on a follow-up, and I wish him all the best with the project.













Jay Ruttenberg's The Lowbrow Reader, issue 7
A great little comedy journal edited by my TONY colleague and infused with his inimitably elegant and understated wryness. Latest issue focuses on Gilbert Rogin, an eccentric, hilarious writer whose work has been out of print for years. Also on offer is Jay's review of a recent Don Rickles performance, a piece which is alone worth the $3 cover price. Click the link above to order.

/////

And now for the music stuff:

As expressed in Time Out New York, I love the new Suffocation album.

Been rediscovering the genius of Ian MacKaye, especially as evidenced by his most recent project, the Evens, and by his always-brilliant interviews, like this one, in which he heroically maintains his poise despite the interviewer's boneheaded demeanor.

The Midnight Special could be the coolest thing ever. I was actually compelled to order these DVDs by, yes, an infomercial, which I saw while flipping channels in a hotel room a few weeks back. Basically TMS was a late-night variety show that aired in the '70s/'80s and featured an insane assemblage of musical talent. I just received the first DVD and during a recent viewing, I and several friends were floored by the spookiness of Stevie Nicks, awed by the ridiculousness of the Guess Who, freaked out by the audaciousness of Labelle, baffled by the deadpan-ness of Debbie Harry, etc. Tons more on there, including John Denver, the Bee Gees and Al Green, and future volumes promise Genesis (!), Steely Dan (!!), Van Morrison (!!!) and more. Will keep y'all posted on what I receive, since I'm now apparently in sort of club where they'll be sending me DVDs every four to six weeks whether I like it or no. More viewing parties to come...

Odd ends

[James Ensor's "The Skeleton Painter," from 1895 or 1896]

A quick roundup before I head down to D.C. with Laal for the weekend.

*Here is my Volume review of two Loyal Label CD-release parties I caught earlier this week: Jon Irabagon/Mike Pride at Cornelia Street Cafe and Seabrook Power Plant at Zebulon. Largely based on these new offerings, Loyal is becoming one of my very favorite contemporary jazz labels.

*Here is a very cool compilation of videos featuring the ever-awesome Zs. The gentleman responsible for the footage, Torsten Meyer (check out his amazing trove of recent NYC show clips), asked me to provide a brief intro/reminiscence re: checking out Zs over the years. I dipped into the DFSBP archives for this one.

*Here is a whole bunch of fun material related to the Jonas Brothers' recent visit to Time Out NY. (The Bros served as guest editors for this week's TONY Music section.) Yes, I was actually in the same room with them--for about 45 minutes, no less. Without a hint of sarcasm, I can say that I really enjoyed the opportunity to meet them and to rap about music.

And a few brief raves.

*The James Ensor show at MoMA. Macabre, vivid, grotesque, hilarious. As you can see above, never have skeletons seemed funnier, more poignant or more personable than in this Belgian artist's work. And dig this sketch title: "The Devils Dzitts and Hihahox, Led by Crazon, Riding a Wild Cat, Accompany Christ to Hell."

*Hamlet 2. Did not stop laughing during this entire film, which came highly recommended by my awesome sis, Caroline, who was in town for the 4th of July. Wickedly offbeat Steve Coogan vehicle from last year. Incredible turns by Catherine Keener, Elisabeth Shue and other Hollywood eccentrics.

*The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. Terrible title; incredible doc about Donkey Kong obsession. At bottom, it's a real-life unpacking of "Good guys finish last."

*Mid- to late-era Led Zeppelin. I become more and more of an obsessive LZ devotee with each passing second. The sheer scope of Physical Graffiti floors me, especially the tender songs like "Ten Years Gone" and "Down by the Seaside," as well as the relentless "Wanton Song," which foreshadows the Jesus Lizard in a very significant way. Presence owns on the WEIRD-riff front. Coda is action-packed, breathtaking and probably the most coherent odds-and-ends record ever assembled. Oh, to have seen this band live...

I remember 1973-1990: Jarrett and Jack // Etc.

Notes on some recent listening.

*Keith Jarrett - Shades, Eyes of the Heart, Byablue, The Survivor's Suite

When the whole 1973-1990 revolution went down in aught six, probably the two most passionate and convincing calls-to-arms were Steve Smith's paean to John Carter's Roots and Folkmore and Ethan Iverson's plea on behalf of Keith Jarrett's American Quartet. Both bodies of work have been on my to-do list for pretty much the entire interim, but as we all know, stuff happens: Thus I'm still not as up on this stuff as I'd like to be. Lately, I've been taking my first serious crack at the Jarrett works in question, and boy, are they weird. Sometimes stubbornly diffuse (e.g., the ubiquitous lengthy intros with Jarrett on soprano sax--after a period of suspicion, I'm coming around to his reed playing), sometimes simple and almost gospelish due to the inexplicably ever-present auxiliary percussion, sometimes remarkably loopy and complex (see "Diatribe" from Shades, which boasts a way-thorny and peculiar head) and sometimes just straight-up violent (the beginning of the second section of Survivor's Suite), this work couldn't really be more singular. I have no idea whether I even like it, but I'm fascinated by it. The players just seem so incongruous together, what w/ Dewey Redman's raging muscularity, Jarrett's showy and flamboyant soulfulness and Paul Motian's wholly alien sense of time. I'm pretty blown away by how well-documented the band is and I can't wait to hear more.

*Jack Dejohnette - New Directions, Special Edition, Special Edition Live in Baltimore (1980), Inflation Blues; and w/ Wadada Leo Smith: America (new duo sesh on Tzadik), Golden Quartet (s/t), The Year of the Elephant

Speaking of well-documented, Jack Dejohnette has been really lucky in that department, esp. in the late '70s and early '80s. I've loved his drumming for a long time--I kind of look at him as the most capable and convincing heir to Tony Williams, even though Tony will always be my gold standard--but I'd never really spent that much time with his records as a leader. [Ed.'s afterthought re: previous sentence: I don't mean "heir" in terms of chronology, b/c Dejohnette and Williams were basically contemporaries--though Williams established himself as the Shit a few years earlier--but more in the sense that Jack assumed the mantle of "absolute best state-of-the-art jazz drummer alive" after Tony moved into other areas.] A lot of variety here, depending on the personnel. The s/t debut (1979) by the Special Edition band was the first one that caught my ear. You can't beat the sax tandem of David Murray and Arthur Blythe and the writing on this session goes anywhere it wants to (playful to elaborate to creepy to lush) and succeeds in all ventures. The improv is gritty and gutsy. Also check out the live Special Edition session linked above, which subs in Chico Freeman for Murray. Really nice, long reading of "Zoot Suite" from the studio date. Inflation Blues, from '82, features a totally different band (including trumpeter Baikida Carroll, whose work I've been digging majorly of late) but continues in the same vein of extremely elegant, nimble, diverse and just generally ENGAGED inside-out jazz. When I hear these Dejohnette sets, I realize what the key property was that made this sort of late-'70s/early-'80s jazz so great: Player-composers like Dejohnette simply knew it all and they had nothing to prove. They knew how to swing, they knew how to play free and they knew how to groove out on some fusion, but they weren't beholden to any of those styles. Without such open-minded virtuosity, you'd never get a record as weird and awesome as New Directions ('78), pictured above. I can't express how cool and unexpected this jam is. Lester Bowie and Ralph Towner together? And check out what Dejohnette has them doing: Some sort of unclassifiable trance-jazz. They just kind of zone out on these expansive, dreamy grooves. There's definitely an electric-Miles vibe, but Davis's stuff in a similar vein always had these sort of tense, sinister overtones. This music just DRIFTS in a very handsome way. There are definitely echoes of the Gateway material w/ John Abercrombie on here, but New Directions seems a lot more mysterious and grown-up to me. Definitely check out this record. And also check out Dejohnette's work with Wadada Leo Smith, which is clearly some of the best jazz of the current millennium. Like Jack, Leo can play it all, and frequently does. The first two Golden Quartet records are basically like the latter-day apotheosis of fusion: They're unafraid of funky groove but never hemmed in by it. You can't really go wrong with Dejohnette, Anthony Davis and Malachi Favors on your record, but this stuff is really every bit as good as you'd want it to be with that lineup. Structures are very skeletal, but the melodies are heartbreaking. What I love about this band is how unabashedly romantic it is. Smith is often associated with the free jazz movement, but I think of him more as a very personal kind of heart-on-sleeve player. As with so much of the best post-first-wave free jazz, there's nothing self-consciously chaotic here. Just grand, flowing sumptuousness--a very sturdy kind of abstraction. Speaking of which, America, the new Dejohnette/Smith duo on Tzadik is fucking killer. Totally unadorned, totally unhurried--just the two dudes, vibing together. And god bless Tzadik's production values. Jack's kit just sounds so perfect and special. Get with Jack, and also get with Jack and Wadada. They're still alive and they're still tapping into the profound on a consistent basis.

///

Recent links of note.

*The new Jon Irabagon/Mike Pride record, which I reviewed for this week's Time Out NY, is stupefying. Totally balls-out.

*As expressed on the Volume, last week's Tim Berne/Ethan Iverson hit at the Stone was subtly peculiar and intriguing, especially in light of the two musicians' enlightening recent online chat.

Recent reading/viewing/more listening.

*The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi. Great, grisly true-crime yarn that features some amazing Zodiac-style menace.

*The Bride and the Bachelors by Calvin Tomkins. More art profiles by the longtime New Yorker scribe, about whom I've often gushed on here. Great, plain-spoken narratives. Loved delving deeper into Duchamp than I ever had, and was very psyched to make the acquaintance of Tinguely and especially Rauschenberg, the latter of whom I've seen a few key works by but never had any real sense of. Seems like a really fun, fiercely smart, bright-eyed dude.

*Dear Zachary. You'll start watching this documentary and think it's a little cheesy, and then soon you'll be sobbing like a baby. This story of murder, custody and injustice is unreal.

*Zeppelin's In Through the Out Door. Am just now getting to know this one for the first time. Had no idea there were so many keyboards! It's like Bonham gone disco. I love it.

*Dave Pajo's Misfits-covers album Scream with Me. I'm not feeling this. I love Slint and some of the Papa M stuff, but I have never gotten with this guy's too-quiet-and-not-expressive-enough singing. He's not doing these songs a favor the way his bud Will Oldham often has (I have an amazing Oldham version of "Die Die My Darling"). Also, he cops out on the lyrics to my fave Misfits tune, "Hybrid Moments," and sings, "When you breed you make your bed" (which apparently originated in the bastardized No Use for a Name version of this song) instead of the much more bonkers "When do creatures rape your face." There's no way to tell for sure what Glenn is actually saying, but my go-to source, Misfits Central, opts for the latter.

*Era Vulgaris by Queens of the Stone Age. Picked this up used a few days ago. On a first cursory listen, it's nowhere near as impressive as Songs for the Deaf or the s/t QOTSA, both of which are staggeringly good.

///

And how could I forget! Here's the cover art and credits for the Marooned EP by STATS, which is still available gratis here. My bud Remi Thornton did a phenomenal job, much as he did for Windpipe. Click on the images for the monster-size versions. (In other STATS news, we open for the mighty Keelhaul--featuring drummer Will Scharf, of Craw fame--in Brooklyn on 8/2/09, as part of the Show No Mercy series.)