Creations Dunois

[Link originally supplied by Dan Warburton; English translations by special request only.]

Here's a wonderful site commemorating the many concerts of jazz and freely improvised music sponsored by Paris' "collective of the 28 street Dunois" from 1982 to 1986.

With over 50 streaming video clips -- all in the 1 to 1 1/2 minute range -- to view, the site is bound to make sure the average new music fan is even less productive per 7.5 hrs. spent at the day gig. I know I've certainly never sen performance footage of The Recedents, Bobby Few, or Han Reichel. Plus:

• a 1982 clip of Tony Coe and George Lewis, with the clarinetist pacing and running scales behind Lewis, seated, as he "tests" mouthpieces on his trombone; to the uninitiated, the whole thing must look like a very strange sort of waming up;
  
• in another 1982 clip, a member of the Aoxlotl ensemble -- or is it the sound-man? Dan? -- casually sips a glass of red wine and then, as if slowly noticing that the camera has turned on him, leans into the fray;
  
• John Stevens in full but cool flail in January 1986 with an edition of Detail featuring Paul Rutherford, Frode Gjerstad (why is he standing so far back from the mike?), and a bassist who is billed as Johnny Dyani but who rather resembles Kent Carter (just a guess);
  
• a Sam Rivers / Mal Waldron duet;
  
• Sonny Sharrock with quartet from 1984, the guitarist looking and moving over a nasty electric bass ostinato like a Run DMC-ed-out B. B. King -- black windbreaker, black jeans, broken strings trailing from the neck of his black Gibson Les Paul;
  
• and more.

The quality of the video is quite good, "professional" as they say, with multiple cameras obvious in some clips. I know nothing about the circumstances of filming, but here's hoping that this is just a teaser for a comprehensive DVD set of Dunois material.

Enjoy.

~ Joe Milazzo