Minnesota is great. Even though I love Chicago and loved visiting New York and could easily live there too and I really feel the need to be in or near a large city, I still miss some aspect of rural Minnesota life every day. Summers in Hibbing were about the best thing I could ever imagine when I was a kid, the giant sky, the sun that doesn't set until 10:00, carefree running and playing, the character building of having to chop wood, be a caddie and other jobs for spending money, slag mountains and occasional explosions from the iron mines. OK, the humidity and mosquitos I could do without, but really what a beautiful place. Duluth is (or was, haven't been there for a long time), I think, a little gem of a city with the lovely hills jutting up from the lake. And the winters are just as beautiful and character building as the summers, although I spent the better part of every school year in Chicago, getting up there for a week or so of skating and freezing and looking at vast, pure blankets of white sure was great. Oh, to be able to live in many places at once...

As for the discs bringing sunshine to the land of 10000 lakes (and 27 fish as the t-shirt i once had said), I sure am glad they are out and available. I've heard 3 so far - the Emergency is a knockout, Roswell Rudd is good but not outstanding and the Alan Shorter is not so great on first listen, but I will check them again. Those Art Ensemble records are pretty good though (they were out on LP for a minute or two on Prestige).

And you got them all free, you lucky dog? No fair complaining about the weather then!

they're $13.29 each at CD Universe.

aicacio!

J & R online has them all for 11.99 right now. (The double Braxton is 21.99.)

Sweet. My advice: nab 'em.

Rob, you're absolutely right about rural MN. It's the interminable length of the winters that invariably gets my goat. But walking out on a field or lake atop a carpet of pristine whiteness, the mist of every breath trailing your every virgin step, is a pretty damn unbeatable experience. Aicacio indeed.

To quote Bullet-Tooth Tony in Snatch, as he smashes someone's head in a car door, "I fackin LOVE this album". BTW Derek the "beery" reference in the other thread (into which ring my hat I shall not be throwing thank you) is, as the enterprising chap who posted it there mentioned, a quotation from the Robin Holloway book I reviewed in January's PT.

You bastard. I've bought six of these (three from Downtown in the first wave - Frank Wright, Alan Shorter and the Art Ensemble's Phase One) and three just now from J&R (Black Gipsy, which I bought as a bootleg CD-R paired with Coral Rock a couple of months ago, but that version was missing the final track, the Clifford Thornton, and the Art Ensemble's Certain Blacks). I used to be on the Verve/Universal promo list, but then I wrote negative reviews of John Scofield and Diana Krall in Jazziz and got dropped.

They are also very expensive , here in Europe, what is a dreadfull shame as the LP was the cheapiest among the cheapiest. Is this the new policy from the "major" to make the old (reedition) more expensive thant the new? My advise: wait few months and you will find most of these in second hand shop.
I had some of these LP long ago (and still two or three somewhere) and I've always find this "America's collection" (manufactured at this time by Musidisc in Europe, meanig weak quality pressing) a minor bunch.
The only that I would advised you to grap are the AOC, even if they are not the strongest that they recorded in Europe, the two Braxton and certainly the magnificient double alto solo. Steve Lacy, "The Gap", yes (but not the one with Waldron, the less interesting that they ever recorded together with the Novus one), The Roswell Rudd and the Frank Wright (to those who like "the screamer(s)", I do). And, maybe, the Al Shorter and Clifford Thornton's. The Shepp are pretty weak IMO, the Bley is all synth and the Burrell a deception (but I'll maybe revisit this one to see if my impression stand).
But what it's absolutely stupid, is that they left out Arthur Jones "Scorpio" (was Jones on the Shepp? I don't remember) a magnificent trio with Beb Guérin & Claude Delcloo on drums, not so free by the way, closer to what Sonny Simmons or Prince Lasha was doing. They also forget another Frank Wright named ""Space Dimension". Rats!

Phil, what the hell were you doing reviewing Diana Krall? Scofield I can fathom, but considering your admitted animosity toward jazz vocals I’m flummoxed on the other.

Guess I’ve got more love for the Shepp that LeMo. It’s piebald set for sure, but there’s some enjoyable stuff mixed in with the chaff (though Sunny Murray is mostly stymied & Shepp’s soprano tends to chafe by the onset of the third “bonus” track). How is the Burrell “a deception”?

And I’m not sure how “absolutely stupid” it is that they left out the Arthur Jones (a rekkid I haven’t heard). Fifteen titles in one-fell-swoop is a pretty nonpareil number by my reckoning. They could’ve just as easily parceled them out incrementally or scrapped the whole project altogether. Improv fans sure can be a demanding crowd ;)

LeMo, when’s that Noah Rosen performance film coming out?

Can I put in a word for Steve Lacy's The Gap, not his best album by any means but one of my favourites. The Gap also contains, to my knowledge, the only recordings (two takes) of 'La Motte-Picquet', which makes it an essential purchase for Lacyphiles.

Regarding Black Gypsy:

That evening in the studio in Paris was absolutely intoxicating, as was nearly every aspect of creative life during that time in Paris. Probably not since the late 60s and early 70s has one city's inhabitants contributed so much to this planet.

Yal should have been there.

Yours truly,

Chicago Beau

Mr. Beau, many thanks for the visit & comments. What have you been up to lo’ these many years since BLACK GIPSY?

That's what I'd like to know too. Thanks for the music sir and the hundreds of hours of pleasure it's brought me over the years. If you're ever back in Paris let us know. Meanwhile Derek what the ferk is the new imaginary expletive? You been raiding a Finnish dictionary or something? Lay off those fuckin Carpenter films and Goblin albums man before you turn into something out of a Tim Burton movie.

I’m innocent, I tell ye, innocent. That *expletive* is the enigmatic Emory Davis’ doing.

just wanted to weigh in on that Arthur Jones record. to my knowledge, it's part of the BYG/Actuel series and not on America at all; i believe it's been reissued by one of the various companies who've brought out those titles in the last few years, but i could be wrong. it might only be out on vinyl.

haven't heard Scorpio (beyond one track on the Jazzactuel sampler), but Jones is always worth hearing, esp. his vicious turn on Frank Wright's Your Prayer on ESP.

Aren't the America reissues just an extension of the Actuel reissues, i.e. same company?

BYG ACTUEL 529350 Arthur Jones Scorpio. I may have missed it but I haven't found a reissued copy of this one yet (I do have "Africanasia" though). Free jazz enthusiasts might like to know that a new Sunny Murray / Henry Grimes album is due out shortly and available for free download next Monday exclusively at Paris Transatlantic. See http://www.paristransatlantic.com/magazine/monthly2005/04apr_text.html#1 for details.

"Regarding Black Gypsy:
That evening in the studio in Paris was absolutely intoxicating, as was nearly every aspect of creative life during that time in Paris. Probably not since the late 60s and early 70s has one city's inhabitants contributed so much to this planet"

Sure..(I know a few moments since then, but you had to be there.....), but why call it "black Gypsy"?
What does it have to do with the Romani?
Did they have any idea when they chose that tittle?

Just curious, because not many people seem to know much about the Romani as a people and I feel it is an important thing to be aware of.......

groetjes
Cor

hi, Cor!

Minneapolis is dead on Sundays. Like Boston before the Blue Laws were repealed.

Nice, kind of.

"Regarding Black Gypsy:
That evening in the studio in Paris was absolutely intoxicating, as was nearly every aspect of creative life during that time in Paris. Probably not since the late 60s and early 70s has one city's inhabitants contributed so much to this planet"

I was lucky enough to move in Paris at the beginning of the 70s.
You can't imagine how many concerts there were every week. Free jazz of course if not only). The growth of free jazz was very important all over France too. Many concerts and festivals. Radio broadcasts.
During the seventies, there was a strong connection between free jazz and politics in France. The book 'Free jazz and black power' (Carles/Comolli) sold a lot. At that time, you can't imagine leftist political meetings supporting workers on strike, or Black Panther without free jazz concerts (with Archie Shepp, Sun Ra, AEC, Steve Lacy, french musicians....). Willem Breuker was playing everywhere in front of thousand and thousands of people.
It seemed to be a good thing of course. BUT at the end of the 70s, all this was finished...
And when you talk now with people who remember to have attended all these concerts, they don't consider this music as being a major musical event. Most people who knew that period don't consider free jazz as being an important aesthetic. They never listen to it now.
So I wonder if at that time they really have listened to it ! I am not sure....
Listening to "Kind of blue" in the background when friends are at home is much easier. That's also politics...

Hi, Cor -- Not having been there, I can't say for sure, but in the US (most of the cats were American, I don't mean to be parochial) the word "gypsy" has long lost any necessary reference to the Roma (whatever the origins of its use may have been) and more often simply denotes a footloose, traveling, wandering character, of no discrete ethnicity. For example, my best friend in my youth was known as Gypsy Bill -- because he wandered about the country ceaselessly.

Just a guess, but also to provide some context, given the different cultural map in Europe, both past and present.

Hi Gary
I know what you mean, but the problem is that it dilutes the way the Romani are seen even more. It becomes very easy now to say something bad about a Gypsy while you mean a real Gypsy (a Romani) and just say you just meant an asocial footloose workshy person. Politicians in Great Brittan do this a lot and it makes defence against Romani racism difficult . Germany just after the war used the same argument so they didn't have to compensate the "Zigeuners" (unlike the Jews) because they said they where in the camps not for their race but because they where asocial...... Just like only 160 years (!) ago when the Romani slavery in Europe was abolished only the slave owners got compensation.........Some 1,5 Million lost their lives in the 2nd worldwar. Nearly 80% of the Sinti was killed. Maybe this makes it a bit more understandable that the "Gypsies" are regarded in general, so negative.
Anyway, it is off course not Archie Shepps fault who just is a great musician. :-)
Just something to think about.

Ps, not all Romani (Gypsies) are Roma (But all Roma are Romani). Some are Roma (the largest group), some are Sinti (also known as Manousche) and some are Kale (the Gitanos in Spain, but also in Wales and Scandinavia).
Calling a Sinto a Rom is like calling a Scotsman an Englishman.......

"just wanted to weigh in on that Arthur Jones record. to my knowledge, it's part of the BYG/Actuel series and not on America at all; i believe it's been reissued by one of the various companies who've brought out those titles in the last few years, but i could be wrong. it might only be out on vinyl."

I've the vinyl of Arthur Jones in front of my eyes and it's an "America/ Musidisc" series.
It has never been publish on CD.

You sir are in violation of the law. I demand that you produce the contract which gives you the right to produce a cd in my name; I have asked Pierre Jaubert (I believe he is the pirate producer of this album) to resolve this situation amicably. I am prepared and within my legal rights to sue both Universal/Verve for this outrageous act.
Archie Shepp

Hey, it's not Four For Trane, but Four From Shepp!