This is a great CD. We were fortunate enough to host a concert of John Blum in my town a mere month ago (a duet with guitar player Armando Martin) and John kicked ass. A great guy as well. I don't think many people have set the task of extending Borah Bergman's free jazz techniques. I took some small videos of the show, that can be seen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFYVSBmIpQ0
(playing solo)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbMJl_Hb3DU
(with guitar player Armando Martin)

FWIW, he also told me some incredible anecdotes about Antonio Grippi, who sounded like a very interesting cat.

Excellent clips, Gerardo! Yes, we need to hear much more from JB.
When I reviewed this disc for The Wire I could find very little on Grippi on the Web (though I did later learn some juicy anecdotes).

Thanks Dan! I have other longer clips, too long for YouTube (that has a 100 mega max. restriction).

I hadn't heard of Grippi before listening to this disc, though. We played the CD very loud for the people hanging out at the club after the show.

Thanks for the vids, Gerardo. Blum seems to have gotten a shake similar to Noah Rosen in that his work isn’t nearly as well known as it should be.

On with Grippi anecdotes, guys, juicy & otherwise…

You're welcome, Derek. I just sent an email to John letting him know about this review.

But continuing with the anecdotes, that night John busted the cap of a key of the upright Steinway we rented for him (which didn't affect the sound, after all). It seemed like a good, decent piano, but clearly it wasn't enough for his intensity. He was very mortified, and after apologizing to us he told me that he's even had problems finding rehearsal spaces and clubs in the NYC area, after they hear of his "reputation", hehehe.

I also saw him with Steve Swell's Slammin' the Infinite at the last Vision, one of the best concerts I saw during that trip.

I really enjoyed the clip but wish it was longer. Plus, it also led me to a TriFactor clip that was 12 minutes long. So, if you feel like trying to compete, it would be appreciated.

Would someone please tell me what is an "Astrogeny Quartet"? As a Hellenophone, it is obvious to me that "...geny" relates to the birth or creation of ... and "astro" relates to stars. So in a musical context, should I assume that this quartet views itself as a possible new Britney Spears, or equivalent?

Hey Ted, yeah I know man, those clips leave you wanting for more. I have a few other clips of that show, around 3 or 4 minutes each. Whenever I have a chance to reduce the filesize (due to YouTube's maximum size restriction) or if I find a way to upload them elsewhere, I'll post the links here.

Marco Eneidi used to always talk about John Blum and say he was a great player. He does not do that about many people.

Sounds great. I look forward to it. I´d love to see him play solo.

Hey, Derek, long time, etc.

Nice to see John getting some ink. He's a terrific player. It's funny that I come upon this at virtually the same moment I'm listening to the latest Hewitt cd. I made the Blum/Hewitt parallel when reviewing one of those Sunny Murray discs some time ago. I was referring to the fact that Blum was a top-level player who might conceivably spend his career flying under the radar in much the same way as Hewitt. Perhaps there are some stylistic similarities, but I don't hear them. For what it's worth, I don't remember John being particularly active with his left hand in the same linear sense as Borah, but it's been awhile since I've played with either. I remember John playing mostly clusters with his left hand. Like I said, it's been awhile. In any case, I love his playing.

Keep up the good work.

CK

How exactly is "forkette" profane, btw?

This is a great cd, I just got it. It is a great to hear William do what he does best - knock the shit out of the bass! He takes a great bowed solo too.
I had heard a lot about Grippi from both Marco Eneidi and Gianni Gebbia. He sounds great on this.

Denis Charles . . . an erratic timekeeper but one of the great free jazz drummers, to my mind, with a playing style like no other. He's especially good in the company of dear departed (and already much missed) Steve Lacy, where Lacy's rhythmic stiffness and Charles' rhythmic elasticity balance each other out to perfection.

Lest we forkette.

For some choice Denis Charles, one of my faves is Lacy's "N.Y. Capers." Lacy, Denis, and a rare non-Arkestra appearance by Ronnie Boykins. Lacy's compositions for this concert seem tailor-made to feature Denis, like drum concertos in some sections... Denis' time on that one is a lot sharper than it is on some other records.

He could be erratic at times, but when Denis was really on he was a great player with a very identifiable sound - mostly out of Blakey, but with a touch of Ed Blackwell in there too. I remember meeting him on Avenue A on one of my first trips to NYC - hanging out a bit and talking with him then running into him later at the Knitting Factory where Cecil was playing with Sunny Murray and Dominic Duvall. Somewhere boxed up I have a great photo of Denis & Sunny. There's something about listening to music in the company of people who have a strong connection to it or were there at its inception - it's a very special experience.

Sounds like this one hell of a record, I'll have to check it out. If it's a particularly powerful William performance that piques my interest too.

Now who's gonna start the thread about Zorn getting the MacArthur????

"Now who's gonna start the thread about Zorn getting the MacArthur????"
Me! He deserves it!

""Now who's gonna start the thread about Zorn getting the MacArthur????"
Me! He deserves it!"

-Seeing how many projects and different ideas that guy has been able to realize, not mention giving it to him, much like giving it to Vandermark, means a lot more than one musician will likely benefit makes it hard to argue with.
Not to mention the fact that last time I heard him he played his ass off.

How would you folks compare Denis Charles' approach/result to Sunny Murray's?

"a lot more than one musician will likely benefit makes it hard to argue with."
Yeah, 100 000 clams a year should mean about a hundred more Tzadik albums (in addition to the 450 already out there).. OR he could do a Merzbow and release a 50CD box - the Masadabox haha (I think unofficial Zorn archivist Bruce Gallanter at DMG has at least 50 albums' worth unreleased Masada in his possession). Hope he could use some of it to release some of the early stuff like School Days (still not out on CD, unless I've missed something somewhere).
"Not to mention the fact that last time I heard him he played his ass off."
I've seen Zorn about 20 times and he's NEVER NOT played his ass off. He might have rubbed a few people up the wrong way in his time (see my Borbetomagus interview), and made a few dodgy calls, and no doubt there are a whole lot of jealous cats out there, but one of my yardsticks for artistic importance is a musician's ability to generate enthusiasm on the part of others for the work - and not necessarily his/her own. Thanks to Zorn a whole shitload of people discovered Morricone, Napalm Death, Ground Zero (the group not the hole in ground) and any number of great klezmer outfits. And in the other direction if a few of the metalheads who latched on to Painkiller ended up digging Frank Denyer and Charles Wuorinen (though I seriously doubt there are many who did) , that's triumph enough. I think JZ's gone a bit off the boil in recent years as a composer, but when you've got a back catalogue as impressive as Zorn's it must be pretty damn hard to come up with something as impressive as Cobra, Kristallnacht, Duras / Duchamp. And Naked City remains one of the killer groups of the past half century.
..
Sunny WHO? Just joking Walt. Not sure I understand your question above - how am I supposed to compare Sunny and Denis? Are you talking about the SM stuff with Blum Eremite released a while back?

Thanks, Chris. And thanks for the comments/clarifications re: the Hewitt comparison. I’m not really hearing it either, though their somewhat-shared circumstances of anonymity make sense. I’ve been digging your work in Jazz Times over the past few months thanks to a $5 subscription as part of a Mosaic Records promotion. There’s a lot of that mag that I’m not that down with, but your reviews always catch my otherwise scanning eye. Wish you’d stop by here more often.

Walt, I’d say Denis was much more rooted in tradition (ie. the strong Blakey ties & his Afro-Caribbean influences) than Sunny. It’s part of what makes his work on this disc a bit out of the ordinary, the rhythms are a lot more aggressive/dense than I’m used to hearing from him. He also had a strong taste for the tom-toms, something I don’t hear as much in Murray’s work. Maybe someone else can sound off from a more technical stand-point?

I was reflecting on Brian Marley's and Rob Cambre's interesting comments above about Charles's time keeping, power, style, etc., and was wondering if they (or anybody) would care to contrast his approach with Murray's.

I tried.

And succeeded.

Though I would add that Charles' timekeeping was fundamentally beats-based whereas Murray's was pulse-based.

Thanks.

Some have it Beer-Bourbon-Smokedope based

too

it happens or exists

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