http://www.bagatellen.com/ en-us derekct@hotmail.com Thu, 01 May 2008 07:56:22 -0800 http://www.bagatellen.com/archives/reviews/001991.html CIMP Throughout its existence, Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers held a reputation as a repository for journeyman jazz talent. Commentators commonly center on the steady stream that poured forth from the band in its first decade through the surnames of... http://www.bagatellen.com/archives/reviews/001989.html ESP-Disk The ESP-Disk annals are rife with shadowy figures, musicians on the free jazz fringes who recorded little beyond what they left behind on the label (The Wizard, anyone?). Drummer James Zitro and several members of the ensemble on... http://www.bagatellen.com/archives/frontpage/001988.html Debashish Bhattacharya represents a long tradition of adapting “Western” instruments to “Eastern” modes of expression, in this case a modified Hofner hollow-body guitar, to Indian Classical applications. I think it was the esteemed Professor Bivins who first hipped me... http://www.bagatellen.com/archives/row/001987.html Owner of the honorific “udi” signifying his doyen designation on the oud, Kenkulian first made his mark with a series of 78s recorded by RCA in the early 1920s. This collection captures him on more modern equipment in a... http://www.bagatellen.com/archives/frontpage/001986.html Jimmy Giuffre has passed, a bittersweet blessing considering the trajectory his life took in the last half decade thanks to Parkinson’s. I have much I could/should write, but sadly not the time to write it right now. Suffice it... http://www.bagatellen.com/archives/reviews/001985.html Porter Critical reception toward Byard Lancaster has waxed and waned over his five decade career in creative music. There are those who argue that he has yet to wax an album worthy of his talents. First released on the... http://www.bagatellen.com/archives/reviews/001984.html CIMP A fine line separates eccentricity and error in improvised music. Saxophonist Kalaparush McIntyre, surreptitiously having dropped Maurice, is a personification of the subjective tightrope between the two. McIntyre rightly holds elder statesman status as an aged member of... http://www.bagatellen.com/archives/reviews/001983.html CIMP While not nearly as prevalent in parlance as its Coltrane counterpart, post-Ornette is an umbrella term that covers a significant swathe of saxophonists. Philly-based altoist Bobby Zankel certainly fits under the mantle with a quicksilver phrasing that stresses... http://www.bagatellen.com/archives/reviews/001982.html Pi Academic intimations abound in this ensemble's name and sound. An immersive element exists in their music borne from an omnivorous approach to folding in influences. It’s reminiscent of the trained anthropologist who dives into a disparate cultural setting... http://www.bagatellen.com/archives/row/001981.html Throbbing Gristle is working on a cover of this 1970 album, so I thought I’d give it a spin. I’m not really a Nico fan, or wasn’t; I might have been one of the few who enjoyed her contributions... http://www.bagatellen.com/archives/frontpage/001980.html The Street with No Name straddles the clash-prone genres of noir and FBI procedural better than most films of its ilk. Even so, the docu-drama segments play like unintentional near-parody. In the opening story-establishing scenes, the Hoover-run apparatus springs... http://www.bagatellen.com/archives/reviews/001979.html Delmark Ragtime revivals are reliably recurrent events in the chronology of jazz. The most recent renaissance arrived under the auspices of Chicagoan Reginald Robinson, whose MacArthur “genius” coup a few years ago raised a few eyebrows, not the least... http://www.bagatellen.com/archives/row/001978.html In the fall of ’92, a nondescript Larkins Talent Associates package showed up at the offices of KUPS, a student run radio station in Tacoma, Washington. I happened to be the Jazz Director there at the time: a job... http://www.bagatellen.com/archives/frontpage/001977.html Placeholder for discussion on any or all of the following: Oliver Reed, Charles Bukowski, Tallulah Bankhead, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Jackie Gleason, Brendan Behan, The Pogues’ Shane McGowan, Ozzy Osbourne, Winston Churchill, Kingsley Amis, Guided By Voices’ Robert Pollard, Red... http://www.bagatellen.com/archives/reviews/001976.html Ogun Last week, a select cadre of improvisers assembled in London to honor the memory of Mike Osborne, among them Evan Parker, Alan Skidmore, Stan Tracey and Tony Levin, all former colleagues. The event is part of a larger...