Friday, November 23rd, 2007 ... 2:00 p.m. - 6:50 p.m. ... KZSU, 90.1 FM

(Return to playlists.)

Extended show due to other DJs being out for Thanksgiving. I do relish the chance for extended time on the air. Any time I compile a to-do list of things to play, it ends up a mile long. Sometimes I think I could fill six hours every week if I had to, especially when you consider all the great rock/pop stuff queueing through rotation that I never get to.

I inadvertently participated in Buy Nothing Day today. Don't get me wrong; I love the concept. But I give myself a mulligan here because I'm not that consumer-y in the first place, and because on a day off work, when I've got my radio show coming in the afternoon, I can't resist stopping by a coffee house for a long, relaxing espresso break. Couldn't make it today due to family commitments, so I'm "in" with the Adbusters guys this time. Huzzah!

Of note this week:

Format:
ARTIST -- "TRACK TITLE" -- ALBUM TITLE (LABEL, YEAR)
Horizontal lines denote microphone breaks.

* Charlie Hunter Trio -- "'Speakers Built In'" -- Mistico (Fantasy, 2007)

Previously noted here.

Previously noted here.

Davis is a more than respectable creative-jazz pianist, but my god, that '80s hair ...

This is a concept album, a full-length suite commissioned by the Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Not every track has this mystical kind of title; there's also "Little Richard's New Wave." The project has a slashingly artsy air. It's active and bouncy, with a clean kind of sound that would seem grant-friendly. Side two starts with a morose 13-minute strings piece, dark and moody, nice risky stuff.

Splatter Trio was a seminal avant-garde band back around the early '90s, when the Bay Area was a hotspot for out-jazz and the like. It still is, but the mass migration of local artists to New York, combined with the dot-com craze that drove rents outside the range of many DIY music venues, kind of stifled that phase. It's spilled milk now, but you'll still hear folks pine for the old days ...

But about Splatter. Myles Boisen (guitar) and Gino Robair (drums) have stuck around to do some amazing work on the local scene, but saxophonist Dave Barrett split to Mexico some years ago. He vists every now and again, apparently, and over the course of 12 years, Splatter Trio and various friends recorded all these studio tracks, which they've strung together to form this albu.

Splatter Trio was all about crazy avant-garde instrumentals but with definite themes. They'd done the John Zorn genre-jumping thing within songs, for instance. This set tosses in a lot of funk and reggae elements and world-music percussion for a downright catchy mix. And then they've got the occasional guitar blasts or noise electronics to show they aren't going soft on you. It's a great effort, both the playing and the studio magic (which I'm assuming is Boisen's touch). Lots of variety, too -- there's one track that's a loud blurry attack, another that's a madcap jumble, and of course some slow stuff. A great listen, all around.

More background on the trio here ... and a nice review from All About Jazz here.

* Joachim Kuhn, Majid Bekkas, Ramon Lopez -- "Hamdouchi" -- Kalimba (ACT Music, 2007)

Interesting combination: A pianist, an oud (and like instruments) player/vocalist, and a drummer. The result is heavy in Moroccan influences, especially the vocals, but Kuhn comes from a European jazz background, a career that includes some fairly accessible but substantial sounds as well as a stint with Ornette Coleman. The result is quite a mix, often painted with that breezy feel you'd associate with oud, kalimba, and other African instruments.

Previously noted here.

* Manhattan New Music Project -- "Passaglia"/"Night Flight" -- Jazz Cycles: MNMP Performs Paul Nash (MNMP, 2007)

Paul Nash was a jazz composer with some ties to the Bay Area. Before he passed away, in 2005, he managed to organize some (possibly all?) of his compositions -- his life's work -- into what he considered definitive editions. This is the first of two planned CDs from MNMP that would present those works.

The music comes across as straight-jazz stuff, performed by a large and classically-oriented band, a very polite sound. Considering Nash was a rather mainstream composer, that's not surprising. It might not be my cup of tea but it's a fitting way to honor Nash's memory, and these tracks -- the opening movements of the CD -- present a lively mood.

Madlib samples Indian/Bollywood cinema and puts the results to a hip-hop beat. Some folks might call it groundbreaking, or at least interesting. But you know... playing two things next to each other is a trick that's been around since the first guy who owned two radios.

Previously noted here.

Zeena Parkins -- "T-Square" -- V/A: Real Estate: New Music from New York (Ear Rational, 1990)

Zeena Parkins is speaking as part of the Improv:21 series next week. The series involves interviews with musicians about their craft, the composing process, the work that goes behind performances, and so on. The talks are fascinating, speaking from the POV of someone who's really into the music, and they include short performances by the artists. When Ben Goldberg did one of these, he also brought a couple of CDs, to point out certain pieces or ideas, kind of "showing" the audience what he was talking about.

The upcoming talk seemed a good excuse for an all-Zeena set. This is a classic-era downtown NYC improv with Chris Corsano (guitar) and Ikue Mori (turntables), among others.

Featuring Parkins' composing this time, from an album of string quartet music (plus harp, plus dancers' feet, plus... etc.) Previously noted here.

Solo harp, the stuff Parkins made her name with originally. "Harp" includes electric harp with effects, so some tracks on here end up sounding like electric-guitar freak-outs. Awesome and often grating. This track displays a good range, starting out with traditional harp sounds, in soothing individual plucked notes like droplets in a pond, then brings out the pedal and the effects for an eardrum-tearing coda.

* Sam Newsome -- "Skippy" -- Monk Abstractions (self-released, 2007)

From the leader of Global Unity, which I think is different from Alex von Schlippenbach's Global Unity Orchestra, comes an album of solo soprano sax renditions of Thelonious Monk songs, along with some improvisations inspired by Monk. If that sounds familiar, it's because that whole arrangement is a calling card of Steve Lacy's. Newsome does a pretty good job with these tracks, using a variable sense of time and an unleashed sense of freedom to craft something new out of them. I've yet to pair him up against Lacy in a solo sax cage match to compare how they dig into the compositions.

By the way -- Newsome isn't an idiot; he acknowledges Lacy's work in the liner notes and even cites it as the inspiration for doing this, Newsome's first solo album.

* David Torn -- "Neck Deep in the Harrow..." -- Prezens (ECM, 2007)

Previously noted here.

Matthew Goodheart -- "Conference" -- Interludes of Breath and Substance (Cadence Jazz, 1998)

Duets of pianist Goodheart, a local guy, with trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith. This track is dark and active, a nice brew, but Goodheart keeps it to a sparse feel with his piano work.

? Wu Fei -- "Diao Chan" -- A Distant Youth (Forrest Hill, 2007)

Another find from my New York trip. Downtown Music Gallery had a box of these on the shelf, very recently received, obviously. Wu Fei plays the guzheng, a stringed instrument similar to the Japanese koto. What caught my eye was that she's got Carla Kihlstedt and Fred Frith as guests on some tracks. The disc turns out to be a collection of improvisations, many of them colored with traditional Chinese sounds, and one or two pretty compositions that stick to old-world themes. A lot of this album is pretty and delicate, but a couple of tracks -- like this one, with both Frith and Kihlstedt -- dig into full-bore European style improv.

A fairly accessible set, although it's far from your traditional sax/guitar combo. With McHenry on sax and Ben Monder on guitar, this one's got a serious vibe to it, a bit artsy maybe. It doesn't lack for swing or pulse, though.

Quartet formed by the duo of Damon & Naomi, plus guitarists Masaki Batoh and Michio Kurihara. They do a 7-minute Dylan cover as the A-side, and then this Can cover for the B-side. Wacky. The Can song is pretty much what you'd think, a kind of rambling rock jam, upbeat.

Suzuki is coming to town for shows at 21 Grand and the Hemlock Tavern,. And it's because he'd played in Can -- and because I was checking out Damon & Naomi's work for the first time -- that I pulled that 7" with the "Yoo Doo Right" cover, above.

Suzuki apparently goes from town to town now, arranging gigs with local musicians to do completely improvised shows. This CD might represent one such -- it's got that definite rock-jam feel, although there seems to be some pre-planned structure in there. While I haven't heard his stuff lately, I'd assume it's along the lines of this CD: Lengthy rock jams, heavy on one-chord psych-outs and blues-inflected riffs, with Suzuki chopping out the lyrics with sweaty intensity. It sounded too close to classic rock for me to take more than a four-minute excerpt (this song is the first part of a 26-minute jam), but it was a nice break from the ordinary.

* Bill Brovold and Larval -- "One Step Forward, Two Steps Back" -- Surviving Death/Alive Why? (Cuneiform, 2007)

Previously noted here. This one's a chunky, guitar-heavy track that made for a good transition out of Damo Suzuki.

Previously noted here.

The Harper Brothers -- "Pentagram" -- The Harper Brothers (Verve, 1988)

Here's the problem I have with late '80s jazz. Synthesizers had come to the fore, and the advent of Windham Hill had made new age music reasonably popular. At the same time, jazz itself was continuing the decline that started during the fusion years.

From these forces sprang a type of commerical jazz that combined the sappy atmosphere of new wave; the now-dated clunking of string synths doing choppy, wannabe rockin' fills; and a general attempt to amp up the music with a more jazz-rock attitude. It was a dead end. Think Chick Corea Elektric Band. I grabbed a David Liebman album from the vinyl library today, figuring it would make great filler -- but no. Even David, whose recent music I've admired, got pushed into this '80s-jazz corner.

So, while I love pulling from our vinyl collection, I've got to be careful. You can tell which albums are '80s'ed-up. The design -- Miami Vice clothes, random pink or blue lines -- is as dated as the music. Of course, the story gets worse: This stuff would eventually morph into smooth jazz, which became a legitimate radio format.

That said, there's some comfort to be found in our '80s stacks, too. The Harper Brothers produced a safe straightahead set in 1988 that served well for this part of the show. I was giving away tickets to a Stanford Lively Arts classical show and wanted to set the mood with something "normal."

The band is a quartet led by Winand Harper on drums -- I've played his stuff on-air recently -- and his brother Philip on trumpet. Justin Robinson on sax was the name that grabbed my attention first; he'd done a nice straightahead album called The Challenge that I remembered from my early days at KZSU and played again back in June. The album is mostly covers; I picked this track for being an original.

Hammond B-3 legend; Byrd of Paradise will talk your ear off about this guy, who's apparently local. Very retro stuff; we're talking roller-rink organ in at least one spot, as DJ Fo remarked in reviewing the CD for the station. I picked a fairly upbeat bop-oriented number for this set, trying to stick to the straightahead theme for at least a few minutes more.

I was happy to play this as a favor to Byrd, who's had Monaco as a guest on his show multiple times, apparently. But it's so '50s-sounding -- not sure I'd go back to it.

Toychestra and Fred Frith -- "Grover Rides a Happy Honker"/"3 Elephants and a Cow" -- What Leave Behind (SK)

Previously noted here. Toychestra is doing a rare show next week, always a good occasion to give them some air time.

A simple and eerie little song, like nursery rhymes with a subtext of Camille Rose Garcia. This is more typical of Toychestra's work, as opposed to the more clamorous concerto with Frith (noted above).

* Kioku -- "Pinari" -- Both Far and Near (Quiet Design, 2007)

Previously noted here.

The title is just a comma. "An Innocent, Abroad" is a four-part suite (actually one continuous track divided into four arbitrary parts), with titles "An," "Innocent," "Abroad," and the comma. I mean, come on, you have to play the comma track, right?

The suite layers multiple tracks of voice (Lisa Barnard) and flutes (Jacqueline Martelle and Jane Rigler) into a neat new-music jam. Apparently it was done up for German radio, but the programers decided it was too "new music" and passed, in favor of a different Barnard project.

Barnard improvised the original vocal tracks which include some wordless singing and an artsy recitation of random alphabet letters. These tracks were handed to Martelle and Rigler in segments, and they improvsed five flute tracks to go with them. Margolis' role was apparently to put all this together; not sure why his name gets to be on the spine by itself.

Previously noted here.

Achim Kaufmann, Michael Moore, Dylan van der Schyff -- "Kopfspinnennetz" -- Kamosc (Red Toucan, 2006)

Previously noted here.

Gratkowski's output has included some very quiet, contemplative improvising, on labels like Leo Records. I have to admit a fondness for his more aggressive, jazz-influenced improvising, though, and this older CD is packed with that stuff. This track, while not blazing, has a toughness to it -- it's a grumpy improv, with Gratkowski's sax spitting lots of gutteral overblown lines and growls. It's a fairly fast, jagged piece. Cool!

Kaufman and Gratkowski, along with bassist Wilbert De Joode, are performing at Mills College next week, apparently part of a small West Coast tour that takes them through Edmonton and Vancouver. Gratkowski spends quite a lot of time out here; I've seen him once, about eight years ago, and should check him out again.

UPDATE 12/9: Now I understand... Gratkowski, Kaufman, and De Joode were promoting a new CD on Leo Records that's culled from previous live performances.

Joseph Jarman -- "As If It Were the Seasons" [excerpt] -- As If It Were the Seasons (Delmark, 2007; orig. released 1968)

Remastered CD version of an old Jarman classic. The first side consists of the title track, played by a small combo that includes a female vocalist. The second side uses a host of guests, including Fred Anderson (proprietor of the Velvet Lounge in Chicago), for a big cacophonous sound.

The first half of "Seasons," the track, consists of small sounds, an improvisation made of tiny bell rings, percussion, small notes. Quiet. As the vocalist kicks in, things rev up, and that's where the piece starts to lose me. Her (improvised?) lyrics follow that "floating with the universe" track that doesn't seem to meld with the band, and as things heat up, everyone gets screechy, including the singer. I have to say, I prefer the first half.

Previously noted here.

Previously noted here.

An amazing indie-label story, Konono No. 1 has gained a cult following here in the U.S. Founded more than 25 years ago, the African band uses amplified thumb pianos (among other instruments) to put on a lively, danceable show, overflowing with joy. Songs come across as long, happy jams with infectious smiles.

Previously noted here. This is one of the grumpier, more abstract group improvs on the disc.

* Amir ElSaffar -- "Menba' (Maqam Bayat)/Jourjina" -- Two Rivers (Pi Recordings, 2007)

An Iraqi-American trumpeter whose album combines Middle Eastern tradition and vocals with a jazzlike band. Haven't given this a solid listen yet; check back for details later...

UPDATE 12/9: Hey -- the awesome Avant Music News has a free "podcast" of one of the album's jazzier tracks. Good stuff -- go give it a listen.

* = Item in KZSU rotation
! = Pop anomaly
? = Item not in KZSU library

-- Go back to Memory Select playlists.
-- Bay Area free/improv music calendar: http://www.bayimproviser.com.