Friday, January 13th, 2006 ... 3:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. ... KZSU, 90.1 FM

Format:
ARTIST -- "TRACK TITLE" -- ALBUM TITLE (LABEL, YEAR)

* Meshell Ndegeocello -- "Al-Falaq 113" -- Spirit Music Jamai: The Dance of the Infidel (Shanachie, 2005)

* Patrick Cress' Telepathy -- "Root Chakra" -- Meditation, Realization (Odd Shaped Case, 2005)

Part of a local jazz vector that includes Aaron Novik and his band Gubbish, a cool band combining free-jazz ideas, modern jazz composing, and plenty of Klezmer/Balkan scales. Lots of odd time signatures to tickle the prog center of my brain (it's located next to the lizard-brain).

These guys have played around town for some time, and I've yet to see them live -- in fact, I missed their Jan. 11 show that included a painter.

Lots of cool piano and harmonium (accordion-liek instrument) on this CD. I played it quite a bit last summer after having the privilege to meet and interview Myra for my 6/24/05 show.

Very cool CD dug up by our own DJ Fo, who spins a great jazz/blues/world show on Friday mornings. Sponsored by a French industry consortium that seeks to promote the country's music internationally. Nice sampling of mainstream stuff, from polite dinner jazz to soul singing; this particular track is a good, angular modern-bop cut, with a crisp tempo and plenty of edge. Great stuff.

* Tim Cowther, Steve Franklin, Tony Marsh -- "Jezebels" -- Amherst Dislodged (Slam Productions, 2005)

Ah, a nice murky track with a good beat, thick synth and searing fusion-y guitar. Shifts us into a more electric/weird phase of the show.

Fast tribal beats and samples, with guitar, accordion, and accordion samples (?!) on top. That's separate guys on the accordion and accordion samples -- Kimmo Pohjonen and Samuli Kosminen, apparently from Finnish group Kluster. Also Trey Gunn and Pat Mastelotto from the latest King Crimson incarnations. To my ears, it's got the same ghostly primitive feel as African Head Charge but without the overt reggae influences -- similar sound, but faster and more kinetic rhythms. A bit repetitious but worth a listen.

Masayuki Takayanagi and Kaoru Abe -- "Mass Projection 1" [excerpt] -- Mass Projection (Disk Union, 2001)

Really noisy harsh guitar + sax from two veterans of the Japanese (Shinjuku?) free-jazz scene. I mean, massively harsh, a wall of aggressive sound like buzzsaw pirranhas shot from a cannon at your face. I was catching up on the John Zorn mailing list and caught a mention of this duo, an apocryphal story about a four-hour session between them. It spurred my memory of the two CDs we have of them: this one, and "Gradually Projection," released simultaneously. I was worried about cramming this into the show somehow -- it's SO loud as to be disruptive even during my weirdest sets -- but the KTU track's busy-ness and the top-of-the-hour legal ID set it up nicely.

Slow and droney, a fitting contrast to the Takayanagi/Abe but without being too jarring a transition, since this is dark, lurking stuff. Has some relation to Sunn0))), which is also in rotation -- I almost played that disk but decided it was time to tone down the noise factor.

Piano/sax duets, this one starting quiet and plinky but getting into thicker heavy-register playing. Nice transition out of the "loud" phase and back towards jazz.

We've got like 5 things from Gustafsson either in rotation or in queue right now, including some very promising stuff from the Atavistic label out of Chicago. The Zu + Mats Gustafsson disc (with the Italian hyper-free-jazz band Zu) looks especially tasty.

Clarinet Thing with Sheldon Brown, Ralph Carney, Beth Custer, Ben Goldberg, and Peter Josheff -- "Touchy" -- Agony Pipes and Misery Sticks (BC, 2005)

A rare performance by Clarinet Thing is coming up on the 15th, so I had to give them a spin.

Gerry Mulligan -- "Capricious" -- Jeru (Columbia)

My sort-of-tribute in Phil Elwood's memory; basically I picked an arbitrary "west coast cool" artist, a favorite of my uncle's, to do the job. And it had to be on vinyl; that just seemed fitting. There were some skips -- I could tell visually that it wasn't the best vinyl -- but what the heck.

Bobby Hutcherson -- "Dialogue" -- Dialogue (Blue Note)

Hutcherson was quoted in the Chronicle's obit of Elwood, which triggered the idea to play this one. Hutcherson was into the free-jazz thing for a while, and recorded a couple of albums onto which he snuck untethered, loosely structured tracks like this one. Very nice, a spare, relaxed, nighttime feel. And check out the Nobel scientist crew: Sam Rivers (sax etc.), Andrew Hill (piano), Joe Chambers (drums), Freddie Hubbard (trumpet), Richard Davis (bass).

Selected not because of the name coincidence with "Dialogue," but because it just happened to fit the space and the mood. A similar kind of free-form exercise but with something closer to "regular" form. Still pretty cool, and probably my favorite track on this surprising guitar-piano CD.

William Parker and the Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra -- "James Baldwin to the Rescue" [excerpt] -- Mayor of Punkville (AUM Fidelity, 2000)

Played about 12 minutes of this 18-minute track -- enough to get into the crazy sax solo by Chris Jonas. This is a low-fidelity recording but really shows how good this big band is; too bad economics prevent it from being a regular vehicle for Parker's music.

Malaby is in town from NYC, giving a workshop and performing at a couple of house concerts. Figured I'd give him a plug.

These guys will do a show Jan. 22, 2006, as a tribute to Derek Bailey, who died Christmas Day. It will include a song written in Bailey's memory. So, I'll be promo'ing that next week... for now I tossed this 1-minute ditty in; it's got a catchy chugging guitar intro and was a nice attention getter for mentioning the show.

Speaking of Derek Bailey ... Stackenas plays lots of Bailey-like guitar on here, plus other tricks (like one track out of tune on acoustic, or another with electronics and distortion that make him sound like an industrial grinder or something). Gustfsson on sax is no less noisy or electronics-laden. A tough album for newcomers, but there are some intriguing new sounds on here. A couple of tracks where neither sax nor guitar is recognizable, even.

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

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