Friday, September 14th, 2007 ... 3:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. ... KZSU, 90.1 FM

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

* David S. Ware -- "Renunciation Suite II" -- Renunciation (AUM Fidelity, 2007)

Previously noted here.

A guitar-and-drums retelling of the Coltrane/Ali classic. Great furious stuff in this opening track. Some inside baseball: Mike had had to fill in for the early part of my show, as the sports event ended surprisingly early. He had the David S. Ware track already running, and was prepared to spin this track next.

The bulk of this one is made up of a 47-minute suite, the title track, split into 27 tracks on the CD for convenience. Those littler tracks can be as short as 30 seconds long, and they all have names. I took tracks 11-15; titles listed above. The title apparently comes from the drawing of constellations in a six-octave tone field -- an experimental take on composition and improvising, I suppose.

It's a great swirling attack of a piece, with Eisenbeil's guitar crossing angular paths with violin, saxophone and trumpet. The pragmatic reason for the large number of subdivisions is that the piece's mood changes that quickly (although, to be fair, the same could be said for most improv sessions). Big, ambitious stuff, and it'll be great to hear Volume 2.

* New Ghost -- "C.T. (What I'm Saying!)" -- Live Upstairs at Nick's (ESP, 2006; recorded 1998)

Previously noted here.

A quartet that included Malachi Thomspon on trumpet and Steinbeck on the bass, steeped in free bop but not too intense. Touches of New oRleans flavor throughout. Vibraphone adds a different sound. Accessible stuff, nicely done.

Towering solo piano performance, with the big thundering sound that Abrams used on the recent trio album with George Lewis and Roscoe Mitchell. (Noted here.) The second segment of three is the "quieter" one, in a lingering-doom kind of way, although it gets into plenty of fiery passages. Splinters of classical, jazz, "other," throughout. Great stuff, recorded in 1998; big ups to the Pi folks for continuing to document this music.

* Ariel Shibolet, Aurora Josephson, Jen Baker, Scott Looney, Damon Smith -- "Number 12" -- Untitled (1959) (Balance Point Acoustics, 2007)

Previously noted here.

Previously noted here.

* Cordame -- "Pastis a Bic" -- Cordame (Malajarto, 2006)

From the Dame/ActuelleCD collective in Quebec that brings us the Ambiances Magnetiques discs. This one's got a classical air -- or, I should say, jazz as played by classical musicians. It's a string trio: violin, cello, bass, in a variety of moods, very elegant yet with enough degrees (and spirit) of freedom to stay interesting.

I'll admit it; MMW kind of bore me. Adding John Schofield helps a little, but only a little. Still, this is a noteworthy project and a listenable CD, using the same recipe of funk beats, jamming attitudes, and the occasional seconds-long freak-out that gets them miscast in the avant-garde bin. Good enough for airplay, though, and since they're playing at the Warfield a week from now, it was a timely spin to give.

Previously noted here. Comes across sounding like Medeski, when you play them side-by-side, but Lafayette has a thicker, heavyhanded pulse to his playing that works so well.

* Amanda Monaco 4 -- "Resolution Lift" -- Intention (Innova, 2007)

Previously noted here.

Previously noted here. This one's a grand, avant-garde piece pairing Namchylak's vocalizing with some tough drumming and bass from then-Soviet musicians from Leo's stable. (No, not literally.)

Chamber music played in extended-technique blips and snips. Compelling stuff.

David Slusser -- "Twilight Erie" -- Rubber City (Breath Ears, 2001)

Rubber City is the jazz quartet Slusser put together with Ralph Carney. Both are from Akron, Ohio -- hence the tire/rubber theme in the album titles. I'd mentioned their stuff recently, here. Trouble in Tiretown is their newest release, and they were doing a show to promote it, so I took the time to give it a spin.

Started with this track, though ... I'd downloaded Tiretown (legally, from eMusic) and burned it to CD using Nero, which unfortunately is the only program that's willing to recognize my CD burner. Sadly, Nero burned the tracks in what appeared to be a random sequence. I had to take a minute to figure out which track was which, and played this one to stall for time. My early impressions of Nero are not good.

"Jazzdeath" is the album's opener, a light-footed little sprint of a song. It's catchy -- not Naked City-ish as the title might imply -- and a good intro to what these guys do.

"Down in the Mine" brings in some of the folky/Americana themes the band sometimes uses, showing some of their Midwest roots. Really nice, catchy bit.

Between these tracks, I played a snippet of "Cavour Lounge," a breezy piece in a mellow club-jazz vein, just to show they can do that too. Overall, Tiretown is a really nice album.

I'd played the previous track, "Eight Miles High," as concert-calendar backdrop, then let the CD roll into this one.

Previously noted here and here.

I have to admit, I haven't had time to give this one a real listen yet. But come on, it's Sun Ra! What else do you need to know?

* = 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.