Friday, December 21st, 2007 ... 3:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. ... KZSU, 90.1 FM

(Return to playlists.)

During the holidays, we don't bother reporting charts to the trade publications, and we don't cycle items in and out of rotation. This takes some pressure off when it comes to playing the CDs in rotation -- our computer still compiles the charts, but because there's no fresh blood being infused, it takes some meaning out of the exercise.

I took advantage of this to play some things in rotation that were being neglected (mostly experimental noise) and to tap the library for some older finds that probably hadn't been played in years.

You know, it's Album Week at the station, when they give student DJs a break by letting them play entire albums. It frees them up to study during their shows, or just relax for their final show of the quarter.

I've done album week before, with relish even, but this year I just didn't want to sacrifice the time.

Of note this week:

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

* Otomo Yoshihide's New Jazz Orchestra -- "Gazzelloni" -- Out to Lunch (Doubt, 2007)

Previously noted here.

* William Parker/Raining on the Moon -- "Tutsi Orphans" -- Corn Meal Dance (AUM Fidelity, 2007)

Previously noted here.

Previously noted here.

Bass and saxophone improvisations -- gnarled, busy pieces that walk the outer edge of jazz without crossing into extended-technique territory. Nice work. Marraffa's sax appears in a more structured environment with the band Mrafi, noted noted here. He's also sent us a solo saxophone album before, which I recall being rather impressive. More about Marraffa here.

Not to slight Giovanni Maier ... if you read Italian, there's more about him here. And he's very recently -- literally this week -- put out an album with Marc Ribot; that's on Long Song Records.

Solo piano with good freedom and a solid sense of the jazz tradition. It's originally from Eubanks' album, Birds of Baghdad.

* Francois Carrier and Michel Lambert -- "Himalayan Beauty" -- Kathmandu (FMR, 2007)

Previously noted here.

I want to say this is a jazzier version of Akron/Family, but that's not quite accurate. The sound is cleaner, for one -- in kind of a figurative sense; you listen to Akron/Family and can't help wondering how long it's been since band members showered.

The aesthetic is similar: a busy, rattling percussion bed, wandering near-folky melodies sung by unpolished voices. There seems to be a bigger group of singers -- maybe they're just overdubbed? -- and a wider scope of instruments, including electronics in the beats. Lots of swearing, too, which is probably one reason why this didn't get much airplay during its stay in rotation.

Previously noted here.

? Tim Berne's Bloodcount -- "The Opener" -- Saturation Point (Screwgun, 1997)

Bloodcount thing explained here. As I recall, Saturation Point was intended as a mail-order-only bonus from Berne's Screwgun label. My memory is fuzzy on the point, but in any event, I had to get a copy. It's a live recording that closes with this track -- one that includes a particularly violent drum solo from Jim Black.

Splatter Trio and Debris -- "Composition 23D (+108A)" -- Splatter Trio & Debris Play Braxton (Music & Arts, 1992)

Splatter Trio, mentioned above and here, and Debris, a like-minded contemporary, got together for this album of Anthony Braxton covers. Not a huge surprise, given Gino Robair of Splatter (and of the Rastascan label), had recorded with -- and, I think, studied with -- Braxton before. Most of the album has that formal, academic feel of Braxton's less accessible work. I went easy on the audience here by picking the track that's actually got a swing to it ... although it does get blazing and free, with Robair going crazy on the vibes.

Nice stuff, either way; this is one of those gems that I tend to forget is in the library and need to seek out more often.

Hallucinatory noise, a calm yet busy tangle of synth gloops interlocking into an infinite nonrepeating tiling of the plane. With track titles created from cat typing, it appears.

From "Eh?", an offshoot of the Public Eyesore label that's put out volumes of great experimental stuff.

It's like a slightly somber rockabilly tune, isn't it? Surprising. Sam Bennett was part of the whole downtown jazz/improv scene centered on the original Knitting Factory, and I first saw his name as part of an Elliott Sharp project. This compilation CD celebrates that old Knit environment, which included some rock projects like this one in addition to the crazy jazz thing.

Previously noted here. This is the avant-garde track, a bustle of dark cacophony underscored by a buzzing growl from Ben Monder's guitar.

Wolfgang Muthspiel, Gary Peacock, Christian Muthspiel, Paul Motian -- "Eight Slash Eight" -- Muthspiel Peacock Muthspiel Motian (Amadeo, 1993)

It's unclear which of the Muthspiels is supposd to go first in the album title (which technically is also the band's name). I'd picked up a Wolfgang Muthspiel album while in Europe once, just on a whim -- the cover looked like it was by Steve Byram, who's done Tim Berne's album artwork for years and has worked for plenty of like-minded musicians. That CD, Perspective, opens with a 12-minute piece, expansive and floating, called "Gang of 5," and it impressed the heck out of me. Another, called "Laws of Perspective," had a swingy almost Django-like feel, but in a kind of twelve-tone setting. Nice.

I've since learned that W.Muthspiel, while he's associated with new music, is also heard in more mainstream contexts; we even got a CD of his during my jazz-director tenure that was so cloying I couldn't bear it. This session, with Peacock and Motian, splits the difference. It's more or less straight jazz but gets into the kind of wandering improvising common to ECM-label musicians (not surprising given Peacock and Motian's involvement with that label). This is a jumping little track, itself, a pleasant listen.

From the same stable as Shelf Life, above. A growling forest of abstract sounds, probably computer-generated. Later, this track picks up some small child's voice saying unintelligible things (a combination of the kid being probably 1 or 2, and the band messing with his/her voice electronically).

It's got nothing to do with the pop-prog band Giraffe fronted by Kevin Gilbert back when.

Previously noted here.

Etants Donnes -- "Larme Secrete Blanche Secrete" -- L'autre Rive (Soleilmoon, 1993?)

And yet more noise. Found this one while messing with Zookeeper, our online music database. The Find It! command is the most fun thing ever -- you type in a word or words, and it kicks back every album, artist, playlist, or review that's used those words. Type in "L'autre," for instance, and you get the Jean-Marc Hebert album above ... and also this one, which no one at KZSU has spun since before 2000, apparently. Aside from being fun in a nerdy way, it's helped me locate plenty of interesting music around the library.

These guys are noise fiends: Lots of ghostly whoosing, some strangely treated vocal sounds, and various effects. Half the tracks on this album seem to start similarly, with a single downbeat struck on a snare. This one then gets into rushing water sounds and a continuum of that ghostly stuff.

Mark Dresser and Ray Anderson -- "The Five Outer Planets" -- Nine Songs Together (CIMP, 2003)

From a bass/trombone duet album we received some time ago. These short pieces (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto) are listed on the cover as a suite -- they count as one of the "nine" songs -- so I'd always meant to play them together, and never got around to it until now. It only sort of works. The pauses between the songs are longer than usual, so it makes for some awkward radio. I'm not sure I hear the planetary correlations to the titles, other than Pluto, which is eerie and very quiet. And look carefully at that release date before you give me flak about the whole Pluto thing.

David Murray Octet -- Flowers for Albert [excerpt] -- Murray's Steps (Black Saint, 1983)

The World Saxophone Quartet was one of my first introductions to anything like "outside" jazz, so I was surprised to hear in later years how mainstream some of the members' work was, Murray especially. Julius Hemphill walked more of an outside edge; that's more what I'd expected from all four members. Murray's stuff, while substantial in stature, has a friendlier, down-home air that you'd take home to mother.

We've got a ton of Murray's vinyl in our library, so that might be coloring my thinking (the vinyl library is very '80s-heavy, so it's heavy in a certain type of jazz that you don't want to hear about). Still, Murray's stuff is worthy of more attention; it's not even keyed into our music database yet.

This particular album's got a joyous bebop vibe to it. Somehow, I find myself thinking of South African musics, although I don't catch the influence directly on second listen.

Previously noted here.

Previously noted here. This one skitters along at a cool 17/8 in a pattering Middle-Eastern rhythm. It's one of the more overt mixings of ElSaffar's jazz and Iraqi roots.

Yes, I played an Arab thing right after a Jewish thing, and it's no secret that the musics share some overlap. That's the closest I was going to come to any kind of Christmas statement today.

McCoy Tyner -- "Sama Layuca" -- Quartet (Half Note, 2007)

What can you say? Tyner's still got it -- maybe in more of a polished, elder-statesman way than in a fiery '60s revolution way, but he's still got it: power-punching chords, fleet soloing, an overall sense of majesty ... and, of course, a soft spot for Latin rhythms. Top-shelf band of Joe Lovano (sax), Christian McBride (bass), and Jeff "Tain" Watts (drums). Technically, I think this one's released on Tyner's own label (follow his link above).

* = 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.