The Audiozine

Enjoy:

1) Flying Lotus pretty much kills it again live, this time with a band featuring Ravi Coltrane and a few others. The version of Mmmhmm, in particular, lends such a nice new looseness and space to the original without sacrificing the basic mood of the electronic version. I used to think Flying Lotus was a little bit of a Dilla knock-off, a talented flash in the pan -- boy was I wrong.

2) Jason Moran + The Bandwagon = one of the absolute best working groups in music today. I've seen them live twice now. The first time, they relied heavily and intriguingly on a variety of loops and samples around which they'd improvise -- so Adrian Piper talking about art, or the scuffling/skidding sounds of shoes on a basketball court in Lithuania, etc would become points of departure for soulful yet rigorous improvised flights. The second show was rooted much more in the interplay b/w Moran and his bandmates; less flashy and technical, arguably less "visionary", but probably a bit more human and relatable. NPR recorded an excellent set by this group at the Village Vanguard (exactly one night after I saw them), and I can't recommend it strongly enough.

3) Missed this Tyshawn Sorey/Steve Lehman/Todd Neufeld triple threat but am glad to at least have heard this skronky monster by Evan Parker/Derek Bailey/Han Bennink -- recommended by Sorey himself in advance of the aforementioned gig.

4) Bonus: DC peeps, take note.

I thought you should know:

1) That this Kickstarter project by Search and Restore's Adam Schatz got funding and might (just might) change the way jazz is experienced in NYC and beyond for the better. The DIY show scene has helped let a lot of resolutely uncommercial bands reach surprisingly large, enthusiastic audiences in the noise/rock/etc world, so why shouldn't jazz be able to tap that kind of energy -- esp since it's best appreciated live? P.S. I think Ben Ratliff's a rock-solid writer, but kinda love the pleasantly stodgy tone in his NYtimes piece above, like he's surprised that it feels good to see great shows for cheap at laidback venues with young people in attendance.

2) D-Plan mkII -- I oughta get tix. You oughta get tix. You oughta holler at me if yr going. You'll holler if you go.

3) NPR's "A Blog Supreme" put Fight The Big Bull in their top ten year end jazz list. Big ups to RVA and the bandmembers themselves; def one of the most dynamic (and only Mingus-leaning) bands I can think of these days. Big honor too, they're rubbing shoulders w/Jason Moran, Mary Halvorson, Steve Coleman and some other huge (and hugely talented) names. Here's a lil FTBB primer.

1) Interview w/my friend Becca McCharen, the up-and-coming New Yorker behind Chromat. Really fascinated by the cage pieces in the collection shown/discussed in that link. The interview gives a nice sense of the fun, approachable, but rigorously creative person Becca is. The city's lucky to add her to its endless ranks.

2) Marion Brown RIP.

3) But jazz lives: check out some recent fav picks by Jason Moran and Vijay Iyer, both titans on the current scene.

4) Dustin Wong (previously of Ecstatic Sunshine and Ponytail) has released a new solo collection with the pleasantly un-cool title "Infinite Love". It's a powerhouse collection of looping solo guitar bits; its disposition is sunny in the extreme and it soundtracked a recent day trip of mine to stunning effect. Try not to be a happier person after this one, you've been dared.

iPod's broken, strictly listening to cassettes in the meantime. It feels good, in an inconvenient way.

The song "Nobody" was made famous by the minstrel-show comedian Bert Williams. That is, popular and controversial — Williams was an African-American blackface vaudeville performer. "Nobody" was his signature song, something of a hit in 1906.

"The way we play it is, we try to ... consider the song a punching bag, in a lot of ways," he says. "And we really kind of throw it around. And sometimes what I will say to an audience, after they hear it, they think, 'Oh, it's such a nice ditty.' Like, this is an old minstrel song. It kind of changes the vibe about how they hear it again, or how they can remember hearing it."

Last 3 weeks consisted of: work work, show, work work, family, jazz, work work, visiting friend, work work, golden weekend. Highlights of non-work:

1) Animal Collective at Prospect Park, 08/14: 4th time seeing em, first time in a huge venue. Weird to see em cross over into the bigtime. Youngish audience members freakin' out about Geologist wearing a headlamp, as if that's news to anybody at this point. Still, a great show. The enormous bass sound lent new power and fullness to the Merriweather jams (which I'd previously heard live in more skeletal form at Satellite Ballroom). And, contrary to some of the droney/minimal/uh boring(?) bootlegs I'd been hearing lately, this show featured a lot of noise, a lot of rhythm, a lot of energy.

2) Jason Moran and the Bandwagon at Village Vanguard, 08/22: Stunning, highly recommended. Moran and his Bandwagon group managed to link together ragtime, bebop/post-bop, funk, free jazz, gospel, soul, hip-hop into one of the most seamless blends I've heard yet in an ostensibly "jazz" group -- no mere pastiche, just try and tell me where one influence ends and the next begins. They also made fascinating use of prerecorded sounds (of Lithuanian basketball players/announcers, of a pencil writing on paper, of Adrian Piper talking about art and society). One piece cleverly inverted the old "break down" party phrase into a manifesto for clever artistry.

3) Grizzly Bear at Williamsburg Waterfront, 08/30: got there late (I was sleeping off a 24 hr call night, ugh) and couldn't get in as the place had filled up. Pretty disappointing as my friend Tim was in town at least in part to catch that show and we both missed it. That being said, the highlight was when I was standing at the 7th St entrance, got tapped on my shoulder to move over, and then Tim pointed behind me: there I saw Jay-Z and Beyonce just kind of walking by me with their surprisingly reasonable and small entourage. This has been blogged about endlessly since, but I was literally next to these folks and it was my first strange brush with celebrity up here. PS any advance word on Blueprint 3? I haven't been following the leak game lately.

4) Battles/!!!/Flying Lotus (and Pivot, who I didn't see) at Terminal 5, 09/04: Celebrating the 20th anniversary of Warp Records, the label that pretty much defined my musical upbringing in the mid-late 90's. Flying Lotus was the huge shocker of the night. I expected FlyLo (?!?) to play a set of narcoleptic, fractured post-Dilla hip-hop and instead got slamming track after track of enormously bass-heavy dubstep, strange updates on the Warp 90's sound, weird hip-hop mutant beats, and a delightful appearance by a thoroughly chopped up Amen break at the end. He was having more fun than any of the performers who'd follow and the crowd ate it up. Thoroughly recommend checking him out when he swings by yr town. !!! were on next and managed to entertain. Jury's still out on whether they're really all that into making people dance or if the dancing is just an inevitable byproduct of the fact that they seem like closet psych-rock dudes who discovered disco and split the difference. Anyway, there was dancing. Finally, Battles. Debuted some new stuff that sounded great, didn't seem to be any huge departures from their debut disc. However, they were incredibly tight and reminded me how much I loved their jams when Mirrored appeared two years ago. Much like the Animal Collective show though, it was weird being in a crowd for a band that once belonged to a scene that seemed a bit more inclusive (or am I just being nostalgic for Cville again?). Example: the guy behind me who got really angry when I was idly clapping an afro-cuban rhythm to the beat. He talked some trash so I turned around and lectured him on 12/8 time signatures and how instead of getting mad maybe he should pay attention to the band onstage who happened to be using THAT SAME RHYTHM DURING THAT SAME SONG. i.e. !!! = tsk tsk tsk.

...I start out with bullet points and end with paragraphs. Ok, back to work!