★hatOLOGY
The Roots of the Moment
* Recorded November 10, 1987 at Studio Lussi, Allschwil/Switzerland. * For more than 50 years, Pauline Oliveros has been on a continuing mission: “... to explore new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.” If those words bring to mind the voyages of the Starship Enterprise from the television series Star Trek, the parallels are more than coincidental. In fact Pauline would be as able a captain of any Starship in the fleet of the United Fede…
Lorrach, Paris 1966
"The enthusiasm of the Paris audience, the strong following the Aylershad in France does not come as a total surprise, For, as the musician and his brother explained in the Down Beat story: if you really understoodthe message of Sidney Bechet, you should have no difficulty to this newkind of free spiritual."-Peter Niklas Wilson
"The two concerts presented on this disc represent two of the finest dates of Albert Ayler's European tour of 1966. The band -- with brother, Don, on trumpet, violinist M…
Morning Joy ...Paris Live
"Reissue as part of the 40th anniversary of Hat Hut Records. What we have here is a one-nighter by the Steve Lacy Quartet at Paris' Sunset Club...The four members of the quartet get a chance to stretch out and you can feel the club energy clearly in the recording - it's a good night at the Sunset...in this era of homogenization - of jazz players who are filled with technique but have gotten their sound from textbooks - there is not enough attention that can be focused on an uncompromising jazz i…
As Serious As Your Life
In 1996, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Joe McPhee's first solo release, McPhee recorded this remarkable album of solo reeds, pocket cornet, and electronics, using overdubbing to create gripping music including an homage to Miles Davis and unique versions of standards. "For me, 1996 was an important transitional year in which I decided to pursue what I called Project Dream Keeper. The goal, to begin realizing projects which had been shelved for years. One such project was to produce a s…
Eight (+3) Tristano Compositions 1989 - For Warne Marsh
"I would like to make a few notes and hopefully clear up a potential misunderstanding or two. Most importantly, no matter what you think about the original Tristano performances, this music is not "cool" – with feverish intensity, volcanic dynamics, explosive technique, aggressive attitudes ... there is an enormous amount of drama here, and none of it is sedate, reticent, or bloodless. Note the treacherously difficult heads on tunes like "Two Not One," "Dreams," "Lennie's Pennies," and "A…
Town Hall (Trio & Quintet) 1972
If Anthony Braxton were to be judged on the basis of his oeuvre alone, he would stand completely apart from any modern composer, bar none. He has an enormous body of work, written for every conceivable permutation and combination of ensemble, from two to over a hundred and also for practically all the modern instruments known to musicians. As a reeds and winds player, he has a staggering technique, but not only this: he dives deep into the soul to extract the most subtle emotions. This he brings…
Seven Compositions (Trio) 1989
"The great avant-garde reed player Anthony Braxton (who on this set switches between alto, C-melody sax, clarinet, flute, soprano and sopranino), bassist Adelhard Roidinger and drummer Tony Oxley play five of Braxton's complex originals, Oxley's "The Angular Apron" and the standard "All the Things You Are." As usual Braxton's improvising is quite advanced and original but is colorful and fiery enough to always hold on to open-eared listener's attention. This is one of literally dozens of …
The Minimalism Of Erik Satie
"[...] Satie, the original "Enfant Terrible", was a strange man with strange thoughts that produced strange music with strange titles that don't seem so shocking today ("Jack-in-the-Box", "Driveling Preludes for a Dog", "Dried Embryos"), but considering that he was born two centuries ago, this bad boy of classical music deserves a very close look.Satie lived an unconventional life and demanded the same from those who attempted to sneak a peek into it. For example, his notes to Vexations r…
Field
"The Koeln concert shows us these positive vibrations marching through "the complete continuance of creative music," and on towards the next millennium. The "success of the future" is not a lost cause as long as there is music like this in the air."-Graham Lock"Although Anthony Braxton does not play on this double CD (whose contents were released for the first time in 1995), his presence is certainly felt. He conducts the band through a fairly free improvisation and five of his compositio…
Creative Orchestra (Köln) 1978
"The Koeln concert shows us these positive vibrations marching through "the complete continuance of creative music," and on towards the next millennium. The "success of the future" is not a lost cause as long as there is music like this in the air."-Graham Lock"Although Anthony Braxton does not play on this double CD (whose contents were released for the first time in 1995), his presence is certainly felt. He conducts the band through a fairly free improvisation and five of his compositio…
Sunrise In Different Dimensions
A great live recording of Sun Ra and his Arkestra from 1980 in Switzerland, originally released as a double LP, and remastered for CD in 2010 (two pieces have been excluded from the original LP release). The concert featured a ten piece ensemble playing a mix of originals, standards and modern jazz compositions, including pieces Thelonius Monk, Miles Davis/Tad Dameron, Coleman Hawkins, Billy Strayhorn, and Duke Ellington. This is a good example of later Sun Ra configurations, with Sun R…
Are You Going To Stop... In Bern?
"In fact, the art of O'Rourke and Connors lies in letting one feel the immobility withi n movement, and in instilling movement right at the heart of immobility. It's almost superfluous to say that this music belongs to the realm of dreams, it's music for the mind, abstract and yet wholly present to itself and therefore totally concrete too. The two guitarists set off in search of sound. Their quest is wildly raging now and then, but only for a brief moment, most of the time it's contempla…