MOW 4/3/01 (or the struggles of Sisyphus)

Posted by: John C on 04 March 2001

Music of this week was the Dave Holland Octet live at QE Hall on Southbank. In addition to the regular quintet Canada's finest Kenny Wheeler on trumpet and flugelhorn, Antonio Hart on Alto Sax and the very fine Gary Smullyen on Baritone Sax (great sound Ive heard him before in Mingus Big Band). This is a slimmed down version of a 13 piece Big Band project that Holland has going in the States. The two Dave Holland quintet releases have had many admirers in the various recent jazz threads.
They played mainly new compositions and a few earlier Holland tunes like Conference of the Birds. The whole event was simply outsatnding and anyone with a chance to see one of the best bands in jazz should leap at the chance. Particular highlights for me where the fluid and exciting drumming of Billy Kilson and the sheer excellence of Chris Potter on tenor and soprano. Each of the musicians was outstanding and the octet hung together pretty well. One slight quibble was not enough was heard of Steve Nelson on the Vibes, what a player that guy is. Robin Eubanks was his usual titanic self and Holland himslef was superb.

Also bought some vinyl

Joe Henderson State of the tenor Vols 1,2 . I have this on CD but the vinyl beats it hand down. Great essential jazz record.

Art Pepper Landscape. I am in love with Art Pepper's music at the moment and and am in a frenzy of completist buying. Also reading his autobiography which is a great read with a somewhat American gothic feel to it.

Noticed some great records in my local shop. But 'precious things' like Tony Williams Lifetime on Blue Note vinyl were going for £20 quid. I cant pay that. Is this the going rate elsewhere?

John

Is there anyone else who is interested in MOW by the way?

Posted on: 04 March 2001 by Former member

I wish I could have caught Holland in action with his band. I saw him in a duo performance with Jim Hall in 1999 and he makes playing the bass effortless!

I'm also a big fan of Art Pepper and my wife happened to pick up his autobio just last week. Scary stuff. I went thru' a period of Pepper mania a while back after getting a couple of his records on Analogue Productions (reissues). His late playing was most beautiful and just overflowing with raw emotions. Do not miss his live albums at the Vanguard (with a dream rhythm section) where apparently he was "scoring" every night in order to play at the level he did. Some of his other live performances during the last couple of years of his life were breathtaking (e.g. at Maiden Voyage).

As for old Blue Note vinyl, the going rate has skyrocketed over the last few years. I used to make a yearly pilgrimage to New York and pick up stuff, and BN vinyl seemed to increase in price year after year (and became rarer and rarer). The last time I was there I managed to find some stuff at about US$15 but the older BN went for up to $100. Be careful, though, as BN continued to reissue vinyl all thru to the 90s and certainly stuff from the 70s to 90s should NOT come at a huge premium. There are some particularly fine-sounding used Japanese reissues, but these would be in the US$15-25 range.

Rgds

Hock