Bill Dixon

Via Phil Freeman comes news that Bill Dixon has died at his home in North Bennington, Vermont. Among his many artistic accomplishments, Dixon organized and performed at the famed "October Revolution," a 1964 showcase of the burgeoning New York free jazz scene. He was also a founding member of the Jazz Composers Guild, one of the most notable early attempts to organize jazz musicians outside of the existing structures of the music business. He continued to play actively into his eighties, releasing an album in each of the past three years. He also appeared on Cecil Taylor's wonderful 1969 album Conquistador! He will be missed.

List: Favorite Tracks From Art Blakey's 1960 Jazz Messengers

All tracks available on the sadly out of print box set from Blue Note.

Ping Pong

Afrique

Lost and Found

A Night In Tunisia

Dat Dere

Sleeping Dancer Sleep On

United

The Freedom Rider

Music Monday Extra

Nextbop ran an open call for submissions for their Music Monday post today, to which I contributed Polar Bear's Peepers. I wanted to include a second tune, but due to space limitations I could not. So instead I'll post it hear. Below is Twin Sister's Lady Daydream. It is not jazz, but I've been listening to this track a lot lately. Their lead singer has an enchanting voice with a timbre I don't think I've ever heard before. I hope you enjoy it.

Record Club 2

The Records: Charles Lloyd Quartet, Forest Flower and The Flowering
Acquired: I found both records at Jackpot Records during my visit to Portland last month. Jackpot Records is a brilliant name for a record store, by the way. Total cost: $8.
Thoughts on the records: I've liked Charles Lloyd's late-sixties quartet with Keith Jarrett, Jack DeJohnette, and Cecil McBee for awhile, but their work has long been a hole in my own library. So I jumped at the chance to get two records recorded during the quartet's artistic and popular peak. Both are live recordings (Forest Flower was recorded at the 1966 Monterey Jazz Festival, The Flowering at Aulaen Hall in Oslo also in 1966)

I started with The Flowering, since it had the better-looking cover (though unfortunately the "DJ Copy" sticker would probably ruin the cover should I try to remove it). Lloyd gets overpowered by the rhythm section at times on the first track due to shoddy amplification, but his unmistakable tone still sounds refreshing. Keith Jarrett tears up the first tune, Kurt Weill's Speak Low. The second tune, Love-In/Island Blues, sounds a bit stale to me today, but Jarrett's solos (and his interplay with DeJohnette) save the tune for me. The record as a whole strikes a fine balance. The quartet gets room to stretch in a live setting, but they don't get so abstract as to lose the listener. When you're trying to reach frequently-stoned college kids during the late sixties, it is a good idea not to stray too far from the listener's comfort zone.

Forest Flower was a bit of a downer, mostly because the first side (containing Lloyd's Forest Flower suite) had so many pops and hisses that I couldn't stand to listen to the entire thing. Such is the risk when buying used vinyl: upon further inspection, I noticed a long, light scratch along the radius of the entire side. I'd be more upset about it if I paid more than $5 for the record. Luckily Side 2 has a nice version of Jarrett's Sorcery with Lloyd on flute. All in all, not a bad transaction.

Sunday Reading Material

Something to do between today's World Cup matches:

• Jazz Beyond Jazz blogger Howard Mandel drums up support for the Jazz Journalists Association's Jazz Awards at City Arts. The whole concept seems a little insidery, but it's just an awards show, so what's the worst that could happen? Mandel answers that question when he tells of the time he and Stanley Crouch almost got into a fistfight after the first JJA Awards (which would have been the lamest fight ever had it gone off).
• Our friends at Nextbop are looking to expand their operations and run some new projects, but first they need a little help financing. Chances are most Hot House readers have spent some time listening to the Nextplayer, so please help Seb, Anthony, and the rest of the Nextbop family out. You'll get an immediate return on your investment when you listen to Seb's radio interview with Christian Scott.
• Peter Hum made simple but very effective argument the other day: YouTube is the new DownBeat. The major jazz magazines still do many things well (they are still the best equipped to give us long-form profiles from the likes of David Adler and Nate Chinen), but they have yet to set up websites that are good enough to make me visit more than once a month or so...
• Speaking of jazz media, it's been over four months since jazz.com last posted new material. When it was running strong, jazz.com published some of the best content on the web (see for instance Steve Coleman's epic take on 12 essential Charlie Parker tracks and Chris Kelsey's piece on Ornette Coleman's Blue Note years). I miss it, and hope its days are not over.
• This isn't jazz related, but still worth a read. Roger Ebert offers a spirited and heartfelt defense of Twitter. Since I end up having to defend Twitter to a non-tweeting friend every two months or so, it was nice to see how a better writer than myself does it. Also, if you aren't on Twitter, you could follow only Ebert and still enjoy the service.
• I'll leave you with one final thought. In the early days of jazz it was common to see a slide-whistle used in jazz groups. With that in mind, I would love to see someone use a vuvuzela on their next album.