2011 Top 10 CDs

In no particular order, here's my top 10 CD list for 2011. I'm sure I'm missing a few but here's what I can recall.

Andrew


1. Darius Jones & Matthew Shipp - Cosmic leider

Spooky, eerie alto sax and piano duets. Seriously freaky at times.

2. Fleet Foxes - Helplessness blues

More off-kilter hippie folk. Not quite as their first full-length release but that's usually the case with most 2nd albums.

3. Chris Parrello + Things I Wonder - s/t

4. Turtleboy - Smart matter

5. A Troop Of Echoes - Days in automation

#s 3-5 were deceptively good, growing with each listen and crossing musical boundaries (is it jazz? or rock? or ...?)

6. Grateful Dead - Europe '72, vol. 2

OK, I'm a bit of a deadhead. I didn't pick up the 73-CD set of the complete 1972 European tour but this is a nice addition to the original Europe '72 set.

7. Miles Davis Quintet - Live in Europe 1967: the bootleg series vol. 1

Live recordings of the latter days of the second great Davis quintet.

8. Crumbling Ghost - s/t

UK folk-rock done right.

9. Raoul Bjorkenheim, Bill Laswell, and Morgen Agren - Blixt

Loud, wild instrumental rock/jazz power trio.

10. Richard Thompson featuring Linda Thompson - Live at the BBC

Any RT is good RT.

November 21, 2011

Number two in a series of long-delayed setlists. More to come.

Andrew


"C'est plein pour moi" - Richard Thompson (Greenstreets, Columbia, MO, February 27, 1991)
"Tribal wisdom" - Vijay Iyer/Prassanna/Nitin Mitta (Tirtha)
"Inana's dance (IV)" - Amir ElSaffar Two Rivers Ensemble(Inana)
"Free sometimes rules" - Weasel Walter (Ominous telepathic mayhem)
"No holds barred" - John Mayall (The second decade: 1972 to 1982)
"Hymn to freedom" - Oliver Jones (Live in Baden Switzerland)*
"Jigsaw variations" - Mats/Morgan Band (Live)
"Chicago" - Tom Waits (Bad as me)
"The gift" - The Velvet Underground (White light/white heat)
"City of souls" - Kathryn Calder (Bright and vivid)*
"Gaia/Goya: part six - theme for Japhy Ryder (a buddhist meditates on a mountain top)" - The Keith Price Trio/Quintet (Gaia/Goya)*
"Telegram" - Julian Lage (Gladwell)
"Mothership" - Cripple Creek Fairies (The suction)**
"Interception" - Dave Holland Quartet (Conference of the birds)
"Congo" - Stefon Harris (Ninety miles)
"Watkins Glen" - Dead Cat Bounce (Chance episodes)
"I just feel that was him getting old and thinking, I gotta seem young and hip" - Bitter Fictions (Percolator glitch)**
"Urban chaos" - Black Pestilence (Tradition is obselete)**
"Over the humpty dump" - Cinque (Catch a corner)*
? - Foonyap and the Roar (Foonyap and the Roar)**
"Speed roadster" - David Lynch (Crazy clown time)
"Carambola" - Sao Paulo Underground (Tres cabecas loucuras)
"Moon tune" - Raoul Bjorkenheim/Bill Laswell/Morgan Agren (Blixt)
"Boogaloo Joe" - Booglaoo Joe Jones (Legends of acid jazz)
"Mates for life" - The Claudia Quintet + 1 featuring Kurt Elling and Theo Bleckmann (What is the beautiful?)
"Mouths" - Mark Alban Lotz & Islak Kopek (Istanbul improv sessions May 4)
"Cycles de derives" - Ariane Plante (Ariane Plante)*

Canadian=*
local=**

November 14, 2011

Here's the first of several long-delayed tracklists for shows in November and December. I just got sidetracked, bigtime. I am now playing catchup, also bigtime.

This was an interesting program in that it included a lot of experimental music of recent vintage.

"Red blanket room" - Circle Jerks (Golden shower of hits)
"Love and hate" - Jackie McLean (Destination... out!)
"Ema kowa iasa ile wa" - Mono Mono (Nigeria special: modern highlife, afro sounds, Nigerian blues, 1970-1976)
"Lonely woman" - Carol Morgan Quartet (Blue glass music)
"Dark matter with choir + organ" - Bjork (Biophilia)
"A return to science fiction" - Dixie's Death Pool (The man with flowering hands)*
"So bad" - Miesha and the Spanks (Split EP)**
"Morning bath" - Born Gold (Body songs)*
"Mop it up" - Gauntlet Hair (Gauntlet Hair)
"Vive le renouveau" - El Rego (El Rego)
"Hit and run" - Jack Ruby (Jack Ruby)
"Immovable" - Charalambides (Exile)
"Thermo (take 2)" - Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers (Caravan)
"This is the end" - Machine Head (Unto the locust)
"Unrequited" - Brad Mehldau, Kevin Hays & Patric Zimmerli (Modern music)
"Crystal fortress over the sea of trees" - Yamantaka/Sonic Titan (YT//ST)*
"Dubai dream tone" - James Ferraro (Far side virtual)
"Alert" - Ernesto Cervini Quartet (There)*
"amb14" - Psychic Pollution (PPamb00 and 01)*
"The search for Osama bin Laden" - The Hang-Ten Hangmen (Wet sounds: another year of surf music)*
"Metabolism" - Bird Names (Metabolism: a salute to the energy of the sun)
"Psych 66" - 5th Project (V)*
"Kill the clown" - Soley (We sink)
"Weird fishes/arpeggi" - Matt Haimowitz/Christopher O'Riley (Shuffle.play.listen)
"Mid-evil" - The Spanish Donkey (XYZ)

*=Canadian
**=local

November 7, 2011

"Moten swing" - Mark Kieswetter/Ross McIntyre (Green edge sky, green edge sun)
"Thirty-six" - Tyshawn Sorey (Oblique-I)
"Going inside" - John Frusciante (To record only water for ten days)
"Walking papers" - Booker T. Jones (The road from Memphis)
"4-4-4-4-2-2-2-5-2" - Bill Laswell/Raoul Bjorkenheim/Morgan Agren (Blixt)
"Keep the faith" - Mike Ledonne (Keep the faith)
"Black beauty" - Frank Zappa (Mystery disc)
"Township jive revisited" - Dead Cat Bounce (Chance episodes)
"True north" - Barrett Martin (The painted desert)
"Pigeon" - Sao Paulo Underground (Tres cabecas loucuras)
"Spring" - Phil Dwyer Orchestra featuring Mark Fewer (Changing seasons)
"Us" - Mark Alban Lotz & Islak Kopek (Istanbul improv sessions May 4)
"Neo & lego" - Roger Chong (Love me one more time)
"Non-alignment pact" - Weasel Walter (Ominous telepathic mayhem)
"Sea of qi" - Mary Louise Knutson (In the bubble)
"Black action figure" - Stefon Harris (Ninety miles)
"Triste" - Canadian Jazz Quartet (Brazilian reflections)
"Gag order" - Forbidden Dimension (The golden age of lasers)
"Hollmervalsen" - Mats/Morgan Band (Live)
"Space trucking" - William Shatner (Seeking Major Tom)
"Job" - The Claudia Quintet + 1 featuring Kurt Elling and Theo Bleckmann (What is the beautiful?)
"Inana's dance (I, II, III)" - Amir ElSaffar Two Rivers Ensemble (Inana)
"Pickin'" - Hubert Sumlin (Blues guitar boss)
"Gaia/Goya: part four - reflections (an overwhelming sense of regret)" - The Keith Price Trio/Quintet (Gaia/Goya)
"Graveyard" - The Devil Makes Three (Stomp and smash: live at the Mystic Theater)
"Ju ju" - Wayne Shorter Quartet (Usher Hall, Edinburgh, March 5, 2003)

Lots of newly-released material in this week's episode, much of it with a jazz lean. I suspect that the Nov. 14 program will also be in a similar vein but we'll see.

And then there was William Shatner...

Andrew

October 31, 2011

"Chinatown shuffle" - Grateful Dead (Europe 72 vol. 2)
"TGV" - Ernesto Cervini Quartet (There)*
"Nocturne fragments: mercurial" - Benjamin Broening, Duo Runedako (Recombinant nocturnes)
"Free my people" - Joni Haastrup (Wake up your mind)
"Ban juarp pros snae" - The Cambodian Space Project (2011: a space odyssey)
"Piano break song" - Magnus Ostrom (Thread of life)
"Festering in filth" - Pathology (Awaken to the suffering)
"Batkalim: recharged (DoGbEats vs. Natacha Atlas)" - Natacha Atlas (Moungaliba-rising: the remixes)
"Ol' metal-faced bastard" - Darius Jones Trio (Big gurl (smell my dream))
"The enemy god dances with the black spirts" - Emerson Lake & Palmer (Works volume 1)
"Hell" - James Brown (Hell)
"12/8 theme" - Soft Machine (Noisette)
"If I should lose you" - Chick Corea/Stefano Bollani (Orvieto)
"Fidele castor" - L'Orkestre Des Pas Perdus (Fidele castor)*
"The sea" - David Myles (Into the sun)*
"Greek suite, part II: margaritarena" - Charles Lloyd/Maria Farantouri (Athens concert)
"Greek suite, part II: thalassaki mou" - Charles Lloyd/Maria Farantouri (Athens concert)
"The Myconid's lounge" - The Myconid (Myconid madness)**
"Amethyst" - Biello/Weyand (Fourthought)
"I (sister young 'un)" - Cecil Taylor (Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly!)
"Jesus is on the mainline" - The Whirlwinds (This may be my last time singing: raw African-American gospel on 45 rpm 1957-1982)
"Red Mars II" - Loren Connors (Red Mars)
"One night late" - Dr. John (Zu zu soiree)
"Migration" - Lee Konitz/Dave Liebman/Richie Bierach (Migration)
"Worship" - Anthrax (Worship music)
"Impending doom" - We're Doomed (Like a machine)*
? - Pants Cause Cancer (Long songs)*
"Spooky hand saloon" - Jane Jane Pollock (Jane Jane Pollock)
"Costae spuriae" - [n.] (Ein kladelied fur 3f)
"Winds of wackness" - Little Shalimar (The new pneumonia blues)

*=Canadian
**=local

Happy Halloween! This was the first post-Funding Drive show. Many thanks to all who pledged, both on Breaking The Tethers and on other CJSW programs. As mentioned in an earlier posting, the 2011 total for BTT was $2100, a new record! Anyway, to the music... A true dog's breakfast this week, just the way I planned it :-). More of the same for the Nov. 7 episode (probably!).

Andrew

Breaking The Tethers Funding Drive Show

I wasn't able to host the Funding Drive edition of Breaking The Tethers today but a whole host of CJSW programmers filled in for me and did a great job. This was reflected in the pledge total for the show, which was a whopping $2100, over twice what I was hoping! Many, many thanks to those who pledged!

Back next week, Oct. 31, 2011, with a "regular" show.

Andrew

Win the Smithsonian Jazz Collection!

More funding drive stuff: If you pledge during Breaking The Tethers next Monday (Oct. 24, 7-10 am MST), you will have an opportunity to win a copy of the 6-CD Smithsonian Jazz Collection. It's a pretty impressive set.

Details are at http://cjsw.com/2011/10/20/win-the-smithsonian-jazz-collection/

Andrew