What albums have you listened to most often in 2003?

[Squaredancecalling Steve]

Of new jazz releases, "Scrapbook" -- William Parker, Billy Bang, Hamid Drake. My favorite record of the year!

Of older jazz albums, Steven Bernstein's 'Diaspora Blues" and Larry Young's "Lawrence of Newark" both got played a lot earlier in the year, and Billy Bang's "Commandment" seems to be something I need to hear every month or two.

I discovered fado this year, so my two favorite Amelia Rodrigues discs are high up there.

And I discovered Connie Smith this year, as great a country singer as there ever was, and she, like Amelia, is still in heavy rotation.

Some of those middle period discs from the three Doo-Wop Boxes probably made it in, too -- my favorite soundtracks when I go running.

[Cem]

I would add Radio Eroded to your list...I've been watching you Excellent album!

My most listened to:

Triage - Twenty Minute Cliff
Vandermark 5 - Airports For Light
Jim Black - Splay
Ray Charles & Betty Carter (thx for the rec JCers)
James Brown - The Instrumentals
Neko Case - Furnace Room Lullabye
Eskelin/Parkins/Black - 12 +1 Imaginary Views
String Trio Of New York - Gut Reaction
Wayne Horvitz - Sweeter Than The Day
Wayne Horvitz - American Bandstand
Brad Shepik Trio - Drip
John Hollenbeck/Claudia Quintet - S/t
& of course (Tudo De Bom for JC review)

[Captain Hate]

Cem, did you find that Twenty Minute Cliff got better with each play? Every time I listened to it, it seemed like I heard something different in the songs.

[crawjo]

Albums that I have listened to most often this year:

Miles Davis - Miles Smiles
Cecil Taylor - World of Cecil Taylor
Miles Davis - Complete Live at the Plugged Nickel
Wayne Shorter- Juju
Patricia Barber - Verse
Ornette Coleman - The Shape of Jazz to Come
Miles Davis - Cookin'
McCoy Tyner - The Real McCoy
Miles Davis - Porgy and Bess

[willy]

Sonny Rollins: The Bridge (Bluebird remastered CD)
William Parker: O'Neal's Porch
Bill Evans: Waltz for Debby (200g vinyl)
Dexter Gordon: Our Man in Paris (Van Gelder remaster)
Ben Webster: Soulville (new Verve remastered CD)

[Pete C]

Probably "Duo" by Cesar Camargo Mariano & Romero Lubambo.

[Boris Badenov]

Hey, square, is there a good Connie Smith compilation out there?

"I only cry once a day,
Every day,
All day long..."

[Cem]

Originally posted by Captain Hate
Cem, did you find that Twenty Minute Cliff got better with each play? Every time I listened to it, it seemed like I heard something different in the songs.

Definitely, it did. -...but we had this conversation already right, Cap'n...? or is it another dream I'm dreaming? - I finally got to see Dave Rempis live w/ V5 this year. He's very good.

btw, I couldn't afford many new disc this year, so the majority of my "most often listened to" are biz/pleasure discs and many are older. Not necessarily a "best of the year" list, obviously. Triage was one of the best discoveries, for sure.

[Squaredancecalling Steve]

Originally posted by Boris Badenov
Hey, square, is there a good Connie Smith compilation out there?

"I only cry once a day,
Every day,
All day long..."

"And once a night,
From dusk 'til dawn."


BB: "The Essential Connie Smith" is the one I've been playing to death. Five stars from AMG. "Ribbon of Darkness" (by Gordon Lightfoot) and "How Great Thou Art" will knock you out!

[Jazzooo]

Brecker's Ballad and Romero Lubamba's Infinite Romance albums, because we often use them for date nights, and we've had a lot of date nights this year!

[walto]

Other than the stuff on my top ten list, maybe Rautavaara's "Thomas," the Z. Parkins trilogy of "Isabelle," "Pan-Acousticon," and "Mouth=Maul_Betrayer," and, of course, "La Voyelle Liquide." Seems like I've listened to many many hours of Brax's GTM this year too.

[al j]

the first disc in the Amplify box (the wonderful Nakamura collabs) may qualify for most-played disc in a 24 hour period, ever.

Also, Rautavaara's A REQUIEM IN OUR TIME (non-recommended by Walt, but as a result of his praise of THOMAS)

Davis/Durrant/Wastell - OPEN

Taku Sugimoto - ITALIA

Oren Ambarchi - SUSPENSION

Tangiers - HOT NEW SPIRITS

Brotzmann 3 - USABLE PAST

Tim Berne - OPEN, COMA

[stonemonkts]

This was a Paul Bley year for me:

RAMBLIN'
TOUCHING
OPEN TO LOVE
ALONE AGAIN
12 (+6) IN A ROW
MEMOIRS
MINDSET
HANDS ON
IN THE EVENINGS OUT THERE
REALITY CHECK
TIME WILL TELL
SANKT GEROLD
NOT ONE, NOT TWO
BASICS

[Pete C]

Originally posted by stonemonkts
This was a Paul Bley year for me:

RAMBLIN'
TOUCHING
OPEN TO LOVE
ALONE AGAIN
12 (+6) IN A ROW
MEMOIRS
MINDSET
HANDS ON
IN THE EVENINGS OUT THERE
REALITY CHECK
TIME WILL TELL
SANKT GEROLD
NOT ONE, NOT TWO
BASICS

The only ones of those I haven't heard are Reality Check & 12 (+6) in a Row. How do you rate them?

Hands On is a particular favorite of mine.

[stonemonkts]

Originally posted by Pete C
The only ones of those I haven't heard are Reality Check & 12 (+6) in a Row. How do you rate them?

Hands On is a particular favorite of mine.

I rate Reality Check high, I enjoy it as much as Not One, Not Two. In fact I enjoy listening to both recordings back-to-back. You wouldn't be disappointed.

12(+6) is ok. Interesting in that it is a bit different from the other recordings, quite cooler (icy) in terms of expression, but I think I need to listen to it a bit more to form a definite opinion.

I agree with you regarding Hands On.

Do you have "Bebop", and if so, what do you think? I'm thinking of picking it up.

[Captain Hate]

Originally posted by Cem
Definitely, it did. -...but we had this conversation already right, Cap'n...? or is it another dream I'm dreaming?

We prolly did; my memory is the first to go, I'm sure.

Other disks I listened to lots:
Wren/Stabbins/Riley/Sanders - Four in the Afternoon
Freedom of the City 2002 Small Groups
John Law Quartet - Exploded on Impact

[Pete C]

Originally posted by stonemonkts
Do you have "Bebop", and if so, what do you think?

I don't have it, but I think it has received high marks around here. The only Steeplechase Bley I own is the one with NHOP.

The Bley I've been looking for for the longest time is Axis.

[Gordon B]

Originally posted by Pete C
I don't have it, but I think it has received high marks around here. The only Steeplechase Bley I own is the one with NHOP.

The Bley I've been looking for for the longest time is Axis.

I'm no Bley expert but "bebop" bored me, almost to tears.

I don't know what I listened to the most in 2003, but it might have been "eh."

[stonemonkts]

Originally posted by Pete C
I don't have it, but I think it has received high marks around here. The only Steeplechase Bley I own is the one with NHOP.

The Bley I've been looking for for the longest time is Axis.

I did a quick search, and found Axis at this site and this one .

[Pete C]

Thanks. I thought it was out of print.

Mostly dead guys

[MRS]

This is doubtless more comforatable than the top ten of 2003. . .thanks SDCS:


Rowe/Beins--Grain
Monk--Live at the Jazz Workshop
Exploding Customer--Live at the Glenn Miller Cafe, Vol. 1
Gateway--Homecoming
Rowe/Tilbury--Duos for Doris
Bobby Hutcherson--Oblique
Parker/Prevost--Most Materiall
Clusone 3--I Am an Indian
Mahler--10th, Adagio (Rattle)
AMM--Newfoundland
Tatum--The Complete Pablo Solo Masterpieces, disc 3

[MRS]

. . .and lots of cheap Bean records late at night.

[hearsay]

The one CD I probably listened to the most this year is Supersilent 6.

Also-

Mat Maneri - Sustain

Carl Maguire - Floriculture

Phoenecia - Brownout

Radiohead - Hail to the Theif

Peter Broetzmann/Die Like a Dog Quartet - Little Birds have Fast Hearts Vol. 2 and Never to Late...

Duke Ellington - Far East Suite and Afro-Eurasian Eclipse

Ellery Eskelin/Han Bennink - Dissonant Characters

Cecil Taylor - In East Berlin

Conrad Bauer/Peter Kowald/Gunter Sommer

Two recent reissues, Clifford Jordan/John Gilmore and Sam Rivers Fuchsia Swing Song, have been getting lots of play.

Bach's Goldberg Variations (Perahia)

Well-Tempered Klavier (Angela Hewitt)

Brandenburg Concertos (Akademie fuer Alte Musik Berlin)

T.W. Adorno - String Quartets (Leipziger String Quartet)

Gloria Coates - String Quartets vol. 1 (on Naxos)

[lazarus]

Miles Davis - The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions, Big Fun and Four & More

Joni Mitchell - 1:st album, Blue, For The Roses and Hejira

Eddie Henderson - Realization

Robert Wyatt - Cuckooland

Alice Coltrane - Universal Consciousness and World Galaxy

Barre Phillips - Mountainscapes

Jan Garbarek - Afric Pepperbird and Sart

Lutoslawski - Orchestral works on Naxos

Stockhausen - Trans

Supersilent - 5 and 6

Fairport Convention - What We Did On Our Holidays and Unhalfbricking

Gene Clark - No Other

Jackie McLean - Capuchin Swing

Wayne Shorter - Super Nova

Bill Laswell - Permutation

[Dan G]

My listening habits are odd - I only listen to jazz/improv in my apt and only there, and rock/reggae/country in the car or at work, never at home.

Most heard discs were probably the Gram Parsons two-fer GP/Grevious Angel which is the one disc that never gets rotated out of my car, followed by London Calling, which was there for quite a while at the first of the year in tribute to Mr. Strummer.

In the house, I seemed to focus on reconnecting with Anthony Braxton, spending a lot of time listening the early material with Leo Smith, Leroy Jenkins et al.

And I also went through my 70+ recordings of Derek Bailey (leader and guest) in chronological order, with nothing else in between.

And did the same with about 60 Sun Ra albums (as close as possible anyway, given the discographical nightmare they can be).

Most the new albums I bought are still awaiting sufficient use to comment on them.

[Bill Barton]

Omar Sosa - Sentir (this one was gathering dust in the stacks for a long time before I really heard it, and since then it's been played and played and played...)

William Parker Violin Trio - Scrapbook (!)

Miles Davis - Kind of Blue (hmmm... every year, for that matter)

Hassan Hakmoun - The Fire Within (found this in a local pawn shop at a ridiculously low price in mint condition - an absolutely transcendent recording)

Warne Marsh (a bunch of commercially unreleased material I obtained on CD-Rs via trades)

Ain't I'm A Dog! and Whistle Bait! (two smokin' rockabilly anthologies)

Bob Marley (all of 'em, or at least all of 'em that I have in the collection)

Rahsaan Roland Kirk - The Complete Mercury Recordings of Roland Kirk (mostly the Rip, Rig & Panic session and the Copenhagen live stuff)

Marc Copland Trio - Haunted Heart & Other Ballads

Kip Hanrahan (towards the end of the year - nearly everything he's recorded...)

Patricia Barber - Modern Cool and Café Blue

Oliver Nelson - Blues and the Abstract Truth

Von Freeman - Live at the Dakota + a batch of commercially unreleased CD-R trades

Steve Lacy/Roswell Rudd Quartet - School Days

[gonzo]

miles davis-live evil
bartz was a mofo even then.

[Jonny Miner]

I've listened to less music this year than most. No car, so home's the only place, and I'm there less often than usual. That said, 2003's been about these records for me:


- Randy Newman - "Good Old Boys" 2CD reissue

- Daniel Carter / Rueben Radding - "Luminescence"

- Mekons - "Journey to the End of the Night" ("OOOH" has come out since, and is great, but this is the band's masterpiece, to me. Brilliant. Not bad, for a 27 year-old group!)

- William Parker - "Scrapbook"

- Air - "Air Lore," "Air Mail," "Live Air"

- Bad Brains - "I Against I"

...Also, 2003 has featured lots more Ellington, Mingus, Shepp, and Jelly Roll Morton, and lots less Coltrane, Dolphy, or Ayler. I think the collective aesthetic, or at least bigger-band sound, caught on for me this year.