Ten Worst Recordings in Your Collection

[Brian Olewnick]

Silly, end-of-the-year thing. To be sure, there are millions of recordings out there I'd like much less than these and, for some reason, these things remain in my collection, but they're really not very good. Ideally, someone out there will think one or two of 'em are great, or even *GREAT*. ;-)

10. Steve Coleman - Sine Die

9. Orkest de Volharding - Shoulder to Shoulder

8. Anthony Braxton - Four Orchestras (I'm sorry, but I've been giving this one second chances for 25 years)

7. George Russell - The African Game (Pretty sure this came in near the top of a Village Voice poll back when it was released)

6. Eugene Chadbourne - Camper Van Chadbourne

5. Don Cherry - Home Boy

4. Bernie Worrell - Funk of Ages

3. Captain Beefheart - Unconditionally Guaranteed

2. The Golden Palominos - Blast of Silence

And the worst album by the guy about who WIRE was spewing hosannahs as the next great composer about 10 years ago.....

1. James MacMillan - Isabel Gowdie

[Nate Dorward]

This'll be a tough one, cause I usually get rid of bad or even just mediocre things as soon as possible (whither goest thou, Jazz Trading Post...?). Still thinking....

[Jon Abbey]

I used to like that Camper van Chadbourne record, haven't heard it in a while. I sell the worst CDs in my collection whenever I decide that's what they are, so I can't really answer this.

[Derek Taylor]

Clever, Brian. Off the top of my head:

Leonard Nimoy – MR. SPOCK’S MUSIC FROM OUTER SPACE (Varese Saraband)
Wynton Marsalis – JOE COOL’S BLUES (Columbia)
Pat Metheny & Derek Bailey – THE SIGN OF THE 4 (Knitting Factory)
Eve Packer & Noah Howard – CRUISIN’ WITH MOXIE (Altsax)
David S. Ware – THREADS (Thirsty Ear)
Sonny Rollins – THE SOLO ALBUM (Milestone)
Chet Baker – YOU CAN’T GO HOME AGAING (A&M)
Chris Botti – A THOUSAND KISSES DEEP (Columbia) [this one’s soon to start a new life as a tea mug coaster]
Starship Beer – NUT MUSIC: AS FREE AS THE SQUIRRELS (UMS/Atavistic)
Anthony Braxton & Alex Horwitz – FOUR COMPOSITIONS (DUETS) 2000 (CIMP)

[Nate Dorward]

I suspect that Anthony Braxton is responsible for more discs that I've hastily disposed of than anyone else......I've never heard Four Orchestras but the recent double-CD set of four saxes + strings from Ljubljana stayed here no longer than necessary.... I've gotten rid of every Ken Vandermark disc I've received as quickly as possible. Recent hot potatoes have been the Dixon/Taylor/Oxley (which I palmed off on Will Montgomery, poor guy) & Ware's Threads. I finally managed to unload The Sign of 4 (Bailey/Metheny) in the past year, after years of unsuccess (all the record shops here are wise to it). Managed to dispose of Dave Douglas's The Invisible within two weeks of acquisition.

The single worst disc I still have--no contest--is the following, which I've hung onto because it's not every so often one gets a disc from someone who is obviously totally insane. THis is from my CD-ROM column in Cadence.

...And now for a visit to the Twilight Zone, courtesy a Japanese pianist named ARATORI. His disc TIMING-PROGRESSION.COM ARATORI VOL.1 (no label information) (Original/ 8bars1 / 8bars2/ 8bars3/ 8bars4/ 8bars5/ 8bars6/ 8bars7/ 8bars8/ cut1/ cut1 8bars1/ cut1 8bars2/ cut1 8bars3/ cut1 8bars4/ cut1 8bars5/ cut1 8bars6/ cut1 8bars7/ cut1 8bars8. 6:58.) (Aratori, el p. 23 June 2002) is, he tells us in the copious notes that accompany this release, the first fruit of thirty years’ musical research. During this span of time he discovered and refined a revolutionary musical system he calls the Timing Progression Theory, about which you can hear much, much more on his website (which handily doubles as the title of his CD). Given its lengthy gestation you might perhaps anticipate that timing-progression.com would be an expansive outpouring of the music that’s been pent up inside Aratori all these years, but you’d be wrong: it is a surprisingly compact aesthetic statement. Very compact, in fact—the entire disc is 6 minutes, 58 seconds long. The disc is divided into 18 tracks, of which the first track is a 64-bar electric keyboard improvisation (one minute, 29 seconds long) that bears a certain resemblance to the work of Lennie Tristano. Tracks 2-9 are exactly the same performance, now divided into eight-bar sections. Track 10, entitled “cut1,” is the same performance yet again, with (according to Aratori’s liner notes—I didn’t actually try to verify this) one beat removed to make it subtly different. Tracks 11-18 are “cut1” again, divided into eight-bar sections. So--in case you weren’t paying attention--the 6 minutes, 58 seconds of timing-progression.com actually contain only a minute and a half’s worth of music, repeated four times. Nonetheless, says Aratori, the disc required 180 days for recording (though, curiously, elsewhere in the notes is the information that the album was cut on a single day).
In his notes the pianist next addresses a question about this CD that may arise in skeptical jazz fans’ minds: “Why does it cost as much as $40?” The answer appears to be complex, to judge by the two pages of explication that follow. From what I can make out, it involves his conviction that any purchaser of the CD will want to listen to it at least 100,000 times. Helpfully, he assures us that this is physically possible: “I have listened to it about 100,000 times in a year after my recording it. Really? Yes, it needs just 10 hours a day. And I continue to do.” Your forty bucks also gets you an authentic Aratori signature: according to the website, “The title and so on with his autograph are all written by Aratori's hand. Your name etc. ‘to Your name’ can be also written. ... And a serial number is written begining from ‘No. 0001’. That is to say, the serial number means how fast you discover the value of Aratori's music historically!” I am truly disappointed that my reviewer’s copy is unnumbered. Drat!

The non-insane disc which has come repeatedly closest to getting pitched is Frisell's Nashville (Ghost Town already went bye-bye). Archie Shepp's Live in San Francisco is pretty crummy; I just picked it up last week.

None of this is to take into account my LP collection, which I haven't been able to play for years (non-functioning record player I can't be bothered to fix). The worst thing there was probably the Bley/Giuffre/Connors/Peacock IAI disc whose name escapes me.

If you're taking into account complete sets, Larry Young's Heaven on Earth on the Mosaic set is pretty horrible. Bizarre to have it sitting next to Unity....

[Brian Olewnick]

See, there ya go. While I don't have the album, I was present at MOMA for the Sonny Rollins solo concert and have very fond memories of it!

That Brax is the one with the comic, right? I almost bought that several times figuring, no matter how bad it was, I really should have it. But I never pulled the trigger.

btw, I haven't traded in an album since about 1976. If I think something's really execrable, I just toss it. Happily, this usually only occurs on odd occasions like when Walt dumps a bunch of his Leo promos on me! ;-)

[Nate Dorward]

Derek--hey, if Ware's on your list, shouldn't Mr Munoz be there too....


Interesting to see the simulpost with Derek shares a number of the same gobblers--Braxton, Ware, Metheny/Bailey.

[Brian Olewnick]

If I expanded my list to 20, 'Sign of 4' might well show up. iirc, there are a few minutes, four or five maybe, on one of the discs where some actual interplay occurs.

[Pete C]

Originally posted by Nate Dorward
Archie Shepp's Live in San Francisco is pretty crummy;

Not my favorite Shepp (Mama Too Tight & The Way Ahead probably are), but I vociferously disagree nonetheless.

[Jon Abbey]

ok, here are ten CDs I edited out of my collection since Brian started this thread. I'm not exactly judging the quality of the music, I just don't need them in my own collection anymore, for enjoyment or for reference.

Eugene Chadbourne-Ayler Undead (Grob)
Conspiracy-Intravenous (Matchless)
Andrew Cyrille-My Friend Louis (DIW/Columbia)
L@N-L@N (A-Musik)
Big John Patton-Blue Planet Man (Evidence)
Pneuma-Psychabuse (Marquee/Belle Antique)
Bobby Previte/John Zorn-Euclid's Nightmare (Depth of Field)
Produkt-Stretch (Raster/Noton)
Seikazoku-Outtakes '66-'78 (Fractal)
Twisted Science-Blown (Lo)

discs I listened to some of while weeding and decided I wanted to hold onto for now:

Breschand/Doneda/Zbinden-L'Intense (For 4 Ears)
Champion Jack Dupree-One Last Time (Bullseye)
Solid Eye-When The Snowman Starts to Talk (Senseworks)

[Brian Olewnick]

Originally posted by Derek Taylor

Leonard Nimoy – MR. SPOCK’S MUSIC FROM OUTER SPACE (Varese Saraband)

I've never heard this but it's impossible to imagine that it wouldn't contain sufficient camp value to ensure it a place in anyone's collection.

The only one of Jon's recently deceased I own is the Previte/Zorn which I agree is pretty dud-worthy.

[Brian Olewnick]

Here's 10 more bottom dwellers that I'm too kind to evict:

John King - Hot Thumb in a Funky Groove

Roscoe Mitchell - Sound and Space Ensemble (whatever virtues in the former, Tom Buckner more than makes up for it in the latter)

Joe McPhee/Milo Fine/Steve Gnitka - MFG in Minnesota (worst McPhee I've ever heard--probably a semi-valuable piece of vinyl though)

Greg Osby - Sound Theatre

Sam Rivers - Crystals (I know many here liked the CD--I've had the LP since its release and have always found it shrill and unconvincing)

Jean-Paul Bourelly - Jungle Cowboy

Praxis - Transmutation

Chris MacGregor/BOB - Country Cooking

Ray Lema - Nangadeef

Jamaladeen Tacuma - Jukebox

[Derek Taylor]

Brian, that Brax I mentioned is indeed the one with the ‘stand-up comic.’ Sections of it have Horwitz dryly reading passages out of some newspaper while Brax toots & tweets beside him. It’s such a bizarre project that I had to hold on to it, though I’d advise keeping your gun holstered on a purchase.

The Nimoy is hilarious, definitely a ‘so bad it’s good’ album. Nice balance between cheesy instrumentals (one’s mysteriously called “Amphibious Assault”) & Nimoy vocal numbers- he does a wicked version of “Where Is Love” from the musical Oliver.

I’ve read a lot of conflicting opinions about the Rollins solo record over the years. What’s there strikes me as Sonny rehearsing in front of the audience & seems terribly unfocused. Was there more to the performance than the hour or so worth of music on the disc?

I’m still trying to figure out the appeal of Milo Fine? Have him on a few discs & he always seems to be the fly in the ointment. I’ve lived in Minneapolis for two plus years & still have yet to hear him play in person.

Nate, the Muñoz went in the compost pile about a month ago so I couldn’t count it. The completist in me is holding on to the Ware.

Have to say I like Shepp’s SAN FRANCISCO too, though not nearly as much as several of his other Impulse dates.

[Brian Olewnick]

Originally posted by Derek Taylor
I’ve read a lot of conflicting opinions about the Rollins solo record over the years. What’s there strikes me as Sonny rehearsing in front of the audience & seems terribly unfocused. Was there more to the performance than the hour or so worth of music on the disc?

No, I think that was it. It was a non-stop improvisation, mixing in the occasional few bars from this or that standard and playing off the car horns on the other side of the garden wall. Saw the AEC give a great show at the same location around the same time.

[Captain Hate]

This is a great thread; I'm gonna have to give it some serious thought but there'll be at least two Steve Coleman's on it. Two of the most disappointing releases that I own are on Arabesque, usually a label with quality stuff: Thomas Chapin's "I've Got Your Number" and the Tiny Bell Trio's "Live in Europe". Both of them are amazingly lifeless, with the Chapin showing very little of the spark of his Knitting Factory releases. The third most disappointing is Zorn's The Parachute Years, which I've noted that some people here like, at least some of the individual discs. I'd like to know if the people who like them saw these pieces performed; because I'm usually a shill for Zorn yet I can't find ANY enjoyment in any of the discs in this collection.

Glad to see that some of Eugene Chadbourne's output is being recognized for what it is. I've always admired his ability but his discs make it very difficult to like him.

I'll also throw in an Archie Shepp: Attica Blues (at least I think that was the title of a big band release on Blue Marge); I got it after Cadence (and the readers poll, I think) gushed all over it. Boy were my eager anticipations dashed as I listened to these flaccid big band charts and mediocre soloing. I don't think I listened to it ever again.

The Jazzpar Prize with David Murray & Pierre Dorge's New Jungle Orchestra is far less than the sum of the parts.

[Brian Olewnick]

I don't have the Zorn box but I've heard almost all of the pieces over the years (on radio) and nothing's ever really grabbed me. Never saw any performed although I saw Zorn and many of the same musicians (including Chadbourne and Polly Bradfield) in a couple of non-Zorn-led performances in the late 70s that I also thought uninteresting although, to be fair, I wasn't at the time very much into that "school" of improv.

I think my least favorite Zorn that I own is probably "Nani Nani". Some might nominate "Zohar", the one with rabbinical chanting almost totally buried underneath layers of vinyl hiss and scratches, but I actually have a weird liking for that one.

[Jon Abbey]

Originally posted by Brian Olewnick
I think my least favorite Zorn that I own is probably "Nani Nani". Some might nominate "Zohar", the one with rabbinical chanting almost totally buried underneath layers of vinyl hiss and scratches, but I actually have a weird liking for that one.

I've sold both of these. I remember liking parts of the Parachute box quite a bit, but I haven't heard it in a while. my Zorn collection continues to shrink, it was up to 50 at one point...

[saltwatersnow]

every zorn ive come across has long been sold.

[Nate Dorward]

I've hung onto Chadbourne's early album of country tunes (I forget the title--it's got Zorn, Cora, &c on it), which is a lot of fun, but I think I've disposed of everything else. (No: hold on: I have a collab with Jimmy Carl Black. Have to get rid of that.) Actually, a serious question: how many good Eugene Chadbourne albums are there? For me, the most disappointing was actually Strings (Intakt), which is a virtually "straight" album of guitarplaying which reveals that actually Chadbourne's a totally mediocre player of actual, you know, TUNES. There's one of the world's longest & most uneventful versions of "Monk's Mood" on record, closely followed by the equally tedious "Day Dream"; there's a "Coltrane Medley" which is as far as I can tell no such thing (a joke about the sameyness of modal improvisation? maybe). The good stuff on it is all the Chadbourne "originals"--the tribute to Derek Bailey at the end for instance is surprisingly good. Too little, too late, though.

The Shepp Live in San Francisco isn't completely hopeless, but, jeez--it's got the world's feeblest rhythm section, they can't seem even to get through a blues without it sagging, & a third of the original album (a generous 34 minutes) was taken up with plummy poetry+jazz, a plunking piano solo & a pleasant but inconsequential opening fanfare. At least with the reissue you get the mother of all expansions, with 40 minutes added to it. Still, it's pretty ragged stuff.

Yes, Zohar is a waste of space. The main problem with it is that Zorn has arranged that once you open the packaging there's no indication anywhere on it that it's a Zorn/Eye disc. So just TRY friggin' selling it to a record shop & convincing them it's not just two doddering rabbis...

[Squaredancecalling Steve]

The sound quality on the Collectables reissue of Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" on 45-rpm vinyl is mind-bogglingly poor, like a faint echo in a dumpster, the worst quality recording of any commercial release I've ever heard.

I like Zorn's work a whole lot, and don't plan to part with any of it, but the one with the duck calls -- inexplicably entitled "The Classic Guide To Strategy, vol. One & Two" -- is almost unlistenable. More than fifteen minutes of it and I start to feel like Daffy Duck. The only album in my collection of about 20 Zorns that I don't like.

And although I adore Anita O'Day and am a completist collector of her work, her last album, "Rules of The Road," was too painfully bad for me to keep more than a day.

[Gary Sisco]

Jeez, Jon, "My Friend Louis" is one of my favorite CDs!

Re the solo Rollins. I like that one, too, Brian, and have it on vinyl. I'll have to get it burned one of these days so I can hear it straight through without having to turn the record over. Must've been cool to be there and also have the recording, for the memory of it.

I can't answer this question, as I don't hang on to records I don't like. There are about a dozen or so on my discard pile at the moment, about half jazz and half euroclassical. I'll not list them so as not to embarass any of the cats, as some of them I liked fine for a few listens but wouldn't ever return to. That's where I draw my keep or sell line. I don't need to keep things I'm not going to listen to again, sometime.

[Jon Abbey]

Originally posted by Gary Sisco
Jeez, Jon, "My Friend Louis" is one of my favorite CDs!

cool, I have a copy for sale now, tell a friend.

I don't need to keep things I'm not going to listen to again, sometime.

exactly my point, I have more than 6000 CDs, including hundreds and hundreds of jazz CDs, a genre I've obviously lost most of my interest in, and don't anticipate any sort of resurgence any time soon.

[Nate Dorward]

Actually, The Classic Guide to Strategy is one of the few Zorn discs I still pull out now & again. I like the simplicity. Though the masterpiece from the duck-call period is surely Yankees, which I recently pulled out & remembered how good it was.

Yeah, My Friend Louis is rather underwhelming. I recall it had a two or three good tracks on it though, including a Dolphy cover. But considering the lineup it could really be a better disc....

[Frisco]

HAPPY NEW YEAR, ALL!

A rather negative thread to kick off the New Year, but all in good fun, I guess. If we don't take it too seriously.

I'm searching my basement for perhaps my least favorite record of all time. Does anyone know about an LP of Toshinori Kondo and (was it?) IMA? After hearing Kondo in Die Like a Dog, I bought this LP of blatant commercial slickness.

ARCHIE SHEPP LIVE IN SAN FRANCISCO! One of my first hundred or so LPs as a kid. Nate, I still love it. "Keep Your Heart Right" and "The Lady Sings the Blues" make the record worthwhile. Still in Shepp's most creative period, his raw, gritty, soulful sound, and Beaver Harris....Beaver Harris! part of the the "world's feeblest rhythm section"? Wow. I'm not sure about a 34 minute poetry/jazz thing. My record is about 35 minutes total. Did they do something wierd with a reissue?

Some other major dissapointments (I can't say worst) still in my collection:

RELAY EIGHT - Sunday 11th June 2000 - on 213 Music
*great musicians like Mark Wastell, Gail Brand, Butcher, etc...but the concept didn't do much for me.

OLE ROMER (w/David Murray) - "MAIN ROOTS AND DECENT FOOD" on Olufssen
*I was listening to a lot of David Murray at the time and made this mistake.

WADADA LEO SMITH'S GOLDEN QUARTET - "THE YEAR OF THE ELEPHANT" - on PI
*Leo, Anthony Davis, Malachi Favors are among my favorites but I got nothing out of this one.

HANS REICHEL - "YUXO" on A,l,l
*I like a lot of Reichel's prior FMP stuff.

CHARLIE HADEN "QUARTET WEST" on Verve
*Bought this for 96 cents. What happened to Haden?

[lazarus]

I never keep records I don´t like for very long time but I have a few titles that I´m going to sell, trade or maybe give away:



Toshimaru Nakamura - No-Input Mixing Board 2

Taku Sugimoto - Italia

Musica Transonic - Hard Rock Transonic

Kali Fasteau - Comraderie & Vivid

Amon Düül II - Vive La Trance

[Jon Abbey]

put Italia on Ebay, it's been out of print for a while.

[Jason Bivins]

I try to weed out regularly, but usually only 10 or so at a time.

Laz, I'm interested in that Sugimoto if you want to sell, trade, or give.

[Nate Dorward]

No, the poetry/jazz thing is just "The Wedding", a fairly short track (3 minutes long). I like "Keep Your Heart Right", Rudd's composition, pity it's only a minute long. -- Nah, can't say much good about Beaver Harris or about Worrell, who seems to spend a lot of his time stuck playing the same four notes (root, 7th, 6th, 5th, repeat....). -- The reissue adds an unissued Ellington cover & then the entirety of Three for a Quarter, One for a Dime, which originally was an entire album to itself.

Oh yes, speaking of Haden's descent into mush--one of the crummier things I have here still is Ron Carter's The Golden Striker. Not that it's bad, it's just so nicey-nice that it sinks effortlessly into the background.....considering it's god Carter, Mulgrew Miller & Russell Malone on it, that's a considerable waste of talents.

[Dan G]

Originally posted by lazarus

Kali Fasteau - Comraderie & Vivid

Fasteau seems to be the only person who can make records with Joe McPhee, WIlliam Parker, Hamid Drake, Warren Smith, Bobby Few, Noah Howard, Daniel Carter and Sabir Mateen and have it be completely lifeless and boring. And I saw her once in a trio with McPhee and some percussionist, and actually walked out - it was very hard, being a big fanof Joe, but I couldn't take it.

[vibes]

Having really enjoyed "The October Suite" and the album he did with Bill Evans, I jumped at the chance to pick up Gary McFarland's "Soft Samba" a few months ago. A complete disappointment - too laid back, lame vocals, etc. Steer clear of this one.