Cecil Taylor / Mat Maneri - Algonquin

[Nate Dorward]

Just giving this a listen again. I find myself liking it despite the obvious minuses--the sound quality isn't very appetizing, there are a couple of annoying spots of feedback on the violin (notably the buzz on the first minute of Mat's solo piece), & there are bits where I think Mat's at sea. But it still sounds pretty good--on the whole a bit restrained for Cecil, with just a few violent climaxes in the first (longest part) really that shake the rafters & otherwise lots of almost-suspended passages, grinding triplety unisons between the hands, rotating pinwheels, &c. Anyone else heard this?

[Steve Reynolds]

I think Walter Horn has heard it

I'd like to - I will eventually hear it

Mat is always sometimes out to sea, IMO - usually shortly after or before he plays something of staggering brilliance

[Derek Taylor]

I like it quite a bit. And I dig the phrase "rotating pinwheels" too.

[Nate Dorward]

I just mean those circular patterns Cecil gets into..... there's also a slightly different pattern that sounds like stretching a rubber band & letting it snap back repeatedly. I'm just listening to Celebrated Blaxons at the moment & it confirms my impression that Algonquin really sounds more like a Cecil Taylor solo record than his group music--for instance in the much greater definiteness of musical form, with perceptible "stages" with clean breaks around them (often giving the impression of abrupt transpositions to different keys, though I haven't sat down at the piano to figure out how tonal things actually are. Cecil does tend to bend your sense of what's "tonal"...). I still think Mat sounds out of place in much of it though--all those twiddly droopy figures.... He does score a big coup with the bravura ending to his solo piece though.

UGHHHHH I hate the edited ending of Celebrated Blazons--just reached it right now. A wonderfully quiet, balanced ending to the improvisation, & then what does FMP do but throw in a horrible hard edit to noisy cheers from the audience.

[walto]

I think it's a really great disc, Nate. I'm not reviewing it anywhere, and I didn't listen to it close enough to catch the feedback and other sound issues you mention, but I've heard it about five times through and have been blown away each time--especially on the long cut. It's one of those rare discs that I'd heard about and looked forward to for a long time but that didn't disappoint in the slightest.

[Rob C]

Originally Posted by Nate Dorward

UGHHHHH I hate the edited ending of Celebrated Blazons--just reached it right now. A wonderfully quiet, balanced ending to the improvisation, & then what does FMP do but throw in a horrible hard edit to noisy cheers from the audience.

Ha, that always annoys me, too. Great record, though.

[Other Steve]

I'm still waiting for someone to chime in with an opinion on the question that I asked when I first posted that I'd listened to this disc: How do people feel about audible edits during the music in longer performances by Cecil? To state unambiguously what I didn't previously come right out and say, I believe that I hear one on this disc, as well as a worse one on the recent FMP quartet with Honsinger and Cyrille. They may be tiny, but they really do bug me, especially on headphones.

Yes, I understand that the prolix Mr. Taylor doesn't pay heed to the durational limits of a CD, so editing often becomes a necessity. It's audible edits that give me conniptions... the kind where you can spot it because the room ambience subtly changes or an instrument's decay is noticeably curtailed.

Anyone? I mean, hell, once upon a time, hat Art was even forced to reissue an unedited version of The Eighth after the edited version, Calling It the Eighth, drew fans' ire.

[Nate Dorward]

Yes I hate noticeable edits, though I forget if there were any internal edits I noticed. The thing that annoyed me most on Algonquin was that Cecil's solo piece starts abruptly, as if the first few notes were cut off. Maybe they were buried by applause & they edited them out.

Actually I don't care about minor flaws if the producer actually explains what he's doing. That's the good thing about Emanem: Martin sometimes edits performances, but he is upfront about this in his linernotes & explains why he made the cut. It's the apparent arbitrariness of the FMP cut on Celebrated Blazons that's irksome.

[walto]

Sometimes edits are used to get rid of even bigger sonic problems. I mean, if a sound person starts screwing up and there are not only noticeable, but really nasty clips on the master, audible edits may be unavoidable. Nat mentioned some feedback here. Possibly the edits removed some horrific squeals that would have been significantly worse than the irksome stuff that remains. Of course, nobody likes this sort of thing, but it may be the lesser of several evils....if you're gonna put the disc out at all.

[Nate Dorward]

Yes, I just wish they included an explanatory note a la Emanem.

[Ennis Snavely]

I think this was recorded here at the Library of Congress. What I heard from people at the time (I missed it) was that Matt was WAY too loud. Of course this may have been from someone who hates electricity in Jazz.

I guess I'll take the plunge based on Walto's raves for the disk.

[Steve Reynolds]

I heard Mat play plugged in with a band @ Tonic a while back and he was WAY too loud - all kinds of unecessary distortion and feedback hindered the performance

and I like a my electricity in jazz music

[Nate Dorward]

In general I'm not a big fan of Mat Maneri's electric violin: I've found my estimate of him's gone up considerably now that he's mostly switched to unamplified viola.

[Steve Reynolds]

to my ears - he often evokes Hendrix when he cranks up the volume - I would much rather hear how him when he plays like he does with his dad