welcome surprise
welcome surprise
Hi, I just joined the list a few days ago, and I was surprised to immediately find answers to questions that had been floating around in my head. Me and a friend were just talking about Sun Ra's amazing poetry the other day, and were wishing that somebody would put out a whole book of it. Great to hear that it is possibly underway. I work at a record store, and always do everything possible to order and promote adventurous jazz music. I often wonder if the musicians, whom I listen to everyday, actually get paid for their music. For instance, I heard that a website was taking donations for Billy Higgin's hospital bills before he died, and I couldn't figure out how a man who played on so many great records could be hurting for cash. On all the Blue Note and Impulse reissues, do the record companies track down and pay all the players, or did the sidemen just get paid at the initial session, and only the leader still gets royalties? We've been selling the BYG/Actuel re-releases on Charly and Get Back really well, and the other day when I was listening to the brilliant Braxton record, I was wondering the same thing. Every one of those players contributed to beautiful record and I hope all of them are getting paid. That brings me to another point, I really love a tight and connected improvised ensemble. I like individual performers too, but nothing beats telepathic, common-interest interplay. Like Braxton's "3 Compositions of the New Jazz", it is a pinnacle of collective improvisation. As much as I like his later stuff, it is early trio and quartet stuff that really blows my mind. That's another reason I love the Arkestra so much, a spiritual bond was shared between band members and the collective ruled over the individual. I guess I'm doubly interested in the musician's financial situations, because I am also a musician and had some tough breaks with the industry. I played in a band called The Olivia Tremor Control and we recently found out that the record company that put out our first records had filed for bankruptcy. We hadn't been paid yet for 40,000 albums sold in '99 and were also told that we would have to buy the right to our albums back from them! This hurt especially bad since I have a couple of kids to support and had spent years touring and giving all my energy to the music. Anyway, nobody probably wanted to hear about that stuff, but I just wanted to say I found the discussion about musicians getting their royalties interesting. Inspired by reading about Saturn in Space is the Place, we are starting our own record company called Cloud Recordings. I just got the reissue of Paul Bley's ESP record "Barrage" with Marshall Allen. It is really great, I got it because of Marshall and Milford Graves. And it was a pleasant surprise to see the tunes were written by Carla Bley. I love her songs on Liberation Music Orchestra. I'm glad I found this list. Nice to see that Signal to Noise has an interview with Sunny Murray coming up. Great magazine! Strangely enough I found a copy of the magazine while we were on tour and playing at a club in Burlington, VT. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw Marshall Allen's smiling face on the cover. I found another issue the next day at a record store. It had stuff on Charlie Haden and Joseph Jarman and I was in love. We were on tour with a band called Bablicon, and I wish we would have know about the magazine before we came to town, because I bet the people who write for them would have enjoy Bablicon's music. The bass player, Griffin Rodriquez, is also a engineer and does sound at the HotHouse in Chicago. The drummer, Jeremy, also worked there as a janitor and said he got to watch Roscoe Mitchell warm up. He said one night Roscoe showed up with matching all red attire and gold chains. He also said Hamid Drake offered to give him tabla lessons. What a nice guy. That must have been a fun job! Sabir Mateen and Ben K. played a few night ago here in Athens, GA and it was great! I remember reading something about them as well in Signal to Noise. They said they have a new CD coming out in a few days and I'm really looking forward to it. Nice to meet you all, John