They’re some of the people I’ve valued most over the years. I remember back in the 80s falling out with people on Compuserve on the merits and importance of the then little-known Bill Frisell. And Keith Jarrett is just one of music’s all-time greats.

Steve also mentions the Derek Bailey/John Stevens London free crowd from the 60s. I remember seeing them during the late 70s and into the 80s in small venues all over London. That non-idiomatic music only came alive in person. I can hardly listen to it from recordings.

An Interview from AlternativeMatter about Believe In Peace and Improvisation. — Steve Lawson: Bass 2.0 — the soundtrack to the day you wish you’d had.

We’re told the ‘lost’ album Bat Chain Puller will be on sale in a few weeks. I only hope it’s good, not just the stuff that wasn’t strong enough to find its way on to the Shiny Beast: Bat Chain Puller album.

In the meantime, here’s a performance from probably his last tour in Europe. I know I missed his Birmingham Odeon gig at around that time.

Not my favourite musician – I don’t have any of Baker’s records – but this is a great piece of film-making, and well worth watching whether you’re a fan or not.

Hamid Drake, Ken Vandermark, Kent Kessler and Fred Anderson at the Hideout Chicago 21 December 2008.

You have to smile at the sax conversation towards the end.

I think this is the first time I’ve heard the pianist interviewed, and he has a lot of interesting stuff to say.

I’ll leave it to rickstolk, who posted the video on YouTube, to introduce the interview:

Please check my jazzblog at http://jazzpages.tumblr.com

From the jazzpages personal archives, I bring you the intriguing documentary ‘The Universal Mind Of Bill Evans’. Several years ago, Rhapsody released a 21-minute video called ‘Bill Evans On The Creative Process’, a badly edited reduction of a 1966 TV program introduced by Steve Allen, the first host of the now famous ‘Tonight Show’. This short film is a restoration of the original 45-minute telecast. Here is Evans, his hair slicked back, his terrible teeth uncapped, a cigarette waving in the air, in intense conversation with his composer brother Harry Evans (a professor of music at Louisiana State University) on the nature of creativity in jazz.

This documentary features in-depth discussion of Evans’ internal process of song interpretation, improvisation, and repertoire. Through demonstration on the piano, Bill uses the song ‘Star Eyes’ to illustrate his own conception of solo piano and how to interpret and expand upon the melody and underlying chord structure.

Onstage, Evans was famously reticent about speaking, but here he’s surprisingly, stirringly provocative.

What a boggling baritone solo by Howard Johnson!

Thanks to the Jazz Music Blog for posting this earlier.

Copyright Bernard Ley http://www.jsb.ch/gallery.htm

Personally, he’s a musician I’ve seen live many times. I’m a fan; Motian is my favourite drummer and one of my favourite composers. A completely unique artist, who had a completely personal approach to time.

I’m not qualified to say much about the great man, so I’ll let you choose from the writings of those who are.

My thoughts about the gig are at AudioChews, and my photographs of around the Royal Festival Hall are on Flickr.

These are some videos of them from YouTube, although they made more noise, played harder and tighter, and reached greater heights in London.

Enjoy!

Which reminds me. I need to find another JuJu gig.