more on Artist In Residence

UPDATE: Godoggone reproduces Nate Dorward's Signal To Noise review. I'm less bothered by AIR's "scrapbook" nature than Nate is.

Godoggone loses his Moran virginity and comes out of the experience both titillated and disappointed.

He also provides a link to another blog review, which is threaded with interesting quotes. On "Milestone:" "the guitar of Marvin Sewell imitates the voice timbres and melodic movement in swooping figures." I'd originally said something similar in my review, but removed it from the final draft. Maybe I'll put it back in for the French version.

A new (to me) thought: doesn't Moran use the avant-garde kind of like pop does? Folding it unostentatiously into a different style and thus reconnecting it with the rest of society (or of the listening public). Peruse Destination: Out and you sometimes get the feeling that the mainstream lost touch with the avant-garde and broke off the back-and-forth that binds the two. Of course, a band like the AEC could do that back-and-forth (and much else besides) all by itself.

I didn't know about Words and Music, it looks good. The review is logically followed up by a post on Cecil Taylor (and how organised his freedom was: "the fiery brio with which it is played disguises, perhaps, the underpinnings"), and a bit on the Moran-Sam Rivers connection.

There's also discussion of Giuffre's Free Fall, an album which failed to grab me so far, despite several attempts. However, since then I've come around to Messiaen's Quatuor pour la fin du temps (and some of Giuffre's earlier work, the trios and arrangements for Shelley Manne's septet, not that they sound much like FF), so maybe I should give it another shot.