Braxtonian Musings

Tomorrow night's installment of Now's the Time (8:30PM EDT - CKCU 93.1 FM in Ottawa, ckcufm.com elsewhere) is the first of two shows dedicated to the music and career of Anthony Braxton. I'm going to try something new, in that instead of blathering on like I usually do I'll keep my on-air commentary to a minimum, squeeze in as much music as I can, and then use the forum provided by the blog on our myspace page to impart my thoughts on the riddle that is Braxton and his music.

Part two will air May 14. The music for both programs is to be taken from Braxton's 2007 release 9 Compositions (Iridium). Heady stuff.

Chris Cawthray Trio Recap

Chris Cawthray (l) and Glen Hall

A lucky few patrons of The Spill had a unique opportunity to witness the improvisational prowess of a hell of a good band on Saturday afternoon. Peterborough isn't yet a jazz town, but if more people knew what they missed over the weekend, it just might turn out to be. (Did that make sense?). Over the course of about an hour, Chris Cawthray (d), Glen Hall (sax) and Simeon Abbott (keys) ran through a set that encompassed a Cawthray original, Steely Dan, Bob Dylan, Sonny Rollins, Beck, Rob Price and Wilco (I think Abbott's warm keys and Hall's inside --> out solo made their version of "Jesus, Etc." even more enjoyable than the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot original).

Full set list:

Hope Song (Chris Cawthray)
Mouse Game (Rob Price)
Showbiz Kids (Becker/Fagen)
Blessing in Disguise (Sonny Rollins)
Ballad of Hollis Brown (Dylan)
Paper Tiger (Beck)
Jesus, etc. (Wilco)
Untitled improvisation (Chris Cawthray Trio)

We at the IMC aren't licked yet, so pay close attention for news on upcoming shows in both Ottawa and Peterborough. (It is possible that that was our last matinee, though.)

Your Final Reminder

Should be a good time tomorrow afternoon in Peterborough, with music supplied by Chris Cawthray, Simeon Abbott and Glen Hall. I'm also told, though I can't yet personally verify, that the evening act, a group known as Carpe Noctem, are worth your time as well. So consider clearing your schedule and joining us for a jazz day-night doubleheader.

In Rotation: To Willie

What? To Willie by Phosphorescent, Matthew Houck's reverent ode to Willie Nelson, and therefore to plain old regret, doubt, the pain-muting qualities of various substances, and the fresh regret engendered thereby.

Why this? Why today? I can't fully explain it, but something about spring run-off invariably sends me scurrying for the comforts of country music and its off-shoots. Recent days have seen me cozying up to Neko Case and Merle Haggard, but this is the one that sticks, the CD that gets carried from the car to the house and back again. It stirs memories of pre-adolescence, when my dad would mumble along to Willie's albums (cassettes) and I'd try to figure out just what there was to be so damn sad about. Now I'm older, and I understand. So does Matthew Houck.

This was a test, in a way, this season. I mean, if in fact this is spring, because who the hell knows around here, but the sun's out, the snow's all but gone, and we're up to our armpits in mud. If we don't have a snowstorm in the next few weeks, we might even start to see shoots. But this is the first urban spring I've experienced in eight or nine years, and I wasn't sure it'd be the same. No flooded fields, no overflowing ditches, no gravel road turned into a mudpit. I wasn't sure I'd have the same musical impulses. Would I open the windows and bleat along with Gram Parsons the same as I used to? Happily, yes.

What's strange is the degree to which my two year-old daughter has taken to the record. Thing is her favourite song is "Reasons to Quit" (sample lyric: "...the coke and booze don't do me like before...") and I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Marked Urgent

Boogie on over to CKCU post haste to catch my ninety-minute take on the history of Black Saint and Soul Note. It's impossible to fit it all into an hour and a half, of course, and unfair to even try, but I'm funny like that. If you can't make it there tonight (8:30-10:00 pm EST) I'll put up download information here once it's available. But with music by Billy Harper (that right up there is the very first release on Black Saint, from '75), the original Air, the World Saxophone Quartet, Jemeel Moondoc, the String Trio of New York and Mal Waldron -- among others! -- there's no reason to spend your Thursday night doing anything else. Am I right?

Cawthray & Abbott

Know Thy Demographic

There's no sense denying who you are is the way I see it, and who I am is a guy who's a sucker for a particular brand of indie-approved classicist rock. And they know that -- they frigging know that. Need proof? Here's something that is so squarely in my increasingly worn pocket, my tiny-getting-tinier corner of the musical universe, that it might as well be personally addressed to me. Me and a hundred thousand other aging white whatevers. Ready? Alright:

The Hold Steady covering Springsteen's "Atlantic City."

Holy shit, right?

But not covering it in the way that any ponytailed coffeehouse hack would, which is to say faithful to the original as it was released, i.e. strummy acoustic and solo voice. No, the full band gets into this, and it works. Oh god does it work. Witness:




A large bouquet for Miss Imperial for the tip, by way of Stereogum. And yes, I intend to track down that War Child compilation.