Ask a music scene micro celebrity

[electrical]

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I know you said upstream that you don't listen to a lot of music on your time off, but do you have any favorite music that would surprise us? like gamelan or something?

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Recently I've been listening to the collected recordings of Washington Phillips. So beautiful. I've been a lifelong fan of Willie Nelson, and I probably listen to more mountain music than you would imagine. For "serious music," I love listening to Gorecky, Glenn Gould and Phillip Glass. I particularly like Gould's voice montage recordings like "the Idea of North." Other 20th Century egghead avant garde music I like, but is much more of an intellectual stimulation (rather than a passive listening experience): Christian Marclay, Alvin Lucier, Conlon Nancarrow and Iannis Xenakis being particlar favorites. For makeout music, you can't beat Bill Withers and Clarence Carter.

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also, you worked with ken vandermark on a portastatic record, what do you think of him? thoughts about the chicago avant garde scene in general?

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Bob Weston has worked with this scene a lot more than I have, but it's pretty ubiquitous here. There's a core of about 12 players who make up about 30 ensembles, depending on who booked the gig or who the guest soloist is. I don't mind improvised music, and some of the players are truly great (Hamid Drake is an astounding drummer, for example), but sometimes the whole avant Jazz scene seems like a race to see who can accumulate the most hours of stage time, and since the core of players is so familiar, it's hard to have a unique experience at one of these shows. These guys are also at their best when a visiting free music dignitary is in town and they're trying to impress him.

All of this sounds more flippant than it should, because these guys are dedicated to this music, but, like most things, either this is your scene and you like it already, or it isn't your scene and you're probably going to hate it.

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also, what do you think about jeff parker, and have you worked with him much? I really loved his playing on the new hamid drake/fred anderson record and had never heard of him before, that's why I'm asking.

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Jeff is a great player, and he plays in the band Tortoise and several occasional outfits of the type I described.