#^d 2015-09-14 #^h Music Week

Music: Current count 25500 [25453] rated (+47), 436 [426] unrated (+10).

Once again I spent most of the week trawling through the Hatology releases on Rhapsody. The A- rate, which had been declining the last two weeks, even got a bump to 32% (8/25, counting one older Hat Art release; last week was 20.6% [6/29], previous 28.5% [6/21]; previous database was 36.1% [26/72]). I had previously reported on the Myra Melford title (Alive in the House of Saints), but further research revealed that the 2001 Hatology reissue had been expanded to 2CD from the 1993 Hat Art release I previously listened to (then, erroneously, substituted the later cover for). It's one of those "more is more" records, never flagging for a moment.

Among the others, the biggest surprise was Austrian saxophonist Max Nagl. His earlier Ensemble album is pretty much as good as the one I picked, and the Big Four records are more than interesting. The Konitz-Solal duo is the most marginal of the picks, probably because I expected more than just support from the pianist, but it is a lovely outing for Konitz, and sometimes that's enough. Jimmy Lyons shows up on two terrific albums: one an oddly named trio, the other soaring over ane specially energetic pianist named Cecil Taylor. I had some trouble playing Taylor's solo disc: a third cut that played long after I thought the album finished should have prodded me to give it another spin, but I let it go. It's a little annoying that Hat only reissued the first of two Garden sets. Sometimes their latest reissues have combined pairs of separate discs (e.g., Horace Tapscott's The Dark Tree), and now we're starting to see them splitting 2-CD sets up (as with Anthony Braxton's Quartet (Santa Cruz) 1993). Strange company.

What helped me sort this out was the compilation of a complete Hatology Checklist file, based on the label's own discography plus a lot of checking into Discogs. This shows that I still have yet to get to 73 records (although there may be some redundancies there, plus there are a couple of rejiggered reissues of records I've previously heard -- the 2-CD The Dark Tree is bound to be as great as the older separate CDs). I also haven't dealt with their "contemporary composition and new music" label, Hat[now]Art, but it appears that most of their albums are also on Rhapsody now. Right now, I'm more tempted to add the older Hat Musics and Hat Art labels, as some of the latter's titles have also appeared on Rhapsody.

I may take a break from Hat this week as I try to wrap up a Rhapsody Streamnotes column: something like 167 records in the draft file already, but perhaps a little short on new music. I did add three new jazz albums to the 2005 A-list this week -- two with drummer Mike Reed (whom I expect good things from, but not necessarily flute albums). Also good to hear that Mort Weiss is working again.

Still, I doubt if I'll find much more new music soon enough for this month's column. Robert Christgau's revived Expert Witness hasn't been offering much I agree with so far -- second A- we agree on in four weeks is Shamir's Ratchet (first was Boz Scaggs' A Fool to Care), although I'll note that I did only give Jamie XX's In Colour a single cursory spin. (The only one I hadn't heard this week, Diplo's Random White Dude Be Everywhere, got two plays. The massive Funkadelic HM, another 2014 album, just got one, and had settled into its grade slot an hour before it expired.)

More to check out in Michael Tatum's latest, A Downloader's Diary (42): Ezra Furman, Freedy Johnston, Giorgio Moroder. He had already tipped me off to Songhoy Blues (which I had, along with Bassekou Kouyate, Ashley Monroe, and Mountain Goats, at A-, with Tal National and Yo La Tengo just short at high B+ (I'm not as pleased or amused or whatever the verb should be with Nellie McKay's trawl through '60s pop). Also, can the duds (Iris DeMent, Neil Young) really be so bad? If I don't get to them this week, I will next time. (Or maybe not: I've looked for DeMent but her record isn't yet on Rhapsody.)

For those of us who count things, note that Tatum has logged his first thousand Downloader's Diary albums (current count = 1001). See his Archive, in particular the Index. By the way, if someone wants to contribute a banner and suggest a revised color scheme (or a whole new skin) let us know.

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Unpacking: Found in the mail last week: