Art Ensemble of Chicago, Live, Delmark

A one-song performance from the University of Chicago in 1972 that lasts 70-plus minutes and does about everything I can think of a quintet doing with sound exploration in a jazz context heavy on the African flavor. (Don Moye's percussion is almost dominant.)

I don't know of anybody who gets more out of a penny whistle. I realize not everyone likes this stuff. To me, it is the sound of joy and ingenious.

Dimitri Vassilakis on MySpace

MySpace site for the excellent Greek saxophonist Dimitri Vassilakis (and excellent saxophonist in general), whose Candid CD "Parallel Lines" I like a lot.

Hentoff on Balliett

"Jazz has never been defined with more instant clarity than in Whitney Balliett's four-word overture: 'The sound of surprise.'"

A line I want to remember from Nat Hentoff, remembering the late jazz critic and historian in a column in today's Wall Street Journal.

Oops

Track listing references concerning Wynton Marsalis' "From the Plantation to the Penitentiary" may be askew. Some of the titles were mixed up on the label of the demo CD to which I listened. I lost the note I got about it. The point is, it's a good CD, maybe the most risky Marsalis has done since "Black Codes (from the Underground)" or "Live at Blues Alley."