SpiderMonkey's web.

Added to the blogroll tonight: SpiderMonkey Stories, a new blog from cornetist-composer Taylor Ho Bynum. An ace bandleader in his own right, Bynum has also been heard in a number of recent Anthony Braxton units, including those brilliant Iridium shows I covered here, here and here in March. In the photo above, snapped by Scott Friedlander, Bynum is the blue-shirted hornman standing directly opposite Braxton.

Bynum has also been a regular in Cecil Taylor's sporadic creative orchestra dates in Manhattan in recent years, which means he brings an awesome insight to bear in his latest post about Taylor's more recent Iridium dates with Henry Grimes and Pheeroan akLaff (which I mentioned briefly but didn't expand upon late last week). Bynum's description of the way Taylor's band members can function as analogs to the pianist's ten fingers was especially enlightening.

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Oh, one more thing. I'm sure a lot of things completely escaped my notice during last week's work-induced frenzy. (The week before the CMJ Music Conference, which erupted tonight in New York City, is without fail the ugliest week of the entire year for the TONY music staff -- bar none.) And one of the things that I forgot was Night After Night's first anniversary, on October 26.

Belatedly and somewhat sheepishly, I'd like to thank everyone who stops by here regularly, everyone who drops in once in a while, and everyone who just stumbled in by accident. Thanks, too, to everyone whose blogs are posted on the list over to the right, for providing stimulation and good company. Most of all, my appreciation goes out to the composers and performers whose hard work made the feeding of this hungry space both compulsory and pleasurable.

Playlist:

Deftones - Saturday Night Wrist (Maverick)

Neil Rolnick - Digits - Kathleen Supové; Making Light of It - Peter Eldridge; A Robert Johnson Sampler - Neil Rolnick; Plays Well with Others - Paul Dresher's ElectroAcoustic Band (Innova)

R. Keenan Lawler - Music for the Bluegrass States (Xeric)

David Daniell - Coastal (Xeric)

Ateleia - Formal Sleep (Xeric)

Comments

[Michael]

Steve, congratulations on Night after Night's first anniversary. I'm looking forward to many more years of your great writing.

[Drew the Desk Guy]

way too highbrow. i don't even know what half these words mean. maybe a bit more manowar?