Whoo. This weeks’ show was a bit rough. Ran into some technical difficulties a couple of times, and was pretty tired throughout. That said, there were some interesting musical bits. I stumbled across a Red Garland Trio disc that had Ray Barreto guesting on conga. Despite what the liner notes said, conga sounded out of place on one of the more ballady tunes, but it was an interesting curiosity, and “Lady Be Good” wasn’t bad. (The title track, “Manteca” was probably the best, but also not so surprising to find congas on that one!)

We finally got our copy of the new album by Ernest Dawkins’ New Horizons Ensemble, Mean Ameen, and it sounds pretty good. I’m disappointed to see that Jeff Parker is no longer considered a regular member of the group, but I’m sure he’s really busy.

The really exciting discovery I made last week was Exploding Customer’s Live at the Glenn Miller Café. Exploding Customer is a swedish quartet (reeds/trumpet/bass/percussion) The music is mostly in the freebop vein. This album is about two years old, but I just stumbled across it in the library. Listeners familiar with the Chicago jazz scene may recognize the name of Exploding Customer drummer Kjell Nordeson, who also plays in Ken Vandermark’s School Days group and Mats Gustafsson’s AALY trio.

Now that I think of it, it couldn’t have been too rough a show if there was another interesting find: The Live Action Brass Band’s album “Horn to Horn”. Live Action is a group from Austin, TX which includes Willem Breuker Kollektief alumnus Alex Coke. The album is mostly traditional gospel numbers, but also features a tune by Brazilian guitarist Baden Powell (which I played) and the CD reissue includes a version of the “Twin Peaks” Theme. In googling for more info about the group, I discovered this interesting site about “the 12/8 path” and the phenomenon of “Path Bands“. The site’s front page reads: “Want to be in a band for dancers that is mobile, inclusive and wears funny hats? Get on the 12/8 path…..” — sounds good to me!