9 August 2008

Circle - Live in German Concert


Recorded in Germany, 28th November 1970, location not specified.

(The record is indeed grammatically mis-titled, as above).  

Chick Corea, piano

Anthony Braxton, alto, flute, sopranino, percussion

Dave Holland, bass, cello

Barry Altschul, drums, percussion.  

The first of two Circle releases which were inexplicably issued only in Japan, initially on vinyl and much later on CD.   Why this music was never issued in Europe or the US is a mystery to me.  Can anyone throw some light on this?   This rip is taken from the original Japanese vinyl, CBS Sony SOPL 19-XJ.  

By early September 1970, Corea and Holland had both left Miles' adventurously electric band, and quickly settled into acoustic free jazz territory.   After a brief studio fling which  month which produced "The Sun" LP (with Liebman, Grossman, DeJohnette and others),  they cemented themselves with Braxton and Altschul, and Circle became the focus of their joint activities over the following 9 months.  This concert features two side-long Circle staples:  Dave Holland's "Toy Room - Q&A" and the standard "There is No Greater Love".  Both pieces will be familiar to Circle fans but, as ever, these interpretations are intriguingly different. Classic Circle trademarks are all here in good form:  Corea's propulsive piano, Braxton's Chicago-inflected blues, Holland's melodic hold on the roots and Altschul's meticulously tuned percussion.   And there's a little "fly in the ointment" - on side B behind Braxton's alto solo, either Corea or Holland double up with him on …  flute?  oboe?  musette?    A teaser for your ears.  

Enjoy. 
 
 

glmlr 

30 comments:

Tantris said...

http://rapidshare.com/files/132145683/CircleGermany.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/132149497/CircleGermany.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/132154869/CircleGermany.part3.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/132158522/CircleGermany.part4.rar

(wav format)

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing this. According to a Circle discography, "Circle: Live In Germany Concert" was recorded at Parktheater Iserlohn in Iserlohn, Germany. Track listing:
Side A:
Toy Room/Q & A (Dave Holland) 28:13
Side B:
There Is No Greater Love (Marty Symes, Isham Jones) 21:32

serviceton said...

glmlr -
Many thanks for this one.
It's still coming down the pipe - but am already anticipating enormously..

-and thanks to tantris for pulling the levers -
(WAV eh? - I'll switch to a nearby PC..and off of this Mac)

Michael McNeill said...

Thank you! This is one of my favorite bands, and I've recently been getting back into this "classic" Braxton period.

Anonymous said...

Thank you, gentlemen. And greater thanks to Tantris for his decision to put this, as well my previous Circle post, up in totally uncompressed .wav format. I realise this involves a lot of downloading, but in the case of great music issued on what is now rare vinyl, and unissued on CD, I feel the music deserves it. Flac is very good, unquestionably better than mp3 at any number, but it is also not good enough, at least to my ears. It's a compromise, and I hope that there are some moments when I. Solers will agree that some of the music we love does not deserve to be compromised.

centrifuge said...

the medium is a compromise - the art itself is not compromised whatsoever. they cannot be handcuffed together like that.

that's the brief case for the other side, so in other words no, we will never ALL agree on this issue. hope everyone enjoys the post, someone give me a nudge when the mp3s arrive - 192'll do fine ;-)

simages said...

Hello, i put a link to Inconstant Sol in my blog (meiosdeproducao.blogspot.com). If you do not want that, please tell me
Thanks
Simages

1009 said...

Just a quick technical note --

WAV files are actually a bit easier to convert to other formats than flac (in my experience, anyhow). You can just drag the files into itunes, right-click (or on mac ctrl+click), & select "Convert to mp3." Using the Preferences tab you can change both format & bitrate.

If like glmlr you prefer the WAV format, itunes will play it no problem.

Regardless -- thanks again glmlr for all this Circle stuff!

1009 said...

On the other hand, if people are having difficulty with the conversion (or are itunes-phobic), I'd be happy to post my 320 conversion. Just leave a comment here & let me know.

centrifuge said...

b, no technical difficulties here, merely a matter of preference - but sure, if you want to post an mp3 copy i'll download it and i imagine a few others will too...!

1009 said...

for those who prefer their music lo-fi (sort of), here is the above in mp3 format @320:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=88RQ1JH6

Anonymous said...

Why was this (and the other CBS/Sony Circle release> hope that's forthcoming!) never issued in the US or Europe? Well, as I recall they were pretty limited in release in Japan, many of us tried at the time to import them, but no luck. But hey, how many Paris-Concert's did ECM sell at the time...?

centrifuge said...

thanks - to all three of you for your various roles in getting this out. i quite enjoyed the music, not so much the second piece -although altschul was flying - but b's solo is worth waiting for, startling to remember he could already play like that back in 1971.

wildgrebe said...

hi..thanks for visiting my blog..mellyjazz...
i have been on your blog many times..its class..if you like i can add your link to my blog..thanks again for your message...melly..

http://my.opera.com/megantic/blog/

SOTISE said...

wildgrebe..thank you for visiting, would be a pleasure to reciprocate.
thakx for all your fine shares.

simages welcome..feel free

scanner95 said...

Thanks a lot for this upload! I'm enjoying very much what you are posting here.
Just a short note in regards to wav/flac issue: you may prefer wav to flac while you listen to it on your gear, and this is totally personal decision, no argue here.
However, flac made out of wav is a bit-perfect compressed copy, only half the size. You can decompress the flac, and it will be identical to your original wav file, bit to bit.
So for downloading/uploading purposes, flac really is better, due to its smaller size.

kinabalu said...

Yes, I think flac would be perfectly adequate. I do rip vinyl to wav and keep those as master files, so to speak, but for posting, flac and mp3s are used to keep the file size down. But your ears are your ultimate guide, I suppose.

Anonymous said...

If you have the free FLAC program on your computer, you can easily convert them to .wav files. So what's the problem?

Anonymous said...

"Circle/Live In Germany Concert" is one of those recordings you only ever hear of. But here it is!! Thanks '1009' for the MP3 link; at my age the advantages of a lossless format vs MP3 is pretty much negated by the aging ears! Thanks to all.

Jacopo said...

Hi, I'm an italian great fan of Chick!

I try to download the file from rapidshare, but it tells me "File not found".

Someone can help me, please?

Jacopo

PS Forgive me for my English

DW said...

Tantris, could this be reposted?

JazzHound said...

a while later, but I second Tantris request. I just got circle 2 - gathering, and it's brilliant. It would be nice to have the companion piece.

DRONSZ said...

A repost would be much welcome! Thanks...

Ernst Grgo Nebhuth said...

Rip from the Japanese CD reissue.
1fichier

DRONSZ said...

Thanks Ernst!

apf said...

Thank you !

john said...

Many thanks, this was a great band, sadly short-lived.

JazzHound said...

I must chime in w/my thanks, as well. A very special group... under-recorded considering the level of the music.

francisco santos said...

BIG THX!...

volumeselector said...

Thank you Ernst, Circle was some of the first free jazz I got into. Circa age 16.