(West Coast Jazz, Modal Music) Jimmy Giuffre 3 - 1961 (w/ Paul Bley, Steve Swallow) (2CD) - 1961 (ECM 1438), FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

This reissue of Fusion and Thesis, the two albums the new Jimmy Giuffre 3 made in 1961, prior to their breakthrough and breakup in 1962, is nothing short of a revelation musically. Originally produced by Creed Taylor, who was still respectable back then, the two LPs have been complete remixed and remastered by ECM proprietor and chief producer Manfred Eicher and Jean Philippe Allard and contain complete material from both sessions resulting in one new track on Fusion and three more on Thesis. The music is Giuffre at his finest -- at that point, finding a language with his two collaborators, pianist Paul Bley and bassist Steve Swallow (who hadn't made the permanent switch to electric then) -- that was outside even the avant-garde at the time, yet in the tradition enough for some listeners and critics to be able to hold onto as modern jazz. Both recordings make use of a profound use of subtlety in gesture -- this is more true of Giuffre and Bley than Swallow, but without a drummer, the guy had a tough gig to hold down -- and a creative use of space, one that allowed for a free contrapuntal interplay between musicians while keeping their distance in order to keep the music in front of them. In other words, space was used as a way to communicate what not to do rather than what to play. While most improvisations did stick to ideas based on chord changes, there are moments, many of them on Thesis, where the formal structures slipped into the ether and gave way to an improvisation that used silence as a cue to innovate and improvise (check "Carla," "Sonic," and "Flight" on Thesis, and "Venture" and "Cry, Want," on Fusion). The use of this space is brought to light in the Eicher/Allard remix which highlights and accents the physical distances the three men were playing from one another in the studio. While Fusion features primarily the compositions of Giuffre in his style of accenting counterpoint á la Debussy and Milhaud within a melodic framework, and making the counterpoint and its resultant interaction with other players the still point of harmonic invention ("Brief Hesitation" and "Scootin' About" on Fusion, and "Me Too" and "Whirrr" on Thesis). There are no corners in this music, no jagged edges, everything is rounded off, if not smooth, then at least warm -- no matter how complex the music becomes it has no air of academic elitism or dry didacticism about it, the emotions are transparent and expressed with understatement and grace. This reissue is perhaps, along with Free Fall one of the most essential documents regarding the other side of early-'60s jazz. Giuffre falls clearly between the cracks of the then emergent avant-guardists like Coltrane's quartet, Cecil Taylor, Eric Dolphy, and Ornette's band, and the hard boppers like Horace Silver, Art Blakey, Hank Mobley, and Horace Parlan. Giuffre didn't straddle fences; on Fusion and Thesis, he just walked through them.

Exact Audio Copy V0.99 prebeta 4 from 23. January 2008
EAC extraction logfile from 16. August 2009, 15:08
Jimmy Giuffre / Jimmy Giuffre 3 1961 CD1 Fusion
Used drive  : MATSHITADVD-RAM UJ-875S   Adapter: 1  ID: 0
Read mode               : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache      : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No
Read offset correction                      : 102
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out          : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks   : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations       : Yes
Used interface                              : Installed external ASPI interface
Used output format              : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate                : 320 kBit/s
Quality                         : High
Add ID3 tag                     : Yes
Command line compressor         : C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\Flac\flac.exe
Additional command line options : --best -V -T "date=%y" -T "genre=%m" %s
TOC of the extracted CD
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    ---------------------------------------------------------
        1  |  0:00.33 |  6:17.52 |        33    |    28359
        2  |  6:18.10 |  4:18.28 |     28360    |    47737
        3  | 10:36.38 |  6:54.40 |     47738    |    78827
        4  | 17:31.03 |  3:39.07 |     78828    |    95259
        5  | 21:10.10 |  5:13.00 |     95260    |   118734
        6  | 26:23.10 |  4:19.45 |    118735    |   138204
        7  | 30:42.55 |  4:00.70 |    138205    |   156274
        8  | 34:43.50 |  5:15.08 |    156275    |   179907
        9  | 39:58.58 |  4:35.45 |    179908    |   200577
Range status and errors
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     Filename D:\MY MUSIC\Jimmy Giuffre - Jimmy Giuffre 3 1961 CD1 Fusion.wav
     Peak level 97.1 %
     Range quality 100.0 %
     Copy CRC 2EA7A91F
     Copy OK
No errors occurred
AccurateRip summary
Track  1  not present in database
Track  2  not present in database
Track  3  not present in database
Track  4  not present in database
Track  5  not present in database
Track  6  not present in database
Track  7  not present in database
Track  8  not present in database
Track  9  not present in database
None of the tracks are present in the AccurateRip database
End of status report

Exact Audio Copy V0.99 prebeta 4 from 23. January 2008
EAC extraction logfile from 16. August 2009, 17:00
Jimmy Giuffre / Jimmy Giuffre 3 1961 CD2 Thesis
Used drive  : MATSHITADVD-RAM UJ-875S   Adapter: 1  ID: 0
Read mode               : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache      : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No
Read offset correction                      : 102
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out          : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks   : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations       : Yes
Used interface                              : Installed external ASPI interface
Used output format              : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate                : 320 kBit/s
Quality                         : High
Add ID3 tag                     : Yes
Command line compressor         : C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\Flac\flac.exe
Additional command line options : --best -V -T "date=%y" -T "genre=%m" %s
TOC of the extracted CD
     Track |   Start  |  Length  | Start sector | End sector
    ---------------------------------------------------------
        1  |  0:00.33 |  2:46.37 |        33    |    12519
        2  |  2:46.70 |  4:38.60 |     12520    |    33429
        3  |  7:25.55 |  4:49.10 |     33430    |    55114
        4  | 12:14.65 |  4:58.40 |     55115    |    77504
        5  | 17:13.30 |  4:46.25 |     77505    |    98979
        6  | 21:59.55 |  5:01.05 |     98980    |   121559
        7  | 27:00.60 |  3:25.18 |    121560    |   136952
        8  | 30:26.03 |  4:42.65 |    136953    |   158167
        9  | 35:08.68 |  5:07.22 |    158168    |   181214
       10  | 40:16.15 |  6:16.28 |    181215    |   209442
       11  | 46:32.43 |  0:44.22 |    209443    |   212764
Range status and errors
Selected range
     Filename D:\MY MUSIC\Jimmy Giuffre - Jimmy Giuffre 3 1961 CD2 Thesis.wav
     Peak level 88.1 %
     Range quality 100.0 %
     Copy CRC 578621E3
     Copy OK
No errors occurred
AccurateRip summary
Track  1  cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 2)  [595EDD1B], AccurateRip returned [B3540F93]
Track  2  cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 2)  [212A927C], AccurateRip returned [547EA56B]
Track  3  cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 2)  [44E32DFE], AccurateRip returned [E7B0D8D0]
Track  4  cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 2)  [882526DD], AccurateRip returned [9EB82886]
Track  5  cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 2)  [DB2D3483], AccurateRip returned [27B30EB7]
Track  6  cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 2)  [B2460B2E], AccurateRip returned [D502D8FE]
Track  7  cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 2)  [010B4090], AccurateRip returned [6DD91A77]
Track  8  cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 2)  [9946602E], AccurateRip returned [447D6F41]
Track  9  cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 2)  [D1583F9A], AccurateRip returned [55C67CED]
Track 10  cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 2)  [1D635C5B], AccurateRip returned [4014441D]
Track 11  cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 2)  [8DAE7201], AccurateRip returned [480D6F36]
No tracks could be verified as accurate
You may have a different pressing from the one(s) in the database
End of status report