INVITATION TO A JAM SESSION

Available on both CD-r and C-90 Cassette

The setting is the late '80s, Greensboro, North Carolina with forays into New York City and the midwest.

A local drummer named Bart drops by my house frequently to invite me to a jam session in the neighborhood. I tape some of his visits on of the newly available "blasters" (portable cassette machines).

I never do get to jam with Bart and his friends, although I do a lot of jamming in this period. I am in and out of town alot, making interacting with locals difficult. I am building up to creating an LP to be entitled "Country Music in the World of Islam," based on one of my favorite ethnic boxed sets, "Modal Music in the World of Islam."

My collaborators on this album include multi instrumentalist Elliot Sharp and the Arizona-based trio The Sun City Girls. The recordings are being created by utilizing 16 track analog tape being send around between Phoenix and New York City.

Meanwhile I am running around the world playing gigs and whenever anything of interest gets recorded, on any type of equipment, I release the sometimes unedited, sometimes edited, sometimes manipulated contents on a series of cassettes all entitled Country Music in the World of Islam, numbered in sets of two numbers for each cassette, vol 1-2, 3-4 etc.

When the album was finally released it was numbered XV but I cannot be confident only `14 tapes were released prior to that, it seems like more.

Only through collectors such as Dr. Nicholas Coupland of the University of Alberta could I re-acquaint myself with these productions. This new archive collection features material from a cassette entitled "The Dino Chicken" as well as several volumes from the aforementioned series.

Improvised gigs at the Knitting Factory with Elliot Sharp on lap steel and guitar and several tour stops in the midwest with Jon Rose on violin and 19-string cello were documented on these cassettes and selections from these performances appear throughout the new program.

A local jam session recorded at Aycock Auditorium on campus with David Doyle on French horn and Gilfred Lee Fray on piano and the then brand new sampling keyboard is also featured. My daughter Molly was less than two years old and had to be babysitted so was brought to the jam, where we kept her interested by sampling her voice and playing it back through Gil's rig.

Many of my associates were active during the cassette times, creating recordings together, sending material around the world. Derek Bailey was among those who participated, not by releasing cassettes but by recording messages to me that including his playing and sending them to me on cassettes. He liked the idea of me releasing "Rockin' Chair" which had gotten lost somewhere on a version of "Fuck the Audio Evolution Network."

The new program:

1. Blues for Wes and Hubert

2. Invitation to a Jam Session, pt. 1

3. Promenade for Two Electric Rakes

4. The Dino Chicken for Three Reel to Reel tape recorders

5. Rockin' Chair featuring DEREK BAILEY

6. Dr. Too Much

7. Oh Mickey!

8. The Dino Chicken part two

9. Invitation to a Jam Session pt 2

10. Invitation to a Jam Session finale

11. Mystic Dog Trio