Second Generation

"What kind of music do you play?' They never had an easy answer. This was some of it." Peter Hammill, as ever, being sincerely non-committal about style and influence, yet managing to be securely on target at the same time. Second Generation is set up as the second half of an overview of Van Der Graaf Generator, but it definitely has a bias; three of the four cuts comprising Godbluff are included here, while Vital is completely ignored, right down to the exclusion of the studio version of "Ship of Fools" (later included on I Prophesy Disaster).

Wolfgang Dauner has now been highly active on the scene for more than fifty years. Dauner hired top young musicians to be around him for the current upgrade to United 2.0. The second United generation, like the first one, is eagerly researching the crossing points between jazz, rock, funk and world music. Featuring some of the finest avant-garde jazz players from Germany and beyond the Ensemble began life in 1975. Pianist Wolfgang Dauner, initially recruiting musicians from his home base of Stuttgart (then a hotbed of avant-garde jazz), put together a rotating cast of musicians, and shared writing and arranging duties with guitarist Volker Kriegel.

Wolfgang Dauner has now been highly active on the scene for more than fifty years. Dauner hired top young musicians to be around him for the current upgrade to United 2.0. The second United generation, like the first one, is eagerly researching the crossing points between jazz, rock, funk and world music. Featuring some of the finest avant-garde jazz players from Germany and beyond the Ensemble began life in 1975. Pianist Wolfgang Dauner, initially recruiting musicians from his home base of Stuttgart (then a hotbed of avant-garde jazz), put together a rotating cast of musicians, and shared writing and arranging duties with guitarist Volker Kriegel.

Mid-'80s release that established Horovitz among the prime composers and players on the contemporary improvising scene. He's not among either the traditionalists or the fusion/light jazz crowd, but is part of the New York "downtown" school that utilizes everything from hard bop to rock to contemporary classical. Guitarist Bill Frisell was also an important contributor to the date.

Richard Hell and the Voidoids’ Blank Generation is an iconic album that has influenced countless rock bands with its image, its attitude, and its blistering performances. Released in 1977 on Sire Records, the album was received ecstatically by critics such as Lester Bangs and the New York Times’ Robert Palmer (who called it one of the ten best albums of the decade), but as was the case with most original “punk” albums, it wouldn’t get mainstream recognition for decades. Now its place in music history is secure as one of punk’s most significant records. Recently, Rolling Stone magazine lauded Blank Generation as one of the “40 Greatest Punk Albums of All Time,” giving the innovative and literate band its well deserved credit on the cusp of its 40th anniversary.

Sixties UK freakbeat legends get a new legit re-release of their complete available recordings and Guerssen is the proud new home for them. A cult freakbeat and psychedelic group, well-known for such all-time classics as Path Through The Forest andTry A Little Sunshine, Factory released only a couple of 45s (both of them obscenely rare, rarely showing up anywhere). Here we get the four tracks appearing on these 45s, plus a couple tracks taken from acetates (killer covers of Family’s Second Generation Woman and Fairport Convention’s Mr. Lacey), as well as a new mix of Path Through The Forest that includes the original psychedelic effects that were supposed to make it to the actual release, but were dropped out by the MGM label supervisor…

Although not as well as known as some of their peers (the Clash, the Sex Pistols, the Damned, etc.), first wave U.K. punk rockers Generation X burst onto the scene at the same time as the others. And while they enjoyed some moderate success in their homeland, Generation X would become better-known as the launching pad for their singer, Billy Idol, who would go on to achieve great commercial success come the '80s. Originally formed in 1976, Generation X (which was named after a book that focused on battles between the Mods and the Rockers during the '60s) was comprised of guitarist Bob Andrews, bassist Tony James, drummer Mark Laff, and fronted by Idol. The group was eventually signed up by Chrysalis Records, resulting in a self-titled debut album in 1978 (the U.S. and U.K. versions contained different track listings), as Generation X became one of the first punk bands to appear on the popular British TV music program Top of the Pops.

Steven Feifke (pianist, composer, arranger/orchestrator and conductor) and Bijon Watson (lead trumpet) have joined forces to bring together a big band featuring some of the most well known names in all of jazz. These two artists are "frequent-flyer-mile" performers in a number of internationally acclaimed large ensembles and noticed one small problem in each one: there is almost no generation gap! The longstanding tradition spearheaded by artists like Art Blakey and Horace Silver of hiring the "young guns" for an ensemble has all but disappeared in recent years. In creating "The Generation Gap Jazz Orchestra," Bijon and Steven make the objective of this band to strengthen that tradition of mentorship that has shaped and defined the jazz idiom since its earliest beginnings.