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Tim Berne's Clownfinger Q: This is one of Tim's groups I'm not familiar with. Who's in it?

Well, my festival review is in the pipeline, guess the mod's not around atm to approve its length, so here's the Berne excerpt. Short answer is the 'group' is probably just a temporary congregation given a name by Tim, I'd guess - it's the SCIENCE FRICTION band plus Herb Robertson and Scott Colley. 16:30 TIM BERNE "Clownfinger" USA, France Tim Berne: saxophone Herb Robertson: trombone Marc Ducret: guitar Craig Taborn: piano Scott Colley: bass Tom Rainey: drums Basically an augmented SCIENCE FRICTION band/sound. I'm a huge Berne fan, and of course dug this. Berne never coasts, ime. They performed "Huevos", "Sigh Fry", and "Clown Finger" from SF, and an unrecorded comp called "The Shell Game" (which did not appear on the album of the same name from last year). Berne and Robertson recalled their early partnership in a nice high-tension duo on "Huevos", backed by Colley and Rainey. Herb was undermixed, imo, and I couldn't hear him very well, worsened because he spent most of the time doing his fast, small-detail playing, which just got lost. Berne's sound seems to me to be developing like a constantly sharpening knife. Ducret just rocked - you could tell he was making an impression on the audience. Colley sounded really strong too - he's new to this crowd, afaik. "The Shell Game" featured on really nice section where Tim, Herb, Craig, and Marc were all playing these long, subtle tones, with Scott and Tom boiling over the top. Nice. Ime, Tim doesn't like encores, but they did one here, a really high-energy version of another SF track (can't remember which, sorry).

Q: Has anyone got 'The Sevens'? What do you think of it? Does it come in that flimsy packaging like 'Science Friction'?

Standard packaging, on New World Records. An interesting album with some variety - a composed sax quartet piece, two short guitar solos, two David Torn remixes, and an incredible centerpiece for quartet plus Tim and Ducret. Try this link for a bit of discussion on it (paste to one line, of course). http://www.jazzjukebox.com/EmazeForums/program/readForum.cfm?confID=10&forum ID=13749 -- Vincent Kargatis np: Toshimaru Nakamura - NO-INPUT MIXING BOARD 2 (a bruit secret)