by Thom JurekAbout 35 years before the current crop of downtown New York improvisers -- such as Don Byron, Pachora, and John Zorn's Masada -- were melding free jazz with world musics like Klezmer, and Greek, Eastern European, and Arabic modalities, there was Joe Maneri. Paniots Nine includes a demo made for Atlantic Records in 1963 by the saxophonist/clarinetist/composer and his working band at the time: pianist Don Burns, bassist John Beal, and drummer Pete Dolger, who were all interested in free jazz, and 20th century classical music (Maneri had already been commissioned to write a piano concerto for the Boston Symphony, and all had played weddings, from Turkish to Jewish). The sound quality is not digital, but more than acceptable considering it was taken from a copy of a reel-to-reel tape. ... Read More...