best avant-jazz record of the 90's?

Allscars!

After a decade or so, I still find myself hauling out Ware's Flight of I all the time.

John Zorn - Naked City

...or at least this is the album I'd pick, were in not for the fact that it was released in 1989... It's probably more akin to film music than avant-jazz though. If we focus on "proper" avant-jazz.. well, I haven't a clue! Dave Holland? Tim Berne? Ken Vandermark? Ellery Eskelin? There are many people out there raving about this or that artist, I've been digging jazz only for the past two years so I don't know who is good and who's overrated...

By the way, is there something you'd honestly recommend in the hatOLOGY catalog? I'm not looking for out-and-out weirdness (a lot of stuff on Tzadik springs to my mind...). Just ENJOYABLE, not merely impressive, stuff.

Technically, it's on hatHUT, I think, but if you can find a copy of Soft Lights and Sweet Music by the Clusone Trio (Ernst Reijseger, Michael Moore, Han Bennik), that disc pretty much defines enjoyable.

Oh yeah, and that Tim Berne 3-CD live set with Bloodcount is some kind of masterpiece, I think (and I say that as someone who take or leave most of his recordings).

Who CAN take or leave most of his recordings, that is.

I'm tempted to say Schlippenbach Trio's "Elf Bagatellen" - it showcases the strengths of three great players (Schlippenbach, Evan Parker, and Paul Lytton), the level of interaction is very high, and it is representative of the best of the free-improv movement which was producing a lot of great music in that decade.

"Litte Birds Have Fast Hearts" by The Die Like A Dog Quartet (Brotzmann, Toshinori, Parker, and Drake). Great, great rhythm section, tons of listening going on, a little structure but not too much, just a fun, loud party record.

Hardly heard enough to really qualify my picks. Nevertheless:

Ellery Eskelin Trio, Kulak 29 & 30
Masada, Alef
Dave Douglas' Tiny Bell Trio, Constellations
Uri Caine, Urlicht/Primal Light

i know nothing about jazz but i just wanna back dleone up on Dave Douglas's "Constellations". it's phenomenal. they have to come up with wildly difft strategies because no bass.... electric guitar/trumpet/drums... sounds like: swingy punky gypsy bop in the form of dimes rattling around in a trash can

I can't think of one recording that outshines the others, but I like everything I've heard recently from Fred Anderson (Live at the Velvet Lounge vol. II), Vandermark, William Parker (O'Neals Porch), Dave Douglas (Leap of Faith, the Tiny Bell stuff and his new one), Masada (Live at Sevilla). I guess most of these aren't even from the 90s...I'm sure there are more that I'm not thinking of. I've been wanting to hear Ellery Eskelin too.

If we're going to drag Douglas into this, let's not forget the octet session, In Our Lifetime, and his three string-group discs (Convergence being the creme de la creme).

I think all of the studio Masada stuff came out in the '90s, and I'd second that emotion, at least for the first two.

I would add the education of lars jerry -mats gustaffson . nothing else he did catches him at this incredible level.