Released on the Ilse label a little over a month ago The Fortune, a collaboration between myself and writer John Ajac, has slowly started showing up in the hands of music critics and reviewers. The following review comes courtesy of Vital Weekly, a weekly webcast,  which is free to download. www.vitalweekly.net/812.html

Also improvised but then of a different nature is a duo disc by John Ajac, who wrote a bunch of text and speaks them, along with music by Jim Ivy, who plays alto and soprano saxophone, feedback mixer, dual oscillators, real and sampled piano, sampler, mouthpieces and gamecalls. If I’m correct – which I usually am not – the story is about the goldrush. I am not too fond of spoken word CDs, although Ajac tells it with quite a nice voice. The music, however, is very nice. It is improvised but doesn’t rely on one instrument at a time. Ivy’s playing is at times loud, pure sinewave-like with noisy outbursts. Maybe some of the machines are on auto-play, while Ivy plays on top. He makes some interesting music that fits very well with the story. He plays the saxophone in a more traditional way, but the electronic parts make up for a more experimental play in the total picture of music and text. I think this is a great release, but not one that I would play very often. That’s not due to the music, but more of the spoken word, which, again, is not bad, but not something I’d like to hear a lot. (FdW)

I wish to thank Vital Weekly for taking the time to listen to my work. One note, the story is not about the goldrush. It is about the hanging of an Indian medicine man and what happens as a consequence.

I think it is a damn positive review. I knew it would not be for everyone, with spoken word as the main collaboration. On the other hand, I think it will reach into a different area of audience. That is my hope.