Roscoe Mitchell recommendations

[JSngry]

WideHive & Delmark are American, and y'all not paying attention...

Nessa, 2017:

Nessa, 2018 and totally epic:

[David Ayers]

Well the Delmark I know of course. Didn’t know about Wide Hive label. 

[JSngry]

Wide Hive has been good about getting recent-ish Roscoemusic out, as has Nessa. There's a good selection to be had, and fine music to boot.

People who want to "catch up", those labels are both good, readily available starting points.

[mjazzg]

And in Europe, Rogue Art have done Mr Mitchell proud in recent years

[David Ayers]

He seems to have been under-served by US labels. Without Chuck Nessa there’d hardly be anything. 

[JSngry]

He's hardly alone in that regard, although Wide Hive has also been doing good work with him the last few years.

 

He's a very prolific recording artist. There's been plenty to absorb for the last several decades, you just have to want to know about it and then want to get it. A lot of it has not been that hard to find, really. Some things, like that trio record, yeah. But a lot of it is/was available on Amazon or Dusty Groove, while it's in print, anyway.

And that's the trick - get it while it's in print, carpe diem.

[danasgoodstuff]

5 hours ago, JSngry said:

Chuck can sell you this 2015 gem, and you'd be sorely misguided to not let him:

I actually (truth again) bought 3 copies and gave two as Christmas gifts to the member of the trio I had at the time. Very warmly received!

Got this one, and glad I did.

[Chuck Nessa]

There are some fine recordings on the Pi label - https://pirecordings.com/artists/roscoe-mitchell/

[David Ayers]

8 hours ago, Chuck Nessa said:

There are some fine recordings on the Pi label - https://pirecordings.com/artists/roscoe-mitchell/

Ah yes! I’d forgotten about Pi. I actually have two of those. 

Wide Hive I was not aware of as a label even though I’d been streaming Conversations 1 and 2. 

The Roguearts have been distributed over here (I still doubt the policy of making all releases look the same...). Let’s not forget the Otoruko!

I agree with Jim though. Like with most contemporary recordings, you need to grab it when you see it. 

 

I do know there’s plenty of recordings of his stuff, just still find it remarkable that someone who’s at the top like that for so long is more sustained in Europe. 

[mjazzg]

Also a couple of great recordings on 482 Music from a few years back, particularly the duo with Mike Reed (who seems to have gone very quiet of late)

[David Ayers]

3 hours ago, mjazzg said:

Also a couple of great recordings on 482 Music from a few years back, particularly the duo with Mike Reed (who seems to have gone very quiet of late)

Hm yes. That’s a US label of which I’ve got very low awareness. The only one of theirs I knew about was Guerrilla Mosaics, which we discussed here when it came out. 

[Д.Д.]

482 Music was an excellent label, its earlier releases in particular. It's a shame it folded. The music is there on streaming platforms.  

[Rabshakeh]

I've been working my way through these recommendations over the weekend (thanks again). 

One thing that jumps out is how varied Mitchell's sound, composition and ideas remained even in his 60s and 70s (and hopefully will continue to remain in his 80s!). His solos on albums like Solo [3], Conversations and the Otoroku one all have such a different sound and feel. 

I'd always know that was true for his earlier period - compare Nonaah to Snurdy - but it is impressive to see how he has kept it up, particularly when other greats are putting out records that are basically variations on themes they laid down in the 1970s.

Edited 11 August by Rabshakeh

[BFrank]

I listened to a nice podcast with Roscoe from the National Endowment for the Arts ahead of the 2020 NEA Jazz Master Awards (which were delayed until Aug 20, virtually)

Saxophonist, composer and 2020 NEA Jazz Master

[Chuck Nessa]

https://www.sfjazz.org/onthecorner/nea-jazz-masters-qa-roscoe-mitchell/

[Justin V]

I haven't taken a deep dive into Mitchell's catalog, but I like 2-Z, a duo with Matt Shipp.  They also have a duo on Rogue Art, Accelerated Projection, which I haven't heard.