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Your favorite jazz acquisitions of 2015


GA Russell

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My contenders for "best jazz acquisition of 2015" for are:  Alexander Hawkins Trio, The Giant is Awakened, The Thompson Fields, Every Day I Have the Blues. and In For a Penny, In For a Pound.  I have been playing all of these a bunch, and I can see myself playing them all for a long, long time.

And the Winner, a long overdue purchase, is The Heavyweight Champion.

  

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Because they were long hoped for and finding them was unexpected, my favorites this year were, first, finding the Johnny Hodges Mosaic at a used DVD/CD store and, second, buying the Buck Clayton Mosaic from an Amazon seller. Also buying 4 other OOP Mosaic sets this year (Roy Eldridge, Count Basie Verve, Buddy Rich and Classic Capitol Jazz Sessions) from two forum members were also nice acquisitions which I thank them for. 

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All oldies for me, but ones I never heard before, some I never heard of. And they're mostly vocalists. Not in any order except the first one.

Etta Jones - Etta Jones sings, sings, sings - King (This was the point - 1957 - when she truly became the greatest Soul Jazz singer ever!)

Gloria Lynne - Miss Gloria Lynne - Everest (Evidence)

Art Prysock - Only for you - Old Town (Hallmark)

Art Prysock - Too late Baby: The Old Town singles 1958-66 - Old Town (Ace) (That one only came our last year. 'Bout time, too)

Etta Jones - Chronological 1944-47 - Classics

Budd Johnson - Mr Bechet - B&B (Got at Paris Jazz Corner)

Al Grey - The thinking man's trombone - Argo (ditto)

Red Garland - It's a blue world - Prestige (OJC) (ditto)

The Al Grey is an LP, the 2 Etta Jones' are DL from Amazon and the rest are CDs.

Actually, a pretty poor year for jazz.

But some wonderful Djeliya material from Mali, which I'm going to list ANYWAY, when I've made a cup of tea :g

MG

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Djeliya from Mali now, after my mate phoned.

Best album of 2015 (actually, it came out in November 2014, but I still count it brand new) is

Kasse Mady Diabate - Kirike - No Format

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Bloomin' fantastic album! So delicate; never heard any Djeliya so delicate/

Kandia Kouyate - Renascence - Syllart

STCD1126%2BSlipcase.jpg

Her last album, production completed after her death and before Ibrahima Sylla's.

And a new name to me - unfortunately I only heard of her from a blog after hear death in July - Bako Dagnon. Two recent albums.

Titati - Syllart

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and

Sidiba - Syllart

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Got ALL four of those as downloads from Amazon - not pricey at all and good value, even if they had been.

MG

 

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Matana Roberts - Coin Coin 3. Long may this fantastic project run

Tomeka Reid - Hairy Who & The Chicago Imagists (her quartet on Thirsty Ear was good too)

Stephen Haynes - Pomegranate

Darius Jones - Le bebe de Brigitte

Mural - Tempo

Black Top - 2 w. Evan Parker

and on the LP front (collector gene alert) pleased to finally get a copy of James Newton - Flute Music, numerous Masahiko Togashi, Brotzmann's Machine Gun, a bespoke artist cover (Albert Irvin) edition of Barry Guy's Statements V-XI for Double Bass & Violine and the Matte Rolling edition of Dewey Redman's Look For The Black Star

and yes Magnificent Goldberg that  Kasse Mady Diabate - Kirikeis tremendous

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The Clifford Jordan Mosaic set.

Getting hold of the Bill Evans Complete Verve set at a good price (Italian issue)

The Miles Columbia Mono Box

A vintage year for Tubby Hayes archive finds - 'Rumpus' and 'Downbeat Big Band'. Plus Simon Spillett's fine book.

Joe Harriott/Amancio D'Silva 'Hum Dono' on reissue vinyl !

Edited by sidewinder
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Too many to count but maybe the following might be most lasting:

two Conference Call 2 CD sets on Not Two introducing me to Gebhard Ullman and reintroducing me to Michael Jefry Stevens

a few real good fairly recent Brotzmann small group records / especially The Damage is Done.

Rodrigo Amado's The Flame Alphabet which has me loving and buying a few other recordings by the great saxophonist.

Nate Wooley's Battle Pieces - drummer less jazz based improv not really my sweet spot but this one is something else.

Steve Swell's Kanreki which is *the* release of the year for me. Astounding from start to finish. Only complaint is that at least 4 of those ensembles could make great enough music to release 2 CDs each. 

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I've had a FANTASTIC year music-wise. Ninety-five percent of my listening has been focused on jazz from the 1970s -- and a great deal of it was new-to-me. But I'm going to hold off on sharing my thoughts on that music. I want to save those impressions for my book. :)   

Here are some 2015 new-to-me jazz discoveries from other decades:

  • Marc Cary - For the Love of Abbey (Motema)
  • Pierre Dørge & New Jungle Orchestra - Even the Moon is Dancing (SteepleChase)
  • Hampton Hawes - Blues for Bud (1201 Music)
  • Rick Margitza - Heart of Hearts (Palmetto)
  • Duke Pearson - Sweet Honey Bee (Blue Note)
  • Quest - Testament: Live in Stockholm 2012 (Vaju Prod.)
  • Buster Williams - Houdini (Sirocco)

And here are a couple classical recordings that I found in 2015 and have especially enjoyed:

  • Franz Liszt - 19 Hungarian Rhapsodies / Roberto Szidon (DG)
  • Jean Sibelius - Syms. Nos. 4 - 7 / Herbert von Karajan, Berlin PO (DG)
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Also a stunning year for me! I want to make a division in the records I liked most from 2015 and some records I bought that are somewhat older, but are not the obvious old classics I finally bought (I think it is less interesting to mention those).

As always there is the disclaimer that I fully realize that I have only listened to a fraction of all the records that seemed interesting to me, so these records are just picks from my own collection of records that have been bought.

2015:
* Chamber 4 - s/t [FMR]
* Shofar - Gold of Malkinia [Kilogram Records]
* Rodrigo Amado / Joe McPhee / Kent Kessler / Cris Corsano - This is Our Language [Not Two]
* Sant'Anna Arresi Quintet By Evan Parker - Filu 'E Ferru [Not On Label]
* Augusti Fernandez - River Tiger Fire [Fundacja Słuchaj!]
* Benjamin Duboc / Alexandra Grimal - Le Retour D'Ulysse (Promenade) [Improvising Beings]
* RED Trio - Live in Munich [Astral Spirits]
* Matthew Shipp, Sabir Mateen, William Parker, Gerald Cleaver - Our Lady Of The Flowers [Rogueart]
* Olie Brice / Tobias Delius / Mark Sanders - Somersaults [Two Rivers Records]
* Switchback ‎– s/t [Multikulti Project]

Older:
* Daunik Lazro / Joëlle Léandre - Hasparren [NoBusiness Records]
* Joe McPhee / Michael Zerang - Creole Gardens (A New Orleans Suite) [NoBusiness Records]
* Other Dimensions In Music - Now! [AUM Fidelity]
* X Trio* - Live In Vilnius [NoBusiness Records]
* Eve Risser / Benjamin Duboc / Edward Perraud - En Corps [Dark Tree]
* Nuts (6) - Symphony For Old And New Dimensions [Ayler Records]
* Luis Vicente, Rodrigo Pinheiro, Hernani Faustino, Marco Franco - Clocks And Clouds [FMR]
* Lotte Anker / Craig Taborn / Gerald Cleaver - Floating Islands [ILK Music]
* RED Trio + Nate Wooley - Stem [Clean Feed]
* David S. Ware / Cooper-Moore / William Parker / Muhammad Ali - Planetary Unknown: Live at Jazzfestival Saalfelden 2011 [AUM Fidelity]

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I didn't buy a lot of music this year, but here are some new and old releases I enjoyed:

Jack Dejohnette: Made in Chicago (ECM)

Roscoe Mitchell: Celebrating Fred Anderson (Nessa)

Michael Hurley: Fatboy Spring (Mississippi)

Wooden Joe Nicholas (American Music)

Barnes-Bocage Big Five (American Music)

Janacek: String Quartets 1 & 2 - Skampa Quartet (Supraphon)

Robert Schumann: String Quartets Op. 41 - Ysaye Quartet (Ysaye)

Borodin: Symphonies 1-3 - Tjeknavorian/National Phil. Orch (RCA)

edit - Oops, I didn't notice this was supposed to be strictly jazz acquisitions. Ah well ....

Edited by paul secor
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On ‎12‎/‎21‎/‎2015 at 9:47 AM, LouisvillePrez said:

My contenders for "best jazz acquisition of 2015" for are:  Alexander Hawkins Trio, The Giant is Awakened, The Thompson Fields, Every Day I Have the Blues. and In For a Penny, In For a Pound.  I have been playing all of these a bunch, and I can see myself playing them all for a long, long time.

And the Winner, a long overdue purchase, is The Heavyweight Champion.

  

Just remembered one more -- the acquisition about which I feel the most conflicted: New Vocabulary by Ornette Coleman, et al.  After I got it on CD, I enjoyed it immensely. Then came the legal stuff....  It will have a special place in my collection for as long as I own it.

And, I realized that I misidentified one of my "contenders" for 2015.  I should have said, Yesterday I Had the Blues (brain was not working fully earlier, I guess).

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One more acquisition I've got this year is 'Biguine Wabap' by Al Lirvat, a trombonist from Guadeloupe who went to Paris to make his name in jazz and, after playing lots of gigs all around, got the idea for a music combining Bebop with the music of Guadeloupe and has made several albums in France. Interesting music, but I've enjoyed this sleeve more than any others this year.

R-4431656-1364744109-7308.png.jpg

YAYYYYY!

MG

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