Joe Bip

RIP Steve Houben, 19 March 1950 – 21 March 2026

I'm in for everything except the Blank For.ms/Jason Moran/Marcus Gilmore records. It's not that I have zero interest in that group, but I don't feel a need to own those and I strive never to be a completist for completion's sake. Back on the topic of Kikuchi, the next recording I'm looking forward to listening to is his Paul Motian Trio 2000 + Two at the Village Vanguard

Thanks—I will probably purchase it. I've been collecting nearly all of Red Hook's releases so far. I don't usually let myself collect entire labels anymore but they only release about two albums per year, so I can keep up with that, and I love their choices of artists to record. That Wadada Leo Smith and Amina Claudine Myers album was just beautiful, and I was lucky enough to see them perform that piece, Central Parks's Mosaics, live last year.

I just realized that Red Hook Records released a second volume of this last fall. Anyone heard it? The set alternates standards and improvisations.

Ralph Towner, 85, has died. I'm a big fan of ECM Records, so I have many Towner albums, some of which I'll revisit today

Now Jazz Now or Now Jazz 45–65 years ago?

kh1958 already listed a Billy Strayhorn piece, but there's an entire Strayhorn-Ellington-Johnny Hodges aggregate that's a special wing of Ellingtonia that's uniquely sad and beautiful. These reach the highest musical standards of all time and are never maudlin. "Blood Count" "Passion Flower" "Ballad for the Very Tired and Very Sad Lotus Eaters" "Isfahan" ...more! And also related to Ellington, here is Abbey Lincoln's for-the-ages "Come Sunday" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAvN_ygGtdM

"The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center" rolls off the tongue so pleasantly it almost flows like a piece of music in itself. /s

Finally (in 2019), an excellent book on Brubeck's music. I'm learning a lot from it. I'd love to buy more of the books from the Oxford Studies in Recorded Jazz series, but the academic pricing puts nearly all of them out of my reach even for paperbacks. Other recordings featured in the series include the Hot Fives and Sevens, Goodman 1938 C arnegie Hall, Andy Kirk and His Clouds of Joy, Monk Quartet with Coltrane at Carnegie Hall, Mulligan's 1950s Quartets, Miles's Second Quintet, Jarret's Köln Concert...There hasn't been one since the Mulligan in 2023, so who knows if the series has been discontinued.

Joe Harriott? Michel Petrucciani? Betty Carter?

I haven't had any bad experiences with them.

I've watched this so many times. What a live performer! Doesn't even need the mic. Also, lots of Stax singles and demos

Huge discounts on Bob Dylan box sets at Movie Mars: The Cutting Edge is $51.95 Basement Tapes is $57.95 The 1966 Live Recordings (36xCD) is $55.95.

I have quite a collection of Ran Blake LPs and CDs but haven't kept up with anything more recent than the duets with Sara Serpa from 2010. So many duets. I'd love to hear his 1994 appearance on Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz but haven't found it archived online yet. Something I found out recently was that he wrote liner notes for other musicians' albums several times: Chris Connor – Cocktails and Dusk; Free Spirits reissue Horace Silver – The Trio Sides (Blue Note) Mal Waldron – One and Two I don't own any of these releases, but I very much wanted to read the Waldron liner note, so I used a magnifying glass and read the image on Discogs. He recounts his intense lessons with Waldron, who at first did not want to take him on as a student. Blake said he's never met a more patient person than Waldron. He also recalled working in the kitchen at the Jazz Gallery nightclub and making something called "Ivory Soap mayonnaise." 🤨 He refers to "High on a Windy Hill" as one of the most harmonically sophisticated ballads ever written. I don't know if he essayed it for any of his recordings, but here is a fairly recent YouTube performance: Ran Blake - High on a Windy Hill (Tribute to Chris Connor)

I've used this site for years and, for me, there's always a button with the triangle "play" icon. The recording is someone saying Yan GAR-bar-ek That means I had it almost exactly right; I would usually tend to say Yan Gar-BAR-ek.