Hot Ptah

http://www.groovaholiks.com/data/groovaholiks/product/20120416_820148.jpg

Wow, I have never heard any John Tchicai before which sounds like Track 8! I am quite surprised.

So #9 is the Dirty Dozen Brass Band? I have seen them live and have other albums by them but I could not identify this one. I need to get this album by them.

I am looking forward to it! I will send you a PM.

I started reading Down Beat, and voting in the Readers Poll, in the mid-1970s. I do not remember Down Beat having a list of suggested artists to vote for, before this year. I think that it is pointless to complain about the Down Beat Readers Poll. The results have never been credible from an objective standpoint. Going back to the mid-1970s, the results have always been strange and seemed wrong in many respects. For one thing, it is amazing how few votes there are in any Down Beat Poll. So Sonny Rollins gets 243 votes as best tenor saxophonist and Joshua Redman gets 251 votes--is a vote size of that magnitude important or credible in any way? After you get past the first few vote getters on some instruments, the votes are in the under 100 magnitude. So does it matter that Herbie Hancock got 63 votes as best pianist and Cecil Taylor got 57 votes? Who cares?

Have you tried to get him interested in the not quite so obvious names (compared ot the examples you mentioned)? Elmore James? Earl Hooker? Hound Dog Taylor? Or even T-Model Ford? Should have enough wild guitar solos to suit his tastes ... OTOH, your buddy does not quite sound like one who would really be open to exploring blues (even electrified blues) on its own terms but rather on the lookout for blues-tinged rock. But if he owns that many hard rock albums he ought to have a good dose of Ten Years After, Cream and the like anyway (must invariably have come across them, I'd guess). And that should have made him aware of Johnny Winter, Roy Buchanan or Albert King. Or else he has managed to evade this "blind spot" (without being aware of it) for a long time in accumulating that many albums. Reminds me of a couple of friends of mine (who are out and out 50s rockabilly diehards) when it comes to advancing their interests in black 50s R&B (Tarheel Slim and his ilk aren't the worst starting points - works every time ... so do classics like "Shake Your Moneymaker", "Strange Kinda Feeling", "Boogie Chillen" etc.) Good suggestions. I have in fact included about 75 different blues artists in what I have lent him, including Hound Dog Taylor, Elmore James, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson II, John Lee Hooker, Little Walter, Magic Sam, Freddie King, Michael Bloomfield, Son Seals, John Mayall, T Bone Walker, Albert Collins, Luther Allison and many more. Really, about any electric blues guitarist from 1950 on has been included. He really liked Albert Collins and Luther Allison. He does not say much about a lot of them, one way or the other. He has a massive collection of the Allman Brothers when Duane Allman was with them, and a massive Eric Clapton collection. So he has heard a lot of blues rock in his life.

I have noticed that some writing about jazz has been in the same vein--swing was the evolutionary precursor to the more highly evolved bop, which led to the further evolutionary improvement into avant garde, which had an interesting evolutionary permutation into late 1960s/early 1970s electric fusion--all told with a few iconic musicians as the only important figures. Anything which does not fit into this tidy, simple narrative is ignored or condemned.

I agree very much with Chuck. I have had a recent experience which brings this point home to me. An old friend, who has about 20,000 hard rock and metal albums, asked me if I had any blues he could listen to, because he had liked a snippet of Howlin' Wolf's "Smokestack Lightning," which was the music in a TV Viagra commercial. He really loves music and is a real devotee of his rock and metal. Over the past two years, I have lent him about 125 blues albums, in batches of about 15 at a time. He has been very enthusiastic about anything that sounds somewhat like hard rock, such as some of the most rock oriented Buddy Guy albums, Roy Buchanan, Johnny Winter's blues albums, Albert King's 1960s albums, Otis Rush's 1970s albums which are heavy on the electric guitar solos. He has no use at all for any acoustic blues recorded before World War II--all of the blues masters don't get past the first ten seconds in his CD player. He does not like any blues led by a piano player (because there is no screaming electric guitar). He does not like any song oriented blues recordings with no electric guitar solos. This has really brought the point home to me that there is only a very limited area of overlap between blues and rock--the rock of any era. Some music lovers do not hear the connection between blues and rock, or if they hear it, they don't care--they still don't like most blues.

I tend to agree with you on that point. It is my theory that with so many people, especially younger people, now accessing the internet on smartphones, often while they are on the run or doing something else at the same time, that forums or boards are more difficult to use, and thus less popular. I access the internet sometimes on my smartphone, and sometimes on my desktop PC. It is in fact more difficult for me to read a forum on a smartphone. The type is so small on the screen, and it is often more difficult to view artwork within a post, or to access and read links within a post. It is also much more difficult to type out a post of any length on a smartphone. So the smartphone generation turns to Twitter, where the messages are all very short and easy to type into a phone. It takes a certain amount of attention, focus and ability to easily read on the device you are using, to participate in a forum, and it is not that easy to do all that when you are on the run with a smartphone.

According to the link posted by Justin V at Post #6 of this thread, AAJ is not gone, but merely down temporarily for maintenance. I post there sometimes and their server has been quite slow at times, so maybe they are correcting it. So I don't understand these posts here about how we are the last ones standing. The AAJ board presently has some decent discussion of new jazz releases. It is free of fighting now and has its good points.

There are many album covers of this type at http://lpcoverlover.com/category/asian-pop/

I will now provide my comments on #8 to the end. 8. This is a wonderful track, wow! Could this be Jim Pepper? Otherwise I have no idea who it could be, but I love this song. 9. This sounds like South African jazz with the addition of a banjo (or other stringed instrument) and accordian. I have no idea who it could be, but it is very appealing music. 10. Here we are in the real avant garde. This is as out there as Cecil Taylor gets, but the pianist is too light of touch to be Cecil. I do not know who it is, but this trio is really good at this style of music. 11. This sounds like one of the Arista/Freedom albums I bought in the 1970s. I wonder if I have this one and don't remember it. The pianist could be Muhal Richard Abrams but I am not sure about that. I like the trumpet player very much. 12. "I've Found a New Baby" delivered in a fascinating way--in some parts rather avant garde, then it comes back inside, but always somewhat off-kilter. This is an imaginative group of musicians. I can't wait to find out who this is. 13. I feel that I know this pianist--that the identification is on the tip of my tongue, but I can't do it. Very interesting playing, not cliched jazz piano. This is a really interesting, enjoyable BFT!

The ranking of University of Wisconsin at #8 means that they must have toured the campus at a bad time.

Ah, no wonder that Jarman composition sounded familiar to me! I bought that Art Ensemble album, "The Third Decade", when it first came out and played it often right after that. I did not remember the song though, when I heard it on your BFT. Among other recordings in his career, Jerome Richardson is featured as a saxophonist quite a bit on Charles Mingus' "Black Saint and the Sinner Lady" album. Thanks for the tip on the Harold Land songs on CD. You mentioned that you were not familiar with trombonist Paul McKee. He is an Organissimo board member, who goes by the handle Free For All.

Here are some thoughts on your Reveal. I am sorry these are coming so late. I have been busy with some other things. 1. I hope I can find this on a readily available reissue! This is a great song. 4. Wow, did this one fool me! I have never heard Joseph Jarman, on many recordings or in live performance, play so much like John Coltrane. I was so convinced it was McCoy Tyner, but it is Myra Melford! I do not know Rob Garcia's work, but he is an outstanding drummer. This is what a BFT should ideally do, in my opinion, open the listener up to some new insights about an artist. I love listening to this song, too. 5. This had been identified by Thom. I do not have this Chico Freeman album and need to get it. What an outstanding solo by Henry Threadgill on baritone saxophone, more "inside" than he often plays, but not too inside. 7. I have this album and did not recognize it. I really liked the trumpet solo--now I see that it is by Roy Hargrove. I did not remember this album being so energetic. Time to play it again. 8. I had commented that I really liked the "urgent" saxophone player--now I see it is Roscoe Mitchell. So you fooled me on both Joseph Jarman and Roscoe Mitchell. I have noticed before that when Roscoe Mitchell is recording away from the Art Ensemble of Chicago "community", that he can sound rather different than you might expect. I did not identify Jodie Christian on piano, although I have heard other recordings by him. 9. Muhal Richard Abrams and Malachi Favors! I have this album but did not identify it. Again, it's time to play it again. I have heard Abrams play Thelonious Monk's music very convincingly. This is not a Monk composition, but is Monk-ish. I like this one a lot. 10. I love this Ari Brown song, as I previously commented, and I never heard him play like this before. Thanks for pointing this one out to us. 11. I have this album, and have heard Nicole Mitchell live, and still could not identify it. 12. I was right in my comment that the flute player is primarily a saxophone player. It's Jerome Richardson. I just could not place the bass player, Ray Brown. It was like it was right on the tip of my tongue, but I was not sure. I liked his playing a lot on this song. I would never have guessed that Oscar Peterson played organ that way. Bonus: 1. This was previously identified. I did not know that this Jack Bruce album had such jazz content. I had never heard anything from it before. Thanks for presenting it to us. Conclusion: this is my favorite BFT in some time. I really loved this one.

I will comment on the first seven songs now, and the rest later. 1. This starts with some really good arco bass playing, or maybe it is a cello. On two of my Blindfold Tests I included some Richard Davis arco bass soloing and members here thought it was a cello each time. So now I am less certain of that myself. Who is this? That is an enjoyable muted trombone solo. The strings are so precise, yet bluesy. Who comprises a precise jazz string ensemble with sax and trombone added, but no piano or drums? I have never heard of this ensemble or recording. 2. What a startling, shrill saxophone sound. You really grabbed my attention, in a good way. I have no idea who it is. Solo sax pieces should sometimes be short like this. Many solo sax pieces seem to last for at least 20 minutes. Saxophonists playing them would do well to take this player's example and be more brief sometimes. 3. This is odd to me. It sounds like an English rock group trying to play jazz, except for the saxophone player, who seems like a real jazz artist. 4. This is so reminiscent of Duke Ellington's late triumphs, like something that might have appeared on "New Orleans Suite" or "Afro Eurasian Eclipse". The pianist is not Duke but gets Duke's feel in his playing. The drummer sounds very much like someone who would have played with Duke from 1960 on. The muted trombone player sounds like he actually could have played with Duke, again from 1960 on. But it's live, and there is an old recording played while the band is playing. Who could this be? I am really curious. Whoever it is, they understand Duke Ellington better than just about any of the tribute bands which have come along. They get inside Duke's sound and feel. 5. I do not know the saxophone player who is playing "I Remember Clifford" here, but he is good. The bass player is good too, with a full, vocal sound, which I really like. 6. This sounds like Stephane Grappelli with David Grisman to me. It reminds me of the music which Johnny Depp and the gypsies played by the river in the film "Chocolat." 7, Sun Ra and Arkestra doing "Pink Elephants On Parade" from the "Stay Awake" album, Hal Wilner's Disney collection. I have always liked how the Arkestra plays with more precision here than on many of Sun Ra's own albums. That opening brass stuff--the Arkestra's brass never played so cleanly on Sun Ra's own music, perhaps by Sun Ra's preference or design.

I want to participate. I will send you a PM.

I saw that set. Phil Upchurch played really well, as I recall. At the time I thought, at least I got to see an excellent Phil Upchurch performance. I also thought, well now I have seen Jimmy Smith live......sort of. Dorothy Donegan played earlier that day and played a whole set without complaining. A festival volunteer told her before her last song that she did not have time for an encore, and she fanned herself and said "don't worry". That was her only comment on the heat that day, which was intense.

Jeff, You have done an absolutely great job as Blindfold Test manager. Everything has run smoothly and without any glitches, from an administrative standpoint. In my experience, this is much more rare than one might think, in any activity involving a group of several people. You have come up with common sense ideas and solutions to some of the issues which have come up, which have made the Blindfold Test process work very well. I am one of those presenters who is clueless on uploads, and you have been extremely patient and helpful with me. You have also mailed discs to me, and again, you have been very gracious and helpful. Everything in these areas has gone off without a hitch. You are so nice as you take care of these things! Is there any way we could persuade you to keep going as Blindfold Test manager? What type of bribe would it take? Before you step down, could you put me on the list of presenters, for November, 2014? Thanks, Bill

To me, that is the distinguishing feature of John Zorn's music. There is a lot of it recorded, and if you don't like his electric guitar/noisy/punk-like band, you may like his acoustic Masada quartet music (it's easy to like Dave Douglas' playing there, I think), or his Book of Angels series, or his Bar Kokhva albums (which I find often quite conventionally beautiful), or his Cobra series, or his other small group jazz music, or his weirder experimental sounding stuff, or his film music, or his many other albums of various types. It is a vast and extremely varied output. I myself do not like his "Absinthe" album at all--I have read that it is a good example of ambient sound. I guess I do not like ambient sound then. I find that sometimes someone will say that they like or don't like Zorn, when they have heard only a small fraction of his recorded output. I have heard about 50--75 of his albums, and feel that I have heard only a small fraction of his recorded output. I do not think that it all sounds the same. I think there have been few jazz composers with a more varied output.

I agree with your comments about Oscar Peterson's electric piano playing on #9. I like how Pedersen and Louis Bellson fit in well with this kind of music, too. I wonder what Bellson thought about playing that way. I am a little surprised that while Oscar was playing some relatively weird stuff (for him) on electric piano, Joe Pass just basically played what he usually played on a Pablo date. Joe played some rock sounding electric guitar on some 1960s sessions, with some distortion, before he became the "classy Joe Pass" on Pablo. This Oscar Peterson electric piano album could have been more interesting if Pass had returned to his more electric sound and style.

I don't understand the hostility toward John Zorn. I have enjoyed some of his albums and found some of them to be exciting to listen to. I have not enjoyed some of his albums all that much--he is a lot like many jazz artists in that way. He puts out a lot of recordings, more than I can keep up with, or would really want to keep up with. But I find some of his new releases to be interesting and enjoyable to listen to. He is not a commercial sell-out, nor is he known for any malicious behavior toward others, at least none that I am aware of. So why ridicule him? I must be missing something here. I have noticed this before on Organissimo.org. Musicians who have gained some popularity or success can become the subject of intense scorn here. Meanwhile,some artists who do not sell many albums and have never worked steadily receive only the kid gloves treatment, with 100 % praise, even though their music could be open to thoughtful criticism. I have never understood this about Organissimo.org Who cares what a jazz musician is wearing offstage? I know I don't care about it at all. I don't have anywhere near all of Zorn's recorded output, but from what I have, his compositions do not sound the same at all. In fact, I am not aware of many jazz composers who have written music as varied as Zorn. He is however a poseur. 100 more compositions. Why he is a poseur? Please explain. That is a strong charge against an artist, and I am genuinely unaware of what Zorn may have done to deserve it. Translation: He just dropped 200 more versions of the same thing. Blue Train, you seem to intensely dislike John Zorn. Could you explain why? I truly don't understand what there is about him that would inspire such dislike.