xybert

Miles Davis at Newport: 1955-1975: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4 (Disc 3 - the November 1, 1973 concert)

I think it helps that, apart from being an excellent movie, it's such a feel good, comfort food movie for i guess a lot if us. I feel like regardless of Christmas it's one of those perennial favourite movies that they used to play on TV a lot here during the summer/Christmas holidays. It just has that 'it's that time of year' feel to it for me. It's schedule to play on Christmas night on one of the free-to-air channels here, but at this point i think it's become a bit of a too on the nose meme rather than an un-ironic organic thing.

Finally saw The Last Jedi yesterday, in IMAX 3D. It's been roughly a couple of weeks since it came out, i've read/heard all the spoilers and have heard from friends that love it and friends that HATE it. I really enjoyed it. Probably need to see it again on a small screen to get a bit more critical (seeing it in IMAX from the 4th row definitely added to the experience). I get why some people didn't like it. Definitely see a lot of Rian Johnson in it, particularly with some of the beats and lines. The humour didn't bother me like it has for some. There's some WTF weird moments but overall i found them charming, reminded me of eighties fantasy sci-fi weirdness in a good way. A lot of the time i was thinking, "my son is gonna love this (when he gets old enough)", and i guess i kind of do view the film through a kid's eyes. Visually the film is stunning. I liked the script, liked the plot; again a lot of the things that have rubbed people the wrong way didn't bother me. For me it's big budget epic space schlock done with some flavour. Way prefer TLJ to Rogue One, for example. I hope that kids are seeing it and loving it.

Late to the party on this one. Despite it looking good on paper the teaser videos left me cold and i struggled to get in to it when listening on Spotify. With it appearing on so many board favourites and critics 'best of' lists i decided to buy the CD and give it a fair go. Really enjoying it. Hope that the group continues to work together, would be nice for them to be a thing and have a sequence of albums. It's tempting to read in to the title and project on it, but when listening to this i can't help but feel that it's a bit of a celebration (for want of a better way of putting it) of contemporary jazz/improv. Intentional or not it definitely feels good to me. Not sure who wrote the press release above but isn't that Lehman rather than Shim soloing on Poles?

Recently picked up the Bill Frisell / Thomas Morgan album Small Town. This is one of those albums that i’d listened to a bit of on Spotify and was never quite fully feeling it, but at the same time couldn’t avoid scratching the itch of finally buying a copy, and now that i’ve bought it and listened to it several times through i’m kind of in love with it. If you’re a hardcore Frisell fan i’m sure your down; if you’re like me and a bit picky with your Frisell you’ll at least find it solid, but there’s the potential for it to go further and get under your skin like it has with me. Recommended, as they say. FYI it’s a live recording, not sterile. Glasses clink and people cough, it’s surreal imagining being there. Quite a transportative recording in more ways than one.

Setting movies that aren’t about Christmas during Christmas seems to have been particularly popular in the eighties/early nineties (off the top of my head: Trading Places, Rocky 4, Lethal Weapon... Home Alone to a certain extent). I voted yes but personally i think it’s a bit of a stretch. Actually watched Die Hard a couple of days ago. Seriously, it’s nigh on perfect. Surely there are few films that are more satisfying and just flat out entertaining. Willis is perfect, everyone is brilliantly cast. Every single character is just brimming with charisma. Reminds me of Predator in that regard (also directed by John McTiernan). Is casting action movies a lost art? You just can’t make these movies with Jai Courtney and Sam Worthington.

Yeah. Prompted by my recent Snakeoil listening bender i wanted to get some Mitchell as a leader and this one seemed like the safest bet.

Going to see The Last Jedi tomorrow... will let you know if it's any good... i must say that as a life long Star Wars fan i've started to sour on it a bit... if it wasn't being directed by Rian Johnson (or another interesting director) i'd probably give it a miss to be honest. Last night i watched The Red Shoes for the first time. Wow. What a film.

Lol this was literally me. Wanted two jazz albums to tick the box of having some jazz in my collection, knew of KOB, saw BT and just thought it was a Coltrane album, looked legit and had 'blue' in the title (which i thought meant something for some unknown reason). Put me off jazz for a long time (i like both of them now but neither are favourites).

Matt Mitchell - Fiction

Ray Bryant Trio (on Epic, not to be confused with the Prestige album from around the same time). This has fast become one of my favourite piano trio albums.

To keep it simple (including sticking to jazz only), i kind of just want to say: i'd get 4 x 1st Great Quintet, 5 x 2nd Great Quintet and Coltrane's My Favourite Things. That would keep me going for a while. My Favourite Things would be first, totally my go to album. It's just too hard trying to single out an Ornette/Monk/Ellington/Bud/ etc album. Having said that, i'd get Mingus Ah Um, Sunday at the Village Vanguard, The Amazing Bud Powells pretty quickly. Masterpieces By Ellington is also a go to.

Bought this when it came out as i was a huge Mr Bungle (and by extension Trevor Dunn) fan. I never *really* got in to it and ended up trading it. Kind of blows my mind that years later Mary Halvorson and Ches Smith are such giants in my world. And Dunn still, of course, who has gone on to do so much. Finally got around to repurchasing this album in the last year or so. Was pleasantly surprised to find that they did a version of Single Petal of a Rose, which i would have been completely oblivious to at the time and is now a favourite. I had time on my hands recently and have been enjoying Jeremiah Cymerman's podcast. It's apparent that for a lot of people of my generation Mr Bungle and Zorn were a gateway in to jazz/improv/etc. I remember being oddly fascinated by the words 'Produced By John Zorn and Mr Bungle' on the back cover of the self-titled Bungle record (like the weird pseudonyms used by Bungle it had a huge amount of mystique somehow). Never really investigated (lazy plus pre-internet), and then one day having my mind blown to see that he had his own section in the jazz section (which i never ventured in to at the time), and it was stacked! Will never forget that. It's a common trope that fusion is a gateway: Mahavishnu leads to electric Miles, electric Miles leads to acoustic Miles etc. Similarly, Bungle leads to Zorn, Zorn leads to Naked City which leads to Frisell etc. Zorn also leads to Tim Berne which leads to any number of peeps. Zorn's Ornette tribute also got me in to Ornette after years of not really getting him. Anyways... NP: Grant Green - Oleo (recent Japanese reissue)

These were my new release purchases for 2017: All are really good, really enjoyable. If i had to pick a standout favourite it would be Harris Eisenstadt's Recent Developments. Corea's the Musician is the only one that i could arguably live without, just the nature of it being a bit of a mixed bag of live tracks makes it slightly 'dispensable' but as a fairly hardcore Corea fan i wouldn't be without it. The new Snakeoil sent me on a bit of of Tim Berne listening bender, thoroughly enjoyed it after not really feeling like listening to him much in recent years. Apart from that, so many great 'new to me' discoveries this year. highlights would be the Cedar Walton Eastern Rebellion albums and Red Garland's Groovy (i know, right!?!).

The back cover presentation ticks all the boxes of the euro reissues that i’ve seen/own. The label name is interchangeable but the template for everything else is the same. I also find that they often change the track order, my take is it’s intended to muddy the waters/differentiate their release from others. Another example of this is a release of Thelonious Himself coupled with Portrait of an Ermite/Paris 1954 that i have and took off the shelf recently due to the new reissue of Paris 1954. Not particularly judging either way, but i got the Japanese warner budget reissues of the Gullins.

Eri Yamamoto to a certain extent. Love her trio, they have something rare in my opinion.

The new Mary Halvorson album in the Zorn Book of Angels/Masada compositions series is very, very nice. Been playing it a lot, surprisingly nice late-night music.

Got given a gift voucher for a brick and mortar that carries mostly second hand stuff but has a few 'new and sealed' things. They had a reasonably priced new copy of this so decided to get it along with some nostalgic-to-me hip hop circa 95 and 96 (which is paying MAJOR dividends)... listening now... there's a reason that they decided to release this... it's fuccin' sick.

ECM is now on Spotify. Not sure if old news but i just found out recently so for others that might not know. I haven't done any exploration to see if it's the full catalogue or whatever but Vijay Iyer's new one for example is there.

Very happy with this release. The packaging is pretty good: cardboard sleeve but it's high quality, comes with a plastic outer sleeve and an inner sleeve for the CD. As mhatta noted, no surprises musically but for me new Bud is irresistible.

I recently picked up a budget Japanese reissue of Moonchild. Nice stuff. Been thinking of picking up Africa as well.

Cheers, will keep an eye out.

Picked up this set recently: Info here: http://www.espdisk.com/4069.html It's a mix of released and unreleased material but it's all new to me. Very enjoyable.

Used to have the Andorran reissue of Sortie and Disposability with the dodgy sound. This reissue is a godsend.