HutchFan

Yep, I had the Gerald Wilson LP. It primed me for the Complete PJ Mosaic set, which I ordered immediately after it was announced. Next up: These are some of thinnest LPs I've ever seen. I'm talking PAPER thin! Seriously, it bends sideways like a limp pancake if you only hold it on one side. ... OTOH, I think I paid $2 for it. And it doesn't sound as bad as I expected when I held the vinyl in my hands. Obviously, I didn't plop for the Ferguson Roulette set on Mosaic.

Now spinning this new-to-me LP: 1981 Liberty reissue with a sorta generic cover

Explaining the problem of finding -- even knowing about! -- music & albums to my son (who is 27) is something that he cannot understand. It was a different world. Y'all have mentioned Schwanns. I remember first seeing the All Music Guide, first in book form and then on the internet. It was great because it listed out of print stuff. That was amazing! Dates and write-ups! Even if it wasn't complete, there was so much info! Of course, the internet totally changed everything. Nearly everything is accessible now -- and that creates new problems. But they're very different problems than the ones that we faced pre-internet.

I love those records too! And Bryant's solo piano Pablo ain't half-bad either.

Disc 1 Originally released as Full Nelson (Verve) and Fantabulous (Argo) and

My father was an avid music fan, so I grew up listening to his records. This was the 1970s, and he gravitated to all sorts of music: rock, pop, and soul, and jazz--usually from the contemporary/fusion end of the spectrum. It was very eclectic, very wide-ranging. As I got older, I could see -- in retrospect -- that there was an element of improvisation that ran through much of the music that he loved. So I grew up hearing artists like Santana, the Allman Brothers Band, Steely Dan, The Crusaders, George Benson, and Return to Forever. Obviously, that musical background informed my first explorations of jazz in late high school and college. But my dad never had any interest in looking backward, music-wise. His stuff was always hip and contemporary. My first self-directed musical explorations (in high school in the 1980s) focused on 1970s prog rock, bands like Genesis and Yes. Again, retrospectively, I can see that I was following in my dad's footsteps, attracted to "instrumental music" with lots of improvisational elements. But, unlike my dad, I had a historical bent. I was listening to 70s music during the 80s, and I wanted to keep going backwards. By the time I got to college, I realized that jazz was the thing behind so much of the music that was attractive to me, informing it, even if it wasn't jazz per se. I also had a sense that there was something big there that I was missing, some sort of hidden-to-me history, and I wanted to understand it and get in on it. Like a lot of you, the library was a HUGE resource for me -- both for records and books. I also spent many, many hours in the basement of the UGA library looking over old copies of Downbeat, Jazz Times, and Jazz Journal International. They were all bound in annual volumes, so I could pick any given year and pore over an entire year's worth of magazines. Given the critical assumptions of the day, I suppose it's no surprise that I wanted to learn about "real jazz," which meant jazz performed on acoustic instruments. My first footholds were the heavies that draw in so many of us: Miles, Coltrane, and Mingus. After not leaving much of an impression initially, Kind of Blue, hit me like an electric shock one day. (Specifically, it was Coltrane's solo on "Blue in Green"; an unforgettable moment.) From there to A Love Supreme, which also took a long time to absorb. And then Mingus at Antibes. It hit harder in some ways than even Miles or Trane. Mingus, yes! But also Dolphy and Booker Ervin! What's funny is that I didn't have much money at the time, and I was reading about many, many records that I wanted to hear so badly. But I think it was a blessing in disguise that I didn't hear more -- because I probably couldn't have absorbed the music more quickly than I did. More albums would have just muddied the waters. Taking in these three albums -- Kind of Blue, A Love Supreme, and Mingus at Antibes -- and making sense of them took a LONG time. I had to listen to them 20 times before I really began to understand what they were about. So many of the musical assumptions were different and confusing. After that, I did what many of you describe. The leap-frogging thing. From Mingus at Antibes to Booker's Freedom Book. "Oh wow! Jaki Byard! And Jaki's on Mingus records too!" From one to the next and so on and so on. What's strange (or maybe not), given my background, is that for many years I avoided electric jazz. For example, I probably had 20 Miles Davis records before my wife bought me In a Silent Way. Of course, that BLEW MY MIND. Looking back on it now, that avoidance was crazy and silly. But maybe pre-70s jazz was a way for me to stake out some musical territory of my own. It wasn't turf that my father had already shown me. Some time ago -- maybe 15 or 20 years ago? -- I started realizing that the eclectic 70s stuff I grew up with and Jazz (with a capital "J") didn't have to be a separate thing. As I dug deeper into 70s jazz, I was amazed by what I was hearing. It didn't have anywhere near the critical credibility of stuff from the 60s and before -- but it was powerful, amazing, and OVERLOOKED music. And that's when I began to realize that the "Jazz Died in the 1970s" message that I'd heard so many times was a canard. In fact, the more I dug, the more I felt like 1970s jazz was a relatively unexplored gold mine. The stories that I'd heard of the 1970s jazz being an aberration were flat-out wrong. Not coincidentally, that evolution in my tastes corresponded with the proliferation of music blogs that made nearly entire catalogs of then-obscure labels readily available again. I dug into "Magic Purple Sunshine," and I discovered Martial Solal's MPS records. I dug into a Muse records blog, and I found James Moody's stuff and Woody Shaw's stuff from the 70s. Many of you on this site lived through that, were discovering this music as it was released, but that was all a looking-backwards thing for me. It was all "new old stuff" -- aside from the few things my father had played (George Benson, A&M Gato, post-Jazz Crusaders Crusaders, etc.). So I feel like that whole 70s Jazz thing was my SECOND discovery of jazz. I realized that I shouldn't or couldn't necessarily trust any "critical consensus." You have to listen for yourself and make your own determinations. And those conclusions -- the personal ones -- are the things that matter MUCH more than any collectively-settled-upon facts or canon. For our conceptions to be truly meaningful, it's got to be something that we assemble ourselves from the parts that make sense to us, and those things are largely subjective and contextual and personal and contingent. To use a religious metaphor, we all have to "work out our musical salvation in private." That's one of the reasons that I love this board so much. I'm continually reminded of the fact that other people hear things that I don't hear while simultaneously being shown that there are also many people who do hear what I hear -- and that's comforting because listening to this music often can be a lonely pursuit. You understood the importance of hearing things for yourself a lot sooner and more intuitively than I did. I admire that. I feel like it took me a long while to get past my "book learned" way of thinking about the music. It was only when I just dove into the pool and started splashing around with less fear and discrimination that I really began to understand things on a deeper level. I'm thinking too of all that stuff about age and wisdom making your earlier notions of right and wrong, good and bad seem youthfully ridiculous and rigid. At least I hope I'm moving in that direction as I age. My body is surely stiffening up, but I hope my mind is growing more limber.

Love this stuff. I have much of it -- but nowhere near all of it. Thanks for reminding that there's more to investigate!

Good stuff.

Now on the 'table: Jacquet sounds SO GOOD with organists.

Now spinning: Gust William Tsilis & Alithea with Arthur Blythe - Pale Fire (Enja, 1987) Vibraphone – Gust William Tsilis Alto Saxophone – Arthur Blythe Piano, Keyboards – Allen Farnham Acoustic Bass – Anthony Cox Drums – Horacee Arnold Percussion, Vocals – Arto Tuncboyaciyan

Last night: Herbie Mann - The Evolution of Mann (Atlantic, 1972) 2-LP compilation and Dexter Gordon - Power! (Prestige, 1978) Recorded in 1969

Beautiful playing by Getz and excellent compositions & arrangements from Eddie Del Barrio. I think they work well here, but those who don't like synthesizers should steer clear.

Next up: with Israel Crosby & Vernell Fournier at the Spotlite Club in Washington, D.C., 1958

and

This made me laugh. By the way, Georgia beat Clemson 10-3 in a dominating performance by UGA's defense led by Nakobe Dean. The Bulldogs recorded SEVEN sacks, the highest number ever given up by a Dabo Swinney-coached team.

There's still a few artists mining that vein. Rez Abbasi and Rudresh Mahanthappa come to mind. NP:

After watching this video about a guy who bought George Benson's record collection, I decided to give this a spin:

This video was fun to watch. Thanks for sharing it, Joe. Somehow, it doesn't surprise me that George Benson is such a cool, friendly person.

Giving this Lou Donaldson compilation another spin: Includes this terrific ballad performance of "Who Can I Turn To":

I wish I could have seen Duke live. If I could travel back in time to see anyone, I'd go see Ellington. No doubt about it. I love that element of Ellington's music too -- both the imaginary "exotica" as well as the full-on African and "Other" places as-filtered-through-Ellington. It always strikes me as odd to read critics who were put off by that aspect of Ellington's music. I remember reading Helen Oakley Dance throwing shade on Ellington pieces like "Caravan." Like she knows better than Ellington what he should record! (Just like Norman Granz and Leonard Feather.) It's absurd.

Yeah, the cover is right on the money. It's feel-good music, for sure. Over the last year or so, I've been picking up Lewis' records here and there -- usually for peanuts -- and I've enjoyed every one of them.

Excellent!

Yeah. I think Afro-Bossa and Concert in the Virgin Islands are the best of them.

Now on my 'table: Cleveland Eaton's bass is well-recorded on this live session. I dig his big, resonant sound.

I think Martial Solal's music was (and is) BRILLIANT. I never had an opportunity to see Solal perform live, but I am so grateful for his recordings. They are a treasure trove.