JSngry

Unless they are given positions of authority and try to encourage and enforce a culture of conformity. That's not weird, that's evil.

Stimmy, Stapppy, and Schleppy - Live At Greddleston's Rock Hard Club

Those records were good for jazz in the sense that, yes, wider audience. Larger audience doesn't mean that all music's audience grows equally, but it does mean that the water rose high enough so for a little while it was one nice big lake that all the fish swam in, instead of a collection of individual landlocked stock ponds. People will go to a lake for recreation. Stock ponds, not so much.

RIP, thanks for getting it done with the time you had. Cause of death?

For as long as he did, he made a lot of records that a lot of people listened to. No small feat, that. And a lot of them were actually good in substance, the most important consideration of all. I'm eternally grateful that not everybody went about making records that way, but I'm also eternally grateful that he did. If it was that easy, everybody would/could do it. It certainly seems that he lost his mojo at some point and never got it back, but...shit happens, right? RIP

The Bulge Precker Doctet - Take One Of These!!!

Did the OG dial tone really sound like that? It's hideous.

Very big presence in down best in the early 70s when I started reading it. RIP

He was, but the lack of a leader presence kinda leaves a diffuse picture of who "Cal Massey" was, doesn't it? It's almost he was a songwriter, not a singular composer.

Also .. jazz pedagogy in generally so locked into a chord/scale model, and neither Hill nor Nichols nor Monk fully yield up their charms when approached strictly from that angle. Nothing does, really, but that's another story But this is advanced music, definitely, A university environment has its own economic demands, so if the music of an Andrew Hill is not easily (if at all) squeezed into a standardized curriculum... and if the bulk of young musicians (quantity, not quality) are these days passing through the classroom, hey. Do the math.

Did this come out before or after the Uptown disc?

Cal Massey left behind a really solid body of work, but only had one record under his own name. He had to depend others recording his work, and although he had some amazingly heavy hitters doing that.. they all had their own careers and music's to take care of. Archie Shepp probably(?) was the most regular advocate, but...

See how tolerant we are here?

Yeas and no...historically, the music (usually) happened off the record first and then came to record. For a few decades now, it's seemed to go the other way around. People make records (ones with what's left of "visibility", anyway) based on what they can get a record made of, not what they're really wanting to do with their own music. And REALLY lately it's been that the music goes to the record first, last, and only. Why that is....many reasons. But whatever they are, it is a fundamental change in how the music is developing. COVID certainly is a big factor, but it was happening before then. Why does nobody/"nobody" play Andrew Hill pieces? Because nobody plays Andrew Hill pieces. And when that changes, it will cease to be a question.

Yes, projects. There are no Nichols tunes that can be considered "common currency", meaning that you can not consistently get some random-but-qualified people together for a jam and call one of his tunes without having to produce a lead sheet for at least one of the participants. Not unless you prescreen your invitees. I'd love to be wrong about this, btw. And people who make records of other peoples music should start covering these pieces, because that's how it works. Projects don't really create currency, repetition does.

The Creel Point reissue, which also includes Tome VI and Waterbirds. 2 CDs, excellent value (and a bootleg).

Paul Mariat Franck Pourcel Raymond Lefèvre

Dave's Pal Ronny - Atta Boy!!! b/w Buffet Time!!!

Check you mid-60s Prestige and Pacific Jazz releases. Hell, Les MCann & the Jazz rusaders amdea almost entire records of that type of thing.

Mingus Big Band is a Mingus family business specifically created to keep that music alive because it wasn't being played. Call a bunch of players together and ask the who knows, day, "Remember Rockefeller At Attica". Have fun with that. Or " Pithecanthropus Erectus". Or " Meditations On Integration". Or " Fables of Faubus". Or... Mingus has benefitted from writing a relatively few easily-enough played tunes to give the impression that his output is widely played, outside of "projects", which don't really count. That stuff takes work. Work, time, rehearsal, understanding, just an overall willingness and opportunity to did into it. So much of the great jazz compositions do, and I mean real compositions, not simple song structures. That why these composers had their own bands, do they didn't have to depend on other people to play their music. Look at Cal Massey if you want to see what happens with that.

Johnny Temple Frank Church Sal Mosca

They create a very specific 'zone", and they're difficult to play outside of that zone. Most players see no career opportunity in engaging with either one of those elements, never mind both of them. Another example is Mingus. Outside of a handful of things that can be easily covered, who plays Mingus? Herbie Nichols, great composer, but it who plays him? For such a sophisticated music, it's general practitioners today are a rather doltish lot.

Smooch Spundenthal - In All This World

Eddie Albert Eddie Bert Duane Eddy