JSngry

I didn't love a lot of what was on here, but pretty much all of it caught my attention for various reasons. As a result, I sleuthed a lot, but the results did not change my initial responses, which I will stick to, with only minimal exception. The FULL exception for this will be the last selection, which imo is borderline epic and deserves full attention ASAP! TRACK ONE - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolton,_Mississippi Bolton, Mississippi is a real place but with a population of <500 people, I don't know who on this record would be from there. I like the music well enough, it has a real-enough "down home" feel, although also not really "developed (looking at you bassist). The soprano has a Grover feeling underneath it all, and I mean that as a compliment. Grover was a man of the people, and this music is definitely by the people. I like it, yeah! Not gonna rush right out an buy it, but I do like it. TRACK TWO - Felser BFT Redux. Lakeshia Benjamin is a bold dresser with a musical intent to match. I say she should be encouraged on both counts! And Gary Bartz can hopefully give us a Great Final Act, sounds like he's more than paid some pretty deep dues over the years, been there, done that, all of it. TRACK THREE - No idea, really. Nice tune, very nice. Randy Weston, maybe? These soloists, though, not sure about their time, the ideas are not necessarily being executed as much in a pocket as they could be, sometimes they feel just a little bit rushed. Plus, some space wouldn't hurt anything, ya' know? The tenor is a bit better in that regard, good tone and a more developed sense of speaking. I hope these are younger players? This is type of thing where you miss working road bands, the cahnce to go to work every night and work out the kinks and clear away the clouds. But oh well, that ain't here no more. But the bassist and drummer are past all that! TRACK FOUR - No thanks. Where's the movie? TRACK FIVE - This sounds like Herbie Mann on flute, from back in the day when he still played bop. And that's not a diss, just a speculative observation. And this is obviously not from those days. Piano has waaay too much of the OP Gung-Ho feel for my taste. This guitarist is the most interesting player for me, but he seems to be playing in a different zone than the rest of the band and just walks a few blocks and then pops into a bar for a few drinks until the parade passes by. I mean no insult when saying that this sounds "Canadian". TRACK SIX - Hello Nasty! I was surprised, but that explains it! TRACK SEVEN - I certainly did like this, in spite of it's less-than-fully-fulfilled potential. But the groove is good (especially the drumming), and the piano progression is definitely fresher than old standards. The soprano solo spoke to me of Kenny Garrett and further sleuthing confirmed that it is. This record is nice enough, but hey, I saw h9im and his group at the Detroit Jazz Festival two years ago, outdoors, in front of a full/fully appreciative hometown crowd, and he played the everloving BEJESUS out of stuff like this. He was holding church with it, and keep in mind that a church needs both preacher and congregation to feed off of and back to each other, and that is fully what was going on there. On this record, not so much, but records ain't the WHOLE story, ok? TRACK EIGHT - Very nice retro sound. I thought I had heard this tune before, and I had - it's a Neal Creque tune first recorded by Grant Green, with a fuller isntrumentation, that's all I will say about that. But does this have lyrics? It seems like it should! And I wish that a group like this would go back and see what can be pulled out of "Cafe Reggio". TRACK NINE. I disliked this one so much that I sleuthed, I think that's a first...Ok, this player (who is not David Murray) is somebody I've been aware of in different contexts over the year, definitely a seasoned pro deserving of respect overall. But this one....yuck. Did Don Was put him up to this? TRACK TEN - All in here, full frontal SPIRIT. And very much in the pocket, musically and vocally and verbally. Google AI can often give you very straightforward answer and when you ask it about "jazz inspired Emmet Till" it will first tell you about Wadada and then Ernest Dawkins. And Dawkins it is, with a full suite that was premiered at the Velvet Lounge, and for this recording, Paris: https://ernestdawkins.bandcamp.com/album/un-till-emmett-till I truly feel this one, the holy defiance trumping and ultimately triumphing over the triteness and vulgarity of lowly humans. I will be getting the record ASAP. More than a few surprises here. Please play again, thank you!

When both life and music suck, we're living in the last days. Proceed acc9ordingly, and don't say you weren't warned.

I guess we all got spoiled by Horace Silver and Wayne Shorter and people of their ilk. Or by having jazz radio for that matter, where a DJ could interact with a community in real time. Or maybe this child prodigy hype is for marketing and never about music.

I actually like the basic Starbucks flavor. So ti me, that's not funny, it's just stupid. You know what else was stupid was that Starbucks Blonde, for people who wanted something else besides Starbucks from Starbucks. Talk about a REAL blonde joke...

Strange...

Skills, plural.

Maybe your dog would enjoy a date, dinner and a movie and then a walk to potty before turning in for the night?

I wanted to use the Morgan tapes as an speculative example but didn't want to overreach the speculation. So now it's the Jazz Detective's time to step in and rescue all the known tapes? But more to the point - are all the Both/And tapes collated/codified by some Master Collector?

They were reference tapes, not masters. And the story has too many dead people and too much past-tense for me to give any credibility. Hell, it could have been Joe or Woody, hard up for dough. Bottom line - imo it's a bootleg. Not that that's ever stopped me before...

Turns out Milestone label head Orrin Keepnews had turned around and sold these 2-track reference mixes (recorded by Bernie Grundman!) to Everest owner Bernie Solomon, who went ahead and did his usual down-market, take the money and run thing. "Turns out" , eh? Who would be alive to confirm or contradict this? Dead men tell no tales. Color me skeptical, at best.

Find me an elevator with that type of .music. Or any type of music for that matter!

That story sounds a bit off. I've never heard of Keepnews doing a deal like that and certainly he would have had plenty of opportunities.

I liked most of Barretto's various outputs, but the last years of fully organic "Latin Jazz" are sui generis in my opinion. Kinda surprised me that I hadn't heard of this one, but now I have!🎄🎄🎄

Laura Henton, KC, 1929, with Eddie Durham(!). Benny Moten is supposed to be on here too, but inaudibly if so. I hear no piano. Laura Henton swings!!!

Done.

The Franklin looks right! The Michael Howell and Billy Mitchell are solid enough efforts. I know Ira Schulman through Don Ellis, but the notion "Baroque Jazz" in the 70s kinda creeps me out. YMMV. Otherwise, I do not like Sam Most at all, certainly know Ron Jefferson but have no idea about this record, and have zero idea about the others. Pat Britt certainly hustled to get those made though!

I also noticed names such as Hale Smith, George Walker, Olly Wilson, and isn't that George Russell upper right? Looking forward to some hopefully interesting talk about an under-visible area of music.

That was a bootleg. Bought it on Everest back in the day. They had devolved into doing that type of thing. Expectations should not be set too high. It's of secondary quality to the official stuff.

Tell me more?

And if they yes, demand a proof of life photo.

Beer made me fatter and lazier than I already was. Like weed only easier to navigate.

I preferred dark, heavier beers. The only lighter beers I liked was Rolling Rock, and that was for after a hot sweaty mowing of the lawn

That explains a lot of things!