Thanks! Erker is just like Grimal a student of John Ruocco, one of the greats who left us in 2025...
The album is a reflection on growing up in the north of Tilburg in the 1970s and 80s, discovering jazz via Albert Ayler, Charlie Haden's liberation music orchestra... I used to live in that city for quite a while - even though not in it's particularly rough northern part until recently so that album felt close to home for me... but I do think it's objectively very very good! I rarely hear so warm music coming out of that general direction... At this point, it's streaming only but there will be an extended edition on vinyl later this year...
Indeed, it's such a nicely made reissue coming from a small private company who really care about their products... It's not like anyone has to buy this particular edition if they don't want to...
Most likely, pglbook tried to resell it here and then sold it on eBay due to "lack of interest" (PLEASE: "lack of demand", not "lack of interest") ... Which also means: maybe writing a PM to pglbook about that set is worth it
I may have liked last year better actually... My two favorites, both without much press were
Tilburg Noord by Meter Erker
Shakkei by Alexandra Grimal and Giovanni di Domenico
Of the somewhat more high-profile stuff, I liked the Amina Claudine Myers solo and the new Masabumi Kikuchi solo on Red Hook, Sullivan Fortner Trio (Southern Nights) and the duo record of Wadada Leo Smith and Sylvie Courvoisier...
One album that I like quite a bit and that almost fits the bill is Echoes of Chicago by Art Hodes... It's from 1978 though and it's not Hodes' working band (it is a full dixieland band though, the usual Atlanta crew found on GHB Productions of that era)
You should really listen to that solo album (Challenge), the Evans influence is suddenly absent again in a curious way... I'm one of the people who say that Hawes' post-imprisonment trio albums like Here and Now or I'm all smiles are the peak...
Regarding discographical mysteries, Bird Song is another east west record with guest Paul Chambers... and here there are some reasonable doubts about the lineup as given (e.g.: the session with Big Foot has some curious overlap with a largely unreleased session of the trio with Mitchell and Thompson)
and in 60 years, historians may read this post and speculate whether it was one of the triggers for the miserable documentation of discographical data in the 2030s but, yes, the hobby historian in me also only comes out for the old stuff, it's what hobby historians do
When I see people at a record store who are getting so excited they can buy, say, Led Zeppelin albums on CD for only 3 or 4 Euro, these are usually people under 25... People above 50 own these albums already if they wish to and they can also afford them on LP... And I do see these young people with some regularity... But I doubt that selling CDs to this demographic is by itself profitable enough to keep the shop open ... And there's a good chance that they will switch to LPs (or stop boycotting spotify) when they are over 30... What drives these people to CDs is only the price..
Clyde Lucas, Ted Fiorito, Johnny Blowers, Randy Brooks, Bill Heathcock are obscure to me... Also the Curtis Bay Coast Guard Training Station Dance band and the other military bands... Yet others like Mal Hallett or Tony Pastor do ring bells, but I don't know anything about their music... To be fair, most of the more obscure bands are only covered with relatively few tracks...
For a second, you had me imagining Teddy Wilson with Duke Jordan... Might be really nice, if it worked out but quite risky ...
NP: Lawrence Brown - Inspired Abandon