Face of the Bass

I don't understand why everybody didn't jump on this set when it came out. Wonderful music.

I have a copy of Bill Evans -- The Complete Fantasy Recordings available for sale for $75, shipping included to the United States. Discs are in like-new condition. There are two scuff marks on the back of the box, and the front cover of the booklet has some scuff marks near the spine, otherwise everything is in like new condition. Paypal only, send PM if interested. Thanks for looking!

For someone who got into jazz around 10 years ago, there was no better introduction to the history of modern jazz than the RVG titles that were released from the late 1990s through the end of the last decade. I discovered SO MUCH music through that series, along with the BN Conn releases. Maybe the well is dry anyways, but it's a shame that reissue programs like that are dead.

Anything. I'm not even really looking for recommendations. Just posting about something that I think needs more sunlight.

The more I look into it, it occurs to me that the NY loft scene of the 1970s is really one of the great creative flowerings in the history of jazz, right up there in its own way with the early years of intense bebop exploration. I couldn't find a thread that specifically dealt with this period on its own terms, so I thought I would start one now. There are a few recordings that I've collected over the years that I think do a great job documenting the period and are great musically as well: I got this one as a birthday present many years ago and it is still one of my very favorite box sets, well worth the $100 or so it costs on the marketplace now. The material recorded at Studio Rivbea is fantastic. This is probably the most canonical of loft jazz releases. I don't think it's as good as the Lyons but no list of titles from this period would be complete without it, obviously. I picked this one up last week when I was at Downtown Music Gallery and saw it on the shelf. The booklet giving a history of the loft jazz period is incredibly well done, and the music to me is better than that found on the William Parker set released by this same label last year. In fact, reading the booklet from the Muntu set, it occurs to me that this is one of the major areas of jazz history that is still waiting for its definitive history. Somebody should do that soon because that generation is leaving us. There must be a lot more recordings out there from this time period that are worth finding. I imagine a bunch of it may have been released in small LP pressings that have never since been reissued?

I've got to say, this is a great deal. I had this box once but didn't have time to listen to it and so I sold it. Picked up the MP3s on this deal and have been listening to it all week. Fantastic stuff. I don't normally like MP3s but in this case I think it works, because the original set doesn't have much in the way of liner notes and the lineup of musicians is the same for all 10 discs. If you want some great Cecil Taylor to listen to for a small price, this is very much worth it.

This is one I really want. I actually haven't really heard much of any of this, but the personnel looks like it will be very promising.

What I've found as a college professor is that anytime you go into a class with an assumption that your students won't get something or won't be interested in something because of who they are, you've already lost the battle. I play music in my classes from time to time. I play it loud. I play it for longer than 15 seconds. I play recordings of Kenyan children singing songs about a mythical creature named after the country singer Jimmy Rodgers. I play songs of Xhosa women singing about their troubles while playing an uhadi. I play Fela. I play Fela loud. Do students think I'm weird? Maybe. But they keep coming back. It is not my goal to be normal.

Well, I think I know this undergraduate population very well. I have taught classes in Modern African History, South African history, and Twentieth Century World History. In every class I have used art and music in order to elucidate themes for the course. My African history courses cover juju, highlife, and Afrobeat. My 20th century world history courses talked about jazz, Abstract Expressionism, and Italian Futurism. The response to this has been overwhelmingly positive; my student reviews are very good, and enrollment for my classes is always high. I'm not trying to brag but frankly I found reading this email more than a little depressing. I mean, holy shit, if there's one thing I did NOT get into academia to do, it would be to offer a higher-level version of high school material. I don't use any textbooks in my classes; I use monographs and memoirs and anything I can find to make the study of history relevant and interesting to my students. For a general education course, most of my students are taking a history class as a requirement. It is my obligation to show them that history is not what they think it is, i.e. a boring recitation of facts or regurgitation of a dominant narrative. Of course, the whole class is not going to be about music. I'm talking about having one of the four books they read be about music. I'm talking about having one of the three papers they write be about music. The fact that most 18-20 year old Americans are unfamiliar with the blues idiom is PRECISELY why such an assignment would be worthwhile. I came to this board because I have major respect for the people here and I wanted some help in conceptualizing one project for the semester. I think any American history class that does not take serious account of American forms of cultural expression, including but not limited to music, is a wasted opportunity.

I wish they'd think outside the box a little bit more. I would like to see more avant-jazz material from the 1970s and later, personally. The reissues of big bands from the 1930s and 1940s get old for me really quickly.

Thinking about this more, what I might be able to do is to maybe pick at minimum ten songs that could be interpreted by students in short essay papers. There are going to be 50 kids in the class so if you have at least 10 songs that would be five students per song, and perhaps they could choose then which one to write about. I'd need the songs that I picked to have clear historical or social themes that could frame a paper. It would also probably help to pick songs from one region, as that would make the accompanying lectures more coherent. If I opened it up to anything then we would be having to cover everything from the Delta to the Appalachians and so forth. It might get unwieldy at that point. On the other hand maybe you could just identify a body of songs that deal with the Depression, and orient the papers around that. Allen I'm going to send you a message in a moment.

I'm hoping the Organissimo community can help me. Next Fall I am teaching an undergraduate course on American history post-1865. It's a general survey course, and I'll have a lot of freshmen and sophomores in my class. This is somewhat outside of my field--my Master's is in American history, but my doctorate work is African history. When I teach African history, I always make sure to incorporate African music as a way of elucidating larger historical themes, and I'd like to do the same for American history. The idea that I have would be to focus on the Blues of the early to mid-twentieth century, using the texts of songs as a way to understand American cultural themes about race, class, sex, labor, mobility, etc. I thought I might assign a book like Robert Palmer's Deep Blues to give a broader and readable contextualization of Blues music, but I'd also like to try to put together a project on the Blues, using actual recordings and maybe song lyrics. Do you guys think that sounds like a workable plan? What texts or perhaps what song compilations might be useful? Any feedback is most welcome.

Continuing my journey through many of the recordings recommended in this thread, I've been listening to the T-Bone Walker Capitol recordings, and the music provides such a nice contrast from the rawer blues of some of the other guys I've been listening to. I find his playing to be so wonderfully laid back, it makes me want to relax on the couch and drink until I'm barely able to stand. Also, I finished reading Robert Palmer's Deep Blues, which I found to be very engaging. The broad outlines of the subject were already familiar to me, but Palmer has a deft touch when it comes to humanizing his subjects, and I really appreciated that. Next year, it looks like I'm going to be teaching at least one class on Modern U.S. history for the first time (I'm an African historian by training) and I'm already thinking of doing a major section on the blues, with an assigned book (Palmer, or something else if I can find something better for an undergraduate audience) and maybe some recordings as well.

What is the best choice for James's later sessions with Fire, Enjoy, etc? It appears there are a number of different collections out there.

So, a first observation as I begin to absorb the music I bought as a result of this thread: Elmore James. Holy shit, Elmore James. Listening to the early recordings 3-cd set on Ace, and the music seems to offer an almost perfect blend of raw vocals and slide guitar. I've been listening this week to Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, all of it so far is various degrees of good. But Elmore James is, for me, operating at another level. I've been listening to this set for the last three days, and I can't get past disc one because I just keep replaying it and replaying it. The blues elements found in his music are so familiar to me, being an American who has grown up listening to American music, but there is an element to his voice and his guitar that feels otherworldly and immortal. It can't possibly get any better than this, can it?

Some of the stuff from the Brotherhood of Breath has always sounded joyful to me.

So I've gone ahead and ordered the T-Bone Walker Imperial Recordings and Capitol Black and White recordings, as well as the John Lee Hooker Legendary Modern Recordings. Later, I'm thinking of making a run at some of the Chess boxes, particularly Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters. I love educating myself on styles of music that I have paid little attention to in the past.

Thanks for all the recs (and whatever others you guys may add). I love starting these threads because the collective knowledge and passion found in this forum always results in an avalanche of good stuff that I've never heard of or considered before.

One last bump. Two sets are left, I've slashed the prices one more time on each if anyone is interested.

Where might be the best place to start with T-Bone Walker? The OOP Mosaic is prohibitively expensive...

I need to expand my understanding of blues music from the 1940s and 1950s especially. All that I have in this direction is the five disc Chess box set that samples that label's output. Any other recommendations are very much welcome. I have a preference for box sets just because I like methods of chronicling the music that are more thorough and comprehensive. Thanks!

Yes, it is.

Looking up some of these titles now, is the Penguin Guide to Blues Recordings better than the AMG guide? The online reviews seem to favor the AMG a bit.... I have to say, the Marybeth Hamilton book sounds really interesting to me.

That's really well-written, Allen. Thanks for sharing. This is giving me a lot to think about. In general I like provocative arguments, even if they are flawed; I like tracing the history of an idea, even an idea that might be out of date or wrong. I like histories that are more poetic than "objective" (since nothing is objective anyway), and I love good writing. I think I will snoop around my academic library and see what I find, then go from there. This has been really helpful. I knew you guys would come through!

So, far, far, too late, I've been getting into listening to blues music recently (Blind Willie McTell, Charley Patton, Bessie Smith, etc.) and need to know what are the best books out there on the history of the blues. Basically the only thing I've read that touches on the topic is Leroi Jones's Blues People.