Joe

Been catching up recently with Harrell's Highnote discs of the last few years. VERY impressive stuff: Harrell's compositions almost never fail to offer something of interest, and hes assembled a pretty crackling quintet. NUMBER 5, the latest release by this group, features different combinations and re-combinations of Harrell, Wayne Escoffery (ts), Danny Grissett (keys), Ugonna Okegwo (b) & Johnathan Blake (d). But THE TIME OF THE SUN from 2011 is, IMO, the best of these recitals I've heard thus far. Overall, or in every dimension, Harrell may just now be making the finest music of his career.

T-Bone's Imperial recordings are pretty essential, and remain in-print... http://www.amazon.com/Imperial-Recordings-T-Bone-Walker/dp/B00000DRCV As a single-disc summary of T-Bone's whole thing, his Atlantic LP is not a bad way to go: If you can find the non-Mosaic issue of his Capitol / Black & White recordings (used copies turn up every now and again, and there's always iTunes)... Oh, and as far as Lightnin' Hopkins goes...

Marion Brown's first ESP date: Ronnie Boykins and Reggie Johnson. http://www.espdisk.com/official/catalog/1022.html

Soon to be reissued by a new Italian label [?], seriE.WOC. Vinyl only, it appears. For those of us Statestide...Dusty Groove will be stocking this. You can preview a track here.

Bummer. A great rock eccentric. And too young.

Yea, I noticed he was playing a gig / some gigs (one at The Echo / Echoplex for sure) around LA late last year, with promise of a tour. Excited about the "new" music and wish the dude would come to TX... even Austin would be acceptable (well, just so long as it's not for either SXSW or ACL...)

The MONK'S CASINO set is worth acquiring... http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=17548#.UR_LYuh0NgA

Hmmm... not sure I could single out a performance per se. Certainly, something about the length of Sonny's phrases, the way they move with respect to "bar lines" (I'm not really equipped for this kind of musical analysis; just trying to describe what I hear) "feels" Tristano-like to me. The tune itself, harmonically, is rather Powell-like, but I think this performance from Sonny' trio record for Time shows evidence of the Lennie influence... FWIW, Clark also names Tristano as a pianist he admires in the notes to COOL STRUTTIN'.

To my ears: its interesting to consider this question in the context of Sonny Clark's playing. Both Evans and Clark owe a lot to Tristano, whose approach to the blues was, what idiosyncratic? Oblique? But he certainly had a grasp of the form / that mode of expression / the blues as -- to borrow from poetic discourse -- "occasion." E.g., his famous "Requiem." The Tristano influence is most noticeable in Evans' and Clarlk's early work, but, as much as their later paths diverge, they still can be seen as running in parallel. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFuzZ8LZtkA

Those B-Gs LPs are fine, for sure. But just cut to the chase and spin Post-psychedelic before psychedelia had even run its course.

Well, I would say there's what's out there, generally, and there's what people hear and become influenced by and then, in turn, turn into something that influences others. We can complain about Glasper's knowledge and taste all we want -- and Dilla's, too -- but if that's what musicians are hearing, and that's the raw material they are working with... what are you going to do? No argument hear about Higgins' greatness, or that Tom Rainey is a fine, fine musician, but I don't believe that necessarily what's at issue. It's sort of like the notion of "proper English". It would be great is there were universal acceptance of such a thing (though would the consequences be ideal / utopian? I somehow doubt it) and the reality is that usage rule, and it's dominion is a mess, with all the good and bad that comes with that chaos -- or ferment, depending on your point-of-view.

TRUTH!

True. One wonders at the author's sample size (pun maybe intended). Glasper, Riggins, Osby (sort of)... but how far and wide does knowledge of Dilla and Dilla's own influences reach into the community of those musicians who might classify themselves as jazz improvisors? Still, I appreciate one of the major points here: that jazz is much more than improvisation, or, perhaps better, that the focus on improvisation among both practitioners and scholars has perhaps unbalanced our understanding and appreciation of these other essential elements of the music.

An NPR article of some interest / provocation... http://www.npr.org/b...great-innovator My own opinion: now's the time, provided you believe that time could or should ever come.

The title track / composition to John Carter's FIELDS. 20 profound, joyful minutes.

Miles' "Ghetto Walk", from the COMPLETE IN A SILENT WAY box

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQE7pVxPoOw

That Prestige / Status Ahmed Abdul-Malik side with Ray Nance and Seldon Powell - SPELLBOUND - is excellent. Not sure why it never made it to CD in the "classic Fantasy era" either. Also, Ran Blake's RAPPORT (Arista / Novus)... http://ranblake.com/discography/1971-1980/rapport/

Not sure how accurate this is, but... credits go to Billy Preston (tracks: A4), Clarence McDonald (tracks: A3, A5 to B2, B5), Gene Page (tracks: A1, A2), Jerry Peters (tracks: B3, B4), according to http://www.discogs.com/David-T-Walker-David-T-Walker/release/3342494

Featuring both Leon Henderson and (Dr.) Charles Moore...

Yeah, did you see this as well? http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/dc9/2013/01/kkda-am_rip.php Sad... I guess we still have KNON (some hours)...

Of the 3, GROOVE STREET, by virtue of being the last recorded, is probably the most exploratory / revealing... Bill Leslie is a tenor worth hearing, the program includes an early version of "Talkin' About J.C.", and Larry Young just sounds more like Larry Young here, both in terms of ideas and the tonal qualities of his playing. The earlier two dates are fine, and -- to mix a metaphor -- probably best heard through the lens of Young-as-prodigy... he was 19 or 20 when TESTIFYING was waxed.