Dub Modal

Ha, well it's definitely short on details. What I got out that video was exposure to that Tone Dialing album which was playing in the background throughout. I'd never heard it but was digging it the whole time. So I YT'd it as well. Interesting comment from someone on that Harmolodics video too about running into OC at an uptown train depot, with OC relating he moved uptown b/c he got jumped. Sad. Now if you'll excuse me I need to replenish the mild & honey on my OC shrine...

JM's with John Gilmore, Victor Sproles & John Hicks.

Mandrill is pretty forgotten these days but what a monster band they were.

Has his Rejoicing album been mentioned yet? It's a great one. I'd put anything with Lyle Mays here too.

Is it a modern recording at least - like something from the 90s on? That guitar tone is so familiar...

Exactly. Create a strawman or scapegoat a baddie and clothe your savior(s) in righteousness against this evil force. No matter if it's all BS, so long as the reader and listener believe that it's true, or truthy, that's all that matters.

Getting close to reveal time so I wanted to revisit. I got nothin'...unless that's Scofield and Lovano on track 3?

As I read that NYT link I sense a "passing of the torch" trope, with a hint of "can they do it? YES! they can" type of victory lap. Some gems from that link...like how the guys from Miles' SGQ sold out first before coming back to the real stuff - and guess who was there: " So one by one, Mr. Shorter, Mr. Hancock, Mr. Williams, and many of their associates abandoned the poised, exceptionally creative smallgroup improvising that had occupied them for the better part of a decade...and the music being made by most of Mr. Davis's ex-sidemen was becoming increasingly formulaic and predictable..." But then: " Whenever they temporarily abandoned their presumably more lucrative commercial careers to play the sort of jazz that had originally made them famous, it was an event. .. Mr. Shorter, Mr. Williams and Mr. Hancock, along with their contemporaries Charlie Haden and Bobby Hutcherson, play in varying combinations on three of the album's four sides, along with the much younger trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, and they play brilliantly. The music is freer and more adventurous than much of what they played on the Blue Note albums of the mid-1960's.." " In a sense, the Young Lions of the 1980's are finishing the work the Lions of the 1960's began, mediating between the jazz tradition and the latest innovations... Their task is to make room in the jazz mainstream for all this input, and they seem determined to do so without sacrificing the swing or the blues-derived expressive devices of the older jazz forms." So it's not overt, but the saving jazz does seem to be there. Thank you. Will check out the Chinen book...and I agree with you that sometimes these promoted artists are worthy, and maybe more often not. One thing about that indie label stuff though, always look to see who the parent company is. I had no idea that Ninja Tune Inc. was doing billions in business. Of course, jazz and other niche markets are only pieces of that music catalog, but the fact they put this stuff out means it makes them money. Which means there's some commercial viability, especially if these albums become modern classics and can eventually be shifted to legacy products and mined for reissues etc.

Going to make some time for your other shows as well.

Good question - I would guess that these folks were essentially acting as marketers for the movement. Not so much by way of printed ads, etc. but via periodical columns, interviews, etc. that have messages that get broadcasted further should other major media outlets pick them up. Whatever it was, their influence got amplified to the point where they were still a commanding force for the Burns doc...which has been replaying lately. Crouch & Marsalis telling stories about Sidney Bechet just seems like bona fide theater of the absurd to me.

Sparked by a comment in the 80s jazz album thread about how the Young Lion "movement" in the 80s was an example of corporate astroturfing (something I tend to agree with as a distinct possibility), and the fact that I don't want to crowd that thread with extraneous discussion, I figured I'd put this here to live or die, and will probably regret doing so but whatever - it's miscellaneous at least. While the focus of the below tweets - note, not my own - is on current musical pop culture, the same concept probably applies to just about all genres of music published on major labels. I wasn't into jazz back when the YL's were advertised as saving jazz, and I certainly don't fault most of those artists that were able to cash in, produce records, get gigs and have careers and whatnot, especially if they didn't backstab during the whole process. But the message of "saving jazz," attached to that promotion was indeed phony and manufactured. At a high level review of trends within jazz and improvisational music since that happened, it seems that there haven't really been any further astroturfing trends that were as aggressive against its own scene as the YL trend was, and that's a good thing. For instance, I don't detect shade being thrown in promo stuff for an artist like Kamasi Washington. His label for The Epic was Brainfreeze, whose ultimate parent is Ninja Tune which reports billions in revenue.

I know they became the label that reissued the Nighthawk catalog (reggae) and did so on both CD and LP. I only got one of those CDs, but reports I've read about their vinyl were positive. Seems they put in solid efforts regarding SQ and pressing quality.

The set will more than likely sell out, similar to the Mobley set. There's probably plenty of interest for the amount of sets they'll produce. Maybe they don't think they need to market it as much due to that, but it just seems to me that additional traffic to their site would also help sell some other sets that are sitting in inventory (or possibly with hold orders until enough sets are ordered).

Good lord when I read that top post ad from "DL Media Music" I swear I thought it read "Di Meola Music" and wondered if ol' Al had gone into production or publishing too.

I love the grooves on that record. No shame in the game!

So many good albums there. And astroturfing is probably the correct word for that situation back then. Don't know who the publicist/agent/marketing team involved was but they obviously had good connections. A few more 80s albums I enjoy: That's obviously a comp that was released in '88 And some more:

That would indeed be bizarre and raises questions in my mind about them continuing to be a going concern. Get those other sets while you can I guess.

They gotta do better though. Emails and word of mouth are a bare minimum in terms of real advertising. Doesn’t cost them anything to put stuff on their blog and other avenues of digital marketing can be cheap as well. I have to think they know this....

Some great albums here. I'll try and list some that I really enjoy without repetition of what's already been mentioned: That'll do for now...tons more. Just about the entire Bee Hive catalog could be posted.

Mosaic - so bizarre these days. They don't advertise their products nor their consignment deals for other labels like Resonance & Dot Time. Not even on their own Jazz Gazzette blog! For example, they've got the Nat King Cole 10 LP set at $150 which is about $50 off Resonance's own site. There's several other deals from that label but they just don't tell anyone. You have to stumble onto the True Blue page to even find them. That there's absolutely no mention of this Joe Henderson set anywhere other than here and maybe some other forums is crazy. They've really given up.

At the very least the Mosaic set should drop prices on those single discs like the one linked above.

Waiting to see this Joe Henderson track list like

Great stuff! I dig VF too. Common One less so...