Rabshakeh

Candido – Dancin' & Prancin' Happy New Year everyone! Now on to: Keith Rowe – A Dimension Of Perfectly Ordinary Reality Some good smouldering going on there.

Candido – Dancin' & Prancin' Happy New Year everyone!

I think those records he did with Bola Sete could be better known. Even Guaraldi fans rarely seem to speak about them. The first is particularly strong.

James Last – Non Stop Dancing 1973

In case anyone hasn't seen, all the 'other' Charlie Brown specials records have been being released, sometimes for the first time, over the past year or two. Some are pretty good. They're out on vinyl or available to stream.

Buddy Montgomery – Ties

Live at the Bastille (1982), by Maggie Nicols, Joëlle Léandre and Lindsay Cooper

Earth, Wind & Fire - Gratitude Mumps – A Matter Of Taste

Sadly, I think that too is now pretty historical, and by some decades. As I remember, Tex Wyndham had some five way genre distinction: 1. Black Downtown New Orleans Jazz (King Oliver, Louis Armstrong's 5s and 7s, Lu Watters, Turk Murphy), 2. White Downtown New Orleans Jazz (ODJB, NORK, the Dukes, Al Hirt, Pete Fountain), 3. New Orleans Uptown Revival (Bunk Johnson, George Lewis, Ken Colyer), 4. Chicago Style (Condon and co), and 5. European Trad (Ball, Bilk and Barber). I may have misremembered or mischaracterised this. If you read his column it seems like there were different definitions of "classic jazz", with some festivals permitting some styles and others not. Wyndham was very condescending in his pleas for forbearance and understanding. It's like a glimpse into a vanished world.

Rimington is exactly the sort of person I had in mind, and I have a couple of those. I was also thinking of Tex Wyndham and his bands. He published a monthly column at one point which is now available on the Syncopated Times website. It is full of comments about how people should live and let live, even if "Chicago Style" jazz isn't really jazz and its followers will burn in hell. Yeah. Cullum is good.

Earth, Wind & Fire - Faces

Most years around this time, I snatch a begrudging Scrooge-like look at critics' end of year lists, to see what overhyped and soon to be forgotten jazz and improv releases the critics are pushing that year, give a few a cursory stream, and then go retire back to my counting house, cursing the times. But this year, it seems to me like there's been a real upswing in quality. I'm really impressed by what I have been hearing. This could be a feature of my age, but, for once there are a lot of records that I really enjoyed and will definitely go back to. They are also quite evenly spread between established and new artists, and across different styles and genres. The last time I enjoyed my end of year listens this much it was that pre pandemic period when International Anthem, Relative Pitch and the new London, LA, Chicago and SA scenes were all kicking into gear. I can't see any such narrative here. Just lots of unexpectedly good releases. I'm not able to set down my list just now (family times!) but will do so in the period between Christmas and New Year. But in the meantime, I'd love to hear other forum members' views, and any favourites.

Thanks, I will listen to that one. I love Hodes. I'm looking for slightly less A list bands: Those groups of portly men who were born in the 1940s and by the 1980s were playing the dixieland festival circuit in straw hats and stained stripey shirts, selling CDs at the merch table, and arguing about whether or not Eddie Condon should even be considered jazz, with beer foam on their beards. I'm making this all up, but hopefully you get the drift. Some of that music is quite good in its way and I enjoy it. I don't know how many fans of that sort of music are on this forum, but thought it was worthwhile asking. As always, the 1980s - 1990s is a hard area to research via the internet, and trad / classic jazz more difficult than others.

What about the Victorian wassailing classic "Ko-Ko"?

Here's a hyper specific one: does anyone have any suggestions for good records by the established Dixieland / classic jazz / trad bands that used to play the traditional jazz festival circuit in the 1980s-90s, pumping out music in their competing micro-niches. I'm thinking of bands like the Black Eagles. Fully anticipating crickets on this one, but if anyone has any that they feel like suggesting I'd welcome them. Edit: I don't think I have asked this before but there's a prospect that I might have done. I have checked but can't find.

Charlie Parker And The Stars Of Modern Jazz At Carnegie Hall, Christmas 1949

For me it isn't Wynton. He is charismatic and he gets to explain some of what's happening musically. I agree with @Stompin at the Savoy - Much worse than Wynton are all the Wynton-adjacent critics, like Gary Giddins. They just wiffle on and say nothing at all. The series has some major issues. The two worst elements for me are the absurd amount of time allocated to Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington postwar, and the general collapse in coverage once you move past 1947. The best episodes are the ones on swing music, including early Ellington, but particularly on the swing music of the 1940s. Episodes 4, 5 and 6 are really quite strong.

Blind James Campbell And His Nashville Street Band

There's the Mance Lipscomb version too. Same great cracked vocal moments on that. A favourite of mine.

I gotcha

I've been trying to process for a few days. As I have mentioned in the past, my wider family were South Africans who left or were forced to leave in the 1960s as part of the same wave as the Blue Notes, in the wake of Sharpesville and Rivonia. For my parents' and grandparents' generations, the members of the Blue Notes were standard names. People whom they knew by sight and (in an either more or less limited way) socially. Even my father, never a jazz fan or a member of jazz-adjacent politically engaged circles (at least once he had come to England), could name them all. I think Moholo was the last of the Blue Notes. In truth, I maybe never fell deeply in love with their music, and, as I say upthread, I was not aware that he was still alive. Nonetheless, it is very sad news, part of the passing of those generations that had so much heart and integrity. Of the surviving members of my family my aunt and a cousin-once-removed, both on my father's side, are perhaps the last who knew him (the more hardcore SACP / jazz fan family members who were closely involved in those circles pre-emigration are long since dead). I have long since stopped notifying them of deaths, as it is getting too personally painful for them. Apologies for the egotistical post, but it is going to be a sad few years, as all the remaining legends pass.

This is a brilliant description. Give us an example, please.

Sad news.

I forget the exact wording but I think it was recommending things to do. Drink in a traditional pub in Bayswater, eat fish and chips and enjoy the north / south divide, was it, as I recall. Sorry to hear it. There is a level of unpleasantness that we are put to by modern technology enabled services that our grandparents would never have put up with.

Again, if you feed people a diet of Marvel films don't be surprised when people can't tell the difference between AI and the 'real thing'.