Rabshakeh

John Scofield - Meant To Be John Scofield's one of those guys whose output I consistently quite enjoy but never really love. This record adds Joe Lovano to that, so a double helping, really.

Good / bad / meh?

There are a few Coltrane imitators out there who really get it, but mostly it's just throwing a spoiler on a Subaru and calling it a race car. It would be quite fun assigning the followers to the different periods, though. Overall, I am surprised by the lack of love for the Atlantics upthread. What the Atlantic period really has going is its consistency. Coltrane's 2.5 Impulse! eras are marred by some of his weaker records at least to my dumb ears, even if none of them is lacking a spark.

Spinning this one again. It borders on a very satisfying sort of esoteric cool.

RIP. A very significant character in jazz at precisely the point I was getting into the genre. RIP.

Does anyone know anything about the German Jeton label? It seems to have released a lot of jazz records during its years, including by some name players, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen any reference to any of the albums.

Hans Koller – Relax With My Horns

Stan Kenton! Tex Ritter!

David Liebman – The Loneliness Of A Long Distance Runner

I'm going for "Other" for the last three records, particularly Interstellar Space. That music seems to me to be completely different to what Coltrane was playing on records like Meditations. Otherwise, I'd go for Atlantic.

Very nice one. John Butcher - The Very Fabric First listen to this one. I don't know how the forum's other Butchomaniacs have found it, but it seems one of the more disappointing of his releases.

Cleveland Eaton – Half And Half

I saw them opening for Taylor Swift at the O2 and had to pick this one up.

Axel Dörner And Fred Lonberg-Holm – Object 1

Big push for Sud here. Don't know Bars either but will check it out.

Benny Carter – Sax A La Carter! With these swing records you never really know whether it is going to be a blues jam or something that really sparkles. Others might disagree with me but this really seems to be right up there in the great small group swing records. It's a real shame it has a lame name and a terrible cover.

I've always been fascinated by how jazz jazz musicians formed networks, based around geographic location, family, friendship groups, band membership and label affiliation. There's a real thrill when you suddenly become aware of a new network of musicians that you did not know previously, and can enjoy exploring their interconnecting leader and sideman dates. One piece of advice that I always give to new jazz listeners is to pick favourite records from the obvious start jazz records and then "follow the sidemen". With that as an introduction, does anyone know whether anyone has ever carried out a social network analysis of jazz players? For anyone to whom the term is new, a social network analysis is a business/marketing tool (never entirely sure what it is for) that analyses social data points and produces fun graphics that look like this example that I randomly stole from LinkedIn: What they tend to show is core social networks surrounding key figures, which are then connected by other figures, who may be peripheral to any single core networks but perform an important social role sitting between them. It would be interesting to see something of the sort. The data is right there on discogs. Just the thing for a bright young child study Jazz with Computer Science at university.

I must say that I have enjoyed this thread. It started.on the assumption that there wasn't much, and it has helped to show what there was, the key big bands who were there, and the networks of musicians who played together.

I've checked against my own samples and they don't match.

Not written, but I have a Paul Desmond bossa record on the inner sleeve of which someone has left a perfect lipstick kiss. I found it very appropriate.

Leni Stern – Clairvoyant (Passport, 1986) It strikes me that it is actually quite rare to have straight ahead jazz records that sound authentically "1980s" in the way that rock records do. I mean records like this or Steps Ahead's releases. It is quite a different production style to the more famous neo-bopper records on Columbia etc.

Simon H. Fell – Composition No. 12.5 (Compilation II For Improvisers, Jazz Ensemble And Electronics)

Louis Armstrong And His Band, Dave Brubeck, Lambert, Hendricks And Ross, Carmen McRae – The Real Ambassadors "When our neighbours call us vermin, we send them Woody Herman".

If it was me, I'd have gone for: Now.... Jazz! Ramwong!!!!!! Feeding the Ostalgie brigade with their austere soviet typology.

Is this good? Looks great. I have the earlier two in my intimidatingly long 'To Listen' list