Rabshakeh

I'm not sure I have ever seen the essays and booklet going for sale on their own in contrast to Mosaics where you sometimes do.

You flagging this record has made me revisit it. I realise that I had completely confused this record with the Seikatsu Kojo Iinkai album with Doc Umezu, William Parker and Rashied Ali. This is such a killer. Abe (a lifelong obsession of mine) and Kondo playing second fiddle to Graves at his best. I can’t believe I had basically ignored it until now.

I'm sadly post-CD these days, but I've always dreamt of owning this set - one of the few box sets that I really lust after. I've had a lifelong obsession with Patton's music, but most available sets and literature are pretty lacking. I'd love to get my hands on those accompanying notes and essay. Here's my favourite Patton track: Jim Lee Blues, Pt. 1:

What's the Britschlager?

Really enjoyed these two this morning.

I recently came across this interesting snippet from an interview with British husband and wife Johnny Dankworth and Cleo Laine: "The pair will bicker good-humouredly about the minutiae of their biographies. When I suggest that their role in British jazz goes way beyond that of their contemporaries, Cleo immediately says: "John more than me really. Anybody that plays an instrument, and writes music, is much more historically important." "On the contrary, John interrupts, "vocalists draw bigger crowds." "That's got nothing to do with the evolution of a music," Cleo responds, "unless they're iconic figures." "So, strike off Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday and the rest from American jazz history," John replies. "You can't win like that." "All right, dear, I concede, Cleo responds unconvincingly. "You're more important than you think, that's what it amounts to, darling," says John, now turned peacemaker" (Jazz UK, 2008e, interview by Heining). I thought it was interesting in the light of the above discussion. What I make of it is that Cleo Laine did not really see jazz vocalists as part of the jazz tradition: more a non-jazz accretion from Jazz's days as pop music who continued to be useful to the music from a commercial perspective only. Essentially, the vocalists who sing in a jazz setting (save for a very limited handful who have adapted what they do to jazz) are essentially *doing* pop or show tune style singing over jazz backing. It is a provocative view with which I do not agree at all. But it interested me because, if adopted, it would explain the difficulty in categorising jazz vocalists in any coherent tradition of their own, and also go some way to explaining why so many jazz fans don't like vocal jazz. The main reason I don't agree with it is I think it adopts value judgements about importance / quality with which I disagree, and because it reflects a view of genre and evolution that I think is restrictive.

This one has Stanley Turrentine on, though.

I am interested that noone has mentioned the occasional run of Great American Songbook records by more recent pop musicians. Perhaps because very few people have been "surprised by the results". Also, no Frankie Laine? Jazz Bonanza is the first record that popped into my head here.

For anyone interested, this Instagram account often posts interesting looking jazz records from Argentina, Brazil and around: https://instagram.com/today_in_fat_wax?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

My little brother bought me a Casiopia record for my birthday. Not sure why but it is a sweet gesture. I put on another Casiopia record that I own, and my sister in law laughed and said it sounded like "shopping music".

What an interesting concept.

What a great thread this is.

Visually. Ugly artwork on piss-yellow background. Thanks!

Repulsive cover. How's the music?

I'd be interested to know about those records id you recall.

I love this record. Those Verve recordings really were incredible. Such a mood, but then the trombone tone excels even that.

Warsaw Stompers – New Orleans Stomper Some Polish dixieland. I was listening to that one yesterday.

I guess there was a Caesar's Palace record after all, even if it wasn't quite the 'Vegas musicians' own scene' thing that I was getting at.

On a slightly separate note, you would think that the big bands there would have tried to record. It would have been good publicity, if nothing else: Nestor Snodgrass and the Caesar's Palace Centurions!!!!!! The Biggest Band in Vegas Plays the Hits!!!!!! (RCA, 1958)

I wish I could remember the names of the individuals who went to Vegas who led me to start this thread. I'd come across two quite recently.

Las Vegas was presumably comparatively important to a jazz (or jazz adjacent pop) musician trying to get by during the lean years, equivalent to other drop-out-of-the-game contexts like the studios a few years earlier, or rock session musician work. Nonetheless, it strikes me that very few musicians were able to pick up a jazz career around or after working in Las Vegas, and there were very few records that have emerged from their experience of playing in Las Vegas. In the other contexts mentioned above, musicians collecting their paycheck seem to have fraternised and played together. There are occasional records and groups that emerged (Steps on the East Coast probably being the biggest one, but there were plenty of examples of LA musicians cutting records with studio colleagues). But Vegas seems to have given rise to very little. You'd think that different casino's orchestras might have cut the occasional record playing jazz charts to show their firepower, or that there'd have been after hours jam sessions by frustrated horn section players. But overall, it just seems like a dead zone. Despite the fact that there were a number of well drilled groups playing there at one time it is hard to name even a single player who was part of the scene (although I have read a few Wikipedia entries that mention players ending up there). Interested in forum members' views.

Spring Heel Jack • The Blue Series Continuum – Masses I re-listened to Amassed not too long ago and came to the conclusion that it had aged badly, although the fact is that I probably always enjoyed this one more at the time. Relistening now, following a summer spent partly listening to all kinds of terrible 'nu jazz ' and 'jazztronica', I am struck by how un-dated it sounds. What an incredible line up it was. Just a solid gold jazz record.

I agree. I remember having two ideas about jazz as a kid (both stupid in retrospect): the Fast show 'Jazz Club' guy (not sure whether he got to the US but this was a major blocker for younger jazz fans in the UK in the 1990s); and the image of Sinatra / Bennett and Co singing to their aging audiences. Both were strong turn offs.

I don't know him. With what album would you start?

I bought it there. It is definitely an OTO book... Really enjoying it though.