Rabshakeh

The quality in the Championship this season is crazy, sadly.

It's a really good one. Both have put out some fairly forgettable records, but I liked what they did here a lot.

Ralph Towner / Gary Burton – Matchbook (ECM)

New season. My kid is desperate to go to a football game this season, but it's shaping up to be possibly the most depressing low morale season in my club's history. We live in Arsenal territory, and his uncle is an Arsenal fan. I keep hoping he'll just see sense and I can take him to Emirates.

Sadao Watanabe – How's Everything Streaming to this one now. First listen. Was it a big commercial or critical hit at the time? The YouTube comments are unusually excitable.

Wynton Marsalis – Wynton Marsalis Plays Louis Armstrong's Hot Fives And Hot Sevens (Blue Engine, 2023) Marsalis' new record, just released on a tiny label, to no excitement whatsoever. This is competent unswinging museum-re-enactment quality dixieland. It is not even close to the basic standards of post-war Dixieland Armstrong worship. I find it really absorbing just how extreme Marsalis' fall from relevance has been. It feels like there's no failure too embarrassing. How can a figure like Marsalis have failed to become a respected elder statesman putting out records that still generate a buzz just because of his name? Those of his peers who have survived like Kenny Garrett, Terence Blanchard or James Carter (and in retrospect it does seem like an ill-starred cohort) have fallen into that role nicely. Whereas Marsalis is doing... this. To complete indifference. On the other hand, the amount of time he's spent on early jazz re-enactment recently has given him a new smudgy trumpet tone that I do like. I enjoyed his playing on that Farnsworth record last year. That was leagues better than this. Edit: As has been pointed out below, this is not a new record, but is actually an archival JATLC release from 2006, on its own label.

Welcome!

Oh yeah! A great example. Great stuff. Italy as always showing the sophistication and verve that gave us Giotto, Antonioni and Verdi.

Looks really interesting.

I have never explored Sarah Vaughan's records from the mid 60s to Pablo. It looks like a lot were Vaughan singing pop tunes. I don't recognise almost any of the covers. Are any of these records worth checking out?

Of course. Hence le fromage. I've met many lovely Lithuanians, including from where my family originally came from. Always best to keep things civil, is my view.

I think Quadrophenia and Tommy are probably music tie ins like Buena Vista social club. Was Tommy an album first or a film first?

But other than Superfly, what are we talking?

Taken over by the USSR before the Nazis, I think, as part of Soviet Russia's agreement with Nazi Germany to divide up the area. The territory was then invaded by the Nazis as part of the attack on the USSR, but Lithuania had already lost its independence before that. Its involvement in the Second World War might be politely described as "mixed", and perhaps best left at that. When I first went to Russia as a 14 year old on a school trip, the teachers biggest fears were that we would drink the street vodka. This was in the Yeltsin era, and antifreeze being sold as vodka was a big issue. In this case I think my great uncle just went blind from age (Glaucoma, maybe) and general bloody minded old person's distrust of doctors. Sorry! 🧀

Gil Evans – Svengali Bill Harper / David Sanborn right in the front row. The version of Harper's "Cry of Hunger" on this, with both of them soloing over tight orchestration, may be one of my favourite jazz tunes of the 70s.

I like the idea of opposing sides: Chick, Herbie or ECM. I certainly knew ECM only fans as a youth, but that was the 1990s and by then ECM was a different beast altogether.

What are some examples where a soundtrack to a commercial film is better or more well known than the film itself, or subsequently takes on a life of it's own? Not counting films that are tied in to an album, like Buena Vista Social Club. The Harder They Come has to be the leader. Surely only a fraction of the people who own that soundtrack have even thought of watching the film, although the film itself is sort of low fly good. Superfly, with it's Curtis Mayfield soundtrack is another example. Black Orpheus and Lift to the Scaffold are two other examples, both more closely tied to the jazz world.

Born in Russia in what's now Lithuania but all this happened in South Africa, where he'd emigrated. Blind from age, I think.

I like this kind of thing, so I googled and found the article. It’s basically just a panegyric. Quite disappointing. Also, slightly bizarre the central conceit that Dr. Butler is a forgotten figure - he’s one of the most (in)famous A&R men in jazz.

Darren Barrett – The Attack Of Wren (2004) First listen to this. Generally, I am really glad that we are past era of neo-boppers 'shocking' the public by suddenly making records that Incorporated influences after 1958. I'm sure that Darren Barrett enjoyed hip hop, but he left school in the 80s and it doesn't sound like he had updated his knowledge of hip hop since then before releasing this. The amount of successful records in this bracket is vanishingly small.

With the earlier free jazz groupings, I tend to find that they divide into two: the legends who recorded for Impulse! or Blue Note and the forgotten schlubs who recorded for other labels. I'm not sure there is anything more in it than that. Look at the gap in recognition between Grachan Moncur and your namesake Clifford Thornton, or between Archie Shepp and Frank Wright. Silva is on the wrong side of the retrospective recognition line. No amount of Seasons is going to shift him.

Lu Watters' Yerba Buena Jazz Band – Vol. 1: Dawn Club Favorites In recent explorations of trad jazz, I have tended to find that the records that I enjoy the least are those from the core SF Scene that I think to some extent created the mature revival. This is one of the few records from that scene that I have enjoyed, probably because it is quite early and a lot of work clearly went into making the arrangements as exciting as possible. I can see why this music might be exciting in a way that does not come across with e.g. Turk Murphy's Verve records.

Junior Mance Trio – Happy Time

My great uncle was a roofer. Born in Lithuania and always drank at least two vodkas for breakfast as an eye opener. Later in life he went blind, but still insisted on checking his team's work. You can see where this is going. This is actually a sad story. The headlines over here sold it in a jokey way, as if he'd been killed in a cheese rolling race or something cartoonish. Actually just warehousing racks giving way and crushing an employee to death