Rabshakeh

That looks interesting. Does it collect specific LPs? Discogs is not much help.

Yeah. Not just samples of jazz music. Despite the -tronica name, there seems to be an emphasis in most of these groups on "real" instruments. But the actual deployment of the instruments seems to be quite different to jazz. It is a long way divorced from concepts of swing or "soul", but I suppose that if your starting point for jazz is Jan Garbarek or the EST then it makes more sense. Often it seems closer to minimalist composition or new age music to my ears.

Thanks again.

Thank you. On the spectrum, it does seem very wide. All of these are apparently "future jazz", which seems to be another name for the same thing. Which Erik Truffaz albums do you rate?

Thanks!

My listening sometimes goes down rabbit holes. This week it is the concept of 'jazztronica', i.e. hip hop or electronic music, chilled, glitchy or whatever, that claims jazz lineage. Sometimes called 'nu jazz' (terrible name) or various other titles chosen in the proliferation of the internet age. Seems to have come into existence at some point in the late 00s, and continued in my peripheral vision without me paying much attention to it. A lot of this stuff is just horrible and vapid chill out background stuff. Like acid jazz before it, most has no jazz in it at all and is just electronica or tepid hip hop beats with a sampled saxophone thrown in from time to time. I have been interested though to find a fair amount where the music does show genuine links to e.g. jazz fusion or to ECM or ACT style jazz, or where the jazz or fusion elements are built into something more interesting and 'new". There is also quite a lot of chopped up producer-ey music that would, if it were released on a label like International Anthem, be received as a new jazz release, but because it is on an electronica label, it is considered something else. A big and ill defined genre, if it even is that, which can at best be defined with an "I know it when I see" it methodology. I have posted a couple of these in the Listening To thread over the past few days. Anyway, I suspect that this is not the forum for it (nu jazz seems to be a bit of a Reddit scene) but, given the depth of knowledge on this forum, I thought I would ask if anyone has any good records that they'd recommend from this sort of area. Glitchy or chilled, it's all welcome. There are a few members who I suspect may know some secret good records in this area. Edit: Also, any records that you think we're foundational or historically to the idea of 'nu jazz'.

Bernard Purdie – Purdie Good! Taking a break from boring myself senseless with minutely observed 'jazztronica' to play some really real real music.

Which record was that you were listening to? I like this one a lot. Very loose and imaginative and not too stuck in a swing rhythm when it doesn't want to be.

I really enjoyed it. Strangely emotional music. I don't know the first but I will certainly give it a listen.

Szun Waves – Earth Patterns (Leaf, 2022)

What was it?

Squarepusher – Music Is Rotted One Note I've been trying to "educate" myself recently on perceived jazz-adjacent genres of the internet age like "Nu Jazz", "Dark Jazz" and "Jazztronica". Mostly these are jazz in no apparent sense, and the connection between my favourite genre and what is essentially electronic chill out music bewilders me. Also, most of these records don't appeal at all. This is one of the first that I have really enjoyed. I followed Squarepusher for the preceding but, whilst I knew he was an accomplished bassist, I had not realised that he'd taken this turn into music that is at least clearly informed by jazz fusion.

Jo Privat – Manouche Partie

I find that most Shepp records from this era have one good “single” track and a bunch of phoned in filler.

O'Donel Levy – Everything I Do Gonna Be Funky Ah, the 1970s.

I was typing the same thing.

I enjoyed this very short interview with Daunik Lazro on FJB: https://www.freejazzblog.org/2023/05/daunik-jazz-maverick-daunik-lazro-story.html?m=1 I know there's some Lazro-heads on here so I thought that I would share.

Sam Rivers' Rivbea All-star Orchestra – Aurora First listen to this in over a decade. I am less into it than I was. The rhythms, which were exactly what I liked about it, seem very dated and 1990s now. How is this one? It looks like quite a promising mix of musicians.

Sammy Rimington & The Return Of The Mouldy 5 – Reed My Lips A lot of very average trad stuff out there but this one is absolutely great.

I'm a solicitor, so I can confirm that. All firms that I have worked in have been very clearly split: The lawyers generally like international rugby. There are exceptions. Among the Brits, I find that football sometimes follows a city upbringing whereas rugby generally follows the rural and public school upbringing of the greater majority of lawyers in the City. Certainly the assumption is that people in the City will naturally enjoy rugby. Non-lawyers like secretaries, IT and print room staff tend to like club football pretty much exclusively. On the other hand, most of my friends are journalists (for reasons that are obscure to me), an equally middle class job but one where football is as widespread as mockney accents, and rugby might as well not exist. I have always enjoyed the idea of cricket, but never really found the time to understand it. It's funny. Always Arsenal or Chelsea, at least for the Brits. Semi-ironic West Ham fandom hasn't made it to the City yet.

As @mjazzgpoints out, this is partly a class issue. Rugby (Union) and cricket are games you can talk about in "polite" circles. Football (and in the North Rugby League) is not considered so polite. Rugby vs football remains an important and quite complex social cue for Brits of all sorts, even now, although quite what the cue is does differ by age, class, regional / national background, and how the person to whom you are speaking seems to project themselves. A major difference is in the team following. Rugby and cricket do not have anything like the following at the local / team level that football has. Instead, they are far more about the national game. Cricket at county level is almost a joke. I find that in a white collar work or social context in England you will hear a lot more about rugby and cricket, since you will typically be hearing the conversation of middle class people, sometimes from international backgrounds. The friendly rivalry between the national teams is a very important part of rugby and cricket. Tickets to rugby or cricket are a far more common choice for entertaining prestigious clients than tickets to a football match. Conversely, football remains king across most of the country and has its own set of social cues.

My five year old is desperate to go to a game. I've been waiting to pick it until we are on a run of some sort of form. The last thing I want is for his first experience of live football to be miserable faces, booing and endless fearful long balls. He has the rest of his life as a football fan for that.

Jones Jones - Just Justice Larry Ochs, Mark Dresser and Vlad Tarasov. Good stuff. I'm a lot cooler on Halsall and collaborators than most on this forum but I do like this record a lot.

I find the college system in the US really interesting. Lots of my American colleagues are only interested in sports at the college level. It is interesting to me how that shows through. Perceived as more local and more intense. Also the only franchise in many parts of the country where the ability to start a team at grass roots level is restricted. I suppose our closest here is the Championship (2nd tier) game, which does has more "heart" and more local feeling. Although having sat through the relentless negativism of the last season at my club, I'm not sure how much more local feeling I can take.

I think I most enjoyed his first book, The Rachel Papers, before he had really established himself as Martin Amis. Sad to hear of his passing, as with any giant.