Rabshakeh

Florian Arbenz - Conversation 5: Elemental (Hammer, 2022)

It's pretty divisive stuff. I find early electric Ornette very hard to handle and Ulmer a little hard baked, but love later electric Ornette, The Decoding Society and Music Revelation Ensemble. Some of it clicketh and some of it don't. Show Stopper by Jamaladeen Tacuma is a great example of a harmolodic funk record that is still easy on the ears. Love that record and worth a spin.

Florian Arbenz: Conversation #8 Definitely enjoying this one. With thanks to @mjazzg

There've been some recent Don Byas posts. Where next to go with Byas after Minton's, the Savoy comp and Anthropology?

Weird good. It’s a fusion record but very murky. Bits made me think of Jimmy Giuffre or “Planet Caravan” by Black Sabbath. That kind of weird.

Weird!

Jorge López Ruiz – Viejas Raices (EMI, 1975)

Does anyone know whether this is still happening?

I only know the Cannonball. Which other Wilson records do you most recommend?

Chile con Soul’s a great record.

I was listening to this in the car this afternoon as snow started pelting down (the first snow my kids have ever seen). Whilst I am by no means that target audience, it is by a long way my favourite Christmas jazz record, along with the Carla Bley record. Possibly runner up goes to the Kenny Burrell.

I was listening to the Stuttgart and Bremen records two weeks ago, and I was surprised how up-to-date they sound. They could have come out on Clean Feed or Intakt in 2014.

I hadn't realised that The Grateful Dead were so directly influenced by Cream.

I briefly worked for The Gramophone, where the BBC Music Magazine was considered the enemy. Sadly over the last decade Gramophone has collapsed; always pleased to see that the BBC Music Mag is still going.

L., S. - F., M. – Adonis 21.10.1983 (JnD, 1984)

Interesting. I'll check it out.

I have just seen on Wikipedia that Charles Mingus wrote a guide to toilet training domestic housecats. Has anyone read it?

Charles Mingus / John LaPorta – Jazzical Moods (Bethlehem, 1954) This is music to get lost in. It's a shame that the sound quality is quite flat. That smokey mixture of Thad Jones and John LaPorta, and the weird and intricate arrangements.

I don't know how everyone else feels, but I am struggling to follow it. It just doesn't feel like a world cup. The quality of the football has been abysmal in the games that I have watched. It's always fairly weak in world cup games, but this has been real lower league scrabbly stuff. There've been all sorts of upsets, but I think a lot just comes down to the fact that it is December, mid-season for most football leagues.

Just finished streaming: Jazz Ensemble Boomerang (Melodiya, 1983) Now on: Gianni Gebbia - Augmenta Vol III: Early Music (2020)

Thanks. I'll give it a go. Looks like it's from slightly later on.

I'm a big fan of this late one. All kinds of stuff happening. Should be listened to as a new wave classique rather than a late period jazz record. Is this good? Norman Connors – Saturday Night Special (Buddah, 1975) I have always struggled a bit with Norman Connors. Like Weldon Irvine and a lot of "New Note" stuff, it is, to my ears, neither fish nor fowl. At least this one has some decent hooks.

Andy Sheppard – Soft On The Inside (Antilles, 1990)

For sure. I think that I was looking more for the perception anyway. I guess that the kids were wow-ed by this stuff, and thought it was the bee's, even if it was not really much more than scales, deployed effectively. At some point, I assume that led to a worldview where "jazz" came to mean something other than fusty parent music and instead was a mark of quality.

Zoot Sims and Jimmy Rowles - Warm Tenor (1978, Pablo)