Rabshakeh

That's very interesting. Psychicemotus is an album with which I never quite gelled. I wasn't mad on Black on that Nat record either. But where I like him more is that split family record with the Von Freemans. Black is very sophisticated there, and perhaps it really wowed the young Marsalis brothers? Edit: By "sophisticated" here I just mean that he could have played with Miles Davis or someone who would have appealed to a young Wynton. I don't mean to suggest that Ed Blackwell is not sophisticated.

Edition Speciale - Aliquante This one is good, despite the low energy cover. French band playing music that sounds like a mix of the more hardcore Canterbury jazz rock bands with Genesis in instrumental flight. Mad time signatures. Lots of ARP synthesisers.

I often wonder why they chose James Black, given that Marsalis was playing with Ed Blackwell at the time. Edit: Or maybe he wasn't. He was with Ornette already it looks like. Recorded Feb 59. A good record. Almost a split LP between Marsalis and Batiste.

That's interesting. I know the Gulf Coast Jazz record and the 1990s one, which are both pretty good and worth checking out. Having snuffled around Discogs it looks like this is one of four LPs released in a box set of NOLA bop in the 1970s.

What I mean is that normie fans of jazz vocalists not enjoying jazz vocals has a pedigree that could get its own category at Crufts.

Isn't this a standard issue for jazz vocalists though? One that affected Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald?

Young-Holt Unlimited – Oh Girl The only YHU record I return to regularly. Echoes Of Swing – Blue Pepper What's the story with this release? Is there a connection with the classic jazz label Good Time Jazz? Is it a tribute or something sort of licence deal?

Great record, there.

I have no particular objection to Wynton or Branford. Wynton has in my view done a handful of very good records, some very poor longer compositions, and he now seems to have matured into a musician with stronger Louis Armstrong influence whose playing I find striking. Branford has a solid back catalogue of decent records and leaving that aside, has done a major service in elevating jazz' standing with the hip hop crowd, which is still bearing fruit. But I have always found the clique of younger New Orleans-based jazz musicians nurtured by Ellis, among whom is Jason Marsalis, to be a particular disappointment. To my ears, their output is solid but very tepidly by the book retro stuff. I have no problem whatsoever with retro bop etc., but I find that their work lacks freshness and excitement. And it always comes wrapped up in this package of New Orleans heritage, references to Mardi Gras and gumbo, and a certain sense of superiority, which I find to be undeserved given their output.

Musil seems to be gaining traction in the English speaking world. That's a book I greatly enjoy although obviously it has flaws that you can see from space. Currently keeping myself going through IJ by remembering that I still have a fair few Pynchons to read.

I really enjoyed it. Much better playing from Shepp than on his other late period records. The band is great and lots of variety.

Eddie Harris - Instant Death

I’d love to know how that tour went.

Wolf Eyes & Anthony Braxton – Live At Pioneer Works, 26 October 2023 Their first collaboration was obviously a big fun piece of news but this is really far more substantial as music.

Thanks, and will do. Looks great.

Mihály Dresch Quartet / Archie Shepp – Hungarian Bebop Ocho - Ocho David Murray Black Saint Quartet Featuring Cassandra Wilson – Sacred Ground Matthew Shipp Trio – The Conduct Of Jazz Car journey to Walthamstow and back for a children's birthday party.

Thanks. I always find it weird how Mosaic doesn't just tell you which records are represented in the sets.

David Murray - Sacred Ground

II Quattro Di Lucca – Quartetto

I've decided to read David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest finally. For whatever reason the book seems to have replaced Ulysses as the book that an intelligent person is supposed to have read, and it now seems to be the go-to indicator for young people who came of age with social media to determine whether someone is a serious reader. I have enjoyed other internet era touchstones like 2666 and I am a shallow person so I decided it is time that I had to read it. My initial impression 100 pages in is surprise at how terrible it is. It seems begging on its knees desperate to be Pynchon, but Wallace is just a terrible writer sentence-by-sentence (some of the sentances are eye-raisingly bad without ever being funny), the tone is leaden and tiresome, and the only thing interesting about the ideas and setting is that Wallace considered them interesting. The purpose of the footnotes seems to be to give academics something in the book's form to discuss. But mostly it is that cringing humiliating derivative relationship to Pynchon (similar to e.g. Neal Stephenson ripping off William Gibson's classics) is really distracting for me. I can only assume that it is famous because it is long; has encyclopedic pretentions (well, foot notes); because the main character fits the internet archetype of the gifted kid dropout; and because the people reading it confuse an inability to write with complexity. It feels.at this stage like it is going to be a long 981 pages, so if I am missing anything let me know. I'm always willing to be correct. Perhaps the book is plot driven or picks up as it goes. Macdonald can have a lot of plotting issues (the opposite of Agatha Christie's: everyone just confesses immediately upon being confirmed and in sequential order), but when his books are good they are very good and among my favourites of their type.

Joking aside, I wonder whether the new (not actually new) combative approach taken by Shipp and Lowe etc on social media might help raise the profile and energy level of the music? My AI marketing phrase generator tells me that viral social media dunks on establishment power structures are Big! Right! Now!. If it does help put a spotlight on this kind of music, that would be great. As my father (a retailer) used to say, goods never sold from a stockroom (not in fact true for the era of Amazon and Ikea, as my father himself was sadly to learn, but the concept still holds). You do have to merchandise yourself.

Salvatore Bonafede – For The Time Being A nice record that is actually the sum of its parts that I hadn't listened to before. Enjoying it during a rare lie in after a truly horrific work week.

For years this was the only post 1970 jazz record that I owned. I know every note.

Are those from the Emanem recordings?

Yeah. That Mulligan is another one that's straight on the nose. I see what you mean about Jo Jones in the Jumpin' clip.