Rabshakeh

Eric Dolphy – At The Five Spot Volume 2 (Prestige) The three Five Spot records are up there in my top ten. I'd put them right up there in the starter pack for someone trying to get into the free-er end of midcentury jazz, alongside the first two Ornette Atlantics and A Love Supreme. I think they're far more accessible than the his much more famous Blue Note record (particularly with it's rather conceptual first side).

Keith Tippett - The Unlonely Raindancer

Wayne Shorter – High Life (Verve, 1995) I find it very hard to un-hear smooth jazz all over this record. The compositions are extremely complex in some cases, and there is a 30 strong orchestra, but it's there. Not just in Marcus Miller's production, but very much in Shorter's soprano style. It's not something that I hear on his later records, or on the ones previous to this (although he occupies such a diminished place in late Weather Report that it isn't necessarily clear.

Grover Washington, Jr. – A Secret Place

The Don Rendell / Ian Carr Quintet – Change Is (Columbia, 1969)

Archie Shepp – Phat Jam In Milano (2009)

Nice to see

Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet Plus Two – Broken English (Okka, 2002)

McCoy Tyner – 4 X 4 (Milestone, 1980)

A real picker upper

Can I recommend trying it streamed or on CD (whichever is available, but not YouTube)? I think that the CD mix is far better. Sharrock is very noticeable but he's really turned down on any vinyl version I've heard.

Love this record. How does yours sound? I've had two copies on vinyl and I've always been disappointed at how buried Sharrock is in the vinyl mix.

I mean, Miles Davis in his autobiography describes his own children as being a great disappointment to him. Sanders seems to get off lightly in that context.

So many Mehldaus to get through first.

I really like it. A good mix between expansive post bop and the strings. Plus the writing is really good.

Michael Stuart – The Blessing (Unity, 1989)

Joe Zawinul – The Rise & Fall Of The Third Stream (Vortex, 1968)

Pleased to see that everyone disagrees. Although I note that none is standing up for Mssrs. Mehldau or Redman, at least.

I think that my problem with Ware was mostly with Ware, and it wasn't a big problem. His stuff was original enough, and it did work. I owned quite a bit of his stuff at one time, although I've since unloaded it all. I think I liked Shipp and Ibarra most, looking back at it.

I am not going to argue with any of the above! You are all referencing great records and great groups. But it was noticeably confined to one part of the jazz ecosystem. I think that, judged from a wider perspective, jazz as a whole was very boring at that time (1987 - 2007). It was the time of Redman Jr, and Brad Mehldau, and ECM's dominance.

I agree with all of this. You have named my favourites from this period. The warmed over free jazz was a reference to the Charles Gayle cult in particular, but also to later David S Ware, who I never found particularly convincing. Specifically which records are you referring to here?

Solid, I'd say. There's plenty better Schiano records.

Mario Schiano, Guido Mazzon, Gaetano Liguori, Lino Liguori – Effetti Larsen (Splasc(h), 1988)

Thanks for posting. My own personal view is that, as the 80s drew to a close, jazz (and music in general) enters its least interesting period, lasting from around 1988 to perhaps until the early/mid 00s. There's still lots of good stuff happening, but to me that is the point when the mainstream in particular begins to get very stale: second/third generation Young Lions, moody pianists, wobbly free jazz revivalists, endless ECM wallpaper, hip hop crossover, dreadful 90s fusion and 'jazz rock', etc.. An era when the Bad Plus and Zorn seemed interesting against a backdrop of creeping Mehldau-isation. I'm not unsurprised to see that I own or know almost all of these from the recent posts, including the classic Code Violations, which is as good an album as they come.

That Patty Waters one was a big deal for me.