Rabshakeh

Junei' Lee – Junei' (Nei, 2010)

The Australian Jazz Quartet – The Australian Jazz Quartet (Bethlehem, 1955)

It feels like the dust has now more or less settled on what has been, for me, one of most enjoyable reissue runs of recent years: the reissue (in some cases, first issue) of records by Horace Tapscott and his various peers and students on the West Coast, many of them on Nimbus West, and latterly on Dark Tree. I can't speak for the rest of the board, but, given that I was pretty much unaware of all of these records 10 years ago, it has been a real pleasure to discover these. My three favourites (hardly unexpected choices) are probably: Horace Tapscott's The Call, which serves up everything I love about larger group jazz / Black American Music, with so much joy and colour. The vocal tracks work really well with it. Creative Arts Ensemble's One Step Out, again, so much colour and good use of vocals. Henry Franklin really keeps the whole thing alive. Nate Morgan's Retribution, Repatriation, a bit different to the two above. this one sums up what I love most about modal/spiritual jazz, without sounding tired or underpractised. That said, there've been a couple I've found less i interesting, like the dates led by Jesse Sharps. What have been your standout discoveries?

Julinho – O Som Do Julinho (Equipe, 1969) I might marry this record.

Hate to be that guy, whinging because his poorly worded post got read differently to intended.

How’s this one? (Other than the excellent cover photo) What a great record this is

Earl Klugh – Low Ride (Capitol, 1983) Giving this one a stream on the YouTube. The comments are great: seems like it was an enormous hit in East Africa back in the day. I'm reminded of what someone else on the board said about Mr. Magic being regarded as one of the great jazz albums.

Peter Magadini, Don Menza, Dave Young, George Duke – Polyrhythm (Briko, 1975)

My post was intended to be read as ironic. "Mythos" was in inverted commas for a reason. Likewise the reference to the "last New Generation", forty years ago, and to Wynton Marsalis' role as a talking head on the KB Jazz documentary. I am not suggesting that the 1980s was Blakey's greatest era. All that I am saying is that lots of people have traded off being in his band, and that's elevated his standing retrospectively. "The School of Jazz", as Wynton calls the group, he being a graduate.

Blakey's late 70s and early 80s records are core to the Blakey "mythos". A lot of his stature sits on his having supposedly reared the last ever Next Generation, who would go on to highly important positions in jazz as talking heads on universally acclaimed 10-part documentaries. Of course Roach did that too, Pope and Harper next quite went over in the same way.

All interesting stuff. Despite a couple of fence-sitters, this ship leans pretty heavily in one direction.

Bheki Mseleku – Home At Last (Sheer Sound, 2003) Right up there with my favourites from the 00s.

Apparently this is confirmed. The Carroll will be out next year. Apparently Byard Lancaster's too.

Joey DeFrancesco – Live At The 5 Spot (Columbia, 1993) What an insane line up of guest musicians to showboat over. (Not a criticism.)

I agree with this. But it's the groups they led and albums that they released I'm thinking of here, rather than their drumming styles. Roach has Dorham/Rollins +4, Little/Coleman, Turrentine Bros / Priester, the Ray Draper records, Harper / Bridgewater, Pope / Bridgewater, plus all those great 60s vocal records with civil rights themes like Members, Percussion, Deeds, We Insist, etc. Blakey has the Hardman/McLean/Griffin, Morgan-Hubbard/Shorter/Fuller, Ponomarev/Watson, and all the Young Lions groups. Both release streams of great hard bop records. Blakey probably releases more consistent product than Roach until 1965, but Roach has his strong 70s and 80s. I think I'd take Roach's groups by quite a long way. Just writing out the line ups above made me excited. There's such variety and risk taking. Not that I'd want to do without Buhaina's Delight or Free for All or Moanin'. I do agree with JS about that trumpet player.

Signed up.

Oh hell yes! Orange Fish Tears by Baikida Carroll too, please.

Serious question. Two drummers who sit at the centre of the hard bop genre (although both ranged, Roach more than Blakey), who led numerous groups from the 50s to the 80s. Roach's groups and records never seemed to get quite the recognition that his peers' got, perhaps because they were on the wrong labels. Who do you prefer as a leader?

Instant Composers Pool - Tetterett

I think we've just solved the problem of perpetual motion.

Not always easy to tell. All the "How Do You Know A Person Is A Vegan? Ask them any question." jokes apply seem to apply equally to Northern Soul fans.

How/where?

I deliberately excluded blues fans for this reason. There's some very clear cross over there, so it seems too easy. It's maybe a bit harder to think of jazz that would appeal to fans of harder edged soul music though: anything with a solo of over a few bars is going to turn them off. Either way, though, much easier to find crossover than for fans of modern, post-soul era pop music.

The price tag seems to be there to indicate worthiness and collectability. I bought the second one, Pursuance (I think), with JC on the cover, and was pretty disappointed at that price to discover that quality wise it was essentially a vanity publication filled with the usual inane hyperbolic content that infests the jazz discourse these days. This one is a lot better. The Smooth Jazz article is a proper essay, of the quality I would have expected, save for some self-congratulatory opening remarks and a bit of meaningless scholastic padding.

I should add that the quality of the Tetragon issue of We Jazz seems significantly higher than the first two. The Smooth Jazz article referred to above is one of a few substantial essays, whereas the previous issues sometimes just seemed made up of filler.