Rabshakeh

Made a note to check it out.

Nice to see some George Duke. I don't understand why he wasn't rediscovered by the hip hop crowd in the 90s.

Jimmy Smith - Back at the Chicken Shack (Blue Note, 1963) Stanley Turrentine's solo on "When I Grow Too Old To Dream" is one of my favourites that I revisit every so often to remind myself that it really is that good.

I have an Acker Bilk record (that I love) that my wife bought at random. Every time anyone comes to my house and looks at my collection, that's the record that they end up seizing upon with a wrinkled nose. That's despite a two generations' remove from Trads popularity. "Ugh, Trad. This stuff is so awful", my friend's mum (fron North London) once remarked. My parents and family only came to the UK in 69-73 and seem wholly unaware of the existence of Trad. As mentioned, they seemed to slice the jazz pie into Progressive (Erroll Garner, Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins and MJQ) and older jazz (Oscar Peterson, etc). That terminology is the same for my dad (a very casual jazz fan) and my (slightly older) aunts and uncles, who were proper jazz toting South African Communist Party members (SA's beatnik equivalents). The older jazz was something to be disclaimed, although they didn't have the raw anger at its existence that the older Londoners I know have for Trad. Anyway, I’m really enjoying this thread. I was brought up with bop and have always been into the vanguard stuff, but this post 1945 swing music is new to me. There are some wonderful records mentioned. The Budd Johnson and Earl Hines stuff really is cooking my brains. It’s particularly interesting coming to it after hearing soul jazz and new thing artists like Shepp and Ayler. There’s a very strong link there, which I suspect would have been obvious to someone experiencing the development of the music in order.

Buddy Rich Big Band - Mercy, Mercy (Capitol, 1968)

I wasn’t there are the time, and will defer to those that were, but my understanding is that Trad was a big deal here as a form of popular music and that it actually made it to commercial radio and the charts. I think it was less real New Orleans revival and more a postwar mulch of pre-rock and roll Americana: part dixieland, part oldies tea dance, part US roots music, part goofy pop. For whatever reason, it seems, to me, to carry similar associations in the minds of my elders to country music in the US - music for older, provincial reactionaries who were very much not hip, to be opposed at all costs. But that might be after the fact exaggeration.

Is this good? Always on the lookout…

Interesting. I don't know it but I shall remedy that situation.

Dewey Redman - Soundsigns (Galaxy, 1978) One of the best records with the worst covers.

I like the alternative title Benny Carter Plays Pretty.

Sorry to ask another question: did the shops have separate"Swing" sections too?

Early 00s, with Mabern and Mraz. Similar to other post 70s Shepp, but without the rumination on the Tradition: the vibe he's aiming for seems to be Left Bank chic.

Now on Archie Shepp Quartet (Venus, 2001) It slots in very nicely with the recent Mainstream discussions.

Does anyone have any ideas of how popular this music was in comparison to revival/Dixieland and bop influenced styles? I hadn't realised that Dance was a Brit.

Just come off a plane, during which I listened to both of these. Currently on this one: Lludas Mockunas and Christian Windfield - Pacemaker (NoBusiness, 2018) Might be the lack of sleep, but I’m really enjoying it: in the free improv / EAI bracket.

I think the same. The strange tendancy towards music that appears "tame". Disney themes, K Pop, film music soundtracks all seem to have an appeal that I would never have imagined when I was a teenager. High emotion, cinematic music that from my perspective seems sappy and inauthentic. I think that part of it may be the result of younger people having come up in a world with access to everything except for context with the result that questions of authenticity and excitement may have a different meaning to them. That said, there is a lot of "high resistance" music out there. New genres of rap or electronic music that are very abrasive and which are made by the youngest cohorts.

Does anyone know whether the term 'Mainstream' was used in the UK? I'm familiar with the term from this forum, but I hadn't heard of it previously. The older British and South African jazz fans I know always talked about "progressive" versus "trad', which I think (could be wrong) meant effectively bop and dixieland/pop in US terms, although the context and content are different. What I find a bit odd is how this music continues to have a half life. Records like Coleman Hawkins Encounters Ben Webster are extremely popular on the internet - Frequently recommended as starter purchases on Reddit or Steve Hoffman, but the genre remains very unfashionable and barely appears in the critical guides or on twitter/Instagram. Anyhow, I've found that Earl Hines and Budd Johnson records really ear opening. They're incredible.

Missing the write ups and recommendations this week.

Worth listening. Similar world to Kamasi Washington and Thundercat.

Pee Wee Russell - Swingin' with Pee Wee (Swingsville, 1960)

Wouldn't they need to be catchier? I don't hate Culcha Vulcha, but otherwise don't like them at all. Patchworks of ideas, all with that rather saccharine funk behind it. Snarky Puppy serve as a reminder to me that something is changing with the taste of the generation that is just coming of age now. All of this stuff sounds embarrassingly naff, cloying and boring to my ears, but I can see that there is something that I am not understanding which my 19 year old cousin loves and finds exciting (a biiiig Snarky Puppy fan, intelligent and in love with music, including the jazz "classics", but with no interest in most of what I consider to be 'groundbreaking new jazz').

Just a bump, really. I’ve been listening to a fair bit of 50s/60s small group swing recently since @jazzboposted that Hines / Rushing record a week or two ago. It’s strange that there’s comparatively few threads dedicated to this music given that these records come up fairly frequently on the Listening To thread.

Surprised it hasn't received more hype. It's really good.

Where would you suggest starting?

Got this Herbie Tsoaeli on at the moment. So damn good.