Rabshakeh

Does anyone know the answer to this? Presumably he was signed up. Otherwise how would he have been part of the permanent stable of session musicians. Or did it not work like that?

I wish I'd seen them. One of the best post bop piano trios, in my opinion, up there with Hancock/Carter/Williams and Kuhn/Swallow/LaRoca. I've really been enjoying Perez' Providencia recently.

The Carla Bley Big Band Goes to Church (Watt/ECM, 1996) What fun this era of Carla Bley is. For a brief period, her writing was similar to in her late 60s/early 70s period, but without the excesses. (Not to knock mid 70s through mod 80s Carla, which I like a whole lot too).

Has anyone listened to any of these yet? What're they like? A few have turned up in the UK on discogs.

Glad that you're enjoying it. I had it on again last week, inspired by the recent post of Maynard Ferguson's M.F. Horn 4&5: Live at Jimmy's, which has a similar funky electric big band bebop feel.

I am with you on these two's respective merits, although GBG has been growing on me recently.

Danilo Pérez - Providencia (Mack Avenue, 2010)

That Person was recommended to me on this board a month or two ago and has been probably my most frequent listen since then. Much more than 3 times.

Sounds like we liked / disliked them for the same reasons. I liked the more diffuse approach, which opened things up a bit, at least to my ears, for the instrumentalists, particularly Stewart on bass. I find Moor Mother's schtick a little irritating, but liked it a lot in the smaller portions served by this record.

Spent my morning on two very good recentish records that i hadn't expected to enjoy: Irreversible Entanglements - Open The Gates (International Anthem) I thought their first two records were a bit style over substance, but this one hits me much harder overall - slightly more improvisation and group playing and less Moor Mother who is at the same time more effective to my ears here than on their earlier records. I feel like this is the record that fulfils the pitch. Shipp, Dickey and Parker - Village Mothership (TAO) I'd sworn off Parker and Shipp recently because I was getting over saturated. But this one really is very good; I think my favourite of theirs in a long while. Parker isn't just playing William Parker, and is much more into the spirit of free improvisation, which opens Shipp right up.

Thanks!

JJ Johnson - Blue Trombone (Columbia, 1957) Probably my favourite of all performances by Max Roach. Modernist era drumming at its absolute height, in my opinion. The rest of it's nice too. Not Flanagan's or JJ's finest moments, although they're solid. It's the beat on this one that gets me.

I've been sizing this up, as I love Sakata.

Are any of the last three mentioned must haves? (I know the first two).

I like those two records, particularly those tracks that were originally on Modern Jazz Concert: Six Compositions Commissioned by the Brandeis University Festival of the Arts. The mix of progressive jazz with the music of Bartok and other 20th century names comes off well there. My impression is that music that is 'good' gets promoted out of the genre in the public imagination. A lot of Mingus or Russell is of a sort with the music (including theirs) on those Birth of the Third Stream records, but it gets treated as great jazz, rather than an example of the subgenre.

I love this one. It's my favourite big band record with electric piano.

Thanks. From the bizarre Wikipedia page it looks.... divisive.

Never actually listened to this one. Is it recommended? Wikipedia is a bit weird about it.

Miles Mosely - Uprising (Verve, 2017) First and probably last listen to this. Mosley is a bassist from the "West Coast Get Down" collective (Kamasi and co). To my ears it sounds like Bruno Mars. Vaguely 70s soul / Rastafarian themes with rugged but handsome cover art with revolutionary aesthetic. It has everything that your cool aunt could want. Can't believe I wasted my time on it.

Some examples of what I'm talking about for anyone not familiar:

I'm sure that's a consideration for collectors, but I think that they're also just not that desirable to less committed jazz listeners. Blue Note and Impulse! are in coffee table book territory, with an aesthetic that is immediately recognisable by people who have never listened to music, and musicians who have become household names. That's reflected in the price of even the worst reissues of their catalogues. The Prestige / Muse / Cobblestone look isn't and nor are their artists.

I'm a big fan of the photography / text that is used on the covers of many of the later Prestige records and then on Cobblestone and Muse records. Many of these were produced by Don Schlitten. They have a great combination of often quite raw / flawed photograph with clashing fonts and colours. The effect is gripping and rough, and far away from the well known too-cool-for-school "Reid Miles aesthetic" that gets associated with Prestige's main rival. I pick these records up whenever I see them - luckily they are still often reasonably priced - and I get a thrill every time I handle them. Does anyone know who was the art team behind these releases? I assume not Schlitten himself but did he have a team who followed him.

Jeremy Danneman and Sophia Nzayisenga - Honey Wine (Ropeadope, 2016) I've really been enjoying Danneman's records recently. I wish jazz and non-American musics could always fit together as well as they do on this record.

Thanks

Which Mack Av would you start with?