Rabshakeh

Roy Campbell - Ethnic Stew and Brew (Delmark, 2000)

Herbie Mann - Flautista! I find that Herbie Mann records have a roughly 20% hit rate, but the ones I like, I really like.

Bheki Mseleku - Star Seeding (Verve, 1995)

Charles Mingus - Mingus Plays Piano (Impulse!, 1964) This is a really good record.

Caldera - Sky Island (Capitol, 1977)

Chance would be a fine thing. The vinyl revival has yet to land. Tape revival, maybe.

Interesting. I don't know this one. In SA at the moment.

Anat Cohen Tentet - Triple Helix (Anzic, 2019)

I was also a big hip hop fan before becoming a jazz fan. That's one of the main reasons I took against OH. To my ears, the hip hop elements on that record are a complete joke. The problem is jazz / hip hop cross over attempts is that you need to attract decent talent from the hip hop end too. Otherwise you just get a wretched semi-jazz mess, with C level talent. Perhaps I am missing something.

I rate him as a trumpet player. The earlier and simpler his records are, the more I like them (a point that was made to me on this board a year or two ago). I really do think he's best when he sticks to the basics and doesn't dabble with sad attempts at expansive crossover music. When The Heart Emerges is a great record. Origami Harvest, on the other hand, is, to my ears, everything wrong with modern major label jazz at the moment: serious; genre crossover in place of fresh ideas; high gloss; big, crap, concepts that lead to nothing; dreadful raps by cancelled former hipster rapper who can't get any other gigs and clearly isn't bothered; marketed squarely at the middle aged Pitchfork reader; etc. etc.

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.