Rabshakeh

I'm a life-long insomniac. I find some gently funky music at low volumes really helps me get to sleep or to ease back in. Late 1950s hard bop is the exact right level for me since it generally has a decent mid tempo, enough funk, and few arrangements or sharp edges. Anything too outside, arranged or too danceable (whether boogaloo or smooth jazz) just makes things worse. At the moment, I'm using Houston Person's High Notes, which are absolutely perfectly made for insomniacs.

Melotron too.

I've no idea why it's not more widely suggested as a first stop for NY era Sun Ra. I like the extra space for the solos.

Interested to know how you find it.

Close competitor for my favourite Ra.

Is this the same as the bootleg that's been knocking around on YT for a while?

I think that we may just be speaking at odds. I am not complaining about the repetitious loops, but the quality of the repetitious loops. Hence the comparison to the similarly loop driven and DJ oriented world of hip hop.

I have no mixing knowledge or ability, but I don't see how this would be the case for house music, but not for post-Kanye hip hop. Perhaps it's just that there's more money in hip hop now, so artists can afford an entourage of people including beatmakers with enough time to spend on the beat itself.

John Lindberg Trio - Give and Take (Black Saint, 1982) Forgot just how meaty and bouncy this one is. For once, it's not just down to George Lewis. A real trio record.

Supposedly he picked something by the group on his Desert Island Discs appearance. He also makes an appearance as a talking head on that Jazz Britannia programme at some point. Great taste in jazz; even greater taste in footwear.

I need to check this one out.

Earth Beams is an absolute classic. I think I heard somewhere that former British Chancellor of the Exchequer Kenneth Clarke is a big fan of the album. Which is weird, but at least everyone can agree that he's right on the one thing. I think I'm most interested in exploring some of the David Newman records that you mention. I don't know his post-70s work, and some of the lineups look like dream team sessions.

Tome is the Graham Rd one. I'll check out the others. I hadn't realised that VDS was the name of the Idle Moments one.

Interested to know the other ones. There's one close by on Graham Rd, but it's not much. Old school feel but very modern price and so so stock. The new one that I love is Idle Moments on Columbia Road, which is a joint venture between a wine shop and a tokyo record shop. Lots of Japanese jazz and fusion and US / European stuff that went well in the Tokyo market, plus Japanese pressings. Price is normal - not massive. Sadly not a shop to visit on a Sunday, given what the flower market has become.

It really has the old crate digging feel. Random but good stock and not expensive (£18 for the two, both in excellent condition, which is good for East these days). I'd never been there but a non-jazz DJ friend was raving about it, and it's really not far from me.

Went to Atlantis in Hackney Central. I picked up Smack Up by Art Pepper and Give and Take by John Lindberg. Very good prices - like ten years ago. Lots of good FMP stuff in there at the moment (Globe Unity etc.) for any London based forum members.

I guess house is derived from the same place as disco and funk, just taken to a further place? A nephew/niece? Part of the same family as jazz certainly, in the same way that those other 1970s musics were. I've always enjoyed house music, but I do find the beat locked in, which I find increasingly distracting in a way I didn't when I was younger. Hip hop beatmakers are increasingly avoiding the old 120bpm loop feeling, so that beats breathe more (or at least repeat over a longer cycle so that the ear doesn't pick up on it so much), and I'd like it if house producers adopted a similar approach. Then again, maybe they are and I've just missed it. I haven't been anywhere where house was playing for the last three years.

Roscoe Mitchell - L-R-G / The Maze / S II Examples (Nessa, 1978) My wife slept in this morning so I took the opportunity to introduce the kids to one of the classics. Findings: Still a great record. The toddler loves a boogie so much that she can find the rhythm in literally anything. How you can shake your thing to Leo Smith, Roscoe Mitchell and George Lewis playing with no discernable time structure at all bewilders me, but she managed to find the beat somehow. The 3 year old has so little interest in music that he thought this was a Lenny White record that I had played the day before. Austere jazz-linked composition does just as well as any other kind of music.

Yes and no. Hot Patootie did the one and the Jim S tunes did the other.

Was he really so low profile in the late 1970s? I think I had heard of Chet Baker before I heard of Miles Davis, just from seeing his iconic album covers. As a child of 90s, he was among the most high profile of all jazz musicians. For some reason I and my friends had picked up a completely skewed version of Chet Baker's life story, where he was a lightweight / hearththrob record company creation whose sexuality the 1950s studios were desperate to keep hidden, and who died tragically young and beautiful. I have no idea where we got that from - obviously the story is James Dean's but why we transferred it to Baker I don't know. I was around 28 when I first realised the much weirder reality.

My only problem with Winter Moon is the solo on "That's Love".

I find I either like Vick or it don't, with quite a strong irrational per record reaction.

Great cover. I haven't heard it. Is it good?

Phronesis - Green Delay (Loop, 2009) Bassist Jaspar Hoidy very good on this catchy piano trio record. Got the toddler moving.

Has anyone read his autobiography The Traveller? Edit: Mental note - check the thread before you post...