Rabshakeh

What are these Definitive Black & Blue Sessions? Is there a connection to the Black & Blue label? I've had a quick good and it's not clear.

These are great.

This is a comment from a long time ago, but does anyone know to what it refers? I have the record and found the liner notes odd in their emphasis on the opposition between the approaches of the two players.

Thaaaat's the one.

That new reissue of Proceed With Caution is also good. Great cover too. I'm a big fan of the Franklins, which i think are really good. Other than that, I am with @Pim on the Black Jazz releases. Solid interesting stuff that I don't regret putting on, but it doesn't grab me in the same way. Tribe on the other hand...

Eddie Condon - Town Hall Concerts Vol 1

Is Stan Getz Plays with his son? I bought that when my first was born, and I still get silly and sentimental every time I look at the record cover.

Are there any Roy Eldridge or Don Byas LPs from this period that anyone really enjoys, by the way?

The Ponderer is my favourite of his leader records, by quite a long way.

Is this the new one? How is it? It's getting pushed on social media a fair bit.

It’s a big European art festival. Well regarded and serious. Really more about the Art than the buyers or tourists. It has lots of performance art and multimedia. I assume my wife meant that it sounds like a recording of a performance art piece, which I guess it does, particularly the bits with the high pitched squeals and the nervous vocal chattering. Obviously Lee preceded the codification and institutionalisation of that style and has a lot more to offer than just that. I think that the comment was meant in the spirit of gentle fun. Like I said, I was allowed to listen to the second side too. Ditto. Weird things happen on here. Small discussions or posts have a tendency to completely flip my listening habits or open up new areas that I generally hadn’t thought about exploring (most recently, I’ve spent a fortnight listening almost solely to swing music - no way I could have foreseen that).

Thanks. I'll give them a listen.

Soulfulness Lee has mountains of. A lovely late summer night feel too, which is definitely not what what I associate with the area. Tippetts I like a lot. Who is Uschi Bruning? I don't know his/her work at all. One thing about these records is that they always have the most incredibly tempting line ups. That's part of the marketing strategy I guess (Mr. Granz at work), but it works, since these were often musicians who had come up when compatibility was a key skill for a working musician.

I struggle with avant warbling, but enjoy Lee much more than Maggie Nichols or Patty Waters (despite a long and personal relationship with Sings). It's an X factor thing: Lee is just much warmer and has less of the proto-arts institution feel that I think Mrs R is picking up on.

The toast of the Biennale.

Mary Lou Williams - Zodiac Suite First time I'd listened to this. It reminds me a lot of John Fahey work 25 years later in its mix of roots and classical modernism. I wonder whether Fahey knew the record.

I couldn’t find a good response at all. She’s right. Still a great record.

Is this good? His solo on the Rich is incredible but I otherwise don’t know him.

Such hardship... I feel like there's so much Crawford that I don't know.

Jeanne Lee – Conspiracy First spin of the new reissue. My wife is usually very tolerant of avant garde jazz, but clearly did not take to this one. She called it "Venice Biennale" music and kept mockingly informing me what was coming up and telling me it would be "the best bit". What was galling was that her predictions were accurate at each point. In fairness to her, she let me play both sides. Now on Sonny Criss - Portrait of Sonny Criss (Prestige, 1972 issue). This is more in line with the principles of marital comity, apparently. Sonny Criss in gorgeous knitwear.

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)