Rabshakeh

Despite qualms, I am enjoying this thread. The "best albums of the 2000s" towards the end of 2019 didn't have anything like this wealth of new recommendations. Go on, give us a hint at where to start. Pretty please.

Thanks. I'll start with that Intakt one with all three. Are they British? I don't believe I have ever seen their names.

I don't know her. Whats a good starting point? Sonny Simmons and Barbara Donaldson have been mentioned a couple of times here too. I guess that the jazz avant garde was not really "progressive" in today's sense of the term. No reason why it would or should have been. On that note, have we forgotten Carla Bley?

Old and New Dreams - Old and New Dreams (ECM, 1979) I started listening to jazz in the late 1990s, when the "ECM sound" was definitely too much of a thing. I can't imagine how it must have felt to have bought a record like this one when it came out, and suddenly be transported for the first time into a sound world/production that was so crisp you could almost see under Charlie Haden's fingernails or count each individual droplet on the bell of Don Cherry's trumpet.

I've never heard of this film. It looks about as low budget as anything I've ever imagined. I'm impressed that it has a score, let alone one composed by Les Baxter.

Hideo Shiraki - In Fiesta (Teichiku, 1961) Having just finished: Matana Roberts - The Chicago Project (Central Control, 2007)

Nat Birchall - Ancient Africa (2021) I'm not the biggest Birchall fan but I enjoyed this. Retro genre work, but the genre is A Love Supreme, rather than Relaxin' or Moanin'.

Masters of Unorthodox Jazz / Reform Art Unit - Vienna Jazz Avantgarde (1971)

I took the thread in a different way: promoting the new wave. Despite how heavy with young talent jazz is at the moment (to a large part female), you would never know it from the Listening To thread.

It’s still easy to find Garner in any second hand shop. When I first started to listen to jazz he was one of the first artists I heard of for precisely that reason. Strange, because, whilst it is definitely “happy” music, it certainly isn’t easy listening.

Thanks!

LCJO and contemporary Steeplechase etc. The only area of jazz that remains heavily male. This is the first that I have heard of this. What is the background to this comment? I had no idea that there were female territory bands. Finally: Yass Ahmed and Nubya Garcia. It feels a bit absurd to include them in a thread with the likes of Mary Halvorsen or Tomeka Reid, but the mainstream press is very impressed by them at the moment.

That makes sense. It explains why there's no glass in the window. Or perhaps there originally was glass...

I have so many questions about this weird photo. Why’s it in some weird building site?

It's another way to get some good recommendations, I guess.

Steve Beresford, Toshinori Kondo, Dave Toop and Tristan Honsiger - Imitation of Life (Y, 1981) My favourite of the second free improv gen's records. It's amazing how similar it is to other groups with no lineal connection to this music, whether the Holy Modal Rounders, Sebadoh or the Residents. It's a total desecration.

Great record. I couldn't sleep the other night and just sat up listening to it. It's the Beirach record where his style really does work.

Michael Garrick Septet - Black Marigolds (Argo, 1966)

I also struggle with the megasets.

Someone on twitter recently pointed out how much of a "disconnect" there is between John Coltrane and his music on the one hand, and his voice on the other.

Thank you both!!

Any suggested recordings for these two?

I'm glad they and Joelle Leandre got a mention. I am a huge fan of Schweizer and Leandre, but sadly have never acquired a taste for Nicols. She's in London in January, playing the Barbican. I've bought tickets, on the basis that it might still be the least expensive way to hear her music.

No-one has mentioned Susie Ibarra. 15 years ago that would have been unthinkable.

This was the set, by the way: Matana Roberts - Coin Coin Vol 3 Tomeka Reid Quarter - s/t Tyshawn Sorey & Marilyn Crispell - Adornments of Time Nicole Mitchell - Engraved in the Wind Ingrid Laubrock - Contemporary Chaos Practices Angel Bat Dawid - The Oracle The aim was really to show my aunt that very forward thinking female led jazz of all kinds is now a big thing. She's 80 and is still angry at whatever 1960s pig at her university jazz club told her women could not play jazz. Obviously the pig was wrong even then, as great female instrumentalists have never not existed in jazz, whether Mary Lou Williams, Barbara Donald or Shirley Scott.