Rabshakeh

I'm really impressed by it. I shall check out those Nendo Dangos!

Is this about all jazz and improv, or recent releases? I recently bought my aunt as a birthday present five IMPORTANT CDs by female jazz artists from the last 20 years. I was struck by how hard it was to keep to 5.

Count Basie - Chairman of the Board (Roulette, 1957)

I picked up from somewhere that you may be a bit younger than me (I'm staring down forty, with quavering spirit), although certainly roughly the same stage kids wise - mine are 3 and 1.

Dave Holland Quintet - Prime Directive (ECM 2000)

Gosh. You're right. I had misread it as "Elvin" and never checked.

We've got one:

Same. Mine barely notices. As far as he's concerned, there are two kinds of music: music with animals on the cover (principally Osibisa's first, the greatest classic in the canon of animal music), and music without animals on the cover (anything from Leonard Cohen to Machine Gun). What's less great is that many of my most cherished videos of him as a baby can only be listened to with the volume down, because there's some kind of hellish noise in the background. Anyway, congratulations again!

Rudresh Mahanthappa - Hero. Trio (Whirlwind, 2020) I always loved this cover but never really grasped why. Clearly Jones and Montoliu are looking at the wrong cameras, whereas Johnson's creasing up over something Montoliu muttered. I don't know many I'm afraid. My folks are all born in South Africa, and I've got received knowledge up to the early/mid 60s, when they all split, after which it is all about the emigres, particularly those based in London. That means they saw a lot of the 60s players live, but don't really know the records that they released in the late 60s, which didn't make it out. The only family members who stayed in SA were... not jazz fans, so I'm as clueless about the new stuff as anyone, and irritatingly reliant on marketing from e.g. Blue Note and Impulse!, so also grateful for any recommendations.

Great stuff!

Henri Renaud - New Sound at the Boeuf Sur Le Toit Still mining the Euromodernism vein. There's some good playing by (non-European) Sandy Mosse on this.

Yep. Small run, no / contemptuous marketing.

It does have a slightly half chewed feel to it, but, like a lot of IA's releases, I'm impressed with the ease with which it fuses genres and creates something new. It's not my favourite but it's good, I think. Circular township vamps with three horn players. It's a South African equivalent to the sort of groove based jazz you had in the US, I guess. As is often the case with the 70s SA jazz releases, the recording quality is a little lifeless, which is sad because the music is really all there. But the soloing is really great, particularly Coetzee.

How are these two? Just finished: Aquiles Navarro and Tcheser Holmes - Heritage of the Invisible (International Anthem, 2021) Now on: Pat Matshikiza and Kippie Moketsi - Tshona! (the Sun, 1975) Basil Coetzee very very good on the title track here. One of my favourite records by non-emigrees from the period.

Incredible! Congratulations! My advice is to play whatever the first child wants to hear.

It's by al long way my favourite of his

This is the first TP that I have really been eyeing up.

Yeah. That crunch.

I'm always surprised at how many random Braxton Moerses there are. Anthony Braxton - Five Pieces (Arista, 1975)

What's the view on why Rhodes overtook Wurlitzers? I perhaps don't know Hubbard's mid 70s work well enough, but I'm surprised to see him described as "fussy". He always seemed the weakest human link in VSOP (although I think that the overall stadium jazz vibe is worse than any one part) but fussy wasn't necessarily what comes to mind.

£30 is cheaper than I'd seen it. I didn't check the vinyl itself but the sleeve was in good condition. Just saying. All fine, thanks. The now-not-so-toddler has baby asthma and sometimes things get a bit hairy. He's okay now though. He got an ice cream and I got a Julius Hemphill record.

No. I was unfortunately in the neighborhood of UCLH so popped into HJ East. A much smaller jazz section at the moment, but some good stuff still, including a copy of For Alto in good knick for £30, which I didn't get as I already have it.

Julius Hemphill - Blue Boyé (Mbari, 1977) The Mbari original. Not in the finest condition but plays great and wasn't too expensive.

Big fan of this one.