Rabshakeh

Veeery nice. Which shops?

I do intermittently enjoy a bit of 80s Miles, but have never really understood why I should not just listen to Prince.

Why oh no?

What? Why?

Woop!

Snap!!! Albeit not on vinyl for me.

That's true. That's certainly what I use it for.

Norwegian Wood has a lot of jazz in it. But it's one of Mr Murakami's least science fictiony works. I'm really surprised at the lack of British and American science fiction writers who were jazz fans or mentioned jazz in their writing at all. Science fiction in the 1950s-1980s was a great place for interesting, experimental and progressive writing. There seems to be an obvious cross over with jazz, which is all those things. Many great science fiction writers frequently touch on music. But no jazz at all.

I was and am a huge Zappa fan, but let's just say that I'm glad so much of his output was instrumental.

Did people find the humour funny at the time? It's something I've never understood about Zappa.

6 CDs of 200 Motels is far too much for me. The original is baggy enough.

I revisited your 1970s blog recently to see what I'd missed. I am very much looking forward to this one.

It's weird that there's no jazz at all in Philip K Dick. Plenty of Dowland. No jazz.

I thought that might be the case. I'm looking forward to finding out either way though.

Jazz Quintet 60: Presenting... (Metronome, 1962) Still working my way through euromodernism recommendations from a month or two back. What a cover photograph!

I've never come across it. One to check out. And I suppose there's not a total blank on improv: there's the Mule and his Visi-Sonor in the Foundation books. But it's not clear how hard he swings, so I'm not sure whether Wynton would have approved.

April in Paris was one of the turn offs for me for some reason. Perhaps I need to revisit it, but it didn't feel like it had the huge energy of Live at Newport. It seems closer to Atomic in style to me - emphasis on arrangements. Probably I am wrong though as I am no expert on Basie (as my question above shows).

That's true. A good shout. The closest that we have got so far to a science fiction writer who even mentions jazz. It's a weird blank point. Perhaps jazz was not where it was at during the genre's flowering, but I'm still surprised that there's almost noone there in the sci fi firmament who refers to jazz or draws any sort of parallels to improvisation.

I always love the text that accompanies the web version of the episodes. So much in there. Thanks.

Sam Rivers - Crystals (Impulse!, 1974)

Thanks everyone for the excellent recommendations. I've got my basieness cut out for me with all these records. Better get basie, etc. etc.

I've been a lifelong Basie enjoyer, but not much more. Like a lot of people I basically concentrated my Basie listening on the Old Testament stage, which I really enjoyed largely from a historical viewpoint, and on the Hefti Atomic record, which I never really got close to. I recently listened to Live at Newport for the first time, and it clicked for me oh so very hard. What I like most about it is that it is basically a blues record of an incredibly exalted sort: big band ammo; all these incredible players; Rushing and Williams; strong enough production values that I can hear everyone. It's got everything that Big Joe Turner has plus everything else. There's various Basie threads on here (plus from time to time the Listening To... thread might as well be a Basie thread (or it will if @HutchFan keeps going at this rate)), but I'd be interested to know which LPs members would most recommend for next steps, noting the above.

Keith Jarrett - Shades (Impulse!, 1976)

Steve Lehman Octet - Travail, Transformation, And Flow (Pi Recordings, 2009)

I confess that the 1:45 of "WW5" passed me by completely.