Rabshakeh

I can't wait for the press releases: "Essential ultra-available materialist jazz classic from the heart of the 1980s mainstream, finally remastered for the 40th time on 360 gram coloured shiny gold vinyl".

It's all about the enormous and prominently displayed watch.

I'm looking forward to the materialist jazz scene of the 1980s getting rediscovered. Someone on Columbia get Gilles Peterson on the phone.

How's that Miranda? I love him as a bass player but don't own any of his leader dates.

David Wertman and the Sun Ensemble - Earthly Delights (1978) I assume Astral Spirits' graphics team took note of this one.

I was living in Tokyo at the time, but would have gone otherwise. I remember looking at the listing with envy. Funny to return to these after the recent FloPo / Sanders record.

Just finished: James Clay and David Fathead Newman - The Sound of the Wide Open Spaces!!!! (Riverside, 1960) Distracting stereo panning, but otherwise a good record. Now on to: Kieran Hebden, Mats Gustafsson and Steve Reid - Live at the South Bank (Smalltown Superjazz, 2011)

Bill Barron - Modern Windows (Savoy, 1962)

Which The Drive record is your recommended starting point?

Is that a documented thing? Like Wu Tang.

I'd missed this. Answers my question and more.

Why oh why don't they do downloads? I would happily buy ten records tomorrow at the drop of a hat of they would only let me.

Thank you. The list was given because I had mentioned the classic South African jazz musical King Kong, which launched so many careers in jazz-adjacent South African pop. I'm therefore not all that sure of how many of the names on the list really are jazz, South African pop or just pop. Either way, I love a list. I will certainly check out those two that you kindly mentioned.

I've been given this list of South African jazz artists (I suspect that some might be more mixed genre fusion/pop/mbaqanga) to check out. The list comes from a South African who was around at the time, and is noticeably different to the Abdullah Ibrahim / Blue Tones heavy lists you tend to get on the west or from émigrés. The Drive Sakhile Sankomota Mparanyana and the Cannibals Stimela Malombo Jazzmen Bheki Mseleku The Dark City Sisters Kalamazoo Black Disco Winston Mankunku Ngozi Zacks Nkosi Does anyone know their work or have any records of theirs to recommend? The only one I know is Mankuku Ngozi, who received an excellent reissue a whole back.

Ornette Coleman Quartet - This Is Our Music (Atlantic, 1961) Don Cherry might be the only man in history who looked cooler without shades.

Little Women - Throat (AUM Fidelity, 2010) I can't believe that this recently released record came out over a decade ago. I feel incredibly old. At least it has aged well. It's doing the work that the morning coffee couldn't.

That’s a great story.

The pianist who played with Jackie McLean in the 1970s, eg. on New York Calling. Great stuff but I can't see much about him on the internet. Does anyone know anything about Gault? Are there any other records of his that were particularly good?

Gary Thomas - The Seventh Quadrant (Enja, 1987)

I'm looking forward to Lil Uzi Vert and Machine Gun Kelly working the Vegas nostalgia circuit. I've been quite struck at how over the past five years "rap music" (as it now seems to be known again) has gone from a popular genre of music into suddenly constituting the basic unit of popular music, catering to all sorts of fans and all sorts of emotions. We really are living in a world where rock is fast going the way that jazz did in the 50s. At the same time, I could do without the dispiriting emo/pop punk revival. Please would that go away.

I read an article recently about how the value of Elvis memorabilia is crashing. It really choked me up. Elvis Presley died a decade and a half before I was born, and his music had long since faded from any sort of relevance, but it never occurred to me that "Elvis" would one day cease to be a concept, and would diminish into just another name from a by-gone age.

I feel like this could have had a more exciting cover.

That’s a really good one.

That's right: I meant the kind of piano player or bass player who you almost don't know is there. You just notice what a great album it is, and how unusually self assured and creative the horn player seems.

The forum has all kinds of threads, but I don't think that there is as yet a thread dedicated to members' favourite players in accompanist roles. Not just musicians who do a solid job of playing the chords in the background, but musicians who, by mere dint of being there, can tie an entire group together, and really sell the leader in his or her role, without stealing the limelight or necessarily even taking a solo. My own choice for this category would not cause me a moment's thought: John Hicks. He is on all manner of records as a sideman during his height, from very straight ahead neo bop to Chico Freeman and Pharaoh Sanders. It's no accident that the records that those last two cut with him are (in my opinion) their best (in Chico's case) or a complete revival in quality (in Sanders').