Rabshakeh

I've never listened to any Webber (I think). Is Clockwise where you'd start?

I was listening to Blows The Blues last night off the back of this thread, and I was struck at what a master he was. Aside from the copycat thing, perhaps it was his reputation as a blues based player (all the Gene Ammons records)? I wasn’t there, but I don’t get the sense that the jazz critical establishment in NY at the time really prized that sort of playing. Maybe I am wrong. Those Cobblestones and Muses are great, but again perhaps there weren’t enough of them and they came too late to displace critical opinion of Stitt as a Bird copycat turned blues slogger?

How well known are the Bonzos in the States?

Just finished: Nisse Sandström - Home Cooking (Phontastic, 1981) Another new one to me, thanks to the recent threads. Lovely and warm record, with Tommy Flanagan on great form. I'm now on this classic: Warne Marsh Quarter - Music For Prancing (Mode, 1957)

Thanks! I'm always up for stuff like this.

I'm going to order it too.

Perhaps a bit too whiplash. Currently streaming Friedhelm Schönfeld's self titled record from 1978 on Amiga, which I think was mentioned upthread. I have never heard it before and am really enjoying it.

That's basically it - a marketing tag. Exactly like Northern Soul. I understand the term to refer to a point in jazz - somewhere between soul jazz organ records and the more disco/funk oriented fusion - that were favoured by a set of DJs in the 90s, and which went down a treat with the audience's at that point. It's a marketing tag really. I'm slightly too young for it: I'm more Generation Spiritual Jazz. I'm actually not opposed to concepts like "rare groove" and "spiritual jazz". They do help new audiences connect with and rediscover records that are off the beaten narrative track. But that's only been possible because the Gilles Petersons of the world are such keen evangelists.

One that's passed all the tests and received expert level accreditation.

Just finished this: Brother Jug! by Gene Ammons (Prestige, 1970) Now on this: Ivo Perelman and Nate Wooley on Polarity (Burning Ambulance, 2021)

But expert level jazz audience. If you can bring yourself to use those terms for Gilles Peterson (not that I am particularly against Mr. Peterson, who I think is a broad force for good in that he really is passionate about getting the word out). I just want it to be a nice big pile of severed heads, so you can choose who you commune with from a basis of real choice. Too many people commune with the same old heads, and they're getting a bit worn and tatty.

I dunno. "Rare groove" always seemed to me to be a DJs category. Unless I have misunderstood you, the others are trends that are over 50 years old, and that notably don't form part of most incoming listener's diets unless they have really made the plunge.

Great record!

Great line

I got that. My concern is that there aren't generational biases in jazz. It is the same thing repeating on loop.

I always end up digging out his records with Marion Brown.

Film is a closer example. But still: most people are film fans, or at least film watchers. You can't say that for jazz.

Weather Report - 8:30 (ARC, 1979)

Absolutely. It is even better than I remember it being.

Alan Braufman - Valley of Search (India Navigation, 1975)

Great record.

Are we talking about now or then (late 70s / early 80s) or both?

The problem is that there aren't enough of you to go around. Your average 15 year old or 21 year old who thinks jazz might be interesting doesn't have you or Chuck as his or her uncle to recommend the good stuff (at least I don't think so). So he or she is pushed back on corporate and institutionally created groupthink in the form of articles like the one in this thread. The consequence is everyone for the last 30 years has started with the same 5-6 records from 80-60 years ago (Kind of Blue, Bitches Brew, some Blue Note hard bops starting with Moanin', a Charlie Parker, Monk or Gillespie Verve comp, a singed fingers experiment with Atlantic era Ornette, and a yearning attempt to move beyond the narrative by buying the "recent" Black Codes) and then either gives up, under the impression he or she has exhausted the best the genre has to offer, or rarely ever moves past the above referenced material. We all know music fans (including extremely engaged music fans, and people who consider themselves to love jazz) to whom this has happened. Contrast to the situation with rock, where "I inherited my older brother's / sister's records when he / she went to university" has been a time honoured method of musical education. I don't think the situation is irredeemable. Particularly in the age of the internet, the dominance of narratives and marketing campaigns in music should be quite weak (witness e.g. Led Zeppelin's precipitous crash out of the rock canon and the elevation of acts like Funkadelic into its place). But the fact is that for jazz these sorts of impoverished lists with the same old recommendations keep getting produced and keep getting read (for lack of anything else), and there remains limited access to other lines of thought. This is not the case with other genres, where the larger number of irl peers and the rise of the internet has vastly increased access. If there were two or three reasonably high profile lists of recommendations by people of taste and knowledge, with a proper sweep across time and geography, and with short descriptions, and those lists were available on the internet, I think it would really change matters. The fact is that, ridiculous as the recent JazzTimes by Decade lists were, I did not know half of the albums that were listed - I had missed them at the time and had never heard them mentioned since. Nate Chinen's recent book has a list of his recommendations from the last 20 years - I don't share his taste at all, but again, this list has been invaluable and has introduced players and material of which I had never heard because, in jazz education terms, 2000 - 2015 might as well not exist. Less ridiculous, @HutchFan's blog on the 70s has been an incredible resource. That's an era that is covered a little bit in the core "non-mainstream" jazz narratives (i.e., (I) NY style free jazz on Impulse!, and (ii) "spiritual jazz", also, magically, on Impulse!), and there is a canon of sorts for the biggest fusion acts, but the 70s is otherwise hardly explored. This place is a paradise of recommendations and knowledge. Whilst I only started posting fairly recently, I have been lurking for a long time and picking up what was said. I think I'm probably a bit guilty of excessive demands for recommendations. I've learned a huge amount here. But the fact is that this sort of knowledge is not available elsewhere.

Grupo Niche - No Hay Quinto Malo (Codiscos, 1984) Classic Colombian salsa from the 80s. I've been looking for this for years and was even thinking of importing it, then found it for £15 this afternoon in Spitalfields Market. It comes in a weird plastic coat. No inner sleeve, just plastic coated. I'm not sure whether that's a Columbian thing. The outer plastic has been pricked with incredibly neat cursive writing in Spanish - presumably an import notice, but I have no idea how you could make marks like that - and they are clearly by hand - on loose sticky plastic. I also got this one for £5: Phil Woods / Lew Tabackin (Omni Sound, 1981) Overall, I am pleased with myself.

Certainly. This place is great. What I meant is that there's no critical mass of older listeners. No older siblings or uncles who were there at the time who are there to guide people taking first steps, or at least only if you're lucky.