Rabshakeh

The Narrative Industry (good phrase) is a weird one. I don't get the sense that other genres of music have anything like as much of a dominant shaping narrative as jazz has. Genres like rock or rap have a pretty multifaceted audience who are generally aware (if they're paying attention) of developments since the 50s or 80s (respectively). I don't think it is anything sinister. I think it is a combination of various factors: a small base of listeners; few dedicated, the rest drawn by a wider culture industry representation of jazz as 'sophisticated adult music'; mostly people who are coming to the genre fresh and often as a second favourite genre or out.of a sense of obligation to self educate; no critical base of older listeners to pass on knowledge (compare again to e.g. hip hop or rock); a small group of record labels with marketing clout and money dedicated to their legacy catalogue, with the rest of the market basically left fallow; an institutional bias in some specific academic and non-academic institutions that leads them to favour specific styles over others; and a presently dominant strain of not very well informed journalism that essentially exists to summarise the views of the above two groups (true everywhere, but noticeably dominant in jazz). The result is a situation where a few pockets of history are privileged and marketed whereas nothing else gets time. We all know the pockets: Blue Note and Columbia (plus a tiny bit of Riverside); pre-1970; white middle class customer as target consumer; New York; hard bop or the Minton's moment of bebop. Then there are some scattered names from the Before - Armstrong primarily - and the After - Ornette, the Spiritual Jazz set that is now retrospectively popular, Zorn & Co; and then whatever contemporary act is trendy NOW (to be instantly forgotten in three years). But everything else, from 1970 to immediately before whatever time is NOW; anything not on a label that is promoted (witness Clifford Brown's utter lack of name recognition!); anything not from New York. All in all, you end up with lists like this. If you were to Google "greatest reggae geniuses ever" you would not just get a list of Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Desmond Dekker and Prince Buster. Likewise, a rock fan would know acts like My Bloody Valentine, Prince, REM or the Replacements - these being regarded as a key part of a long and rich history, despite not being part of a key "moment" in rock's history. I do think that is really just a jazz story.

Might still be Reading, then.

Yes, but what did it mean to him?

I've seen it. It is just a list of his own name written ten times, but with hundreds of pages of text about what his own work means to him in each case. Blurrrgh.

Maybe we should have Manfred Eicher on the list.

The music is very different. As to who altered it, that's a different debate. But it isn't all Armstrong, Parker, absent Ellington and Coltrane. The list includes players like Art Blakey and Dizzy Gillespie. Great musicians who produced great albums. But it is pretty easy to think of jazz musicians since then who have been their equal, had as much influence and/or sold as many albums. Their inclusion on the above list is just down to the gravitational force that previous lists of jazz geniuses have exerted on this list of jazz geniuses: must be bop (save for a few chosen names), must be pre-70s.

I think it just speaks to the general view that "jazz" is bop music from before 1969, plus some agreed earlier musicians whose music isn't too associated with "Swing" or "Dixieland". Someone somewhere decided that the canon of who is a "genius" in jazz closed with Coltrane, so that tends to be the position taken in these lists. We could all easily think of best selling and/or very influential jazz musicians since then (Hancock? Jarrett? Metheny?).

I've been enjoying a lot of the recommendations recently too. As to the thread, I'll let the old timers who were here for the Funny Rat thread respond to that.

Is that how they were billed? Funny idea. I only know Marc Moulin's very Gilles Peterson approved Sam Suffy record. Are there any Placebo records that stand the test of time? Thanks. Sorry for being slow.

Which are these? Sorry if I missed it.

From a comment early in that thread (my comment - I was being egomaniacal). In contrast to TKK's view of 1950s/60s jazz modernism in Europe being sunshine, Vespas and existentialism, I suggested it was more drizzle, chips and a desperate yearning for all things American. Italy excepted, of course.

I can't believe I missed that Ellington wasn't there. What the hell? Lists like this are always going to be a disaster. I think by that definition you'd have to have Keith Jarrett, Tony Williams, and a bunch of guitarists. But that's never how it's going to be.

Currently on: Miles Davis - Live In Berlin (CBS, 1967) I haven't listened to this one in years. Listening to it now, one particular thing strikes me: was Miles... trying to impress his new young friends? Quite aside from the fact that he is actually playing with commitment (not a criticism of Miles Davis, but nonchalant cool (AKA playing like he doesn't give a single shit) is what I normally associate with him, rising to apparent indifference once you get past the Plugged Nickel stage), Davis uses all kinds of funny techniques that I don't associate with him at all. Check out 'Stella by Starlight' as one example. On an entirely different note, it's good to hear Art Blakey's young tenor Wayne Shorter (which is how he still sounds here) making contact with Hancock, Carter and Williams.

The cover of this is just missing the bag of chips that was needed to create the definitive euromodernism image.

Yeah. Him, Fletcher and King Oliver and possibly Bix. That's if you're taking the approach of just listing the most high profile names viewed from a contemporary standpoint who flourished before 1960. Query how many people on this board would equate that list concept to "genius" though (or even be comfortable with the "genius" concept). I think a more serious approach would need to have Clifford Brown on, at least, even if you are still sticking to the pre-1960 idea. But he was on the wrong label and hasn't had the late career and/or posthumous marketing campaigns that have benefited other musicians' name recognition. As for the fact that they are all from more than half a century ago - that's another matter entirely.

Seems a odd exercise to undertake, and the choices just seem to me to be a list of the most high profile jazz musicians, with Charles Mingus and some 20s/30s jazz musicians conspicuous in their absence.

Do you class those two as exotica records? They’re quite different to your Jazz Espagnoles or Afro Temples.

Toon van Vliet - s/t (BV Haast, 1959) A recommendation from the recent jazz modernism thread. Rudy Pronk has quite an original flick to his drum playing.

That's a good story. It looks beautiful.

John Law Quartet - Exploded On Impact (Slam, 1992) Just finished this one: Together Alone by Joseph Jarman and Anthony Braxton (Delmark, 1972) There are a lot of fun ideas on this one. It seems surprisingly ahead of itself for 1972 - closer in ideas terms at times to latter day AACM and adjacent artists likes Nicole Mitchell and Matana Roberts. Thanks to @mjazzg, who I think first mentioned it (probably about a year ago!).

K Curtis Lyle / Julius Hemphill - The Collected Poem For Blind Lemon Lemon Jefferson I put this on in the background whilst I was working. I really have no idea what I was thinking! 50 minutes of achievement, but no work done.

Oh, that's it. I was struggling to place it. A particularly harrowing exploration of the implacable silence of God, in the face of Man's increasingly desperate accordion playing.

Great cover. It could be a poster from a particularly austere early Bergman film, except there is an accordion bottom right.

Pat Thomas - Al-Khwarizmi Variations (Fataka, 2013) Revisiting one I haven't listened to in a while.

Yep. Three Waves too.