Rabshakeh

What's it like?

I enjoyed the first two a lot as well. I could have done with a little more Blue Notes and a little less Cream, but I am pleased that they included stuff like the SME at all. I think the third is not available, but I read somewhere that it covered Courtney Pine etc. I haven’t seen that one. It expect that it would have had quite a different feel, since by then England was wide open to US influence. The BBC used to have a habit of making music programmes with names like ‘Pub Rock Britannia’, and I think that the other trad episode just happened to have an accidentally similar sounding name. I would be interested to know what forum members in other comparable foreign jazz “hubs” like Sweden or Germany or Japan make of the programme. Presumably the same dynamics of information scarcity and then desperate games of catch up would have played out there too in the 40s to mid 70s.

I’m enjoying this recent release by John Butcher and Tony Buck. Recommended if you fancy some free improv with a bit of emotional engagement in your life.

Kurt Rosenwinkel - Heartcore (Verve, 2003)

Helio Alves - Trios (Reservoir, 1998) A beautiful album. I'm also very impressed by Nilson Matta on bass - a player I want aware of before.

I don't know. But I'm sure I'd know one when I saw it.

I've been indoors today mostly watching the old BBC series Jazz Britannia from the early 00s. It has aged exceptionally well - a sort of quality TV experience that you don't get so much any more.

Archie Shepp, Raw Poetic, and Damu The Fudgemunk - Ocean Bridges (Redefinition, May 2020). The rare jazz / hip-hop crossover that I think works really well.

I'm with you. Balance is one of the best tracks Sanders ever recorded.

In The Little Record Shop on Tottenham Lane in Hornsey, which if I recall rightly is your neck of the woods.

Elvin Jones - Live At The Lighthouse (Bluenote, 1972) So pleased to finally own it

She's a writer from the early 1990s. Her most famous book is The Secret History. It is about a clique of blue blooded students at a liberal arts university in 80s New England studying classics, who get too caught up in the Mysteries and end up murdering someone. It's a good read. Quite a lot of people see it as a modern classic, although that depends on taste, I think. It has quite a clear aesthetic though - basically the one you outlined above, minus jungle.

Currently spinning this one to check, in the interests of science, whether @Teasing the Korean 's description is accurate. It's the Italian Barclay issue from 1979, which has a cover that I prefer to the original and sounds much the same.

Without wanting to suggest that it is very Donna Tartt, I think that's accurate. Adding to it is the fact that the backing vocals are by four sisters actually named Cybele, Cylene, Cynara and Cyva, who I can only assume were dressed in white robes and laurel robes throughout. Everything about it has that light, oversexed pagan quality.

I have. It is actually the first version I heard. It put me off. It's actually okay, but doesn't have the magic at all.

Interested to know how you find the new pressing.

Tamba 4, for sure. Thanks. I'll check it out. I had not idea about "Let's Go". Something to look into. Edit: It is on We and the Sea!! I listen to that record semi regularly, but the penny hadn't dropped.

Went on a jaunt today and found a couple of records that I've always loved but hadn't seen in the wild before:

I’m a definite obsessive when it comes to Os Afro-sambas by Baden Powell, Vinícius de Moraes, and Quarteto em Cy (Forma, 1966). Surely one of the greatest records ever willed into creation. Other than Raul de Souza’s 1975 version of Canto de Ossanha on Colors (Milestone, 1975), I can’t think of any other jazz versions of tunes on the record. That’s a sharp contrast to the very frequent treatment of tunes by contemporaries like Jobim, Gilberto or Bonfa. Does anyone know of any other examples?

Now on my second play of Raul de Souza’s Colors (Milestone, 1975), It’s that Baden Powell track that really does me in.

Absolutely, aside from a truly pathetic dose of man flu (sniff sniff). I've stayed on the West Coast with this one: Henry Franklin - The Skipper (Black Jazz, 1972)

Creative Arts Ensemble - One Step Out (Nimbus West, 1981)

Thanks

Hannibal and the Sunrise Orchestra (MPS, 1975)

Now onto: Steve Duke and Joe Pinzarrone - Monk By 2 (Columbia, 1994)