Rabshakeh

I didn't listen to it at the time, but I think it has aged okay. At least you get a sense that Osby understood hip hop and wasn't just making a play for credibility: there is a real attempt at fusion, even if it sometimes isn't as good as either genre. It helps that Osby is one of the few horn players who I think doesn't sound trapped by loops, and that the quality of the MCing and production is pretty high. I listened to that one yesterday. I enjoyed it more than his other recent albums.

Greg Osby - 3-D Lifestyles (Blue Note, 1993) One of the more full blooded attempts at hip hop crossover. For once, one I think that is semi successful.

Which are you listening to? I don't own this box, although I think I have a few constituent parts.

Oh wow. It looks like it was that gig from the cover artwork, such as it is.

I'd be interested to hear too. It's the same group that did This Is Our Language.

Well it looks like the court, having considered the documentary evidence and testimony of the witnesses, came to a different conclusion.

Thanks. It's a good performance. It's a shame it isn't a real release, but maybe it will turn up one day. The music and sound quality are certainly good enough.

I agree fully with both above posts. POD I think is still solid. Shoemaker has such a depth of understanding that he never needs to drop fully into the guff. On the Free Jazz Blog, I think the reviews' amateurishness is part of what keeps me reading it, because there I can read behind the reviews quite easily, in a way that I cannot with the much more polished Wire, and tell whether a release is worth bothering with. The best bit of FJB though is that it frequently links back to earlier releases by the artists and their affiliates, which allows you to pick up threads that you ignored at the time and get a deeper understanding.

I think that the academic theory in notes and press releases is getting a bit much. To me it just fades into an institutionalised version of corporate marketing speech. Copy production for the sake of filling the required space. Woolley is one of the worst for that, although he certainly isn’t alone. Unreadable but vapid prose has been a widespread problem in the art world for a while now and it is dispiriting to see it making inroads into new music. I find that trend, together with the linked trend of increasingly gushingly uncritical reviews of every new release, a bit of a turn off for new music, and I hope that they both fade out, although I doubt they will. I have dropped my subscription to the Wire in the last year because it has become increasingly difficult to identify the plain meaning in the overcomplex pseudotechnical marketing guff that now fills the columns and glowing write ups of every single release. This is not to say that music or music journalism shouldn’t be complex.

The Aura Will Prevail by George Duke (MPS, 1975). One of Duke’s best. Jazz to disco ratio, just right. Crazy synths, check. Zappa covers, check. Great album cover, check. Satiated dreams of future DJs, check. Just before I listened to: Frank Hunter’s The White Goddess

What was the theorising? Overwrought liner notes? I hate that sort of art gallery curator verbiage that is increasingly becoming the norm when talking about avant garde music.

I previously had to download the files then upload to eg iTunes Match, then download on Apple Music for offline streaming. Now it is just offline streaming via the Bandcamp app, like Spotify or Apple Music. A lot simpler.

Those Pis do sound noticeably different to my ear to the big band records on Black Saint, but it could be down to simply having the material circumstances for the first time. I find it hard to trace any direct line in development for Abrams because he was always so diverse, even from the beginning. The only real periodisations i can see for Abrams’ music is in what seems to me to be his responses to / interests in wider fashions - to 60s-style high brow modernism in the Delmarks; to “the Tradition” in the Black Saints; and then perhaps in those later Pi records some of the reapprochment between jazz and modern composition / more academic styles that seems to be one of the overall developments of the last thirty years (again, possibly reflecting material circumstances more than anything else). But even then, there is nothing that direct.

In addition to the above, I thought it would plug Nate Woolley’s new Mutual Aid Music. I’m sure most people who read this thread have already heard it, but, if not, it’s worth checking out. I thought I was saturated with Woolley but it turns out I am not.

Bandcamp is now apparently offering a function where you can download a digital purchase to a device to listen to it offline. A no-brainer I think, if the aim is to compete with the streamers in any meaningful way. Pleased to see it finally.

There are a couple of reviews of an artist called David Peck, AKA PEK, on the Free Jazz Blog today. I haven’t heard of him before, but the reviews sound interesting, making him out to be some sort of visionary, but without being particularly glowingly effusive about the music itself. Does anyone know anything about him or his music?

I've got this one lined up for later...

I don't 100% remember, but I think that there were reports that I read saying there were some pretty unpleasant emails.

Brazilian Trio - Forest (Zoho, 2008) Thanks to Hutch for suggesting this great one. Having listened to it, I now certainly second his recommendation.

Ditto. I am all for him getting his comeuppance (which I doubt he will: it seems not to have registered with the mainstream press, which is as gushing as ever), but I don't understand why I would be expected to not like the music suddenly.

Looks like Decca has decided to start on a programme of British jazz reissues, complete with the now obligatory sampler. https://shop.decca.com/British-Jazz-Explosion/

Greenslade's Bedside Manners Are Extra (Warner, 1973). Enhanced pub rock rhythm section with two jazz fusion keyboardists playing over the top. It's a lot of fun once you're past the dopey first track. Such great cover art.

Solo Now by Albert Mangelsdorf, Joachim Kuhn, Pierre Favre.and Gunter Hampel

Joseph Jarman - Inheritance The first side is perfect. I find the second side with its synth koto a bit of an acquired taste.

There is a video on YouTube with audio from a live performance by Geri Allen, backed by Charlie Haden and Paul Motian. it seems to have more or less the same cover as the Live at the Village Vanguard release on DIW. Is this a bootleg of a live performance, or does anyone know whether it had an official release and/or is still available to purchase? Thanks