Rabshakeh

Paul Smoker Trio, Ron Rohovit, Phil Haynes – Alone

Derek Bailey – Standards

Thanks. This sums up how I feel about it much more eloquently than I did.

Wadada Leo Smith - Red Sulphur Sky

Simon Nabatov and Tom Rainey – Steady Now

That's fair. I think I was thinking most of the period marked by Universal Beings and Fly or Die. It seemed like the label could do no wrong. I have just looked back at Mazurek's back catalogue. I associate him so heavily with IA's glory era that I hadn't realised he had a whole past life on labels like Delmark, nor that he had recorded hard bop records with the likes of Eric Alexander.

Alkebu-Lan is a record that never really jelled with me. It is murkily recorded and, to my dumb ears, the music and narration is average and almost self-parodic. I am happy to listen to it occasionally as a document of what the late 1060s and early 1970s was probably really like in jazz, but I've always been a bit confused by the reverence in which it is held.

That Jeff Parker did cut through. I'd forgotten that. To a certain extent it would have been unreasonable for it to have kept up the initial hit rate. But the contrast is quite strong. There were one or two years when it felt like the top three most memorable releases were all by new artists coming out on IA. 2017-2021 or thereabouts.

I haven't heard much of or about International Anthem recently. It seems like only two years ago it could do no wrong. Every release was generating hype.

On a whim, I am currently working my way through the Penguin Guides, which are easily found in charity shops these days. I was already familiar from younger years with their Core and Crown recommendations but I hadn't considered their non-Core and no-Crown recommendations before. Whilst I viewed them with a certain disdain at the time, read retrospectively they're an excellent frozen snapshot of a certain critical viewpoint in the 1990s and 200s. Brad Mehldau and the Bad Plus were supreme. On the avant side, it was Evan Parker and Barry Guy, once a week, every week. ECM was an enormous titan that required recognition. Straight Ahead jazz of the Young Lions Coltrane-gang type was increasingly seen as old hat. A very heavy domination of Europeans. No fusion. No smooth or radio friendly jazz. It is strange to be confronted with the past in this way. That was a vanished era of low access to information, high critical power / gatekeeping, a lack of any expectations of a social mission (with accompanying extreme downplaying of African-American and of younger musicians) and a time before "poptimism" shattered self-perceived elite tastes. The 1990s and 2000s is generally my least favourite era for this music. Obviously a lot of the music reminds me of the reasons for my angry dismissals at the time, but, there is a hint of nostalgia to going through some of this stuff.

Mark Dresser Trio – Aquifer

Still a good record.

Steve Lacy – Actuality

Joe Maneri / Joe Morris / Mat Maneri – Three Men Walking

George Wettling's All Stars – Dixieland In Hi-Fi All star Condon-fest to take the edge off an authentically grim London February morning.

Art Ensemble of Chicago - Les Stances a Sophie I've owned this one on the Soul Jazz reissue for a while but it was time to trade up. It sounds great. I don't normally do this, but for the AEC and Roscoe Mitchell I get vinyl-brained.

Louis Jordan – Somebody Up There Digs Me

That's interesting. Was that to do with when you first discovered the group?

Vernard Johnson - in Concert

Pharaoh Sanders - Karma Oh yeah. A great favourite of mine. From their early days. This is the only one I've kept, and agreed that they're not anything like what they should be. Now onto Kaoru Abe - Mort A Credit

Arthur Blythe - Lenox Avenue Breakdown

Butcher, Durrant, Lovens, Malfatti, Russell – News From The Shed

CCC - Muhal

Circle - The Paris Concert

Miles Davis - Agharta Birthday boy.