Rabshakeh

It always makes me happy when this thread comes back to life. Not so much my wallet.

There's one video that I've seen on Twitter of him berating a student who was dismissive of Sun Ra (or thought that Sun Ra's dress distracted from the music, or something). It's out there somewhere. I'll see if I can dig it out later.

Ha ha ha. No idea. Just before our most recent lockdown, a bargain addict friend of mine bought a whole lot of old stereo- and hi-fi-testing vinyl from a North London record shop. All of the records are just recordings of bells and recording tones that pan from speaker to speaker. They were commercial releases, apparently. Probably a lot cheaper than Tone Poets.

What is this one? Great cover.

Just depressing.

I convinced my wife to let me give our eldest the middle name “Roscoe” after Roscoe Mitchell. She gamely allowed it. She keeps introducing him as “named after the jazz musician Roscoe Mitchell”, to universally blank looks. I assume that’s because Mitchell is better known as a composer of work outside the jazz idiom. That said, he got off better than my own oldest friend, who ended up with the middle name “Zawinul”. That’s great! I didn’t know that.

The Steve Hoffman guys are on their way.

That’s strange. I have a copy of the Soul Jazz reissue and it sounds raw but decent to my ears. I had the toddler dancing round the kitchen to Lions of Juda the other day...

The Gardens of Harlem by Clifford Thornton and the Jazz Composer's Orchestra (JCPO, 1975). I'd previously avoided this one because I assumed it would be the dreaded early 70s free jazz mass blowfest, but I'm pleased at how wrong I was. Really good tunes on this one and some nice soloing. It could perhaps have done with another rehearsal or two, but it's good as is.

Thanks!

Does anyone know how many there are going to be? Is Volume 4 the last or are there more to come? (Slurp slurp, etc.)

Listening to Midnight Oil at the moment, my first Richardson solo album. I find it quite striking. There’s something about the syncopated time that Charli Persip keeps throughout and the way the trombone features in the arrangements that I find reminiscent of marching band music. Even the version of Caravan is unusual (not least because of the all-skins drum solo). I confess that I did not expect much from the record other than solid hard bop. Are Richardson’s other leader dates like this?

As my record player's still broken, I'm going through a patch of revisiting old CDs from the 90s. This morning I've been listening to: Don Byron Plays the Music of Mickey Katz (Nonesuch, 1993); and Sad Life by Ivo Perelman (Leo, 1996). The Perelman is nice to revisit: one of the best records from that 90s free jazz revival. It's got a strong emotional kick that I don't get from similar records at the time by e.g. Charles Gayle. The Byron is as silly as I remember it: what an odd concept for an album, rendered only stranger with the passage of three decades. Strangely, it still sounds more satisfying and authentic to me than the various Zorn jazz / klezmer combinations that came in its wake, which I didn't really take too (Live in Sevilla excepted).

RIP. Very sad news. He really tied together the playing on so many great records.

I would actually prefer this cover is Herbie Mann was wearing a silly little trilby.

The Next Step (Verve, 2000) by Kurt Rosenwinkel, starring Mark Turner on tenor and Jeff Ballard on drums. This has to have one of my least favourite album covers of all time. I don't know what it is.

Teddy Edwards’s Tango in Harlem (Verve / Gitanes, 1995).

Nice!

Thanks!

Just looked this one up. A weird mix of players who were already heading in different directions.

He's very good on the first Marzette Watts album "& Company". You could also try Funny Funky Rib Crib, an album he did in 1979. It's a mix of free jazz and funk, a bit like Nationtime by Joe McPhee.

Maybe I was just viewing it on a different device.

Have you changed the format of the blog? It looks good.

Definitely money well spent. Those two UGMAA ones are really good re-releases. I love the Oscar Peterson cover art. I don't know the Doug Hammond, but the line up looks enticing. What's it like? Happy birthday!

No Fort Yawuh?