Rabshakeh

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?

Two Compositions (Trio) 1998 by Anthony Braxton (Leo). My record player is busted, so I'm visiting old acquaintances via streaming services. I think that this one is missing a bit with retrospect, although I loved it at the time: it sounds very restricted composition-wise, and I think I can hear mistakes and fudges from the players. Braxton's more developed ideas strike me now as being not really up to the level of his writing for the Quartet from only a few years previously. I'd be interested to know if any Braxton fans disagree, and can "remind" me of why I liked this one so much at the time. Now moving on to The Story of Maryam (Soul Note, 1984) by Paul Motion. This one has always been a favourite: the tunes; the double tenor bludgeon of Lovano and Pepper; Bill Frisell's frisellisms; and Motion's playing, which is right up there in his best performances to my mind. Particularly the second side, where the saxophones move to equal prominence with the guitar. It's probably just the combination of Motion's fluidity with Frisell's guitar, but listening to this in 2021, I hear its sound in some of the recent guitar/noise records that have come out over the last few years on labels like Astral Spirits.

Anteloper - Tour Beats, Vol 1 (International Anthems, 2020) An interesting mix between acoustic trumpet and drums (Jaimie Branch and Jason Nazary) and electronic splicing. Now onto: Dexter Gordon - Tower of Power! (Prestige, 1969) I love how Barry Harris juggles the dual tenors. It might be my favourite performance of Harris'. The whole band just cooks, and he does great work holding it together and elevating it to the next level.

Albums like this should be recognised as funk classics. As you say, Mr. Muhammad makes it. I was listening to this earlier. Damn it's good.

It's a really good record, that one. I think it's one of the first records I'd heard in a while that's so successful at crossing over between genres, without losing its jazz heart. You could play it really loud on a sound system and it would go down well. My 17 year old cousin recently got my 81 year old aunt really into Shabaka. She keeps sending me YouTube clips of him soloing. He's got an appeal across the ages.

That's a good album. For anyone interested in Boyd, he's on the My Classic Album programme this Sunday, talking about Miles Davis' Nefertiti. Link here: https://classicalbumsundays.com/my-classic-album-moses-boyd-on-miles-davis-nefertiti/

Sad to hear. He’s on a lot of recordings I treasure.

Two good ones which haven’t seen mentioned above are Lee Konitz with Warne Marsh (Atlantic, 1955) and Jazz of Two Cities (Imperial, 1956), which pairs Marsh with Ted Brown. Also, ditto on Half Note and meets Mulligan mentioned above.