Rabshakeh

Beaver Harris 360 Degrees Music Experience - Negcaumongus (Cadence, 1981) It's barely recorded at all, but I can't get enough of the duet between Don Pullen on piano and Francis Haynes on steel drums at the start of side two.

What comes next?

Sad news

The teenaged Zappa obsessive in me wants me to ask how this one is.

A big thanks for the Exultations and Fracture Mechanics recommendations. Really great, fascinating albums. They've been getting pretty constant play over the last few days.

Thanks. I liked The Mouser a whole lot, so I'll definitely check this out.

How is this one? He's got pretty prolific and I'm struggling to keep up, but a team up with Tomeka Reid is always worth looking up.

Charlie Parker, South of the Border (Verve, 1995)

From discogs it looks like this had just had another reissue, this time on ORG Music, with the Arista cover. https://www.discogs.com/Marion-Brown-Porto-Novo/release/15835447 Does anyone know anything about the company or the reissue?

Meditations by Prima Materia featuring Rashied Ali (KFW, 1995). I thought the idea was a bit of a weird novelty at the time, but their version has grown on me. There was a lot of talent in the band and I think its music has dated well. This is one of my all time favourites, and among the albums that were responsible for hooking me into jazz back in the day. I remember being surprised at just how much music he was able to generate with just two hands: it is a nice crisp piano trio, but it hits as hard as a brassy big band.

And with Texier too. Looks like the answer was just my ignorance of the scene then.

Jazz in the Space Age by George Russell (Decca, 1960). One of my favourite records with the late Charli Persip on.

I certainly did not mean to suggest that. I was just surprised that I had never come across those musicians, and wondering if there was a reason for it, other than my own ignorance of the scene. I wasn't aware that Sclavis had played with Portal or with Tusques. If they were based down in Lyons that would certainly explain it.

Thanks

Players like Maurice Merle, Louis Sclavis, Christian Rollett and Jean Bolcato don't seem to be on any releases with the crowd mentioned in the third paragraph (Portal, etc.). It just seemed odd to me, as the French scene can't have been that big in the 70s, and the rest of them are fairly open to recording with different line ups. I wondered whether there was some sort of animosity or split there. You get similar splits into cliques in Germany and England, I guess, but even there most musicians have played with each other at least once, and there are generally musicians who fall between the camps.

I've been going through those Souffles over the last couple of days. There's some great stuff in there. There appears to be almost no connection between the musicians that play on those records and what I (probably ignorantly) think of as the more "well known" French players like Tusques, Vitet, Portal or Guerin. There is also a total lack of the usual expat Americans. Does anyone know the reason for this split in the 70s French scene? Did they not get on?

I don't know him at all, but that is sad news. Is there one with which you would start?

I was looking for an excuse to put this one on...

Terrible news.

George Lewis and Douglas Ewart: Jila - Save! Mon. - The Imaginary Suite (Black Saint, December 1979)

Thanks! To tell the truth, the whole French scene (other than as sidemen on BYGs) was pretty unknown to me until recently. Its been fun to suddenly discover a huge untapped area like this.

Following that link it looks like there's been quite a bit of Tusques reissued. I'm a big fan of Free Jazz (the album). What would be the next step?

All the thumbs up for this one.

I can't unsee this. Alphea, by Hannes Weinart and Peter Niklas Wilson. A favourite from a few years back that I haven't listened to in a while. Free but gentle.

Gruppo Di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza - s/t, 1966. I think this may have been Ennio Morricone's first record. Some difficult stuff to digest. Duck Baker - Spinning Song: Duck Baker Plays the Music of Herbie Nichols, 1996. A finger picked take on Herbie Nichols that doesn't sound at all bluegrass. It comes across as a mellowed out John Fahey, really. A nice record.