Rabshakeh

Thanks. I always find it weird how Mosaic doesn't just tell you which records are represented in the sets.

David Murray - Sacred Ground

II Quattro Di Lucca – Quartetto

I've decided to read David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest finally. For whatever reason the book seems to have replaced Ulysses as the book that an intelligent person is supposed to have read, and it now seems to be the go-to indicator for young people who came of age with social media to determine whether someone is a serious reader. I have enjoyed other internet era touchstones like 2666 and I am a shallow person so I decided it is time that I had to read it. My initial impression 100 pages in is surprise at how terrible it is. It seems begging on its knees desperate to be Pynchon, but Wallace is just a terrible writer sentence-by-sentence (some of the sentances are eye-raisingly bad without ever being funny), the tone is leaden and tiresome, and the only thing interesting about the ideas and setting is that Wallace considered them interesting. The purpose of the footnotes seems to be to give academics something in the book's form to discuss. But mostly it is that cringing humiliating derivative relationship to Pynchon (similar to e.g. Neal Stephenson ripping off William Gibson's classics) is really distracting for me. I can only assume that it is famous because it is long; has encyclopedic pretentions (well, foot notes); because the main character fits the internet archetype of the gifted kid dropout; and because the people reading it confuse an inability to write with complexity. It feels.at this stage like it is going to be a long 981 pages, so if I am missing anything let me know. I'm always willing to be correct. Perhaps the book is plot driven or picks up as it goes. Macdonald can have a lot of plotting issues (the opposite of Agatha Christie's: everyone just confesses immediately upon being confirmed and in sequential order), but when his books are good they are very good and among my favourites of their type.

Joking aside, I wonder whether the new (not actually new) combative approach taken by Shipp and Lowe etc on social media might help raise the profile and energy level of the music? My AI marketing phrase generator tells me that viral social media dunks on establishment power structures are Big! Right! Now!. If it does help put a spotlight on this kind of music, that would be great. As my father (a retailer) used to say, goods never sold from a stockroom (not in fact true for the era of Amazon and Ikea, as my father himself was sadly to learn, but the concept still holds). You do have to merchandise yourself.

Salvatore Bonafede – For The Time Being A nice record that is actually the sum of its parts that I hadn't listened to before. Enjoying it during a rare lie in after a truly horrific work week.

For years this was the only post 1970 jazz record that I owned. I know every note.

Are those from the Emanem recordings?

Yeah. That Mulligan is another one that's straight on the nose. I see what you mean about Jo Jones in the Jumpin' clip.

Did Jo Jones do that too? I'm wretched and can't think of anything.

Yes! The Nordine is a perfect example. Maybe even at the time it was more of a "jazz culture" thing, rather than a "jazz" thing?

When a character in a film or TV show goes into a jazz club, you know it is a jazz club because there is a drummer in shades playing ti tu tu ti tu tu ti on his hi hats. That hi hat pattern is immediately recognisable as a symbol that jazz is occuring. Can anyone think of actual examples of this drum pattern in the jazz of the 1940s to 1960s. Maybe I'm just tired and struggling to think of it whilst listening to Andrew Cyrille.

Sunny Murray w/ Sabir Mateen – We Are Not At The Opera I didn't expect to enjoy this one anything as much as I am enjoying it. Not sure why I didn't.

I love the Folkways label, both their more authentically traditionalist and more modern output. Magical stuff.

As I say, cask conditioned bitter is my drink of choice, but generally these days porters and stouts are what I drink because changes in beer marketing mean they tend to be far and away the best on offer. Sadly it isn't easy to get decent ale in London at all any more. That's even true outside of London these days. I was in a pub in deepest darkest Dartmoor recently which surprisingly had really excellent food, but sadly only the most terrible beer you can imagine. Triple hopped and hazy IPAs and other horrible stuff. And Dartmoor has some of the best water and best breweries in the UK, so it is a real shame. I will as a rule always order a milk stout if I see a milk stout. No brewer without good taste makes milk stout, and it is a forgiving style anyway, so you are safe ground pretty much always. I was always surprised that cask conditioned bitter hasn't really caught on in the States. The US micro scene is really strong and people are knowledgeable. (It isn't like here where micro breweries are just a way of branding trendy crap.) You'd think that someone would go on holiday to Yorkshire or Bath and come back committed to brewing a rival to Old Peculiar or Landlord or a Gem or whatever. They're not that commercial due to the time it takes and the need for good water, but I am still surprised that its not really being tried.

Martial Solal – Locomotion

Is Jason the one who keeps flying the New Orleans flag in particular? I think he runs with a clique of impressively bland musicians. Those Los Hombres Calientes records might as well be written by AI.

Curtis Fuller – Two Bones One of the best Tucker / Harewood performances, I think.

Back on beer, a new pub has opened right next to my house (almost) called the Pocket. It specialises in microbrewery beers, has a great atmosphere with competent jazz band and/or traditional sing-along piano, charges by percentage alcohol (nice idea) and is a spin off of Kentish Town's much loved Southampton Arms. The only problem is that the beers are all incredibly terrible. They change selection almost daily but there are days when there is not a single beer of which i can get through a pint. It is not just the notorious over-hopped cheaply made IPAs but also rank rotten brown ales and horrible chewy porters. I am a bitter (drinking) man typically and I am used to ruefully ordering a Guinness because it is the only non-microbrewed beer in your average middle class London pub, but this is a particularly extreme example of its type. Whilst micro breweries have made a difference (particularly in the US where the microbrewery scene is much better and the initial underlying beer culture was probably worse imo) they can be a curse. I'm always amazed at how many people will happily drink absolutely terrible beer from these places. It is even worse with the dreaded "bio-wines". Inept, cheaply made chemical crap which tastes disgusting, goes with no food, and immediately goes off before it can be served. But with a shiny label and a premium price tag. In the Pocket's defence it does not have that premium price tag (for an Islington pub it is very cheap) and it does, like the Southampton Arms, have an excellent selection of scrumpies, but I don't drink cider because I am a responsible adult (my wife is from the West and does go for a half of her native brew, from time to time). Micro brewing and bio cost-cutting has yet to hit cider it appears.

Playing this one again. A sensational record, sketching in some of the space between Black string band traditions and both New Orleans brass and Memphis jug styles.

Various – Music From The South (Volume 1: Country Brass Bands)

My kids are big fans. Currently reading a poem a night to them as a treat after lights out. That's a really great one. Both Ehrlich and Malaby at their respective best.

Such a great line up but I was a bit disappointed with this one. What's your view?

Such a great record.

Sergio Armaroli, Francesca Gemmo, Barry Guy - At Sotto Il Mare First Visit