Rabshakeh

Makes sense. Like a good documentary, I supposed.

Okay. This is very much it.

That's basically the music. Just needs the horn players visible.

I think it's a good idea, but may be a bit mature. This is real R&B. It doesn't have the hopped up hooligan energy of the two tunes above. I suspect that sort of energy is what he responded to. Probably between actual R&B and simple / stompy mod soul.

My eldest has had a longtime obsession with the song "Hoots Mon" by Lord Rockingham's XII. For anyone who doesn't know the song, here it is: (Great bit of organ prancing by Cherry Warner on the track.) This morning, around 6am, I decided to play him something a bit stronger, and found this video featuring Big Jay McNeely with what to me seems like a rather pastichey but fun group: The eldest really loved it, and was making me play and replay it until the blessed interval of the school day began. This isn't really my music. Does anyone have any other good ideas for videos or tunes that are like this? What I am looking for is horn-forward R&B (not vocalist-led R&B with a horn section) and with a similar bit of stomping hooligan element. Songs or videos both welcome. Probably videos better but I'd love to put together a three or four tune playlist for car journeys etc if this continues. If videos, I suspect it needs to be men with instruments dressed in sharp looking uniforms. Or at least what will read to a five year old as sharp looking uniforms. Any ideas?

It's streamable. But it's great. The line up is Sakata, Laswell (not always a good thing, but subtle here) and Ronald Shannon Jackson. The record is a really interesting mix of those three ingredients. I'm now listening to this: Sam Gendel – Satin Doll Obviously aimed at the Pitchfork crowd. Slobbery versions of standards that are then chopped up electronically. Nice to hear someone try something newish, but it's not that deep a listen. Gendel's a guy who on and off I do really like, but I think this one is a "what if..." gimmick and nothing more. Prior to that, my five year old caught the Big Jay McNeely bug, so I had spent the morning before school listening to that on YouTube.

What is it about it that you enjoy? I say this as someone a little wary of them, for reasons outlined above.

This is a great record. One of my all time favourites.

Akira Sakata – Mooko This one has really blown me away on first listen.

High Pulp – Pursuit Of Ends This isn't a bad record, but I do find this type of modern jazz a bit depressing overall. Anthemic instrumental music that has almost no blues in it, and chases hip hop and dance rhythms. At the end of the day it all just ends up sounding like background chill out music.

More famous with this cover: Currently listening to: Joëlle Léandre – Zurich Concert

Did you read Chasin' The Bird? I had assumed it was just more hagiographic coffee table content of the sort that the wider jazz industry generates at the moment. But that was just an assumption. I'm wondering whether I missed something.

Nope. Still very gimmicky. But it was a good gig still. The thing about Carter that I find is that the gimmickry has a vital edge that's routed in the love of jazz and his community. There are a lot of artists who could do with a bit of that. Maybe even a double dose.

Good. Carter sometimes a bit gimmicky, but fun when he actually played. There was a Lockjaw section that was really good to see live. Everyone I was with loved the organ.

Tom Prehn Quartet – Axiom

Eric Marienthal – Oasis

I saw him recently with Jason Moran a year or two ago at the Barbican. Shepp looked very unwell even then, so this news is not a surprise. Probably one of the last of the greats surviving from the hero period of the music, so it will be the end of an era when he passes.

Can’t think of much worse than having a total stranger sending me an unknown vinyl record every month. My shelves are heaving enough as it is, and that’s only records that I like.

Going to see James Carter's Organ Trio at Ronnie Scott's tonight. With Jim Alfredson, of this parish.

The Tonight Show Band With Doc Severinsen – The Tonight Show Band With Doc Severinsen This is one of the ones I liked the most from the series.

This is a great idea for a thread. Does it need to be one's professional life? If it is professional life then for me it is not a record but rather Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham. Records that sent me into a serious spin, however, are Statesboro Blues by Blind Willie McTell (I am a cliché), Harry Smith's Anthology and Roscoe Mitchell's Sound. Prior to that my teenaged listening had been dominated by clues received from by Sleep's Holy Mountain, Darkthrone, Frank Zappa and, later on, Anton Webern and John Zorn, but the records I just mentioned cleared away that teenaged mist and had a 'fear and trembling' effect on me, equivalent to a moment of religious conversion.

The case for so many "studies" that get published. It's often all about the headline, none about the data or even the actual findings.

Good old Viz.

I see. Got it!

That's a good way of putting it. It is both a marketing term and a genre in itself. What's the "mossy" and the "plateau"? I like the phrase.