scott's occasional swinging old jazz thread (moldy figs to 1980)

Curtis Fuller: We have a story to tell. This is our story. Nobody’s copping the
Japanese music, nobody’s copping the Chinese music, nobody’s playing the Ton
Ton’s. We did do it in front of Cherokee years ago. (Imitates sounds of the drums).
We brought this to the table, it’s intertwined with European culture, you know? We
didn’t have the scales, the chords, or the wherewithal to make this take shape to be
enjoyed by all. You’re getting with rhythm and a few things, but even that now…As a
result of this being in America, we can shape all these sounds and chords and
things. It took all of us to do this; I don’t care what color you are. That’s what jazz is,
it’s just like a chord, it all depends on what you got in it. It’s like Bitches Brew, or
Grandma’s Stew, it depends on what you put in it. As Victor Lindlahr says, “You are
what you eat.” You eat shit? That’s what you become. That’s where I think we are
headed. We eat better, we’ll play better, we’ll think better, we’ll sleep better, we’ll
learn to—The guy says, “Can’t we all get along?” Yes we can. When the day comes,
we’ll have to. We have to! We are at that gig right now. We have to get along, or else
it will be like Rome, we’ll crumble from within. That was the greatest country at one
time. The British Empire, great! They over extended themselves; they were all down
in Australia or wherever else. It took four weeks to go to the little island, the
Falkland Islands, to fight a handful of people there in Argentina. Give me a break!
You don’t have to worry about this! There’s nothing there but seagulls. C’mon guys!
You can do better than that. (Laughs) But, this is where we are. So, why don’t we
take this and market this great art form that the Creator has given us? We’re
blessed. We are truly blessed, where we live, the location logistically on the map.
Even the Germans tried, they came right up to our shores. People didn’t even know
it, we sunk more ships right out there. We didn’t know what was happening. They’re
still finding bombs out there in San Diego and out there in places. The Japanese put
on balloons and flew there. Every once and a while, a kid will go out to play
somewhere and go and detonate one of those son of a bitches. We will survive. We
have to. It’s our nature that we can survive all those dinosaurs and pig foot, and big
foot, and all those people. We’ll be all right. The reason I know, you know Grady

http://inarow.jp/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/curtis-fuller-1963.jpg
Tate?

album of the week: Billy Harper - Soran-Bushi, B.H. - Denon - 1978

(can't get over how good this album is. not impossible to find on vinyl though it only came out in Japan. the only CD of it came out in Japan in 1982(!!!). i'll bet you didn't even know that there were CDs in 1982. well, there were. if you see it somewhere, grab it!)

I had no idea that Bernie Hamilton was Chico Hamilton's brother. Captain Dobey! And I had no idea that Bernie Hamilton had a record label called Chocolate Snowman.

http://www.starskyandhutch.info/wp-content/uploads/SH2-1-021.jpg

http://radiofreechip.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Chico-Hamilton-on-Brushes.jpg

Chocolate Snowman!

anyone else checked out the Savory Recordings that have started to come out digitally? INCREDIBLE. Coleman Hawkins stuff on Vol. 1 is out of this world.
http://www.npr.org/2016/12/08/504696831/once-the-stuff-of-jazz-legend-1930s-recordings-are-finally-out

does sound great!

don't wish to seem ungrateful, but am a tiny bit annoyed that It's not in stores or on Amazon — it's only available as an iTunes exclusive.

look forward to hearing it all the same

we can only hope that jack white makes a suitcase with a FLAC stick in it of all that stuff.

but anyway yeah it's cool that that stuff exists. but it has always amazed me how much stuff already exists between private recordings/V Discs/radio broadcasts/european recordings/etc.

http://riverwalkjazz.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/imageEDK1.jpg

someone should make bootleg CDs out of the iTunes stuff. i'd buy some.

anyone else checked out the Savory Recordings that have started to come out digitally? INCREDIBLE. Coleman Hawkins stuff on Vol. 1 is out of this world.
http://www.npr.org/2016/12/08/504696831/once-the-stuff-of-jazz-legend-1930s-recordings-are-finally-out

― tylerw

i posted about it on the rolling jazz thread but only got radio silence... and yeah, _anything_ "exclusive" is a crock.

love this interview. a year before he died. paul desmond asking a lot of questions. bird liked paul a lot. bird liked brubeck and kenton and tristano and lots of egghead stuff. paul desmond really relieved to find out how much bird used to practice. 11 to 15 hours a day when he was younger! just in case anyone thinks being a genius is easy. and then at the end to hear bird talk about how excited he is to go to paris and study with edgar varese and go to school...man, he was just getting started. he changed the world, but he was just getting started.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3W8Ff_4oFg

listening to the double-disc set of earl hines doing ellington. recorded in the early 70's at various sessions. i don't know if its common knowledge how off the hook earl hines was in the early 70's. but he really was. just endlessly inventive. can't think of TOO many people who helped invent jazz in the 20's who made records that were as good as the ones he made during the watergate era. you can find them for a buck or two at used stores.

yeah, latter day Hines is really nice. there are some 70s Teddy Wilson LPs that are pretty pleasing too.
this is from the 50s I believe, but it is just gorgeous
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q6oNMsRsEU

I think (hope?) that the Savory stuff will get a proper physical release at some point?

Just got a disc of previously unreleased live stuff by the Three Sounds, Groovin' Hard: Live at the Penthouse 1964-1968. I feel like nobody remembers them now, but they were a really good soul-jazz/hard bop piano trio who made a bunch of albums in the 50s and 60s. Occasionally, they'd back someone up; LD + 3 is them with Lou Donaldson, Blue Hour is them with Stanley Turrentine.

well, people do remember them because they made about a zillion records on blue note. but its true they aren't exactly in fashion. the records are very enjoyable though. i like Hey There, and the one with Anita O'Day and some other ones. there are so many. a la ramsey lewis.

i've been listening to my Quartette Tres Bien records lately. does anyone remember them? a bunch of their stuff has never made it to CD for whatever reason.

i just looked. 9 albums on decca in the 60's and none on CD. must be some legal thing i don't know about. they are very cool records.

what i really love though are the 70's records that Gene Harris of the Three Sounds made. loooooove that stuff. all on blue note too. astralsignal and nexus are big favorites of mine. and cheap too as far as awesome funky 70's stuff goes. i would recommend all of the solo ones.

think the only one of those 70s gene harris LPs I've heard is the live one with a creedence cover ... which is a pretty good time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QvlYyZ3P5Y

Nexus is my fave. they are just a lot of fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70ROu6GoZTU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xa6uaE2oYj4&t=163s

Phil Woods:

"At 15 I said “Whoa, this is great."
And we went for a lesson one time at Mr. Tristano’s house and he said, “Are you kids going down to 52nd
street tonight?” And we said “yeah, why do you ask?” And he said, “Well, I’m opening for Charlie
Parker and I thought maybe you’d like to meet him.” And you know, to myself I said “Yeah, I’ve always
wanted to meet God,” you know. And sure enough, this time we held back on the records, we held back
on the pasta so we’d have two dollars, we could buy two coca-colas and really relish the evening, you
know. And Tristano’s trio opened up the evening’s festivities, and uh I think it was Arnold Fishkin who
was a bass player who, because Lennie was blind, somebody had to come and get us. Arnold came and
got us and took us behind the curtain. I mean 52nd street they were just speakeasies. They were just like narrow little cellars, uh there was no backstage, no dressing rooms or nothing like that. And we came
around the back of the st…the back of the bandstand which was just a little, and there was Bird sitting on
the floor, the great Charlie Parker, the man who was changing the planet, and he had a, a big cherry pie,
and he said “Hi, kids! Would you like a piece of cherry pie?” And I said, “Oh, Mr. Parker, cherry’s my
favorite flavor.” And it is! But I didn’t know what else to say! And he said, “Well you sit down
here, boy, and I’ll cut you a big slice” and he took out his switch blade bing boom bang, you know, and
handed me a big piece of cherry pie. And I said, “Oh my God, I’m in heaven.” I mean he was so kind, I
never forgot that."

fucking, amazing.

Arrgghh, you kids and your bebop, boobop---check this (if it don't show, a page of stuff by Mezzrow & Sidney Bechet & Friends: "Sendin The Viper" and whatnot)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_CEzmqAWWc&list=PLIzQd_Wf46Y100OOMNJ-bxZ5a_RjN_YC8

very much to the point!

Not sure if this is the proper place to share this; was looking for a "random old _____ you are loving" jazz equivalent. But anyway, here's an album by the band Ululation from 1987:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPKG0wVPYWA

It's kind of in a larger ensemble sort of style. Maybe a bit reminiscent of Sun Ra's swing revival period. Discogs info.

any love for the philly quartet CATALYST?

"ain't it the truth" (1972)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9i7rO1WYaA

that was their "hit"; a kind of ramsey lewis-esque soul jazz instrumental. funky as they come and always a mixtape favorite for me. the rest of their stuff was a lot more wild, but always retaining some semblance of a groove. kind of reminiscent of mwandishi/crossings era herbie hancock. all four of their albums are really good and recommended if you've never heard them.

in a similar vein, i've always really dug the two sessions buster williams led on muse in the mid 70s (pinnacle + crystal reflections) for many of the same reasons as catalyst. it's kind of weird and skronky in spots, but never full on insanity. and always funky enough to remain fairly accessible. they'd be right at home on strata east or black jazz.

here's "the hump" (1975):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CR0KRb8IC9k

Prompted by ilxor Dan Peterson, I revisited Ike Quebec's classic early 60s Blue Note run and have discovered organist Freddie Roach. I always knew him from the Quebec albums, but never knew about any of his albums as a leader. Have only gotten through the Blue Note ones so far, but this is some seriously strong stuff. He preferred to work with guitarists it seems and Mo' Greens Please (1963) features Eddie Wright and Kenny Burrell in peak soul jazz mode (though they never duet on the same track; album probably sourced from multiple sessions). Even better, Brown Sugar (1965) finds Joe Henderson sitting in and proving once again that he really could play anything and he could play it all pretty damn well. More soul jazz than all out funky, it definitely feels like one of those standard classic Blue Notes that just transcends time. Crazy that the Blue Note catalogue still has "new to me" stuff of this calibre.

Here's them riffing on Lloyd Price's "Have You Ever Had the Blues?" from Brown Sugar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBgUuTmDRoU

Freddie Roach — "Lion Down" (1962)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLpfmg-qX_w

Kenny Burrell kind of vamps for most of his solo, then right around the two minute mark just fucking blacks out. Does Freddie cut him off???!!?! The amount of mutual disrespect captured on tape lol.

I know the title track from Brown Sugar from a Blue Note organ jazz comp but had never heard the whole thing.

Thanks for keeping this vintage Scott thread alive. This is where I will put jazz things that interest me, currently the intersection of Latin and bossa nova, where it verges on easy listening. Most folks around here want to talk about Sonny Sharrock or whatever, but sometimes I just want to relax and pat my foot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcPWqO9-juU

Heh to me it sounds like Freddie Roach was coming in with backgrounds behind the guitar and meant for him to keep soloing, but instead they ended up with that little co-comping chorus.

Reminds me of a jam session I was at over the summer led by Victor Goines, where he kept coming in with backgrounds behind other soloists and they would always stop playing, because no one uses backgrounds anymore and is shocked when they hear another horn player during their solo.

(whereas in New Orleans music, it's standard practice and that's how you know you hit your last chorus)

i agree w jordan, it sounds like roach just starts comping behind him but instead of propelling burrell forward he backs off and settles into a little groove

i got the reissues of Thelonious Monk's 10-inch Prestige 'albums' btw and they are fucking glorious

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7y1nMkYeRE

Somehow only just learned about Hazel Scott (via Arthur Taylor’s Notes and Tones book of interviews. Relaxed Piano Moods with Mingus and Roach is extremely nice.

Dan, "Flame and Frost" is excellent! Very haunting theme. I really liked the guitar playing on that tune, so I looked it up and the guitarist was Joe Diorio, who just passed away a few weeks ago. Time flies. There's so much of that Argo/Cadet/Chess stuff that I've never heard so I definitely appreciate hearing it. This one's even on Spotify, so it's in the queue.

brimstead, checking out that album right now and my initial impression is that you are 100% accurate in your assessment. kind of awesome to hear mingus in such a sustained mellow mode.

Thank you again, brimstead! Have had that Hazel Scott in steady rotation ever since you posted. It really is a remarkable album. It has a very classicist kind of sound on the surface, but every so often she hits these beautiful minor phrases (minor seventh variants? Not sure about the theory aspects) that are so gorgeous. What a wonderful find.

Revisiting an old favorite today: Sahib Shihab's Jazz Sahib from 1957. The first tune is "S.M.T.W.T.F.S.S. Blues" and it's just infectious:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxPYex25G7k

So funky in that bluesy, early James Brown, chillin` in your car at a red light noddin` at your folks sort of way — just straight to the heart of cool with no effort.

It's one of those albums drawn from multiple sessions with different band members, so Bill Evans is on piano for side two. It opens with "Blu-A-Round":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxKn0mv8mJM

Can't help but be reminded of Kind of Blue by that one, especially on Bill's solo. Pretty hypnotizing stuff.

Both of the tunes are originals by Sahib. I've found that he is highly spoken of by those who know of him, but that he isn't overall that well-known. Oh well. For years, I've used his name in the credits as a guide for finding great music, regardless of which continent he was on. Love him so much.

Postscript—

Jazz Sahib is not on Spotify that I can find. It was originally a Savoy session, so it could be located under another artist.

Discogs has it for just a hair under 900 euros.

Or $10 on CD.

Also on these compilations:

https://www.discogs.com/release/1760012-Sahib-Shihab-Jazz-Sahib-Complete-Sextets-Sessions-1956-1957

https://www.discogs.com/release/8745667-Sahib-Shihab-Five-Classic-Albums-Plus-Bonus-Tracks

Checking out this Randy Weston album because of the Sahib Shihab connection and it's pretty great. Definitely inspired by Duke Ellington's long form works of the period, but kind of filtered through Dizzy's percussion-heavy "big ensemble" sound. Hall of fame cast of characters. Last track is a killer. I can't seem to find it on Spotify or YouTube, unfortunately.

Did a bit more digging. The album is listed on Spotify as part of a two-fer CD.

Of course half of the tracks are unplayable and those are the tracks from Uhuru Afrika.

Fell down a Japanese smooth funk rabbit hole and ended up with this and kind of holy shit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc-pIH0CBxM

Jiro Inagaki & Soul Media - "Breeze" (1975)

Because it's Sunday, why not some 80s private press spiritual goodness?

(It's on the internet jukebox, if you're so inclined.)

This is very niiice. I see the OG is currently on sale for $1000 <scream face>.

Thank the streaming gods on this one, I suppose.

(I enjoyed it, as well. Very pleasant vibe. The spirituality of later Coltrane with none of the skronk.)

Yeah, so Randy Weston was an internationalist way back there--back when some artists were sometimes promoted as "jazz ambassadors," prob with some CIA bucks in there somewhere, as tended to happen w hands-across-the-water arts projects, but wth; anyway, he followed the African diaspora back to the Motherland and forward, what with elements of highlife and Caribbean and blues and weirdo Monk as given prob more than some Gov officials liked---live LP Carnival was the only one I ever owned, and some friends said title opener sounded like naval recruitment commercial, but 7:28 or thereabouts "Tribute To Duke Ellington" was an amazing microcosm, deep into and all around solo piano---Side B is "Mystery of Love," piano, bass, drums, flute, and the moon, also all around.
Also try Blue Moses, where Creed Taylor made him play electric piano (he didn't like it, but lots of people loved it). And his albums feat. trombonist-arranger Melba Liston.

Man I miss Randy Weston, along with some people and venues associated with him.

Yeah, I wanna go to this joint!

In 1967 Weston traveled throughout Africa with a U.S. cultural delegation. The last stop of the tour was Morocco, where he decided to settle, running his African Rhythms Club in Tangier[25] for five years, from 1967 to 1972. He said in a 2015 interview: "We had everything in there from Chicago blues singers to singers from the Congo.... The whole idea was to trace African people wherever we are and what we do with music."[26]

Yes, he was such a great presence too.

going back to a cool modern smooth jazz record from finland this cloudy morning. all those dudes had a pretty fun scene going in the early 2000s, the ricky-tick label is goated imo. shame you can't hear five corners on north american spotify. they called their jams 'dancefloor jazz', and yeah: does what it says on the tin――
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYFCJ-xVvUI
the five corners quintet ― "unsquare bossa" (2005)

the scene gloriously went into all directions at once and ricky-tick burned out in a blast of retro big band barnstormers in just under a decade. their reissues were as solid as their new releases. the first five corners album is a personal classic and i still have to admire that undeniably cool "JAZZ FROM FINLAND" insignia. schema records still aspires to be as consistent.

not issued on ricky-tick proper, the teddy rok album is maybe the best thing to come out of the entire scene. featuring nothing but ricky-tick affiliates and members of five corners, the album is just retro enough to get by on its simmering grooves. but it's also puffed up on its own new agey post-hipsterism, so it makes something like the spiritual "spaces & echoes" fairly confident:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWEHUilDkUo
teddy rok seven ― "spaces & echoes" (2005)

it does come off as a bit of pastiche, but there's tons of vibes and flute all over it, so if you dig the sound, i can't recommend it enough.

I looked up Dave Valentin because I remembered a killer salsa album I used to have ('90s probably?) where his solos were the highlight. But I can't remember what the album was...thinking Tito Puente, but it could have been Eddie Palmieri, or Giovanni Hidalgo, or Mongo Santamaria?

I remembered! It was McCoy Tyner & the Latin All-Stars, with Giovanni Hidalgo, Ignacio Berroa, Gary Bartz, Dave Valentin, etc. Some bangers on here but the flute often steals the show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNidWr9YJ_E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9T-UyHZyHw

thanks jordan! i'll dig in and circle back around.

in the meantime, i went back to the final recordings of sahib shihab from 1988. he went into a sextet session co-led with fellow monk alumni charlie rouse and they had a nice couple of days in hackensack that summer from the sound of it. nothing more than two oldheads in their twilight passing time. it's intermittent on streaming so here's the whole thing on youtube and info on discogs. the album went unreleased at the time, but finally got issued in 1993 by the still hidden gem status uptown label.

dang jordan, this latin all-stars record is really nice! kind of expected, considering the context. flute features are all on point, and there's a cool reading of "blue bossa" to close it out. always interesting to see what gary bartz was doing too. just ime, 90s telarc is sorta overlooked.

to tie this into my last post (sorta), during his solo on "blue bossa" dave valentin does that thing where he stops playing and does one or two off key vocal scats and then picks back up with the solo. idk if there's a name for that, but imo it's a hard thing to pull off, but pretty cool if you can. sahib shihab did it sometimes when he would play flute:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-8eTJkjd_s
sahib shihab/clarke+boland sextet ― "om mani padme hum" (late 60s)

thanks again for the rec! is there a name for when flute players do that?

Glad you enjoyed it, idk if there's a name for that, but he's also doing a lot of multiphonics in that solo (singing one note while simultaneously playing a different note)

oh that duke ellington spacemen record is great (xpost of many x's)

going off on various little vibe'n'flute tangents lately because of this thread...

...and it of course brought me back to bobby hutcherson. there's just something about his catalogue that contains a vital nutrient i crave. like a lot of jazz legends, he has a huge back catalogue that inevitably contains some albums that haven't fully jumped the digital gap. i'd expect his out-of-step mid-80s indie postbop albums to have gotten lost in the shuffle a bit, but even some of his major label albums are still kind of poorly translated to the digital era. case in point: this rad album on columbia from 1978. beautifully recorded in the bay area, featuring hubert laws and freddie hubbard, along with arrangements by cedar walton and george cables (a very overlooked player that i may post about later; he was a hutcherson protege, of sorts). i've always kind of considered hubert laws more of a role player, so his featurettes are perfect here. the album has that wonderfully classy big production 70s postbop sound, with the arrangement accents and kenneth nash's added percussion. the tunes are all atmospheric modal originals, bookended by "secrets of love" (one of which is a vocal). bobby's columbia period was short, but fruitful, if you like this sound. not changing anyone's mind about anything, but certainly a solid entry into any discography. it used to be an easy find, due to major label distribution. i found my copy at salvation army for a dollar. and yeah, used copies via mail order still very reasonable, but you couldn't hear it in full anywhere on the current internets, so here's a vinyl rip on youtube.

btw, hutcherson's 80s albums on the landmark are all excellent too. smaller groups, still lots of flute features. some are on streaming, the best ones aren't. i'm gearing up to reaccess my vinyl in the next few months, and archiving will begin. i got other stuff too. watch this space.

oh yeah, highway one also features freddie hubbard a bit, too.👍🏻

guess i mentioned freddie hubbard twice there. he's great, wish he got more playing time!

one last thing for now: another courteous fellow traveler has posted bobby's other columbia album on youtube as a playlist. it's worth your time if you're reading this. but i have a question to my fellow listeners about this: what's your preferred format for this? post the album as one long video, or split out the tracks individually?

(i've been doing one video, full album because that's how i prefer to listen on youtube hbu?)

definitely prefer one video for a full album

thanks for sharing these!

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZWBfO8UmeY; title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

fairport convention's debut single "if i had a ribbon bow" came across a feed spurring me to look into the song's history, and the maxine sullivan/john kirby version from... 1937? 1940? is sublimely arch. maxine sounds a lot like ella on these early sides with bassist john kirby's orchestra, but the real revelation was the chamber jazz versions of classical hits like scheherazade, humeresque and swan lake, this is the clear link between early ellington and "birth of the cool" that i've always suspected exists in the third stream jazz prehistory.

i see that some of these kirby arrangements were by charlie shavers, who started with gillespie pre-bebop and later joined the raymond scott cbs small group, which has a similar metronomic clockwork overly-composed feel. great stuff then you relisten to the vocal sides and hear the intricacy better there, too.

huh. i will have to check this out

Thanks Austin, those Bobby Hutcherson records are sweet.

Is there really no standalone Lee Morgan thread? Because Taru is killing me with goodness tonight.

A friend recently sent me this, which I'd always heard about, yet somehow never heard---I asked of we'd talked about Art Pepper before; he said no: turns out we were both solo Pepper heads, all these years. Remastered, expanded, the soulful, vibrant, sometimes scary Winter Moon:
https//www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFIbU9MNv5w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFIbU9MNv5w

Been really into Hank Mobley's Roll Call lately. I'd been listening to all the ones with Philly Joe which are great, but then you put this on and Art Blakey just swings you to death. It's basically a Messengers album with Wynton Kelly and Paul Chambers, and great Freddie Hubbard.

Just now heard on radio: Leslie Odom Jr. singing "Autumn Leaves," with me thinking, "Of course! Why have I never heard anybody do it this way before?" Only backing mentioned was Jeff "Tain" Watts, in the pocket with bass and piano, nobody showboating:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVJAc3nxhqY

https://www.discogs.com/label/589685-%E3%82%AA%E3%83%AA%E3%82%B8%E3%83%8A%E3%83%AB10-Inch-LP%E3%82%B3%E3%83%AC%E3%82%AF%E3%82%B7%E3%83%A7%E3%83%B3-From-BN5000

here's a brief look at the frank foster one.

these came out in late 90s japan/early 2000s in america. emi japan way ahead of the curve doing mono reissues back then! i had several of these reissues at one point and they are CLEAN. recommended!

here's a fun post-bop session led by chico freeman on the contemporary label. really dig the vibe of "nia's song dance" check it out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCcwixfUQws

https://www.discogs.com/release/2347568-Chico-Freeman-Peaceful-Heart-Gentle-Spirit

never heard a Chico Freeman record i don't like. the one right before it, No Time Left, is good too

i had never heard of that frank foster record, will be checking it out shortly

hey bj, thanks for listening!

sorry about the snap, crackle, and pop of some these... but tbh, these are records i've been carrying around most of my life, so these rips aren't exactly the first plays iykwim.

on that note, here's my favorite album-length advertisement for a mail order medallion. the 1976 posthumous cannonball adderley album lovers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6H29yZmZkk
not anybody's best performances in hindsight, but the closing title track is a pretty nice nat adderley jr/flora purim thing that's closer to her material or rtf. also recommend the sparse george duke original "children of time" which breaks up the groove in the middle of side one; kind of recalls the sparse eerie fusion takes miles had a few years prior. good stuff. more mid-70s big budget fantasy to follow.

oh goodness, did i forget the most important part?

https://i.imgur.com/3Ctx3dT.jpeg

I assume you're going with the solid gold option, right?

I love finding stuff like that inside records.

Do you guys like Ahmed Abdul-Malik?
― Let's disco dance, Hammurabi! (Austin), Wednesday, May 18, 2022 11:29 AM

revisited this guy yesterday. stuff totally smashes, favorably reminds me of cumbia and jazz fusion. has a lot of really fascinating music still available on usa streaming. unsung hero, for sure.

he’s so good! african bossa nova probably my favourite of his.

his entire disco is fire tbh

Accidentally posted this in the current rolling thread, but I heard this album last Friday night and, after gawking at the cover art, was very into it. American trumpeter Benny Bailey and the Swiss quartet Four for Jazz.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sePYhVEEDw

fun fact, that gold medallion would be worth over $10K today

ty for that eazy. looks very promising. i will dig in and check back later.

today's turning of records brought out another classic cannonball. this 2lp is awesome, basically a "deluxe edition" of nippon soul. i'm not sure if the extras have ever appeared anywhere else. the group is killer, a sextet in total. still early 60s, so cannon hadn't gotten the funkier mccurdy/booker foundation in place yet. still, joe zawinul is on board, and louis hayes+sam jones are relishing. and of course, yusef lateef popping in on flute and oboe ― hero! their take on "autumn leaves" is taken at a tempo that i'm not sure is allowed. and yet.

classic cannonball is very classic, and very recommended.

also lol sleeve, quite an investment!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMmdlU_Scy4

here's gene ammons and david axelrod. i find the indecipherable brown/grey metallic ambiguity of the cover to very much represent the music on this one. some fairly good axe arrangements here, but jug sounds hungover. carol kaye is back on the scene for this one, alongside the usual fantasy era session guys. among them, again, is george duke. raining here today; good album for that.

i put that on and parts of it were a little schmaltzy for me but maybe i will try again one day. the cover is certainly very cool

nah, not anybody's best showing unfortunately. ammons did one more session at fantasy studios around the same time without the orchestra and it's better: https://www.discogs.com/master/171919-Gene-Ammons-Goodbye

that's the one that's stayed in print through the years (understandably imo). according to axe, ammons was quite smitten with his two originals for brasswind and had organized with keepnews to bring axe back in regularly going forward. axe had worn out his welcome at fantasy by then, so the deaths of ammons and cannonball within a year of each other pretty much made brasswind one of the last things with axe's name on it from the fantasy years.

also i have to mention this one because it's another of the weird axe-affiliated fantasy stuff from the time: nat adderley's double exposure. he sings on about half of it, and it has one of axe's best ever arrangements on "quit it" but there's also a very pronounced MID vibe to the whole thing. "quit it" still shows up on comps and stuff, and it's been on youtube fan upload for a while: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PaIsQG_LWc

oh yeah, there's a vocal arrangement cover of "in a silent way" in the middle of side 2. i don't think i get it.

oh god, i need to hear that

yeah, lmk what you think on that nat adderley iasw. have been hesitant to post it here because of how beloved the original is. i've been listening to it sporadically at least since my mid-20s. the whole album is confounding.

alright, here's something a little more centered: a walter booker-led session on mapleshade from 2000. cool to hear him at all imo, and this is definitely just a no-nonsense old school jam. unique baritone (cecil payne), trumpet (marcus belgrave), and guitar (roni ben-hur) frontline. tunes are mostly originals, but check out the elmo hope nod on the closer.

Charles Lloyd's FB page shared this, with Jack DeJohnette, Keith Jarrett, Cecil McBee in 1966. Young dudes!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5dMUa5PbxI

I heard Synthesizers Dance by Miroslav Vitous on WKCR's Jack DeJohnette memorial broadcast and was enjoying it's funky fusion:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFJ5G9AL3vM

Vitous, JDJ, Herbie Hancock, and Airto Moreira.

I was kinda sceptical about this working:

Jazz centennials: Eight legends born in 1926

But it hangs together well enough---setlist:

Miles Davis, "Miles Runs The Voodoo Down" 45 rpm single edit (Miles Davis) from Bitches Brew (Legacy Edition)

Melba Liston, "Little Niles" (Randy Weston, arr. Melba Liston) from Little Niles by Randy Weston

Randy Weston, "Ganawa (Blue Moses)" (Randy Weston) from Blue Moses

Ray Brown and Duke Ellington, "Pitter Panther Patter" (Duke Ellington) from This One's for Blanton

Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga, "Anything Goes" (Cole Porter) from Cheek to Cheek

Lou Donaldson, "Blues Walk" (Lou Donaldson) from the album Blues Walk

Jimmy Heath, "Big 'P'" (Jimmy Heath) from Really Big!

John Coltrane, "Dear Lord" (John Coltrane) from Transition

Hear tis (on Jazz Night In America) https://www.npr.org/2026/01/22/nx-s1-5683279/eight-jazz-legends-born-in-1926

Single edit of "Miles Runs The Voodoo Down" sounds great, never heard that version before.

After that, local station played some of this: Monty Alexander and extended band, plus special guests Scofield and Lovano, covering Monk, who fit very well. What other Caribbean or Latin Monk stylings should I check?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Boq6SFt4We8

there's lots of connections there. e.g., denzil best, co-composer of 'bemsha swing," was from a barbadian family

I talked in my Cecil Taylor book about how Caribbean drummers were extremely important to his early sound: Denis Charles was from the Virgin Islands (and Taylor recorded "Bemsha Swing" with him), and Andrew Cyrille is Haitian.

ok i had no idea how much I needed to hear Johnny Hodges play “Passion Flower” right now

xpost i love those fusion-era miles radio edits because why the hell not imo

i have to say something about this "new release" that showed up on my digital streaming app that shall remain unnamed:
https://i.imgur.com/XOIParr.jpeg
it has visible ringwear on the artwork and is clearly a vinyl rip of this album: https://www.discogs.com/master/470039-Cannonball-Adderley-Presents-Rick-Holmes-Love-Sex-And-The-Zodiac

... and i've no idea why they didn’t separate the tracks because there are fadeouts between all of them. album is fine; silly 70s cannonball being provocative but only just so. really only makes me chuckle because of how it got there and because i remember david axelrod saying how much he kept telling cannonball to "fire that guy" with regards to rick holmes. lol oh well, some of the music is okay.

hey i'm mad about that cannonball adderley thing on streaming. stuff like that ―obviously unofficial uploads on official platforms― is problematic. hiwever, my issue lies in the fact that there's copyright protections on other cannonball music that intentionally isn't on streaming

(sorry hit submit too soon)

...and i say all that to point out: if i go on my youtube channel, talk about some rare cannonball that isn't currently available digitally while the record plays quietly in the background... well, i can't do that because that video gets automatically blocked when i try to upload it. i'm not playing a whole song/album uninterrupted and i'm not doing anything except basically saying, "hey this is a cool record."

and i get blocked. meanwhile, here's a shitty unofficial vinyl rip up on spotify.