David Ayers

It's because they are promos. If you had paid full price they would sound really much better... 😉 Thanks, everyone, for your tips on these. Very much appreciated.

The famous DMMs! It was like the tide breaking, back then. Edit: come to think of it, the DMMs were a couple of years later, after the first more ‘normal’ issues. All very welcome.

Thanks for the detailed answer. Very much appreciated!

So I’m about to take the leap back into BN vinyl, both Tone Poet and Classic. The Classics I have seen in store are of European origin. Haven’t checked any Tone Poets yet. Are the BNs I find in the UK, or order directly from the BN website, always going to be Europe-made? Are there any quality differences re. pressings, jackets, or anything else? What’s the best approach for me to source these?

I’ve been listening to my Malik-led discs in the last few days. I have thought back on this thread and Mr Malik’s arrival on it quite a few times since. Rehearing the music has reminded me how long his aesthetic has stayed with me. I still richly appreciate these CDs. Rereading the thread is also something. Apart from the (I guess) embarrassment of being caught spouting opinions by a ‘name’ musician, the thread itself has stayed with me too.

If anyone wants to go down the rabbit-hole of the history of the 28-year copyright in pre-1972 sound recordings (I don’t!) here is a place to start with useful summary and links: https://blogs.loc.gov/now-see-hear/2019/02/copyright-breakdown-the-music-modernization-act/

You’re right! Thank you.

Anybody know what this is? https://open.spotify.com/album/2GUaxvV3Ziln8TLjK7YLIz?si=lQagfgkhQ6aIe9-zcBHijw

I am not aware of any academic work on this topic, but that is what is needed. In literary studies we have for a long time paid attention to questions of readership, distribution, advertisement and cognate areas. Influenced by the once entirely separate field of the history of the book, we have paid increasing attention to publishers, booksellers, bookshops, nd other sites and mechanisms of distribution. Literary studies is a heavily resourced field. Music less so, not least because a large part of music studies is practice-oriented (performance and composition), the technical barrier to entry is high, and the scholarship of the kind which would be useful in answering the OPs question is thin on the ground, not least because there is more fundamental work yet to be done on basics as far as the last century or so is concerned. This work - or some of it - will I think eventually come, in the same way we understand to some extent at least how earlier markets for music functioned (e.g. Handel, Mozart) and, while I haven't checked it, I imagine we have a similar level of knowledge re. big names as to the personal finances of e.g. Bartok and Ellington. Now I don't follow music scholarship very much and there may be more out there than I suspect, but I should think there is much further to go in the study of venues, publications, advertising outside specialist publications, and we probably haven't made much of a start on jazz producers, record stores, etc. I daresay there is more of this kind of thing on e.g. rock, punk, pop. All that said, I haven't done much of a search on this, and if people are aware of good sources it would be useful to see the references posted here.

There are four terrific trio albums - two most recent on Intakt, two earlier on Jazzwerkstatt.

I’m going to add Silke Eberhard. Unfailingly interesting, immersed in classic modernists (especially Dolphy) but very much her own voice. She’s been mentioned on the board a couple of times but I’d have thought she’d have a wide appeal here in terms of people’s tastes.

Yes some labels have moved on this. By opportunities I was thinking leader or duets.These UK researchers produce some depressing analysis and statistics but suggest that the largely older male audience for jazz can influence the culture with their concert attendance and purchases - which is what I’m going to try. See how long I last!

I see. So where does she express the views which you attribute to her? Why stifle this topic? There are currently active record labels which have rarely or never given opportunities to women. The most significant exception is Intakt. I wonder what they might make of this discussion? I'm not even asking people to embrace feminism and feminist cultural theory (though I think they should), I just asked which women in jazz people find interesting - whether currently active or from forty years ago - or both.

Here’s what Léandre has actually said “I was looking to create new music, my music, in my century, plus I am a woman, not a man. I had to find my music, my feeling, my sounds. I don’t want to play like a man. Men have examples to look up to, not only in music, but as a woman, we don’t really have big figures on podiums. The only figures in front of me were men. I had to find myself, as a woman, in a creative way. All the world is built by men, almost everything. Women have to do somethings by themselves.”

Well, this is the recommendations thread, and I still think it's ok to ask for recommendations of recordings by women. I wonder why the very idea of this thread arouses objections?