Rooster_Ties

Very specific, I realize. But these two albums have really been scratching an itch the last couple days — and I’m lookin’ for more. In particular, parts of Mal’s The Call — specifically Jimmy Jackson’s organ playing — really reminds me of what Rick Wright added to the textures of some pre-Dark Side era Pink Floyd. That, plus all the static harmony, pedal-point bass playing, and semi-simplistic drumming (by jazz standards). And the Roland Haynes record is really a delight too. Other suggestions don’t absolutely have to be lacking horns — but I’m looking for REALLY “keyboard-forward” sounding stuff, where the two ‘non-piano’ keyboard players can really play off each other. Probably not 50 other albums like these, but are there at least a few others?? ALSO, I’m thinking there could possibly even be some PROG albums (instrumental, or otherwise) that also scratch this same itch for me. In fact, Mal’s The Call almost seems as much like a prog(!) album, as it is jazz. Gosh, I sure wish Mal had done more on electric piano — did he ever touch the instrument again? The wikipedia entry for this album says it’s his only leader-date with a non-acoustic-piano keyboard. Didn’t he do some stuff with Embryo, and maybe some of that was on e-piano or maybe Rhodes?

Like, fired him publicly, or on stage even ? (Or somehow you saw and/or heard it?)

I hadn’t set out to get all 13 volumes (soon to be 14), but it’s mostly a well-curated series. And in my defense, when I started I never dreamed the series would go on and on and on (and on) like it has. The only volume that I already had most of of on CD, was (obviously) the Blue Note one. But I was so tickled that the included one of the three long BONUS TRACKS from the second “not-released-until-2006” Solomon Ilori session (the one with Donald Byrd and Hubert Laws) — and I also wanted to read what they’d said about it in their liners — so I bought it as a vote-of-confidence for the whole series. (And to my own surprise, the Impluse, Steeplechase, and Prestige volumes all gave me a fair number of key tracks I was aware of and quite liked, but from albums I’d never felt strongly enough to buy.) It’s mostly a darn good series, and almost every volume has at least 4-5 tracks I wouldn’t want to be without. Good stuff. 👍

I’ll have to get this one too — as I have all of the previous volumes (on CD, Vol. 7 was the hardest to finally track down, btw). This seems to be the exact track-listing for Vol 14. https://soundsoftheuniverse.com/product/spiritual-jazz-14-private

Just listened to this finally, and yeah, that’s great! I’m normally half-allergic to war-horse Monk tunes — but that one hit me very nicely. Hell, Branford was killin’ it too — and I’m well more than half allergic to most soprano playing — but Branford’s tone, intonation, and approach here was just wonderful (and didn’t trigger me one bit). Wynton had so much technique, but (strangely) also wasn’t limited by it — and he had ideas too (could solo in unpredictable ways, and remain unpredictable through entire solos). It’s such a shame he went the direction(s) he did, musically and on his soapbox. Easily had the potential of being on my personal top-10 list of all-time favorite trumpeters — as opposed to not even being in my top-100.

It’s funny to see this thread today, because on my commute into work just this morning… I contemplated starting a thread asking for recommendations of favorite recordings with Wynton as a sideman. My opinion of Wynton’s polemics is well documented around here — but I occasionally have some interesting and wonderful things come up on my “Woody Shaw”-based Pandora station with Wynton as a sideman. The track du jour this morning was something from Jeff “Tain” Watts’ 1999 Columbia album Citizen Tain… https://www.discogs.com/release/3243861-Jeff-Tain-Watts-Citizen-Tain So I guess this is a good a place as any to mention that despite all his BS, sometimes — especially 20+ years ago — Wynton could really play.

About 150 LP’s, but probably ~2,000 jazz CD’s (plus another 2,000 more non-jazz) — so maybe ~4,000 total CD’s. I really need to cut all that by 1,000 — but at least I’m not up to the 7,000+ I had back in Kansas City a dozen years ago. I use Pandora all the time — most as a ‘radio’ — but at $5 a month, it’s commercial free — and I can stream specific albums for 30 minutes if I watch one video-ad (which is what I use to listen to specific albums when deciding whether to buy them or not). I don’t do downloads — and other than a ~100+ CDR’s (mostly OOP stuff I can’t find, of vinyl things that can’t be had on CD), I really have the mindset that I want to own legit (CD’s) copies of anything I want to actually listen to in the coming years. And I try like hell to avoid the euro-PD stuff as much as I can (unless it’s truly material than never got issued in the first place — so live grey-market stuff is ok, just not cheap PD reissues of commercial stuff). Streaming is great, but other than Pandora (as the ‘radio’), I only do streaming to get more familiar with stuff I think I wanna buy — or to listen to stuff I’m actively searching for physical copies of.

I can’t imagine very many people have even ever had the opportunity to see the film/documentary that Miles Davis wrote the soundtrack for — about heavyweight boxer Jack Johnson… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Johnson_(film)

At this point, we might at well call it what it is: jazz-LARPing — especially something like remaking the Hot 5’s & 7’s.

I hope to hell you know I only meant that sarcastically!!

Why ya gotta go and take the fun out of it like that!

Which is even worse than an online text-based ‘magazine’. Substantially worse, imho.

One of Tankersley’s students subbed for her that night — and her student did really admirably, and got off a couple really fantastic solos (one each set, iirc). It was a nice night!

There’s a LOT of modern architecture I like — but I think Frank Gehry is way overrated. I’ve been in 2-3 of his buildings — the EXP Museum in Seattle, an art museum in Minneapolis, I’m thinking there’s a third one I can’t for the life of me remember… And in each and every case, there was nothing about the interiors that was even remotely interesting, or that in any way echoed any of the undulating esthetics of the exterior. The idea of what Gehry does could be interesting— and I guess the interior of the symphony performing hall in LA (Disney hall) that he did, with the organ pipes going every which direction — that might be a better representation of the possibility of Gehry’s vision made more manifest throughout an entire building. But those crazy exteriors alone don’t make for good design, imho.

I’ve grown to love good Brutalism ❤️ — and there’s a lot of it out there. But there’s certainly a fair bit of bad Brutalism too. One thing it took me a while to notice is that most of the time, you can’t have good Brutalism without really nice, complimentary landscape architecture — sympathetic designs that almost go hand in hand. “Green” and good landscape design can really elevate a building or complex — and the absence of it is often the difference between the design of the building really working aesthetically or not.

Spoken like a true elitist! (and I should know… I’m right there with you on that point.)

I wonder what all they played for that purpose!!!

How did I know that was gonna be the one with Woody Shaw (had to look it up, because I can never remember which of those 70’s Hutcherson albums are which, by title). I have the Select, but somewhere along the way I also picked up a modest priced Japanese reissue of Cirrus as single too — on the off chance I ever got tempted to sell my Select.

Total agreement on all counts. I barely knew or know anything about country music (my wife either), but we both watched the Burns doc — like you said, because of our love of history, and general positivity about ‘Americana’ (and most things that can entail) — …and Stuart's remarks were among the very best of the entire series.

And a Lee Morgan 60’s set has the likely(?) prospect of the complete sessions of at least one (or was it two?) sessions that have only been partially released. Specifically the session with Frank Mitchell from September 13, 1968 (tracks 7-9 on the CD release of The Sixth Sense — am I remembering right?) Is there another partial session I’m forgetting? — I seem to vaguely remember like there were two?

The only things I’m on are a couple forums — here, and the Hoffman forums. And Reddit. And that’s it. I don’t even have a Google login, if you even imagine — and never have (or if I ever did, I haven’t used it in 10-15 years). I do see tweets occasionally, when they’re posted within online news articles and blog posts. And every once in a blue moon (like maybe twice a year), I’ll Google something to find something specific on Twitter (or that I suspect is on Twitter). And, of course, various Reddit threads link to Twitter, and Instagram — sometimes I can see them without a login, sometimes I can’t. My wife has a Facebook account that she never (ever) uses — but every once in a while we’ll have to log into it in order to see some Facebook page we can’t see otherwise, usually for some business. Or during the pandemic, there were a few live webcasts of some classical or bluegrass music we could only see thru Facebook. We are both very disconnected from most social media. I comment a lot on Reddit, but my wife doesn’t even have Reddit account — and she never comments or posts anywhere, on any platform whatsoever. She’s like a 100% lurker on everything she enjoys online.

My wife discovered The Jayhawks way back when she was in college in the early 90’s at the University of Kansas. Being that KU’s mascot was the Jayhawk, the band name naturally caught her eye — and I don’t think she knew they were from Minneapolis (with seemingly no connection to Kansas) until after she’d bought a couple of their CD’s. We’ve got tickets to see The Jayhawks for the very first time — here in DC, in September — and she’s planning to wear a KU Jayhawk t-shirt when we go!

The Jayhawks!! …and sometimes, of all people, Bruce Hornsby (no kidding). and I have my wife 100% too thank for turning me on to both of them — which I’d probably never have done otherwise.

Radiohead covers at least hold the possibility of being an opportunity for something interesting, imho (Björk covers too) — but I’m always a skeptical regardless.

BTW, as great as Sonny Simmons’ Ancient Ritual is — I think I’ve seen maybe 8-10 cd copies out in the wild over the years, and I think 100% of them had promo stamps on the cover and/or the disc. Seriously! What’s up with that??