Rabshakeh

He's very good on the first Marzette Watts album "& Company". You could also try Funny Funky Rib Crib, an album he did in 1979. It's a mix of free jazz and funk, a bit like Nationtime by Joe McPhee.

Maybe I was just viewing it on a different device.

Have you changed the format of the blog? It looks good.

Definitely money well spent. Those two UGMAA ones are really good re-releases. I love the Oscar Peterson cover art. I don't know the Doug Hammond, but the line up looks enticing. What's it like? Happy birthday!

No Fort Yawuh?

Two Compositions (Trio) 1998 by Anthony Braxton (Leo). My record player is busted, so I'm visiting old acquaintances via streaming services. I think that this one is missing a bit with retrospect, although I loved it at the time: it sounds very restricted composition-wise, and I think I can hear mistakes and fudges from the players. Braxton's more developed ideas strike me now as being not really up to the level of his writing for the Quartet from only a few years previously. I'd be interested to know if any Braxton fans disagree, and can "remind" me of why I liked this one so much at the time. Now moving on to The Story of Maryam (Soul Note, 1984) by Paul Motion. This one has always been a favourite: the tunes; the double tenor bludgeon of Lovano and Pepper; Bill Frisell's frisellisms; and Motion's playing, which is right up there in his best performances to my mind. Particularly the second side, where the saxophones move to equal prominence with the guitar. It's probably just the combination of Motion's fluidity with Frisell's guitar, but listening to this in 2021, I hear its sound in some of the recent guitar/noise records that have come out over the last few years on labels like Astral Spirits.

Anteloper - Tour Beats, Vol 1 (International Anthems, 2020) An interesting mix between acoustic trumpet and drums (Jaimie Branch and Jason Nazary) and electronic splicing. Now onto: Dexter Gordon - Tower of Power! (Prestige, 1969) I love how Barry Harris juggles the dual tenors. It might be my favourite performance of Harris'. The whole band just cooks, and he does great work holding it together and elevating it to the next level.

Albums like this should be recognised as funk classics. As you say, Mr. Muhammad makes it. I was listening to this earlier. Damn it's good.

It's a really good record, that one. I think it's one of the first records I'd heard in a while that's so successful at crossing over between genres, without losing its jazz heart. You could play it really loud on a sound system and it would go down well. My 17 year old cousin recently got my 81 year old aunt really into Shabaka. She keeps sending me YouTube clips of him soloing. He's got an appeal across the ages.

That's a good album. For anyone interested in Boyd, he's on the My Classic Album programme this Sunday, talking about Miles Davis' Nefertiti. Link here: https://classicalbumsundays.com/my-classic-album-moses-boyd-on-miles-davis-nefertiti/

Sad to hear. He’s on a lot of recordings I treasure.

Two good ones which haven’t seen mentioned above are Lee Konitz with Warne Marsh (Atlantic, 1955) and Jazz of Two Cities (Imperial, 1956), which pairs Marsh with Ted Brown. Also, ditto on Half Note and meets Mulligan mentioned above.

Hope that you enjoy it! It's one of my favourites.

I need to dig this one out again. Thanks for the reminder.

Currently listening to Khan Jamal’s Dark Warrior (Steeplechase, 1984), with Johnny Dyani on bass and Charles Tyler on alto.

An underrated quartet. I like City Gates a lot.

It may well be...

I do like that blog. It's a solid mixture of genuine musician's insight with total nonsense that drives me up the wall. But the former is predominant and makes the latter bearable.

Thanks for posting this. I love that album. As you say, he's a huge part of it. After listening to records like Pillars, you can't un-hear how important he is to Bells. It's impressive, given how strong Mitchell's own voice is.

Those Frank Wright and Noah Howard discs are some of my absolute favourites because of Bobby Few's playing. His melodic sensibility was pretty unique in the free jazz world at that time. It made those records sweet as well as salty. R.I.P. Very sad news.

At least it’s better than that 30 run Marzette Watts repressing that ESP did.

This is great! Thanks for sharing. Did you attend the performance too?

Bells for the South Side (ECM, 2017) by Roscoe Mitchell. I hadn’t listened to this one in a year or so, during which time Tyshawn Sorey has really exploded in stature. Listening to this record now, I can hear so much of his sound and input throughout the record. There’s some amazing players and compositions on these two discs, but the combination of Mitchell and Sorey is very special.

The 3 Sounds - Soul Symphony (Blue Note, 1969) You’ve got to love that cover! Now moving on to Solos (Chatham House, 1973) by Dickie Landry, featuring a young Alan Braufman. I’m really getting into the latter day McLean albums recently. I’ll give this one a go.

I hope you enjoy it!