Stuff you always go for

[David Ayers]

It's easy to get bored with music (a lot of it isn't much good), but what is there that you'll just pick up to put a smile on your face? You know, you can see its limits, you got a lot already, but, aw shucks, it's .........................[enter name here]

Now for me, I've got, had, or otherwise worked through a lot of stuff, and in a way there are few mysteries. So no new Blue Note or Select can really get me going, and all the major historical currents in jazz are well known to me. For me the one thing that always entertains me is a new Peter Brotzmann CD. Why that is I just don't know. Maybe an Evan Parker, maybe a Derek Bailey - just occasionally - but more than these my musical comfort food is Brotzmann. Everything else can sit on the shelf, I don't buy much any more, but the occasional Brotzmann - always sweet...

So what's your real soft spot? You've got a 20 in your pocket to last all day, and there it is on the shelves... you can't say no.

Edited September 17, 2009 by David Ayers

[jeffcrom]

Now for me, I've got, had, or otherwise worked through a lot of stuff, and in a way there are few mysteries. So no new Blue Note or Select can really get me going, and all the major historical currents in jazz are well known to me.

I don't want to derail this thread with the first response, but I just had to respond to this part....

Yes, I hear you. But one of the amazing things about jazz is number of interesting, odd little corners waiting to be discovered. There's always someone or some album that maybe I was slightly familiar with, but had never really explored - Baby Face Willette, the Original Memphis Five, Bobby Bradford with the SME, Les Hite's big band, etc., etc. These have been some discoveries for me in the past six months.

There always seem to be more layers to the onion, and I'm enjoying discovering them.

[papsrus]

I haven't reached this point yet. Could only narrow it down to about 15,000 artists or so.

Don't want to clog things up with all THAT.

I will say that I can put just about anything on involving Drake and Parker and be happy as a clam. So I guess that's kind of the same thing, although I don't feel the need to gobble up every new release that comes down the pike.

(Is it pike, or pipe? I can never get that one straight)

(It's pike)

[ep1str0phy]

Can, Coltrane, Dudu Pukwana (esp. In the Townships), the Brotherhood of Breath, Brotzmann w/Miller & Moholo, Kind of Blue, Orgasm by Alan Shorter, Touchin' On Trane, Howlin' Wolf, Abbey Road and the White Album--that's been my pick me up flavor for the past few months.

I can detect no trends, only things that always, always work. What's interesting about this to me is that a lot of my understanding of this music is as closed systems--that is, full discographical chunks that I own and cannot be added to (hence there's nothing to really plunk down for at the record shop... I usually just buy new stuff and hope i like it).

Edited September 18, 2009 by ep1str0phy

[king ubu]

Oh, I'd go for Dudu as well, but I've yet to see anything by him in a record store... I went immediately for Hugh Masekela's recent Verve/Originals reissue!

Other than that, I guess I go for good offers by a ton of artists, rather than get someone's discs at any prize.

That's not much of an option as local stores aren't much good, except for their sales/special offers...

[AllenLowe]

biggest revelation in years for me was the 1952 Harmonica Frank recordings - would buy them if they were available anywhere -

Edited September 18, 2009 by AllenLowe

[Hoppy T. Frog]

Classic DC Go-go always makes me smile and be glad I'm alive.

[AndrewHill]

I will say that I can put just about anything on involving Drake and Parker and be happy as a clam.

Absolutely! Painter's Spring and Die Like a Dog/Little Birds Have Fast Hearts vols I & II come immediately to mind.

[JSngry]

Classic DC Go-go always makes me smile and be glad I'm alive.

Can't argue with that.

[BruceH]

A new Eno remaster....

[Peter]

I will say that I can put just about anything on involving Drake and Parker and be happy as a clam. So I guess that's kind of the same thing, although I don't feel the need to gobble up every new release that comes down the pike.

(It's pike)

Agree!

[lipi]

So what's your real soft spot? You've got a 20 in your pocket to last all day, and there it is on the shelves... you can't say no.

For the past few years, that's been Sidney Bechet for me.

[porcy62]

Ludwig Van Beethoven.

[AllenLowe]

The Kingsmen -

[kenny weir]

biggest revelation in years for me was the 1952 Harmonica Frank recordings - would buy them if they were available anywhere -

Currently "available" (if you can find it) on a CD on an extremely tiny and no-doubt dodgy English label called Cactus.

I can get you one, if you want. I don't know what the sound's like. Or try ebay - that's where I found this pic.

Edited September 25, 2009 by kenny weir

[kenny weir]

One of the big things for me in recent years has been old stuff.

I mean REALLY old stuff.

A couple of my DeadHead buddies - when they think of old jazz, they think of their Coltrane and Miles box sets!

For the past six months I have joyfully pursued a whole bunch of pre-rock star San Francisco - the Charlatans, Mystery Trend, We Five, Moby Grape, Blackburn & Snow, the Mojo Men, HP Lovecraft, Frumious Bandersnatch and so on. Too much fun!

The Armstrong Mosaic remains on glorious high rotation.

And about one week a month I go a GD bender - and, yes, I've ordered the new box.

But then this week, it was like throwing a switch.

I placed an order for six CDs from Archeophone.

And I've been playing the first half dozen or discs from That Devilin Tune and the Timeless From Ragtime To Jazz series, as well as the Joe Oliver sort-of-new 2cd. The Charley Patton box'll probably get an airing tomorrow, and this morning me and Bennie had breakfast to the strains of the Original Tuxedo Jazz Orchestra.

There's a thrill beyond compare to hearing all this old stuff - especially as when often these days it is packaged and researched in a way that enhances the experience.

Frankly, I simply can't understand why most (? that's how it seems to me) music nuts simply have insufficient curiosity to "consider the source" of the stuff they love. How can folks be that uninterested?

Then again, as Allen says in the Devilin Tune, there's gazillions for whom anything before 1945 is simply a no-go area.

One of my GD buddies will happily check out all sorts of alt-country stuff, but admitted to me a few months back that he simply wouldn't listen to Merle Travis coz "that's not what I do". Not that Travis is THAT crusty, but you get my drift ...

Edited September 25, 2009 by kenny weir

[Teasing the Korean]

Any Duke Ellington

Any Sun Ra

Any Cal Tjader

Any decent Blue Note album at an affordable price

Any Morricone until maybe the late 70s

Any album by an aging jazz or easy listening artist getting hip to the sounds of today

Virtually any jazz album with congas or bongos (up until the disco era)

Any cool soundtrack from, say, the late 50s to the mid 70s

Anything that looks different or interesting that I probably won't stumble across again.

[JSngry]

Truth be told, my pre-adolescent imprinting of/by 1964-68 AM pop radio has never quite been reversed (nor do I think it should be). A good pop record (and damn are they few and far between...) of 100% Sugar Pop Ear Candy from any "era" will still draw me in for a few minutes.

[Walt Richmond]

Miles

Al Di Meola

Zappa

Robert Fripp

Keith Jarrett

[sidewinder]

Miles

Dolphy

Woody Shaw

Everything by Thad & Mel

60s/70s British Jazz

Just about everything on Mosaic

Just about everything on Blue Note

[ASNL77]

Same as Bob for all the Mosaic sets and the Blue Note stuff

All the Shelly Manne at the Black Hawk albums

Oliver Nelson 'the Blues and the Abstract Truth'

John Coltrane ( the Impulse albums especially)

Wes Montgomery ( Riverside box)

Bill Evans

Edited September 26, 2009 by ASNL77

[sidewinder]

Same as Bob for all the Mosaic sets and the Blue Note stuff

[AllenLowe]

my DVD collection of Snuff Movies.

[BillF]

A word for Bird.