WP John Coltrane With The Red Garland Trio (Prestige) AP mono reissue NP Muhal Richard Abrams - Afrisong (India Navigation) black label
Kamasi Washington "The Epic" discs 2 and 3 Followed by the SHM-CD Fantastic sound today, changes I made yesterday are yielding real improvements.
They look like cosmic brethren on those covers. One of these days I'll get around to checking out that Kamasi Washingotn, seems like it's been getting listened to quite a bit around here.
It's definitely worth checking out. I'd say it makes a great cd and a half. . . but it's three cds, and the other half I'd not choose as "great" is definitely good and worth listening to.
I haven't gotten so much into live Dead recordings from after Keith and Donna's departure, but in high school I used to have a copy of the studio album In the Dark, on one of those old grey Maxell cassettes that I seemed to have all of my music on back in those days... ...and I remember listening to it quite a bit in my car and enjoying it at the time. So, I saw a copy of the MFSL edition in a shop yesterday when I was picking up some Dick's Picks and Wake of the Flood, so now I'm about to give it a spin: Grateful Dead - In the Dark
We were in different times of life when "In the Dark" came out. I was already disappointed in the Dead with "Goes to Heaven" and "In the Dark" was the last nail in the coffin for me. I pretty much stopped following the Dead for more than a decade and then came back to it concentrating on the earliest years.
Yes, very different times... I was 8 when In the Dark was released. I remember seeing the video for "Touch of Grey" on MTV once at the time and really liking the song/video... although, I didn't get into the Dead then, I was probably into Poison, Motley Crue, Metallica, and MC Hammer at the time . I first started to get into the Dead a little with a best of, Skeletons in the Closet, later on in high school, probably six months or so before Jerry's death (I declined at the time to go to a concert at the Charlotte Coliseum with some classmates who were going). I think I went the next summer to a Furthur Festival to see some of the offshoot bands from Phil, Mickey, and Bob; probably got In the Dark then. But, I didn't really get into them that much at the time, more so later on in college with American Beauty, Workingman's Dead, and Aoxomoxa (all of my favorite tracks from the earlier Skeletons comp. were from those albums) and a couple Dick's Picks with "Dark Star" jams on them. It was fun to listen to In the Dark just now out of nostalgia mostly, some of the tracks I can get down with still, but it's definitely not the best GD. I've never heard Go to Heaven, only heard bad things about it really.
I agree. I like Kamasi, and think all the hype is deserved, but I think some editing would have strengthened the project.
I heard that the Maxell cassettes that were found in the wreck of the Titanic still sound great. The music is a little dated though.
Yes. . . I was too young to really see the irony and humor in the "Go to Heaven" cover, both in the concept of the band floating angelically into square heaven land on a cloud that seemed implied, nor the disco/cokehead aspect of the white suits et al. Now I think that's the cleverest of the lot. Jason, there are some songs I really like on "Goes to Heaven," chief among them "Althea," which I really love, but I just didn't like Brent, I saw him with them before this was released, and I was getting deeper and deeper into collecting and studying jazz at that time, nearly all my rock and "contemporary" music listening took a nose-dive at that time. I should have given the Dead a better deal and stuck with them, but this was also the lowest point in my earning life and I made buying decisions far more carefully.
I'm still too young to pick up on this, I guess. I understand, I was checking out a Brent era recording of "Scarlet Begonias" > "Fire on the Mountain" that started off perfectly good until he came in and started to mess it up with his keyboards. Although, I did hear a version of Iko Iko (not one of my favorite tunes they do by any stretch) that I liked, Brent was playing the organ instead of the midi rig, so that probably had something to do with it.
I hope you never get "old enough" to see the irony and humor in that cover! I may be just imagining it but thinking back to that time with the mindset I imagine the band members had it makes me chuckle.
New Japanese reissue from Solid Records. Funky! (Sounds a little funky too. . .could have been better recorded).
I listened to this album once way back in college when I was really getting into jazz more and expanding my collection, but at that time I could not get down with this one. However, I went ahead and picked it up recently, along with most of the rest of Miles post-retirement output (which I also could not get down with back then), because I felt like I needed it for my Miles collection. Since then I've softened my stance on many things (e.g. I no longer turn up my nose at things recorded in the 80s or contemporary pop music as a rule of thumb), so, here goes nothing. Miles Davis - Doo-Bop (SHM-CD)
Charles McPherson recorded a tribute album to Billie Holiday around that time. It was beautiful. This is not it, but this is a powerful image
Pleasantly surprised to find that Miles' Doo-bop was better than I remembered it, I actually prefer it to some of the other post-retirement albums I've picked up lately (e.g. Under Arrest and The Man With The Horn). NP: Freddie Hubbard - Polar AC (Blu-Spec CD)
Back in the 80s one of the hospital operators was a serious Deadhead and she had a custom license plate WTYTAS which I was always puzzled by so I asked her one day and the answer was Whistle through your teeth and spit.
Visited a record store today that was new to me and scored a number of BN titles on used CD, the above included. I found this to be a little bit of a disjointed listen, given the mix between the small group stuff and the Oliver Nelson tracks. They all but lost me on the version of "Yesterday," but the band sure knocked it out of the park on "Nite Flite," which features another killer solo from Joe Henderson. McCoy Tyner also stands out. Glad to keep filling out my Lee Morgan catalog. Found The Cooker today, too!
After listening to Polar AC, I was planning on going back to checking out some of the new Dead albums I got yesterday, but I felt like keeping the jazz vibe going with some more Freddie. However, as I was putting the CD back on the shelf, I felt like I've been going so crazy getting new stuff the last 8 or 9 months that I've been neglecting the hundreds of items I already have, so I started flipping through when I found this one that you folks seem to have been listening to a bit around here relatively recently: Antonio Carlos Jobim - Stone Flower (Contemporary Jazz Masters CD)
Last decade my wife's uncle and his son decided they wanted to start their own record label based in San Francisco and focused on local musicians. They had it going for several years and put out quite a few releases. Here is one I just found on the shelf that I quite like, it has a pretty sweet version of "Fables of Faubus" on it to boot: here comes... The Nice Guy Trio (Porto Franco Records) Darren Johnston - trumpet Rob Reich - accordion Daniel Fabricant - bass features a few guests here and there on various tracks, but the Mingus features David Phillips on pedal steel
