Can’t go back and get it? It’s probably gone now unless you can call the store you saw it in and tell me to hold it for you --- I doubt they will, but it’s worth a shot.
Problem is I can't remember which store. I was in 4 different ones and looked thru hundreds of LP's. I'll be going back to the best store shortly so I'm hoping it was the one.
My favorite release of 2018 is no surprise, Pillars by Tyshawn Sorey which I mentioned a few times recently. My favorite live music was seeing Joe Morris with pianist Augusti Fernandez three times during the week of July 4 with different ensembles in New Haven, Brooklyn, and Hartford. I had seen the live performance of Pillars which featured Joe Morris the week the album was recorded, also at Real Art Ways in Hartford, but was not nearly impressed by it as I am by the recording. I spent a lot of time listening to Pillars and also Ride the Wind, large ensemble arrangements created from transcriptions of improvised duets by Roscoe Mitchell and percussionist Kikanju Baku. This was the second album of these compositions. There wasn't anyone I rediscovered this year who I was not previously familiar with but I did spend a lot of time listening to the glorious music of Randy Weston in the week after his passing. RIP.
@Yesternow was just suggesting this one to me. I’ve been listening on YouTube and loving it. “Litha” was a stand out for me. Those drums at the 2:12 mark. Grady Tate! Of course....killer man.
T. Sorey's Pillars is on my "To Check Out" list, ATR. I already listened to parts of it on YT. It might be a little more... adventurous than what I'm usually attracted to, but I'll persevere. And thanks for mentioning Mr. Randy Weston.
Listening to "Litha" on YT now: not at all what I was expecting, Daddy-o. I'm a pre-Bossa Nova Getz fan, but what I'm hearing, from 1967, is very good. (And Chick Corea doesn't hurt, of course.)
Yes, McLean is at the top of my agenda for the new year. I realized how little of his work I knew when earlier this year I saw Shirley Clarke's THE CONNECTION for the first time. Jackie was terrific in it----very convincing "playing high". Tonight, this: Miles Davis: LIVE AT THE FILLMORE EAST, 7 March 1970 - IT'S ABOUT THAT TIME (Sony, 2cd, 2001) Recording quality is a mess, but even so serves the chthonic energy of the music. No idea what Steve Miller fans would have made of this. Some bits sound like a direct inspiration for some electronic music of 20-30 years later, even more so than the studio recordings of the same pieces on BITCHES BREW etc. Not a favorite but admirably against the grain.
It’s been a long time since I’ve heard this recording. I do seem to recall bad things about the audio quality, but, like you said, sometimes the sheer energy can consume a listener. I think the next thing from Miles I’ll listen to is Live-Evil.
Best Buy? Plenty of jazz but I chanced upon two largish collections of original Indian classical records in mostly fine shape, and at a good price. They are not that common and hard to find in good condition even in India. They all need a good clean and I am still working my way (slowly) through them. Old/new artist (re)discovered? Gil Scott-Heron and Earth Wind & Fire. Again not really jazz. Most played? Probably the above two artists. Live performance? Without a doubt, sitting a couple of feet behind Randy Weston on the piano. He was majestic and generous, and I was in awe watching him and his favorite bassist Alex Blake perform in an intimate club. I was in the presence of greatness and it was truly a religious experience. He died a month or so after this.
A few kids did their school project on the Duke! They got an A+ This was one of those events where parents toured all the projects, as the kids explained what they learned.
I went to an estate sale once where the deceased had the largest collection of Middle Eastern music imaginable. More than 2,000 records. It was mind blowing, as most of the records had never been imported. The family was faced with sending them to the dump, so asked me to take them and I did. I am interested in that music. I held on to them for a few years. Then I found a professor of Middle Eastern Studies who was absolutely thrilled to get them. He said it was one of the rarest collections in the Western Hemisphere. The original collector was an artist in Greenwich Village, who had moved them to a farmhouse in upstate New York
It remains appalling and hard to imagine that such militant racism existed really not so long ago. But perhaps you can shed some light on why Robeson was so badly treated when roughly at the same time, many black musicians were performing for mixed audiences and in places like Carnegie Hall or Town Hall (as shown in the many posters you have posted on this thread). How was it that these latter musicians were more 'acceptable' than Robeson?
It is hard to sum up. Robeson, from his explosion on the scene in the mid 1920's had become one of the most famous people on the planet. He resided in Europe for much of the early 1930's (due to more acceptance of a black man in high society) as his worldwide fame grew, including in the USA which he returned to with some frequency. He became progressively more active in left wing politics during that time, while it was still acceptable in the US. He returned to the US in 1939 as a superstar, breaking radio audience records and Broadway records. He became more involved in anti-racism politics in the 1940's, supporting anti-lynching laws which went to defeat. After World War II, the fierce era that led to McCarthyism took hold. He made statements in Paris that he did not believe American black people would join to fight in American armies when they had no freedom at home, and that led directly to an absolute ban on his ability to travel, to perform or to record. He was not permitted to leave the US until 1958, when the Supreme Court decided that the USA could not cancel his passport. He was greeted as a hero in England when he moved there, but his health declined fairly rapidly. He returned to the USA and lived a very private life for another decade as the civil rights movement went on without him. Most musicians kept their progressive politics very private. Armstrong tried his best to make some very strong statements in writing, but his manager went to extremes to suppress those from becoming widely known.
