various artists - Classic Jazz Funk Volume One

The whole point of this blog is to share the out-of-print, the cheaply-acquired, the nearly-forgotten. This, the first of three volumes of MVP/React's Classic Jazz Funk series, falls under the the third category.

And, by that, I don't mean the artists appearing herein. I assume you can stream Herbie Hancock's "Cantaloupe Island" or Roy Ayers' "Running Away" just about anywhere, so the out-of-print part doesn't really apply. As for cheaply acquired? Well, I bit the bullet, having already owned and shared copies of Volumes Two & Three, and plunked down $3.99 plus shipping for this copy. Not quite the dollar bin fare I live to share here, although it's less than I ever spent seeing Fugazi, so there you go.

No, it's the nearly-forgotten that I think best applies here. Are the crate diggers still on the hunt for old Flying Dutchman pressings? What do the kids know about Tom Browne? Ronnie Laws? Shit, do they even fuck with George Benson? Is Groove Holmes just a deep cut Beastie Boys reference to folks today?

Look, it is geting hot as hell out here. Even the PNW was nearing 90 this weekend. But when the darkness comes around 9pm these days, this is the perfect cooldown soundtrack, a perfect play at the pool to get the people amorous and have the trainspotters say, "oh, shit, I know that sample!"

Discogs

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various artists - The New Wave In Jazz

I swear to God, I didn't die in a ditch over New Year's.

I actually went to the in laws in Central California, where I had a pretty rad time with my recently mobile and speechifying niece. But I forgot to bring my laptop, which meant a month without any blogging. Sorry, gang.

I may come back later to flesh this one out. I don't have much in mind right this second, so stay tuned for the postscript. It's ridiculous that this one hasn't been reissued for 30 years, and that the Ayler cut that appeared on the original LP isn't present on this 1994 GRP/Impulse! CD. Still, it's a killer early document of the burgeoning free jazz scene in NYC, one that drew pretty polarized reviews back in the day.

Either you get it, or you don't.

Discogs

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various artists - Mojo Presents: Cigarettes And Alcohol

Today's commentary, brought to you in the form of two screencaps:

and:

Why waste words, when The Simpsons have already done it for you?

Discogs

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various artists - Ren & Stimpy: You Eediot!

I told them I would shoot, but they didn't believe me.

Why didn't they believe me?

Discogs

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various artists - Jazz Underground: Live At Smalls

I don't typically pick up modern Impulse! releases, I'm just more interested in their own 60s and 70s heyday. There's even a bunch of ABC Impulse! product that I really dig. But by the time GRP resurrected it as a label releasing contemporary records, that's when you can mostly count me out. I'm not trying to see the classic orange and black livery sullied with some early 90s smooth jazz. Even throughout the massive reissue program that started around '94, I can't think of any modern classics interspersed amongst the likes of Coltrane, Ayler, Mingus, Sanders, and Rollins. Which, you know...that's cool by me. They can't all worth the deluxe 220gram treatment.

Saying that, I did pick this 5" silver slab up a few weeks ago, after I'd seen it, orphaned, on a thrift store shelf over three visits. It ended up being a pretty cool find, featuring a sextet of bands performing live at the appropriately-named Smalls Jazz Club in New York City right at the turn of the millenium. The only one of these groups I was familiar with going into it was the Jason Lindner Big Band, whose "Hexophony" is the standout for me. But all nine tracks are pretty great, honoring their roots without sounding derivative. All in all, I'm pretty happy with the buck it cost me.

Discogs

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various artists - Classic Jazz Funk Volume Two

I don't love this as much as I do Volume 3, but I do dig this. There's some good-ass Blue Note catalog here (Grant Green, Lou Donaldson, Donald Byrd), an all-time slammer from Roy Ayers, and some early period Kool & The Gang. Esther Phillips leads things off with her version of Gil-Scott Heron's "Home Is Where The Hatred Is"; Ramsey Lewis covers Bob Dylan, and Benny Golson wraps things up with an update to his standard "Killer Joe".

Everything here slaps hard, is what I'm saying.

Discogs

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various artists - Sissy Man Blues: 25 Authentic Straight & Gay Blues & Jazz Vocals

What's everyone been up to the past month? I've been listening to this...a lot.

Just a shit ton of country blues and ragtime, all guaranteed to rile up the church goers and white folks, on account that these all have to do with fukkin'. It's a great collection of recordings from 100 years ago, with a pretty fun Milton Knight cover.

Discogs

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various artists - Classic Jazz Funk Volume Three

A lesson in cognitive dissonance and prejudice:

"Jazz funk" has always been a bit of a punchline in my house, going back to being a kid, and my mom's best friend's husband being snickered at for his fandom (and prog rock, too). And, to borrow a term from another culture, it has such poncy connotations. It stinks of pipe smoke and open shirts down to the belly button and fart-smelling virtuosity and gatekeeping and every 70s excess, not to mention white dudes co-opting Black and Latin culture. It was damned near the worst, personified (rightly or wrongly) by Ron Burgundy playing jazz flute in "Anchorman". Just fucking obnoxious.

And yet! I got a promo of this, the final volume in a long running series of Polygram/EMI deep catalog comps, when it came out in '97. I held onto it because I knew Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders from their shared association with the Master himself. I'm glad I did, because every track here is a full-blown banger. Drawing from the likes of the Impulse!, Blue Note, A&M, CTI, and Columbia catalogs, there's a wealth of great tracks from great artists, a veritable crate digger's delight of cuts. It's the first chance to hear "Nautilus" outside of a sample, the first time I'd ever experienced Roy Ayers and Donald Byrd, This one is sneaky good if you can get past your own hang-ups.

Discogs

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McCoy Tyner / Pharoah Sanders / David Murray / Cecil McBee / Roy Haynes – A Tribute To John Coltrane / Blues For Coltrane

I mean, shit, if I'm going to talk about Trane for a minute, how about another deep cut tribute featuring a pair of his sidemen.

This one came on out Impulse! back in the late 80s, featuring pianist McCoy Tyner and saxophonist Pharoah Sanders playing three Coltrane compositions, along with a Tyner track, a Billy Eckstein song, and one by David Murray that I typically skip over.

That's your call, homey.

Yet another one that I think is worthy of reissue; Pharoah pretty much wails on this. Great to hear him play "Naima" alongside Tyner. I think it gets missed because it came out in that weird "MCA/Impulse!" period when the catalog was probably not being paid close attention to, and just as a new generation of freaks was starting to discover the likes of Sun Ra and Archie Shepp.

Anyway, dig on it.

Discogs

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Elvin Jones "Special Quartet" – Tribute To John Coltrane: A Love Supreme

I may not believe in God, but I do believe that "A Love Supreme" is sacred music.

Here's drummer Elvin Jones' recreating one of my most treasured recordings with Wynton Marsalis rearranging the music for trumpet. It never got released here in the States; this is an EU release.

It ranks fourth of my list of recordings of "A Love Supreme".

Discogs

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various artists - Live At The Knitting Factory, Volume One

I picked this up the other day for the following reasons:

• It was $2, and I already had a $2 CD in my hand. I feel weird spending less than $5.
• The Knitting Factory was, in my adolescence, this magic place where the cutting edge of music played every night.
• I saw Tom Cora played on a couple tracks. Tom Cora made some records with the Ex.

It turned out, this was a pretty good snag. The first of five volumes of live cuts from the NYC venue released by A&M Records, this one captures performances from the winter of '88-'89. I dig it.

Boring-ass cover on the US releases, tho.

Discogs

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Jimmy Smith - Prime Time

Jimmy Smith had just crossed 60 when he cut this slab of hard bop in Hollywood in 1989. That's probably the most "Downbeat" sentence I'll ever write.

On a scale of listenability, it's in the lower range. I'll listen to this less than, say, "Maiden Voyage", but I'll listen to it more than "Love Scenes"

Dare I say this is a perfectly cromulent record?

Discogs

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various artists - A Date With John Waters

As a teaser to the next Criterion Collection preview, I present to you one of the finest outings you can undertake: A Date With John Waters. I remain a huge fan of Towson's own, a man whose impeccable taste in music neatly pairs with his delightfully trashy aesthetic. His soundtracks have always been these cool collections of outsider music, whether it's been the collection of 50s rhythm & blues and rockabilly in "Pink Flamingos", the foundations of soul present in "Hairspray", or the Locust and Meatjack alongside Liberace and DJ Class in "Cecil B. Demented". It's all a young punk ever needed.

"A Date" came out a few years after John's final theatrical release, "A Dirty Shame", and, yeah, it's a fucking tragedy the man can't get $5-$10 million from a studio to knock out another film or two, his way. But if the reward for us is his published output since 2004, yearly spoken word appearances around the world, an emeritus position amongst exploitation filmmakers and a regular source of inspiration for all us perverts...well, it's a fine consolation prize for me. I could go for another curated collection of music where Dreamlanders Edith Massey and Mink Stole get slotted alongside Ike & Tina, Elton Motello, Josie Cotton, and Ray Charles. This will have to suffice.

Discogs

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John Coltrane - My Favorite Things (Live In Europe 1963)

I don't have much to say about this recording other than the following:

• Here's John Coltrane's classic quartet (Coltrane, Garrison, Jones, Tyner) performing live in Europe circa 1963...at least, that's what the spare information inside this quasi-legit release says
• This was a purchase from Bibelot Books & Music in Bel Air, MD, circa 1996, shortly after I got my first copy of A Love Supreme and fell deeply in lust with the rare musician worthy of their own church. I totally thought it was a budget copy of My Favorite Things...I didn't know better
• It's a pair of songs originally cut during Coltrane's excellent Atlantic run, as well as a deeper cut from his recording with the Red Garland Trio (1958, Prestige Records). I'm not Bob Thiele or Rudy van Gelder, but this shows Coltrane's quartet moving further away from bop sounds and into modal jazz mode
• This beats the hell out 99.9% of the records in my collection, even if it's a cruddy Euro live CD from the 90s with dodgy provenance

I would LOVE to hear more about this actual recording, if you're more of a scholar than I am.

Discogs

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Matthew Shipp Trio - Circular Temple

As these things typically go nowadays, I've finished work around 2-3 in the morning, and I've had too much caffeine to comfortably go to bed, so I figure, "I'll just kick out a couple hundred words to burn my brain down a bit, then off to bed like a good boy," to do it all over again in 6 hours. But there's something to be said, something stuck in my head, demanding to explode, before the eyes get heavy and the brain quiets down.

I've been picking up the Infinite Zero reissues from the mid-90s wherever I can find them for a decent price. I'm down to only having a dozen left to pick up, and, had I not just spent a bunch of money on today's Vinegar Syndrome flash sale, I'd probably snag a couple more this weekend. My most recent acquisitions are a disc I'm holding for Halloween and this, pianist Matthew Shipp's third record as a bandleader. It's a free jazz take on what makes listening to Thelonious Monk so great, which I suppose is why I like this a lot. I often get lost in the avant garde from this period, but this grabs me in a way that few of Shipp's contemporaries from the late-80s do. Sadly, long out of print...so here it is for your Friday pleasure.

Only super cool kidz will own this on cassette. Duh.

Discogs

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No Stagediving

The best laid plans of mice and men called for an in-depth, last Bandcamp Friday of 2020 blog, detailing all the stuff on my wishlist that I'd spend money I don't really have on, all in the name of supporting the little guy.

And then I took a nap after work, laid in bed with my wife, watched "Bob's Burgers" and ate too much Jack in the Box. What I'm saying is, I turned into a real turd this evening.

So I'll limit comment here to an ongoing project supporting artists from Baltimore and organized by the team at the Ottobar. Readers here know I'm an Ottobar alum, having worked the door, mopped the floors, backed the bar, and played the stage. From its first location on Davis St., to its present haunt at 26th and Howard, it was my spot until I split town in 2014. Even still, it's where Mrs. Ape and I will plan to meet friends for a drink should we ever make it back home.

Organized by Jerrod and Steve, and backed by Tecla, Todd, and Dana of the Ottobar's management, "No Stagediving" is a two-volume, 106 track collection of Baltimore past and present, grouped solely by having appeared onstage at 2549 Howard St. Some names, you'll already know: Future Islands, Dan Deacon, Lower Dens, and Wye Oak. Baltimore punk, hardcore, and emo also represents, with 90s groups like Cross My Heart and Daybreak mixing with current leading lights like War on Women and Truth Cult. It's one of the few surveys available covering any sort of historical swath of Baltimore hip-hop, as Labtekwon, Rye Rye, and Soul Cannon all turn up. If it's played that stage, it's probably turned up here.

Each collection is a $10 donation and, as happens every Bandcamp Friday, all proceeds go to the bar and bands. Get into the City that Breeds.

Bandcamp