Jazz

I went down another rabbit hole yesterday evening.

So I have mentioned before that I picked up these 2 boxsets from Curcio, an italian company. These releases tend to be dead cheap and nothing fancy in terms of liner notes, artwork, or (to be honest) pressing quality. However, a lot of the music on these doesn't appear again on vinyl (some cases at all) and tend to be fantastic live sessions. Blue Box Set and Green Box Set

So I was listening to one last night which sees Stan Getz paired with Donald Byrd & Bobby Jaspar. I had to do a bit of exploring to find out the origin of the music (I love geeking out on this stuff btw). Both are live recordings from Europe in 1958. The Getz takes up most of the album and is a repackaged version of an obscure France only release titled Stan Getz ‎– Live In Europe 1958 on the Musidisc label. The opening track is 'More Of The Same', a fantastic Donald Byrd & Bobby Jaspar track that was recorded live at the Olympia (Paris) on the 22nd October, 1958. Interestingly this is the same time that Byrd recorded 'Byrd in Paris’, 'Parisian Thoroughfare’ and 'Au Chat qui Pêche’, so it's a great session. I found this CD compilation which features the same track - Donald Byrd Quintet ‎– Complete Live At The Olympia 1958

If any of you fancy hunting down this lp (maybe streaming if its available) it was actually released as a stand-alone record by Curcio (all those in the box sets are collated from their back catalogue, so are available singularly). Stan Getz, Donald Byrd, Bobby Jaspar, Kenny Clarke ‎– I Giganti Del Jazz Vol. 20

@Skalap I know you picked up the Donald Byrd albums he recorded in Paris, so maybe the big 'Complete Live At The Olympia 1958' recordings might be of interest to you, I believe they are available to stream.

I must give it a listen. Thanks buddy!
 
Has anyone heard Archie Shepp Meets Kahil El'Zabar's Ritual Trio ‎– Conversations ?

Been eyeing this one up for a long time, a bit pricey, but seems worth it from the few songs I've heard


Yep, it's superb and the reissue is good quality too. This is even pricier unfortunately but was in my top 5 for last year, highly recommend checking this out too.


And Spiritmuse have El'Zabar's new one coming out soon too, this time featuring David Murray. Very excited about this one.

 
Yep, it's superb and the reissue is good quality too. This is even pricier unfortunately but was in my top 5 for last year, highly recommend checking this out too.


And Spiritmuse have El'Zabar's new one coming out soon too, this time featuring David Murray. Very excited about this one.


yeah I’ve heard this. Pretty good.a little less out there than I’m really into right now.

Ive been working my way through the actuel set Thurston Moore helped put together

also speaking of which I’m only missing I think 3 out of his underground top ten. I was lucky to interview him late last year. Pretty wild how deep he goes with it.
 
Ive been working my way through the actuel set Thurston Moore helped put together

also speaking of which I’m only missing I think 3 out of his underground top ten. I was lucky to interview him late last year. Pretty wild how deep he goes with it.

Not familiar with it, is there a link you could offer?
 
I really hope we get a reissue of Babi some day. I thought the Milford Graves doc might finally bring his records back into press.

Yeah, Corbett vs Dempsey seem to have the rights with a CD reissue. I'm always surprised when labels don't make the most of the vinyl boom on sought after stuff.
 
One of my grails was this



I’m also dying to find a copy of this on viny

View attachment 42372l

This is bringing back memories. I believe it was the 'As Serious As Your Life' book by Val Wilmer (which coincidentally was mentioned here the other day) which turned me onto the Lennox School of Jazz recordings by Coleman. I mentioned it here at the time and @Mr Moore pointed me in the direction of the Milford Graves/Don Pullen Nomo recordings! That led me on quite the rabbit hole!
 
Yeah, Corbett vs Dempsey seem to have the rights with a CD reissue. I'm always surprised when labels don't make the most of the vinyl boom on sought after stuff.
Yeah. Though if and when they get reissued I hope they don’t end up being pricey like the rashied Ali reissues price at 45-50$. I have a bootleg of duo exchange. And yeah 50 is a steal for a real press, but that prices out a lot of people. I’d get that for day a frank Lowe reissue or something, but Ali really should be for the masses, if anything just for the lineage. For my money the model really should be what the black editions are doing. Having Keiji Haino records that are not only done well but affordable opens up a whole new world for people. I’m pumped those Ali records were reissued but they really just seemed to target the people they knew would shell out money for it.

it was cool to see the graves documentary. He did a surprise set right afterwards and it was reallly jaw dropping.

I’m more surprised the Ayler Holy Ghost box I mentioned earlier really only got the 3LP reissue. But I think once Fahey passed the label just folded. I’ve been slowly find decent price Japanese pressings of his pre impulse output.i kinda discovered his records were fairly affordable when I was in Tokyo a few years ago and even on Discogs they aren’t bad.

Thurston Moore old Ecstatic Peace label put out some overlooked free jazz records in 90s as welll.
 
This ESP Disk book is on my list to read. It’s crazy to me how many ESP releases get overlooked.

Always in Trouble: An Oral History of ESP-Disk’, the Most Outrageous Record Label in America (Music / Interview): Weiss, Jason: 9780819571595: Amazon.com: Books

patty waters is a great example. And I think when it comes to free jazz vocalists it’s between her and June Tyson.
I have college tour. I hope her debut gets a reissue. Her live album from last year was great. When she played Philadelphia I went and saw her. Burton Greene played with her. Was a treat for sure
 
Yeah, Corbett vs Dempsey seem to have the rights with a CD reissue. I'm always surprised when labels don't make the most of the vinyl boom on sought after stuff.
I was thinking about this, a lot of it too may be demand. In Japan (and arguably Europe), CDs are still massive (I mean compared to US market), and really in boils down to, what will sell and what market is it aimed after. At this point it seems almost rare that, at least free jazz/avant/leftfield legendary and/or rare releases is done by a US label, unless it's something that is a bit more mainstream in even that world (Sun Ra comes to mind right away), I'd assume if say you had Numero or Light In The Attic etc doing these types of reissues we'd see vinyl packages of them, but I think the market in the US for these is limited and is really aimed in Japan/Europe/UK

Also the contracts for these reissues if done on the level so to speak, may limit format and really also may boil down to margin, you can make so much more on a cd release then vinyl depending on the package, and if royalties and getting the money to say publishers and or directly to the artist the higher margin is probably the way to go

Using the Ali reissues as an example, at least one of them is still in stock. I think really that's due to price. I mean record collectors in Japan will spend the money but there maybe be a limit to that. With Survival Records out of the US, it just shows I think the market at least right away isnt there. I think if this was a Euro/UK reissue both may have sold out right away

Also the reality too is this - Free Jazz still isn't a big deal to Jazz record collectors. I mean even take this thread, and this is no offense to anyone or any post here at all, but it's a lot of mainstream jazz, I love blue note like everyone else, I love impulse too, but my heart really is in free jazz as cheesey as that sounds. Those mainstream records are easy to get and they have value, so while these more avant releases and reissues do have a lot of value, it just isn't attractive to a lot of labels outside of the small ones, and breaking the bank to sell maybe 300-500 copies of a record of say Arthur Doyle just may not be in the cards ...
 
Back
Top